I slowly leant in to kiss those soft lips again for the thousandth time tonight. One soft kiss for one frail soul, always.

We parted slowly and rested on each other’s foreheads. The blue nuance seeping from the tall-placed window, the silence, the ceiling that we could always reach easily from up here. The human warmth nothing can truly replace in sad, cold nights when I could only stay awake.

It had been almost two seasons that I exchanged rooms with Joonmyun, our angelic leader. Our latest single was topping charts everywhere, and it felt like we had been in the industry for decades when only one year had passed. My bed below, Joonmyun’s former bed, became ever so messy after my coming here. It was empty most of the time though, because I prefer climbing to our maknae’s bed and spend my nights cuddling him in his sleep.

Sehun stared into my eyes and kissed me again under the dim colors of midnight. After our first weeks together, we realized the inefficiency and shallowness of ‘I love you’ and we had not found any functional, deeper sentence to replace that. ‘I love you’ is pretty much a mere sentence we throw to our brothers, to our fans, and our feelings were simply too big, too deep to fit into that.

“Go to sleep, Dear,” he whispered softly to my ear. I was leaning on the corner of the bed and Sehun was leaning on my shoulder. He turned and rested one hand on my chest, deciding to sleep. I could only his soft, although damaged hair, and kiss the top of his head, hoping that sleep would also find its way to me.

Ever since I changed beds with Joonmyun hyung, Kyungsoo would never open the door and inform us through those delicious aromas that he was cooking breakfast. I guess he once walked in to see us cuddling asleep like this and did not want to see it again. He once told me about the scars he had and I guess opening my room door would only infect what was already cured. Now he did not even bother knocking.

“Honey, wake up,” I whispered after my short, fulfilling sleep. The reddish color of dawn colored our skin and the pale walls of the room. I became more of a morning person now after spending more time with Sehun, most probably a side effect from feeling responsible over him. Sehun started to stir and mumble, and I took my eyes closer to his only to guarantee that I would always be his first and last sight every day.

Sehun finally gained enough soberness to let go of me and sit upright, waiting for his brain to load and work correctly. His bed hair was cute, always messier than the frizzy hair the nunas would make for me in the afternoon.

“Come on, let’s have breakfast,” he mumbled in his pillow voice. He crawled slowly down his bed ladder and walked out the room, leaving me chuckling to myself.

Sehun became a very touchy guy with the hyungs after we shared rooms, probably a way to repay the guilt for somehow spending less quality time with them. I climbed down the bunkbed and walked outside the room to see the hyungs watching Pororo together. The dining table was not really stuffed yet. Sehun was assisting Kyungsoo again today.

I decided to go to the bathroom and wash my face before returning to the living room. I sneaked in to the three hyungs and sat on Joonmyun hyung’s lap. He welcomed me and playfully hugged me from the back. We don’t really watch anything outside Pororo because the dramas are always that same script with different casts, the news are always a bunch of bad information that have nothing to do with our lives, and the reality shows are becoming lame. And especially, we don’t really have time outside Pororo’s slot.

“Come on guys, breakfast’s ready!” Kyungsoo exclaimed.

“Breakfast, Hyungie!” Sehun also said.

We turned our hungry heads and raced to the dining table.

I now also changed place with Kyungsoo at the dining table so that I could sit beside Sehun. Joonmyun hyung led the grace.

“O Lord, we are thankful for the beautiful mornings we have spent together. I hope that we can always stay together and show how grateful we actually are for being met in this family. Amen.”

“Amen.”

We lifted our heads and said ‘we’re digging in!’ without sync. Sync. Reminded me of our cute, faulty greetings at our debut days. Now we and Joonmyun hyung are getting pretty good at it.

We had kimchi fried rice for today. It was awesome. Funny how Kyungsoo made this house of college boys so extraordinary and luxurious with his presence. Ordinary college students don’t enjoy cuisine for breakfast every day.

We promised to meet with M at our sky room (because every group simply has their own sky rooms) at eight thirty this morning. It was almost half past seven and we had finished our meals. The hyungs and Sehun always tried to find a way to make me wash the dishes, but… you wish.

I sat on the couch with Chanyeol hyung watching another children show waiting for our turn to take a shower. Sehun was washing the dishes with Kyungsoo. Joonmyun hyung was singing in the shower and Baekhyun was changing in his room.

Kyungsoo and Sehun came with moist hands and squished in with us on the couch. Joonmyun hyung came out of the restroom not long after and even the warm feel of shower steam and perfume oozing out made us race to get to shower first.

I win of course, because I’m ing awesome.

I locked the bathroom door and took off my clothes. I the shower to the temperature I prefer and thank goodness it was still warm from Joonmyun hyung’s recent use. I always come out of the shower happier with warm water on.

Bottles of shampoo and liquid soap were standing on my left. Even though we were pretty careless about using each other’s stuff, we don’t share soap nor shampoo and I still don’t understand why. I put my shampoo and soap on the wet tile and started washing my hair. I love how warm water rains on my back, it just adds to the feel.

I wrapped my dark blue towel around my hips and unlocked the bathroom door. To my surprise, Sehun was sitting at the desk in the room, reading I don’t know what. He turned to my presence and turned his back to me so he wouldn’t see a thing. I casually changed to my training outfit. No more harem pants for the next concepts, praise the lord.

“Jongin,” he called, twirling the studying chair around. He just could hear when I was done.

“Let’s buy the hyungs lunch later,” he smiled.