When Home Calls

Hex code: #d15b12

Hex code: #704fac

Hex code: #ffc7de

Some icons/pfp

Like/rb if used || no need to credit me

Hmmmm, okay study done what should I do next ...? (‾◡◝) OF COURSE! ADD SLUGCATS WAWAWAWAWA

⚉ characters: jongseob x reader

⚉ wc: 2,1k

⚉ genre: fluff, school AU, meet cute, strangers to(?)

⚉ theme: student!jongseob, student!reader

⚉ warnings: none

Masterlist ┋ |pt.2| it won't end with a paper plane <-

⚉ a/n: welcome or welcome back! How do we like this one? I don’t know why, but I feel like there is something missing. And I even rewrote it so many times, ugh... Thank you so much for reading, leaving a heart, or even reblogging - it means a lot to me! If you see any mistakes, please feel free to kindly correct me ♡

The first time it happened, you almost had a heart attack.

You were sitting at your desk, listening to a very boring math class with your head propped up on your arm and barely keeping your eyes open. Then, in the corner of your eye, you had a glimpse of something white being thrown your way.

You assumed it’s one of your classmates throwing a crumpled ball of paper at their friend, so you didn’t even bother to turn for confirmation—you just hoped it wouldn’t hit you; then you would turn around and give the person a death stare.

Yes, it’s just a paper, and it wouldn’t hurt if it collided with your body, but it was very annoying to have your dozing off disturbed by a stupid piece of paper. You understand the class isn't that interesting, but they should sleep like everyone else in the room, not be bothersome.

Luck was on your side—or shall you say, luck was on your classmate’s side—the paper didn’t hit you, and for a second, you thought the paper ball ended up on the linoleum floor. That’s why you stopped thinking about it and let your mind drift off again while "listening" to your teacher.

You had to admit, the teacher’s voice was a great lullaby. Your eyes drooped again, and you would fall asleep if it wasn’t for something suddenly brushing against your arm resting on your desk.

Thinking it was some kind of bug (spider), you jumped in your seat, startled and wide awake—it was a miracle the teacher didn’t see that. With your heart almost jumping out of your chest, you searched your arm for that eight-legged devil.

When you triple-checked your arm, and made sure no potential spider had fallen anywhere else on your body, you could relax. You were ready to go back to your previous position with your head propped up on your hand, when your eyes fell on a paper plane—and the cause of your panic.

Furrowing your eyebrows, you grabbed the neatly folded paper plane, ready to rip it apart for causing you the unnecessary scare. But the words "open me" written with a black marker made you stop in your action. Your eyebrows, still knitted together, raised in confusion.

You looked around the classroom first, just to see if you could tell who might have thrown the paper plane at you; was it even supposed to be for you? But none of your classmates were looking in your direction, frantically pointing to some other person for whom the paper plane was for.

Turning your attention back to the folded piece of paper, you slowly unfolded it. You had to be careful because some of your classmates might have written or drawn something that human eyes should not see. It would only result in wanting to pour bleach in them—you were talking from experience. It wouldn’t be the first time you saw something atrocious that came from your classmate’s mind.

Once you had the paper unfolded, you were met with the cutest doodle of a cat and dog having their paws around each other as if they were hugging. Well, that was a pleasant surprise. Not even noticing it, the drawing made you smile.

You raised your head, had a look around the classroom again, but no one seemed suspicious enough for you to tell that they were the one behind this sweet drawing.

With a smile that stayed on your face, you looked back at the drawing. You wanted to fold the paper and put it in your bag, but you noticed something else written in the top right corner; presumably written with the same black marker that was used on the words open me.

JSup

You stared at the nickname, trying to figure out whose name it might fit, but no one came to your mind. It had to be a nickname, because who in their right mind would name their child JSup? If someone actually did, you felt bad for that person…

You were so absorbed in your own thoughts that you missed the bell ringing. It wasn’t until the others moved past you that took you back to reality. Quickly you caught up on what’s going on, packed your things and left the math class, ready to have lunch. It wasn’t surprising that the mysterious doodle didn’t leave your mind for the rest of your day.

It’s been a month since the first paper plane.

Looking back, it amazed you how something so small could affect your days this much.

And since that day, you have been finding folded pieces of paper every single day—you never expected that some random doodles would become such a big part of your school days; but you didn't hate it. The opposite, actually.

Most of the time you found one right after you opened your locker, and a few times the folded paper was waiting at your desk in math class. When that happened, you had a look around the class, but there were constantly a few students that it was impossible to know who the culprit was.

The papers always had an adorable doodle inside that never failed to make you smile. Sometimes there was an additional text containing a song lyric—at home, you would type that small part into a search bar and hope to find a song that would match. And of course, you couldn’t forget the nickname written in the top right corner that you just couldn’t figure out who it belonged to.

Were you successful in finding the songs? That was debatable. You found songs whose lyrics matched, but you weren’t sure if they were the right ones because a few of the lyrics had more than one result.

But even with this tiny struggle, the songs you found through these lyrics were amazing, and you hoped you could one day find the mysterious person who has such great music taste and artistic skills.

The little doodles never failed to make your day at school much better.

Right now, you are on your way to your locker. You got through a crowd of very loud students and passed by a couple making out near your locker. Luckily for you, the doors of the locker opened to the left side where the couple was, so your view of them was blocked. Sadly, you could still hear the disgusting wet noises that came from their mouths as they ate each other's faces.

With your nose scrunched, you grabbed your books and notes for the first class of the day. After you zipped your bag, you hang it over your shoulder, ready to close the locker. But you stopped, realizing there was no paper with your daily doodle.

That was unusual because if you didn’t have math class—which you don’t have today—the folded piece of paper would be waiting for you in the locker. You tried to search around if it perhaps fell somewhere else, but there was nothing.

It felt stupid to care about a piece of paper with some random drawing, yet you felt like something was missing without a new daily doodle.

A small pout appeared on your lips as you felt a pang of sadness. It was stupid to feel that way about some silly drawings that you still did not know who they were from. But you couldn’t hide the fact that it brought a smile to your face and improved your day. Hence, it was the reason you were excited to go to school again! So the thought that the person might have stopped with these doodles felt like a big deal.

God, how much you wish to know who that person is.

With your mood being down more than usual, you closed the locker. There was still a chance that the folded piece of paper would appear later that day, but you tried not to get your hopes up and just accept the reality.

Letting out a quiet exhale, you turned around, ready to tackle another exhausting day at school. You didn’t even take one step when you bumped into a student. You stayed steady on your legs, but the poor boy lost his balance.

In order to save himself from a fall, he dropped his notebook, reaching out for anything to get hold of. You noticed immediately and swiftly grabbed him by his shoulders to steady him on his legs.

"Thanks," the boy said, his breath brushing against your face, and that was the moment you realized how close you were to each other.

Taking a step back, you put some space between your bodies, but you kept your hands on his shoulders just to be sure he wouldn’t fall.

"I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t see you." You apologized, checking the boy’s face for any injury you may have caused him. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I’m fine." The boy’s cheeks turned a light shade of pink at your intense, caring stare, and he had to duck his head. "Don’t… don’t worry. You didn’t hit me that hard, your body is soft so…" he trailed off.

You didn’t say anything, didn’t even have the chance to open your mouth, because the boy’s face suddenly turned into one full of panic as he realized what he had said and how wrong it sounded.

"Oh, God, no! That’s not what I… I mean your body is soft, but I didn’t mean it in a… in a weird way, you know?" He blabbed, not even looking at you which was probably out of embarrassment.

You had to press your lips together to hide a smile that crept onto your face; it was cute how he tried to explain himself. "Hey, calm down." You squeezed his shoulders that your hands were still resting on. "I won’t get offended or anything like that, I promise." You gave him a reassuring smile.

The boy glanced up at you cautiously, as if he didn’t trust your words and expected you to slap him. But once he saw your smile—and not a raised hand ready to strike—his shoulders relaxed under your palms, and a small smile appeared on his own face.

You two stared at each other for a moment, not caring about the crowd of students that was walking around the hallway, nor did you care about the students that went into their lockers. Your smile turned into a shy one; you were not used to this type of attention, and it seemed the boy wasn’t either; his cheeks turned a brighter shade of pink.

If it hadn’t been for the school bell that rang to announce the start of a class, you two would have stood there for a very long time. And the interesting part to you about it all was that you didn’t even care. You could stand there for hours, but if you could see his smile and blushing cheeks, it would be worth it.

As the bell rang, you finally let go of his shoulders, letting out an awkward chuckle; you too now felt your cheeks heat up. You turned your head to the side to hide the change of color of your face and took another step back, ready to go to class. That’s when you noticed the notebook he had to let go of; a few loose papers were scattered around the floor.

Holding tight onto a strap of the bag you had over your shoulder, you squatted down and reached with your free hand to collect the papers. You were the one who made him drop it in the first place, so it’s fair for you to pick it up from the floor.

"No, wait!" The boy said in a hurry, following you, and kneeling down on the floor himself. "I can do it myself." He snatched the notebook with the loose papers from the floor, not giving you a chance to help.

You looked at him, puzzled by his sudden panicked reaction, and handed him one of the pages you were able to pick up from the floor. Before he could take the paper back, your eyes flickered down at the page. The lines of the paper were filled with notes, but the thing that caught your attention was the bottom of the page filled with doodles.

Now, you know anyone can draw and doodle in their notebook—you do that too when you’re bored in class—but these doodles had one specific detail written in black marker.

JSup

Your eyes widened in surprise, and you looked up at the boy. "It’s you."

The boy took the paper from you, his face now resembling a tomato as he put the page back into his notebook. "Your eyes always lit up, and you were smiling more. So I kept going."

He gave you a small, sheepish smile. "I’m sorry I was late today." From his pocket, he took out a folded piece of paper, giving it to you.

Thanks to all those who participated in my poll to work out which WIP to work on. The winner happened to be the one with the fewest words already written - barely more than an idea! But thanks to you guys it's now a short fic!

It's basically a pointless bit of fluff - Scott reminiscing about childhood. No warnings.

Paper Planes

Scott sat a little more heavily than he’d intended, almost collapsing into the chair behind the desk rather than easing into it as he normally would.  With Virgil away from the island for a few days to show his face in R&D departments across a few of Tracy Industries’ larger facilities and check in on the day-to-day runnings, staff morale and procedural compliance, the others had been a little under the pump with rescues.  As a result Scott was not looking forward to the inbox full of emails, and other assorted admin that awaited him.

With a sigh he quickly cast an eye over the to-do list and started to triage the most urgent tasks to direct his attention toward.  He signed off on a few of the reports that he’d already read through, and a few others that John had done the reading through for him and given the okay.

A pop-up message in the corner of his holoscreen flashed once for non-urgent attention.  Apparently Chelsea, his PA in New York head office, had noticed he was online and doing TI work and had taken the opportunity to catch his eye.

“Thought you might like to see your brother’s notes on this file.  You’ll be pleased to know the staff member whose desk he found it on was about to reject it when Virgil intercepted it out of curiosity earlier today.”

The file in question was a design submission for a small, unmanned aircraft.  TI often received such submissions from various designers and unknown hopefuls.  Most of these never made it past the initial once over by staff employed to screen them.  Those with promise were passed on to more experienced engineers for a closer look, and from there the surviving designs might go to Research and Development to work their way up the chain there.

The message from Chelsea had 2 attachments, one was the submission file, the other a photo.  The thumbnail of the photo was enough for him to see what she wanted him to look at, so he opened it first.

It showed a paper copy of the blueprint, and across the top left corner in his brother’s unmistakable handwriting was scrawled a message that made Scott bark out a hearty laugh.

“I wouldn’t trust these blueprints to produce anything capable of flight unless they were folded into a paper plane.”

The only thing that surprised him about the comment was the lack of a second photograph, or perhaps a video, showing the blueprint expertly folded into an aerodynamic form and sent soaring across the R&D office.

Scott found memories rapidly surfacing in his mind – epic competitions between himself, Virgil and John all vying for paper plane design supremacy. Who could make the best looking plane, the one that flew furthest, or fastest, and of course the ultimate bragging rights . . . one that achieved all three?

Casting his mind back, he recalled it had all started with a library book John had brought home.  At the time they were all aged between about ten and thirteen.  He didn’t know what had attracted John to this particular book in the first place – maybe he needed it for some kind of science project or something – but he did know The Ultimate Paper Plane Book had sparked something in them all.

Virgil had spotted it on the kitchen table and been immediately attracted to the artistic and engineering aspects of making a structure capable of flight out of paper.  Scott had seen Virgil studying one of the designs, hands busily miming the folding actions shown on the page, and taken a closer look.  There were some interesting aviation facts included on the page, and explanations for the proper aviation terminology used in the description of the parts of the plane and how they helped achieve flight.

Next thing he knew Virgil had raced off to find some craft paper and come back to the table with a glint in his eye.  The challenge didn’t need to be spoken in words.  They flipped through pages, agreed on a design they both wanted to make and suddenly they were in a race with each other to fold the perfect plane and get it to fly.

At some point John must have come looking for the book, and ended up joining in by making one as well.  It was less of a race to finish first after that, the importance being placed on how well the finished products flew.  Distance, direction, speed.  All factors would be considered in the final result.

John’s plane had the neatest folds and crispest edges, but he’d had the luxury of taking his time from the start.  Virgil’s plane was almost as neat, the engineering side of his mind placing importance on accuracy in the build process.  Scott’s plane was a little more wonky looking.  Some of his folds were quite rough and hurried which resulted in one wing being a bit shorter in length, and further forward than the other, and it had a bit of a blunt nose.  But that wouldn’t matter if it flew fast!

The living room became the testing area for their creations.  The three of them standing side-by-side at the doorway and aiming for the far side of the room, a countdown from three and the planes were launched.  Scott’s immediately banked sharply left and plummeted into the couch.  Virgil’s went almost straight up, flipped and crashed to the floor upside down, and John’s flew straight but not far as the trajectory was a downward one.  A few more tries, adjusting the launch angles and techniques, and each plane managed to achieve some distance, though Scott’s always tended to veer left.  But at least it was the fastest! 

That was the first of many test flights as they all tried out the different ways to make paper fly.  Scott tended towards the ones that looked like actual aircraft, while Virgil was more interested in the ones that looked the furthest from them – possibly because he liked figuring out how and why they flew.  He liked the one that looked like a ring the best, but it took a lot of trial and error to work out the correct way to launch it so it would spin fast enough to float through the air.  John also liked the science behind the various designs and learning how each one worked, why a certain adjustment to exactly the right place would make a plane fly faster, or straighter, higher, or for a longer time.

By the time John needed to return the book to the library the three boys had made almost all 115 variations of the thirty different plane designs and learned a great deal about aerodynamics, paper folding techniques, the best speed and trajectory for launching paper planes, and how to tweak things when they didn’t fly true.  And they’d had a great many competitive victories, defeats, rule challenges and friendly arguments settled.

The memories had Scott smiling at all the fun they’d had.  Maybe he should suggest a new round of paper plane battles with all five of them.  Kayo might want in on the action too.  Asking Brains might make for a real challenge.  And Grandma shouldn’t be left out either . . .

A new alert pinged on the holoscreen. 

This one was from John, and when he clicked open the link it opened a video feed from the security cameras in the large R&D test area of TI Aeronautics division in Denver. 

The screen gave him a split view between all four camera feeds, revealing that the long room was mostly empty, a large space between workbenches had been cleared from end to end across the room.  There were people at one end of the cleared space.  Quite a lot of people.  Not just the technicians, engineers and mechanics who would normally occupy the test area, but it seemed there were office staff and managers amongst the throng.  And front and centre was Virgil, smiling and directing the participants of whatever activity this was.

About half a dozen of the assembled staff members took position in a line at the end of the space between the benches.  It took a moment, but Scott realised every person was holding something in one hand.  Virgil seemed to inspect each one and comment on them to their owners, some of whom appeared to make adjustments to their objects.  Then, as one they all raised their hands in preparation . . . and launched their paper aircraft across the room.

Over the next few minutes wave after wave of paper planes of all shapes and sizes were launched through the Denver R&D test area.  Then, Virgil took his place with the last bunch of people to test their designs.