CHAPTER EIGHT

Before they started their little roadtrip started, Soojung had asked the boys if they wanted to have a stopover somewhere, but they said they didn’t need to. After all, the ride to Busan was just four hours. They said they could handle those hours sitting down. But as soon as they see a gas stop from afar, they all pleaded for her to stop so she did, with Sehun reasoning that they don’t have any food at the villa and that maybe they should buy something to eat.

However, before she could even park properly, Chanyeol already opens the door followed by Jongin and Sehun. She could only sigh as she watched them rushing into the bathroom by the sidemirror.

“We don’t have to stop, they said.” She chuckles to herself, walking towards to the gas stop’s convenience store to buy whatever she could find. “Look at them now.”

The white modern villa of the late Mrs. Oh doesn’t really ring a bell to Soojung, even if Sehun insists that they have been there once they were younger. He added and informed to his friends that only his aunts or uncles are really the ones who use the mansion for parties and weekend getaways despite him inheriting it. Nevertheless, it still managed to look new despite not being used a lot. The interior was lavish, and it was a perfect to Jongin’s taste. She would know as she kept glancing on the grinning boy, and whenever she catches him looking amused, she feels the butterflies on her stomach once again.

While looking around the place, she discovers a small picture of her together with the rest of her childhood friends, framed and was placed in a table right next to some pictures of the Oh family. Maybe Sehun was telling the truth after all. Seeing the picture makes her smile, but at the same time lonely. It seems like just yesterday when they were just playing around as kids, but now they were all adults.

“We were so cute… What happened to us?” She thought to herself, chuckling a bit.

“Soojung-ah! Come up! I’ll let you choose your room!” Sehun shouts from the second floor, ruining her sentimental thoughts.

“Coming!” She shouts back. Before going upstairs to wherever Sehun was, she made sure that the picture was properly back to its place.

Soojung picks the room that right next to Sehun’s for her and Jinri, and Chanyeol together with Jongin decided to stay in one of the two rooms on the first floor. While Soojung unpacks and fixes her things upstairs, the boys gathered at the kitchen to organize the food that they bought, which Soojung thought were a little too much but the boys insisted that it wasn’t as they knew that they have a big stomach.

“Wait, we didn’t buy ice cream?” Chanyeol asks in horror after they empty out the plastic bags. “I thought we did!”

“Just ask for Jinri to buy you one.” Jongin casually says, earning a glare from Chanyeol and a chuckle from Sehun. “What? Did I say something wrong?”

“No, nothing at all. There’s nothing wrong with what you said, since I totally have a great relationship with ex right now.”

“It’s just ice cream, man. I doubt that she’ll mind.”

“Speaking of relationships,” Sehun suddenly turns to Jongin, his voice sounding very serious, “Are you finally going to ask her out?” Though he didn’t mention any name, the three knew who exactly Sehun was talking about. The question caught him off guard since he didn’t really think about it. Before he could even answer his question, Sehun quickly gives his opinion. “But honestly, I kind of still don’t want you to.”

“Why?” Both Chanyeol and Jongin asked at the same time, with Jongin sounding offended and Chanyeol sounding amused.

“It’s just I bet you’ll be the type of person to forget that your friends exists once you’re in a relationship.”

Because of his stupid conclusion, Jongin just snickers and went back to keeping the remaining food that they had in the counter. “I’m not like Kris hyung who spends his all his free time with his girlfriend.” He utters as he shivered at the thought of his past Christmas family celebrations with the older Chinese boy. Since he was dating his cousin Jinah, the couple would usually hangout at his room, or wherever he was really. After all, both were very close to him, but all he got from the two of them was annoyance as they’re really sappy together.

“Is that so? I wonder what you’ll be like as boyfriend then.”

“Why don’t you ask your current girlfriend then? They dated.” Chanyeol tried his best not to laugh at his joke, but was unable to contain especially after Sehun smacked him. Jongin didn’t seem to care much as continued with what he was doing. “But you know, Jongin, I applaud you for waiting this long. How can you wait for like, four years? I could never do that.”

Chanyeol’s question made him question himself. How could he wait for that long indeed? Maybe it’s because he loved her too much. Maybe he was too scared to try. Maybe it was both. He can’t really say that he regrets his decision though. Sure he might have missed her for that long, but their relationship didn’t turn bad throughout those four years, unlike Chanyeol’s and Jinri’s relationship.

“Oh please. Jongin was unable to wait that long. The only reason why he survived this long is because he has his ways not to miss her, if you know what I mean.” Sehun jokes, winking at Chanyeol before the two started giggling. Thinking that he meant that he had flings throughout that period, Jongin finally turned to his friend to defend himself but Sehun was quick to clarify it. “That’s not what I meant, . I was talking about the reason why you have a lot of tissues back home-”

“Don’t even start with this , Oh Sehun.”

“Don’t pretend to be so innocent. Everybody knows that you-”

“If she hears us talk about this, I will murder you with my own hands.”

"You've been saying the same thing for the past four years, and you've never done it."

“Okay, but I’m curious about something. You don’t have to answer it though.” Chanyeol starts and even though he did look curious or somewhat serious at least, Jongin already hates his question. “Have you never had that kind of thought? Not even once?”

Jongin felt Sehun’s eyes on him, and though he didn’t exactly say it, they knew exactly what Chanyeol meant by it. It wasn’t the first time they talked about , hell they had been talking about erted stuffs way back in their freshman years in Imperium Academy. They just tend to not to talk about Jongin’s life, because he’d always change the topic. But that night seemed different. It seemed like he was about to say something but bit his tongue when he saw Soojung approaching the kitchen behind Sehun and Chanyeol.

He immediately pretended to search something on the cabinets. Confused by how he just acted, both Sehun and Chanyeol looked behind and saw the same thing. Seeing that Soojung was already walking towards them, the two boys panicked, with Sehun even screaming.

“What’s wrong with you three?” She asked after seeing how weird they were acting. “Were you guys watching or something?”

“I don’t watch !” Jongin exclaims, not realizing that it wasn’t exactly what she asked. He had become very trigerred whenever somebody mentions that word ever since that little accident they had back then.

“That’s not what she asked.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Anyways, I’ll just pretend that nothing happened.” She tells them. She was a bit curious about whatever they were doing before, but she didn’t care anymore, only because she wanted to speak to them about something. She knew they won’t tell her anyways. “I need to talk to you guys about something.” She then leans on the counter right next to Chanyeol, just opposite Sehun and Jongin.

With an uncomfortable laugh, Chanyeol comments, “I think I don’t like this already. Deep talks make me really nervous.”

“Well, uhm… It is about Jinri so-”

“My intuitions are right. I guess this is my cue to go to my room and sleep-” He starts to walk away, but she had a brilliant way of stopping him – by threatening him.

“If you leave this room, I will smash your guitar.”

“You do know that I can just buy another one, right?”

“I’m not talking about the guitar that you brought with you today. I’m talking about that limited edition electric guitar that you got from Japan.” She smirks, and by the thought of Soojung smashing his precious guitar got Chanyeol shrieking in fear. It wasn’t just an imported, limited edition guitar, it was signed by the guitar god himself, Miyavi. Sighing, he just slowly and sadly went to stand right next to her.

“Do we have to hear what you’re going to say too?” Sehun asks. It’s not that he didn’t want to listen to her, it’s just that he just didn’t care about whatever it is about Jinri. He isn’t her ex-boyfriend anyways so what’s the point of being there?

“Yes, Sehun. You two have to stay and listen too.”

“Why though?” Jongin adds. Just like Sehun, he wasn’t really interest either.

“Just listen to me, please? It’s really important.” With one please from her, Jongin had completely changed her mind. He pulls a chair for him to seat on comfortably so he could hear her talk. He was suddenly interested about Jinri and was willing to stay and listen. “So, uhm, I know that Jinri’s relationship with you guys had become… well, rather bad while I was gone. And I know that she has changed a lot – I mean, the way she acts, the way she talks… She somewhat gotten a little… y towards you.”

The three boys acknowledges it, nodding in union.

“But Jinri didn’t really want to do that on purpose. I bet you know how heartbroken she was when you broke up with her.” She turns to Chanyeol to continue, “It matched the same time as the release of her movie. She was really stressed out, thinking that she wouldn’t do well on her debut on the big screen-”

“Okay, first of all, it’s not my fault that she got hella crazy when I left for Vienna.” Chanyeol tells her. He looked offended, as if she was blaming the breakup all to him. But that wasn’t Soojung's point.

"She's crazy, I know. I'm her best friend afterall." She agrees in attempts to calm him down. "What I'm trying to say is, I don't think she really wanted to ignore you guys for the past four years. She has only done these things because she was scared of getting hurt more. She once told me that seeing your faces reminded her of Chanyeol and the thought of him… just makes her angry."

Chanyeol rolls his eyes, and was immediately smacked by the girl.

"I just... want to apologize in her behalf. I know that she's usually not like this, especially when it's you guys. We grew up all together, and I don't think she's willing to throw our friendship just because she broke up with one of our friends."

"Ah, Soojung... You've always been so nice," Sehun pauses to chuckle bitterly, "But you don't have to apologize for her."

"Exactly." Jongin adds.

"It's just... I've been thinking..." She pauses, looking down to her feet. "I realized that this might be the last time we do this in a while, since you know... We're all graduating soon, which means less time to see each other."

After realizing the same thing, Sehun's eyes widens. "Holy , she's right! For whatever reason, I thought that we were all going back to school after this."

"It'd be nice if we all have a good time, but we won't be able to do that if all of us don't get along, right?" She says as she looked and elbowed Chanyeol beside her.

Offended, he frowns, "I'll be good if she doesn't do to me."

"Okay, I'll make sure that doesn't happen."

Later that evening, the group of young heirs just ate what they bought instead of going out to a fancy restaurant to eat. Apart from being tired and lazy, the view of the ocean had captivated them that they decided to have their 'dinner' by the pool even though it had gotten colder at that time of the day. That, and Soojung insisted that they just eat outdoors, as they wouldn't hear the doorbell as Jinri was soon to arrive. So with the bags of potato chips and the sandwhiches that they had, they sat at a wooden table outside.

"I can't believe we're going to graduate soon." Jongin mumbles, starring into the nothingness.

"I've already graduated though." He hears Chanyeol say.

"I know. That's why I don't even understand why you're here."

"Hey!"

"Aren't you guys scared?" Sehun asks suddenly, his voice sounding very serious. He wasn't even looking at his friends and was looking up to the stars. "I mean, of the future? Sure, we're a bunch of rich kids, we don't have to worry much about these things, but what if someday… we up?"

Chuckling on how serious he sounded, Chanyeol throws a piece of potato chip towards him. "Why are you like this?"

"I don't know, man. I've been really, really sentimentally lately." Sehun removes his baseball cap to ruin his hair. "Why am I like this, really?"

"Don't be like this." Soojung sighs, though her voice comes out unintentionally in a cute way, making Jongin smile secretly. "If you get sentimental, I'll get sentimental, and when I do, I cry a lot."

"Oh, I think I might cry too."

"Okay, how about we talk about another thing?" Jongin suggests before the two youngest actually cries. “Shall we… uhm, talk about maths?”

“Maths…?” Chanyeol repeats, frowning. “Who the talks about maths?”

“Okay, fine. You think about something to talk about then.”

Chanyeol was actually about to say something to talk about but the doorbell rang. Knowing that it was her best friend on the door, Soojung squealed in excitement and immediately offered to open the door. She even skips happily towards the door instead of walking like a normal person. When she opened the door, an exhausted looking Jinri was waving goodbye to her manager and only realized that the door was already open when Soojung back hugged her.

“Did you miss me too much, Jungie?” The taller girl asked in a cute tone, something that she rarely show to people but her bestfriend. Soojung replies cutely too as she nodded. “Did they bully you or something?”

“Ah, I