Chapter 4

The next day, Jiyong went through the hassle of cooking breakfast again and woke Minah up. MinAh didn’t understand why Jiyong was going through all these problems for her. If anything, it made her more irritated. She just wanted to go through her high school years without problems and people noticing her. Jiyong, on the other hand, also didn’t know why he was going through these problems as well just for a guy he barely knew. But whenever he thought about ShinKi, he became curious and wanted to know everything about him.

MinAh, again, walked out the door not liking the fact that Jiyong is waking her up early  and not liking the smile that Jiyong still keeps on his face. Jiyong followed her and talked, knowing fully well that MinAh wasn’t going to answer him.

“Don’t let all the rich kids bother you. Some of them may seem -up, but the others are actually pretty nice.” Jiyong informed her, who was clearly not paying attention. “Also if you run into the Teen Top kids, don’t bother to interact with them even if you’re a scholarship student like them.”

MinAh perked a little at the topic, but didn’t ask any questions.

Jiyong continued. “They’re a bunch of rebellious kids who are intelligent, yes, but also troublemakers. We let them in this school but what do they do? Cause troubles left and right. They don’t know just how lucky they are to be in such a school. I despise them.”

“And we despise you too!” CAP announced. Jiyong and MinAh turned to see Teen Top standing behind them. CAP had a huge smile on his face and he came marching up to MinAh. “Hey ShinKi! Let’s go hang out today!”

“Yeah! We can have a bonding moment!” Niel cheered.

“Who wants to have a bonding moment with you?” Chunji smirked.

Niel placed his hands up and smiled, “Talk to the hand if the face doesn’t want to hear it, hyung!”

Chunji glared at him. “What? How dare you say that to your hyung!”

Before they could start a fight, Changjo intervened. Ricky came up to MinAh and grabbed her arms. “Come, hyung! Let’s go have some fun!”

Ricky pulled MinAh, who was surprise, but Jiyong spoke  up. “What do you think you guys are doing?”

CAP arc an eyebrow and looked down at him. “We’re going to go hang out. What else?”

“By ‘hang out’ you mean cause trouble again, don’t you?” Jiyong crossed his arms and gave him a firm look.

CAP rolled his eyes. “You make it sound like we’re criminals. Which were obviously not. But, if it makes you feel better than no, we’re not going to go cause trouble.”

“Well, I’m having a bonding moment with my room mate, so I suggest you guys leave us alone.”

Ricky pouted. “But … Hyung wants to hang out with us, right?” Both Teen Top and Jiyong looked at MinAh, waiting for her answer. She blinked at the attention and bit her lips from behind her mask. *What the hell? Why am I in this situation? Maybe I should just walk away … Yeah that seems like a good idea.*

MinAh quickly turned around and prepared to walk away, but CAP was quick and wraps an arm around her neck. He pulled MinAh back and chuckled. “You aren’t going to get away that quickly. You’re going to come hang out with us and that’s final!”

MinAh, again, drilled a head through CAP’s head, but he was oblivious to it. Jiyong saw it, though, and he felt oddly happy by that. *He hasn’t drilled a hole into my head yet, maybe I should feel lucky.* Even then, he still felt unhappy that CAP was so close to his room mate.

“I don’t think he’s comfortable in your presence.” Jiyong informed. “Besides, like I said, we’re having our bonding moment.”

Chunji gave a sarcastic laugh. “A bonding moment? It didn’t seem like he was talking back to you, so I think it’s completely one-sided. Besides, we should let him pick.”

MinAh felt all eyes on her again and cursed mentally. *Do I seriously have to pick? Can’t both of these people just leave me alone?*

“Yes you have to pick,” Chunji answered her unanswered though, “we’re never going to leave you alone.”

*Freaky … But who to pick?* MinAh really didn’t feel like going with any of these guys, but she had a feeling neither of them was going to give up either. If she picked Jiyong, she would have to deal with his sophisticated attitude and the smile that always seems to irritate her. Although, if she went with Teen Top she would have their deal with their loud personality and their constant skin ship, which she despises. It was apparent who the better choice to her was.

MinAh sighed and looked up at CAP. He blinked at her and pointed to himself. MinAh nodded and looked away.

“Ha! And there’s our answer.” CAP cheered and winked at the somewhat confused Jiyong. “Well, sorry for your bonding moment to end, but we have our own bonding moment to do! Let’s go!”

Teen Top cheered and walked away with MinAh. Jiyong stood rooted at his spot, feeling … sad and a feeling that he couldn’t decipher. What he couldn’t understand was why ShinKi went with Teen Top when they didn’t seem like his type of friends. Not that he and ShinKi were friends anyway, but still. *I guess outcasts will always remain together.*

That should’ve been his wake up call to just treat his room mate as a room mate, but it wasn’t. If anything, he was more determined.

MinAh was dragged back to the hangout of Teen Top’s. CAP released her and grabbed a couple of sodas from the backroom and distributed it among them. After they were all comfortable and relaxed they started talking.

“Dang, that Jiyong was irritating!” CAP sighed as he placed his arm on the back of MinAh’s seat. “Is he really your roommate?” MinAh absently nodded as she crossed her arms. CAP shook his. “Tsk, so sad. I feel really bad for you.”

MinAh didn’t say anything, nor was she curious. If there was anything related to Jiyong, she felt as if she was going to punch something. There was something about him that just lit a bomb in her, but her past experiences had refused her to let it explode.

“He’s always on our case! Especially when we did nothing to him.” Ricky pouted.

“Whatever,” Chunji scoffed, “he’s a bad taboo. Where’s L.Joe this time?”

“Probably out on his walk.” Changjo answered. “Lately, he’s been preoccupied with a lot of things. It’s kinda sad.”

“I know!” Niel exclaimed. “Do you know how long it took us to get him into our group? Now, he’s acting all distant again.”

“What are you guys talking about?” CAP spoke out. “L.Joe isn’t distant anymore. He’s just busy with a lot of things. You guys know as well as I, that he’ll always be there for us when we need him. Just because he’s now part of our little band of friendship, it doesn’t mean that he always has to be around us.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Chunji murmured, not feeling any better. He and L.Joe were close friends. At first they had their dislikes towards each other, but when L.Joe had joined their group, they became really close. “It also doesn’t mean that he can’t come around and say hi.”

Ricky laughed nervously at the upcoming sad atmosphere and decided to change the topic on to ShinKi. “So ShinKi! Where are you from?”

MinAh just gave him a blank look and looked around the room. Ricky pouted. “Well … Why do you wear the mask? Are you holding an ugly scar?”

“Ricky!” CAP gave him a killer look. Ricky just shrugged his shoulder and drank his soda. “I was just asking.”

“Why won’t you talk, huh?” Chunji asked, staring at MinAh. “Do you think you’re so high and mighty, huh?”

“Chunji …” CAP warned. Chunji looked away and CAP sighed. He looked at ShinKi and his cold eyes. He was just as curious as everyone else as to why this guy was like this, but he couldn’t find out if he won’t walk. “ShinKi. We’re friends now, you can tell us. Like I said, we intelligent people must stick together.”

MinAh scoffed and stood up. *I don’t need friends. I just need to keep myself hidden, graduate and hope that the problem I’ve been running from will just blow over. I only have one friend and that’s Kibum. I don’t need anyone else.* She her heels and left the room.

Changjo watched her leave and sighed. “He’s proving to be … more difficult than L.Joe. I wonder why he’s like that.”

“I don’t know, maybe he’ll come around.” CAP said and they all sipped their drinks, their mood ruined by the ever so cold ShinKi.

Unbeknownst to them all that L.Joe was actually watching them. When he saw Teen Top and the new boy, ShinKi, he hid to observe. He was a bit sad when they talked about him, but his situation right now was proven to be difficult for him and he had to focus all his attention on it. As for ShinKi, he was even more curious about him. They were something about him that threw him off, yet interested him.