Chapter thirty-nine

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Jisung and Felix had just taken their seats when they saw a young woman standing in front of the class.

"Who is that?" Jisung asks.

Felix shrugs, "Guess we'll find out soon."

In a matter of seconds, the rest of the students sat down too and the woman spoke up, "Good morning everyone, my name is Paige Fry. Mister Whitford has been on maternity leave since last weekend and I will teach his art history class for the time being." 

Felix looks confused at Jisung, "Was that man pregnant? How the fuck did he give dance classes with a whole-ass baby growing in his uterus?" Jisung does his best not to laugh and turns back to Miss Fry after nodding.

"If I'm not mistaken some of you also got dance classes from mister Whitford, correct?" a stream of yes-words came towards her, "Well, for those dance classes you will, of course, also get a substitute teacher. Not me, though. I was ordered by your substitute to tell you he isn't only a teacher. Even though he finished his dance studies, he's still studying here at school himself. His major is production so some of you may know him."

Felix once again looks at Jisung, "So you're in the same class as our teacher, right? You may know him," Felix asks jokingly. 

"I don't know. Possibly. No one has talked about such a thing in classes, though."

The woman continues talking, "Well, that's everything I had to tell you about. Now, where did you get with mister Whitford?"

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Jisung was waiting for Felix in front of his physics study hall. In the last reading, the boys didn't have together. Jisung waited for his bestie to come so they could walk to dance class together.

The boys are the last students to get to the locker room and change swiftly into their sports outfits to join the rest of the students in the studio. 

Jisung opens the door and as he walks in he sees Minho hug a boy at the other end of the studio. As he pulls back Jisung sees the smiling face of the boy and recognises him. The boy was in his production classes indeed. 

He always teamed up with Chris and since he now hugged Minho that must mean he's part of their friend group too. Now that Jisung thought about it he could recall a time Minho dropped his name. 

While thinking it appears to Jisung that Felix was standing silently next to him so he turned to his bestie. As he turned around he saw Felix staring at the same spot he himself was staring at a second ago.

Felix's eyes got glassy and Jisung could make up a splinter of tears forming in the bottom half of his eyes. Not only that, but he could also hear the boy's pulse quicken at a record tempo. His breathing became uneven and his mouth, which was agape, ran dry. 

"Felix? Mate, are you okay?" Jisung asks. But the thing closest to an answer he gets is Felix his eye contact. The boy looks at him closing his mouth slowly and swallowing the lump in his throat. 

Felix blinks making the water that assembled in his eyes flow down in a stream of tears.

"Jisung," he hicks.

"Yes, Lix?"

"Catch me."

Jisung was about to ask Felix what he meant by that, as the boy's eyes shot back to the back of his head and Felix fell down. 

Jisung yelps in terror and kneels down beside his bestie, lifting him by his shoulders to let his head rest on top of his knees. "Felix?" Jisung asks, his voice breaking.

He can sense Minho sprinting up next to him and saying something but he can't hear it. 

He's knocking on Felix's mind-door. Knocking on it with all his force, crying while doing so. But it doesn't matter, he can't reach him.

Finally, Jisung looks up to Minho sitting next to him with a hand on Jisung's back. "Jisung?" 

Jisung answers, holding back his tears "I gotta go to the nurse." 

Minho tilts Felix up, "I'll carry him. Come on," Then he turns to their teacher, not batting an eye to all the students standing around them. "Excuse us. We gotta go..." The teacher didn't answer. He just looked back at Minho, swallowing and nodding afterwards. Minho could see the shadow of worry gliding over his eyes but ignored it as he started walking toward the nurse.

Once they were in the hallway, Jisung spoke up, "Minho."

"Yes, love?" Minho answers. Jisung was really broken by his best friend's state. Of course, he was. It's not every day your best friend faints. And it hadn't passed Minho how bad Felix was doing last week. He got in a bad state on a daily base last week. It must've been really hard for Jisung, too. 

"We can't go to the nurse."