Chapter 9
Jin Ri was sandwiched into a EunHae hug as soon as she followed after Kyuhyun and entered the restaurant. She laughed and tried to get out of the two boys who were squishing her, but to no avail. When she finally did manage to escape, she was once again engulfed into another set of arms.

“Ya!” Heechul yelled, making his way towards them. “I want my hug, too.” He peeled Sungmin away from her and opened his arms wide so she could hug him.

“Oppa,” she greeted, hugging him back. “Congratulations on the end of your album promotions!”

“Glad you’re here to celebrate with us,” Heechul to her with a grin. He put an arm around her and led her to one of the seats.

Jin Ri had gotten quite close with all of the members, due to the fact that Kyuhyun always made her tag along to their dinners when she wasn’t tasked to take their photos. She was almost always hanging out at their dorm, helping them clean up their mess even when they strongly opposed her lifting a finger.

She sat down in the corner and watched as the boys randomly yelled out the food that they wanted to eat to Leeteuk who was just writing everything down on a piece of paper. Taking her camera out, she started taking pictures of the boys. She captured moments that fans all over the world would just die witnessing: Eunhyuk and Donghae in a tumble on the floor, fighting over something she didn’t even want to know about; Ryeowook and Kyuhyun whispering something to each other; Yesung trying to help Leeteuk out with the orders; Shindong and Sungmin laughing over something that the former showed in his iPhone; Siwon and Heechul watching in amusement as their members horsed around.

When all the food was finally ordered, Heechul came up with the brilliant idea of playing rock-paper-scissors and that whomever lost wouldn’t eat marinated beef and would have to pay for the whole meal. All the boys stood up and eagerly participated in the game. It was something anyone who knew the boys would love to see. They all had big smiles on their faces and laughter just kept on bursting out of their chests. Kyuhyun kept on chuckling superiorly every time he won a round, being the competitive gamer that he was. Until he lost the game.

After enduring the teasing and laughter of his hyungs, Kyuhyun slumped down on one corner, propped his knees up and leaned his head on his arms, which were resting on his knees. He watched as his hyungs had fun with the delicious marinated beef on the table. Jin Ri put her camera back in her bag and sat down beside him, nudging him lightly.

“Why the sad face?” she asked, smiling a little as he gave her a glare.

“Didn’t you see what just happened?” he responded with a frown. “Now I’m never going to be able to buy Star Craft II, which is going to be released in two days.” He buried his face in his arms as he thought about it some more. He had immediately started saving up for it once it was announced that it was coming out in July.

Jin Ri burst out laughing at this information. Kyuhyun lifted his head up and frowned even more at her reaction. “Sorry,” she immediately said, forcing her laughter back in . “I didn’t mean to make fun of you and your gaming.”

“This is serious stuff,” he solemnly reminded her.

She nodded earnestly. She should really know better than to laugh at him and his love—or rather, passion—for gaming. In the all the times they’d gone out together, he never failed to bring some sort of gaming device with him. When they weren’t having one of their photography sessions, he was always playing games on his laptop. He, sometimes, even pushed her to play with him, which she never did because she and games just didn’t go well. But she did understand his love for it. Games to him was like what photography was to her. It was an escape from reality.

“How about I do something to cheer you up?” she suggested, smiling warmly.

He lifted his head to look at her once again, a smile forming on his face. “You mean you’re going to help me pay for all this food?”

She chuckled, but shook her head. When he frowned, she offered, “I have something even better than that.” She turned to get something out of her bag, smiling at Donghae and Eunhyuk in the process. The two had been watching them talk.

“What’s this?” Kyuhyun asked he got a package in brown wrapping from her.

“Take a look,” Jin Ri prodded him, smiling widely.

He wasn’t even halfway done in unwrapping it when he had already caught glimpse of what it was. His eyes shot to her, unable to say anything in shock. “Are you kidding me?!” he exclaimed.

She grinned. “Do you like it?”

“Like it?” he repeated, blinking in disbelief. He put the half-unwrapped present on the floor and lunged towards her, trapping her in his arms in a tight hug. She chuckled, wrapping an arm around him and patting his back.

Donghae and Eunhyuk gave each other a glance. The former picked up the forgotten item from the floor and fully unwrapped it. Heechul, who happened to have stood up at that moment, saw what was in Donghae’s hands. He grabbed it from the younger and looked at Jin Ri.

“You got him StarCraft II?!” Heechul blurted out, announcing to the whole room what was going on.

She gave them a sheepish smile and nodded. Kyuhyun gave his hyungs a smirk, his arm still around Jin Ri. Suddenly, he turned to her wonderingly. “But this doesn’t come out for another two days. How did you get your hands on one?” he questioned, intrigued.

“Just happened to get one in advance,” she answered vaguely, shrugging. Kyuhyun decided to not push any further. He stood up, bringing her up with him.

“Where are you going?” Leeteuk demanded.

“I’m going back to the dorms,” Kyuhyun announced, snatching the game from Heechul’s hands. He waved the game around, grinning knowingly. His hyungs rolled their eyes and shook their heads.

“Are you going with him?” Yesung asked Jin Ri, who was picking her bag up. “You’re going to get bored watching him play.” Whenever their magnae got into gaming, he became solely focused on that. Something beside him could be burning and he wouldn’t notice.

Before she could respond, Kyuhyun interrupted. “Of course she’s not going to get bored. She’s going to play.” She looked at him in surprise. She knew that he knew for a fact that she was a total failure at computer games. “I’m going to teach her,” he added, grinning at her.

Siwon watched as Kyuhyun and Jin Ri left the restaurant, his arm still around her. “Kyuhyun’s got it bad, doesn’t he?” he voiced out to no one in particular. Kyuhyun never ever allowed anyone else to touch his laptop. Ever.

“I think we all knew from the beginning that it was going to end up like this,” Sungmin stated. Everyone had seen the changes that occurred with their magnae ever since he began being friends with Jin Ri. He smiled a lot more and was just so much happier in general. It was like he suddenly found a better reason to wake up each morning.

~ * ~

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Jin Ri declared from her position on the couch as she watched Kyuhyun set his laptop up on the living room table. He then popped the CD in and clapped when the graphics of StarCraft II was shown on screen.

“How would you know that it’s not a good idea when you haven’t even tried it?” Kyuhyun shot back with a chuckle as he tinkered with the game options, his eyes never leaving the screen.

“Optimism,” she commented, smiling in approval. “I like it.” She left the couch and crouched down on the floor beside him. “So what do I do?”

After only 30 minutes of Kyuhyun teaching—barking orders—at Jin Ri on how to play, she finally gave up. She leaned back on the foot of the couch and sighed in defeat. It was just hopeless for her to play any kind of game. She wasn’t even one minute into it and her character had already been killed. She could tell that he was kind of losing his patience with her so it was probably best that she let him enjoy the game by himself.

So she sat on the couch and watched the television in mute so as not to disturb him. After an hour of watching the TV and him play back and forth—which amused her greatly as he became so absorbed in the game that he seemed like he had forgotten she was there, she started to feel sleepy. She yawned as he happened to take his eyes off the laptop screen to look at her. Kyuhyun, to Jin Ri’s surprise, ended the game, closed his laptop and sat down on the space beside her on the couch.

“What are you watching?” he asked quietly.

“No idea,” she responded, leaning her head on his shoulder, catching him by surprise. She hadn’t really been paying attention to what was on the television anymore.

“Let me take you home,” he offered, grabbing his car keys, which were in his pocket.

She shook her head, her hair brushing on his shirt. “Let’s wait until your hyungs get home,” she replied. She knew he didn’t like it whenever he was by himself at the dorm.

“Okay then,” he complied, allowing her to sleep on his shoulder.

Kyuhyun had become engrossed in the late night drama he was watching when Jin Ri stirred so suddenly in her sleep. She jolted and then she began to shake. He put the remote down and immediately put an arm around her, worried about what could be wrong. He tried waking her up, but she didn’t and just kept on trembling, her face contorted in some form of pain.

When he finally brought Jin Ri home, he was surprised to find Sun Young in Jin Ri’s apartment, waiting for them. Jin Ri went straight to her room and closed the door shut.

“Thanks for bringing her home,” Sun Young told Kyuhyun with much appreciation.

“It’s nothing,” he dismisses. He paused for a couple of seconds, wondering whether he should ask about Jin Ri dreaming because he didn’t ask her about it when she finally woke up.

“She occasionally has bad dreams,” Sun Young interrupted his thinking, sensing that he had witnessed it. “You don’t have to worry about it,” she added, smiling comfortingly.

Kyuhyun smiled and went on his way back to the dorms. He knew he should’ve just let it go. But Jin Ri dreaming like she was in so much pain was something he would keep thinking about in the following days after that night.

~ * ~

“Kyu, your phone’s ringing,” Sungmin said, coming out of the room and placing it on the kitchen table, where the magnae was on the laptop, playing his new game.

“Who is it?” Kyuhyun asked, not even bothering to look at his phone. He growled suddenly, appearing to have been taken a shot at. Ryeowook, who was cooking, and Sungmin, who was now seated across from the magnae, exchanged amused looks.

Eunhyuk then walked in the kitchen, making a beeline for the fridge. He brought the strawberry milk carton out and drank directly from it.

“Hyung,” Ryeowook chided. “There’s a reason we have glasses, you know.”

“There’s a reason this carton is labeled Lee Hyukjae for a reason, too,” Eunhyuk pointed out, brandishing his name, which was written on the carton to the people present in the kitchen. Sungmin chuckled.

“Kyu,” Sungmin reminded Kyuhyun, looking pointedly at him. “Your phone’s still ringing.”

Eunhyuk walked to the table and picked the magnae’s phone up. Seeing the caller ID, he smiled and answered it. “Jin Ri-ah!” he greeted.

There was a pause on the other end of the line, then a chuckle. “He’s playing, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, you really shouldn’t have given him the game,” Eunhyuk conversed, glancing at Kyuhyun, who merely sneered at his comment.

“Tell her I won’t be late and that I’ll pick her up,” Kyuhyun told his hyung. They were supposed to go out for an early dinner. “And stop flirting with her, hyung.”

“This impudent magnae says that he’s not going to be late in picking you up,” Eunhyuk relayed, his foot shooting out and coming into contact with Kyuhyun’s ankle. When Kyuhyun groaned, momentarily losing his focus on the game, Eunhyuk grinned contentedly.

“Right, actually about that,” Jin Rin hesitated. “Can you let him know that I won’t make it tonight? Something came up.”

Eunhyuk frowned, but didn’t say anything. “He’s right here. I’ll hand him the phone.”

“No, it’s fine. I don’t want to interrupt his gaming.” She chuckled. “Just tell him that I’m sorry and that I’ll make it up to him.”

“Is everything okay?” Eunhyuk couldn’t help but ask. This made Kyuhyun pause his game and look up at him.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” she assured him. “Thank you, oppa.” With that, the phone call ended.

Eunhyuk stared at the phone for a second before handing it to Kyuhyun. “I guess you’re dateless tonight,” he informed him.

“She cancelled?” Kyuhyun clarified, looking surprised and frowning at the same time. Eunhyuk shrugged. He then closed his laptop, which surprised the three boys. “That makes for three times this week that she’s canceled.”

“Maybe she’s just busy,” Ryeowook suggested, sensing that he was feeling upset about the whole thing.

“For nearly three weeks?” Kyuhyun pointed out. “I asked at the company and they said that she hasn’t been coming in since they had no photo shoots scheduled.” He sighed then stood up, leaving the kitchen with his laptop.

Kyuhyun sat down on his bed and stared at the closed door of his closet. He and Jin Ri had been friends for almost three months. In all that time, he thought they’d become rather close. Maybe it was too fast, but, already, she had become one of his closest and most treasured friends. He really didn’t think he had a friend like her. She was one who just lighted up the room when she walked in, always bringing a smile to his face, always making him feel better about everything in his life. He sighed. All he wanted to do was to know what was going on with her so he could do something about it.


“Kyuhyun-ssi,” Sun Young called before he turned to leave. “Can I ask you something?” When he nodded, she proceeded, “It’s none of my business, but… why exactly do you want to be friends with my cousin?”

Kyuhyun appeared taken aback with the question. “Does there have to be a reason?” he asked. Her response was a mere shrug and an expectant look. “Jin Ri and her friendship mean a lot to me because… I don’t know. I just like being around her. She makes me feel good about myself, about the things in my life. She makes me appreciate everything in the world, even the little details that I never even notice. She makes me think and makes me wonder about beauty and love and stuff like chocolate.” He paused and looked at her. “She’s good for me.” Somehow, he felt surprised at this realization.

She smiled at him in complete understanding. “You’re good for her, too, you know.” Her smile then turned somewhat sad. “Maybe too good,” she muttered with a sigh.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his brow furrowing in curiosity and confusion.

“You’re right in everything that you said,” she stated. “She does make you appreciate things and makes you feel better about yourself and your life. But she’s not perfect.”

“I know she’s not,” he agreed.

“Sometimes I don’t think you do,” she interjected quietly, looking at him. “You don’t know her.”

This declaration brought back all the frustrations he felt in trying to get to know Jin Ri better. “I am trying my best. She won’t let me in,” he admitted.

“She will,” she knowingly shared, gaining a surprised and hopeful look from him. “The question really isn’t when. It’s more of why.”

“Why?” he repeated, blinking in puzzlement.

“Why will she let you in, Kyuhyun-ssi? Why should she?” she elaborated.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” he finally responded after a couple of seconds of contemplation. “I’m me and I don’t know what else to do to let her know that I’m someone she can trust.”

“Being you in the best thing you can do, along with something else,” she affirmed.

“What’s the other one?” he wanted to know.

“Being patient.”

Kyuhyun turned to go.

“Another thing, Kyuhyun-ssi,” Sun Young called again. When he turned around to look at her, she meaningfully advised, “Don’t rush her.”