This is such a delyaed update. I'm sorry I kept you guys waiting D:

Bomi isn’t the happiest soul as she sits on her sofa with a determined frown and pursed lips typing, deleting, and retyping the most insulting hate messages she can conjure. She can’t think of a way around complaining ‘how dare you just ditch me’ without mentioning ‘I waited like an idiot for two hours’.

She almost yelps when her phone beeps then vibrates obnoxiously.

What the hell. Where were you???? We waited for thirty minutes.

She snorts loudly at Baekhyun’s message, cocking her head incredulously. She doesn’t reply and he sends her another message.

I told you to wait at the plaza, didn’t I? You should have called earlier.  

She gives up trying to understand and wanders to the refrigerator. Sandwiches weren’t enough for a meal – rather, Korean portions were too small for her. She rolls her eyes at the sight of carrots, lettuce, celeries, tomatoes, and other inedible vegetables lazily lounging on her shelves. Slumping back onto her couch, Bomi doesn’t bother to answer door when it rings.

“WHO IS IT?” she hollers from her position.

“I’m coming in,” Luhan’s voice answers.

A few seconds later, Luhan himself strides into her living room and puts down a large plastic bag on her dining table. He glances back at an eye-brow-raised Bomi and holds up a bowl of noodles. “Hungry?” In three seconds, Bomi is gulping down her bowl of noodles.

“Bomi where were you this afternoon?”

“Plaza.” She coughs and he bolts to the fridge.

“Um,” he starts as he hands her a glass of water, “Which plaza…? Baekhyun forgot to mention that didn’t he?”

She coughs again and stares up at him. Luhan smiles and refills her cup. “How long did you wait?”

“A few minutes.”

“…Okay.”

“Eat.” Bomi unwraps Luhan’s bowl of takeaway noodles for him.

He audibly blows out air through his nose with a smile. “Okay.”

*****************

Sometimes Chorong blatantly sat and stared at Bomi, wondering how and where the girl learned to be so quirky. Bomi was a capricious kind. Sometimes she cycled with Baekhyun and herself to school. Sometimes she jogged alone. Sometimes she rode with Luhan in his SUV. On the mornings she was with them, Chorong would ride on her back instead of Baekhyun’s.

The first time Chorong suggested the idea, Bomi stared at her first in disbelief, then in awe, then in assurance, then in a sort of satisfaction. She was an open book – one with bolded words and clear, explanatory pictures.

Chorong would sit back and amusedly observe spiteful bickering and end her ride with Bomi’s mutters of “little bastard” or “byuntarded” or “byun”.  On her happy days, the girl was full of hugs and kisses and glares at her “Byuntard”. On her sad days she would hang around noticeably quietly and clung onto the same “byuntard” for most of the time.

“How does this taste?” Bomi offers a spoon of her brownie batter, grinning with her eyes and teeth sparkling. Today was one of her happy days. They were in Baekhyun’s kitchen, preparing for a monthly dinner party. Autumn leaves carpeted the cooled concrete and it was already their sixth gathering.

Chorong dips her index finger and allows the chocolaty mixture melt down . “It tastes like chocolate,” she comments dumbly.

“Well that’s the point.” Triumphantly Bomi takes her pan of batter hugged to her stomach and heads for the oven. Chorong watches warily as the former fiddles unprofessionally with the buttons.

From the other side of the room Baekhyun emits an exaggerated sigh.

“What, is it so horrible?” Bomi shouts behind the counter as he lowers the draft of her first extended paper. Chorong laughs as he buries his face in his hands as the answer. “Horrible would be a disgrace to the word to describe your essay.”

“I appreciate your – oh the chicken!”

Bomi was in a happy mood.

Chen and Luhan emerge at the doorway. The girl scuttles her way around and takes the chicken with her to disappear back into the kitchen. Chorong rushes to help with the rest of the groceries that Luhan carried – and none that Chen carried.

“I’m hurt!” he whines when she eyes him accusingly. His finger points pathetically at an already ten months old scar on his right arm.

It’s Baekhyun and Bomi, unfortunately enough, to take care of cooking on these occasions. Chorong lethargically plops onto her seat after her usual going back and forth mediating in the kitchen. The first and last time she let the two alone, a whole shelf of cutleries cascaded down to the floor during their fight over a wooden spoon.

Chorong lets the other four dig in while she committedly mutters her prayers, after which she glances at the clock. He’s late.

“Ugh,” Bomi grimaces and powders salt into the chicken soup. “I told you three scoops aren’t enough.”

Baekhyun pulls a face.

Chorong checks the clock again. He isn’t usually so late. As if on queue, the doorbell rings. She’s the first to react and sprint for the door. Panting, she histrionically opens the door wide.

“Sorry. I got stuck in traffic,” he mutters and rubs the back of his nape. As expected, he’s wearing a semi-formal suit: a demin shirt she bought for him and long white jeans she also bought for him. He opens his arms out as if to offer a compromising hug, but she only grins and without a warning, pulls him into the flat.

“Who’s that,” Bomi blurts – with the same look she gave Chorong on her first meeting.

“Hyung!” Rising from his chair, Baekhyung toddles towards them, almost literally wagging his tail. The older boy pats the young’s hair then offers Bomi a handshake. “Hi, you must be Yoon Bomi. I’m Suho, Chorong’s boyfriend.”

“That makes so much sense. A boyfriend,” she rants as she washes the dishes with Chorong, “And you never told me.”

She smiles apologetically. “I don’t know why it hasn’t gotten into me to tell you.”

“Me neither.” Bomi hands her the last soaped dish and trots out of the kitchen, obviously not flattered by the entire matter.

Chorong isn’t certain if she’s paranoid that whenever Suho tucked her hair aside, linked their fingers, smelled her hair, pinched her cheeks, slung his arm over her shoulders, Bomi fiercely and intimidatingly glared at the boy as if he were an unwanted pest. But Chorong is more than sure that Bomi isn’t happy with his escorting her back home.

“Bom, it’s late and raining and he’s my boyfriend,” she reasoned, squeezing the other’s shoulders in assurance. It didn’t stop the girl from eyeing Suho head to toe suspiciously for the millionth time.

“Hey you, come on, I’ll drive you.” Baekhyun is standing at the doorway, swinging his keys in the air, raising his brows at Bomi. “What you didn’t bring an umbrella,” he justifies when she only stares blankly back. Bomi masks the strangest expression, tilting her head and replying slowly and carefully, “No it’s fine. I’m going with Luhan.” And she leaves first, with Luhan.

When she does, Bomi secretly steals a pocketknife into Chorong’s fist, and presents a heavy pat on Baekhyun’s shoulder as if the greatest tragedy has struck. In reciprocation, he fares her well with “what the hell dude?”

“Seatbelt,” her boyfriend reminds her as he starts the engine.

Normally Park Chorong would have whined and make him baby her, but today she is worn out and light-headed. She lazily settles herself in and slouches on her seat.

“You feeling okay?”

“Mm.”

“Did you take your medicine?”

“Kim Junmyeon, even healthy people get tired sometimes.”

“Just making sure.”

Their conversation falls into a comfortable silence after a few minutes and Chorong cranes her neck and squints to see through the tears of rain on the window blurring her sight. Two figures under a black umbrella stroll through the storm in front of them. Luhan holds the umbrella over them and he is half wet. The traffic light turns green again and the car swishes away from the pair with a quiet purr.

“Rongah,” Suho starts.

“Hm?”

“Bomi didn’t admire me much didn’t she?”

“… She’s just shy.” And Chorong struggles to remember Bomi’s being ever so cold to anyone.