The next morning, at the cafeteria, where everyone could grab a small grub…

Kyuhyun was typing furiously on his laptop, eyes never leaving the screen. Hyukjae bit down on a burger and almost got sauce on Siwon’s cellphone. Siwon glared at him over his cappuccino. Donghae reached out to wipe the sauce away before Siwon’s cellphone could touch it.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

Donghae reacted with a smile. Or, well, he didn’t actually react, since the smile had been there since he stepped into school.

“Don’t your jaws hurt?” Hyukjae asked, curiously scanning Donghae’s jawline.

He shook his head, a little too chippy for the group’s liking. Siwon chuckled. “Somebody seems a little too happy today.”

Donghae giggled and shook his head again. Hyukjae put down his burger and cleared his throat. Then he started to caress Donghae on the chest and the thighs. With his huskiest voice he tried to use whatever he had left of his charm on him. “Come on, tell us, tell us what happened…”

Siwon leaned back, amused, waiting for Donghae’s reaction.

Donghae swatted Hyukjae’s hands away, but the smile on his face didn’t leave.

Before any other reactions were clocked in, Kyuhyun shut his laptop with a sigh of relief. “Phew, mathematics report done!”

“When did the almighty Kyuhyun do homework?” Siwon was curious.

“I never did, today’s the first time. I’m just doing it so the teacher has a concrete example of how good I am.” He snatched Siwon’s cappuccino from him and took a sip. “And Donghae probably scored one with Jessica.”

Donghae started giggling incessantly, drawing unnecessary stares from the rest of the people in the cafeteria.

Hyukjae resumed on his burger. “Sounds like yesterday’s outing wasn’t really as bad as we thought it’d be.”

Siwon was relieved. “Though we did screw up the majority of the outing, our main objective is still accomplished. Come on, Kyu, high five.”

Kyuhyun downed the remainder of Siwon’s beverage and left him hanging. Then he smiled, picked up his laptop and bid farewell. “Can’t high five now, gotta go for tutoring.”

Siwon recalled yesterday’s conversation with Taeyeon. “Ah, Taeyeon.”

He also recalled the bit that he tried to erase. Clearly, the very act of knowing things was already a catalyst for disaster. If only Taeyeon had just shut up—

“Yes, Taeyeon.”

“I’m going to go look for Hyoyeon, then.”

Hyukjae and Kyuhyun left. Siwon and Donghae stared between each other around the table.

“Okay, Donghae, you have to stop smiling like that. It’s getting creepy.”

Donghae giggled again. He leaned in towards Siwon. “Do you want to know something?”

“What?”

“She kissed me.”

Siwon froze as Donghae continued to giggle, this time worse than ever.

=

Hyoyeon was throwing books into her backpack when Hyukjae approached.

On either side of Hyoyeon were Stephanie and Taeyeon. Hyoyeon noticed that they hadn’t spoken a word to each other since yesterday, and wondered why. But when Hyukjae approached, she didn’t quite care anymore.

“Hey, Hyo!” Hyukjae helped her with the backpack and waved to Stephanie and Taeyeon, both of whom were too busy biting nails to notice him. He frowned and turned to Hyoyeon. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Must be the lack of pizza, I guess.”

They left Stephanie and Taeyeon, and Hyukjae slung his arm around Hyoyeon’s shoulder as he did back in the good old days. “So, since it’s Saturday today, I decided that we could make good use of the weekend.”

“Doing what?”

“Pizza!”

Hyoyeon furrowed her brows, then beamed. “Yeah, that sounds pretty good. Quality time with a loved one, sharing pizzas and soda…”

“Yeah! Just to make up for lost time, and to make up for our Saturdays being wasted on extra classes.”

If you were curious why they had classes on a Saturday, it was because some of them needed extra classes.

Not before too long they reached Hyoyeon’s classroom. “Alright, I’m here. Give me the bag.”

Hyukjae grinned and slid it off his shoulder onto her hands. “Take care!”

“You too,” she replied sweetly.

=

Stephanie and Taeyeon were still stuck on either side of the locker long after Hyukjae and Hyoyeon were gone.

They were stuck in their trances until Kyuhyun came by, a little exasperated from the way he was panting.

Both of them flinched upon seeing him, for obvious reasons.

“Hey, Dwarfyeon! Did you forget about tuition?”

Stephanie was almost glad to see that Kyuhyun barely paid any attention to her. Then again, she felt horrid that Taeyeon was the innocent party.

And Taeyeon, well, she was still fretting over the Siwon thing. Had he forgotten about it? Because if he did, she might be able to—Ah, who was she kidding? She’s Taeyeon. She never forgets such stuff. She may forget mathematical formulae, but never such stuff.

“Oh, right! I’m so sorry, it slipped off my mind,” she lied. Clearly she was trying to find a way to talk to Stephanie, but she just didn’t have the balls to do so.

Kyuhyun clucked his tongue. “Move quickly, come on. We don’t have time to waste if you don’t want to fail your mathematics finals.”

Kyuhyun shuffled past the both of them to go back to the library, leaving Stephanie flabbergasted at his nonchalance. She really had to take a leaf from his book.

Taeyeon struggled with her bag and edged past Stephanie, almost afraid to step into a non-existent zone of terror. Stephanie didn’t notice how weird Taeyeon was acting.

Clearly, Taeyeon didn’t notice how weird Stephanie was, either.

Talk about being self-absorbed…

=

Siwon took a sip from his cup, and realized that Kyuhyun emptied it earlier on. “Damn.”

Donghae nodded. “Yeah, damn.”

“Oh, no, not you, I was talking about the coffee… But yeah, you too.”

“Siwon, I just—I’m so grateful, good lord. I don’t know what to say. Yesterday was smashing. It really helped.”

“Okay, I get that you’re happy, but you do know that this isn’t where you stop, right?”

The undying smile finally died. “What?”

Siwon regretted it. “I mean, yeah, she kissed you, but… That’s it? You don’t want to start pursuing her now? Start a relationship, maybe? Because it’s looking good for you guys right now, so I was guessing… You should act on it.”

Donghae frowned. “What?” he repeated.

=

Jessica snoozed her alarm for the fiftieth time that morning, but decided that it was time for her to get up, or the milk would be finished out.

Then she recalled that they had a whole box of milk in the kitchen. “Ah, forgot about that. Well, I can’t go back to sleep anymore, so…”

She sneaked a peek in their parents’ bedroom to find it completely vacant. As usual. Their parents were usually a rare find in the house, rarer than Soojung in fact.

But Jessica doesn’t mind, and she knows Soojung doesn’t either.

Heading downstairs, she made a loud call for Soojung and got no response. She was starting to worry until she saw the huge A3-sized note she left for her on the dining table.

“Hey sis, I’m out for a while. Be back in a few. –Krys”

Jessica stretched and pushed the note away to make space for her breakfast area. She took a half-empty bottle of milk and a bowl, and then proceeded to find her cereal.

Nothing better than a good cereal breakfast to start her Saturday, right?

…except that they ran out of Kellogg’s.

“Oh, just great. Where do I find cereal now?”

=

Krystal snacked on her third pack of potato chips, effectively draining all of Donghae’s supply of snacks. Donghae was lying on the couch, in his hands a photograph that Krystal had printed in the morning, and once again he was in a mess of feels.

“Oh, look, I finished the chips,” Krystal announced.

Donghae gave a slight shrug as he pressed the picture to his chest. Krystal hadn’t kept count but that was probably the millionth time he’d done so.

“Wow, I think you’d even let me rob you of all your assets just for this photograph.”

Donghae nodded. But not before too long, he sat up straight once again, scaring Krystal for a moment.

“Wait. Photograph aside, you haven’t answered my question.”

Krystal aimed the empty pack into the nearest dustbin and got a perfect shot. She punched the air before recalling Donghae’s words and sighed. “Hey, I know I’m amazing, but I can’t help you with everything.” She gestured to the photograph. “That was the biggest thing I’ve done so far.”

Donghae took another glance at the photograph and his heart exploded again. But he snapped back to reality in a second and shook his head. “No, but—I need more help now.”

Krystal scoffed and went to scavenge for fruit juices in Donghae’s kitchen. “You’re on your own.”

Donghae sighed. “I don’t want all that we have to just stop at a standstill with this moment. I don’t think that the most we could have is a mere kiss.”

“You really are ambitious.”

“I’m just… Aiming high.”

As Krystal found the remnants of a half-empty orange juicebox, the doorbell rang. Donghae put the photograph carefully inside his chest pocket and scurried off to the door.

And he received the visitor he had least expected to.

=

Jessica gingerly pressed the rusty doorbell, hoping that it would give her tetanus.

When the door opened, a bright Donghae greeted her. A momentary flash of surprise and speechlessness took over Donghae, but when Jessica nodded her greeting he snapped out of it.

“Hi, Hae. I was just curious… if you had any cereal.” She gestured to her empty Kellogg’s box, and scratched her head cutely.

Donghae guffawed and nodded profusely. “Yeah, of course, I’ll go, I’ll go look for it.”

It was at this moment when he retreated into his house did Krystal come sprinting out, finding her sister by the door. “Oh, crap.”

“Soo—Krystal?!”

Krystal swallowed and tried to smile, but what came out was a burp instead. “Uh, hi,” she greeted.

“Why are you here?” Jessica made her way into the house, even if she wasn’t invited by Donghae.

Meh, Donghae’d invite her in anyway.

“I, uh, I just came to get some juice!”

Jessica folded her arms. “Then show me the juice.”

Krystal sighed and showed Jessica the empty juicebox. Jessica rolled her eyes.

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault he had this little juice left!”

Donghae came out with three gigantic, unopened boxes of Koko Krunch. Krystal shot him a look that screamed “pathetic” and Jessica strained a stiff smile for him. She wasn’t exactly looking for Koko Krunch, but oh well.

“This is all I have!”

“I think one box would be enough, Hae.”

“Oh, no, no, it’s okay. You can have all three. I have a lot more back there!”

Jessica grinned and thanked him. “Alright then, thanks. I’ll see you around!” She waved and left.

Krystal took it as her cue to leave as well. “Okay, uh, big guy, correct me if I’m wrong but you have none of those Koko Krunch thingies back there, right?”

Donghae shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

“How noble,” Krystal mouthed sardonically.

When all the girls had left his house, Donghae shut the door slowly and pulled out the photograph again for more admiration.

Yep, this was going to be framed up as soon as possible. The photo of Jessica kissing him.

And now, he was going to try and flush out Siwon’s comments from earlier. Pursuing her would come naturally, he convinced himself.

Not.

=

Jessica headed back into her house with Krystal behind her. She set the cereal boxes on the table before turning out to give Krystal the third degree.

“Okay, listen up, little girl—come clean on why you were in a male stranger’s house that early in the morning.”

Krystal set herself into the couch, now her haunt. “First of all, no one listens down. Second of all, I’m not a little girl. Third of all, when I was ever dirty with my words? And finally, calm your , sister. I was just getting some juice.”

Jessica set herself down beside Krystal, trying her best to put on an authoritarian voice. “I want the truth, Krystal, and only the truth.”

Krystal sighed. “We’re not in a courtroom, sis. This isn’t Legally Blonde.”

Jessica tapped her knuckles on the coffee table. “Behave yourself! It is absolutely wrong for you to be in some guy’s house that early in the morning!”

Krystal got up, heading straight for the Koko Krunch. “Sheesh, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous.”

That caused Jessica to freeze midway as she was sprinting to stop Krystal from stealing the cereal Donghae gave her. She made a fuss then and there, watching with restrained limbs as Krystal tore the first box open and began pouring Koko Krunch bits into . “I—am—not—jealous!”

Krystal set the box down after her first mouthful and nodded. “I know, no need to be this defensive. Now I’m going to go back to bed.”

Krystal turned to head up the stairs, and as she did, a smirk appeared on her face. “Not jealous, my .”

“What did you say?”

“I said the cereal’s good!”

Jessica was so jealous that her baby sister got to enter Donghae’s house that easily.