Chapter Text
You tiptoe through the meadow, the fresh scent of wildflowers and herbs wafting through the air. Everything around you seems to have a golden light- a supernatural luminescence that emphasizes the natural beauty of the world around you. Tilting your head up to the sky, you trace the patterns of the stars with your pointer finger, recognizing none of them.
“Wonderful, isn’t it?” A familiar, yet somehow nostalgic voice calls from behind you. You turn, unsure of who to expect, and yet, when you see him, he seems to fit the voice you’d heard moments ago perfectly.
“Yoo Jaeseok?” you ask, brows furrowing. “What are you doing here?”
The famous comedian simply smiles comfortingly at you. “Well, I’m here to tell you that-”
“I won’t call you again, Y/N, you’re going to be late for school!” You wince as bright light hits your eyelids and your mom’s voice hits your ears.
“Fuck,” you mutter to yourself, digging your face into your pillow. Another day of school. It never ends.
“I heard that!” your mom calls, and you almost swear again at her insane auditory perception, but bite your tongue.
Dragging yourself out of bed wondering why you feel like you had kind of a weird dream, you sluggishly make it to the bathroom, where you actually wake up and start getting ready for the day.
By the time you make it downstairs and to the front door, you look as presentable as you do on a regular basis, which is to say, wearing the school uniform and with your hair pulled away from your face.
Your mom is at the counter with a lunch prepared for you to take, but she stops you just as you start to call a “Bye, love you!”
“Are you wearing makeup?” she demands, grabbing your chin and turning your face from side to side.
“No, mom, stop!” you struggle to free yourself as your mother starts rubbing at your cheeks. “Mom! I swear to Jesus himself!”
She lets you go with an unsatisfied hmph and gestures towards the door. “Hyunjoo is waiting outside for you. Don’t put makeup on in the school bathroom.”
“Uh huh,” you say with a sweet smile, and promptly sprint out of the door and into freedom.
“What happened to you?” your best friend, Do Hyunjoo asks with humor in her expression as you shut your front door behind you, out of breath.
“I need to move out,” you tell her frankly, grabbing the banana milk she has in her left hand for you. You both start walking on the same path you’ve been taking to get to school for the past three years, everything around very familiar and at this point, kind of boring.
Hyunjoo laughs, her wide eyes crinkling up so that they’re barely visible. “Is that why you’re always at your cousin’s house?”
You nod, sipping from the drink she’d given you. “I’d literally just live there if it was closer to school.”
“You can live at my house,” Hyunjoo winks, raising her eyebrows up and down, and you laugh.
“Geez, can you imagine the rumors at school if we did that?”
“Come on, Y/N, doesn’t everyone kinda know I’m into girls anyway?”
After twenty or so minutes of walking, you make it to your high school, the imposing, large building looking totally ordinary in your eyes. The faculty member in the front of the school checks you and Hyunjoo off (almost late, but that’s normal for you two) and sends you in, telling you to go straight to your classroom.
The day goes by as usual. Lim Naeun talks about her “boyfriend” like she does every day (you don’t think he’s real), the girls in the corner spend every minute they can fangirling over some idol, you don’t understand shit when it comes to math, and by the end of it all, you are so tired of the female voice that you feel like you could gouge out your eardrums.
You love going to an all girls’ school. Honestly, you do. The sisterhood between your class is strong- you have all known each other for years, after all. There’s not really much drama because all dating happens outside of school (well… all dating involving boys, that is) and since your school is moderately prestigious, all of you have good grades and competition for college isn’t as intense as other high schools.
You also feel way more comfortable at school. There’s none of the awkwardness that comes from not wanting to explain why you need a bag to go to the bathroom when it’s your period, nobody ever gets worried about not shaving their legs, and you’ve never dealt with annoying guys who think trashing women is funny.
With all that said, you sometimes need a break from girl time. Because girl time for you is literally all time.
“Yah, Y/N!” Hyunjoo calls after you. You’d made a very you exit by ditching as soon as the bell rang, politely yet very quickly saying byes and have a good weekend to your classmates. “How can you just leave your dearest friend like that?”
You pause until she catches up with you, then start walking again at a brisk pace. “I’m going to Mark’s house, wanna come?”
She gives you an ‘are you serious’ face. “Y/N, we’ve been over this. I can’t just go over to your cousin’s house.”
“I mean, you could. What is he gonna do, kick you out?”
Hyunjoo smacks you on the arm, making you whine. “No, idiot, but it’s still rude!”
“Fine then.” you flip your hair over your shoulder. “I’ll see you… sometime.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” Hyunjoo sighs as you both stop where you’ll have to go the opposite way from your neighborhood. She pats your head, even though she is not really any taller than you. “See you on Monday.”
You smile, abandoning your moody persona, and flash your best friend a finger heart. “Bye!”
“Sometimes it really feels like you don’t even have your own house.”
You side-eye your cousin from your stretched-out, relaxed, nearly upside down position on the couch in his living room. “And?”
Mark gives you a look. A shady look, specifically. “And, you’re lucky your schedule just happens to not coincide with when the team comes over.”
You scoff, quickly righting yourself so that you’re sitting straight and staring your cousin down. “That is such bull and you know it, Mark Lee. I know for a fact that you have specifically kept me from being around when your ‘team’ or whatever is!”
Mark shrugs, already focusing back onto the video game he’s playing on the flat screen TV. “Either way, my point still stands.”
You slump back down, going back to texting Hyunjoo, Jo Yuyeon, and Park Jisu about the group project that you have to do for your math class. “Your point is sitting on its ass just like you,” you grumble, hoping Mark doesn’t hear, but you guess that everyone related to you just has supersonic hearing abilities, because his head snaps back towards you at lightning speed. Before he can threaten you, though, you jump from your spot on the couch and start power-walking to the front door.
“I’m going to get some snacks, want anything?”
You can’t actually see your cousin roll his eyes, but you feel that energy from him. “No, it’s a waste of money.”
“Okay, bye!” you call, closing the front door behind you and popping some earphones in and sunglasses on as you walk down the street to the nearest convenience store.
You walk up and down the aisles of the store a few times so that you’re gone for more than like, two minutes, avoiding a weird middle-aged man who keeps looking at you from the tables by the windows, before deciding on some chips and an aloe drink. You pay, thinking briefly about how this truly is a waste of money, and then leave.
“Hit you with that ddu-du ddu-du du,” you hum to yourself, making the finger gun motions as you bounce down the street back to Mark’s house.
By the time you get back, it’s up to the dance break part, and you being… well, you, throw open your cousin’s front door with a very exaggerated shout of “Blackpink!” and then poorly singing the instrumental as you plop the bag with your snacks on the counter. It hits you as you’re opening your drink that Mark has not groaned dramatically or questioned your behavior like he usually would by this point, and that is why you slowly turn around, lifting your sunglasses off your face.
Staring back at you is not just your cousin, who has an extremely amused expression, but six other guys, who all appear to be very hot, and very confused.
You pull out your earphones and set your phone on the counter quickly, jaw dropping open.
“What the hell!” you exclaim towards Mark, who apparently can’t contain himself, and starts laughing behind his hand. “Who are these people?”
A few of the boys look at each other, some of them also seeming like they’re about to break out into laughter, and one of them shyly raises his hand. “We’re Mark’s baseball team. Well, some of it.”
This does not help explain anything to you, since literally twenty minutes ago your cousin was saying how good it was that you’d never been there when his team was over.
You don’t reply, just continuing to stare at them in shock. You don’t really get to see many boys around your age this close up, since you’ve gone to the girls’ school for a few years now. Are all of them this handsome?
“Nice singing,” one says, practically snickering, and you’re suddenly snapped out of your trance.
“If that was sarcastic, I’ll seriously fight you-” you start, and Mark hurriedly stands up, walking over to you and putting his hands on your shoulders. You narrow your eyes at him, but he starts talking anyway.
“Guys, this is my cousin Y/N. She goes to an all-girls’ academy, so that’s why she’s really surprised to see you.”
“Hi, Y/N,” they chorus back at the two of you.
You swat Mark’s hands off of you, an unimpressed look on your face. “No, I’m surprised because you purposely keep me from being here at the same time as them,” you say with emphasis, in case he never told them that.
“Haha, what?” your cousin tries to play it off, but his team seems to find what you’d said really funny.
“Are you serious?” One of them, with the most blinding, handsome smile you’ve ever seen on a boy asks. For a moment you’re starstruck, just looking at him in awe, before you snap out of it again.
You smile at him sweetly. “Yeah, Mark’s just jealous ‘cause I’m more fun than him.”
The boy chuckles, looking around at the other guys, and immediately you feel your cousin’s death stare on the back of your head.
“Guys, just excuse us for a minute,” he tells the group, and they all nod, waving him off. Mark gently pushes you out the door, crossing his arms once you’re both outside.
“You don’t look intimidating,” you tell him, just so he knows.
He sighs, dropping his arms. “I know. I also know I may be asking you for too much here, but can you not flirt with Jaemin while I’m around? Or for that matter, anybody on my team?”
“So that’s his name…” you muse aloud, which is followed by another sigh on your cousin’s part.
“Y/N, please focus.”
“My apologies,” you bow your head. “I will try not to flirt with Jaemin.”
“...Or?”
You sigh. “Or any of your other teammates.”
“Okay, good.” Mark says, giving you his mildly shady side-eye again. “I’m putting my faith in your maturity. If this goes well, you’re allowed to come to our next game.”
“What!” you exclaim, and he hurriedly shushes you. “...what?” you repeat in a whisper-shout. “You better keep that promise.”
He offers you his pinky. “Promise.”
You wrap yours around his and squeeze it tight. “No take-backs.”
“Never,” Mark says, and opens the door again, leading you back to the baseball team.
The team stays over for a few hours, over which you learn all their names: Jaemin with the godly smile, Jeno whose eyes crinkle up, Lucas who towers over the rest of you, Renjun who is definitely the smartest person there, Chenle, who has an absolutely hilarious laugh, and Haechan, who seems like a major entertainer, but hasn’t spoken directly to you the whole afternoon.
Mark’s parents seem to know all of them really well, which only makes it weirder that you’ve never ever met the team before. You guess Mark is just smarter than you thought.
When it’s starting to get dark, you stretch from your place on the couch (the most comfortable spot that had been granted to you and the youngest of their group, Chenle) and heave a deep sigh.
“I think I’m gonna get going,” you say, not speaking to anyone in general.
“Okay, bye.” Mark replies, lying right below the couch, not even bothering to look at you instead of at his phone screen. You kick him lightly in the side, crossing your arms. “Ow-! What the he-”
“Don’t be rude,” you scold him as he curls up, the other boys laughing from their various positions on the floor around the living room. Standing, you brush your hair out of your face and start grabbing the stuff you’d had when you came over. “I’ll tell your mom.”
Mark just groans.
“What part of town do you live in? I gotta get home too,” Jaemin says, sitting up. You glance over with wide eyes, unsure of if he really just said that.
“Yeah, me too,” Jeno says, and the other four chorus the same thing.
“Uhm, I live by that park with the white tiger statues,” you answer vaguely. Your dad always told you to keep your address to yourself.
“Oh, I know where that is!” Jaemin smiles, then seems to remember its distance from Mark’s house. “It’s a shame, we all live around here…”
“Haechan lives by you, Y/N!” Chenle pipes up, pointing towards said boy. Your eyes follow Chenle’s finger to Haechan, who is staring with intensity at the younger boy. Immediately understanding what Haechan is trying to communicate, you chuckle and wave off Chenle’s words.
“No, no worries, nobody needs to walk back with me. I go to and from Mark’s house by myself all the time. Thank you, though.” you smile particularly in Jaemin’s direction, although, trying to make yourself less obvious, you look around the whole room while talking.
“Yep, she’s fine,” Mark comments, glaring at you from the floor.
With a few more assurances to the boys who seem to have some kind of protective feelings towards you, you pop in your earphones and head out the door, your feet mindlessly carrying you the same path you take all too often.
Mark lives in one of the lesser-traveled neighborhoods, and there’s nobody around at this hour- students are already home by now, but adults still aren’t off of work. Plus, you typically take a shortcut through a few alleys to cut the time it takes to get home a little faster.
You make it about ten minutes before you start getting a weird feeling. It’s pretty much night by now, and even though you usually aren’t afraid at all walking by yourself, you have that hair-raising sense that someone is watching you. You take small peeks over your shoulder and pull out an earphone as you change your route and head toward the bus stop, deciding to spend the money instead of walking the whole way home.
Step, step.
Your head whips around, the unmistakable sound of heavy footsteps behind you causing your heart rate to skyrocket. Just as your eyes catch a figure that had been about ten feet back, it swiftly ducks behind a wall.
You bite your lip, looking around to see if anyone else is around- but no one is, of course. The lights in the homes nearby are on, though, which gives you some confidence.
“Is someone there?” you call out, knowing that if the figure that had been there before doesn’t come clean here and now, you will most definitely turn and put your middle school track skills to use.
“...No.” a soft, slightly high-pitched male voice rings out.
...What?
You tilt your head, not knowing where this is going, or if you’re actually in danger.
The figure comes back out from behind the wall. You squint as they walk forward a few steps and end up under a street lamp, pulling the hooding on their head down.
“Haechan?” your jaw drops. “...What?”
The boy who had been the most awkward to you the entire night shrugs, looking embarrassed. “Not going to lie, Jaemin and Jeno kind of pressured me into making sure you got home alright.”
“Jesus,” you sigh, wiping off the sweat that had collected from stress on your forehead. “You scared the shit out of me.”
He winces. “Sorry. That wasn’t really the intention?”
A few seconds pass in silence. You’re not really sure what to say, and clearly, Haechan doesn’t have much of an interest in you considering how he acted earlier, so the situation definitely feels… weird, to say the least.
“Um, do you want to go together from here? I mean, we do live by each other.” Haechan says, sounding like he’s not really sure about his offer himself.
You resist a smile as you watch his fingers intertwine and stretch around nervously. “Uh, sure? But you don’t have to, you know. You were the only creepy guy following me.”
He laughs, which is again, kind of weird, because while he had done that at Mark’s house, he hadn’t in response to something you said. “Yeah, sorry again.” he sheepishly unlocks his hands and rubs the back of his neck, not responding to you telling him he didn’t have to come along with you.
“It’s fine.” you say, waiting for him to walk forward and catch up with you. The two of you start walking again, side by side. “Do you wanna take the bus?”
Haechan shrugs. “Do you want to?”
“I like walking, but it’s way faster if we take the bus.”
He shoots a condescending look at you. “I know that. I was asking in case you don’t have any money.”
You laugh out loud at that. “Thanks for the concern.” Thinking on it, you glance over at the boy, feeling a curiosity well up inside of you. You want to talk to him more- find out why he was so quiet earlier, and why he didn’t just agree to walk back with you from the start. “Let’s take the bus next time.”
The next morning, you wake up feeling like yesterday’s events were barely real. A regular day of hanging out with your lame cousin had turned into meeting more boys than you think you’ve ever held legitimate conversations with, and that had turned into walking home with Lee Donghyuck, who actually ended up being really funny and charming.
“Oh my god,” you whisper to yourself, staring up at the ceiling. “I need to tell Hyunjoo.”
You toss yourself across your bed to reach over and grab your phone of the nightstand, tapping the screen furiously in the hopes that it’ll turn on faster. “Come on,” you whine, watching the reset screen intently. As soon as the lockscreen picture of you and Hyunjoo appears, you’re unlocking the phone and opening your texts.
To: Hyunnie<3 at 9:21
HYUNJOO!!!!!!! wake up!!!!! youre never going to believe what happened last night!!!!!!!
You stare at the screen, waiting for the three dots that will indicate your best friend is replying to show up. But they don’t. Dammit. Curse her habit of sleeping in way, way too late. Discouraged, you groan and throw your arm over your eyes, turning off your phone.
You’re starting to feel yourself fall asleep again when a loud ding! from your phone makes shocks you out of your drowsiness. Expecting to see a reply from Hyunjoo, you’re even more surprised when it’s not.
From: Mark :/ at 9:27
Jaemin is pressuring me into inviting you to our game next week. So I guess you’re invited.
You let out a maniacal laugh as soon as you read the message.
To: Mark :/ at 9:28
hahahahahaha youre such a pushover. tell jaemin i said hi ;)
From: Mark :/ at 9:28
Oh my god… not gonna happen.
To: Mark :/ at 9:29
lol im kidding
or am i??
anyway ill be there!!!!!!! can i bring a friend?
A few minutes pass without Mark replying, so you get out of bed with a big smile, suddenly feeling even better than you were before. You sit down at your desk, starting to put some makeup on for no reason, since you don’t have plans for today besides working on your part of the math project.
Ding!
You glance over at the phone screen as you pat on some concealer, another cackle leaving your lips.
From: Hyunnie<3 at 9:50
Yah… don’t tell me you did something scandalous??
“What the hell,” you mumble with a chuckle, shaking your head at your best friend’s wandering mind.
To: Hyunnie<3 at 9:51
what are you thinking you pervert?????
i finally met marks baseball team!!! and they were all hot!!!
From: Hyunnie<3 at 9:53
Eh??? Are you serious?
😏 So then it was a little scandalous…
You sigh, shaking your head and deciding you should just ignore her for a few minutes so she gets the point- until an idea pops into your head.
To: Hyunnie<3 at 9:56
hey… you should come over with the excuse that we need to work on the math project together and we can stalk all their instagrams
All she sends back is a thumbs up.
“So he smiled at you?” Hyunjoo laughs joyously, kicking her legs like a kid. “Ah, he’s super cute, Y/N!”
You lean your head on her shoulder as you both look at Jaemin’s profile after he quickly accepted your friend request. “I know right? He was seriously dreamy…”
“Ooo,” Hyunjoo taps on a picture of Jaemin with who you recognize as Lucas. “Who is he though?”
“Oh, that’s Lucas Wong, he’s an exchange student. He’s super tall.” you comment as Hyunjoo zooms in on his face.
“Damn,” she says, opening Lucas’s instagram. “Follow him too.”
“Bitch,” you snatch your phone back as she’s about to hit the follow button, since his profile isn’t private. “Don’t make it look like I’m thirsty. Follow him yourself.”
Hyunjoo smacks you on the arm. “Are you crazy? He doesn’t even know me.”
You wince, rubbing your arm with a pout. “So? To be honest, he seemed kind of into himself so I don’t even think he’d question it.”
Hyunjoo rolls her eyes, taking your phone back from your hands as you go back to trying to solve one of the equations on your paper.
Both of you are quiet for a while as Hyunjoo scrolls through Lucas’s extensive portfolio of selfies and gym pics and you do your best on your part of the project.
“Oh, Mark texted you,” Hyunjoo says eventually. You look over to see her open the message, and subsequently watch her jaw drop open.
“What?” you lean over to read the text.
From: Mark :/ at 12:44
Okay, you can bring Hyunjoo, but NOBODY ELSE. I’m serious.
You laugh at your best friend’s expression.
“Where? Where are you bringing me? To Mark’s house?” her face turns sour. “I told you it’d be weird if I go there.”
“No,” you roll your eyes. “To Mark’s baseball game next week.”
Hyunjoo drops your phone. “Seriously? Finally? After all this time?”
You hmm, picking up your phone and pushing the math work over to her. “Apparently Jaemin asked Mark to ask me to come.”
“Ugh,” Hyunjoo groans, slumping over. “How are you so lucky, Y/N?”
“Me? Lucky?” you scoff. “You’re the one with perfect grades… honestly, isn’t GPA the most important thing in this life?”
Hyunjoo laughs, reaching over and pinching your arm. You glare and swat her hand away, but she just looks at you fondly. “Duh. That’s why I’m about to correct all of this poorly done math.”
“Ah, really?” you cringe. “Okay, show me what I did wrong, then…”
“Hey, Y/N, you made it!”
You and Hyunjoo, arm in arm, dressed in an appalling amount of spiritwear from Mark’s school, turn to look at who has just called your name. Immediately after seeing Jaemin’s bright smile hands waving you to come over to where the rest of the baseball team is getting ready to warm up, you feel a dream-like grin appear on your own face.
“Hi, Jaemin,” you say as Hyunjoo practically drags you over now that you’ve gone into a ‘holy shit he’s so cute how can I even focus’ phase. “Of course I made it.”
Jaemin nods, still beaming at you, then glances over at Hyunjoo. “I’m guessing you’re Y/N’s friend?”
“Yup, I’m Do Hyunjoo,” your best friend says, bowing her head slightly. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, you too!” Jaemin says, then opens his mouth to continue, but he’s cut off but someone else practically jumping him, looping their strong arm over his neck.
“Hey, Mark’s cousin! I didn’t know you were coming!”
“Lucas,” you smile politely at him, trying to see if Jaemin is actually choking or not. “This is my friend, Hyunjoo.” you take the opportunity to introduce them considering how many screenshots of Lucas’s selfies your best friend had sent you over the course of the past week.
Lucas just nods even as Hyunjoo says hello to him, then seems to get distracted by someone else behind you all and releases Jaemin, barely even offering a goodbye.
“So, uhhh…” you peek around Jaemin to look at the rest of the team. There’s Chenle, Renjun, Jeno, and some others you didn’t meet, but… “Do you know where my cousin is? Or Haechan?”
Jaemin tilts his head, humming in thought. “Uh, I think they went to get water or something, not sure.”
You smile reassuringly. “That’s okay.”
A moment passes in silence where you and Jaemin are just sort of looking at each other and then glancing away- out of nowhere you’re feeling shy and nervous.
Hyunjoo looks unamused. “When do you guys start warming up? Is there somewhere Y/N and I should sit?”
Jaemin seems to snap out of it, so you follow suit and focus. “Oh, yeah, we’ll start warming up in like five minutes. If you guys want to go sit down, you’ll have to go over there-” he points to a section of the stands that seems to be primarily occupied by middle-aged couples. “Since you don’t go to our school.”
“Thanks,” Hyunjoo bows her head. “We’ll get going now.” She firmly loops her arm around your elbow and mercilessly starts dragging you away.
“Good luck, Jaemin!” you call out to the boy as he chuckles. “Tell Mark hi for me!”
The handsome kid shoots you another blinding smile and a thumbs up, pivoting to head back to the bench where the rest of the team is.
“You are so embarrassing,” Hyunjoo huffs as the two of you settle down in the very front row of what appears to be the parent section.
You pout, lightly smacking your friend on the arm. “Hey! I saw the way you were looking at Lucas. ‘I like girls more' my ass.”
She scoffs. “I definitely do, headass, but are you really going to tell me I shouldn’t admire a man who looks like that?”
You shrug, pulling out a granola bar from your bag. “Nah, I guess not. But whatever happened to your thing with Jung Chaeyoung?”
Hyunjoo sighs. “She said I make her feel too dumb, remember?” she rolls her eyes. “Like, am I supposed to apologize for being smart?”
“Shhh!” a mom leans down over yours and Hyunjoo’s shoulder, just about scaring the shit out of you, but you apologetically nod to her, whispering sorry as someone announces that the game will start in five minutes.
“Do you know how baseball works?” you whisper to Hyunjoo, taking as quiet of a bite as possible from the granola bar.
She shakes her head. “I don’t have time to learn about sports, Y/N.”
“Ah, right…”
The announcer lists the players from the opposing team, then starts on Mark’s team, beginning with Chenle, then Lucas, some people you don’t know, Renjun, Jeno-
“Woohoo! Come on Mark, you got this! You can do it, let’s get it Mark Lee!” you shout, standing up enthusiastically.
“Oh my fucking god,” you hear Hyunjoo whisper as she frantically grabs your arm and yanks you down.
You burst into laughter even as you feel various parents’ disapproving looks. “What? I’m supporting my family.”
“You look crazy,” Hyunjoo deadpans.
Shrugging, you finish off the granola bar, as you and your best friend settle into watching the baseball game, during which you have no clue what’s going on.
When the game ends (after what feels like a lifetime), you and Hyunjoo scurry out of the stands and back down to where Jaemin initially met you. The team is in deep discussion with their coach as most of the boys shake off sweat and take long sips of water, putting their gear away.
Eventually, though, one by one they file out and into the common area where you’re waiting, and you take the opportunity to pounce on your cousin as soon as it appears.
“Mark!” you shout, jumping onto your cousin’s back gleefully. He lets out an unattractive ‘humph’ sound and nearly falls, snapping his head around to give you a death glare as you slide off. “Did you hear me cheering for you? That’s probably why you guys won!”
Your cousin lets out a deep sigh, moving out of the line to stand by you and Hyunjoo. “We probably won because we’re good, but if you want to believe it was your cheering-”
“Y/N, Hyunjoo!” you glance behind Mark to see Jaemin dragging Haechan along behind him, the former sporting his signature smile while the latter looks a bit awkward.
“Hey, you both did great out there!” you shoot them a thumbs up. “I saw your… your slide thing, whatever it is, Haechan!”
He nods, a shy grin peeking through. “Thanks. I was kinda worried, but it worked out.”
“Oh, definitely,” you assure him, even though you have no idea what the slide on the ground was for or how it worked out at all.
“So, are you two headed home now?” Jaemin asks, throwing an arm around Mark’s shoulder. “Or a party at this one’s house maybe?”
“Please, no,” Mark shuts his eyes, breathing deeply.
“I gotta run some errands for my mom down the street,” Hyunjoo says, looking annoyed at the idea. She turns to you, a concerned expression passing over her face. “Are you going to be okay walking by yourself?”
“Yeah, it should be okay, I told you last week, I’m totally used to going around alone-”
“I’ll walk back with you, Y/N.” Haechan’s voice interrupts your attempt to convince Hyunjoo that you’ll be fine.
You match his gaze, tilting your head slightly, but this time, the boy doesn’t look the least bit nervous about talking to you. “You sure?”
He hesitates for just a moment, until a crooked smile forms on his lips and he nods. “Uh-huh.”
Jaemin looks in between you two, then with a slightly awkward sounding laugh, gestures to Hyunjoo and Mark. “You guys wanna head back our way, then?”
“Our way? Hyunjoo repeats, looking confused.
“Yeah, Mark and I live down that street,” Jaemin says, pointing to where she had gestured to earlier. “Unless you’d rather go alone?”
“Um, if you guys don’t mind me tagging along,” Hyunjoo shrugs, a nervous smile overtaking her expression. You laugh mentally, but not out loud.
“No problem Hyunjoo, you’re better company than your best friend,” Mark says, talking for the first time in forever.
“Ouch,” you mumble, but you’re laughing.
And for the second time, you find yourself walking home in the cool evening air, with Lee Haechan. You didn’t even take the bus.