“Well? What are you waiting for, man?” Dongjin nudged Mingming with his gym bag as they walked back from the lacrosse field as ends of their hair dripping with shower water stuck to the sides of their faces, “This is the perfect opportunity to ask her!”

Accompanying them back to the main building was Junhui who nodded in agreement. The two groaned when Mingming started to hesitate, thinking about what to say next. Neither one of them wanted to be the one to tell him to man up though. They slugged their way over to one of the courtyard tables and dumped their water-heavy gym bags on the table and rested their sticks against the nearby tree. There wasn't anything to worry about in terms of their belongings getting stolen since no one really had anything to do with the three. Once seated, Junhui weakly pulled out his History books, “Besides, if I'm not mistaken, you need a date for the gathering. And who else but Jinki would make the perfect candidate?”

“You have no right to talk, Junhui ge,” Mingming snapped back, lightly hitting the older boy on the head with his Math folder, “You're already dating my cousin so your date is secured,”

Dongjin couldn't help but laugh at the poor Junhui who was being reprimanded for dating Mingming's cousin. He didn't really know how Qiyue looked like, but he had seen pictures of her and Junhui when he was snooping around on Mingming's phone. Besides that, he knew what the gathering was all about. Mingming's relatives and close friends from the mainland were coming to Korea to meet up and a relative of his was going to make a presentation about an organization.

The reason why a date was mandatory for all the young boys was because it was a request of his grandmother. Mingming had many cousins whereas he was just an only child. Maybe it was his grandmother's way of trying to see potential marriage candidates. His male cousins were all around his age, some being one or two years older, and from what he had heard, they were all dating. Mingming had many male cousins, and all their girlfriends, as he heard, were all very wealthy. They were owners of many franchises and companies all throughout China and had many supporting buildings scattered around Asia. All of his relatives expected Mingming to be dating as well.

As far as his female cousins went, they were all dating older men who were in line to inherit their fathers' businesses. He only knew two of his female cousins who were dating: Qiyue and Junhui, and Jiadao and some other guy he didn't know. All of them, one way or another, were first sons of the family. Mingming didn't get the fact that his grandmother approved of Junhui. Although Junhui meant well, it didn't really seem like Junhui fit his grandmother's definition of 'financially well'. Maybe she was being more lenient towards his friends?

Anywho, after living in Korea for a few years, he realized that marriage and dating culture from Chinese differed greatly from that of Koreans. That's why Mingming didn't want to explain the whole thing to Dongjin. It would have been too complicated. In most cases, Chinese men and women dated for marriage. It wasn't just a one time, 'let's try it out' kind of thing. If you were dating, you planned on getting married. Most of the time too, they married for money. Which is what his grandmother had in mind. Every year she held many events where girls and boys which Mingming and his cousins didn't even know were invited. There were countless time where his grandmother tried to set him up with girls only to have him turn them down.

“Okay but besides that,” Junhui attempted to take the attention away from him, “Jinki is totally someone you could present to your grandama! She's well-mannered, nice, smart, pretty, and her biggest selling point is that she's a Korean who can speak Chinese! Besides if Dongjin's giving you the thumbs up to ask her, then you have all the support you need!”

Junhui looked over at Dongjin then back at Mingming. He decided to say this part in Chinese since he didn't want Dongjin to hear, “And I mean, you might want to consider Jinki's social status, you know?”

Mingming started to twirl his pencil between his fingers as he started to think about Junhui's argument. He responded back to Junhui's last statement in Chinese, “You have a point...but I don't want to do that to her. I like Jinki too much to do something that cruel,”

“Besides when do you think I should ask her? Also how should I ask her? Casually? Formally? Force her to go with me?” Mingming switched to Korean so Dongjin could understand them again, “I'm not romantic like Alfred Irenee DuPont, you know!”

“So you may not build an entire estate for the love of your live,” Dongjin added to Mingming's historical reference, “But what you should do is casually ask her yourself in like ten minutes. Just be yourself and you'll be fine!”

The three couldn't help but laugh at their references. Alfred Irenee DuPont was a helpless romantic from the late 1800's to early 1900's. He had three wives: Mary, Alicia, and Jessie. His first marriage didn't work out so they divorced. On his second wife, Alicia, he was completely in love. Unfortunately for him, he didn't love her back. So to win her love, Alfred decided to build her a downscaled Versailles right in Delaware. Eventually she ended up marrying him, but she didn't love him. When she died, he got married to his childhood friend, Jessie who loved him very much. He ended up building her another estate down in Florida and gave her a cruise ship as a present. It was something the first years were learning, and the second year students had just finished testing on for the previous chapter. And as Mingming pointed out earlier, he wasn't as amazing as Alfred was.

About two buildings across from the three, Jinki had just exited the Technology Building as she balanced her laptop on her left arm while typing with her right. She was just about ready to launch her final robotics program and see if it was ready to work. Engrossed in her work, she didn't realize that someone was walking right behind her, checking out her laptop screen. She jumped when someone called her name, “What are you doing there, Robotoid?”

“Oh my God, Seunggwan!” Jinki quickly closed her laptop screen, whipping around and almost falling off the curb if Seunggwan hadn't caught her and pulled her in. They locked eyes for a few seconds, but Jinki broke it off when she stepped away trying not to look like there was something going on between the two of them. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she stammered, “You know, that's not funny! If I didn't know that you knew my secret, I would have had a heart attack!”

“Sorry not sorry, Jinki,” Seunggwan reached over and ruffled her hair mischievously, “Just wanted to make sure you're not up to anymore trouble, that's all,”

Ever since Seunggwan agreed to help Jinki, he made her promise that she wasn't going to tamper with the rankings anymore. She could stay at the top, but she wasn't allowed to alter any more positions until she got together with Chan. Besides, Jinki had no intentions of removing herself from the top of the list. It was crucial for her to stay at the top for her plan to work. No, it wasn't a plan Seunggwan was helping her with. She was going on it alone on this one. Seunggwan watched Jinki cradle her laptop in her arms the same way she did with Chan's laptop when he first went to her house. Scoffing, Jinki resumed walking, “Well you have nothing to worry about. I was just tweaking the last lines of my program and soon E-VE will be running like a beauty just in time for the Golden Gears!”

“Uh newsflash!” he tapped on her laptop, “I don't care!”

“I guess there's no use in me trying to hold an intelligent conversation with a caveman,”

Unable to top that comment, Seunggwan just childishly stuck his tongue out at her. He was about to ask her about what she planned on doing come competition time for the video game club, but he decided not to get her riled up about it. Considering how sly she was, she probably already had a plan in mind. Stuffing his hands in his blazer pockets, Seunggwan followed right behind her, while she rambled on about her new toy E-VE. He didn't really mind listening to her even if he had no idea what she was talking about. He found it nice just to listen to her voice, believe it or not.

Back at the courtyard table, Mingming eyed the two heading their way, and back at Dongjin who was doing the same thing. It was still obvious that Dongjin wasn't very approving of Seunggwan in his cousin's company, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. Mingming turned his attention back to his homework, but Junhui covered the page with his hand. Looking up, Mingming raised an eyebrow at his best friend, “What are you doing? Move your hand,”

“Are you really going to just sit there and do nothing?” Junhui asked harshly, sending shivers down Mingming's spine. Junhui had never looked so serious before. Even Dongjin seemed pretty serious and he didn't even say anything. Mingming shrugged his shoulders, moving Junhui's hand out of the way, “She's with Seunggwan. I don't want to bother her or anything,”

“Uh if anything, you're not going to be bothering her!” Dongjin snapped, “You should be asking her in front of Seunggwan to prove to him that you're taking charge!”

Mingming shook his head, making the other two groan. There was no way that they were going to change his mind. Sure Mingming was a sweet guy, but he was so weak. It was almost as if he were giving way to Seunggwan because he didn't want to do anything! Then again, he wasn't very sure if Seunggwan and Jinki liked each other. They seemed to be good friends at times, and on other times, they seemed like enemy classmates. There was no telling what they really were. Mingming glanced back at Jinki who was sitting a few tables across from them with Seunggwan.

“Just not now,” he told the two, “I don't think that if I were to ask right now, she would whole-heartedly say yes,”

“How many repairs are you going to go through in the first three months of school?” Jinki slid her hand under her bangs and wiped her forehead before handing back Chan's laptop to him, “You should be more careful,”

Chan shyly accepted the device and thanked her for helping him once again. This was probably his third repair during the week but unlike Seunggwan, his repair was done in-school. Jinki insisted that she do his repairs at school since she wanted to keep him away from her house as much as possible. Seunggwan warned her that Chan caught on to things pretty quickly and that he was easily suspicious so it was best for her to just keep their relationship on school grounds. Jinki stood up from the lunch table, taking her bag with her but was stopped short when Chan caught her arm, “Wait, Jinki, I need to talk to you for a second,”

Palms clamming up, Jinki bit her lip nervously. Chan had never used that tone of voice on her before, the serious one anyway. Her body was in ruins trying to figure out how to react with all her hormones racing around. Her heart pounded against her chest, knees knocking at her childhood crush – but her conscious was guilty, worried that Chan might have found out her secret. Trying to laugh off her anxiety, Jinki peered over her shoulder with a forced smile on her face, “Don't tell me you broke your laptop already?”

“No, it's not that,” Chan slid his hand off her arm before sticking his thumb under his backpack strap, “I wanted to talk to you about something personal...about Seunggwan,”

“W-what about Seunggwan?” Jinki stammered, head feeling a little light, “D-did something h-happen?”

“Actually can we talk about it outside?” he asked, “Don't worry, it'll be really quick,”

Nodding, Jinki started off before him cursing under her breath. She was more worried than the day of her entrance exams. And at that time, she fainted like twice during the two breaks they were given. Wandering out onto the courtyard, Chan took the lead and led her underneath a secluded tree off in the far corner where no one really went because most students preferred to be out in the sun. God knows why they would even do that. Once they stopped, Chan turned around to face Jinki, face completely void of any emotion, “What's going on between you and Seunggwan?”

“What? Seunggwan and me?” Jinki was taken aback at how straightforward he was being, “Nothing is going on between us two!”

“Are you sure?” he crossed his arms over his chest, “Because you guys are always sneaking around with each other, skipping classes and whatnots. At first, I thought it was Seunggwan just trying to be nice, but now that I look at it closely, it doesn't seem like pure friendliness,”

He was definitely telling the truth. There were two instances that he had seen Seunggwan step up and tell the teacher that Jinki wasn't feeling well and then for the rest of the period, he never came back. On top of that, he was at least ten minutes late for the next period. Of course, none of the teachers seemed to look like they cared but Chan was getting pretty curious. The two also seemed to have a lot of suspicious side talks where they would whisper to each other, acting as if there were people listening to them. And instead of hanging out with Hansol and Chan after school, Seunggwan would sometimes make up a lame excuse and leave early during video game club meetings. Of course, Chan never knew where Seunggwan would go after that, but he was 99% sure that Seunggwan was meeting up with Jinki.

“I'm telling you, there's nothing going on between Seunggwan and me,” Jinki restated, but it didn't seem like Chan was buying it.

Seunggwan was right. Chan wasn't easily convinced. There was no way to use any cute actions at this point since Chan didn't look like he was in the mood to be aegyo-ed at. Jinki and Chan continued on with their awkward staring contest, both wondering what to say next. Chan didn't wantto keep repeating himself so he made it clear that he was only going to ask it once and it was up to her to give the answer. Jinki on the other hand wasn't going to tell him the truth. If she told him what her motives her were, then it was bye-bye to Chan, and most importantly, Seunggwan wouldn't have any friends left if Chan kicked him out of their group. She couldn't bring herself to do that to Seunggwan. Running a hand through her hair, Jinki sighed and decided that her best bet was to come up with a story, “But if you're really curious, then I guess I can tell you what we've been doing for the past two weeks,”

“That would be nice to know,”

“If you must know, Seunggwan has been helping me with my new robot E-VE,” Jinki revealed, acting as if her story were the complete truth, “He may not be the greatest in terms of technical programming, but at least he knows what basic workshop tools are,”

Blinking at least every two seconds, Chan stared at her dumbfounded. That was it? The reason why they were sneaking around was because of Jinki's robot? Well wasn't he stupid to be jumping to conclusions! Seunggwan had told him the same thing earlier that morning when Chan pulled him over to the side for a talk as well. Chan looked down at the floor, embarrassed that for a moment, he even doubted his friends. Jinki watched his shuffle his feet on the ground. It was cute to see him speechless. Bringing his eyes up to meet hers, Chan asked once more to make sure, “So you guys are just working on that?”

“Yes, that's it,” Jinki smiled at him reassuringly so that he wouldn't feel so bad, “Why would you think otherwise? Seunggwan is just a friend,”

“Okay then, that's good,” Chan straightened himself up, proud that he had nothing to worry about. He now found a new confidence that made him feel like he was on top of the world. Actually, he was already standing on top of the work knowing that Jinki and Seunggwan were just friends. He couldn't possibly imagine how terrible he would feel if the two were actually dating behind his back. He wasn't sure if he would be jealous or mad that they were dating in secret actually. It was a weird thought. Taking a step closer to Jinki, he reached over and took both her hands in his, “I guess I don't have to keep breaking my laptop anymore,”

author's note : hello everyone! so here is the first of the several scheduled updates that i have in store for today. i'm not sure how many of you are following me on twitter but if you'd like to keep up with my personal life/asianfanfics updates ( which i do quite often ) you can follow me here: @ahryeongimnida. anywho, if you've been following my tweets/personal tumblr posts/end of chapter author's notes, you'll know that i'm currently out of state on vacation. the hotel i'm staying at unfortunately doesn't have free wifi so i've been trying to live without internet. i'm currently updating from panera bread – hahaha.

i hope you guys enjoyed this chapter even though this was majority talking/narrative but i promise that it'll get better. It's getting into the transitional stage right now and that's usually a dry stage :/