“Junsu!” The smile grows when the insignia on his cap is confirmed to be of the varsity team’s, and her hand raises in playful salute. “Appreciate the rep.”
There’s still space on the counter; momentarily forgetting what she’s got in tow, Mara begins putting down her things down to ring up: Pringles, party sized candy bag one, more Pringles, a box of tissues, party sized candy bag two—
“It’s good to have them in bulk.” What she means is his Maxi haul. What she lifts up from the bottom of the basket: not one, not two, but three pregnancy tests.
dear godric, he thinks frantically upon hearing his name spill out of familiar lips, dear dangun wanggeum:
he wished for nothing more in this moment than for the earth to open up and swallow him whole (including the till clerk bastard, who did nothing to help the situation, and just smirked at junsu at the look of complete shock on the first year’s face when he heard mara fucking cheng call his name).
now, he’s got two options:
one: throw whatever change his sisters gave him to the smug till clerk, take the stuff, and run. no looking back.
(option one would be tricky to execute, with the risk of having one of his favourite quidditch players thinking that kwak junsu was a rude little brat— and oh godric, we couldn’t have that! more than the sanitary products taunting him on the counter, he’d really hate for mara cheng to think that kwak junsu was disrespectful).
so that only left option two: play it cool.
(again, tricky to execute. kwak junsu was not cool).
slowly, junsu turned to face his nightmare mara cheng, half-bowing and nodding frantically with a red face as she pointed out his chollima’s cap.
“of course, sunbae-nim!” he found himself bellowing, his normally deep voice cracking an octave at the second syllable. “go chollimas! ha-ha..ha-ha-ha.” he raised his fist up lamely to pump in salute, and silently cursed himself at his awkward laughter.
of course, sunbae is the epitome of cool as she casually places her things on the counter, acknowledging the elephant in the room with an air of nonchalance kwak junsu could only dream of (he, on the other hand, was pretty sure his face was now a bright tomato red, the top of his ears poking out of the hat tinged with the colour).
“actually, this isn’t even bulk, i have five sisters and they’re a—” he doesn’t know why he’s spilling out his life story, probably nerves, but he’s soon silenced as mara plops down one, two, three pregnancy tests on the counter (he didn’t know what they looked like, but he can read, and the tomato-colour is now deepening to a more worrisome shade).
the clerk bags his things and hands them to junsu as he gapes at the sixth year, lost for words.
(irrationally, the first thought out of kwak junsu’s mind is: ‘i’ll have to raise a child’. for the sake of the chollimas, he’ll do anything).
he finished the transaction as he hands the clerk money and takes the bag and holds it reverently in front of him. he walks outside to let mara finish her transaction, and thinks maybe he should just leave her alone, but the moment she steps outside, he’s spinning around to face her with a pout and his words spill out very seriously; sincere:
“sunbae-nim, i’ll support you. you’re my favourite chaser, you know.”