[2972]

The "get away" was supposed to offer some meditation to your slowly deteriorating lives, but it seemed to only make things slower not better.

You stumbled out of the car with a half-headache, still tired despite sleeping 'till noon, and Hanbin tossed your shoe over your shoulder onto the sidewalk in front of you. "Tell your dad I said hi."

"He's not home," you mumbled, rolling your eyes as you kicked aside your shoe and walked on, limping from the differing levels. The worst part of your morning was Hanbin's constant ing all the way home. You all had things to complain about, but you thought them, and it made them worse when he said them out loud. You stopped. "And no, none of you can shower here." 

"Oh, come on!" Junhoe said as he reached forward, his chin on Hanbin's shoulder, probably giving a puppy face you'd seen too many times to bother looking at. "Yunhyeong's water pressure is ."

You know how Junhoe was good at asking favors without making it feel like a burden? Yeah, well that only worked for the person he was asking. Once the favor was over, it really didn't fit in the same way. 

Yunhyeong slapped his head. "At least it's warm!"

"Fine, only you but no one else," you mumbled, continuing on toward your house. "And you'll wait until I finish." 

Hanbin was happy to shake Junhoe off of his shoulder and out of the car. It meant more leg room. Yunhyeong may have had a van that was too large for him to handle, but when you were a passenger, the thing was tiny what with all of the junk Yunhyeong packed in it -- never junk that came with use. Only Bobby was afforded the luxury of resting his limbs where they fell, and that was only because it was Bobby. Whenever Jinhwan had to fold his legs up to his chest, he reminded everyone that was why he was so short. 

Jinhwan tossed out Junhoe's cap and Junhoe just as quickly picked it up and fit it back on his head. He followed after you and jumped up the stairs to your door with enough energy to power the most populated cities all at once. Junhoe never got tired, or never showed it unless he was using it to get something.

He followed you into the house and threw himself on your couch. He dug into the cushions until he found the remote. "How many channels have you got, Ahyeon?"

"You should try the news," you replied as you lit a cigarette and grabbed a towel from the dryer. "You're going to college, right? Kids in college watch the news." 

"Yeah... I think I'm going to watch some cartoons," Junhoe replied as he puffed his cheeks and flipped through the channels. "A much accurate depiction of life. Mine, anyway."

You shrugged and walked up the stairs toward the bathroom. "A lot of ours, actually."

That was it. If your life was a joke, you watched cartoons to make it seem like everyone lived that way. If it was a lie, you watched the news where everyone lived in a lie. If it were somewhere in between, well... you were too tired to think of the rest. You didn't even watch TV. 

///

A few days later, Bobby returned to his former self. It was difficult to tell whether he was actually himself or it was just easier to pretend he was to keep everyone from treating him differently, but that was always how it was with Bobby. There were always two very different possibilities when it came to him, and yet they were both so likely you had to split their probabilities down the middle. 

There were no answers with Bobby, not really. 

But you knew things the others would never know. 

The guy had a lot of pent up something to screw away.

He'd pull you in the bathroom during lunch, he'd come in your room at weird hours, or he'd take you in the bathroom at the skatepark just to screw you. It'd be fast and hard, no kissing on the lips ever, and by the end of it, you'd just be breathless, leaning against the wall wondering what the hell happened. 

In a way, you kind of liked it. You weren't the type of girl who liked roses and love letters, or stupid love songs. Those were the kind of girls you and the guys would laugh at during lunch when you saw one cuddle up to her lame boyfriend. You didn't even think love was anything special. In fact, it made you sick. Bobby gave you enough to sate your inflaming hormones, and he took enough for himself, and at the end of the day, you both had enough to carry on. 

The only thing was you two were getting sloppy. He didn't even try to hide it, not well anyway.

The guys were onto you, you could tell, but they'd never talk about it with each other, because they were probably all disgusted by it. The cohesion of the group was based on everyone being equal partners. 

"For 's sake, I know you two aren't smoking cigarettes all those times," Hanbin said as you two watched some movie you were hardly paying attention to because he was talking so damn much. "No one's that excited for cigarettes."

"Some people are," you mumbled, not pressed to waste more than a brain cell on a reply. Hanbin complained a lot, but he wasn't worth a therapy session every time he ed. "Bobby and I are helping each other reach our goal of dying by 22." 

"You two are ed up," Hanbin mumbled as he stood up and walked to the fridge to grab another beer. "Everyone knows cigarettes last more than you two."

"If you hard enough they're quicker," you replied. 

Hanbin came back and gave you an exasperated look. "You are really ed up."

Hanbin was an easy pin to knock over. He went on and on, and it was hard to derail his thoughts since they moved so fast, but if you moved to a part of the forest that his mind couldn't handle supplying too many thoughts to, he cut the wire all on his own. This was one of them. Hanbin surprisingly didn't like thinking of two of his friends screwing. He brought up the subject to show he had enough balls to, but he really didn't want to hear the answer to what he asked. 

You smiled. "Just like my mom made me."

///

You all knew Donghyuk was smart, but you didn't think he was this smart -- you just thought he was the smartest out of all of you, which wasn't a title too hard to achieve.

"Wow," Yunhyeong said as he hovered over Donghyuk's shoulder and looked at his Seoul National University acceptance letter. "I haven't even applied to college." 

"Don't w