Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jake is vibing to Peaches by Justin Bieber when he meets a red light. It kills the mood of the song since he is completely stopping his car just when the first chorus begins, but he still drums his fingers against the sheer leather of the wheel.

It is taking a little bit too long.

A knock on the window and Jake startles, he thinks of a policeman first. However, when he looks through said window, he is met with a black motorbike.

A very expensive one.

He rolls down his window, smirk in place.

"- The first one who arrives pays for the other's game, yeah?"

The biker turns his head to look at him, and even with the helmet covering his face, Jake can guess the defying gaze the other is sending him.

"- See you on the other side." The biker says, his voice muffled. He sends a salute with his two fingers on the top of his helmet before driving off with lightning speed.

"- That's cheating!" Jake exclaims, only now realizing that the light had turned green and the policeman is yelling at him to move forward.

Get low by Liam Payne starts playing.

Ah. Jake feels nostalgic again...

9 years old Jake is sitting at the back of his dad's car, huffing in boredom.
People are shouting outside, he does not care about what is happening or who is yelling at who for what reason. He just wants to arrive at the beach already. He had been waiting for hours already. He feels like dying in this car; with the suffocating heat and the sickening smell of citrus in the car, waiting became unbearable.

He feels restless and considers removing the seatbelt so that he could feel less trapped in this car. His dad should have put the AC, at least.

When Jake turns his head to look out of the window, he is surprised to see that the car waiting beside theirs is a little bit too close, and so, he can see a little boy, maybe his age, playing Bounce in his iPad.

Jake loves Bounce, too.

He removes his belt and props himself up, knees on the seat.

"- Hey." He greets, smiling widely. Jake does not expect the boy to respond right away.

He is wrong.

The boy turns immediately, brows furrowed in confusion. He catches Jake's figure.

Jake waits for him to say something, except he does not.

"- Are you playing Bounce? I love this game!" He chirps.

The boy does not answer, he just looks at him, lips slightly parted, before going back to his iPad.

Jake does not really know how to take it, but the boy exits Bounce to start a new game. Subway Surfers, basic.

Jake notices the boy has already so many characters unlocked so he guesses he must have played the game for a pretty long time. A glance at the car however, tells him that maybe not. Maybe, he got there with his parents' money.

The boy looks expensive, his outfit is stunning, and Jake can see the effort put in it.

"- My name is Jake." Jake tries again. "- What's yours?"

The boy pauses his game to look at him again.
And for the first time, he speaks.

"- Jay."

"- Oh! Our names look similar! Are you from another country too?" Jake asks, excited.

He does not get an answer, or at least, not in this moment.

His father comes back, clearly annoyed, if the way he aggressively sits on the seat is anything to go by.
He huffs.

"- Sorry son, people fought over something stupid, we had to intervene or it would have taken longer."

Jake sits back on his seat and fastens his belt again.

The day he learns from where is Jay is the day the boy is introduced to their classroom.

"- You lost. Just accept it."

"- You cheated!"

Jake hates how he cannot hold his smile when Jay sends him his signature smirk.

Jake ended up losing, obviously, which was a shame considering the fact that he was the one who suggested the little challenge. But hear him out, it was not his fault, it always happened that way; the one who suggested the game lost at it at the end. It was a curse in their group, yet Jake had always believed it only worked on Sunghoon.

(Guys do you want a Jakehoon or a HeeJake??? TT I WANT BOTH THAT'S UNFAIR)

Jay is ruffling his hair with his hand, one time, two times, three times, four times. He does not stop.

"- Yah stop that, you look good you know." He cannot himself, it unsettles him how the elder is fidgeting with his hair. "- Anyone who sees you would think you're about to seduce your crush or meet your girlfriend. When we both know you're as single as Sunghoon."

"- Yah!" Jay exclaims, looking slightly offended. "- Don't compare me to him. And that's rude, we both know that Hoonie is single by choice." He points out.

"- Touché." Jake smiles as they both walk out of the parking lot. "- Are you expecting someone? You dressed up more than usual."

"- No, I don't. I just felt like it." Jay sighs.

One look at his best friend tells him that he is not lying.

"- You've been dressing up and taking care of yourself more than usual, recently though." Jake squints his eyes at him.

"- Yah, drop it already..." Jay mumbles.

They arrive in front of the main entrance of the building and the door slides automatically when they are close enough.

"- You're interested." Jake says simply as he walks past the door, Jay on his right.

"- What?"

"- People start taking care of their physical appearance when they see or meet someone who catches their interest." Jake starts explaining. "- They want the other person to notice them, they want their attention, especially when they are still strangers to each other. So, they try to look good all the time in case they meet them unexpectedly."

"- That's bullshit... I'm not interested in anyone." Jongseong mutters.

"- Hey! I'm talking from experience, okay!" Jake gasps, faking offense. "- Like that one time with Yunjin, I saw her for the first time from afar, and it was enough for me to dress up every day like I'm going to a wedding."

Jay snorts.

"- Yeah, I remember that clearly, it was fun in the beginning. But then, you kept asking me "Do I look good?" Three times in a day." Jay points out, and now that Jake recalls it, it was true, embarrassingly so.

"- Sorry 'bout that, can't promise you it won't happen again, so I'm just gonna hope it doesn't." Jake chuckles.

Jay rolls his eyes at him as they both face the receptionist standing behind the counter.
She smiles at them before asking for their cards.

Jake thinks that it is quite useless procedure since they were regulars in this club, but he still pulls out his own shiny black card with his index and middle finger and holds it out for the woman.

The place's interior's decoration was special, almost freakily so. Jake liked the brown and cream walls that looked like those wafers Heeseung bought sometimes. They always lasted about a month because no one else ate them. Sunghoon had told Heeseung to stop buying three packages at a time because they just took a lot of space in their pantry, to which Heeseung giggled like a child. His reaction made Jake believe that he was doing it in purpose to tease Sunghoon.

All in all, let’s say Jake liked the reception… Mostly. It was a small rectangular room with a long desk in the shape of a crescent on the right and a set of grey stairs on the left. What made the place bizarre was probably the drawing sticked to the wall behind the reception’s desk; it represented a big drawing of Picsou, whose eyes were in fact dollars, standing in a greyish background. The second strange thing was probably the mirror hung on the wall, right to the main entrance; it was impossible to see yourself in it, for it was covered with white stains of paint, as if someone poured some on it, and over the paint was written “All You Need Is LOVE” in neon pink.

So yes, Jake appreciated the original decor, yet he found himself cursing the thing standing in the little cubicle right to the staircase. The thing was in fact a gigantic figurine that looked like some kind of creepy version of Mickey Mouse, with its eyes replaced by X, long Pinocchio nose and mouth replaced by tiny tentacles. Its head looked like a bulb lamp, white and pale, and it was wearing a beige dungaree.

Jake came here a lot, but no matter how many times he climbed the stairs, he still got scared by the big figurine. It looked like it would start moving out of the blue.

Jake still liked this place a lot.

Red Lights. It was a club, but not like the rest of the clubs. They called it a club, but it was more like a huge center with everything you needed to entertain yourself.
It had six floors, and you needed a ticket to enter each time you wanted to visit a floor.

However, rich people like Jay and Jake had cards. They were part of the membership and had access to everything anytime.
It was worth it, really. They knew the existence of Red Lights for only two years, and they still did not get bored of it.

"- Here you go, gentlemen." The receptionist smiles brightly as she hands them back their cards.
They bow at her before heading to the staircase.

Oh, and the staff was very respectful and polite. They knew them well, and Jake could tell they appreciated them a little bit.

As usual, while climbing, Jake made sure to stay on the left so that he would stay as far as possible from the figurine when they walk past it. Jay always pretends to be completely unfazed by its presence, buy Jake knew very well how much the elder was frightened by it as much. Jay still sacrificed himself, staying on the right side, just next to it while they climbed the first four steps, so Jake never teased him about it.

“- I really missed being here!” Jake sighs in delight as they reach the fourth floor.

 “- Yeah, it’s been a while.” Jay nods absently.

They pass through the hallway, Jay walking ahead, hands tucked in the front pockets of his black jeans while Jake walks more enthusiastically, a light skip to each step he makes.

The corridor is neither too large nor too narrow, its flooring is covered by a blood red carpet that muted the sound of the soles of their shoes as they walked to the lone door at the end of the corridor. The walls were made of bricks painted with red and shining red spots were illuminating the whole hallway. It gave the disturbing feeling of being bathed in blood. Jake liked to think of it as swimming in pomegranate sirop instead. On the walls were graffitied faces and sculptures of what looked like the David, Apollon and Daphne several times and in different sizes and angles.

The last weird thing about the hallway was the door leading to the lone and only big room of the floor. The door was around Jake’s height, glimmering with white neon lights. The wall was covered with “EXIT” symbols from the top to the bottom. The symbols were shinning a very bright and blinding yellow which always gave a headache to Jake.

“- Shall we enter?” Jay asks.

He always asks, which is ridiculous considering the number of times they have opened this door. Jake rolls his eyes at him and simply pushes the door open. No one acknowledges their arrival, simply because the room was immense and very crowded. Friday evening, nothing surprising, people gathered here to enjoy the beginning of the week-end here.

Red Lights had six floors with only one big room Each room had a specific theme. The theme of the room of the fourth floor was called ‘the Castle of the Queen of Hearts’, some called it ‘Dark Alice’ in reference to the movie and book “Alice in Wonderland”. Jake liked it a lot, but maybe not as much as Jay; it was well-known among their little group that Jay loved specifically this room, what with all the card symbols everywhere, shades of red and black painting the walls and the Victorian-like furniture. The place bore a royal atmosphere, and Jake secretly felt like a prince.

The only area which was somehow out of theme was the bar space; it was most likely ‘Tea Time’ themed, with the bartenders cosplaying the mad hatter, the march hare, the dormouse and the caterpillar. They exchanged costumes from time to time and they somehow always all looked stunning. However, it was no secret that the mad hatter looked best on Jung Wooyoung and Lily was better looking as the dormouse. Jake always made sure to greet them with a wave or a nod and a smile before going to join his friends.

The place is noisy with chatter, laughter, feeble jazz, the sound of the arcade machines, billiards cues knocking balls and bowling balls sliding against the smooth floor of the lane to hit the pins. Jake liked the atmosphere; it was noisy without being suffocating, warm, pleasant and comfortable. It almost felt like a big living room.

“- Guys! We’re here!”

They were here for bowling.

Jake smiles as he recognizes the voice calling them. Lee Heeseung is waving his hand, arm stretched high, to get them to notice him and Park Sunghoon. Heeseung was sitting at the rectangular table across from the bowling area while Sunghoon was gracefully standing in front of the bowling lane, focused and unmoving, eyes glaring at the pin set.

“- Ayyyyyyy, you losers, you started without us!” Jay says as he walks rapidly to them, hitting Sunghoon on the back of his head as he passes by his standing figure. “- Stop acting like you know how to play, it doesn’t suit you.”

“- Shut up.” Sunghoon mumbles, still glaring at the pins, completely unfazed by Jay’s teasing.

Jake plops down next to Heeseung while Jay takes a seat in front of them.

The three of them turn their heads to look at Sunghoon, expecting and anticipating, patiently waiting for him to move and throw the navy-blue ball he is holding up. Has he been holding it for long?

“- How much time has he been standing like that?” Jake whispers quietly, slightly leaning over Heeseung.

“- About three minutes.” Heeseung answers spontaneously.

“- You counted them?” Jay asks, raising his eyebrows.

Heeseung shrugs. He grabs his smoothie from the table and sips on it, adorably wrapping his lips around the green straw.

“- What flavor did you take?” Jake asks, eyeing the yellowish liquid in the plastic cup.

Heeseung takes a last sip before letting go of the straw. He frowns at the drink.

“- I ordered banana, but they brought me lemon.” He sighs.

“- Ew, do you want me to go bring you a banana one? I’ll finish the lemon for you.” Jake suggests, already standing up.

“- No, it’s alright, thanks.” Heeseung smiles reassuringly. He puts one hand on Jake’s forearm and the latter sits down again.

“- Okay, but I’ll have to order something later anyways, I’m gonna order banana and we’ll share it.” Jake decides, and Heeseung starts giggling for whatever reason.

Sunghoon moves, and Jake almost starts clapping at this. Their attention goes back to him and Jake absently notices that Jay had gone to put on the proper shoes for the game while he and Heeseung were talking and is now returning to his seat.

Sunghoon clowns them; he does not throw the ball; he makes a whole scene of crouching down and crossing his legs and stuff but stops in the middle to turn around and frowns at Jay.

Jake is disappointed but not surprised.

“- Jay-ah.” He starts.

“- Just throw the freaking ball.” Jay groans.

Sunghoon ignores him and continues expressing his idea.

“- Remember that day, when you embarrassed yourself in front of some juniors?”

“- I hate you so-”

“- Did you just remember that?” Jake laughs.

“- I thought we agreed we won’t mention that ever again!” Jay whines, dropping his head on his folded arms on the table.

“- We didn’t.”

“- When did we.”

“- I don’t remember that.”

They all answer simultaneously.

“- Oh my god, I’m leaving.” Jay huffs, standing up and turning his heels to walk away from them.

“- Hey no!” Sunghoon is quick to catch him by his shoulder him and pull him back on his chair. “- I was just wondering if you had made it to that dinner with your parents and your aunt on time.”

“- Oh.” Jay blinks at him. And after three seconds of staring at each other, Sunghoon averts his gaze. Jake knows that Park Sunghoon has difficulties holding eye-contacts with people. He also knows that no one can hold eye-contact with Park Jongseong for more than 15 seconds without going insane. “- Ah, that… Well yeah, I got there, a little bit late and my parents scolded me a little bit after but it’s alright.”

“- Oh god, are you okay? I know they can be a lot sometimes…” Heeseung says, voice quietening as he reaches the last words.

“- I’m okay, it has been a while since then, I completely forgot about it, really.”

Sunghoon nods, lips pursed, hands pressed against the surface of the table.

“- I thought that something happened and you didn’t want to talk about it when you didn’t mention it at all.” Jake confesses.

“- Yeah, same. Especially because you kept on complaining about it before you actually went to it.” Heeseung points out as well.

“- You like to complain about nothings.” Sunghoon points out uselessly.

“- Yah!” Jay scolds and Sunghoon smiles like a child, his pointed fangs picking out cutely. He looks like a vampire like that. “- I’m fine… I really thought I told you about it, though…” He adds, sounding a little bit confused.

“- You didn’t. The only thing you had kept rambling about was that small guy who helped you.” Heeseung states. “- Ah, what was his name again?”

“- I don’t remember, it’s been almost three months since that incident. I can’t even believe Sunghoon just remembered to ask about it.” Jay replies, leaning on the back of the chair.

Sunghoon simply shrugs.

Jake and Heeseung exchange a look.

He does remember the name, and for whatever reason, he does not want to tell them.

“- Anyways, Jake, you better go grab your shoes so that we can start.” Jay says as he stands up. “- I’m gonna order something to eat or drink, does any of you want something?”

“- Waffles!” Sunghoon answers, raising his hand briefly. Then, he walks back to where the bowling balls and takes out the blue one again; he had claimed it as his long ago, and when Jake had asked him why he chose this one in particular, Sunghoon answered that it was because he liked the color of penicillium. Jay had wisely pointed out that penicillium did not have this color at all, to which Sunghoon had replied ‘Dark Penicillium’, and Jay dropped it with his usual exasperated “Oh my god…”.

“- Wait, I’ll come with you first.” Jake decides, getting up, rounding the table to join Jay’s side.

“- I think I’ll go with my usual bloody pancakes.” Heeseung nods to the menu before meeting his eyes. “- They have new things but I don’t feel like trying something and regretting it afterwards.”

“- Let me see, what new thing does look appealing to you? I’ll take it for myself so you can try it, if you don’t like it, you’d still have what you like.” Jake asks, leaning over the table so that he can take a look at the menu.

“- Um…” Heeseung looks at him for a moment before focusing on the list of snacks. “- This one.” He points out something called ‘Cursed Mousse’, it has a blue shade which indeed looks very appealing, was it blueberry?

“- Alright, I’ll go with this.” Jake says, squeezing Heeseung’s shoulder once.

“- You really don’t have to do that, Jake. You should take whatever you want, instead.” Heeseung says, in that calm and soft voice of his, raising his head from the menu to look at him.

“- Nah, it’s okay, I’m not that hungry anyways.” He shakes his head, smiling.

“- But-”

Jake straightens up, he flicks Heeseung’s right earring, which looks like a cross, playfully with his forefinger and with a little smile before walking off with Jay towards the bars. He faintly registers Sunghoon’s frustrated groan as he exists the area.

Jake hums when they reach their destination, he crosses his arms over the counter and looks at Jay.

“- So, what was his name?”

“- I said I don’t remember.”

“- But you do.”

“- I don’t.”

“- You do.”

“- I don’t.”

“- You do.”

Yang Jungwon had to change his usual seat in the university’s library.

When he first entered the library, he was confused when he saw that all the spots were empty. Sure, it was a little bit late, but not that much. Jungwon had checked the time on his phone again and it had showed 18:21. When the librarian saw him standing all lost and confused in the middle of the empty room, he had walked to him and explained that he cannot stay here and has to go to the second floor which was usually reserved for the teachers only. Jungwon had asked why. Do not misunderstand him, he did not care at all about the reason behind this sudden change. The ‘why?’ had come out of w mouth automatically, without him thinking about it. The man had heaved a sigh, clearly tired of explaining the reason to more than one student. Yes, Jungwon had imagined that he had clearly not been the first student who had come in without knowing what was going on.

Apparently, a notice had been fixed on the door of the library. The librarian had taken care to point out Jungwon’s inattentiveness, although indirectly. Still, even though he had felt guilty, the comment was not necessary. The adult told him that the library was booked, for some important figures of an administration, a company or whatever were coming and they needed to clean the place before their arrival. Jungwon had not pointed out how all of this sounded weird. Why wouldn’t they use one of the meeting rooms instead? Surely, the library was such a cozy and comfortable place, but the meeting rooms felt more professional. He had not shared his thoughts however. Jungwon had thanked the man, bowing once, before leaving to the second floor.

The place is packed, as Jungwon had expected it. Both students and teachers were working. Luckily, there were some empty spaces. Jungwon feels relief washing over him when he spots an empty table close to the big glass window. Jungwon liked seating close to them, they provided natural lighting which was very much needed. He makes his way through the room quietly, in order not to disturb any one and proceeds to pull out the chair as silently as possible when he reaches the empty spot. He bites on his lips as he seats very slowly on it before starting to take out his stuff. Pencil case, books, copybooks, highlighters, handouts. He stares at his laptop for a couple of seconds before deciding against using it for now. He dives into his revisions pretty quickly, with no distraction around, he does not any other choice but focus on what he had planned to do.

Sunoo would call it destiny, but Jungwon calls it irony. When you meet someone once, you see them everywhere afterwards. No big deal, really. It happened a lot of times to Jungwon before, with both persons and objects. He remembers very well how he started noticing all the Hyundai Porter after his father bought one. He also remembers how he started noticing Jisung, a guy from his middle school. After he had worked with him for a project, he started seeing the boy everywhere, even out of school. So, yes, it was nothing new.

Jungwon is surprised the moment his eyes catch a very familiar face from afar. Sitting across from his table, a little bit to the right, is that boy from two weeks ago, the one who confused the window with a mirror. He is writing down something on what seems to be a notebook, black Bluetooth headphones tucked in each ear and a very special way of holding the pen. The surprise is quickly gone. The boy was a student just like Jungwon; it was quite normal for him to work in this library. Maybe, Jungwon had not thought of him as someone who would seat in a library to actually revise or study. The boy looked careless, like those dumb jocks who did not like studying and had bad grades. Do not judge a book by its cover, huh? The boy looked very focused on what he was doing.

Jungwon finds interested people quite attractive.

Jungwon returns to his own revisions; he does not think about him at all afterwards. He was way too immersed in what he is learning.

His concentration breaks again when he looks up from his notes again, taking a short break. The boy is now the one looking at him. He squints his eyes, visibly trying to make out Jungwon’s face. Jungwon does not expect him to, but the boy smiles at him when he recognizes him, he even nods in his direction. Jungwon does not smile nor does he nod back, which can seem rude. He instead turns his head around to look behind him, just in case. There is only the glass window behind him. When he looks back at the boy, he seems rather amused by Jungwon’s reaction and mouths what the black-haired reads as something like ‘yes, you’.

He knows it is probably rude, but Jungwon does not do nor say anything back, he just drops his nose on his notes again. In other words, he kind of ignores him. Not that he wanted to, he just did not know what else to do or how to respond. After all, they did not know each other.

After that, stolen glances become their thing. Forget about the whole ‘looking at someone when they do not know’ because that does not work with this boy. He always knows. The moment Jungwon glances up, he catches him, making eye-contact, an eye-contact which Jungwon never breaks easily. He just keeps on looking him in the eyes until they both look away at the same time.

This little strange game goes on until the boy stands up, gathering his stuff. Jungwon watches his movements, wondering if he would come talk to him before leaving. A wave of unexpected disappointment hits him when the boy does not even glance his way one last time before walking out. However, Jungwon does not think about it too much later. He quickly forgets about the whole interaction when he drowns in his papers again. He is not meeting him again, right?

“- Mr. Yang…”

Jungwon bites both lips, humming softly. He knows what is coming. The long, exhausted sigh, the skeptical look, the tired face. The librarian does not hide her annoyed state at all. Jungwon does not blame her at all; she has every right to be upset. Jungwon is angry at himself too, he would have been as bothered if he were in her shoes.

He decides to play the dumb card.

“- Six months. You have six months of delay, Mr. Yang. It is almost a whole school year, other students need those books as well, and they have been looking for them to use them as references.” She explains sternly. Jungwon cowers at her severe stare. “- I know those four books are very helpful.” She pats the stack of books on her desk. “- Yet, I hope you do realize it is almost considered as theft if you keep them for way too long than allowed. Students forget to return books all the time, be it because they needed them for a longer amount of time or because they are too lazy to do it, I am not telling you the opposite. However, it has never been as serious as your case, six months? You borrowed them last year and didn’t give them back. I do not know why it took you this long, and I will not ask for an explanation. You are restricted from borrowing any book from this library for six months and you are asked to help filter and organize the library’s books each day after classes for three weeks.”

“- But-”

“- No buts Mr. Yang. This had never happened in a while but the regulation clearly states the sentence of those who do not return books for more than a month of delay. You start today.” She says as a final statement. She focuses back on her computer.

Jungwon just stares at her.

“- You may dispose now.” She huffs.

Sunoo had laughed at his misery, telling him that it was quite deserved while Riki, his new favorite best friend, had patted him in the back, telling him that it would end before he knows it.

That is how Yang Jungwon found himself very late at night, at the local library, not for the first time, putting back books on their right shelfs and checking if none was wrongly returned. It is tiring, really, and it was a big loss of time. Jungwon would have used his time here for revising or studying instead. He imposed this misery to himself so he had to accept it and deal with it. He had tried the first day, really, but he could not bring it in himself not to hate the librarian for trapping him here. Even after finishing this task, he went back home drained and could not focus as he wanted. It was tough to do anything else after that other than sleeping.

Today was Friday, and a week has already passed since the bad episode with the librarian. He did not get used to his routine being disturbed yet, he does not think he will ever get used to it. Jungwon liked having a stable routine, doing the same things over and over again. It helped him stay calm and composed. An unexpected event popping out of nowhere was able to put him in a very bad mood. He had plans, always, and if the plan does not go as it was supposed to, he starts getting stressed, nervous and anxious.

Soft sounds and movements bring Jungwon back to Earth. He glances around and sees the last few students getting up from their chairs and gathering their stuff to leave the library. They are probably being asked to leave. It was time.

Jungwon watches them with envy, hiding their materials, putting on their coats, slinging their bags on their shoulders. His eyes linger on a silhouette in particular.

When the person raises his head after putting everything back in his bag. Jungwon’s heart skips a beat as his mind puts a name on his face.

Park Jay, the senior, electronics major, member of the robotics club, ancient member of the basketball team.

As usual, Jay does not miss him staring, he locks eyes with him as soon as he raises his head. Jungwon does not do anything other than stare at him, the usual. Jay smiles, he nods, the usual each time he meets Jungwon’s gaze from afar, but this time, he winks.

He w i n k s.

Park Jay winks at him and all the books Jungwon have been putting on the shelf for the last-minute fall.

“- Shit!”

Jungwon misses Jay’s reaction as he bends down to fetch all the books that fell on the floor. He grabs them one by one, taking his sweet time to do so and rethinking about what just happened. Did Park Jay, another boy, wink at him? What did it mean? Did it mean anything, anyways? Maybe, Jungwon was thinking about it more than necessary, he just winked, no big deal. People like Park Jay winked all the time, for no reason. He was just teasing him. He, for sure, did that only to fluster him. He looked like a flirt. Jungwon knew that the boy was popular in the university, and popular guys were often like this, just players who enjoyed flustering shier students, younger and still unfamiliar with the whole new world that was university. Either that or winking was a habit of his; something he did without really thinking or meaning anything by doing it.

Jungwon does not dwell on it. It was taking too much space inside his head and Jungwon needed this space for his lessons.

Park Jay was yet just another of those seniors from other departments to which he talked once and crossed paths one or two times. He was just like Kim Taehyun, the engineering major who took the bus with him sometimes, he was really sweet to Jungwon and the younger liked him, but they never talked a lot, Taehyun had these two friends of his which would always come late (Taehyun had to catch seats for them in the bus when he could) and with whom he seemed very close and talked to for basically the whole ride. Or maybe, Han Jisung, the talkative senior from the law department with whom he crossed paths a lot in the cafeteria because the boy and his friend always sat near Jungwon’s favorite table. The way too hyperactive boy addressed him once, the day he was waiting for his best friend to come, he had asked Jungwon if he was a language major, to which Jungwon had suspiciously nodded, the boy had perked up at the answer and had asked if he had heard about someone who went by the name of Lee Minho. Jungwon had shook his head the moment that Lee Minho guy popped out of nowhere to back hug Han Jisung with a ‘BOUH’.

So yes, Park Jay was barely an acquaintance of his.

"- I'm screwed."

"- Noooooo, you're good, you did great."

"- No. YOU did great! I stressed out and forgot half of what I was supposed to say, so I didn't talk about all of the points."

Jungwon is about to cry. Right here, in the middle of the hallway of their department building. He did not know what had happened, really. He learned his part by heart, he understood the information it contained very carefully. Yet, he did not talk about all what he wanted to, he missed a lot of details and he had the feeling that he kept repeating the same information over and over again.
The teacher asked him "Are you done?" And Jungwon had nodded, unsure. Regret gnaws at his insides as he starts thinking about the result he will get from his pitiful presentation.

"- Oh! Oh my god! What's happening out there!" Sunoo squeaks, starting to bounce animatedly as they walk to all the ruckus happening in the middle of the main yard of their campus.

“- Student Day,” Jungwon explains. “- The stands settled belong to The University’s Clubs, the members of each club are introducing their respective clubs to attract new members.”

“- Really!” Sunoo smiles broadly, his eyes widening in pleased surprised. “- I didn’t know about that! How many clubs do we have here?”

“- I really don’t know, I know there is the Chemistry Club and Biology Club as well as a Cooking and Music Club. There are many, I don’t know all of them.” Jungwon muses, looking up as he thinks about it. “- Do you want to join one?”

“- Hell yeah! It looks so fun!” He giggles.

As they approach the whole event, the voices get louder and noisy. There were too many students, way more than usual, by the stands or even in the middle, taking pictures, recording videos, talking to the members of the clubs or just walking curiously around, watching from afar.

“- Oh! Photographers! Is there a photography club?” Sunoo exclaims as they mingle in the crowd. He nods in the direction of a bunch of students with expensive looking cameras hanging around their necks. Some were taking pictures of everything.

“- You’re interested in photography?” Jungwon frowns. He knew that Sunoo often took pictures of nature and skies and sunsets because he either showed them to him afterwards or posted them on his very aesthetically looking Instagram Page. It sometimes made him jealous to know and see that his best friend was so aesthetic in everything, be it his outfit, social media’s homepages or even the covers of his copybooks and his phone case.

“- It would very interesting to try it as a hobby, like, beside my studies.” He replies, his very pleased smile unwavering. “- They don’t seem to have a stand however. Let’s see around.” He adds, taking Jungwon by his hand to guide him through the noisy area. Jungwon just follows.

He eyes the different boards and headers displayed behind each stand as Sunoo rambles about photography and how great it is.

Sunoo suddenly stops before him and Jungwon almost crashes into him. He glances at his best friend and is surprised to see that the excited and delighted smile adorning his face is long gone, replaced by a disgusted expression, completely displeased and annoyed, as if he just tasted something very sour.

“- Great.” He grits, his tone comes out poisoned, voice laced with venom. 

When Jungwon follows his line of view, he sees it.

And oh.

Oh.

Nishimura Riki is standing some meters afar with all his very annoying height and long legs, holding a camera, staring at it the screen of the device, his thumb clicking on a button from time to time. The badge dangling from around his neck confirms that he is indeed one of the photography club members.

“- Why didn’t you tell me that this loser is in the photography club!” Sunoo whines childishly as he fully faces Jungwon.

"- Simply ‘cuz I didn’t know either. He never told me about it.” Jungwon smirks, very much amused by the irony of the situation. “- Are you really not gonna join just because of him?”

“- I hate him.” Sunoo replies instead. Jungwon rolls his eyes. “- The least I see him, the better I feel.”

“- That’s not true, you don’t hate him, you decided to hate him.” Jungwon corrects him pointedly.

Sunoo does not say anything back. He is pouting.

When Riki looks up again from his camera, he catches Jungwon’s eyes and smiles at him. His smile grows even wider, dazzling and oh so, so happy, when he notices Sunoo standing beside him as well.

The situation is so pathetic.

Of course, Riki is in front of them in no time.

“- Hey guys!” He sighs.

“- Hi Riki-ah.” Jungwon greets back with a small smile. “- Never told me you were in the photography club.”

“- Yeah… I… Sorry? I joined recently, although the inscriptions were closed in the beginning of the year.” He says shyly.

“- And how did you get in?” Jungwon sing-songs teasingly.

“- I have my own ways.” Riki winks with a smirk.

“- Sure, you do.” Jungwon laughs.

“- What are you guys doing here? Interested in any club?” He looks between them.

Sunoo is stubbornly avoiding to look his way, arms folded on his chest as his eyes wander around them, petulantly ignoring the youngest.

“- Just looking around. Sunoo-hyung said he wanted to join the photography club.”

Riki’s eyes widen as they snap back to Sunoo.

“- That’s not true!” He exclaims, strolling off to God knows where.

“- It’s true, though, he said he’s very interested.” Jungwon smiles mischievously.

“- So goddamn attractive. Why does he have to be so my type.” Riki groans.

“- I apologize on his behalf.”

“- It’s not your fault.” Riki tuts.

“he’s just so stubborn. I knew him for years now, and I can tell he doesn’t hate you at all.” He tries to cheer him up. It somehow works since Riki sends him a tired smile.

“- Thanks, hyung. Now, come with me, I need to take some pictures of the chemistry club.” He says, way more enthusiastic.

The chemistry club is a mess, very chaotic with very chaotic looking members. The stand is probably the most interesting and attracting one so far, what with all the chemical products, textures, liquids and solids displayed on the table in a row of dark green, neon blue, shiny orange, pastel yellow and bloody red, foam, smoke and powder of all colors roaming around and coming out of test tubes, beakers, graduated cylinders, spot plates, evaporating dishes and volumetric flasks. Jungwon wonders at the different laboratory tools put haphazardly on the long rectangular table; pipet bulbs, burnets, stirring rods tossed here and there and crucible tongs and forceps thrown in the four corners of the table, as if someone put them there and forgot about them.

The members were all wearing white overalls, matching gloves and big goggles, either on their eyes or simply styling their hairs; someone even wore it upside down and another in a revered way, the glasses covering the back of his head instead of his eyes. Hanged on their overalls were silver tags with their names engraved on each in bold black.

Three of the members were doing live experiments with the plate name “Magical Chemistry” presented on the front of the table, it looked very fun to watch since the experiments resulted in many beautiful or startling effects that did a great job in drawing the audience’s attention. It was impossible for Jungwon to go there; the zone was buzzing with people.

“- Oh hey! Yang Jungwon!”

Jungwon twists his head to where the voice came from; he did not recognize it at all.

A boy he has never seen before in his entire existence is waving at him from the other side of the table, not very far from him.

Jungwon frowns. What the heck.

Jungwon was very good at memorizing people’s faces, and he is more than sure that he never saw this person before. He does not know him; he knows it and is very confident about it. Nevertheless, he decides on humoring the boy and makes his way through the students to reach the stranger.

“- Do I know you?” He asks directly.

“- No. But Jisung talks about you sometimes.” The boy explains, which does not give Jungwon an explanation at all.

“- Jisung?” He frowns. Jungwon knew only two Jisung in the campus.

“- Yeah. Him.” The boy points out at the stand in their right. It looked like the Astronomy Club… Or the Occult Club. Jungwon wanted to believe that it was the former. “- You know him, right?”

Jungwon looks at the only face he recognizes among the sea of unnamed ones. It was the cafeteria law senior who talked to him sometimes. He looked like a hamster.

“- Yeah, but I’ve never told him my name.” Jungwon muses.

Han Jisung catches them staring at him from the other stand and waves happily at them while the other boy –Jisung’s friend, he assumes– points at him with both forefingers.

“- I FOUND HIM, LOOK. IT’S HIM, RIIIIGHT?” The boy shouts.

“- YEAH, HE LOOKS LIKE A CAT, RIIIIGHT?” Jisung shouts back.

“- DEFINITELY. YOU OWE ME FREE FOOD. THE BET, YOU FORGOT?”

Jisung scrunches up his nose and shakes his head, and their shouting contest stops here.

Jungwon wants to choke them both.

“- How does he know my name?” Jungwon asks seriously, folding his arms on his chest.

“- I don’t know, he probably made his little research.” The boy shrugs.

“- A stalker.” Jungwon pouts.

The boy laughs, shuffling around to try and organize the tools laying before him. He had a quite long black hair and his goggles were settled above his eyes.

“- No, Jisung is very cool.”

“- Should I be worried?”

“- Nooooo, he just looks up everyone he meets.” The boy smiles. He takes out a blue folding from the stack stuffed in a cup and hold it out for Jungwon. “- If you wanna join.”

Jungwon takes the folding, carefully eyeing it. It was really well-done, in both levels of content and esthetics. It was cute and informative, with dark blue writing on a greyish blue background and some cute drawing of interactive laboratory tools smiling or angry or thinking just like emojis.

“- It seems interesting.” Jungwon nods with a little smile. “- Although, I feel like you’re not the club which’s mostly in need of members.” He adds playfully.

The number of white overalls behind the stand says it all.

The boy laughs at his remark.

“- I’ll remember your name, then. The inscriptions won’t start until the beginning of the next school year. You have all our social media and pages in the folding. You’ll find the formula on our Facebook page.” He explains kindly.

“- Thank you.” Jungwon bows. Then, he struggles with his backpack to hide the folding, sliding it in one of his handbooks.

“- I’m Hyunjin, by the way.”

“- Okay. Thank you for everything, Hyunjin-sunbaenim.” Jungwon bows one last time and Hyunjin bows curtly, lips pursed.

Jungwon, after the little weird interaction with that Hyunjin guy, tries to find Riki but he cannot see him at all. He walks around all the stands, purposely avoiding the one in which was Han Jisung. The boy was kind but a little bit too much, and talkative, so talkative. Jungwon was not in the mood to talk to people or hear them talk. He must admit he was still upset about his lame presentation earlier. He could not stop thinking about it, and it was really screwing up his mood and was making him less enthusiastic about everything. His personality may look bitter right now, and he hates it.

“- Oh! Yang Jungwon! Right here!”

Again?

Jungwon almost rolls his eyes as he turns around to see who was calling him. It was Kim Taehyun.

Jungwon sighs in relief as he spots the blonde. Taehyun was someone really comfortable to be around with, and he liked talking with him and being in his company; he was chill, nice and not nosy.

“- Sunbae, hey.” He greets, suspiciously eyeing the long hat on top of Taehyun’s hair.

“- Oh c’mon, just call me hyung.” Taehyun waves off the honorific with his hand.

“- Hyung.” Jungwon tries shyly.

“- So much better.” Taehyun smiles. He was sitting behind a table similar to the one in the chemistry club, long, rectangular, covered with a thick midnight blue fabric. Jungwon stares at his gloved hands arranging a set of cards.  

“- I didn’t know there was a magic tricks club, it’s special.” Jungwon beams, looking at all the magical tools displayed on the table.

“- I know right.” Taehyun giggles.

“- It’s kinda useless, though, since no one is interested. I had to join so that Taehyun could open it.” A new voice snorts; Taehyun rolls his eyes, expertly blending the cards in his hands. The boy, standing beside the blonde, arms folded over his chest, looks at Taehyun with a teasing smile before his attention settles on Jungwon. “- Care to introduce me?”

“- Jungwon-ah, this is Choi Beomgyu, a friend of mine.” Taehyun states, stressing the word “friend” more than necessary, glaring at the brunette.

Choi Beomgyu gasps in a very dramatic way, slamming his palm on his chest as dramatically.

“- You did not just introduce me as your friend!”

Jungwon does not really get what is happening. He does not ask for an explanation, though.

“- Deserved, I don’t want to be associated with you more than that anymore.” Taehyun huffs as he goes back to his cards. Jungwon guesses the blonde is just occupying his hands with something, without any trick in mind.

Beomgyu chuckles, taking the hat off Taehyun’s head to put it on his own. He grabs what looks like a magical wound and turns it around, pointing at a red plastic cup on the table.

“- Wingardium Leviooooosaaaa.” He chants.

Jungwon blinks.

He did not just-

“- I’m sorry, he’s a dork.” Taehyun winces, pointing at Choi Beomgyu with his thumb.

“- Your dork!” Beomgyu giggles, putting down the stick.

“- He’s my boyfriend.” Taehyun sighs exasperatedly, although with an endeared smile playing on his lips. “- Unfortunately.” He mumbles the last word, as if Beomgyu would not be able to hear him.

Beomgyu does not hear him.

 “- Do I look good?” He asks happily, turning to face Jungwon, fingers gripping the edge of the hat.

“- Yes!” Jungwon smiles. Beomgyu beams.

“- Okay, do you want to see a magic trick?” Taehyun asks him, spreading the cards on the table in a perfect arc.

“- Amaze me.”

Jungwon has always wanted to be smart.

Scratch that. He has always wanted to look smart. Smartness radiated attractiveness, he believed. When you are smart, you look good even if you are ugly, people see you under a different light, they label you. However, there were some people who already looked good, and were smart. Jungwon realized this category of people existed the moment Park Jay opened his mouth to explain how the invention displayed between them on the table, among other intimidating inventions and wires.

So, Park Jay, the good-looking senior who he thought he would find among the basketball players of the university’s team, was actually a hidden nerd.

Park Jay was passionately explaining every detail of every detail of every detail of what the thing was and how it worked, mentioning its pros and cons.  He was so immersed in his explaining, pointing each part of the device (?) with his fingers and gesturing with his hands to explain some kind of movements, that he, at some point of his detailed explanation, stopped asking Jungwon if he was following at all. Jungwon had stopped following mid-explanation, his braincells giving up and his brain overheating. He knew that the object Park Jay was presenting to him was a small prototype of an electric cherry picker which the boy had made himself. He was wondering if Park Jay noticed how he was not looking at the machine (?) anymore but was rather staring at his face, nodding absently and letting out rare ‘yeah’s and ‘okay’s from time to time.

“- Any question?” He asked at last, clapping his hands once before putting them on his hips.

Jungwon blinks at him.

“- You didn’t get anything, did you?” Jay laughs softly.

Jungwon decides it is time to tease.

“- Are you implying that I am stupid?” he asks, voice neutral and severe, raising one eyebrow while keeping what he knows is his intimidating poker face. He tries to look dead-serious.

“- N-No! Of course not… You don’t look stupid at all, I mean…” The boy stutters, scratching his nape, looking away. He looks flustered, and Jungwon decides that it is worth the teasing.

He sighs.

“- Here, I thought this club would be different, ‘smart’ majors always think of the others as stupid, dumb, not smart enough to understand what they do or talk about. You underestimate everyone who is far from your field, don’t you?” Jungwon asks, tilting his head to the side. Park Jay opens his mouth to reply but Jungwon adds. “- Let me tell you, acting like that doesn’t make you the slightest cool.”

He walks away to the next member in the queue, a quite short guy with round glasses who was explaining his own made robot. On one hand, because other students wanted to take a peek of the devices he already checked. On the other hand, to leave the boy more dumbfounded than earlier.

Jungwon does not get the short boy’s name, he is already explaining something to two students and Jungwon decides to listen to it even if he does not get anything because he missed half of the explanation. The boy’s voice is soft, contrasting with Jay’s loud and enthusiastic one, and Jungwon finds it difficult to hear him correctly with all the ruckus happening around them.

When Jungwon arrives at the end of the table, he is met with a stack of green post-its, a white laptop computer and a container.

He glances at the laptop with interest. The plastic case of its top panel is covered with post-its; written on them are different messages with different hand-writings.

Jungwon looks at the glass turtle-shaped container half-filled with candies. He wanted one.

“- You can take one if you want, we put it for our visitors.”

Jungwon looks up, softly shaking his hand to get his fringe out of the way. A new face, probably another member. He is wearing black leathery mittens and Jungwon finds it cool.

“- Thanks.” He says, picking out a rectangular one wrapped in a transparent plastic cover. The candy was light pink, glistening with the words ‘Eat Me’ written on its top in brown. Jungwon guesses it must be chocolate or caramel. He unwraps it and takes a bite while tucking the wrapper in his pocket, making a note to throw it away later. He frowns at the taste; it has a surprisingly special but good taste. Jungwon cannot really tell what is inside but he can feel the faint taste of almond and pistachios melding with the elastic texture of what must be cherry sirop.

“- Careful, you might turn tiny. Or well, tinier.” A voice chuckles.

The boy from earlier is nowhere to be seen. Instead, there is that other boy (God, is this club composed only of boys?) who was trotting from spot to another, checking on everyone, laughing with everyone, cheerfully talking to every single student. He attracted a lot of people.

“- Hm?” Jungwon hums, confused.

“- D’you like it?” He smiles.

“- Yeah, can I take another one?” Jungwon asks politely.

The other boy’s eyes widen.

“- Yeah… Sure.”

And so, Jungwon does.

“- They are homemade, you know.” The boy points out.

“- I figured that out, it came out pretty well.” Jungwon nods, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips.

“- Thanks, even though I’m not the one who made them.” Before Jungwon can ask the ‘who, then?’ the boy beams. “- Oh right, here, you can write something for our club, a small message.”

He holds out a pen for him to take.

“- What am I supposed to write?” He asks, hesitantly grabbing the blue pen.

“- Anything.” He shrugs.

“- Anything?”

“- Anything!” The boy smiles encouragingly.

Jungwon takes the stack of post-its to bring it closer and bends down to write something. He does not think much, he already has an idea.

“- People even wrote their numbers and pick-up lines.” The boy groans. Jungwon snorts. It was not surprising, with all the hot guys occupying the club. “- Don’t do that.” He adds, tone waring but playful pointing at him with his index. Jungwon chuckles. No way he is doing that. “- Some even wrote bad words.” He scoffs. Jungwon scrunches up his nose in disgust. “- Someone sticked a ‘fuck you’! can you imagine! And someone else left a ‘Fuck me Park Jay-ssi’! I swear Gen Z is so shameless!”

Jungwon’s hand stumbles and the letter he was calligraphing is all messed up. He feels his face heating up for no reason at all.

“- Take this.” He stretches out the paper to the boy in front of him.

“- Oh wow!” he whistles, eagerly taking the message. “- It almost looks engraved! It’s so beautiful! The letters look so pretty!” he bounces up and down in excitement as he grins at post-it. “- The message is also so good, you’re so kind! Thank you!” he smiles at him.

Jungwon smiles back.

‘Remember, that stars shine the brightest in the darkness’.

“- You’re welcome.”

“- Aha! I’m keeping it for myself~” He giggles, sticking the post-it in a spare spot on the laptop’s top panel. “- So, are you joining the club?” he sighs.

“- I don’t think so.” Jungwon answers honestly. This was not his domain at all, even though he was looking for something scientific in order not to completely from sciences.

The boy’s smile drops in record time.

“- Oh… I’m Jake, by the way.” He introduces himself even though Jungwon did not ask him to.

“- Yeah.” Jungwon answers softly.

Jake looks at him, waiting. He raises his eyebrows at him, and Jungwon looks back at him with his signature neutral face. Did this Jake guy want something?

“- Aren’t you… going to tell me your name?” He asks carefully, as if Jungwon was going to snap at him.

“- Jungwon.” He sighs. It was not like he was going to meet Jake on daily basis from now on. He was pretty positive that he will not hear about the guy for a long time.

“- Enchanted!” Jake smiles, bowing. Jungwon bows back. Jake looked older than him. In fact, every member looked older than him, they looked more professional, as though they had been dealing with university for a long time.

“- I have a suggestion.”

Jungwon turns his head when he hears Riki’s voice coming from his right, he is two steps away from him, talking to another boy, probably another member of the club, tall with fair hair which almost looked white, the color was pretty dusty.

“- What about this, the logo of your club clearly sucks, it looks made by a 5 years old kid.” Riki starts.

Jungwon approaches him, curious. He completely forgot about his two best friends. Riki had strolled off to some other expositions on the other side of the yard while Sunoo had been following him for a moment before Jungwon had lost sight of him. He still was nowhere to be seen, but Jungwon did not worry too much, he guesses the blonde must be taking videos, photos and selfies everywhere around. He will just call him if needed. Riki, however, came back to the robotics club, seemingly having something in his mind.

“- So, I thought about designing you a new one, cool and catchy. What about something cyberpunk? Like, half-human half-robot?” Riki smiles excitingly, palms pressed against the table, leaning over it and almost reaching the other’s personal space.

“- Uh…” the other boy seemed quite speechless, clearly not expecting something like that to happen.

“- Hey, stop bullying my soulmate!” Jake calls out, his tone seems playful and light. He was probably joking. He approaches them. “- What is going on?”

“- I just want to try something out for the emblem of your club. For free, of course.” Riki explains, drumming his fingers on the table.

“- Hmhm.” Jake hums, “- What’s your major?”

“- Arts. I do painting.” Riki answers proudly. He has always been so proud of his major. Jungwon knew that his best friend was doing what he dreamed of doing and was really happy for him. Riki has always felt confident about his skills, and Jungwon thought that he had every right to; his works were stunning.

“- That’s interesting!” Jake claps his hands once in excitement. “- Let me just ask if it’s alright with the head of the club, but you can start working on it if you’re inspired! I don’t think anyone would disagree about the idea!”

Riki’s face lightens up and Jungwon rolls his eyes at his expression. The kid always loved having things go his way more than anything. He liked when people accepted everything he suggested and told him his idea was the best. It was annoying at times because it made him very stubborn, sometimes he went even jealous when he had to admit that someone had a better idea than him, Jungwon was here to make sure his jealousy did not go too far and grew into something more dangerous, like envy for example.

“- Are you going to join this club?”

Jungwon darts his attention away from Riki and Jake to the person now standing in front of him. He notices only now how Jake and the boy Riki was talking to had most likely traded places.

“- No. I’m still thinking about it.”

“- Why not? It’s a great opportunity.” The boy says. Jungwon notices how he looks and sounds very different from Jake. Jake was bubbly and more energetic, a little bit loud and impulsive, he gave him almost the same vibe as Sunoo with his easy smiles and free way of expressing himself. This boy, who must be Jake’s friend, was way more reserved and a little bit awkward. He also talked softly and calmly.

Jungwon was not complaining; after talking to all these people, he wanted some peace.

“- Are you scared?”

“- What?”

“- Are you scared of joining?” He clarifies. Jungwon looks at him blankly.

How did he know that Jungwon was scared?

“- It’s okay, I was scared too, there were lots of intimidating members. I thought I would feel dumb if I joined, but not at all.”

That were exactly Jungwon’s worries.

“- Look over there.” He points at one of the members talking with other students. “- This one’s a genius.”

Jungwon’s eyes automatically find Park Jay’s silhouette.

“- Which one?”

“- The short one with specs.”

“- Oh.” Jungwon looks his way briefly before facing the blonde again.

“- But believe me, he’s the most humble and patient person I’ve ever met.” The boy sighs, offering a small smile.

“- Yeah, I… I don’t know anything about robotics, electronics or programming.” Jungwon admits feebly.

“- Oh, it’s alright.” He waves it off with a hand as if he expected Jungwon to say something like that. “- You’ll learn everything in the workshops organized and-”

“- Hoon, you know I love you but what in hell are you doing?” Jake cuts him off, rushing to his side, and the platinum blonde looks at him dumbly. He blinks.

“- Reassuring the peasant.” He answers, gesturing to Jungwon with both hands.

“- Sunghoon is not even in this club.” Jake tells him, harshly putting both hands on Sunghoon’s shoulders to guide him out of here. Sunghoon does not move, though; he just smiles widely, enjoying the situation.

“- So why does he…” Jungwon starts, confused.

“- He’s just a nosy person.” Jake explains.

“- You’re breaking my heart, I just wanted to come see you.” Sunghoon fake-sobs.

“- Does Chan-sunbaenim even know you’re here?” Jake asks, ignoring his antics.

“- I didn’t tell him, but I’m pretty sure he knows I’m here.”

“- Trying to look like a robotic club member to confuse people. Again.” Jake says, raising one brow.

“- That’s not true.”

“- Right, so why did you take off your white overall and goggles?” Jake snorts.

“- ‘Cuz they’re uncomfy.”

“- Fuck off or I’m telling Chan-sunbaenim and Felix-sunbaenim that you are attracting members for our club instead of theirs.” Jake threatens, obviously joking. He pushes Sunghoon away and the latter walks away, laughing.

“- My my, sometimes he’s a handful.” Jake sighs, looking back at him. He opens his mouth to say something but a ball of sunshine interrupts their interaction by literally throwing itself on Jungwon’s body.

“- Wonie! I found a chess club! The player is amazing! You should see him!” Sunoo squeaks as he pulls Jungwon by his arm. He barely has the time to say goodbye at Jake, the latter waving with a smile.

Sunoo drags him through the sea of students to the lone table in the middle of the stands where a chess board is placed. Two students, a boy and a girl, were sitting on either side of the square table, facing each other. Jungwon eyes the boy’s weird hair color; blue newspaper. Was it a trend to have weird hair colors here?

A few people were gathered around the little chess setting. The two players were completely frozen, unmoving for almost one entire minute.

The boy holds up an open note book, and on the page is written a “You lost”. Jungwon stares at it in confusion.

“- Not yet.” The girl, with long brown hair, says, hands hovering hesitantly over her pieces after glancing briefly at the note.  

“- C’mon Lily, he says you lost.” Another girl, standing by her right groans.

The girl, probably named Lily, finally moves her pieces. As soon as she does, the boy moves his, holding them in a very special way and putting them quickly where he wants; his movements are so fast Jungwon can barely follow them.

The girl stares, stunned and lost.

The boy changes the page of his notebook and holds it up again.

“Checkmate” it reads.

Jungwon does not see any of the kings killed yet. He does not get it, but at the same time, he sucks at chess, so he tells himself it is probably something only the professionals can understand. So, he just settles on enjoying watching the game without trying to wrap his mind around what was happening to each chess piece. He had played chess in the past; he knows how each piece can move as well as the set, but he does not know about the strategies and techniques, he used to play dumbly and just for fun.

The girl pushes her chair with a groan before getting up and leaving without even sparing the boy a last glance.

After that, Jungwon watches how the boy kills king after king. He never speaks, he just holds up the “checkmate” each time he knows that this is the end, and each time, Jungwon does not expect it when the boy claims that his opponent lost already. He rather feels like the game stopped in the middle, similar to the feeling of listening to a new song you are enjoying but it stops in the middle of the chorus.

After about three more games, Sunoo tells him that he is going to check some other clubs. Jungwon guesses he is one of the only spectators who is not bored yet, so he does not really blame his best friend for leaving him after bringing him here, he was enjoying it more than he thought he would.

When Sunoo left, Jungwon realized that he had not recorded anything from the whole event since he entered it. And so, he pulled out his phone to start recording the next game, at least one, in order to keep the memory of this amazing chess player forever in his gallery. He took care of taking only their hands, though.

At the end of one of the games, though. Instead of holding up the ‘checkmate’, the boy flips to another blank page and writes.

‘You’re a good player’, it says.

Jungwon had the impression that, this time, the game had lasted somehow longer than the previous ones. He had thought that it was just him, but in the end, it seemed like it was really the case.

The said good player bows curtly, smiling brightly, showing a row of perfectly lined white teeth, mouthing a ‘thanks’. The blue-haired boy writes again.

‘Do you want to join the club?’

His opponent blinks, a little bit surprised.

“- I’ll think about it!” he nods wisely.

‘Can you write me down your name, though?’ He writes.

‘Lee Heeseung, and you?’ the boy writes.

‘Choi Soobin’

And that is how Jungwon learns the name of the mind-blowing chess player.

After that, the two boys smile at each other, and it was the first time Jungwon sees Choi Soobin smiling since he started watching him play. The boy had always had a neutral and impassive expression on his face. His dimples remind Jungwon of his own.

Jungwon decides this is the end of his time here when that Lee Heeseung guy leaves. He was really about to leave the little gathering, going back to wandering around to maybe find another interesting or unusual club. However, the arrival of a certain very special and catchy character stops him from turning heels.

Phone still between his hands, opened on his camera, Jungwon stares at the bright pink hair wearing a cowboy hat and outfit. He walks toward the empty chair as Choi Soobin is putting back the pieces in their place. The newcomer catches all eyes except the chess player’s ones. In fact, he does lift his eyes up only when the stranger slumps down on the chair, one leg on the other and a smirk on his glossy lips, their color matching his hair’s. Jungwon frowns at the little notebook and pencil he is holding as well. The cowboy (?) swivels the pencil between his fingers a couple of times before starting to write something on his notebook.

Jungwon catches a ‘Let’s make a deal’ before the boy turns the notebook around for Choi Soobin to look at it.

‘I don’t know about it; you’re way too suspicious’ Choi Soobin responds via his own notebook.

Is it trendy? To communicate like this? Or was Jungwon missing out something important?

The boy’s smile grows wider and his reply draws the attention of everyone. Some even ooooooh’s.

‘If I win, you go out with me’, it reads.

Even if it was for barely two seconds, Choi Soobin seems taken aback, lips slightly parting and eyes growing faintly wider. He is back to neutral façade in no time, though.

‘You will not win’

‘Well then, just accept, you’re not scared of losing anyway, are you?’

Choi Soobin does not write anything else; he puts down the notebook and the pen and resumes readjusting the pieces in the right order on the chess board. With a satisfied smile, the pink-haired boy helps him out so they can start.

Jungwon easily admits that the game passes in a flash; the two were way too fast in moving their chess pieces. They also played with a timer this time, it was Choi Soobin’s condition, he had claimed that it would be too easy either way, and Jungwon likes how the blue-haired had felt that his opponent was no joke this time.

The cowboy was not all bark and no bite as Jungwon had expected him to be. He must confess that he unintentionally found himself in Choi Soobin’s side, not because he did not want the other to win the deal but simply because he found himself attached to Choi Soobin’s way of playing, sticking to his believe that the boy was the best player so far and no one can bring him down.

The chess board was burning, turning into a real battle field, and although Choi Soobin seemed rather annoyed when the deal was set, he was now boiling with excitation. Jungwon gets it, he wanted a good opponent, someone who would keep him on his toes, he wanted an interesting game and he was finally getting it. He was way more focused and immersed, it felt as though Jungwon was seeing him play for the first time. Do not get him wrong, he still did not get anything from what was happening on the chess board and the game still felt as if it ended in the middle, but he could feel the tension hanging above them as they fought.

Jungwon is glad he recorded all of it.

Against all expectations, again, Choi Soobin was not a sore loser. He smiles when the cowboy wins, a sheer satisfied and almost grateful smile.

A ‘Thank you for meeting my expectations’ smile.

Jungwon almost facepalms when the two players start communicating again.

It was not like Choi Soobin’s hair was very long, and even from his spot, the blue hearing aid covering his ears was very much noticeable.

It was not until the pink-haired boy starts using his hands, very sign language style, that Jungwon started understanding that Choi Soobin was in fact deaf, and his eyes automatically fell on his hearing aid, which he had been stupidly missing until now.

To say Choi Soobin was surprised when he started using sign language would be the understatement of history; he was astonished, and this time, for pretty much a long moment. A sign language conversation which would probably would stay a secret for everyone that witnessed it ensues and even though no one was getting what the two were telling each other, no one interrupted their interaction and watched carefully.

Jungwon sees the cowboy writing down what may be his number on Choi Soobin’s notebook after standing up, he then winks at the chess player and leaves, pushing down his sunglasses on his nose, slinging his jacket on his shoulder and walking off like a supernova.

After that, Jungwon leaves the scene, judging that it was really the end this time.

Not the end of his exploration of the clubs, though.

“- Ah! You’re here!” Sunoo sighs when he sees him; he was standing by the cooking club’s stand. “- I saw a very cute boy in the Chemistry Club~” He singsongs happily, and Jungwon loves how Sunoo becomes straight every time he catches sight of Nishimura Riki.

“- Yeah? What’s his name?” Jungwon asks as his eyes roam over all the pastries decorating the cooking club’s table. They looked all so pretty and tempting.

“- I couldn’t talk much to him, he seemed shy.” Sunoo says, and Jungwon can easily make out the pout through his voice.

“- Too bad, you gotta settle on your first option then.” Jungwon giggles.

“- What option?”

“- Riki.”

“- UGH! God no, over my dead body, he’s insufferable.” Sunoo laughs humorlessly.

“- Why? He likes you a lot, he’d treat you well, like a royalty, he’d tell you ‘I love you’ every morning and tell you how much you’re beautiful every night, he’d watch horror movies with you and bring you lunch, he’d cuddle with you and kiss you, he’d give you everything you want, he’d give you gifts regularly and he’d even celebrate Valentines with you even though he’s not into it, he’d even be romantic for you even if it’ll make him cringe.”

“- Did you date him or something?” Sunoo huffs jokingly.

“- Yes, he’s a good boyfriend, I recommend him. 10 outta 10” Jungwon smiles, holding up two thumbs.

“- HOW? I’M YOUR BEST FRIEND AND I NEVER KNEW?” Sunoo basically yells.

And it takes Jungwon everything in him not to combust on laugher.

“- I’m kidding. Jeez, I’m not even into boys.” He states. He earns a jab on the chest but it just makes him laugh.

“- How do you even know about all that, then.”

“- Well, Riki told me so, his rambling about ‘if I ever dated Sunoo-hyung I would’, it was a very traumatizing experience.” Jungwon shudders, suddenly remembering his late-night gaming with Riki when the youngest starts going on and on about how Kim Sunoo is such a beautiful being and how he deserves the best – Note: Nishimura Riki – at 2am. Jungwon had learnt that Riki becomes very emotional and open-hearted at 2am. So, when Jungwon felt that something was bothering the youngest and he did not find how to talk about it, he made sure to organize a gaming session which would last until 2am. Okay, so maybe most of the time it would be just him being a hopeless simp for Sunoo, but other times, it is worth it, even though Jungwon sucks at video games.

“- Well, he’ll never date me anyways, because as long as he is interested in me, I’m heterosexual.” Sunoo sighs dramatically.

“- Let’s find you a girlfriend, then.” Jungwon teases.

Sunoo makes a face.

“- EW! Shut up.”

“- I mean, what’s worse for you, Riki or a girlfriend?”

Sunoo looks at him, thinking.

“- Honestly, both are nightmares.” He admits and Jungwon laughs.

They go through the cooking club’s stand together when there is not a much students roving there. They talk to a guy called Wooyoung who introduces them to some pastries and briefly explains what they do in the cooking clubs: the activities, the events, the members. They even get to taste almost all of the sweets and Jungwon falls in love with their pineapple buns and puffy brioche doughnuts that have beautiful honeycomb structures with such a distinctively wet mouthfeel that Jungwon almost took the whole plate and ran away.

“- By the way, I saw a cowboy today.” Jungwon starts when they are still marveling at all the desserts displayed on the table. Jungwon is amazed by the quantity of it all, it felt like a royalty’s brunch, or in Gossip Girl.

“- Are you talking about Choi Yeonjun?” Sunoo snorts.

“- Choi Yeonjun?”

“- The Veterinary Club’s member wandering in cowboy clothes, pink hair, looks like the Cheshire cat?” Sunoo tries.

“- Yeah, him, I didn’t know you knew him.”

“- I don’t, he’s just so popular.” Sunoo explains, taking out a folding from the stack of pastel pink folding of the cooking clubs.

Jungwon nods absently, peeking at the content of the folding when Sunoo unfolds it.

“- He doesn’t talk, though.” Sunoo adds.

“- He doesn’t talk?” Jungwon frowns, looking at his best friend.

“- Yeah, he’s mute.” He nods.

“- Really?”

That explains a lot.

“- Yeah, he doesn’t look like he is, right?” Sunoo smiles; a sad smile, the one he has whenever he hears about a mundane accident on T.V news like a car accident, the same he had the day they both visited an orphanage for donation. “– Wonie, we need to catch the bus.” Sunoo gasps when he checks his phone.

“- We didn’t eat?”

“- We’ll eat once we’re back in the dorms!”

Okay, now Jungwon hates how they need to take a bus to reach their dorms. Aren’t dorms supposed to be near the university? This had always been a big problem and it was still not fixed yet. Jungwon does not think they will ever fix it; their campus was really one of a kind. It was a ten minutes bus ride but a good 30 minutes’ walk. Honestly, Jungwon used to just walk it because it was not that much. But that was in the beginning, when he was still okay with everything, witched by the excitement of entering university. Now, after a whole day of classes, or so, he would rather take the bus and arrive quickly to his dorm so that he can both rest and study.

Sunoo crosses his arm with his and pulls him with him, walking rapidly.

“- Wait!” Jungwon exclaims, stopping in his tracks and almost making his best friend fall.

Sunoo pouts.

“- What?”

“- I…”

He looks back at the robotics club.

“- You can go, I’ll join you.” He tells Sunoo before walking over at the stand.

Jungwon bites his lips, hands joined behind his back, his steps hesitant. His eyes look for a certain boy and he catches sight of Jake from the other side, still explaining this and that to some students, as well as the short guy with round glasses and some other faces he saw earlier.

Park Jay is sitting – or rather slumped down – on a chair, quite isolated from all the bustling running in their club. He is watching everything from afar while drinking water from a small plastic bottle. He looks pretty tired and Jungwon debates talking to him or not.

Fuck it.

“- Hey.” He greets with a small smile.

Park Jay almost falls from his chair when his eyes land on him, they grow wide and he chokes on his water.

He almost dies from coughing and Jungwon almost feels bad. But he does not, and he soon recovers, smiling widely at Jungwon, although with teary eyes.

“- Hi again!” he says, getting up from the chair so brusquely it falls on the ground. He walks over to where Jungwon is standing from the other side of the table and puts down the bottle of water.

The bottle of water falls and rolls off the table and all the water that lasted inside sheds on the floor.

They both ignore it.

“- I’ll pick it up later,” Jay reassures with a nod and a tight-lipped smile. “- Do you need anything?” he asks with a warm smile, hands casually pocketed in his black ripped jeans and brown eyes meeting his.

“- Not really, came back here to take a folding…” He lies.

“- Ah, you’re joining?” Jay asks, and Jungwon swears he sees the moment his eyes start sparkling with hope.

The ‘do you want me to?’ threatens to roll off the tip of his tongue.

“- Hmm…” he muses, looking to the side, fake-thinking. “- I dunno… After all, I’m too stupid for all this.” He sighs. “- I will just regret.”

When he looks back at Park Jay, the elder’s eyes grow wide and he looks suddenly alerted.

“- About earlier, I’m really sorry if I made you think that you were too stupid to understand what I was talking about, it’s just that usually the students I explain to don’t get anything not because they’re dumb or anything, I’m sure it’s me, I kinda suck at explaining correctly I just get too caught in what I’m explaining and forget that the person I’m explaining to doesn’t know the vocabulary I’m using. I’m sorry, really, no one’s stupid, everyone is intelligent in their own way and I’m sure you’re-”

Park Jay’s rambling is interrupted by Jungwon soft laugh.

To say Jungwon was amused would be a euphemism, he was delighted. He was smiling throughout all Jay’s panic, trying very hard to hold back his laugh.

He could not.

“- I’m sorry, I was just teasing you, you know… I didn’t expect you to take me seriously. Did it keep on nagging you?” he asks, cheeks slightly flushed from all his laughing.

“- Uh… Yeah… You looked very serious to me…” He answers, blinking. Jungwon can even see him growing paler as the information slowly sinks in his mind. “- Oh gosh, this is so embarrassing…” He laughs nervously, dropping down his head.

“- Not as embarrassing as that time.”

And Jungwon does not even have to mention what. Jay’s head snaps up and he looks at him, stunned.

“- You remember?” he asks in disbelief.

“- How to forget.” Jungwon smirks, and Jay lets out a groan, throwing his head back.

“- Please, don’t ever talk about that again, I want you to erase it from your memory.” He pleads.

“- No way, I’ll keep it as something interesting I’d tell my grandchildren.” He jokes. And this time at least, Jay laughs. “- Did you get to your appointment in time, though?”

“- Ah that… No, I was still late.” He confesses. “- But it had been better than if you hadn’t helped me, thank you again.” He bows.

And Jungwon must admit that the gesture flusters him a little. It was nothing, and it had happened months ago now, it did not matter at all anymore.

“- Don’t mention it.” He says instead, and he notices how the silvery chain hanging from Jay’s neck seesaws when he straightens up. “- Nice necklace.” He compliments.

“- Oh.” Jay looks down at his chain, holding the little pendant in the shape of Saturn, there was a shiny yellow jewel-like stone carved inside it. It was simple, but beautiful. “- Thanks.” He smiles brightly.

Jungwon opens his mouth to say that he has to go now. Sunoo is probably sulking, waiting for him near the buses. Nevertheless, Jay stops him by reaching out behind his neck.

“- Here,” he says. Next thing he knows, Jay is taking off his necklace and holding it out in Jungwon’s direction.

“- What?” Jungwon frowns.

Because he cannot mean that Jungwon can just take i-

“- You can take it if you want.” He says, matter-of-factly.

“- But it’s yours!” Jungwon stutters.

“- But you like it.” Jay says, and he has the decency to look confused by Jungwon’s behavior. “- You don’t want it?”

And why does he look sad by the idea of Jungwon not wanting it?

“- I can’t take it… It’s yours.” He insists. Because it was ridiculous, he cannot accept something (a gift?) from someone he barely knows. “- We barely know each other!”

“- I’m Park Jay.” He says, shaking his hand for Jungwon to take the beautiful chain.

“- I know who you are!” Jungwon almost yells in frustration.

And the smile blooming on Jay’s is almost unnerving, because Jungwon cannot hold his. He smiles back despite the situation.

“- Alright, Yang Jungwon.” He says, and maybe, just maybe, Jungwon’s heart skips a little beat when he hears him say his name, when sees him remembering his name.

Jay takes his writs and holds out his hand, opening it, before dropping the chain inside.

“- See ya.” He smiles before disappearing.

“- See you…?” Jungwon mumbles, staring down at Saturn.

A person who would keep you on your toes... Huh?

Yang Jungwon.

That was his name, that was what the boy told him that evening.

"- Hi. I am Yang Jungwon. And these two are my friends. And this is not a mirror."

Jake is still talking to him, rambling about something that happened today near the entrance of the cafeteria, but he was not listening anymore.

His eyes and his mind were focused on a silhouette standing near the glass window in front of him. From his spot, Jongseong could barely see his profile.

His beautiful profile.

His eyes slide down the side of his face, the little curve in his jawline, the faint dimple, his thin rosy lips, his long, black and fluffy hair, his snow-white skin, his slightly flushed cheeks. His gaze traces the line of his wide shoulders before going down down down and relishing in his small waist. He was wearing a bag on his shoulder so Jongseong had full view of his back and-

"- Are you gonna listen to me or keep on checking out this poor guy?" Jake asks, snapping two fingers above his nose.

"- I wasn't checking anyone out!" He sputters, voice growing higher and face heating up.

"- Sure thing pal. You were just eyeing his ass." Jake deadpans.

"- Sim Jaeyun!" Jongseong scolds, eyes growing wide at his best friend's blunt comment. "- I was just trying to figure out if he was who I think he was."

"- What?" Jake says, fervently turning his head to take a peek of the boy. "- We know him?"

"- Yeah. I think so." He sighs.

Him and Jake were riding the subway, which is quite unusual, for both have their respective cars. Despite that, they sometimes do not feel like driving, either because of laziness or because they know they are heading to a place like the mall where there is always little chances of finding where to park a car, let alone two. 

"- Oh but! That's Yang Jungwon!" Jake basically yells, and Jongseong has to stop him from doing something stupid and going to say "Hey!" To the boy.

"- That's what I thought, but please, can you stay still and not move anywhere.” He pleads, putting both hands on Jake’s shoulders to keep him rooted in place.

“- Why? We can just go say hi!” Jake smiles, bouncing mildly on his heels.

Jongseong ignores him and looks back at Yang Jungwon.

Something was off.

Jungwon calls himself a creep-attractor; because, just like light attracts flies, Yang Jungwon attracts creeps.

He remembers that day, during one lunch break where neither Sunoo nor Riki were available and he had to grab lunch and eat it alone. It was not unusual for him to be alone; he was not a very social person and sometimes, he needed to be alone.

That day, though, he wishes one of his best friends was with him. Especially Riki, because he somehow looked intimidating.

After buying his lunch had come the tough task of a place outside which was covered by the trees so that he will not transform into a dried fish by the end of his lunch.
Usually, it would take him quite the time, for the only spots would be already taken by the students.

Nevertheless, Jungwon liked that pretty isolated place which gave him a full view of the city. It was generally calm and windy. But it was also always squatted by couples. He found more than once at least one boy and one girl either being disgustingly in love under the tree on one of the semicircular benches, or holding hands, or even making out. They would glare at him because, even if he still did not pay attention to them and minded his business, he still had disturbed their intimacy by staying in the area.

Jungwon was hungry, he did not give a fuck about couples, so when it was his last option, he stayed there.

That day, however, the heavenly spot was empty, suspiciously so. Jungwon had curiously peeked at the place and nothing had seemed wrong so he had just went for it with a shrug.

Yet, he had barely unpacked his lunch that he saw someone standing beside a tree afar.

It was a man, probably in his fourties, wearing sunglasses and smiling.

Nothing was wrong until the man had looked his way, elbow prompted on the tree trunk as he smiled widely at him, before waving.

He had done it twice, still very much looking at Jungwon who swears he had never seen the man in his life. No one had been there save for him.

And when the man kept on smiling while obviously looking at him, Jungwon had froze.

It had taken him one second to grab his things and leave as soon as possible.

Nothing had happened, in the end, fortunately. But it was a quite scary experience and Jungwon wishes it never happened.

When he had told his two best friends about it later through messages, raining apologies had filled his phone screen. He had assured them that it was not their fault at all and that nothing had happened, but they still had felt guilty.

And, hey, Jungwon still knew how to fight very well, he did not need others to defend him.

That time was not the last one though.
Because right now, pretty much the same thing was happening.

It was different but it still gave him the same vibe.

Jungwon did not take the subway very often. He did so only when he was not heading to his dorm directly from the university. The subway was packed with students at this hour; the end of the afternoon and almost evening.

Today, he was heading to the mall; he had to meet up with both Riki and Sunoo there so that they would go shopping together, to celebrate the end of the week or whatever. It was Sunoo's idea...

And maybe, just maybe, he does not know that Riki is coming, too.

Jungwon thought that, maybe, it was karma; being punished because he did not tell Sunoo that the person he hates the most would be with them.

This time, it was much worse because :
One, The creep was standing just beside him, and as more people were arriving at the subway each station, the man was getting closer to him, insignificantly so.
Two, every time he looked the man's way, he found him staring at him with a very odd smile.
Three, the man's physical appearance was very suspicious, and Jungwon swears his eyes were red and dilated.

Scared would be weak of an adjective to describe his state right now. Jungwon was frightened. It was not as though the man would be able to do anything to him inside the subway with all those people around, yet he made him very uncomfortable and uneasy. He did not let it show on his face, keeping composure and a neutral face, but inside, he was about to crumble; he tried very hard to focus on the scenery outside and the music playing in his ears. He did not want to give the stranger any attention, lest he would take it the wrong way.

The man kept on walking closer and closer, until he was almost touching him. Jungwon could not even move further to the side because there were other people standing on his other side.
The man stinks and his face was not the most pleasing to look at; he looked as though barely released from prison. He simply looked disgusting.

The whole situation made Jungwon want to get off the means of transportation as quickly as possible. He really did consider existing the vehicle at the next station, even though it was not his terminus. He would not mind paying again if it will avoid him being any longer with this creepy guy.

Jungwon was seriously thinking about quitting the place when someone grabbed his wrist.

A sudden but very gentle touch which startles him and makes him snap his head behind him, ready to shove the person away.

Except he is met with quite a familiar pair of eyes.

He frowns, trying to process the fact that Park Jay just grabbed his wrist. He does not have the time to dwell on it however, for Park Jay tugs slightly on his wrist and brings him closer to him and away from the odd stranger.

In no time, he is standing in the opposite side. Park Jay is now standing right where Jungwon was, just beside the stranger.

He leans against the barrel, back to the big glass window, hands tucked in the pockets of his trousers and sends a pointed look at the man.

Surprisingly, the man backs off. Nevertheless, he looks at Jungwon one last time and Jungwon looks back.

"- Don't look at him." A voice instructs calmly.

Sim Jake is blocking is vision in no time, he stands in front of him and smiles.

"- Hi!" He greets happily.

"- Oh... Hi?" Jungwon greets back.

"- Are you alright?" He asks in a hushed voice but in a serious tone.

"- Yeah... Yeah, I'm fine." He nods.

Jake sighs in relief, closing his eyes and biting his lower lip.

"- Thank god! You looked about to jump out of the subway."

"- Probably because I was about to do that, yeah." Jungwon half-jokes.

"- It's okay, we got you!" Jake smiles, holding two thumbs up.

"- Thank you, I owe you... For real." Jungwon bows curtly.

"- No! Jongseong said you don't!" Jake chuckles, shaking his head.

"- Jongseong?" Jungwon frowns, tilting his head slightly to the side.

"- Yeah... Him? You know him, right?"

Jake moves a little bit to the side so that Jungwon can peeks at Park Jay.

"- Oh, Jay."

The boy is scrolling through his phone, but he immediately looks up when Jungwon looks at him and their eyes meet. He smiles with a little wink and Jungwon smiles back before turning his attention back on Jake.

"- Yes." The latter confirms.

And before Jungwon can ask if 'Jongseong' is Jay's full name or something like that, Jake is moving on. It somehow frustrates Jungwon but he guesses it must not be that important.

"- Where are you heading to?" Jake asks.

"- The mall."

"- Really? Me too!" Jake beams, looking delighted.

Jungwon hums.

"- Do you have anything in particular to buy there?"

Jake shuffles inside his back because pulling out what looks like a black egg.
Jungwon frowns at the small object, curious.

"- I need a new charger for my air pods." Jake explains, turning the egg upside down to show him the connector. "- The wire is fucked up."

"- And you have to go all the way to the mall to look for its charger?" Jungwon asks, raising one brow.

"- Well, not really. I'm most likely accompanying Jay, he's buying new clothes..." He pauses, thinking for two or three seconds before resuming. "- and probably new perfumes."

Well, that seems more interesting, indeed.

"- Ah, he needs new clothes, I think it's relatable." Jungwon muses.

Jake laughs unexpectedly at his statement.

"- No... No. He doesn't need new clothes, I'd rather say he wants new clothes."

Jungwon is very confused but he does not push it further, deciding to close this conversation and move on.

"- So? Are you meeting up with some friends too?" Jake asks when they both exit the subway.

"- Yup!" Jungwon replies, wincing when he suddenly remembers that said friends do not get along.

He will probably get yelled at by Sunoo. At least, Riki will be very grateful.

"- Let's go."

They both turn around at Jay's voice; the boy is walking their way, and it is at this moment that Jungwon notices just how well-dressed he is. The effort he put in choosing each outfit is quite noticeable; the outfit in itself was not that special, it just suited him formidably.

He looks expensive, like those rich boys in the dramas.

Jungwon finds himself walking the short distance between the subway station and the mall with the two other boys. He does not quite understand why he did not walk by himself but something tells him at least Jake would be offended if he did so.

The station was facing the big building of the mall so they did not have to walk for longer than five minutes to reach the entrance of the mall.

It was relatively silent except for Jay and Jake's small conversations about what shops they will explore first. They seemed quite familiar with everything compared to Jungwon.

Jungwon starts panicking when he spots his two best friends standing near the main door of the building. He slows down when he sees them acting like they do not know each other.

He thinks he can see the pout on Sunoo's lips from there.

The blonde notices him before he is close enough for them to talk, and if eyes could kill, Jungwon would probably be dead more than one time by now.

The glare Sunoo sends him says it all; he was irritated.

What Jungwon did not expect, however, is how his expression changes into one of confusion and curiosity as he looks at Jungwon's left.

That is when he realizes that Park Jay and Sim Jake are still walking by his side.

"- That's your friends?" Jay asks him as the three of them approach Sunoo and Riki.

"- Yeah."

The youngest smiles widely when he sees him and it makes him forget Sunoo's glare somehow.

"- Oh hey! I remember you! I saw you at Student's Day!" Jake chirps as soon as they reach them.

"- Yeah, Riki, enchanted." Riki smirks before bowing curtly to both Jay and Jake.

They both introduce themselves as well and Jungwon just watches them do so, enjoying the fact that they all seem to get along... More or so.

"- That's Sunoo." Riki says, pointing at the blonde with his thumb.

"- I can introduce myself, you know!" Sunoo snaps at him. "- I'm Kim Sunoo, very enchanted to meet you both, you're so handsome." He says, offering both a very bright and lovely smile, the one that can charm any human being.

"- So, you're both Jungwon's friends?" Jay asks.

"- Yeah." Riki smiles.

"- Yes, that's what I am supposed to be, although I'm very likely reconsidering the title." Sunoo says, briefly glancing his way.

Jungwon cannot help rolling his eyes at his overreaction.

After a few more words exchanged between them, Jay and Jake leave them at their occupations after goodbyes and see you's.

Sunoo looks his way, opens his mouth, about to say something. Yet, he ends up closing it and walks inside the mall without uttering a word, chin held up and heels knocking the floor loudly with each step.

"- What was that." Riki chuckles.

"- Him being his sassy self." Jungwon laughs before grabbing Riki by the sleeve of his leather jacket to drag him inside.

They do meet them again, obviously. In fact, they keep on spotting them throughout their exploration of the different shops and areas of the mall but they all act like they did not see each other.

Until the moment both Riki and Sunoo enter the gaming shop and never come back. In one side, Jungwon is glad the two have something in common to get excited over, a mutual interest beside photography. Maybe, they will get closer after this outing; it was what Jungwon was aiming at, after all. On the other hand, he was bored. He did not hold any kind of interest for video games, so he went to another store.

It was less exciting without his friends.

He was now wandering inside an accessories store, between the rows and rows of sunglasses. He tried a lot of pairs, thinking about taking one; summer was coming soon.

"- Hey, try this instead."

Jungwon turns his head to his right and it is Park Jay, again.

"- Oh, it's you." He says, eyeing the pair of sunglasses the boy was holding out for him.

"- Yeah... Am I disturbing you, right now?" He asks politely.

"- No, not really, Sunoo and Riki are at the gaming shop, but it's not really my cup of tea, so here I am." He explains, opting for being honest. He did not see the point of lying about it, even less to Park Jay who seemed to be such a nice person.

"- Ah, you're not into gaming?" Jay asks, watching carefully through the mirror as Jungwon puts the glasses on.

"- I'm not."

"- Me neither." Jay mumbles. He was staring at Jungwon's new look, curiously focused, as though evaluating how the glasses looked on him.

"- I look good, I think it suits me!" He smiles, tilting his head from different sides. "- I like it."

They were rectangular. Jungwon did not know much about sunglasses but he knew that the rectangular and square ones suit him the best, or so he thinks.

"- Yeah, they look good on you." Jay smiles widely through the mirror.

"- Thanks." He smiles back.

"- Don't mention it."

"- Where's Jake?" He asks, taking off the glasses. He will probably take them.

"- Went to find me a gift without being subtle about it." Jay sniggers.

"- Is it your birthday?"

"- This month." Jay answers, choosing one of the several pairs of sunglasses hung by the wall.

They both try some other pairs and Jungwon ends up buying the first pair Jay proposed, because yes, he suggested a lot more after that, explaining to Jungwon how each one framed his face and suited his nose.

Jungwon did not get it all, but it was fun to watch him so invested in something so simple.

They leave the shop together and start doing the rest of the stores of the storey together without really deciding on it.

Jungwon must admit, shopping with Park Jay is much more interesting. And by the fifth clothes shop they visit, Jungwon suspects the boy is into fashion.

"- This one! It'll look awesome on you!" Jay tells him. He shoves a pair of jeans in his hands.

And honestly, Jungwon does not see the difference between this one and the one he tried a while ago.
Jungwon could complain about literally being Park Jay's doll or mannequin. But he is getting a fashion guide for free, so it would be wrong to complain about it.

Plus, he is enjoying it, even when Jay manages to make him try three shirts which look exactly the same.
He came to the conclusion that Park Jay sees things he does not.

After all, Jay tried as much things as him, if not more. And in contrast with Jungwon, he had five bags full of different clothing and accessories.

Jungwon does not know shit about fashion, but Park Jay is adorable when he rambles about it.

"- Why didn't you do fashion studies or whatever the hell they call it." Jungwon asks.

They are somehow both seating at a table in one of the restaurants of the last floor of the mall, eating hamburgers. They both agreed on settling somewhere to eat something because they were starving.

"- Well." Jay starts as he munches on his hamburger. He swallows the mouthful before speaking again. "- I could have, but I don't see it as something other than a hobby. I wanted to do electronics engineering, so it's okay."

Only Jungwon sees is pure honesty.

"- That's good." Jungwon says.

"- What's good?"

"- Having a hobby."

"- Don't you?"

"- I don't know if dance is considered as a hobby." Jungwon says, suddenly feeling shy. He does not really talk about it.

"- Why not? It seems like a hobby to me." Jay smiles softly, putting down his hamburger to grab the bottle of lemonade.

"- I am in a dance club with Riki." He informs, pushing his cup beside Jay's cup with his free hand when he sees him pouring the drink in it. "- I like it a lot."

"- See? As long as you like it, it can be hobby." Jay says, giving him back his cup. "- It's nice to learn new things, I think."

After eating and sharing some more mundane information about each other with one another, they start arguing about who pays. Jungwon should have seen it coming, Jay looked like the guy who would insist on paying.

After almost begging him to let him pay for himself, Jungwon decides to use his secret weapon.

"- So, you're insinuating that I'm too broke to pay for myself?" He says. He does not think so one bit, but he had to.

"- No! Obviously not!" Jay splutters, eyes growing wide. He seems to believe Jungwon is serious and it kind of make the younger want to drop the play and just laugh.

Park Jay is suite fun to tease.

"- Right, then let's split, half-half. That's my last word." He decides.

Jay caves in, although reluctantly.

Jungwon could not imagine himself running in the mall after Park Jay to give him back his money.

After that, they resume wandering around the floors of the building, absently exchanging a few words from time to time as they walk through the hallways.

It's nice, Jungwon thinks.

Jungwon almost trips over nothingness when Jay pulls him harshly by the sleeve of his hoodie.

They spend almost half an hour inside the perfumes store.
Thing is, almost all the perfumes smell the same to Jungwon. So, he does not really get it when Park Jay spends ten minutes comparing two bottles of perfume. He talks a lot with the owner of the shop and Jungwon understands that he must be discussing the perfumes with the man.

He looks very interested. It makes Jungwon's heart flutter to see him so immersed.

Despite his little knowledge about the world of perfumes, one catches his attention and he almost falls in love with its smell.

"- It's sweet!" He tells Jay after showing him the perfume. Jay approves his choice and it is enough for Jungwon to promise himself to come back and buy it.

When they leave the store, Jungwon learns that Jay smells of blackberries. Whatever blackberries are supposed to smell like; he has no idea. Jay tells him about his usual cologne and it is blackberries.

Jungwon thinks it is time for them to find their respective friends before parting ways.

Except, they do not. The main reason is because they are met with the library of the first floor.

Jungwon drags Jay with him to his paradise. He marvels to the new books they brought and gets excited over the new editions he finds.

He does as he usually does when he enters a bookstore or a library; he opens books, reads their summaries, checks the author, the title, reads the first pages and sometimes finished the prologue.

"- Didn't label you as a bookworm." Jay chuckles behind him.

Jungwon smiles.

"- I think it's pretty obvious for a literature student." He replies, eyes still on the page of the book.

"- That, I didn't know, you never told me about it." Jay says, and Jungwon can read the slight surprise in his tone.

He looks up; Jay is leaning against the bookcase, eyes on him, hands inside his pants' pocket.

"- Now you know." Jungwon says, holding his gaze. "- And besides, I didn't label you as a fashionista either."

"- Right, then what did you label me as?"

"- A stupid jock." Jungwon says, closing the book.

"- Okay now that hurts!" Jay exclaims, but he is smiling. "- I hope people don't always see me like that."

Jungwon hums.

"- If not, they may think you're a playboy." He teases.

"- Oh my god, that's completely untrue!" He groans.

Jungwon giggles.

"- Really?"

"- Yes! I didn't date anyone in two years!" He replies, voice pitch higher than usual.

The information makes Jungwon's heart pump up in his chest, and he has to exhale before speaking again.

"- I'm sorry if you're bored right now, you can leave if you want to."

"- I know. I don't want to." He says, pushing himself off the bookcase. "- It's payback, right?" He smirks.

Jungwon slaps his arm with the book he is holding.

Jungwon buys a book, and Jay surprisingly buys a magazine. They leave together, chatting light-heartedly about their purchases.

Jungwon's phone rings when they are both drooling over the set of sweets and candies displayed in colorful and very tempting rows. The candy shop is one of Jungwon's favorite, even if he rarely buys anything from it because it is way too expensive.

"- It's Sunoo." He says before picking up.

"- WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU."

Jungwon winces pulling his device away from his ear. Jay looks his way, probably hearing Sunoo's voice from the phone.

"- Shut up, everyone in this shop heard you." Jungwon whispers.

"- I don't know where you are, and I honestly don't care, just bring your pretty ass up here, right now." Sunoo commands.

"- There where?"

"- The second floor, near the ice-cream parlor. I can't believe you left me alone.”

"- Alone? Why? Where's Riki?" Jungwon asks, suddenly worrying about the youngest.

He just left Nishimura Riki and Kim Sunoo alone, he realizes.

There is silence on the other line before Sunoo hangs up.

Jungwon stares at his phone screen, hoping that Riki is still alive and whole.

"- What's wrong?"

Jungwon looks up at Jay, and the eldest looks worried.

"- I should go, Sunoo's waiting for me." He explains briefly, a silent 'we should part ways now".

"- I see, well, take care." Jay smiles.

"- Yeah... It was nice hanging out with you." Jungwon smiles as well.

"- The feeling is mutual."

It relieves Jungwon to know that; he was really hoping he was not bothering the other boy by staying with him. Or was it Jay who was staying with him? After all, he could have left at any moment.

"- See you then." Jungwon nods.

"- Wait, can I have your number? Or your Instagram? Or something like that." Jay asks. He does it so nonchalantly.

Jungwon does not think about it at all.

"- Sure."

Jake's playlist is awful.

Jongseong has to be honest, he likes Jake a lot, but God, his taste in music is so questionable.

"- Jake, I swear to God, this is the last one." He says, steering the wheel as he manages the flashing car.

Jongseong is driving inside their campus, heading to the parking lots near the engineering building, looking for a shady spot to park the car. The car was Jake's black convertible one; the younger did not want to drive himself, so Jongseong had taken the wheel.

"- Buuuuut... This one is good, right?" Jake pouts. He is back at dancing bizarrely in the passenger seat. He calls it vibing.

"- No. It sounds exactly like the last twelve one you made me listen to." Jongseong deadpans.

Jake gasps. He does not pause the song, though. Just like Jongseong does not learn the name of the artist his best friend is lately being obssessed with.

Jake starts explaining why this type of music is a masterpiece, and Jongseong tries to listen to him, because even if he does not share his taste, he can at least listen to him expressing why he likes it so much.

However, his attention is unintentionally attracted by a certain boy seating on a bench.

Jongseong watches as Yang Jungwon scribbles on a notebook, thin rosy lips mouthing hushed syllables as his ebony hair falls on his forehead and covers almost the entirety of his nape. Jongseong also notices the white earphones hanging around his neck and the silvery curb chain around his delicate wrist.

He was going to be sunstruck.

He looked beautiful, though.

"- Dude what the heck!" Jake yells as he alarmingly grips the steering wheel, and the car is somehow pulled to a halt.

Jongseong's cloud evaporates and he is back to reality.

And Jake is glaring at him, so he looks back dumbly.

"- What."

"- You almost crashed my car!" Jake whines. "- You were heading straight in a FREAKING TREE."

Jongseong stares at the tree in front of them.

"- Ah...” He blinks. “- Sorry.”

“- Get out.” Jake drones.

“- Uh…”

“- Come on, lemme drive! You’re gonna kill us, for real.” He demands.

Jongseong undoes his seat belt and jumps out of the car, not bothering to open the door. His eyes find Yang Jungwon, still sitting on a bench under the sun. He looks back at Jake who is getting comfortable on the driver seat.

Jongseong walks off toward Jungwon. He approaches him carefully and as silently as possible; he walks behind the bench and props his arms on its backrest, staring at the boy without saying anything, trying to see if the youngest would notice him by himself. In fact, he does not look like he will; he was completely immersed in what looked like his notes.

“- Hey.” He speaks up.

And the way Jungwon startles when he turns around, almost dropping everything from his lap makes him smile.

“- Hey! What are you doing here?” He smiles nevertheless, although still looking a little bit surprised.

“- Was just passing by.” Jongseong shrugs. “- am I bothering?”

“- No, not really.” Jungwon shakes his head, starting to gather his notes in order to hide them. “- Come sit.” He hums, patting the seat beside him. Jongseong complies happily.

“- Why are you sitting in the sun, though?” He asks.

“- I don’t know…” Jungwon slurs, hiding his handouts and notes before putting his bag on his lap and looking up to meet Jongseong’s eyes. “- So?” he asks, tilting his head to the side; his fringe follows the movement and it makes Jongseong want to brush it away.

“- So?” he repeats, and for some reason, it makes Jungwon smile softly. He dimples peek out and Jongseong finds it a little bit harder to breath.

They just stare at each other without saying anything.

The strange moment is broken when a car pulls out to a stop in front of the making them break their intense eye-contact.

Jake, wearing his sunglasses.

Jongseong is about to tell him something, like to apologize but tell him to go get lost or something like that in a very polite way, but Jake beats him to it.

“- Hi Jungwon-ah.” He nods to the younger with a warm smile.

“- Hi.” Jungwon greets back cutely.

He then looks at Jongseong, smirking.

“- You’re such a simp, Park Jongseong. Next time, when you ditch me, can you at least inform me before? Thanks.” He says in an overly sweet tone.

Jongseong opens his mouth to protest, feeling heat raising up his neck, but it is too late.

“- Enjoy your tiiiiiiiiiime~” Jake chants while driving away.

“- What was that.” Jungwon giggles, watching as the car disappears from their view in an intersection.

“- Nothing, ignore him.” Jongseong waves it off. He stands up and it catches Jungwon’s attention back on him. Jongseong stares at his naturally rosy cheeks and subtle freckles.

“- Yeah?” the black-haired asks, biting his lips.

“- Are you hungry?”

Jungwon was not the type to message a lot or to chat with people. If he counted the persons he messaged often, he would end up with two fingers raised: Riki and Sunoo. Be it in their respective dms or in their group chat, Jungwon texted them a lot, mostly on Kakao Talk or Instagram. Riki had tried to push him into using Discord (because it is way better and more convenient and efficient, his words not Jungwon’s) but Jungwon found it kind of complicated to use and after keeping the app in his phone for a little while without even using it, he had deleted it when he needed more storage in his device.

That was the case a week ago. Now, he has to admit that Park Jay had easily become one of the persons with whom he can hold a conversation for hours without even realizing it. It had started so naturally it scared Jungwon. It was overwhelming, really, the way the conversations flowed between them so fluently; Jungwon never had to force himself into engaging the conversation. The two always had more than one topic opened in their conversation. Sometimes, they would debate; Jungwon learned that Jay was quite a persuasive person and he often lost the debates, but it was always fun. They both were fast at typing, especially Jay; it was something that used to annoy Jungwon, the fact that some people were painfully slow at typing, like his friend Daniel. He kind of got used to it, yet it was a delight to see that Jay was the fast-typing type of person. Sometimes, he was too fast for Jungwon to keep up; he literally typed a paragraph in three seconds. He also often sent paragraphs.

Overall, let’s say Jungwon enjoyed texting him a lot. Conversations with him were always fun and interesting. He sure talked a lot, but it did not hold him from being an amazing listener.

“- Don’t you have a car?” Jungwon asks as they both walk towards the bus station. It is Thursday, two in the afternoon, and they are both done with their classes, so they decided to spend some time together. However, as they are walking, Jungwon notices that Jay is not parting ways with him as usual; today, he is following him, and it confuses him a little bit. He is pretty positive that Jay comes with his car most of the time. Plus, he never saw him taking one of the University’s buses.

“- I do.” Jay answers, but he does not explain further.

“- Are you taking the bus too? Are you even in the dorms, I’ve never seen you there?” He insists.

“- Yah, stop asking too much questions. I just want to keep you company since neither of your best friends are available.” Jay sighs, and Jungwon swears he got shy after saying it out loud.

“- You just want to spend time with me, I see.” Jungwon teases.

“- Yes! Is there anything wrong with that!” Jay groans.

“- No, I think it’s sweet.” Jungwon giggles happily.

Jungwon did not see Park Jay during the first week of their texting nights. Jay started approaching him in real life from the beginning of the second week. Honestly, Jungwon thought that their first face to face encounter after all those nights of messaging each other would be awkward, but Jay did not allow it and it went as natural and fluid as through messages, if not more. He did not know if their meetings were intentional or not, but he started believing that Park Jay definitely looked for him when he found him one afternoon outside his building. The thing with Park Jay is that, for whatever reason, he is quite popular, which meant that Jungwon had to undergo more attention than what he is used to. Fortunately, Jay is great at keeping him distracted from all the eyes that may look their way.

Jungwon must admit that he does not particularly look for the older, yet it is partially because Jay does not give him the time to. He knew Jungwon’s schedule and if it creeped him out a little bit in the beginning, Jay made sure to reassure him that it was only so that he would know when Jungwon was free, that way, he would avoid bothering him. When Jungwon had learned about this, he had told him that he could have simply asked him about his free time, to which Jay had blinked before blushing (?).

They now had some kind of routine where they would meet each other to eat lunch with each other whenever they can, and they also came back to the mall together because they both had enjoyed it the first time.

“- And how did you get there today in the first place?” Jungwon hums.

“- My motorbike.”

“- You also have a motorbike?” Jungwon asks incredulously.

“- Well, yeah? I mean why not?” Jay replies, frowning, as if confused by Jungwon’s surprise.

“- And… Where is it, right now?” Jungwon wonders.

At his question, Jay suddenly halts, stopping so brusquely in his tracks that Jungwon does not notice it right away. He turns around and sees the other frozen in place.

“- I forgot about it!” He whispers-shouts. His panicked face is almost funny, and Jungwon would have laughed if the situation was not that serious.

“- You forgot your motorbike?!”

Jay does not answer, the question was a stupid one. He pulls out his smartphone and starts walking again.

“- Shouldn’t we head back?” Jungwon asks, looking curiously at Jay. The elder is still scrolling through his phone.

“- No, you’re gonna miss your bus.” Jay says, bringing his phone to his ear.

Jungwon is about to ask who he is calling when the person picks up.

“- Sim Jaeyun to serve you~”

Jungwon remembers Jay telling him something about Jake’s Korean name being “Jaeyun”. Jungwon thinks it is a pretty name.

“- Jake, I forgot my motorbike.”

“- What do you mean you forgot your motorbike?”

“- At the parking lot.”

“-…”

There is a long silence, and Jay removes his phone from to check if Jake was still there.

“- How did you even do that.” Jake’s exasperated sigh comes out of the phone.

“- I was walking with Jungwon and just forgot about it because I was following him.” Jay mumbles.

“- Jungwon? He’s with you?”

“- Ye-”

“- OH HI WONIE~” Jake basically shouts and Jungwon wonders if the students passing by heard him as well. Both Jay and Jungwon retreat back from the device at his loud greeting. “- Tell him I say hi.” He adds.

“- He says hi.” Jay smiles at him, tone teasing.

“- I think I got it.” Jungwon snorts.

“- Anyways, I want you to drive it back to your apartment, I’ll pick it up later.”

“- Why can’t you just come back? I still have two classes.”

“- I can’t, I’m taking the bus with Jungwon right now.” Jay says as they both get inside said bus. Jungwon stops mid-climbing, frowning at him. This is not what he had understood. He thought Jay would only accompanying him near the buses before leaving, or something like that. Turns out he was planning on taking the bus to his dorm with him…?

“- Wow, explains it all.” Jay rolls his eyes at his obviously sarcastic remark. “- I can’t drive your motorbike either because I have to drive my car as well, and most importantly I don’t know how to drive a motorbike.”

Jay closes his eyes, pinching his nose and Jungwon giggles at his misery.

“- Why do you have the double of the keys if you can’t even drive it, Sim Jaeyun?”

Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, all the seats are already taken, so they have to stand. Usually, Jungwon would take out his headphones to listen to some music on the road so that he would not get too bored, even if it is only for barely 15 minutes of ride. Nonetheless, he is with Jay today and he guesses they will be talking all the way to his dorm.

“- Yah! You’re the one who gave them to me!”

“- I- Nevermind, just give them to Hoon or I don’t know.”

Jungwon registers the faint sound of Jake’s laugh from the other side.

“- Bro, Sunghoonie doesn’t even have a driver license.” Jay opens his mouth but Jake interrupts him before he says anything. “- And before you tell me about Heeseung-hyung, he went home earlier today because his afternoon classes got canceled.”

Jay groans.

“- If the bus didn’t start yet, I advice you to come back quickly before it’s too late.”

Jay starts pouting, his lips pulled out, and Jungwon finds it adorable.

“- I have a suggestion!” Jungwon exclaims. He had thought about it as soon as he understood what the problem was; it was a little bit twisted of an idea, so he did not share it with Jay. He had decided to wait and see if the two best friends could figure it out without his contribution, but it looked like their last straw and Jungwon decided to intervene.

“- Hm?” Jay hums, looking him in the eyes with a tinge of hope.

“- It’s a little bit crazy…” Jungwon starts carefully.

“- Just say it already.” Jay deadpans.

“- I know someone who can drive your motorbike.” Jungwon blurts, and Jay frowns. “- It’s Riki, my best friend.”

“- Ah.”

“- Look, I know you don’t really know him, but I trust him and I can tell you he’ll take care of your motorbike without crashing it.” Jungwon coaxes with his best sweet-like smile.

“- Is that supposed to reassure me.” Jay flatters, looking downright frightened by the idea.

“- He always wanted to have a motorbike; he doesn’t get the chance to drive one often!” Jungwon tries again.

“- Is that supposed to reassure me!” He yammers.

“- C’mon, it’s either that or you go back to your motorbike.”

Jay looks at him, eyes unbelieving and alarmed. Jungwon can tell the boy is quite agitated in his head. He just gawks at him for a while, gears turning in his brain.

“- Alright.” He huffs. “- Jake, you still here?”

“- Of course~” Jake chants.

“- Where’s that Riki guy right now?” Jay asks Jungwon in a hushed voice, covering the phone with his palm.

“- The arts building.” Jungwon sniggers, quite enjoying the whole interaction.

“- Alright Jake, I want you to go to the arts building to find a certain-” Jay pauses, covering his phone again. “- What’s his full-name?”

“- Nishimura Riki.” Jungwon responds. Jay blinks at him. “- He’s Japanese?”

“- Oh.” He pronounces, understanding washing over his features. “- I want you to go to the arts building to find a certain Nishimura Riki and give him the keys of my motorbike, tell him to drive it to Jungwon’s dorm and make sure to threaten him to death if I ever find even a microscopic scratch on it.”

“- Okay, bro.” Jake chuckles.

Jungwon is a little bit worried about his best friend, but he knows Riki would never refute such a proposition.

“- To be honest, I didn’t think you’d cave in.” Jake comments. “- D’you really trust him?”

“- I really don’t.” Jay confides. Jungwon does not blame him for it; he barely knows Riki. “- But Jungwon trusts him so,”

The ‘I do too’ stays unsaid and Jungwon beams at the eldest.

“- Only fools rush in.”

Jay hangs up.

“- Is everything okay?” Jungwon asks softly.

“- Yeah.” Jay smiles.

Jungwon smiles back.

“- I just hope your best friend makes it out alive.” Jay adds playfully.

And Jungwon…

Well, he knows he will have to deal with Park Jay’s everything a lot in the future. Yet, it does not specially bothers him.