I N N E R C I R C L E

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6.

"Baby, your heart is a mess."

Jinwoo's random comment at the breakfast table got me startled. I stopped eating and looked at him, "hyung did you stalk my BEAT account again?" From the other side of the table, the deer-eyed man smiled at me, "no? You haven't been on BEAT for like a year."

"That's what I'm saying. That song is so last season." I turned back to my plate and started tweaking the scrambled eggs.

"Doesn't mean it's not relevant." He nonchalantly poured orange juice into a big glass.

"Mm." I stuffed a big piece of toast in my mouth, pretended to be busy. "You should have some breakfast, we have a tight schedule today." Jinwoo laughed at me trying to chew and talk at the same time. "I couldn't believe no one's here to witness this. And they said I'm the messy one." He said.

"Well, like you said," I finished my meal with a big gulp of milk, "Apparently I'm a mess."

Before Jinwoo could eagerly come up with one of his nonsensical responses, another cheerful voice entered the room:

"Who is?"

I awkwardly turned away at once, but didn't make it in time. Mino walked widely across the room and made it to the table before I could safely leave. With a big grin on his face, he greeted me:

"Hyunie anyong~ what do we have for breakfast?"

I smiled at the table, avoiding his gaze.

"I had some scrambled eggs with french toast and milk..."

"Dude don't be one of those straight frat boys getting up late expecting your date to prepare breakfast." Out of nowhere, Jinwoo dropped a comment. "Aint nobody here yo' mama." I was shocked hearing it, but Mino seemed to only be at ease. He teased Jinwoo back:

"Yo I'm a bad boy ya'll know it. Bad boy don't cook their own breakfast."

"Oh the bad boy will go without breakfast juseyo." Jinwoo replied right away, and they both laughed at their stupid jokes. I took the chance to leave the kitchen after briefly excusing myself.

"Hyunie breakfast juseyo!!" Behind, Mino's whiny voice along with Jinwoo's laughter followed me all the way to my door. In the hall, a very pissed off half- morning-Seungyoon greeted me while confusedly walking to the bathroom as Seunghoon passed through me to get to the kitchen. He slightly nodded at me without even looking as I cleared the way. “You went home late last night,” he said in a low voice, almost like a whisper that got me astounded. “Ah, yes,” I quickly responded, “Mino hyung and I… we went out for a drink.” I felt as though I shouldn’t have mentioned that. It was not like I didn’t know what’s up with him and Mino. But it wasn’t like he knows that I knew.

“Is that so?” Seunghoon mumbled as he continued walking towards the kitchen as if the conversation never happened. Which irritated me a bit, to be honest. I shouldn’t have to be the one getting involved in the mess they created. Whatever that was. Screw this, I thought as I went back to my room and started looking for my outfit for today. In my closet, my dirty clothes from last night were rolled up and hasitly pushed into a corner; just looking at them made my cheeks hot and I could feel something ran up my spines. Almost like anger.

Last night, Mino pushed me against the wall and kissed me. Oh yeah he did. And it came out of nowhere. At first, when he drunk-texted me to come join him at the bar, it was already 10:30, and I didn’t want to go. Let’s be real, if he wanted to have a drink with me, he could have asked me to join him in the first place. I don’t want to be those second options in a contact list that one can freaking text in the middle of the night just because they got lonely. I was at home, doing my own thing (which was half-listening to music, half-surfing the internet and totally looking out at the door every 5 minutes to see if Mino came home) and perfectly contented at that, but the er got to text me. Worse, it was one word. “Yo.”

Five minutes of internal debate in, I gave up and texted back.

“What up.”

And I regretted doing so right away, because after 10 minutes, the text wasn’t even shown as “read”. The thought that Mino might have falsely texted me triggered some kinds of fear, and I laughed at my pathetic self after spending another 10 minutes intensely looking at the phone screen, swiping it constantly to keep it active. “Oooookay,” I told myself, “that was stupid.” I decided to stop making a fool out of myself, even in private, because someone upthere probably was surveilling human race and if so, I didn’t want to have to make up excuses the day I finally went to heaven. Imagine, name - Nam Tae Hyun, cause of death - old age, question - why on the day of xx in the year of 201x did you spent half an hour waiting for an ’s text which probably wasn’t meant for you? They probably would send me to hell if that question was posed because good freaking question, why? I mocked myself as I went to the remove my make up and