updated character list

“What are you doing here?!” Soojung questions as she struggles out of his strong embrace. She’s so surprised by Joohyuk’s sudden appearance that Jongin becomes forgotten but it’s something Jongin’s slightly thankful for.

“How do you expect me to stay in London without you?” He teases, unfazed by the slight anger in her eyes.

Soojung heaves a sigh and rolls her eyes before searching out her phone to dial Yixing. “Oppa, I’m sorry but something came up, go without me.”

After the call to Yixing, Soojung scratches her head before dragging the tall new guy away and out of the apartment lobby.

“Are you mad?” Joohyuk asks although he already knows the answer as they trot down the street.

“How did you know where I was?” Soojung questions, abruptly halting and turning to him. She raises a suspicious brow at him and he shoots her a bashful smile.

“Your dad gave me your address but when I realized you weren’t home, he gave me your cousin’s address and I just sorta assumed you’d be here,” he shrugs casually. “I mean, where else would you be on a friday night?”

She scoffs and he snickers. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”

He makes a face and Soojung storms away to hide her growing smirk. “I wish I could have met your cousin.”

She stops once more and this time he almost runs into her. “Yeah no, now wouldn’t be a good time.”

Joohyuk pouts cutely as he stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Why? From all the stories you tell me, he sounds super cool.”

Soojung chuckles and he takes the moment as an opportunity to throw an arm around her shoulder. “Yeah rather than being happy to meet you, he’d probably like to kill you instead for following me all the way from London.”

He rolls his eyes and tops it off with a scoff. “London is boring without you, Jung.” He sneaks in a pinch to her cheek and Soojung ends up prying his entire arm off of her.

“Anyway,” Soojung says, ignoring his comment. “Where are you staying?”

“With you,” Joohyuk teases which earns him a very dry laugh from Sooojung.

“No seriously,” Soojung shivers as she finally begins to realize it’s actually very cold out.

Joohyuk sighs and pulls her closer to wrap an arm around her. “At a friend’s.”

She turns to him, surprised. “I didn’t know you had a friend in Seoul, besides me.”

He chuckles with a small shrug. “He recently moved to Seoul after graduating. We should all hang out sometime.”

“How long are you planning on staying here exactly?” Soojung grimaces and decides to hail over a taxi.

“Well, how long are you planning to stay here?” Joohyuk focuses on her as a taxi comes to a halt next to them. Their eyes meet momentarily, making Soojung turn away shyly and him chuckling from getting her to blush despite all her efforts to keep him in the friendzone.

The night ends with Soojung getting dropped off at her apartment before Joohyuk returns to his friend’s place. Back at Seulgi and Sehun’s apartment, Jongin is restless while Kyungsoo and Junmyeon are knocked out on the pull out sofa bed. Besides himself, Seulgi is still up and awake from all the jägerbombs earlier. She accompanies him on the couch after another check up on Sehun and he sighs.

“Do you know about some guy named, Nam Joohyuk?” Jongin asks her quietly, eyes focused on idle thinks left on the coffee table.

Seulgi turns to him at the mention of Joohyuk and he assumes Soojung has told them things. “He’s a friend,” Seulgi answers after a few seconds of hesitation. “They met at school.”

Jongin nods wordlessly. “I’m much too late am I?”

Seulgi sighs and leans back on the couch just as Suho begins to quietly snore. “I don’t believe so. She’s very guarded right now.”

“And she has every right to be,” Jongin adds quietly.

“It’s not your fault,” Seulgi reminds as she turns to him and questions how many times they’ve repeated those words to him. “It’s not like you intentionally threw yourself out of the car and chose to get amnesia.”

“It’s frustrating,” he sighs as he throws his head back onto the couch. “Maybe letting her go wasn’t a good idea.”

“Time heals a lot of things,” Seulgi lowers her eyes slowly. “I think you two needed it more than anything. Her staying wouldn’t have made any difference. She needed to heal and you needed to find yourself.”

He smiles a bit. “I guess. It’s late, I’ll shut up and go to sleep now.”

Seulgi chuckles and he pats her head gently. “Night Jongin.”

“Goodnight Seulgi.”

***

Soojung feels as though she literally just blinked and it was already daylight. For a good five minutes now, someone has been ringing her doorbell nonstop and she knows exactly who it is.

“Yah!” She shouts from her bed with her head banging in all sorts of obnoxious ways. Another two minutes later, the front door is open and she’s glaring at Joohyuk, hoping in some way he’ll die from her intense eyes. “What do you want?”

Still, as expected, he’s grinning at her. “I brought breakfast!”

Soojung sighs, gripping her blanket closer to her. “It’s seven in the morning, come back later.”

He makes a face at her. “So then lunch with me too?”

“Forget it,” she groans and gives him access to her apartment at last. “You can eat, I’m going back to bed.” He turns to her on his way to her kitchen and she stops him as he’s parting his lips to say something. “No, you cannot join me.” His expression drops but only for a second.

“I brought hash browns,” he says and she stops mid yawn to turn to him. Joohyuk knows he’s gotten her attention now and taunts her with the bag of fresh, crispy hash browns. “It’ll be a pity to let them go soggy. I guess I’ll have to eat them all.”

“Five minutes,” she exclaims. “Touch them and you’re dead!”

Joohyuk snickers as he turns away to the kitchen, letting her drag herself to the bathroom to look at least decent.

When she returns, face washed and hair up in a bun, Soojung finds Joohyuk seated at the small kitchen table, where he use to sit. At first her heart stopped, thinking it was Jongin until it registered a few seconds later that Jongin hasn’t stepped inside the apartment in years. The sight of another man in his places makes her uncomfortable. In some way, he still lingers there and she'd like for it to stay that way as long as possible.

“This apartment is far too big for one person,” Joohyuk starts when she plops herself into the chair next to him, still wrapped up in her blanket. “I can fix that, you know.”

She snorts and he unwraps her breakfast for her. “No thank you, more reasons for Sehun to kill you.”

He chuckles and lets her eat while his eyes wander around the apartment. “Did you live here with him?” She nods with her eyes in complete satisfaction over her first bite of her hashbrown. “Doesn’t it just remind you of him?” She shrugs and he lowers his eyes, agitated and hurt. “Have you met him yet?” With a mouth full of food, she nods and he can’t help but smile at her blown up cheeks.

“He was at Sehun’s yesterday,” she says after swallowing.

He raises a brow and reaches