Chapter Text
Jiung was halfway through complaining about the weather when Keeho stole his drink,Again. He stopped mid-sentence and stared across the table. Keeho had his straw between his lips, looking completely innocent as he scrolled through his phone. Soul was sitting beside him, quietly eating fries like none of this concerned him.
“Did you seriously just take my drink?”
Keeho glanced up. “What?”
“My drink.”
“Oh.” He looked at the cup in his hand. “This one?”
Jiung stared at him. “You watched me order it.”
“Yeah.”
“You watched me put it down.”
“Yeah.”
“And then you took it.”
Keeho nodded. “Correct.”
Soul reached across the table and pushed the other drink toward Jiung. “You can have mine.”
Jiung looked at it. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Keeho immediately reached for it.
Soul slapped his hand away without even looking.
“Not you.”
Jiung laughed, and Keeho looked personally offended.
“You guys are against me.”
“You stole his drink,” Soul said.
“That doesn't mean I'm a bad person.”
“It kind of does.”
Jiung leaned back, smiling despite himself. This was what hanging out with them usually looked like. There was rarely an actual plan. Keeho would suggest something, Soul would go along with it, and Jiung would somehow end up there too. Most of the time they didn't even do anything particularly interesting. They just talked, wandered around, argued over food, and made fun of each other until somebody decided it was getting late.
Today was supposed to be the same.Until Keeho suddenly sat up.“Wait.”Jiung immediately looked suspicious. “What?”
“I know somewhere we should go.”
“No.”
“You don't even know where.”
“I know you.”
Soul nodded. “He's got a point.”
Meanwhile, Intak was trying to convince Jongseob that losing money to a claw machine counted as entertainment.
“I almost had it.”
Jongseob looked through the glass at the stuffed bear sitting exactly where it had been for the last fifteen minutes.
“You said that four attempts ago.”
“I was closer that time.”
“You weren't.”
“I was.”
Theo, standing beside them, checked his phone. “Can we go now?”
“No.”
Theo sighed. “Why?”
“Because I'm getting it.”
Jongseob laughed under his breath. “You're actually obsessed.”
Intak turned around. “You'd be obsessed too if you knew you could win.”
“I don't know that.”
“I do.”
“You've lost eight times.”
“Eight is nothing.”
Theo finally reached over and pulled Intak away from the machine. “Come on.”
“Wait!”
“You're done.”
“I wasn't done!”
“You've spent enough.”
Intak let himself be dragged away, still looking back at the machine like it had personally betrayed him.
Jongseob followed behind them, hands in his pockets. He was laughing quietly when Intak suddenly turned around.
“Where are we going?”
Theo shrugged. “Food.”
“Good.”
“You were just saying you wanted to beat the machine.”
“I can want two things.”
Jongseob shook his head. “You're impossible.”
“Yet you keep hanging out with me.”
“Unfortunately.”
Intak grinned.
Jiung met Intak about an hour later.
It happened over the last chocolate pastry in the café near the station.
Both of them reached for it at the same time.
They froze.
Intak looked at Jiung's hand.
Then at Jiung.
“You want it?”
Jiung raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why'd you ask?”
Intak thought for a second. “I don't know.”
Jiung laughed.
“Okay. That was a terrible answer.”
“You're still holding the pastry.”
“So are you.”
They stared at each other for another second before Intak sighed.
“Split it?”
Jiung considered it. “Fine.”
They took the pastry to a table and sat down. It should've ended there. They'd eat, finish their drinks, and leave.
Instead, Intak started talking.
Jiung didn't mind.
The conversation jumped everywhere. Intak complained about the claw machine, then somehow moved on to a movie he'd watched last week, then a restaurant he wanted to try, then a story about Theo stealing his fries.
“You let him steal your fries?”
“I didn't let him.”
“You said he stole them.”
“Exactly.”
Jiung laughed. “So what did you do?”
“I stole his drink.”
“That's not revenge.”
“It was to me.”
Jiung shook his head, smiling. “You're weird.”
“I've been told.”
“You seem proud of it.”
“I am.”
There was something easy about him. Jiung couldn't really explain it. They'd only known each other for maybe forty minutes, but talking didn't feel like talking to a stranger anymore.
When they finally left the café, Intak checked his phone.
“You busy tomorrow?”
Jiung looked at him. “Why?”
“Because I'm bored.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
Intak grinned. “Come hang out with me.”
Jiung laughed. “You're very direct.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Sure.”
“Great.”
Intak pulled out his phone. “Give me your number.”
Jiung did.
Neither of them thought much of it.
It was just a new friend.
That night, Jongseob was lying on his bed when he remembered the candy.
He hadn't thought about it in years.
He remembered sitting on a curb when he was little, a paper bag of sweets between him and another kid. They'd been arguing over the red ones because apparently there weren't enough.
“You always take those.”
“They're the best.”
“You said you liked the green ones.”
“I changed my mind.”
“You can't just change your mind!”
Jongseob smiled at the ceiling.
He remembered that.
He remembered the voice too.
There were certain things about his childhood friend that had stayed with him in strange little pieces. The way they used to complain when Jongseob got something first. The way they always wanted to sit beside him at lunch. The stupid games they'd make up and then take incredibly seriously.
He remembered the tiny umbrella too.
They'd been six, walking home in the rain, squeezed together under something that barely covered one person.
“You're getting me wet.”
“I'm holding it.”
“Higher.”
“I can't.”
“Why?”
“Because you're too tall.”
“We're the same height.”
“No, we're not.”
Jongseob had laughed so hard he'd almost dropped the umbrella.
He still remembered that laugh.
He remembered the feeling of knowing someone so well that they didn't even need to explain themselves.
Then, at ten, everything had changed.
Not badly.
There hadn't been some huge fight or final goodbye. They'd just stopped seeing each other as often. Then school changed. Families moved. Days became weeks, and weeks became months.
Eventually, Jongseob had stopped expecting to see him.
But every now and then, something would bring him back.
A certain candy.
A rainy afternoon.
A stupid dinosaur toy.
And Jongseob would wonder what that kid was like now.
Would he still laugh at the same things?
Would he remember any of it?
Would he even recognize Jongseob?
He didn't know.
Sometimes he wondered if his friend ever thought about him too.
Across town, Soul was staring out of the car window.
Keeho and Jiung were arguing in the front about where they were supposed to be going. Soul wasn't really listening until they passed a small toy shop.
A dinosaur sat in the window.
He stared at it.
For a second, he saw a bedroom floor covered in toys. Another kid was sitting across from him, holding up a plastic dinosaur.
“This one's a doctor.”
Soul remembered laughing.
Then the memory disappeared.
He frowned slightly.
“What's wrong?” Jiung asked from the front.
“Nothing.”
“You're staring at the window.”
“I like dinosaurs.”
Keeho looked at him through the mirror. “Since when?”
Soul shrugged. “Always.”
Jiung laughed. “That's definitely not true.”
Soul looked back at the shop.He couldn't remember the kid from the memory.Not really.It was just a blurry voice and a feeling that belonged to a time he'd mostly forgotten.So he let it go.
Jongseob didn't.
He was still lying awake, wondering about the friend he'd lost when he was ten.
He didn't know where that person was now.
He didn't know what they'd grown into.
He only knew that, somehow, he still remembered the sound of their laugh.
And sometimes, that was enough to make him wonder.