“Will someone book me for 's sake?!” Kibum cried, tossing his phone away in frustration. “I'm tired.”
Jonghyun raised his eyes from a manga he was reading.
“Tired from what exactly?” he asked softly.
“From sitting here. From living on ramen. From wearing old clothes. From-”
“You can always go outside and look for people yourself, you know.”
Kibum snorted.
“What a ridiculous idea... It's the client who comes for me, not the other way around.”
Also it was dark and windy outside, and he didn't want to freeze his on a hunt that might prove fruitless after all. But Jonghyun didn't need to know all of his considerations, did he?
“You would know better,” Jonghyun replied, a little smirk forming on his lips. He returned to his book.
The conversation was taking place in a shabby manhwa cafe which was situated in the university district and had a reputation of a place where people go to meet attractive young men. However, it wasn't a miserable business: Mr. Park was kind to them and only took 10 percent of the profit they made as a compensation for his inconvenience. And the boys were allowed to come and go whenever it suited them, and sit there for hours, sipping instant coffee and eating cookies, whenever they felt like it. To tell the truth, Mr. Park had had some experience of his own and knew how hard the life of a hungry student could be.
Jinki was studying with textbooks and notes open in front of him, and was too focused to talk. Kibum, bored out of his mind, watched him write for a minute, then yawned and rose to his feet.
“I'll go buy some waffles,” he announced, putting his leather jacket on.
“Get an eggbread for me,” Jonghyun requested, quickly.
Kibum snorted again, meaning ‘yes’, apparently.
“I would ask him as well, but I don't think he'll hear me.”
Jjong chuckled.
“Let's see. Jinki? Jinki?” he called from the couch.
No reaction.
“See? Only a with a fat wallet can bring him back to life.” Kibum sighed. He kind of wished Jinki looked at him once. (He hadn't even said anything about his new haircut today.) In fact, he enjoyed being looked at by Jinki whenever that occurred, but he wasn't going to reflect on that much. “Okay, I'm off.”
“Eggbread,” Jonghyun reminded him, just in case.
“Yes, yes...”
And off he was.
Jonghyun looked at Jinki. He was reading his textbook, the end of his pen caught between his teeth. It was nice to be sitting in silence.
In about fifteen minutes Kibum returned with the waffles, an eggbread for Jonghyun, a bag of honey butter crisps for Jinki (even though he hadn't asked) and a frown.
“Someone wants the Nerd,” he muttered, pretty much throwing the treat at Jjong's face.
‘The Nerd’ was the ‘professional’ nickname for Jinki. There was no reason for Kibum to use it apart from wanting to sound unnecessarily impersonal.
“Who?” Jinki asked.
That you heard. Bastard.
“The brat,” Kibum answered, pursing his lips in disapproval.
Jonghyun was watching him, amused, and he hated that.
“Tell him to get lost,” Jinki said, not taking his eyes off his work.
“I did already. But don't you know he never listens?”
Jinki sighed, leaning back on his chair and putting his pen away. Oh, he did know. He had no choice but to go down. Of course, he could just ignore the kid and let him wait there forever, but the weather was cold and he didn't mind stretching his legs a bit.
He opened the bag with the crisps and threw some in his mouth before he left.
“You could say ‘thank you’ for a change!” Kibum cried behind his back, but he ignored him.
Taemin was there, standing lonesomely in front of the sleek BMW that had brought him there, dressed in dramatic black. His naturally black hair was slicked back, adding a few years to his perceived age. (All those times Jinki had called him infantile had obviously resulted in him trying to look older.) Indeed, Jinki in his university vest, old jeans and sneakers looked like a kid in comparison. Yet, there was no doubt as to which of the two was the actual kid, at least in the mental sense.
When Jinki saw a first glimpse of Taemin, he could hear him argue with the driver:
“I don't need you anymore, please, leave.”
“But Mrs. Lee said...”
“I don't care what she said! I'm an adult.”
“Sure you are,” Jinki muttered below his breath, walking towards the boy.
Taemin saw him and shut up. His eyes sparkled longingly as he waited for him to come closer.
Jinki decided to be morose.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“I came to see you,” Taemin replied in that quiet voice of his.
“Didn't I tell you not to come anymore?”
The boy gulped, his eyes shifting to the ground and then rising to Jinki's face again.
“I can't do that.”
Jinki sighed, leaving a cloud of steam in the air. A feeble, tentative snow was covering the pavements. It would melt away soon.
“But why? Why can't I see you anymore?”
“I have no time to waste on spoiled kids like you.”
He could see no light of understanding in Taemin's eyes.
“But you need me.”
Jinki shook his head.
“I don't.”
“Then why are you here?” Taemin asked, nodding to the door.
“Because I need money.” Obviously.
“That means you need me, 'coz I have the money.”
“That money is not yours.”
“How does that concern you? What do you care about whose money that is?”
Taemin was generally a quiet guy, but also stubborn.
He had a point. But Jinki just didn't want to be nice to him that day. He fixed his glasses and looked away.
Taemin came closer and peered into his face pleadingly.
“Jinki, please... I need you...”
The older boy took the cigarette pack out of his pocket just to escape that annoying hopeful stare.
“It's different this time...”
“Shut up.”
“I'm really going to run away. I can't live that life of lies anymore.”
Jinki gave him a look of distrust.
“Don't you say it every damn time?”
He puffed some smoke out, not caring that the other's face was right in front of him. But the persistent Taemin didn't even blink.
“I really mean it now. I'm not going back there. You don't know what she-”
“I literally don't give a .”
Taemin took Jinki's hand in his, but the other shook it away.
“Jinki, I want you. Don't drive me away like that.”
“What do you mean, ‘Jinki’? I don't remember telling you my real name.”
Taemin bit his lip.
“I ran through your things one time we were together,” he confessed.
“How nice. It was lovely to have a chat, but I need to go back to my studies now. Hope I'll never see you again.”
With those words Jinki turned his back on the tenacious boy and made for the door, but then his arm was grabbed and yanked with a considerable force.
The thing with people like Taemin is, the transition between calm and rage can be very fast. Like water that is still and quiet at first, and then, in a blink of an eye, it's boiling and spilling over the brim, his temper could be unpredictable.
But Jinki wasn't shocked, because he was already familiar with that side of Taemin's character. Yet he was a great deal annoyed.
“You say you don't give a , and yet you're running from me like you're scared!” Taemin cried. “Yes, you can sit there and wait for some old prick to book you. But the money is the same! You may say that you hate me and don't want to see me again because I'm a spoiled brat, but how am I worse than a total stranger?! At least I care for your comfort! I will not hurt you or steal all your money! I will not you in some dirty truck and then batter you until you need to be taken to the hospital!”
“That was my own fault,” Jinki said quietly.
“No, it wasn't!” There were tears swelling in Taemin's eyes, and it made the other uncomfortable. “What is it that makes me so undesirable?! The fact that I love you?!”
“No, the fact that you're immature, unpredictable and selfish,” the merciless Jinki replied, setting his arm free, again.
“How am I selfish?!” Taemin was in full crying mode by now. “I pay you for your time!”
“You want to keep me to yourself. You harass me with your sob stories and try to involve me in your poor little rich boy drama.”
“How is it worse than being forced to take coke up your or getting it on with some school teacher with daddy ?”
“Most of them just want .”
“And is it a crime to want more?! Is it?!”
Taemin's face was red and glistening with tears.
To tell the truth, Jinki hadn't really seen him in such a bad shape before. Sympathy was slowly creeping its way into his heart, and he didn't like the sensation.
“No, it's not a crime. Just like being stupid is not one. But it doesn't mean people will love you for it.” He patted Taemin's shoulder. “I'm going in now. Be happy and never come back.”
With those words he stuck his hands into the pockets of his vest and walked away.
Behind his back, Taemin screamed out and fell on his knees, clutching his hair.
“Don't leave me… please…” he heard him weep.
Sorry for him or not, Jinki was gone, and Taemin was left alone in his self-pity and woe, save for his mother's diligent driver who was still waiting inside the BMW parked nearby.
“Master Taemin... ” he began, opening the door. “I must take you home. Your mother will be worried.”
He got out of the car and approached the boy apprehensively.
“Come, lean on me...”
Taemin sniffled.
“Why will she be worried? Because you didn't report the fact of my presence in the house at 9 o'clock?”
“Well, yes.”
Taemin chuckled. He didn't move to get up.
“This is why I hate myself. That's exactly the reason.” His voice sounded very wet, but overall calm now. He screwed his eyes shut. “Ah, my head is aching.”
The driver, a timid man in his forties, hovered over him anxiously.
“You shouldn't get so excited, Master. It's not good for you. Now, let me help you get u-”
“I'm not getting up, thank you. Moving is overrated.”
“That is debatable, sir. If you stay out like this, you might catch a cold.”
Taemin laughed again.
“I already caught a heartbreak. No offense, but I don't care... ” He raised his head to look up at the driver. “Why don't you just go home? Don't you have stuff to look after?”
The man blinked.
“Well, mainly I have... you to look after, sir.”
But there was no reasoning with Taemin today. He was going to stay there, cold and shivering, until his aching heart turned into ice. Minutes passed. The kind man threw his own coat over the boy's shoulders.
“What are you doing, don't be stupid,” Taemin protested, his teeth clattering.
“I can't let you get all frozen.”
“I need to get all frozen, though. I need to freeze and die and make him sorry.”
“I do apologize, sir, but that's not how you win affection.”
“Let me try, though,” Taemin argued, his pink fingers clutching the coat desperately. “Let me try.”

“That kid won't rest,” Mr. Park said, peeking outside.
“No, he won't,” Jinki agreed, stirring his instant coffee with a plastic straw because there were no spoons.
“Are you sure you're not gonna just...?”
He shrugged, turning to the staircase. He still needed to finish that presentation.
Jinki threw the scene unfolding outside the cafe out of his mind for an hour or so, until his presentation was finished. Then he checked his phone (nothing) and took another stroll to the cooler and back.
Jonghyun was still lounging on the couch, with the manga books his insatiable mind had consumed that day stacked by his side.
“How do you keep track of the stuff you've read?” Jinki wondered.
“With my brain,” Jonghyun answered, his fingertips before turning the page of a highly explicit superhero story he was reading.
Kibum suddenly appeared before Jinki when he was on his way back to the desk, and the next thing he did was kick the other's knee hard.
“Aw, what the heck, man?!” the victim cried, rubbing his knee.
“You're weak, and I despise you,” Kibum explained coldly.
“I'm weak because I'm hurt? What, was I supposed to thank you?”
Jinki's other knee got kicked, too, and he sank onto the floor, cussing.
“You're weak because you care about him, and I despise you because you are pretending not to.”
“What's it to you? You call him ‘the brat’!”
“And a brat he is, but you are double-faced and a liar. If you don't care, stop thinking about him, and if you do, stop playing hard to get.”
Jinki looked up, his face twisted in pain. Kibum was towering over him like some indignant spirit of wisdom and truth.
“I'm not thinking about him,” he mumbled unconvincingly.
“Have you even read your ing thing?” Kibum snatched the paper Jinki had been sweating over off the table and ran through the text. “What on Earth is ‘cultural approprietation?’ What do you mean ‘He was a visionary who envisioned the great developments in the progress of the global cultural exchange, stating that a cultural dialogue was not possible in isolation’?! What train wreck of a sentence is that?”
Jinki scratched his nose embarrassedly.
“Well, I haven't reviewed it yet...”
“Did you write it with your ?!”
“N-no...”
Kibum slapped his head with the paper.
“Stop being stupid and just go to him. Or give him to me since I actually need the money.”
And he stormed out of the room, furious and upset. He cared nothing for Jinki's studies or Taemin's feelings. He was just jealous... and, granted, in need of money.

The good old man's heart dropped when he saw that Taemin was still sitting on the pavement, humming something under his breath like a lunatic. Coming nearer, he heard that the boy was counting. Math kept him warm, he had said before.
“Please, sir, use these,” the driver pleaded, holding out the hot packs he had bought for him in a supermarket. “And for Christ's sake, put your hands away from the cold ground.”
Taemin looked at him with empty, sleepy eyes.
“Do you know what's colder than this ground? My soul.”
He sneezed.
“I'm not sure I can do anything for your soul, sir, but I can at least walk you back to the car and give you a fresh pair of socks to wear.”
“You should listen to him, you know,” Jinki said, coming outside with his bag full of books. “You've already made your point. Get up.”
He came closer and grabbed the boy by the arms, pulling him up.
Taemin gave him a delirious smile.
“Will you take me home?” he asked, the other's chest with his frozen hand.
“Not before you get inside that car.”
Jinki began dragging the boy towards the vehicle, but he dug his heels into the ground.
“I'm not going there. I'm done with that life.”
“Calm down and just sit in the backseat for a minute.”
The driver, happy to have an ally in his efforts, hurried to the car to open the back door.
Taemin gave Jinki an suspicious look.
“Sit down,” the older boy repeated, pushing him through the door.
Then he took the fresh socks from the driver and told Taemin to take off his shoes.
“Where did those come from?” Taemin asked, his numb fingers struggling with the shoe ties.
“I bought them for you when I went to get some hot packs, sir.”
“The life you have is not that bad, see?” Jinki commented, kneeling down and pushing Taemin's hands away to do the work himself. “People take care of you when you're being foolish.”
The other pouted.
“You don't know what I'm going through.”
Taemin's stomach growled.
“Are you hungry, sir? Shall I book a table for you somewhere?” the driver offered hurriedly.
“Whatever you are going through, it must be hella tough,” Jinki muttered, putting socks on Taemin's feet.
He didn't know why he was doing it, frankly. He told himself it was all for the money. No matter how feeble or unconvincing, it was some sort of excuse.

“What do you wanna eat?” Jinki asked, purposely not looking at Taemin walking by his side.
“Something simple,” the other replied with a sniffle.
“I don't know what is simple for you.”
“I just want something that normal people eat.”
Jinki stopped walking and gave Taemin a skeptical glance from behind his glasses.
“Lead the way, then.”
The boy faltered.
“Well,  I...”
“Aren't you living as an independent adult now?”
Meanwhile the car in which Taemin's driver was following them along the curb stopped, too, its engine purring. The apologizing man had said that he couldn't possibly leave without his mistress's son, so they had let him be.
Taemin said nothing. He looked around and his brow relaxed when he spotted the bulk of a Hyundai department store looming further down the road on the opposite side of street.
“There.” He pointed in the direction of the store.
They crossed the ground floor where young ladies in neat uniforms were offering the posh Western cosmetics to their wealthy customers, took an escalator down to the basement where the food court was and wandered there for a while before Taemin spotted a stall with fried chicken being sold by weight. Jinki followed him with a sigh.
“Why did you choose this?” he asked, finally, while they were watching the salesman scooping some teriyaki chicken into a paper box.
“I wanted to eat something that normal students eat,” Taemin answered with a shrug.
“No normal student ever goes to a Hyundai store for food.”
“Really? Why?” Taemin caught the telltale look in Jinki's eyes and averted his own as the understanding came. “Oh.”
Indeed, a rare ‘normal’ student could boast a golden credit card which he can swipe around thoughtlessly like Taemin usually did.
“Is the card yours? Aren't you supposed to give up the luxuries of your slavish existence?” Jinki asked with disdain, because he just couldn't stop.
“I'll go to the bank and take the cash out, and use it from then on,” was Taemin's answer, because he didn't get the other's meaning. “I will have enough to pay you for your time tonight.”
There was no use in trying to explain anything to him. So Jinki let him anticipate his chicken and be perfectly content.
“Now we need to find a way to throw the good old Mr. Kim off,” Taemin said, hiding his wallet in the inside pocket of his coat.
“He's quite persistent,” Jinki argued.
Taemin looked him in the eye.
“I'm sure you can think of something.”
After a quick staring battle Jinki put his hands in the pockets of his vest and looked around.
“There,” he said, pointing to the exit leading to the subway station.