“Seems like Daejae has a thing for you, huh?” Jinki teased Mingming in Chinese as they watched the Shin siblings play with the stuffed animals Jinki had hauled out of her bedroom.

Shyly smiling, Mingming brought his head down as he wildly blushed at Jinki's comment. His face really needed to stop doing that whole reddening thing. It was just so unmanly and if anything, it made his feelings so very obvious. Fortunately for him, it didn't seem like Jinki noticed. On the other hand, it could also mean that she paid little to no attention to him. He decided to think positively and believed that maybe she was just playing hard to get. Girls liked to do that. Or at least, that's what's Junhui always told him.

“I wouldn't say that,” Mingming rubbed the back of his neck, turning his attention back to the TV, “Little kids always say the most out of the box things,”

Jinki giggled and pulled her knees close to her chest. It was nice to be normal again. She didn't have to pretend to be overly cute like she was with Chan, and she didn't have to conform to Seunggwan's constricting rules. With Mingming, she could be as casual as she wanted to be. On top of that, she didn't have to lie or anything because he knew a secret of hers or whatever. She rested her chin on her knees and glanced at Mingming with a smile playing on her lips, “But with charms like yours, I'm surprised that you're not dating anyone yet,”

“I-I uh...I'm – well it's complicated,” he stammered, making Jinki laugh, “You'd probably make fun of me if I told you,”

“Oh come on, I'm not like that!” Jinki patted shoulder; now she was really curious to who Mingming was referring to, “Is it someone in our class? Or someone in my grade? A noona, maybe?”

Oh it wasn't that easy to admit, especially not now. Usually Mingming wouldn't hesitate to tell her what was on his mind, but since she was actually involved in his problem, he thought that the best way out of this would be to beat around the bush. Exploring his options, he took a moment to figure out what might happen if he said different things. If he told her straight out that he liked her right now, she probably wouldn't take him seriously and laugh at him. If he lied and said another girl's name, she might try to play matchmaker or drop a hint to said girl. If he didn't say anything, she'd just keep bugging him about it.

“It's a secret,” Mingming placed a finger to his lips before playfully winking at her, “If I tell you, things might get awkward between her and me,”

“You can't just admit that you like someone and not tell me!” Sticking her bottom lip out in a pout, Jinki lightly punched him in the arm.

Now that he had mentioned it, the curiosity was eating her alive. How could he be so cruel?! It was so unfair. He leaned back against the sofa and crossed his arms over his chest with a smirk playing on his lips. It was amusing to see Jinki trying to squeeze it out of him with the guilt trick. Unfortunately for her, he was pretty much immune to that given how many times Soonyoung pulled it on him. That, or Soonyoung would try to use cute actions to get what he wanted. Scooting in closer to him, Jinki made her pointer finger and thumb look like she was holding something really tiny between them, “How about a small hint? What about the first letter in her name? Or her last name?”

“I can't give you her last name since it would be too obvious then,” Mingming explained, “I can't really tell you anything about her name other than the fact that it's kind of...abnormal,”

Jinki tapped her chin, pursing her lips together as if she were deep in thought. Abnormal names, abnormal names...who in the school had an abnormal name? Ae Risoo? Nah, it couldn't be her. Mingming and her never really talked, let alone her even knowing of his existence. She was a pretty popular cheerleader in their school, but she wasn't a nasty one. It's just that she seemed too far from the people he would usually hang out with. Judging by the people Mingming befriends, it was obvious that he liked the laid-back kind of girl. Maybe she could even be quiet like Junhui, or as obnoxious as Soonyoung.

“I guess her name is kind of a hard start,” Mingming sighed, thinking of another hint he could possibly give her without being too obvious. Abnormal name was already a big enough hint since there were only a few girls with unique names in their school: Madelynn Choe, Ae Risoo, and Jin Ki. At least, the people he knew anyway. He wasn't too familiar with the upperclasswomen since they were a lot more mature than he was. He clapped his hands together, “Well, I guess I'll just tell you the situation I'm stuck in right now. Are you good at giving advice?”

Jinki shrugged her shoulders, “I can try, but I can't guarantee you a world class answer. No one has really asked me for my advice before, let alone my opinion on anything. Seunggwan's seriously oppressive,”

“Did you say Seunggwan?” Mingming raised an eyebrow as she slapped a hand to . He could make out a few curse words but it was too muffled for him to understand clearly. Seeing her reaction made him wonder: how much time had she been spending with Seunggwan lately? He took this as an opportunity to get back at her for what she for earlier. A sly smile appeared on his face, “Don't tell me you have a crush on that oddball?”

“Who? Seunggwan?” Jinki started nervously laughing, stretching her legs out in front of her before playing with her hands. She wanted to appear less nervous, but she was doing the exact opposite by shifting around the place. Mingming didn't know whether or not she was acting like that because she liked Seunggwan or if she was trying to hide something else. It looked like both to him. She looked down at her lap, “He's nice and all, but like I wouldn't actually crush on him, you know? He's kind of like a guy that I would go to because um...an emergency happened,”

Mingming placed a hand on his chest and pulled a face that seemed like he was offended, “So you wouldn't come to me if something bad happened?”

“No I mean an emergency that involved him and another guy!” Jinki quickly answered, trying to clear up the conversation.

“And would this other guy be the guy you like?” Mingming's smirk came back to haunt Jinki.

Even though Mingming knew that the other guy wouldn't be him, he still found it enjoyable to watch Jinki squirm her way out of it. She really didn't do well under pressure outside of video games, and would always stutter on her own words if she tried to hide something. At times, she would make the lamest excuses and come up with the stupidest answers to questions. Jinki waved her hands while furiously shaking her head 'no', “It's not like that! Honest! Besides, this conversation was about you so 'fess up, Myeongmyeong!”

“Alright, alright. I'll tell you!” Mingming cringed at his Korean name. He knew that she knew perfectly well that he hated it when people called him that. The only time his friends would call him by his Korean name is if they wanted something from him or simply wanted to get on his nerves. Jinki raised her head in triumph, knowing that 'Myeongmyeong' did the trick. Reaching over, Mingming lightly hit her knee, “Just don't call me Myeongmyeong. I hate it,”

Excited to hear about her friend's love life, Jinki placed her hands behind her ears as she emphasized his Chinese name, “I'm all ears, Mingming,”

“Okay so this girl, let's call her Kit, seems to like this other guy, let's call him Mic,” Mingming started, trying to slapdash nicknames for Jinki and Seunggwan. He decided to call her Kit since it was relatively close to her name and he liked cats. He just called Seunggwan 'Mic' since the boy loved to sing, “And Mic looks like he likes her too. They've been spending a lot of time with each other for the past few days now. Now there's another two guys in the mix, Sunshine and Ace,”

Jinki couldn't help but laugh at the nicknames he was giving his characters, “Oh boy, if I ever find out who these people are, I'd really like to see why you chose these names for them,”

Mingming just smiled. It really wasn't all that hard if you really thought about it. Hansol had eyes that would change colors when the sunlight shone on them. One time, they might be hazel, but tilt his head one way they'd appear blue or green. His eyes were sort of weather controlled too. It was a bit hard to explain and understand especially since Mingming didn't know the science behind it all. The reason why he chose Ace for Chan was simply because Chan was the best gamer in the school – after Robotoid of course.

“Anyway, I'm not sure about Sunshine. He could just be into girls, but you can't ever be too careful,” Mingming continued, “And Ace looks like he's somewhat interested in her, but again I could be wrong,”

Nodding her head, Jinki went over what he told her in her head. The first thing she did was try to come up with a name of the situation. You know, to categorize it a little bit. When she came up with an answer, she clapped her hands together, “Ah, reverse harem!”

“What's reverse harem?” he asked, not familiar with the weird term. This was the first time he's ever even heard of the word. Unless, she was talking about Harlem the city, then he'd heard of that.

“I guess the easiest way to explain this is that one girl is surrounded and liked by more than two boys,” Jinki explained to him, preparing to make an anime reference. For the longest time, she was obsessed with this one reverse harem anime/manga series that she would often re-visit whenever she was suffering from RomCom withdrawal. She walked over to the book case near the staircase and pulled out a purple paperback book, “Kind of like in Ouran High School Host Club!”

Holding out the manga to him, Jinki sit back down, “I'm not forcing you to read it, but if you still don't get it, you should read this. You'll get what I mean by one girl versus two or more guys,”

Mingming stared at the cover for a while with a confused look plastered on his face. Jinki bit her lip, thinking that Mingming was judging her obsession right now. She was about to apologize for showing it to him, before he looked back up at her and made a waving motion with his hand at the cover, “But where's the girl?”

“Kisaeng, you friends are really lame-o,” Dongjin adjusted the straps of his backpack as Jinki and him made their way to the school courtyard.

Thanks to the teacher's in-school training scheduled, afternoon classes were canceled but all students were to remain on campus until the final bell rang in a couple of hours. Jinki, Dongjinand the rest of the first year students had it easy since the last official class for them before the cut-off was lunch so they had a pretty laid-back morning. They walked through the hallways in the opposite direction that the second and third years were heading. Since the higher levels didn't get to eat yet, the school cafeteria was staying open so that they could eat lunch there before attending their extra-curricular activities.

“Don't say that! They're nice people at least,” Jinki elbowed the taller boy, “I really hate you, you know. It's your first day here and it's a half day schedule!”

“I don't like them. Seunggwan is really weird, Chan's stuck-up, and Hansol easily distracted,” he stuffed his hands in his blazer jacket, shrugging his shoulders.

Jinki rolled her eyes; there was no way to live up to Dongjin's standards. It was obvious that Dongjin wasn't a big fan of people that he didn't consider 'normal'. You know, the ones who talked about regular people things, who did regular people stuff. Seunggwan didn't really fit this since he was all over the place. In fact, it really bugged him when Seunggwan kept changing topics during lunch. He didn't like Chan either. Something about his body language in general made him look prideful.

“Why don't you like Chan?” Jinki asked, “I like him,”

Dongjin srunched his nose at the thought of Chan, “You like hanging out with those kinds of people? But Chan's so conceited! Can't you tell? He acts like he's a big shot or something when he's only the second best gamer in the school,”

“Uh...yeah. Second best,” Jinki froze, remembering that Chan was no longer sitting on his throne of greatness.

It was really inconvenient that no one but Seunggwan knew that she had tampered with the stats. She always had to watch what she said to other people to catch herself just in case something slipped out. It wasn't even safe to trust Dongjin with this kind of information. Who knows who that brat would squeal to? It was a real pain in the too since he usually liked to play the “I'm older than you so you have to do what I say” card. She brushed her fringe to the front only for them to come sliding back straight across her forehead, “But for the longest time Chan was the top gamer of Kyung Rim, you know,”

“Anyway, I have to go,” Jinki abruptly stopped when Dongjin and her made it to the middle of the courtyard. Dongjin curiously looked at her, and she sighed, “Robotics Club meeting, you want to come? We're always looking for new members,”

Once again, Dongjin cringed; he wasn't into all that techy stuff and whatever else Jinki was interested in. He was into actually exercising muscles other than his brain. He already spent more than eight hours training his brain in school, he figured that he needed a break from that. Jinki got the drift that he didn't want to join so she her heel and started walking away, “Well it's not my fault that some people don't appreciate the beauty of robots, but you should really join a club or sport. I don't get out until later so you and I won't be going home early,”

“Fine, don't bother helping me, Kisaeng!” Dongjin yelled after her, gaining the attention of a few students nearby.

Walking off in the other direction, he immediately spotted the three people he didn't want to see heading his way. Chan was walking in the middle as usual with Seunggwan on the left and Hansol on the right. They were only a step behind him, but for some reason Chan stood out from them. It was as if his confidence was beaming off of him like the sun would on a tanning mirror. Hansol happily waved to Dongjin, “Hey, Dongjin! Where's your older cousin?”

“Baby cousin,” Dongjin corrected, “And she had some robotics meeting to go to. Where are you guys headed?”

“Video Game Club meeting, you want to come?” Chan offered, “We're always looking for new members,”

Huh. How strikingly similar to what Jinki had asked him earlier. Dongjin had no intention of joining any clubs with these guys, especially since video game club was a pretty popular group. Almost every boy who was any boy was part of the club, whether or not they were any good at it or totally . On top of that, it was made up of boys. From what Jinki told him, there were no girls were involved in the club because none of the girls wanted to actually play. They just watched the tournaments and cheered for their crushes. Shaking his head, Dongjin held up a hand, “No thanks, I'll pass. I'm looking for a sport to join,”

“Ah, that's right!” Seunggwan piped up, “Didn't they say on the announcements this morning that the lacrosse team was in need of a new player as soon as possible?”

Hansol's mouth formed a small 'o', “Oh yeah! I think Seungcheol hyung was injured or something. They're one player short for the roster. If they can't find a replacement soon, they'll have too pull out for the rest of the season. If you're looking for a sport, lacrosse would be ideal. Plus, we have the best team in all of Seoul!”

“Actually Daejin Boys' Raiders are the best team in all of Seoul. They've been champions for the past five years. I used to play for them a few years ago,” Dongjin pointed out, “Well, I guess I won't keep you then. Later,”

Forcing a smile on his face, Dongjin hurriedly left the group and headed towards the lacrosse field. Although Chan and his groupie were nice to him, he still didn't like them. Niceness wasn't the only thing that you needed to make friends. Compatibility was a big deciding factor. When he realized that walking wasn't going to get him there quick enough, he broke into a run with his backpack bouncing up and down on his back. Stupid school laptops. They were heavy and running with one on your back wasn't comfortable.

By the time he arrived at the field, there were players from the lacrosse team just hanging around. There were several upperclassmen goofing off at the bleachers, while the underclassmen calmly conversed on the tables and chairs near the locker room. There was a big tree looming over the locker room too so it was a nice place to sit down and stay cool. They were still an hour early before practice officially started and there were a few kids missing who were still at lunch or at other club meetings. The coach wasn't there yet so Dongjin decided to just wait it out.

“Dongjin? What are you doing here?”

Spinning around, Dongjin found Mingming standing behind him. If Mingming hadn't caught Dongjin's backpack strap, the younger boy would have tumbled onto the floor with surprise written all over his face. Mingming had left lunch early since he and Junhui had eaten light, knowing that there was practice after school. The last thing the team needed were members who were getting sick during practice. It was already hard enough to practice without Seungcheol, imagine it with half of your team in the nurse's room because they ate too much.

“Careful dude, you don't want to go home injured on your first day here,” Mingming let go of Dongjin's backpack strap and watched him fix his hair. Dongjin mumbled a quick 'thanks' and was ready to hightail out of there when he found that Mingming's face looked really familiar. Pointing to the older boy, he raised an eyebrow, “Hey aren't you that guy that came over yesterday? Kisaeng's friend right?”

“Kisaeng? Oh right. Um yeah, that's me,” Mingming said. It was weird hearing someone refer to Jinki as something else that wasn't 'Jinki'. Pretty much everyone called her Jinki, not Ki. If he remembered correctly, it was mainly the third year male students that called her 'Ki' just to annoy her. Then again, Jinki was always entertaining when she was annoyed.

Dongjin placed a hand under his chin, “Say, you wouldn't happen to like my baby cousin would you?”

“Who me?” Mingming's eyes widened; he wasn't expecting such a question to be asked so casually. On top of that, he wasn't expecting Dongjin to be older than Jinki. Sure Dongjin was a lot taller and looked more mature, but he thought that Dongjin would have been like those mature boys who end up calling a younger looking girl 'noona'. At least, that's what usually happened in the Korean dramas Junhui insisted he watch. It sometimes happened in other Asian dramas but from his observations, the honorific-switch thing usually happened in Japanese and Korean ones.

“Yes you!” Dongjin playfully punched Mingming's arm, only to quickly pull it back. He had to give it to Mingming, his guns wee amazing even when they weren't being flexed.

Clicking his tongue, Mingming rubbed the back of his neck, “Was I too obvious?”

“Well it's obvious from a bystander's perspective,” Dongjin brushed his bangs away from his eyes, “But since you were talking to a lamp post like Kisaeng, she probably didn't even realize how obvious you were being. I guess it could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on whether or not you want her to get a hint. But I'm pretty sure she wouldn't catch on too quickly,”

Even though Dongjin was only reunited with his beloved cousin less than two days ago, it was easy for him to figure out what kind of person she was. He had always been into body language reading, so finding out the personality of someone as simple as Jinki was as easy as pie. And he could bake pie. Dongjin looked up at Mingming who was picking at the ground with his front studs, “Don't worry, I won't tell her. I like you so I'm going to keep the levels between us pretty cool,”

Now, Mingming wasn't necessarily Dongjin's idea of 'normal' but heck, he came pretty close. He wasn't too odd, too egotistic, or too scatterbrained – just average. It was just like Dongjin to like people who were similar in mindset as him. It made conversations a lot easier, and don't forget how easy decisions could be made. Mingming seemed like a pretty chill guy, so naturally Dongjin was drawn to him. But not in that way. Smiling, Mingming reached over and ruffled Dongjin's hair, “Thanks little guy. So mind answering my question?”

“Ah, right! Sorry,” Dongjin fixed his hair, “I want to try-out for the lacrosse team. I heard you were short one player, so I figured that maybe I could play for you guys. That is, if I pass of course,”

There was no way that Kyung Rim wouldn't accept him though. He was the star player for Daejin's Raiders; if that wasn't top notch experience on the field, he had no idea what was. Okay so maybe he wasn't the star player, but he was pretty close to one. Mingming placed a hand on Dongjin's shoulder, “Oh yeah, Daejin Boys' Raiders, right? I know your name sounded familiar. My uncle used to coach that team. He always talked about you and this other guy, can't remember his name. He started coaching our team a few years ago when he found out I was going to school here. How about I put in a good word for you? He'll be happy to hear that you're back,”

“You would do that?” Dongjin gasped, “Thanks a million, Mingming! Err, hyung? What do I owe you?”

“Hyung is fine with me,” Mingming patted Dongjin's head rather than ruffling his hair. Jinki and him were the same, they both didn't like having their hair messed up but since they never had a mirror on them most of the time, they never really fixed their hair the way they wanted to. It still looked messy. “You don't really owe me anything, but I guess you can do whatever. I'm not really picky,”

“Tell you what,” a sly smile appeared on Dongjin's face, “Since I like you, I'll help you with Kisaeng,”