“_________________________!” My eyes followed the sound of Eric’s voice until I spotted him standing up from the table and waving me down. I had no idea who was there already, but judging how the table looked from here, I was probably the last one.

Great.
They’re all gonna make me pay.

I stole a quick glance at Mark’s face before making my way towards the table. He looked nervous. Tense even. A side of him that I don’t remember from my childhood memories.
But then again, even those are limited.

As soon as I got to the table, I slid into the chair next to Eric while Mark quietly sat down in the empty one set up next to me, his head bowed the entire time.
“Yah _____________________! Do you even know how hungry we were? Out of all days for you to go into airhead mode,” Henry yelled from across the table. I shot him a look.
“My bad! I had some stuff to do at home. Not really my fault,” I retaliated, picking up a menu and scanning it even though I really didn’t even need to. Our group of friends always came here before the start and end of each semester so I knew exactly what I wanted before I even got here.

Kevin called a waiter over then took a sip of water, “She’s here now so drop it guys. It’s not easy to be the only girl that has to deal with us so don’t be too harsh on her.”
“And this is why I think Kevin is gonna find a girlfriend before any of you guys,” I motioned at him from my seat, giving him a thank you smile. Next to him, Jackson coughed into his napkin.
“Hey, I had that girl chase after me at the end of last semester!” He retorted as he threw his napkin on the table. It landed inches away from Peniel’s fork.
“That girl was drunk and it only happened that one time while we were walking home from the library. Let’s be real dude,” Peniel gave Jackson a slightly dirty sideways glance as he waved his napkin away from his fork. “I don’t think that counts.”

I pointed at Peniel, “Exactly. Let’s not get too cocky.”
Jackson rolled his eyes, “I’m not getting cocky. I’m just saying, she could’ve hit on Peniel too but she chose me.”
“Doesn’t count unless she was sober,” Eric added, laughing at Jackson’s facial response.

“That face you just made was super attractive,” Henry leaned over Eric to get a better look, “maybe that’ll work on a sober girl since your normal face only works on drunk ones.”
An explosion of “oohs” erupted from our table.
Kevin patted Jackson’s arm in comfort as Peniel dumped the rest of his ice water into Jackson’s cup. I could faintly hear him say, “You’re gonna need this,” over everyone’s laughter.

I could see Eric high fiving Henry from under table. Sometimes I felt like a babysitter around them, but in times like these, being one of the guys wasn’t so bad. Bumping into them during my freshman orientation last year was probably the best thing that’s happened so far during college, and not because they were all super good looking.

Underneath the attractive faces, they were all dorks.
Complete idiots.
And it’s a side of them that they only let the people closest to them see. In front of everyone else and to the rest of campus, they were known as the 5 ridiculously good looking pre-med Asians.

But at times, being the only girl in a group of guys is hard.
Especially since these guys already had a reputation before I came to Columbia.
So yeah…I never really went looking for this. They came to me.
But I guess it also has its rewards, like moments like this that I look back on when we’re all dying from late night studying.

Through all the commotion, I didn’t even realize that Mark’s face was positioned right beside mine, his lips at my ear.
“Are your friends usually this loud?” he whispered, keeping his focus on the table. I nodded, scared to see how close he really was if I turned me head to face him.
“Is it too much? We can go home if you’re too tired to deal with this,” I mumbled back, trying not to draw attention to us.
I felt him draw back, leaving a cold spot where his face used to be. My eyes caught a glimpse of him shaking his head with a smile on his face. His eyes seem to say “Your friends are interesting people”.

“I know they are,” I responded with my own smile, totally forgetting that we were still at the restaurant.
And the rest of them were still there.

“Wow. You two have been staring at each other for a while,” Peniel noted, raising his eyebrows in the process. I tore my gaze away from Mark and shot him a glare.
“We were so not.”
“Yeah,” Eric leaned over and whispered, “you kinda were.”

Henry took a sip of water from his cup and motioned at Mark, “You wanna introduce us, _________________________? Poor guys been sitting there while we acted like-“
“Idiots?” I raised an eyebrow at him.
“Not the word I was looking for but I guess it could work.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes.
These 5 literally have no shame when we all hang out together.

“This is Mark Tuan,” I nodded in Mark’s direction then looked back at everyone else. “He’s a childhood friend of mine.”
“The one that’s living with you!?” Eric leaned towards me again, his eyes flickering from Mark back to me, then back to Mark.
I nodded, waiting for them to start the trolling.

“How old are you, Mark?” Kevin spoke up first.
Wait.
That doesn’t sound like trolling to me.

“20.”
“What major are you in?” Peniel went next, raising his eyebrow at him slightly.
“Pre-med,” Mark responded coolly, his face unflinching.
Jackson slung an arm around his neck, “Welcome to the club dude. All of us here are taking the never-ending journey to becoming a doctor.”
“Literally never-ending,” Eric sighed out. “Sometimes I wonder how life would be if I wasn’t maxing out on credits every semester.”

“It more for you since you have to play catch up,” Peniel added, looking in Mark’s direction. My mouth dropped as I looked at him with concern b from my eyes. I didn’t even think about how many credits he would have to take each semester to catch up to me, Peniel, and Jackson. Henry, Kevin, and Eric were all one grade above us so they were graduating this year, but we still had junior year to conquer.

“Actually, I took a couple of courses when I was in LA and they transferred over. So it’s not as bad I guess,” Mark smiled, keeping his eyes fixed on me.
And for some reason, I couldn’t look away this time.
His usual indifferent, cold gaze that he gave the world melted away every time he looked at me.
Or maybe that’s just me.
I was probably seeing things that I wanted to see.

Get it together _______________________.
You’re not in a Korean drama.
He’s your childhood friend and that’s all he’s ever gonna be.
Right?

Author's Note
Chapter title: Tonight-SPICA [x]