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Chapter 17: The Day

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If there was anything I had learned from my short time at the Air Castle thus far, it was that every single day was eventful. It makes sense, I suppose, that if you gather seven of the most talented and successful people from one school and have them live together, exciting things are bound to happen, but exciting is not what I came to school for, far from it.

In fact my entire life leading up to college had been a perfect antonym for ordinary, and for once in my life I had been hoping for something a little more plain. I would go to school with people who didn’t know me or my past, be an ordinary, boring student, get average grades, meet some dependable friends in a study group or something, and live a normal life, not happy necessarily just normal.

It was becoming more and more clear that normalcy was not in my cards.

Still, for the rest of my first week at the Air Castle, I tried to stay as focused on the mundane as possible. It wasn’t as hard as I’d imagined, especially since Jinyoung was increasingly staying away from the house (I assumed) to avoid Irene. I used his absence to my advantage, hunkering down in his room everyday after school. It was the quietest place I could find to study, and I occasionally ventured down the hall to the studio to practice using various design softwares on the large, multi-screened computers. Although Hwasa continuously checked in on my progress with TWICE (which was that I wasn’t making any progress at all), I assured her that I was working on it, and she, understandably, told me to take my time.

At some point, during every day, I would set aside time to clean up around the building and cook huge dinners for everyone. It was a bit of a hassle, but when I imagined the alternative price tag to living in such a nice building in the heart of New York I shuddered. The worst part about cooking, however, was Irene. Most of the time she sat on the couch in the kitchen/lounge area complaining about how uncomfortable it was or pacing back and forth to the bathroom to check on her makeup in case Jinyoung randomly returned at any minute. He never did, at least not until she was fast asleep. At one point JB doubted whether or not Jinyoung was even sleeping at the house, until Irene discovered a note on the fridge one morning that demanded we restock it with energy drinks and buy more of his high-end coffee. With her renewed belief that Jinyoung was sleeping, eating, and drinking at the Air Castle, Irene started forcing me to let her help with the meals I made, which would’ve been very nice of her, except that every meal she helped with she ruined, and somehow she always managed to blame me for it.

She leaves something in the oven to burn.

“Well, you didn’t tell me when to take it out.”

I did. You just weren’t listening.

She adds two times the amount needed of an ingredient.

“Well, that’s how much you told me to add, so it’s your fault.”

Nope, it’s definitely yours, Irene.

It was no surprise that she could never hear me correctly, considering the only time she actually paid any attention to a conversation was when it involved Jinyoung or cosmetics, neither of which I could claim to understand in the slightest.

Still, I managed to get through the week mostly unscathed. Things weren’t exactly normal, but they were far less hectic.

By the time the weekend rolled around, I had grown a bit more comfortable with waking up in Jinyoung’s bed, albeit only because there was no Jinyoung in it, so when I noticed a man standing beside the bed Sunday morning I was understandably a bit shocked.

“Ayyyyy, you’re awake,” the boy flailed his arms in a way that was way too energetic for the morning.

“BamBam, what the hell?” I muttered in a half-awake tone.

“I dab every morning when I wake up,” he did it again.

“I meant what the hell are you doing waking me up… again?”

“Oh, that?”

“Yes, that.”

These rooms seriously need locks.

“Well, that’s because it’s time for you to get up sleepyhead,” he nudged the mattress with his knee, “Today’s the day! Your surprise is ready.”

“My surprise?”

“Your room! Now come onnnn,” BamBam’s impatient voice was almost as adorable as it was annoying. Almost.

“And why couldn’t this wait until a more Godly hour?”

“It’s almost noon. How much longer were you planning on sleeping?”

I sighed, “Fine, fine, fine, just let me change out of my pajamas first, okay?”

“Fair enough,” BamBam said, turning on his heels and floating out of the room.

“How is he in such a good mood this early?” I asked myself, and BamBam responded not yet out of earshot.

“It’s almost noon!”

As I followed BamBam up the stairs, I could feel the warm afternoon heat floating through the building, not heavy and overpowering but more like the gentle heat of a soft blan