It was a regular Wednesday in the cafeteria, and the entrée of the day was macaroni and cheese beside chicken nuggets. Jongdae ate Yuji’s chicken nuggets and Yuji ate Jongdae’s macaroni and cheese. Engrossed in their lunch, they almost didn’t hear their friend come by and call their names.

“Hey guys!” Kyungsoo waved, holding his tray of food with one hand. “Mind if I join?”

“Be our guest.” Yuji replied, scooting over for Kyungsoo to sit. “What brings you to this lunch?”

“I had a doctor’s appointment earlier.” Kyungsoo smiled sheepishly. “Since I came back about 5 minutes ago, I can check into school during lunch next period so I don’t have to go to class now.”

“Soo, you sly dog.” Jongdae winked. “What class are you missing? Journalism?”

Kyungsoo waved his hand. “Yeah, but it’s not a big deal. I’m just not in the mood to deal with Mrs. Cha about the editing I haven’t finished.”

Jongdae and Yuji nodded.

“Hey Ji, did you get any more ketchup for me?” Yuji tossed over a few packets of barbeque sauce. “Ugh, I hate barbeque sauce.”

“What’s wrong with it? Ketchup is a part of it! At least I think it is…” Yuji casted a glance to Kyungsoo, who nodded his head in agreement.

“But the one from school tastes even worse than regular barbeque sauce. Here, have a try.” Jongdae dipped a nugget into the apparently abhorrent sauce, and held it in front of Yuji.

Yuji took a small bite and munched for a few seconds, shrugging after she swallowed. “Tastes fine to me.” She plucked the remaining nugget from Jongdae’s hand and plopped its entirety into .

Jongdae pouted.

Kyungsoo laughed. “You know, a couple of the guys have been thinking this; you guys would make a great couple. Unless you two are already a couple. I haven’t been up to date for a few weeks.”

“NO!” Jongdae and Yuji yelled at the same time.

“That’s so dumb, we would never date. He’s like a brother to me!”

“Yeah, she’s practically my sister! You guys are totally imagining things!”

“This would never happen. No. Just, no. Ew.”

“Who could ever think of that though? I don’t know how they see it.”

“Mhm,” Kyungsoo hummed. “Okay, I get it.” They are so secretly dating, I’ve got to tell the others.

“Good.” Yuji sighed in relief, forking a bite of pasta into . She glanced back at Kyungsoo.

…...

“HE DOESN’T BELIEVE US!”

-----------------------------------------------

Jongdae and Yuji sat with two other students from their math class for a study session. The library was packed with students cramming for finals before the winter break.

“If the integration of this function has a power of one, then the antiderivative does not exist?”

Jongdae flicked Yuji on the forehead. “No, you dimwit,” he began to jot down the steps on her paper, “if it’s in the denominator, then it has a natural log antiderivative.”

Yuji gasped, covering her forehead with her hand. “Did your mother teach you to treat people this way?”

“Only the morons.” Jongdae stuck his tongue out.

Yuji scoffed, “And who made the higher grade on the last test?”

Jongdae scrunched his nose. “That’s because I hate anything that deals with determining values for a double derivative graph.”

“Ooh, still salty about not getting any points back for that one question, I see.” Yuji tsked.

“SHE DIDN’T GIVE ME PARTIAL CREDIT!” Jongdae exclaimed, shrinking himself into his seat when he heard someone from another table shush at him. He threw a pen at Yuji.

Yuji patted him on the head pityingly. “There, there, young caterpillar. This butterfly will show you how it’s done.”

Jongdae rebutted, “Alright, now you’re just acting cocky –”

“You guys are so cute together. You’re like an old married couple.”

Jongdae and Yuji turned their head to the side, staring at the other students in their group session, mainly at Eun Yang, the one who spoke.

Yuji pointed at Jongdae while holding a disbelieving gaze at Eun Yang. “Him? And me? Nope. No way. He’s like two inches too tall for my liking.”

“Who complains about someone being two inches too tall?” Jongdae crossed his arms, reverting his attention back to Yuji.

“My ideal is that we’re relatively the same height. So that when I hug I won’t be face to face with armpit.”

“What if you decide wear heels? Then you would be too tall.”

“Then my significant other should invest in some platforms or insoles, if they feel wounded by my temporary height change.”

Eun Yang and the other student, Ryu, shared knowing looks with each other and proceeded to continue studying.

-------------------------------------------

“Remember that one time I beat you at Smash with freakin’ Mr. Game and Watch?”

“That does not affirm whether or not you’re better than me!” Jongdae slammed his fist on the table, but unfortunately, his fork bounced off the table and clanged onto the tile. He muttered a quick curse.

Yuji hummed. “You were Marth, though.”

Jongdae almost refuted with lame excuses, but he stopped at the sight of the plate set in front of him.

“One slice of red velvet cake for the happy couple,” the waitress chirped.

“Thanks!” Yuji smiled.

“Can we have another fork, please? She dropped hers.” Jongdae gestured to Yuji’s forkless hand.

“Wait, wha – ”

“Right away, sir.” The waitress walked off.

Yuji sighed dramatically. “Wow. You got me. Make me look like the clumsy one as you took my fork.”

“It’s always better for the man of the relationship to look steadier,” Jongdae replied, taking the first bite of the cake. He moaned almost too shamelessly as he chewed, rubbing in the scrumptious taste his companion didn’t get to experience.

Yuji peered around for their waitress to come around with her utensil. “What are you, 2 generations before me?” She squinted at Jongdae for a few moments, calculating the amount of cake that Jongdae would be eating per second, and decided that forks were for being around civilized people, which at this moment, Jongdae was not. He would’ve finished the large piece by the time her fork would appear. “Screw it,” she muttered, and broke off pieces of cake with her fingers, earning a scowl from Jongdae.

“Ew, that’s gross, Yuji.”

“I wouldn’t be doing this if you weren’t eating so fast.”

At that moment, Jongdae forgot how much of a messy eater his best friend was. Scratch that, she’s the messiest. Two bites in, and she already got frosting on her cheeks and crumbs on her lips.

“Here’s your fork…miss…” The waitress’s eyes widened at the sight of Yuji. She was speechless, forgetting what she wanted to say. She’d never seen anything like this happen in a matter of seconds other than in children. She cleared , “Would you like me to bring some more napkins, miss?”

Yuji paused, and then nodded sheepishly. Luckily, she remembers random manners, like not speaking with your mouth full. Sometimes.

“Goodness, Ji.” Jongdae took his napkin and began wiping her cheeks as she stuffed more cake into .

The waitress set a stack of napkins on the table. “Aw, you kids are adorable,” she commented, giggling at the sight of Jongdae being a gentleman.

Jongdae grinned, chuckling with the waitress as he gently dabbed Yuji’s face. As soon as the waitress left, he smothering Yuji’s face with the napkin he was using.

“Rude,” Yuji muffled.

Jongdae shoved the stack of napkins into her hands. “Why do you do this to me, Ji?”

Yuji shrugged noncommittally.

Jongdae sighed, shaking his head. He took the last few spoonfuls of cake as Yuji continued to clean to her hands. “I’ll go up and pay, be right back.”

“Wait, but I ate a lot of it, let me pay.”

“But you paid last time, and I just wanted a couple bites anyways. I didn’t think it’d be such a big piece,” he argued.

“Are you sure?”

“Yup, and don’t forget to throw those napkins away.” Jongdae headed towards the counter.

Yuji waited for Jongdae at the door, and she tilted her head at the sight of Jongdae’s delighted expression. “What happened?”

“She didn’t charge us anything and said it was on the house. Isn’t that great?”

“Really?” Yuji moved her head to make eye contact with the nice waitress and bowed. “I think she won my heart. I need to find out her name.”

“How did you forget? She told us it was Sumin.”

“You’re right! See? You remember the things I cannot. You complete me.”

Jongdae smacked Yuji on the back of her head. “Shut up, buffoon, and walk me back home.”