Starmy = Stay + Army

Everything is perfect.

The house they rented is nice enough for the expectations of eight guys in college, the meat is sizzling tantalizingly on the grill (manned by Chan, tongs in one hand, the other resting on his hip, who is supervised by Minho, who does not offer help, only vague grunts of approval or disappointment that Chan chooses not to interpret), and all of the well-earned side dishes dot the table. The other table tennis players (term still used loosely) hover at the table, eyes zeroed in on each slight movement of Chan’s arm in anticipation of their tender, juicy reward. The air smells like charcoal, sesame oil, and the distinct earthy undertone of a mild afternoon.

Everything is as it should be.

Everyone is preoccupied.

Which is why Jisung thinks it’s the perfect opportunity to sneak a mildly cute, terminally cringy Snapchat to his still secret girlfriend while no one is paying attention. He angles his phone to just the right degree to catch the beginning of the golden hour light, capturing the way it illuminates his skin and helps him pretend he has a real, healthy sleep schedule. His lips are pouted pathetically like they’re poised to kiss, his fingers pinched into a tiny heart in front of his cheek as the shutter sounds. Eyes round, Jisung fumbles out of his pose into an attempt at something natural, quickly sending off his declaration of, “I miss you :(((((((((” with one thumb and locking his phone. No one saw his screen, so Jisung thinks he’s in the clear.

That is, until Hyunjin scrunches his face in disgust and loudly pries, “Jisung, who the hell is that going to?”

And just like that, all the attention is on Jisung, who completely whiffs his attempt to deflect by blurting out something completely ridiculous.

“Uh, Changbin.” Jisung says and immediately knows he has royally screwed himself.

The man in question holds up his cell, the device glowing innocently in his hand, his lock screen displaying the lack of notifications from ‘Ham Jisung’ with an unimpressed raised brow. “Wrong bitch,” He announces flatly, eyes piercing.

Deflection failed, so Jisung’s next best play is distraction. “Samsung issue.” He goads, his chin raised defiantly, but his eyes are wide and trembling with thinly veiled apprehension, like he’s cornered and he knows it.

But that attempt fails too, and the resulting interrogation is nothing short of ruthless. Questions are demanded, a ferocious bite very much present in the overtone. Seungmin’s eyes are narrowed, flicking judgmentally up and down Jisung’s stiff form as Hyunjin monologues (something about loyalty and camaraderie and whatever). Chan’s brows are furrowed, but he continues his rhythm of flipping, pressing, and checking the meat, unwilling to let their meal succumb even while Jisung himself is grilled. Minho just stares, which is unsettling and easily the most disturbing of the reactions. Every action is psychoanalyzed in real time by Jeongin, who eventually gasps, silencing Hyunjin’s restless rant.

“Wait,” Jeongin gapes, eyes darting around as his brain forms its first complete thought of the afternoon, and the room stills. “Are you actually in love with Changbin?”

Jisung finally explodes at that, popping out of his seat so fast he sends the chair clattering over, his arms flailing about in uncoordinated outrage. “I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!”

A chorus of scandalized gasps follows the confession. It’s quiet, save for the crackling of the grill and Jisung’s heaving chest as he recovers from his outburst.

“How long?” Felix asks quietly, eyes dangerously watery and lips quivering.

Jisung sighs heavily, “I never meant to hurt you, man—”

“How long?” Felix interrupts, voice loud and cracking, his fists balled tightly at his sides. Chan blows on a small piece of meat he just removed from the grill and pops it into his mouth.

“Since the summer before freshman year,” Jisung admits, his shoulders drooping, but not in shame. The stunned silence lasts several extended seconds as everyone processes the truth, the awful, ugly truth.

“I should have known,” Hyunjin laments, head thrown back to complain to the ceiling. “You started dressing like a person. Accessorizing.”

“You stopped skipping leg day.” Changbin gasps, utterly betrayed.

“We’re supposed to be losers together.” Hyunjin bites out, pressing his knuckles into his brow bone to quell the pressure rapidly building up. He only works himself up further. “I’m calling for your removal from the team for this— this treachery, this deceit—”

“I have a girlfriend.” Everyone’s heads whip to Minho like he has said something utterly unintelligible. The man himself is unfazed and he does not possess the decency to look remotely apologetic. Instead, he inclines his head in the direction of a specific piece of meat he deems cooked to perfection, which Chan obediently removes from the grill. “Been together since summer before first year too.”

A quiet whimper of ‘no’ escapes Felix in the same way his soul is evicted from his body. Chan is silent, lips pressed together in a firm line as he stares into the flames flickering between the grates, contemplative. Changbin bobs his head a few times, evidently reaching a conclusion by himself, then collapses back in his chair and concedes, “Me too.”

And the crowd is… baffled.

Seungmin’s face is rigid, his smile lines stiffened to stone as he spits out, “You’re all bastards” with vitriol. Next to him, Jeongin is shocked still, his pallor dulling to a concerning shade of green. Jisung— of all people— has his fingers buried in his hair (which also looked suspiciously healthier at the beginning of freshman year— undoubtedly due to his girlfriend introducing him to a real shower routine), stressed out of his mind at the information Minho and Changbin just shared. The boy looks haunted, as if all of his final exams were scheduled on the same day, and he squeezes his eyes closed to mentally broadcast a quick prayer that all of this will just blow over, miraculously forgotten in favor of the hard-earned barbecue. And, no, Han Jisung does not waste his breath praying to god. He has an almighty figure in his life, and she is his girlfriend. So when he prays, he prays to her.

“Seriously,” Hyunjin begins a new tirade, clawing long fingers through his hair as he rages. “You’re the worst.”

Jisung seems to recover from his momentary breakdown at Hyunjin’s unsolicited opinion of his character (funny, coming from the account owner of Horse_Girl_Han). He unlocks his phone again, his elbows propped up on the already crowded table, and declares, “Yeah, yeah. Skill issue, bro. Anyway, I miss my pookie, and we have room for two more, so…”

No one had ever seen Seungmin move as fast as he did in that moment. The guy doesn’t even so much as reach in table tennis matches (leaning is out of the question, too), but he springs over the table and knocks the phone from Jisung’s fingers in mere milliseconds like he is athleticism incarnate. No one sees where Jisung’s poor phone lands.

“What the fuck?!” Jisung yelps, tipping back dangerously in his chair from the momentum.

“If anyone deserves to be here,” Seungmin begins, and Jeongin is already shaking his head, expression grief-stricken before he even hears the following words. “It’s my girlfriend.”

Changbin leaps from the table, palms extended as he bellows, “Wait, what?!”

Chan swerves around him, placing the meat down on the table and announcing with finality. “Then mine takes the second spot.”

The complaints are immediate. “With what authority?” Minho challenges, and Chan wordlessly slides the plate until it dangles on the edge of the table at a dangerous degree.

“I think you’d all really like my girlfriend.” Felix casts his bid, but Seungmin just scoffs.

“Please,” He rolls his eyes. “We wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for my girlfriend.”

At Jisung’s insistent yell of ‘bluff, bluff!’ Seungmin straightens and peers down his nose at him, acidly informing everyone that his girlfriend supplies all of their merch at a discounted rate.

“Wait!” Jeongin cringes, mouth twisted into an obviously guilty grimace, and Hyunjin rounds on him, baling his fist into the front of Jeongin’s shirt.

“No, Jeongin.” Hyunjin pleads, grief-stricken before he even says anything, but the boy untangles his hand. It falls limply to his side.

“My,” Jeongin stutters, then takes a deep inhale and finds his resolve. “My girlfriend should be here. She bought all of my merch— like all of it, and—“

It’s a viscous scene. Within minutes, the table tennis team is at each other’s throats, yelling over each other, declaring friendships dissolved, allegiances dead, and souls irreparably crushed. At some point in the scuffle, Jisung manages to dive under the table and retrieve his phone.

“Whatever!” He flings his arm out with a flourish. “I’m calling her!” And he jams his thumb down on the FaceTime icon, his feral, wide eyes melting like butter in a hot cast iron pan into pathetic, glassy eyes that radiate monumental loser energy. He pinches his thumb and index finger into a heart again and shoves it into the camera frame between his eyes. The others gather around the screen, reluctantly curious as to who has the patience to willingly subject themselves to Han Jisung’s brand of obnoxious.

The call connects halfway through the fourth ring.

If the boys were all firing off red shells of secret girlfriend reveals, the women themselves had just launched and detonated their own blue shell they’d kept stashed in their inventory since the first lap.

The screen de-fuzzes, pixels crisping to present a woman lathered in a thick, green facial treatment, a white, fluffy robe peaking into the frame. Steam swirls in the the frame. The glossy stone walls in the background are absolutely not a feature of their college campus.

But the seven other girls dotted behind her definitely are. One of them waves. Another raises a glass of either juice or champagne, but it’s too difficult to determine the contents via grainy video call.

Scandalized intakes of breath sound from the table tennis club’s end of the line, because even in full face masks, they can definitively recognize their girlfriends.

“P-pookie Bear,” Jisung stammers (ignoring whoever faked a gag from behind him). “Where are you?”

“Hey, Ji.” The said woman greets, unrepentant and unruffled by the eavesdroppers (and pointedly ignoring Hyunjin’s mortified outburst of ‘you!’). “Art club trip.”

Incredulous and utterly flustered, Jeongin latches onto Jisung’s shoulders, his blunt nails biting into the poor phone owner’s skin (and son of a bitch— he has been hitting the gym) and cries, “At a spa?!” One of the girls shifts closer to the camera, wiggling her fingers with a sweet smile and a delighted, ‘Innie!’ and the boy completely loses the plot, flushing a true red all the way down his neck as he responds with a loopy, ‘Hi.”

“Focus, men!” Changbin gripes, shoulder checking Jeongin out of frame, hands on his hips as he picks up the interrogation, face twisted by indignation. “How did yo—” Then, he abruptly goes silent as his girlfriend blows him a kiss from the corner of the screen (a big one— he knows because she used both hands to send it) and the corners of his mouth curve into a downward smile as the apples of his cheeks glow pink. His shoulders relax like he’s the one enjoying a luxurious spa weekend. Almost as if on reflex, Changbin stretches his arms out and mimes catching the kiss in a hug, pulling it to his chest like one would a stuffed animal, biceps flexing against his shirt sleeves.

“You’re so pretty,” he says dopily, and means it with his whole, impressive chest. “Are you having a good time, Princess?”

“Christ.” The video blurs as the phone is snatched out of Jisung’s hand, regaining focus on a surly Minho. Eyes narrowed, he glowers into the camera, a withering comment already on the tip of his tongue. He questions the girl he recognizes as the art club president (and now apparently Jisung’s girlfriend?), “And how exactly did you fund thi—“

“Ah, that’s mine.” Another woman swaps places with Changbin’s girlfriend, and Minho’s stony tone softens into something else mid-sentence, delicate and whipped, sweet. “—s trip?

“Oop.” Minho’s girlfriend blinks, then quickly dips out of frame with a giggle. “Busted!”

Minho’s next exhale is nearly a laugh, entirely fond. But then he catches himself and resumes his scowling. His ears are glowing pink though, and everyone notices.

Seungmin pushes himself into Minho, hovering over his shoulder and focusing on one girl relaxing in the background. “A fundraiser.” She answers innocently and intentionally unhelpfully. Seungmin, of course, knows this to be bullshit.

“Lay it on me,” Seungmin says, but the impressed lilt to his voice is unmistakable already.

“We make hella margins off your merch orders. You know, since you do production through us.” She explains, so sweetly and yet so diabolically.

“The print shop—“ Felix gasps at the same time as Jeongin’s anguished outcry of, “You fundraise off our fundraiser?!”

“Mmh-hmm.” The woman who must be Seungmin’s girlfriend breezily affirms, and for whatever reason, he nods like it makes sense.

“Proud of you.” This would make sense to someone who is dating an opportunist.

It does not make sense to Hyunjin. None of this does. How the hell did all of his loser friends manage to get girlfriends— and hide said girlfriends— before he did? His hands are shaking, his vision blurry at the edge like he’s moments away from collapsing (he can’t even trust his knees anymore). He snatches Jisung’s phone from Minho (not the play, but he already feels like he’s dying of a shattered heart) and addresses his girlfriend of a whopping four days.

“What are we?” Hyunjin demands, spiraling and fighting the tears burning his waterline at the same time. “Wait. Don’t answer that.” He swipes a hand over his face, brows furrowed as the woman he is interrogating sighs and mutters, “Oh, man. I am simultaneously too drunk and too sober for this conversation.”

As Hyunjin determines the nature of his relationship and discovers that his girlfriend’s family owns a skincare empire(and the timeline confirming that he is, in fact, the last person in his friend group to get a girlfriend), Minho clocks the girl focused on her phone, obviously typing and grinning at the screen. He doesn’t need to look to know, but he turns anyway, and sure enough, Chan is tapping away at his phone with a disgustingly lovesick grin, his ears burning scarlet. His thumbs move in quick, familiar patterns while the grill crackles unattended right in front of him. He does not care. He’s smiling, cheesing more like, a lovesick grin plastered across his face.

“My older sister owns this spa. As long as we can pay the base fee, I can get us upgraded to the full package.” Hyunjin’s girlfriend explains.

Minho scoffs and rolls his eyes. Hopeless, all of them.

He digs deep into his pocket to retrieve his own phone and slips out of frame. He isn’t escaping the chaos. No— he’s documenting it.

The camera pans slowly across the wreckage: Jisung physically unable to break his heart hands at his girlfriend, Changbin squeezing his imaginary kiss like it gives him a sense of security, Hyunjin mid-crashout about his girlfriend’s family secret. (”It’s not really a secret. The company is named after us, but go off.”) Seungmin seems to be mentally calculating the margins of the art club’s fundraiser scheme while Felix takes a moment to himself to cry out the betrayal. Jeongin is shocked still, gazing at nothing and very much red like the backup package of raw meat Minho has stashed in a cooler.

He zooms in on Chan, who is still typing away on his phone, completely oblivious to the meat burning right under his nose.

Minho stops recording, then sends the video to one person.

Three dots appear immediately. The message appears from his girlfriend:

“lolllllll they’re so stupid. send more :)”

Minho’s lips quirk into a smirk as he returns to his seat at the table to watch the rest of the dumpster fire burn.

Then someone’s phone vibrates, followed closely by the default chime. Then all of them go off in a chaotic jumble of notifications. Jisung squints at the top of his screen, reading as his features morph from confusion, to realization, to mortification all in the span of three seconds. He whips around to find Minho, a ferocious spark in his narrowed eyes that isn’t really all that intimidating (Once you experience the wrath of Minho’s girlfriend, your danger scale receives a heafty system update and recalibration).

“Did you just—” Jisung splutters. “Did you just send our agony to their group chat?”

“No.” Minho technically isn’t lying. He just blinks, playing innocent and uninterested.

Behind him, Jeongin has flushed a few shades redder. “She’s laughing at me,” he whispers, horrified and yet honored at the same time.

The smoke finally billows thick enough that Chan emerges out of his own world, face scrunched in that disoriented way when one wakes up from a particularly vivid dream.

Hyunjin groans, aggressively scrubbing his face with his palms before raking his curtain bangs out of his face. “I hate all of you.”

Jisung does not miss a beat. “You don’t deserve rights, horse girl.”

“Let. It. Go.”

“Only via death, horse girl.”

In the background, the art club group chat is exploding with screenshots that will undoubtedly become new contact photos, various laughing memes, and unintelligible voice memos that are mostly just giggles.

Wrapped in bathrobes, slathered in thick, fragrant facemasks, and riding the high of the satisfaction of a well-executed scheme, eight women toast to their silly boyfriends— and then proceed to completely roast them in the group chat.

౨ৎTurned Tables Masterlist

౨ৎMasterlist