ice cream

[sharkemoji]

Staring down at his math test, Johnny really didn’t know why he was so surprised.

The F looks back at him with certainty and he had a feeling this was coming but that doesn’t make it any less... disappointing.

Math was never his favorite subject or his best, but he was at least a fairly certain that an intro statistics class would be fine, that he could work it out. Apparently he was wrong because the glaring failure was hitting him right in the face.

It stung, even if it didn’t really matter, or as his professor kindly put it after handing all the tests back, they would have plenty of time to recover from it. She was nice, the professor, so it wasn’t like he could hold his bad grade against her specifically. It hurts even more when it’s your own fault and the blame digs deep into his gut. This sucks.

The professor wraps up class, reminds them about her office hours that afternoon. She says something about offering extra credit on the exam but he misses her wording exactly. Johnny packs his things silently and accepts the smile she offers him on his way out. He should go to her office hours but the ringing banging around his head guides him otherwise. He’ll go on Thursday.

Walking back to his apartment feels so much longer than usual. His feet drag and his backpack weighs down his shoulders. He thinks he must be a sad sight, slouching at the bus stop. He pulls at his hoodie strings and keeps his head down as he waits for his bus.

He ignores his phone when it buzzes the first time, instead climbing onto the bus. The driver waves him on when he fumbles for his id to swipe and he thinks he must look absolutely pathetic if they aren’t charging him for the bus.

He’s lucky enough to get a seat to himself. This time of day the bus is fairly empty so he allows himself to sink into a spot by the window and close his eyes. He ignores his phone as it buzzes again, and then one more time. As the bus starts to bump down its route, Johnny is grateful he doesn’t have to go far.

His stop comes quicker than he’s used to which he’s glad about for once, because the sharp feeling of stinging is back in his eyes. He waves to the driver as he climbs off and continues his trek to his apartment complex. The heaviness lifts off of him when he unlocks the door finally. Dropping his bag by the door and kicking off his shoes feels like letting go of the shittiness of his day. It doesn’t get rid of the pit in his stomach but it does lift some of the cloudiness in his head.

Jaehyun is on the couch when he walks in and he looks up at the sound of Johnny’s footsteps.

“Hey,” he greets. Johnny just nods and shuffled over to where Jaehyun is laying down. He drops himself on top of him and finally the grimy feeling he’s had since he got his test back starts to fade away.

“Hi,” he replies after he’s finally situated himself next to his boyfriend. He nuzzles down into his neck and hopes Jaehyun is willing to ignore the wetness he knows he can find there.

“How was your day?” he asks instead, running his hand up and down Johnny’s back. “Not good?”

He shakes his head, not moving from his cozy cavern in Jaehyun’s arms.

“That’s okay,” Jaehyun says, accepting his silence. They lay there for a while, Jaehyun running his hands through his hair and down his back, Johnny cuddling closer. The tv plays on in the background even though neither of them are really watching. Johnny considers falling asleep like this, letting all his worries stay ignored in the peaceful escape of dreamscape. Instead, he pulls back a little bit, rubs his eyes, and finally looks up at Jaehyun’s face.

“Yeah, I had a bad day,” he sighs. His voice is ugly from disuse and he feels a yawn growing in the back of his throat. He swallows it. “Failed my stats test, which just kinda...”

He shrugs.

“Made it worse.” Jaehyun fills in the gaps. “That’s okay. It happens, it’s not the end of the world. It sucks, but you can get through it.”

“I know,” he grumbles. “But that doesn’t make me feel any less shitty.”

“Yeah,” Jaehyun sighs. Johnny likes the way his huff blows his bangs out of his face. “I don’t really have anything I can do about that. I know it sucks, but there’s nothing wrong with failing. You don’t need to hold yourself to some impossible standard, one bad grade or a hundred bad grades doesn’t dictate who you are as a person. That probably doesn’t make you feel any better.”

Johnny hums. It does make him feel a bit better. The pit is still there, but Jaehyun makes it feel a little less like a black hole and more like a pot hole. Annoying, but passable.

“You make me feel better,” he settles on. “I feel better when I’m with you.”

Jaehyun’s arms tighten over his shoulders.

“Good,” he says after a moment. “I’m glad. You make me feel better too.”

“Mhm,” Johnny mumbles, digging himself back into his hole. He does feel better now, lighter. “Do you know what else would make me feel better?”

“What?” Jaehyun asks quietly.  

“Ice cream.”