Making new friends wasn’t exactly up Jongdae’s alley. The group of friends he has now is from church, grade school, or family friends. And there were just 4 of them. Social cues occasionally stupefy him, and even though his sister tries to encourage him by letting him hang out with her friends from time to time, he still can’t make it out on his own. The only person who has spoken to him since the first week of class more than once was Yuji, so he’ll try his luck there.

Jongdae sat at his desk in Biology class, shaking his leg as he waited for his seatmate to arrive. You can do it, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it.

“Hey, Jongdae!”

Jongdae shot a smile towards Yuji and casted a glance towards the clock in the front of the room. 7 minutes.

“Hi, Yuji! Did you have a nice weekend?” No stuttering, nice!

“Yup! My aunt came through town and stopped by. You know the kind of aunt that spends a lot of money on her nieces and nephews? She’s like that, and therefore, this weekend was fantastic!” Yuji made hand gestures as she spoke, which looked slightly unnatural since she draws the shape of what she talks about as she speaks them.

“Really? Did she treat you to anything nice?” Jongdae pivoted his body facing Yuji, resting his arm against the back of his chair.

“Oh yeah! She took me out for so many sweets, and she gave me some money.” She drew a rectangle in the air with her fingers, which Jongdae assumed was supposed to represent cash.

“That’s cool, that’s cool.”

The teacher began taking attendance.

“Did you do anything this weekend, Jongdae?”

Jongdae scratched his head. “I just played some videogames with a few of my buddies over at my house. Like regular Nintendo fighting games.” Yuji nodded and Jongdae wracked his brain for more topics. “Do you… uh… do you like to play videogames?”

“Well, yes, but just on my Nintendo DS. I don’t think I’ve ever played any games with anyone else other than Dance Dance Revolution…”

“Oh, that’s cool.” Jongdae raised his hand when the teacher called his name. You can do it, you can do it. “Would you wanna… you don’t have to… it might seem kinda weird… but if your parents let you… it’s okay to say no though! But…”

“Don’t worry about it, what’s up?” Yuji smiled, nodding for him to continue.

“Doyouwannacomeplayvideogameswithme?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Jongdae took a deep breath. “Do you want to come over to my house to play videogames with me and my friends tomorrow after school? We’ve got another controller, and my mom and my sister will be home in case you felt uncomfortable or anything…”

“Sure! Sounds like fun.”

“It’s okay, I understand – wait what? You want to come?” Jongdae almost gave her a double take.

“Yeah,” Yuji laughed. “I probably need your phone number so I can get the details and stuff.”

“Alright!” Jongdae pulled up his phone for her to input her number, but the teacher called the class to attention for the lecture. “Hold on,” he whispered to her. He ripped out a piece of notebook paper from his binder and jotted down his number before sliding it to her.

She slid a note back to him during class.

Is it okay if I come an hour or so late? I’ve got a club meeting after school.

Jongdae penciled back, Not a problem! We’ll be playing for a while, no rush :D

He frowned. Maybe she’ll find it too weird if he writes a “:D”. He erased the smile.

Yuji poked him on the shoulder and gave him a thumbs up. Success!

Jongdae groaned. Minseok killed off his character’s last life. It feels even worse since he was the first one to be out.

“Come back here, Minseok! You can’t hop around forever!” Baekhyun yelled, spamming as many buttons he can as his character hit Minseok’s character, Kirby, midair.

“You’re right. There’s only one thing left to do,” Minseok muttered. Kirby up Baekhyun’s character. “Now I’m half Donkey Kong.” He snorted.

Jongdae checked his phone. 6:13 pm. Yuji hadn’t texted him or anything. Maybe she’s still at that club meeting.

“AAANNNNDDDD SMAAAAASSHHHHH!” Minseok hollered, shoving Baekhyun’s character off the screen and slamming his controller onto the ground. “Don’t underestimate the power of Kirby!” He began obnoxiously dancing around Baekhyun, who was a little pissed off about losing for the fourth time.

Baekhyun averted his attention to Jongdae. “Is Yixing coming?”

Jongdae shook his head. “Not tonight, his neighbor asked him to babysit his son.”

“Drat.” Baehyun tripped Minseok as he paraded around, causing said boy to stumble close to the carpet, but not enough to face-plant into it. “Double drat. Say, didn’t you mention about inviting a girl over to hang out with us today?” He wriggled his eyebrows.

“A girl? Oh ho ho, Dae, what’s her name?”

“Yuji.” Jongdae pursed his lips. He checked his phone again even though he knew there was no notification.

2 hours later, Minseok left. Baekhyun left the hour after that.

Jongdae sat in his room, absentmindedly flipping through the television channels. Yuji neither called nor texted him. He was thinking that maybe, just maybe, he was imagining the excitement Yuji had the past couple days for hanging out with them. Was the club meeting an excuse? Was that supposed to be a cue that she wasn’t going to come? Either way, it was going to be totally awkward, at least for him, to talk to her now.

Baekhyun could tell earlier that Jongdae was slightly upset that a new friend didn’t show up, so he tried to cheer him up before he left; he pretended to lose the last couple rounds to Jongdae.

But things like this happen in life, and this wasn’t the end of the world, so this isn’t a big deal, Jongdae consoled to himself.

“You didn’t show up yesterday,” Jongdae commented to Yuji as she plopped onto her seat. Too confrontational, too confrontational! “You, uh, missed out on a lot of cookies.”

“Aw man,” Yuji frowned. “You didn’t text me back the address, though. That’s a shame.”

“Wait, texted back? I didn’t get a text from you at all!” Jongdae exclaimed dumbfoundedly.

“Mhm,” Yuji hummed. “See?” She showed him the three text messages she sent him.

4:45 pm Sent to Kim Jongdae:

Hey! It’s Yuji. Could you send me the address to your house? ^_^

5:37 pm Sent to Kim Jongdae:

I’ve just finished the meeting! I hope it’s ok to come

6:02 pm Sent to Kim Jongdae:

Hello?????

“I never got these…” Jongdae murmured. He rechecked his phone.

“That’s odd,” Yuji noted. She pulled up his contact information. “This is your number, right?”

Jongdae skimmed through the numbers, before his eyes bulged. “Ah! This fifth number is supposed to be a 9, not a 4!”

“Oh?” Yuji exclaimed, changing the number in her phone. “So that’s why they didn’t get through.”

Relief struck Jongdae. It was an honest mistake. His phone pinged.

11:27 am Sent from Unknown:

Hello?

“Is this you?” Jongdae pointed to his phone.

“Yeah, just needed to make sure it was correct.” Yuji smiled.

“Fantastic. If you still wanted to go and you don’t have any plans, my friends and I are hanging out again Friday, and you’re more than welcome to join.” Jongdae fiddled with his phone as he saved her number.

“Of course! I’ll text you.”

Friday 5:12 pm

Jongdae, Minseok, Yixing, Kyungsoo, and Baekhyun sat in front of the television going at each other virtually until they heard the doorbell ring.

Kyungsoo paused the game. “Did you guys here that?”

Yixing looked around. “We aren’t missing anybody.”

“I’ll get it!” Jongdae leaped out of his seat, walking quickly to the door.

He walked back with a short girl beside him, much to Kyungsoo and Yixing’s surprise.

“Oh, she came!” Minseok waved at her.

“Guys, this is my friend Yuji. Yuji this is Kyungsoo, Minseok, Yixing, and Baekhyun,” Jongdae introduced.

“Kyungsoo, Minseok, Yixing, and Baekhyun,” she repeated. She nodded her head. “It’s nice to meet everyone.”

They greeted in return.

“Come have a seat on the couch,” Jongdae gently nudged her towards the furniture Yixing sprawled across. “You can join us after this round. Hey, move,” Jongdae kicked Yixing’s legs off the couch for Yuji to sit down. She settled down stiffly, folding her hands in her lap. The screen abruptly played music again. “Hey, I’m not ready!” Jongdae scrambled to grip his controller and immersed himself into the battle.

Yuji watched curiously until a voice broke her out of her reverie. “Are you a friend from Jongdae’s school?”

Yuji startled for a moment, before responding, “Yes. I sit next to him in class. How do all of you know him?”

Yixing grinned. “He’s my friend from church! Kyungsoo and Baekhyun go to school with you and him. Minseok’s a family friend.”

“Ah.” Yuji glanced around before looking back at Yixing. “Do you live around here…Yi…Jing?”

“Yixing,” he corrected. “I live close by but not close enough to go to school with you guys, unfortunately.” Yixing sighed.

“HAAAAA!” Baekhyun screeched, slapping Minseok on the leg multiple times as he bragged about his long awaited win against Minseok.

Minseok held Baekhyun’s face away from him, stopping the smaller boy from abusing him more. “Okay, so that’s your 1 to my…what is it… 7?” He smirked at Baekhyun’s crestfallen face.

“Here you go.” Jongdae tossed an extra controller into Yuji’s hand. “Have you played this game before?”

“Uh… no, actually.”

3 of the boys gasped.

“TRAINING MODE!” Baekhyun screamed.

“TRAINING MODE!” Kyungsoo shouted.

Jongdae switched the game mode to the training session.

Yixing scooted closer to her to show her the functions of each button. “Alright, so this big green button is for regular attacks, like punches and stuff. You use this yellow stick to smash, the red button is for cooler moves than the green, and the x button is for flying. You can combine different buttons together for different moves, too. Try it out!”

The boys helped Yuji practice her fighting skills with multiple different characters, and she struggled for quite some time, but eventually got the gist of it.

“I think I’m ready to play with you guys…” Yuji mumbled.

“Let’s do this! I’m picking the stage.” Minseok changed the game to a melee, and they began.

The boys didn’t pay too much attention to fighting Yuji since she’s just started (and she also accidentally jumped off the stage within 15 seconds), but when it came down to the last couple players, they realized Yuji was still alive.

“Yuji, you’re still in?” Kyungsoo stared astonishingly at the screen.

“Not for long,” Yixing stated. His character advanced quickly towards Yuji’s character, and he prepared to end the game until Yuji suddenly moved the joystick, effectively shooting Yixing’s Mario off the stage.

“Yuji… won…?”

The boys hollered boisterously, high-fiving Yuji.

“That was pretty good timing, Yuji,” Jongdae complimented, “You’re a pretty quick learner.”

Baekhyun turned around to face her. “Yuji, you need to come more often! You’re pretty good at this game!”

Yuji grinned, her face becoming hotter with the attention. Had she finally made a group of friends that she’d belong in?