A Basket of Sugar

Until You Can't

"Mother trucker dude! That hurt like a butt cheek on a stick!"

Jeno giggled and double tapped to like the video. He then swiped down to look at the next post. He liked that one too, and the one after that, and the one after that.

But the one after that one was what caught Jeno's attention.

It was a girl. She was just sitting at some kind of public eating area. She was talking really nervously about how she didn't like her major that much and how all her friends seemed to have life figured out already. She said she just wanted to sleep off the next three years and fast forward to the bit in her life where she had everything figured out but she couldn't do that.

Jeno clicked his phone off and put it down on the table sighing. That one hurt. Like Jeno said before, baking was his passion in life, but he was a culinary major. He majored in cooking of all kinds. He was okay at cooking in general but it wasn't his main passion. His parents were the ones who forced him into pursuing cooking since neither one of them believed he would be able to support himself as a baker alone.

Chenle popped out of his room, basket in hand.

"You ready?" Jeno asked.

"Yep." Chenle replied while Renjun and Jaemin popped out from behind him.

"Then let's go." Jeno grabbed his lanyard and they were off.

The university had a park on campus and luckily it wasn't too crowded for a Saturday morning. Chenle put the basket down and started to pull out the contents while Jeno unfolded the blanket for them to sit on.

They used to do this, back when they were younger. Sometimes on the weekends when they got tired of studying they would come out to the local park and just eat there. Jeno was glad they were keeping the habit up because frankly he missed it. All in all he didn't really miss being away from his parents who at times were quite overwhelming. But stuff like this? This transported him back into his memories of happier stress free days.

"So Jeno, on a scale from one to Kun Hyung how stressed were you about the History lecture incident?" Jeno's face turned red from Renjun's statement, catching Jaemin's attention.

"History lecture incident?" Jaemin inquired. Jeno blushed and nodded.

"Yeah I gave a short lecture to the class using my laptop and after that, I noticed Renjun was acting weird. So I sent him a text using my computer that said 'be normal u shit' but I forgot to disconnect my laptop from the projector so the whole class saw it." Jeno couldn't finish the story because Renjun and Jaemin burst into laughter so loud he couldn't talk over them.

"The look on his FACE!" Renjun sputtered out. "He said this was his wake up call to finally try and give up the whole cussing thing.

"Yep." Jeno said taking another bite of his sandwich, "The professor wasn't even that mad. He was just really amused too. God, I can be such an awkward piece of shit sometimes."

Jaemin and Renjun snapped their heads up at Jeno. He looked back confused for a second before his eyes widened in realization.

"Fuck! I meant to say that I'm an awkward piece of feces!"

Renjun raised a brow at him.

"Dammit I didn't mean to say fuck either! Wait NOOO!"

Jeno buried his reddened face into his hands while his friends burst into laughter. Jaemin patted his shoulder to soothe him but that didn't seem to help. Jeno kept his face in his hands so he didn't have to look at his friends amused faces.

But the sound of a loud crash made him lift his head. It made Jaemin and Renjun snap their heads towards the noise too. Chenle was lying on his back at the base of a tree with fresh marks in it that looked like someone had been scratching at it. Renjun rushed to Chenle's side.

"Chenle you idiot what made you think you could climb up a tree? Are you a cat!?"

"Nope I'm a dolphin!" That made Jaemin giggle a bit, but Renjun shushed him when he saw the park ranger coming over to them.

"Is everything okay over here boys?" He stood menacingly over them with the scratch marks on the tree right beside him. If he turned his head just ninety degrees he would see them. Chenle started to shift on the ground making the ranger turn his head in his direction. If he turned just another forty five degrees they would get caught.

"NOPE!" Jeno shouted at the top of his lungs making the ranger snap his head away from Chenle and back to him. "We were just leaving actually!" Jeno started to gather their half eaten food which made the ranger raise an eyebrow at the raven haired boy.

"Yep!" Jaemin and Renjun seemed to get the message. Jaemin went to help Jeno gather the rest of their stuff while Renjun dragged Chenle to his feet. They all got up and started to turn and walk away.

"Hey how did these marks get on this tree!"

And with that the four boys burst into a mad dash away from the ranger with Jeno in the lead. They were all just barely managing to contain their laughs and honestly they weren't really watching where they were going.

They ran into the pedestrian road before suddenly Chenle's eyes widened at something that was heading in Jeno's direction. The said boy didn't seem to notice it.

"Jeno!"

a/n: the fact that the thing about Jeno accidentally cursing in front of a teacher actually happened to me during one of my online classes. I guess Jeno's not the only awkward piece of feces around here lamo

Stay healthy out there dear readers ily all, byeeeeee!