“So Jinki, how's the date with Chan going along?” Seunggwan leaned over as him and Jinki walked side-by-side behind the other two who were immersed in counting the strings of orange tickets in their hands, ink rubbing off under the heat.

Jinki lightly punched him in the upper arm before biting her lip and smiling down at the ground. A light pink tinted her cheeks which made Seunggwan snicker. Ever since they had left the Jurassic Park simulator, Jinki had been staring off into space with stars and hearts evident in her eyes. Seunggwan snapped his fingers in front of her face, catching her attention, “Earth to Jinki!”

“Oh um right, date!” the flustered girl snapped out of her imagination, turning back to Seunggwan, “It's okay, so far,”

It wasn't really that awesome since there had only been one thing that Chan had done with her and it wasn't even a major event. He just thought of her differently from other girls, but he didn't seem to take any interest in her whatsoever. Back in reality, Seunggwan gasped, holding a hand to his chest as if he were offended, “Excuse me? Okay? Just okay? What is this 'okay' you speak of?”

“I don't know, it's nothing really,” Jinki filled her cheeks with air, puffing out her cheeks to look like a squirrel storing for winter, “It could be better, you know what I mean?”

The two looked up from their conversation when they heard their friends calling out their names from around the corner; they didn't realize how far behind they were from Hansol and Chan. When they arrived at the basketball cages, Seunggwan rubbed his hands together, with a mischievous smile on his face. Ah basketball, the most popular sport in the world. And surprisingly, something he was good at too. Hansol caught his eyes and stepped out of the way, “Yo Seunggwan, why don't you show us your basketball skills?”

“Yeah, why don't you show off a little bit?” Chan smirked, making a slight eye gesture to Jinki.

Seunggwan understood what that meant and immediately stepped back, pushing Chan in his place. There was no way that Chan was going to try and play Cupid to get Jinki and himself together. That was not part of the deal he originally made with Jinki. Oh how stupid could Chan be? Seunggwan then Jinki in front of the cage next to Chan's and stepped away, “Why don't we make this more exciting and have a little competition? You and Jinki versus Hansol and me?”

Jinki froze in her spot, unable to answer. If there was one thing that she had never done before, it was play anything sports related, or at least, physical sports. She had played her fair share of NBA 2K and NHL 2K games before but not once has she touched any sports equipment by her own will. The only times she ever did was in gym and even then she did her best to avoid getting near the ball. Flashing a look of desperation at Seunggwan, Jinki mouthed 'no', hoping he would understand.

“Ah actually, I take that back,” Seunggwan waved his hand in the air pretending to scratch away his first idea, “How about I go against Jinki and Chan, you help her? You're not that good at shooting right, Jinki?”

Eagerly nodding, Jinki breathed out a sigh of relief knowing that someone was going to be helping her so she didn't make a complete fool of herself like she did last week in gym; standing too close to the basket when she shot and having it bounce off the rim and into her face. Of course, she had to be grateful that she didn't get stuck together with one of the second year boys. That happened to two of her gym mates a few months ago.

“No problem,” Chan stepped behind her and flashed a smile, “When you're with me, you have nothing to worry about,”

Jinki nervously laughed and turned back around to the cage in front of her. From the corner of her eye, she saw Seunggwan throw a thumbs up her way before giggling to himself about how amazing he was at matchmaking. His plan was going along smoothly. They decided that they should have a practice round first before they started the timer just so Jinki could get a bit situated with releasing and shooting. Seunggwan effortlessly shot a few down the basket, not missing even the tiniest bit. Chan clapped his hands together, “Alright so first thing first. The most important thing about shooting well is your form,”

“No Sherlock,” Jinki mumbled under her breath, completely forgetting that she was supposed to be cute and innocent. Seunggwan froze, hearing what she said and gave her that 'what are you doing?' stare. Chan didn't hear her quite clearly the first time, “Did you say something?”

“Uh I...no,” she lied, once again following the rules of Roderick Heffley's 'Deny, Deny, Deny'. Chan gave her a funny look but shrugged it off. She took a ball from the cage and rolled it around on the balls of her finger tips, “We should start!”

Taking her arm, he bent it at a 90 degree angle with her palm facing down while the other arm, he held her hand against the side of the ball, “So first of, you want to start low and bring your arms up. It's important to keep your shooting hand in the center of the ball while your guiding hand is on the side but slightly underneath,”

Now, he brought her arm upwards, slightly above her head, “I want you to keep your arm going straight as you're shooting and using your wrist, you release the ball,”

Seunggwan scoffed and shot another two baskets consecutively before watching them again. Chan was only giving her the skeleton outline of how to shoot a basket. It wasn't even the detailed compared to the one he had taught Chan back in middle school. You really couldn't trust Chan to help someone out or even let the person take the easy way out. After a few minutes, it suddenly came to him that Chan actually explained it in detail but instead of saying it in one go, he broke it down.

He couldn't help but take occasional glances at the two who didn't seem to mind the lack of space between their torsos. They were literally heel-toe with each other and what made it more intimate was that his arms were all over hers. Seunggwan couldn't help but feel a bit uneasy just looking at the two. Tapping his foot impatiently, Seunggwan finally called for the practice to end, “Let's just hurry up and get this over with,”

Chan and Jinki nodded and Chan took a step back to see how Jinki would do without his help. Hansol inserted four tokens into the dispenser and the timer started. They had 45 seconds to score as many baskets as they could before time was up and each basket they made counted as two tickets. Right at the sound of the buzzer, Seunggwan released the ball and shot, making it in. The balls were going in one right after the other. They were clean and you could actually hear the swish it made when it came down the hoop.

But Jinki wasn't trailing far behind him. Her baskets weren't as clean as his but at least they were making it in. She would often miss a basket or two but that didn't let her down. By the end of the game, both their ticket dispensers were flooding with tickets. Jinki had just reached 90 points by the end of the second round while Seunggwan was starting his third with 120. The way the game worked was that you had to reach a certain number of points within the time limit to advance to the next level.

“Hey Jinki, you're not half bad,” Seunggwan complimented her, “But by the end of today, I'll get that giant stuffed animal from the ticket exchange before you do,”

Jinki laughed at what he said, making him a bit confused. Shouldn't she be feeling bad about that? The stuffed animal they both had their eyes on requested that you exchange 1,100 tickets. Stopping to take a breath before her third round started, Jinki pointed to his ticket dispenser, “I don't count on it. Your machine ran out of tickets forty baskets ago,”

“What?!” he dropped to his knees, grabbing at his hair, “Why didn't anyone tell me?”

Chan and Hansol raised their hands up in defense, “Don't look at us! I wasn't even paying attention to you!”

“You're almost there Chan!” Jinki cheered as she watched Chan try his hand at the claw machine.

They were trying to win the Louis Vuitton bag that was advertised by trying to get the ping pong ball into the drop. Seunggwan leaned against one of the claw machines as he watched the Chan and Jinki bond over the Louis Vuitton bag that she could most likely afford to buy without having to go through all the trouble of using a claw machine for. Hansol on the other hand was busy trying to win himself a Hello Kitty for some reason.

Jinki and Chan were taking turns trying to get the ping pong ball in and at one point, Jinki almost made it in but the claw shook and the ball dropped out. The two had no idea why they were wasting their money trying to win a Louis Vuitton bag anyway. If anything, Jinki wondered why Chan didn't go straight to the large flat screen TV when they first got there. Of course, it was tiny compared to the TVs she had at home but it still made more sense for a boy to try and win a TV rather than a women's hand bag.

“Ah I give up!” Chan lightly punched the machine, “I'm going to try another claw machine,”

The two walked over to Hansol, and cheered for him as he grabbed Hello Kitty's for the third time. Hansol started screaming in English when he almost dropped Hello Kitty in the bin, but instead it landed right next to it. The other three laughed at him, not quite sure of what he was saying but they found his reaction to be funny anyways. With a determined face, Hansol stuck another dollar into the machine and started to play again. Taking Jinki's hand, Chan brought her over to another claw machine but this time it was for little stuffed animals.

“Which one do you think we should go for?” Chan asked, pointing at the glass, “Do you like Usahana?”

Seunggwan gagged at the two getting cozy around the claw machine. It was surprising how fast the two became friends in just two days. He crossed his arms over his chest and turned back to Hansol who was rolling around on the floor wailing because he accidentally made the claw bring Hello Kitty to the very back corner of the machine. Hansol crawled over to Seunggwan and clutched his ankles, “Hyung, I have no more money and I'm hungry,”

“That's what you get for trying to get a five dollar toy from a claw machine,” Seunggwan shook Hansol off his legs, “You spent at least fifteen dollars and you came back with nothing,”

“Hyung, I have no more money and I'm hungry,” Hansol repeated himself. That wasn't even the point he was trying to get across to Seunggwan. What he wanted was Seunggwan to be the nice person he was and offer to buy food. Seunggwan was a step ahead of him, “No I'm not going to buy you food. I still want to play other games too!”

Hansol shot up from the floor and threw his hands on Seunggwan's shoulders, “Hyung, please! I'm hungry!”

As if he didn't understand the first time. Shoving him off, Seunggwan strictly told Hansol that 'no' meant 'no' and that he was going to have to tough it out until Chan was done. Although by the looks of it, Chan was almost out of money too. Suddenly, Jinki and Chan's screams of joy pierced the air as they jumped up and down. Chan had won the Usahana and was proud of it. He pulled it out from the bottom and handed it to Jinki who couldn't help but blush a little. Seunggwan's nose wrinkled; he wasn't even sure if Jinki was being serious about her cuteness.

“Does that mean we can go eat now?” Hansol asked excitedly. He had been dying to try those fried Kool Aid things he had seen on one of the signs earlier. Hopefully either Chan or Seunggwan would take pity on him and buy him some. Besides, it's not like they could say no to him in front of Jinki. That would make them look bad.

“I'm hungry, let's go eat,” Chan patted his tummy. Hansol almost cried tears of joy when Chan said 'eat'. It was such a beautiful word right now. To try and kiss up to Chan to buy him food, Hansol cutely back hugged Chan as they waddled out of the arcade together with Seunggwan and Jinki behind them once again. Jinki slipped Usahana in her bag and sighed, “This is a lot of fun, Seunggwan. Thanks for bringing me along,”

Seunggwan stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged, “It's the least I could do for you to jetstart your way to Chan's heart,”

Although it was something to be overjoyed about, Jinki couldn't help but only slightly smile. Sure Chan was responding positively to her, but there was something missing. Something that every relationship needed. She just didn't know what. Looking up at Seunggwan, Jinki lightly nudged him, getting his attention away from the ground, “Still. Thank you. It's not everyday I say thank you, so you should be taking this all in,”

They continued to walk quietly while the other two were steps away from them looking at what various street vendors had to offer. Trying to make small talk, Jinki folded her hands together and looked ahead, “You know, it's a shame that you don't have anyone you're interested in. You're actually a good guy when people get to know you better. I'm sure if I didn't like Chan I would probably -”

“Chan and you are really cute together,” Seunggwan blurted out, interrupting her. He quickly turned his head to look in the other direction, biting his lip and avoiding her eyes. Jinki pursed her lips and mumbled a slight thank you and they went back to walking quietly. Seunggwan cleared his throat, “I really hope that you and him work out,”

Slightly nodding her head, Jinki rubbed the back of her neck, “Yeah, so do I,”

“Hey guys, I found the fried Kool Aid!” Hansol came up running to them with Chan stuffing his money back in his pocket, “I'm going to eat it now and see how it tastes!”

The three of them curiously watched Hansol's face transform from a satisfied look to a rather appalled one in less than a few seconds. His chewing ended up slowing down to a complete stop before heading over to the nearest trash can to spit out the red dough. When he came back, Chan couldn't help but snicker at the older boy's misfortune, “So how was it, hyung? Delicious?”

“It tasted like medicine,” Hansol squeaked out, “And it too. They literally just mixed in Kool Aid into the batter. It was disgusting,”

“So then, should we head back to the arcade?” Chan finished the rest of his pretzel and wiped his hands on his shirt. He smiled at Jinki and Seunggwan, “We still have time to win you guys that giant stuffed animal,”

“Are you sure you're alright walking home like that?” Chan asked Jinki for the fifth time.

They were heading all parting ways since the arcade had now closed. Holding the seven foot tall Jumbo Minky teddy bear, Jinki nodded. The younger two of the boys both wore concerned looks on their faces while Seunggwan just stared with that blank expression of his. Chan rubbed the back of his neck, “Ah, I feel bad just letting you go home alone,”

“No, really. It's fine. I've done it a million times,” Jinki reassured them.

Hansol pointed to the large bear weighing down one her, “Yeah but not with a bear that size,”

“I'm sure that no one is going to attack a girl carrying a seven foot tall teddy bear,” she adjusted her arms around the bear's waist, “Anyway, I'll be going now. I'll see you guys at school on Monday, alright?”

They exchanged goodbyes one last time before they split off in different directions. Chan waited at the corner to cross the street, Hansol jaywalked and entered an ice cream store to grab a night snack. He always craved sweets at this hour. Seunggwan and Jinki just went on opposite sides of the sidewalk and headed off. Jinki received a few stares from other pedestrians but she just ignored them. Carrying a giant teddy bear wasn't a crime. Besides, it's not like she was harming or harassing anyone with it. Just as she was about to cross the street, Seunggwan appeared from the left sidewalk and met up with her, “Here, give me that,”

After her constant pleading, Jinki was finally able to convince Seunggwan to walk home with her. She felt a lot safer with him around, and it's not like his house wasn't in the same direction as hers. To keep the other two from getting suspicious though, Seunggwan agreed that he would go right and run around the entire block and meet up with her at the corner of her block. Sliding the bear out of her arms, she helped him position it on his back, “You really don't have to carry it for me, you know. I'm fine with it,”

“Just shut your mouth and be grateful, okay?” Seunggwan hissed, scaring her. She wasn't exactly sure where the sudden attitude was coming from but it sure was surprising. Jinki let out a sigh of relief when Seunggwan smiled down at her, “It's not everyday I hold seven foot tall teddy bears for girls,”

Jinki jokingly punched him in the arm, “Hey, that's not funny. I thought you were being serious!”

“You should have seen the look on your face, honestly,” he laughed out loud, earning him another light punch from Jinki, “It was priceless!”

The two giggled to themselves as they proceeded down the sidewalk with the rest of the pedestrians out on the streets. There were many couples holding hands and wearing couple clothing. It made Jinki happy to know that these couples were spending their time with each other. She looked back at Seunggwan who was hunched over in carrying Jumbo Minky. She remembered his joke from earlier about him saying that 'Jinki' sounded like a mash of 'Jumbo Minky'. His sudden kindness towards her was weird, especially since they literally were yelling at each other just two days ago. In fact, he wanted to destroy her future! She ran her hands along the teddy bear's back, remembering Seunggwan's face when he approached her with the bear, “You didn't have to use up all your money for this. I could have lived without it,”

“I know you can afford to buy it off the Internet or whatever,” Seunggwan said, adjusting the bear's arms on his shoulders, “But that's not really fun. There's no memories attached to the bear if you buy it just like that,”

“But why did you do it?” Jinki asked.

Even if Seunggwan and her had combined both their tickets together, they were still 700 tickets short. She was disappointed that they couldn't bring home the bear, so she decided to check out what other prizes were available with Chan and Hansol. Seunggwan disappeared into the arcade and later, they had found him playing on one of those coin pushers. He had an entire cup full of tokens that he had bought with the remainder of his money, and on his last token, the coins finally went over the edge and the machine began spiting out an entire reel of tickets.

“This was your first date with Chan,” he shrugged like it was nothing, “I figured you would have wanted to keep something to remember it,”

Jinki nodded her head and grew silent. Though it was a thoughtful thing, she knew that there were many other ways she could have kept a memory of the day. They had taken many pictures together, and honestly, that was enough for her. Looking at Seunggwan, Jinki shook her head and smiled, thinking to herself, “Bu Seunggwan, you really are a weird one,”

Across the street at the entrance of an crowded ramen shop, Mingming and Junhui waited in the longest line they had ever seen with the rest of their lacrosse team chattering in the fastest Korean behind them. Whenever they were together, they just conversed in Chinese since it was more convenient that way. The two of them still wore their lacrosse uniforms since their game had just ended about half an hour ago. The team had decided to eat out to celebrate yet another win of the season. Junhui's eye caught sight of a giant figure walking crossing the street to his left. Wandering further, he caught sight of another familiar person, “Oh hey, isn't that Seunggwan and Jinki?”

“Seunggwan and Jinki?” Mingming stretched his neck while squinting his eyes, trying to see if what Junhui was seeing was true, “What would Jinki be doing with Seunggwan on a Saturday evening?”

Junhui looked up at Mingming, “Well I know a lot of couples go on dates on Saturday evenings, and by the looks of it, they just came back from one,”

The older boy gestured to the Jumbo Minky Seunggwan was piggybacking while Jinki would try to take it back to carry for herself. Mingming leaned back against the restaurant wall when the two disappeared from view, and sighed. Junhui patted him on the shoulder, trying to comfort him, “Uh I...I'm sure they're just friends. I mean, those two never talked before until a few days ago,”

“The more that makes me think that they're on a date,” Mingming pouted.

Junhui leaned on the wall next to him and clapped his hands together, “You know what? Here's what we'll do. Tomorrow, why don't you call Jinki and ask her if she wants to hang out that afternoon or something?”

“But don't you think that's a bit too much 'going out' for her?”

“Not if you didn't know she went out today,”

“Thanks again for dropping me off, Seunggwan,” Jinki stopped at the gate in front of her house, watching Seunggwan place the teddy bear on the sidewalk.

He rubbed his hand on the places on his pained back that he could reach, breathing out a sigh of relief as he soothed his aching back. As he was stretching out the rest of his body, Jinki sighed and rolled up her sleeves. She tapped his shoulder, stopping him mid-arm stretch, “Turn around, I'll rub your back,”

“Ah no, it's okay!” Seunggwan quickly brought his arms down and straightened his back as if there was no pain to begin with. Jinki raised an eyebrow at him, wondering what was up with his sudden defensive attitude but figured that he was just being Seunggwan. She blew her fringe up and shrugged; it's not like she was asking him to do 'it' with her or something. She was just going to rub his back for carrying a heavy teddy bear. There wasn't anything wrong with that and it was the least she could do after burdening him with the task. He quickly zipped his sweater up to his neck and swayed back and forth on his feet, unsure of what to do next, “So um, I guess I'll see you on Monday then,”

“Yeah, I guess you will,” Jinki clapped her hands together before picking up the bear onto her back and attempting to wave at him, “Good night!”

Seunggwan told her to go ahead and promised her that he would stay at the gates until she made it inside. He didn't think it was right to just leave someone alone when you were with them at night. It was just common courtesy, he believed, to wait for someone to return to their homes if you dropped them off. After Jinki entered the password on the keypad, the gates slowly opened and she waved bye to him once more.

“Ah wait, Jinki! I almost forgot!” Seunggwan pulled her back by the bear's massive leg.

Turning around, Jinki looked at him curiously wondering what he had to say. He had an awful lot of things to tell her today. Even as they walked to her house, he wouldn't stop talking. Scuffling his feet on the sidewalk, Seunggwan slowly pulled out a small robot keychain plushie from his back pocket. Holding it out to her, he looked down at the floor, “I won this at one of the claw machines at the arcade earlier. I don't have any use for it or whatever so I thought you might want it,”

“It's a really funny coincidence, though,” Jinki inched closer to Seunggwan, still hunched over from carrying the bear on her back. She elbowed him in the side, and grinned, “You know that I'm Robotoid and you happened to win a robot keychain. I don't suppose you tried to win that for me on purpose, did you?”

Seunggwan felt his cheeks grow warm as she started interrogating him. He tried to hide his eyes behind his bangs; his uneasiness made her giggle. Turning his head away, he held it out to her again, “I didn't. I was trying to get an orange kitty but instead, this robot got in the way. If you don't want it -”

“I'll take your word for it,” Jinki grinned, ecstatic that she now had another keepsake to remember this day. Pulling away, she turned to her side and pointed to her bag, “Hang it on here, okay? I promise I'll put it on my backpack on Monday,”

Seunggwan just nodded and slipped the toy on her bag. They said goodbye one last time and Jinki walked through the gates. Once she closed them from the inside, she stuck her arm out through the bars and waved. With a light heart and a grin on her face, Jinki skipped down the path of her house to the front entrance. When she was halfway through he garden, she turned around again and cupped a hand to , “Thanks for the robot!”

“For the record, it was purely a coincidence!”