[CONTENTID1]             [/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2]“Thank you ever so much, Jongin,” Taeoh’s mother said sincerely, and ran her well-manicured hand through her son’s ruffled brown hair. “You really don’t know how much it means to us.”

“It’s fine, honestly, Mrs Ryu,” Jongin bowed politely, then looked down at Taeoh; “Taeoh had lots of fun playing with Sungwoo and his friends, didn’t you?”

Taeoh clung onto his mother’s skirt with his small, balled up fist and nodded shyly to her.

“Ah, so you played with Sungwoo today? You’ll have to tell me all about it,” she hummed, picking up the tiny toddler in her arms.

Jongin chuckled and pinched one of Taeoh’s cheeks affectionately. “Make sure to tell mama about Kyungsoo hyung too!”

Mrs Ryu’s brow contorted in confusion. “Kyungsoo? Who’s Kyungsoo?” she asked. “Is he a friend of yours, Jongin?”

“Yes,” Taeoh piped in eagerly, “Kyungsoo hyung was in the park!”

Mrs Ryu briefly checked her watch and clicked her tongue. “You’ll have to tell me some other time, Jongin,” she sighed, “you best be heading off to school or you’ll be late.”

“Okay, goodbye, Mrs Ryu,” Jongin smiled, and leaned down to soothingly run his hand across Taeoh’s soft, supple cheek. “See you tomorrow, Taeoh,” he whispered, and chuckled when the boy hid his face in his mother’s shirt in embarrassment.

Today was the day. Today was the freaking day. Jongin was pumped up because today was the day where he had decided to ask Kyungsoo to go to the cinema with him.

As pathetic as it sounded, he had practiced what he was going to say for an hour the night before. It was difficult for him to explain to his parents why he was calling his cat Kyungsoo at the dead of night like a madman. But hopefully it would be worth it. Hopefully Kyungsoo would say yes.

As he approached Kyungsoo’s homeroom, he started to feel giddy and almost lost his balance when he ungracefully tumbled through the door and into the room.

It was almost too faint to hear, but Jongin heard a soft, “Hi, Jongin,” when he sat down next to Kyungsoo. And it didn’t fail to make him smile.

Jongin took in a deep breath, and it was clear that he was preparing to say something, but the words got caught in the back of his throat. This was his time, he thought to himself, he couldn’t blow it now. That hour of babbling to his cat would have been for nothing if he didn’t get it out; like a hairball he was gagging to get out of his throat.

“Are you okay?” Kyungsoo asked cautiously, eyeing Jongin’s frozen expression. Usually Jongin was quite bubbly; usually he would glide into the room and chat for what felt like hours about his love of dancing or his unnatural obsession with poultry.

Jongin looked at Kyungsoo and grinned at him. “No worries, Kyungsoo,” he said, regaining his natural buoyant aura, “I was just thinking about, uh… stuff – yeah, stuff.”

Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow suspiciously, but didn’t question him any further. He looked outside the broken window and saw Hyunsik, once again, practicing his athletics in the stupidly cold weather.

“He’s such an idiot,” Kyungsoo muttered to himself, not expecting anyone to hear him.

But Jongin heard him. He chuckled, which made Kyungsoo jump in his seat. “Hyunsik’s always like that.”

“He is?”

“Yea