Kyungsoo,” Jongdae calls out, “Do Kyungsoo,” he singsongs when the boy doesn’t stop. He jogs a little to catch up to the boy, a wide grin on his lips. “Kyungsoo-yah are you going to pick up my wife?”

“You must be pretty desperate if you want to refer to a 6-year old as your wife in public,” he looks at Jongdae, while doing his best to mask his laughter. “Maybe I should keep Soojin away from you. She’s too young to associate herself with creepy old men.”

“Is that how you think of me Do Kyungsoo,” Jongdae asks, hands over his heart as he pouts exaggeratedly. “Here I thought we were friends.”

“You’re still creepy,” Kyungsoo tells him.

“But you love me,” Jongdae retorts. “Don’t forget tomorrow we have choir practice.”

“Why would I forget,” Kyungsoo asks. “You’re more likely to forget.”

“I have the memory of an elephant thank you very much.”

“Or that of a goldfish,” Kyungsoo says. He pauses in front of Jongdae’s bus stop and gives a smile. Ryeowook had told him once that when he smiled like that he looked as if he was plotting something evil, so it was something he always tended to do. “By the way Kim Jongdae,” he starts off, adjusting the straps on his backpack while he gazes at the older boy. “My sister’s the ficklest six-year old you’ll ever meet, so if you’re saving yourself for her, you shouldn’t. Just last week she wanted to marry that first year Kim Jongin.”

“All the girls want to marry Kim Jongin,” Jongdae states bitterly. Kyungsoo’s not surprised, he’d seen girls even in his grade gaze at Jongin a little too intensely. Kyungsoo had technically only met him once, but Jongin was a name that stayed on everyone’s tongue. He didn’t understand it.

“Wait,” Jongdae says and Kyungsoo looks at him in confusion. “Are you giving me permission to marry your sister, Do Kyungsoo? We’re having a park wedding, she’s going to wear a flower crown and she said I could wear one too Kyungsoo. Isn’t she just lovely?” Jongdae sighs playfully, fingers grasped tightly together as he holds them to his chest.

“You’re crazy,” Kyungsoo says with a laugh, and a fond shake of his head. He bids the dramatic boy a goodbye and heads off to finally go pick up his little sister.

Soojin waits for him inside of the school grounds, far from the gate. Kyungsoo’s overprotective he doesn’t like the idea of his sister wandering outside of the school gates, not that the teacher would allow her to anyway.

Kyungsoo finds himself waving at Ms. Nam, a pretty half-Korean teacher that had Jongdae star-struck when he arrives to pick up Soojin. Ms. Nam had never really seemed to appealing to Kyungsoo, sure she was beautiful but there was something so motherly about her that he couldn’t see her as anything but what she was.

When Kyungsoo leaves his apartment in the middle of the night and heads to the building’s rooftop he doesn’t expect to see Kim Jongin up there.

Jongin’s got his cellphone to his ear mumbling words that can be heard clearly in the quiet night and just as Kyungsoo’s about to leave the boy alone, Jongin turns towards him eyes wide in a grimace on his lips.

“How much did you hear,” Jongin asks.

“Not much,” Kyungsoo explains. “I just heard you say you missed the person you were talking to and you wanted them to come back quickly.” Jongin sighs in relief at his answer and Kyungsoo teeters between going back dow