BGM: Almost Is Never Enough (Ariana Grande), Goodbye Summer (f(x) feat. D.O.), I'm In Love (Narsha)

"Hey! Is it true?" A classmate asks (Saemi, was it?), sitting in front of you with a bunch of girls at her tail, her friends you presume. You don't quite hear what she said as you had your earphones on when she came, so you asked her again.

"That Jongin's going to London after graduation, that is! So... is it true?" Someone from your left replied instead. You looked around for the first time and saw that most of the girls in your class,  if not all, were crowding at your seat near the windows of the cramped classroom, and then you shift your sight at the sleeping boy at the back of the room near the door. You don't get it why they asked you instead of the person in question when he's clearly as free as a bird to answer, so you asked them just that.

"Don't be silly! He's sleeping, of course we can't disturb him!" Saemi then answered you as she laughs and playfully hit you in the shoulder.

It ticks you that they had the nerve to distract you from your game but is so adamant in waking up the lazy bum that is Kim Jongin so you just shrugged and tried to put back your earphones on. That is until you hear what the girl sitting behind you decided to say,

"What? That's it?! Aren't you, like, his girlfriend, or something?!"

You decided to ignore the comment, just laughing at their absurd deduction.

The first time you met the perpetually sleepy boy named Kim Jongin was, ironically, at the bakery that doubled as a coffee shop that your parents owned, when you were both 9 years old. 

You were sitting next to your older brother who was manning the counter while you sip on your orange juice when a beautiful girl went in the shop with a little boy, still in his pyjamas, and ordered a chocolate cake and some pastries and drinks after she greeted your brother.

"Hey, sis! Can you ask dad for a box from back there? Oh, and get a bottle of orange juice for Jonginnie too!" Your brother tells you, putting you down your seat and patting your back as if to urge you to go at the back room.

When you got back with the box and bottle in your hands, your brother proceeded to box the cake and you served the food to the beautiful girl and 'Jonginnie' (as per your brother's request).

"Dude, are you sure you're supposed to let your sister serve your costumers?" The girl said, calling out to your brother who just laughed and assured her that it was okay, as she helps you with the tray.

"He really shouldn't let you do these stuff, don't you think so?" She said, smiling at you as she puts down the tray in front of her brother, 'Jonginnie', who already has his arms pillowing his head at the table.

"Ah, I already told you it's okay! This is seriously how we do things here, right sis?" You smiled and nod your head to your brother and the girl as he put down the boxed cake at their table.

"It's really okay, yeppeun eonnie! Please enjoy your meal!" You said, smiling brightly at your costumers and bowed a little before going back to with your brother at your original posts. The beautiful girl then grinned in return repeating what you called her a while ago waking up her brother, "Did you hear that, Nini? She called me yeppeun eonnie!"

Although still slighly disoriented, the little boy smiled at his sister and said that she really is beautiful making the older girl pinch his cheeks and giving him the bottle of orange juice and a red bean bun.

The second time you two met was when the two of you literally bumped to each other as you were rounding up the corner of your family bakery at the end of the first week of your middle school.

Apologizing profusely to the boy for bumping to him with an open bottle of orange juice in hand, he just waved it off as he takes of his school jacket but not before you see his nametag and school logo. 김종인 (Kim Jong In), it reads, and you suddenly remembered that day years ago when you served a pretty girl with the sleepy little 'Jonginnie' with your brother.

"You go to the middle school near here, right? Maybe, uh, I can treat you to lunch next Monday to say sorry for the spill? I'm really sorry, again." You offered, awkwardly smiling at the boy not much taller than you, who nod his head in return.

The next day, you did just that, you treated him lunch and brought a bottle of orange juice from your shop as compensation. It was awkward at first, to say the least, because your schoolmates decided that you two were to be their entainment for the whole lunch break, preaning and talking about the two of you as Jongin waits for you next to the canteen doors as you two talked agreed upon. 

Despite that disastrous first half though, you two came into a comfortable pace as you told him your first meeting (albeit one-sided as Jongin confessed that he was still too sleepy to remember what happened that day when his sister dragged him to buy his birthday cake) and talked about your, surprisingly, plenty of commonalities and connections (your brother being the boyfriend of his sister's best friend being one of them).

The school bell finally ringed echoing throughout the building and waking up the slumbering students. All but one girl at the back of the room near the windows that is. As her classmates  began trickling down to none, a boy came near the sleeping girl to wake his best friend up.

"Hey, we're out of coffee beans!" Jongin finally called out getting near her right ear, frightening the girl to a wake.

"Dude! What the heck?!" The girl said covering her ears from the boy next to her if ever he decided to give her a repeat of his alarm call.

"Seriously, how could you fall for that every time?" The taller of the two said, laughing at his friend as he helps her gather her things to her backpack much similar to what he has. Similar wasn't even covering it, it was the same exact model that he uses and gave her for Christmas just a year before.

"Shut uuuuuup~ This is all your fault, if it isn't because of your fans then I would have slept even for a little while during lunch break!" His best friend replied, carrying the books that they wouldn't need for the day to put in their lockers situated next to each other, and then she continued, "They kept pestering me about your going to London after graduation and it really pissed me off, you know? As if the questions from the others in the shop wasn't enough already,"

"And, really! Why do they keep on asking me when they can just ask you instead? You're, like, always next to me when they asks anyway so why would they ask me? Even sprouting nonsense about me being your girl or whatever..." Saying the last sentence so lowly, Jongin wouldn't have heard what she said if he hasn't trained himself to hear and listen to all the stuff that the girl would say in their every day lives together.

"Well, you are my girl, aren't you?" He replies, grabbing the books from the girl's arms for her to open her locker, missing the blush the smaller sported after his statement.

Even after she put their books at the locker, even when she asked Jongin to hand her her bag, and even after the both got settled in their bus on the way to the her family's bakery, she can't get herself to look at him in the eye. 

Something, somewhere, in her shifted after hearing what her classmates thought of her and Jongin. And when the said boy just so casually declared that he did think of her as his girl, it became the last straw to be pulled. 

Maybe it did start at that moment, just when her best friend was set to go to London for his studies not even two months after, leaving her behind with all their memories together. Maybe it started when they both became more casual and friendly with each other after she treated him to lunch after she spilled orange juice on him. Or maybe it even started when she saw him in his blue pyjamas as he compliments her sister with an innocent smile in his face. 

Whenever it may have been, she knows that she was doomed. 

Because this is not what best friends should feel about their best friends. 

Because this is not how she should feel when he was weeks away from his dreams. 

Because whatever 'what ifs' or 'almosts' that they have now will never be enough for her, not when he's leaving. 

So she just settles herself in looking back at Kim Jongin, her Jonginnie, who was smiling at her.

The smile especially reserved for her, as he would always say.