"Umm.. I- I mean…" I stuttered. . What the hell was I saying?

Taemin was grinning, but when I got all flustered he began to laugh. "I get that a lot, Kai. It's okay." He reassures.

"I mean I didn't mean it like…" I was still trying to explain.

"Kai. Seriously…" He laughs. "It's more surprising if I get mistaken as a boy." He jokes to lighten the mood.

I laugh. "Thanks." I comment as we walk towards my friends, "You're so easy to talk to."

He shrugs, "Cause you make it easy for me to open up." He admits.

My cheeks grew hot at his words.

"Hey!" He greets my friends as soon as we reach them. "What are you guys doing?"

I move closer to them and try to look over their shoulders at what they were looking at.

"Baekhyun wants to buy a new phone case." Kyungsoo says.

"For what?"

He shrugs giving me a 'you know how Baekhyun is' kind of look.

"I'm going to look for socks. Just remembered I need new ones." Luhan suddenly tells us, walking away before anyone could question his motives.

"I'll go with you." Chanyeol says following him.

We walked around the shopping district of Myeongdong for awhile, looking at all the different stuff they sold. We childishly picked out the most ridiculous looking outfits, or the most girly looking ones and teased each other saying which of the guys it looked best on. We got a good laugh out of it. But I thought that the stuff would mostly appeal to girls, and wondered if I had brought a girlfriend here if she would ask me to buy her anything.

"Kai, let's buy ice-cream!" Taemin's voice snaps me out of my reverie.

"Huh?"

"Ice-cream. Baekhyun, Lay and Chanyeol are going to get a cone." He tells me.

"They are?"

He laughs, "Yes! Weren't you listening?"

I shake my head. "What about the others?"

"They went to go get drinks." He tells me.

I look around and see the other half of my friends on their way to a convenience store.

"Sehun!" I called out. He looks back at me. "Buy me a Mountain Dew, please?" I ask him. He nods and gives me a thumbs up.

I look at Taemin, "Let's go?" I say, and we follow Lay, Baekhyun and Chanyeol to the ice-cream vendor.

It had been awhile since I checked my watch and when I did I saw that it was almost 8, and by that time, the nine of us were ready to start eating again. I think the ice-cream gave us a sugar rush and pumped up our energy.

"So, are we going to resume the eating contest?" Suho hyung asks.

"Definitely!" Luhan clarifies.

"Mandu eating contest!" Chanyeol said.

"Most number of mandu in a minute?" Kyungsoo makes sure.

We nod.

"One on one?"

"How about two pairs?"

Then another argument ensued over how the flow of the game would go but we settled it in no time. We even voted on which of us would be playing already. There was going to be 3 rounds, the first two rounds would have a time limit of one minute. In the first round, it was going to be Chanyeol versus Sehun and the second round was going to be between Lay and Kyungsoo. Then the winner of the first and second rounds would go against each other with a 30-second time limit.

We all pitched in to buy 40 pieces of mandu, hoping it would last for the first two rounds. We then doubted that the 40 pieces weren't enough because with 30 seconds passing by, Chanyeol already had stuffed his face with 8 pieces of mandu and Sehun with 6.

"TIME!" Taemin called, raising his phone up to show that one minute had indeed passed.

Suho hyung, who was in charge of counting Chanyeol's mandu pieces announced that he had devoured a good 16 pieces. 17, if time didn't run out while he was still chewing.

Baekhyun, on the other hand, who was in charge of counting Sehun's mandu pieces announced Sehun's loss by telling us he counted 12 pieces.

And Luhan and I? Well, we took the videos of our friends stuffing their faces. We were laughing the whole time, especially the one when Sehun chewed so fast he didn't know whether to breathe through his nose or mouth.

I handed Sehun his bottle of water which he gulped down.

"How was it?" I asked him.

"Sad I didn't get to enjoy my food." He replies wittily.

"17 plus 12…" I hear Taemin mumble.

"Huh?" I look towards him.

"There are only 11 pieces of mandu left." He tells me.

"Judges should eat the left over mandu!" I quickly announced wanting to eat the dumplings.

"Yeah, then we could just buy another 40 more pieces for the next round." Luhan comments, already taking a piece from the plate. "Yum." He says chewing it.

Taemin, Suho hyung, Baekhyun and I all take a piece of mandu and eat it at a leisurely pace. I even turned my head to Sehun and commented, "Wow. It's so great that I can enjoy my food." I mocked him.

He glared at me. "Gimme that!" He grabbed my half-drunk Mountain Dew from my hand, taking it away from me.

I laughed. "What?"

"No more free drinks for you!" He scolded me.

Taemin, cheeks puffed from eating the mandu, turned towards me, "Don't worry." He said, sounding muffled from trying to chew the dumplings down, "You can always get free drinks from me." He grins mischievously.

"You two are evil together, too." Sehun copies Taemin's words from earlier today.

"Jongin is the root of all evil." Luhan comments. I roll my eyes and pop another piece of mandu in my mouth.

"Let's get to round two!" Chanyeol says wanting to see who would challenge him.

Luhan and I whipped out our cellphones again, getting ready to record the whole thing.

We bought another 40 pieces of mandu for Lay and Kyungsoo to devour. When Taemin gave the go signal, Lay immediately stuffed two pieces in his mouth while Kyungsoo chewed one quickly, putting another when there was space. At one point, I think there were 4 crushed mandu pieces in Lay's mouth, barely able to hold in all the food.

In the end, it was a close call. Suho hyung announcing that Lay ate 14 pieces of mandu and Baekhyun announcing Kyungsoo eating 12 pieces. Lay was declared the winner and would be going against Chanyeol in the third and final round.

As usual, the judges ate the left over mandu.

"You know, since Kyungsoo and I had the same score, we should have a one-on-one match." Sehun comments while Baekhyun, Luhan, Suho hyung, Taemin and I were finishing the dumplings.

"You really want to go another round, Sehun?" Kyungsoo looks at him.

"No." Sehun clutches his stomach. "I was just suggesting."

"Maybe next time." Chanyeol says patting Sehun on the back. "You did well."

"Let's start the final round!" Baekhyun announces excitedly.

This time, we bought 20 pieces of mandu, splitting it evenly to 10 pieces for Lay and Chanyeol. We changed the rules slightly to whoever finishes the mandu first is declared the winner. But they were still only given 30 seconds to finish it. If, by 30 seconds, the 10 pieces of mandu isn't finished, the winner will be the one with the less left-overs.

Taemin readied the stopwatch on his phone. This time, there need not be judges to count how many pieces because we distributed the dumplings evenly.

"Ready, set, go!" Taemin announced and Lay and Chanyeol went at it.

I swear, Lay grabbed 3 pieces of mandu and shoved it all in his mouth. See what I said about him being competitive. Taemin was laughing and laughing at the way Lay and Chanyeol stuffed their faces at the speed of light. In no time, there was one dumpling left for Lay and 2 more left for Chanyeol. The moment Lay stuck the last piece in his mouth, he sputtered, "I WFFF!!! I WFFF!!!"

"YOU HAVE TO SWALLOW IT, YIXING!!!!!!!" Luhan yelled, laughing at the completely occupied face of Lay.

He chewed as fast as he could. Taemin and I doubled over laughing. Chanyeol grabbed the two dumplings and shoved it in his mouth trying his best to win. I promise when I say, Lay choked on that last huge piece just to get it down his throat, because he was coughing and coughing when we declared him the winner.

Taemin checked his phone. "27 seconds, with 3 more seconds to spare." He comments.

Chanyeol slowed down his chewing and leisurely swallowed his last piece of mandu.

Then, we all congratulated Lay in his best efforts to win this round. Sehun gave him my Mountain Dew to calm down his coughing. Poor Lay. In desperate attempt to be mandu king. He was okay after a few minutes. The winner of this round would be getting a chocolate bar. Maybe Lay didn't do it to be mandu king. Maybe he did for candy. Lord only knows how much Yixing loved his candy.

We were now on our way to the hotdog stalls, ready for our last eating competition of the day. I checked my watched and it was already 8:30. Time really flew by fast when you're having fun. For the hotdog eating challenge, the competitors would be me, Luhan, Taemin, and Suho hyung. Baekhyun sat this one out too, because although he could put it away, Baekhyun was not a fast easter.

For the dynamics of the hotdog eating contest we decided that we'd buy different kinds of hotdogs to make the challenge more interesting. We were each given seven hotdog sticks and 5 minutes to finish them all. The first one to finish all his hotdogs wins the challenge. If someone doesn't finish his hotdogs in the given time, there will be a punishment.

The hotdogs we had to eat included a regular hotdog on a stick, a deep fried corndog, fried hotdog with seaweed, the french fries hotdog, and the hotdog wrapped in bacon. In order, we had to eat:
1. Deep fried corndog
2. Seaweed hotdog
3. Hotdog on a stick
4. Hotdog wrapped in bacon
5. Corndog again
6. French fries hotdog
7. Hotdog wrapped in bacon, again.

The four of us lined up, and each were assigned a "hotdog giver". Kyungsoo thought of the idea.

"Since everyone will be busy focusing on eating, they don't have time to bother thinking about which piece they should be eating next, so we should have someone handing the hotdogs to them."

Luhan, at first, protested. "But that should be part of the challenge! The memorization of the order." But after seeing the bag the lady placed all our hotdogs inside, Luhan quickly agreed to having a "hotdog giver".

Kyungsoo was assigned to be the one to time us. The hotdog givers were, Chanyeol for Luhan, Sehun for Taemin, Lay for Suho hyung and Baekhyun for me.

The four of us had our corndogs in hand, ready for the contest to begin. We were all anxiously waiting for Kyungsoo to make the call. Even our "hotdog givers" were anxious.

"Ready, get set, and GO!" Kyungsoo finally announces. And we bite and tear into our corndogs at the speed of light. It took me all but 4 bites to rid the stick of the corndog, and while I was chewing, Baekhyun had handed me the seaweed hotdog. Even before I swallowed everything, I worked on eating the second stick immediately.

"Luhan was just given his second stick." Baekhyun whispers to me, "Taemin too."

Before the competition, I had told Baekhyun to keep me updated on my rivals to see who was getting ahead. I all but glanced at the rest of my competitors before taking 3 more big bites to finish my second stick. My third stick came and it was the easiest to eat, by far, a regular grilled hotdog. The hotdog wrapped in bacon disappeared just as quickly as the grilled hotdog. Working on my 5th stick, Baekhyun said everyone else was still finishing their fourth. I was feeling confident.

"2 minutes and 30 seconds!" Kyungsoo called half-time.

I look at the rest of my competitors and I see Taemin chomping down his fourth stick and went to work quickly on his fifth. Luhan looked like he was near finished as well, so I sped up my eating too. With my mouth full, I asked Baekhyun to hand me the last two sticks of hotdog left, which I held in both hands and quickly ate the sticks clean.

"Done!" I say, wiping my mouth.

"Kai is done!" Baekhyun also exclaims happily high-fiving me.

Kyungsoo announced my time and said I finished in 4 minutes and 7 seconds.

Luhan and Taemin surprisingly came in a tie 20 seconds after my win, and Suho hyung came in last place with a time of 4 minutes and 36 seconds. At least no one exceeded the time limit and had to get punished.

My friends congratulated me on my win and said they'd give me a free dinner as a prize. How nice. After an eating contest the first thing you'd want to have is dinner. Such geniuses these guys are sometimes. But I was thankful, anyway.

They also congratulated Taemin on tying with Luhan.

"Taemin can hang with us when we eat!" Sehun comments.

"Yeah, he can put it away, too." Lay nods.

"You're not yet full?" Suho hyung asks him.

"I'm pretty full." Taemin says chuckling.

"Aren't we going to have dinner?" Chanyeol asks us.

We stared at him.

"We just had an eating contest." Luhan tells Chanyeol off bitterly.

"But we were supposed to have grilled meat remember?" He says.

Oh yeah. We were supposed to have those pork and beef skewers.

"How about, we go find a place that sells them a couple blocks away so at least we're walking the food off?" Taemin suggests. We agreed with his compromise.

So, to end the day, we all settled down in a Pajongmacha to share a nice dinner. It was good to be settled down, after being on our feet for virtually 4 hours or even more. We had asked the ahjussi who owned the place if we could put two tables together and he agreed.

Then we ordered pork and beef skewers which we all just shared, and bowls of hot soup. This time, we ate slowly, enjoyed our food and conversed over random topics. We made each other laugh and told both intelligent and unintelligent stories and just, for the first time that day, hung out in one place for almost an hour.

It's been so long since my friends and I have laughed and ate this much. It was the best because we were complete, and it was all the more fun because Taemin could join us.

So....hello! Sorry for the "long" update. I know I usually have a chapter up everyday, but these days I've been getting lazy to write the story. Mostly cause the next chapter is a filler, and I'm getting bored with it. So even though I have no back-up chapters up, I posted this one already. Don't expect another quick update, though >< But yeah... I'll try to write over the weekend. And if things go the way I plan, this story will probably by done by next weekend! 8D

To everyone subscribed, thank you. To everyone leaving comments, thank you. To everyone reading, thank you.