Chapter 13: Should you remain friends with your ex?

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Junior's pov.
Junior and JB finally have the talk.

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After filming ends for the day, Junior finds his hand subconsciously tracing the outline of his phone in his pocket, knowing that he needs to call JB soon. JB had disappeared once the last scene was done, but Junior still has to change out of his borrowed outfit, so he finds Yugyeom, who happens to be talking to Jackson. Junior remembers he’s still giving Jackson the cold shoulder, so he doesn’t say anything (okay, maybe this game is really getting old, but Junior is kind of stubborn sometimes). But as his forefinger follow the lines of his rectangular phone, the plastic underneath heating up a bit from how long he’s been doing it, Junior decides he should just ask Jackson for a ride back to the office so he can change.

“Sorry, Junior, I can’t drive you and Yugyeom back to the office, but I can ask Amber to give you guys a lift?”

Amber’s nice and friendly, chatty too. The only problem with the ride back is that Yugyeom doesn’t contribute much to the conversation, so Junior finds himself having to fill up the gaps. He’s mostly just saying inane stuff, small talk that he can do on autopilot, until Amber asks, “I heard Junior isn’t your real name.”

“Yeah, it’s not,” Junior says, trying to figure out how much to say on the matter. It’s not that there’s a huge deal with his name. Park Jinyoung is an ordinary enough name, though maybe not in LA.

“Oh, so what’s your real name, and why do you go by Junior?” Amber replies conversationally, eyes looking elsewhere as she turns at a traffic light.

“It’s Park Jinyoung, or Jinyoung Park if I follow the western convention,” Junior answers, and adds, “I just go by Junior because people called me that when I took a module in university where my professor had the same name, and I guess it stuck. It’s an easier name for people in LA to remember than Jinyoung anyway.”

Junior isn’t lying, not really, but as Amber continues the conversation, already moving on to another topic, he thinks about what Jackson had said about not letting even his old friends continue calling him Jinyoung, insisting on being referred to as Junior instead (even in his own thoughts, Junior has gotten used to referring to himself as Junior and not Jinyoung). He supposed it wasn’t something he had done on purpose per se.

He had been taking Prof. Park Jinyoung’s module when he had broken up with Jaebum, and that was also the time when he decided he should do something post-breakup to take his mind off things, ending up making a youtube channel to review his favourite books (books which he now has a lot of time to read because he’s not dating). After deciding against using his real name for his youtube channel, Junior had ended up typing Ju_ni_eo for his username (because of course, the username Junior is already taken). It’s not like people don’t already call him that in school, so Junior had figured, why not?

Somewhere along the way, with his classmates calling him Junior, and him being known as Ju_ni_eo on youtube, Junior had decided maybe the name change marked what he thought of as a post-Jaebum Jinyoung. And so, in a bid to move on and forget the terrible breakup, Junior had insisted everyone call him Junior instead of Jinyoung, thinking (perhaps foolishly and deludedly) that the new name signaled his moving on. Only when Jackson had mentioned it yesterday, that the name showed how much Junior hadn’t moved on, did Junior realize maybe Jackson was right. Maybe the name change wasn’t so much a mark of Junior moving on, but of how much Junior wanted to pretend he had moved on.

Junior plasters a small smile on his face as Amber talks about her dog, pretending he isn’t affected by the realization he had come to in the inner depths of his mind.

When he’s finally back in his own clothes, Junior unlocks his phone, and quickly presses the buttons to call Jaebum before he can chicken out. He has a tendency of doing it without realizing (chickening out, or hesitating too long until he ends up chickening out), but he really needs to have this talk done and over, so he places the phone to his ear, waiting for the dial tone to finish and Jaebum to pick up.

It takes only 2 rings, and Junior knows it means that Jaebum had been probably staring at his phone, waiting (unlike Junior last night).

“I’m done. Where do you want to meet?”

The café Jaebum tells him is a small one, hidden in a street full of random stores, and the café itself only has a single plain signboard on the outside. Junior had to drive around the block twice before he finally spots the name of the place. He parks by the curb, a little away from the café and walks up to the front door, assuming that Jaebum is probably inside already.

Junior’s right, because once he opens the door, he spots the beige cardigan Jaebum had been wearing. Jaebum’s in a corner of the shop, and Junior crosses the room in a few strides to reach the table and sits.

“Hi Jaebum.”

“Hi Jinyoung.”

Junior sees Jaebum hands wrapped around a mug, a