(twelve)

“Happy Birthday, Sehunnie!” Gaeul beams two summers later, brandishing a cake frosted with chocolate, the recipient's name written in the middle in beautiful scripture.

Sehun’s face lights up, his straight teeth peeking between the wide stretch of pink lips. A party hat perches atop his ashen locks, smattered with flecks of confetti and the white foam Jongin had liberally sprayed on him.

“Don’t trip with that!” Jongin calls. He’s lounging on the sofa, dark green shirt pulled askew. His hair’s a mess, flicks at all angles, grin reckless and crooked. “But if you must, aim it at Sehun’s face.”

Gaeul and Sehun both cast dry looks at him. Two years of a lot of TV is enough to hone Jongin’s taste for sarcasm, which he perfects by extensive practice.

Gaeul sets the cake on the largest table in the middle, where Sehun’s mother had cleared off the steamers and gifts. The rest of their little party have already gathered around it: Jongin on the sofa, dark eyes gleaming; a doe-eyed boy with hair like silk who goes by Luhan, the son of the Chinese couple who’d just moved in next door; Minho, the oldest of all the attendees, dragged against his will through the combined efforts of Gaeul and Jongin; and Sehun himself, eagerly rocking on the tips of his toes, beaming so widely that his face muscles must have ached.

She catches his gaze when she looks up; the glowing embers in his eyes make them look remotely beautiful. His grin dims, but it grows into something tender, friendship and fondness and a little bit something she can’t quite put her finger to, but so often there that she’s come to expect it in every smile.

“Blow them out,” Luhan says eagerly, crouching beside Sehun. The light of the flames trace the veins that run underneath his milky skin, and Gaeul sees how they throb blue, like fingers of lightning.

“Don’t torture us with the wait,” Jongin adds. His eyes are a different story. Even though he’s far from the candles, they still glow, sparks of gold twisted in obsidian, tendrils of flame the cracks of coal and charred rock. “I’m starving.”

“I’m supposed to be the one who gets to decide when we eat. It’s my birthday,” Sehun rebukes, albeit half-heartedly, but he leans forwards anyway, puckers his lips to breathe air onto the flickering flames.

Jongin blows the party horn when Sehun does, and Minho, sitting next to him, winces and presses his hands against his ears. Her brother looks out of place in the party, three years older and growing into his frame and height. He doesn’t actively participate in the celebrations, but despite his protests on the requirement of his presence, Gaeul knows that he’s comfortable with the persons involved in the small gathering. Jongin is already like a brother to him, Sehun an intriguing child for whom he bears fondness for. Luhan is only a year younger than him, and is on common grounds with him on many topics.

“Why not you divide the cake, darling,” Mrs Oh says when the celebratory screams simmer into giggles. “I’ll go get the drinks.”

Sehun tries his best to give them equal portions, but with both Jongin and Luhan staring at the cake he relents and cuts them larger pieces than his own. But then, realising that Minho is the oldest and therefore should have been given priority, he sheepishly tries to offer the same. Her brother declines politely; he isn’t too crazy about cake, has never been so for as long as she can remember.

For hers, Sehun surprises her by sliding one with most of the chocolate curls onto her plate.

It continues with fanfare; Sehun receives five gifts that day that pleased him immensely. Luhan has given him a fashionable cap that perches awkwardly on his head, but would look amazing once he’d gained the size and frame to match it. Jongin’s gift is a version of Pokemon Pearl, simply because Diamond is --

“Too mainstream,” he grins, as Sehun runs nails into the corners to tear through the plastic.

Minho gives him a simple watch and an apology to not have given it thorough thought, and Gaeul gives him an ornament of sorts with the flatness and carvings of a domino, but opens into multiple compartments and a bit of music.

“A musical box?” Jongin asks, lips twitching as Sehun carefully inspects it with glowing eyes. “That’s such a typical girl’s gift.”

“I don’t think a gift needs to be classified as masculine or feminine,” she counters. “I think it’s the thought that matters.”

“That’s a classic gift line for someone who wants to justify their poor choices,” Jongin remarks, tone flat. He turns to Sehun. “Tell her you’re not buying it, Sehun.”

“No, actually, I agree with her,” Sehun says, his quiet voice cutting into the ruckus of their argument. Sehun almost never raises his voice, but when he speaks, almost everyone pauses to listen. “It’s always the thought that counts.”

“See!” she preens, triumphant.

“Ridiculous, the both of you!” Jongin throws up his hands in exasperation.

Gaeul smiles serenely. It comes with a great sense of achievement her success at luring Sehun to her side in the argument. Although in retrospect, it's a feat simple enough  to achieve more often than not.

The last gift is from an uncle, who,  due to work, isn't able to attend to personally hand it to him. As Sehun brandishes the first Nerf gun to display to the rest of the room, Jongin leaps for the second.

"Oh boy," Gaeul groans, ducking behind her brother just seconds before chaos erupts.

Jongin drags Minho into his team and Sehun forces Luhan's participation. The living room degenerates into a battle field, from which she finds extreme difficulty to make her escape.

When she does it's into the motherly arms of Mrs Oh, who laughs at her expression but shields her from the crossfire by allowing her to seek refuge in the kitchen. They sit on the stools before a marble countertop, Mrs Oh peeling oranges to offer slices to Gaeul. She as pale as Sehun, with beautiful copper hair that spills down her back with the lustre and sheen of liquid moonlight. Gaeul is sure from whom the delicacy of Sehun’s features came from.

“Thanks for letting us come, Mrs Oh,” Gaeul says, feeling obliged to express her gratitude, “and well, letting us destroy your living room.”

Sehun’s mother only smiles at her gently, digging her nails into the skin of another orange. “All I want is my son to be happy. He is with you and Jongin, and for that I’m really grateful.”

Gaeul dips her head. They hear a bang, someone flinging open the side door; hoots and screams spill out the open square as they relocate the warzone to the Ohs’ backyard. Gaeul spots Minho’s dark hair behind an impressive bazooka, flopping into his eyes. Despite claiming such things as childplay he seems to be having the time of his life, if the boom of his laughter is anything to go by.

“I never really got a chance to tell you, Gaeul, how thankful I am that you went out of your way to be my son’s friend.”

Gaeul turns her head to find Mrs Oh looking at her with glazed, wistful eyes. The soft smile she wears is as fragile as it is queenly.

“You don’t need to thank someone for being a person’s friend,” Gaeul says quietly, embarrassed.

There’s something sad about the way Mrs Oh looks at her. “I just thought I owed you my gratitude before…” She cuts off abruptly, as as though realising that whatever she wanted to say didn’t need to be said at all. She breaks the orange in two and hands one half to her. “Have more, Gaeul-ah.”

It doesn’t cross Gaeul’s mind to wonder how that sentence would have ended.

***

A week goes by, two. Everyday Gaeul would assume the seat between Jongin and Sehun, like a mediator sent to balance two forces of completely opposing natures. It’s not that Jongin and Sehun fight --and if they do, it’s merely part of the dynamics of their friendship --but they’re so different that any casual observer would call to mind the sun and moon -- light and darkness-- to describe their contrast.

By appearance, Sehun is fair and Jongin is tan, and while one favours books the other is favourably disposed to the outdoors. Sehun is gangly and lanky; Jongin is fit and long limbed. One always talks and the other always listens. One is gentle with handling; the other, rough and foreign to concept of fragility. The only thing they have in common is video games, while the one thing they stand on equal footing is intelligence.

What role she plays in this odd trio she’s never been able to tell. Is she companion that Sehun needs, the channel that helps him communicate his opinions better? Is she the filter to Jongin's brashness, meant to cushion the whittled points of his unmasked truthfulness? They’re a strange pair to keep, but for some odd reason it’s hard to imagine a life with any one of the two missing.

“Gaeul,” Sehun says as they hike up the hill, hints of spring’s late leave whipping about in the form of sudden bursts of sweet-smelling gusts. “How much farther?”

She shakes her head. Her feet are starting to hurt, and the weeds tickle her calves so much that they feel itchy. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”

Ahead, Jongin walks without looking back. His hair is dark as ever, thick as ink with the shiny, feathery sheen of a raven’s wing. While she and Sehun struggle up the incline, he walks unhindered. At twelve, he’s just at the cusp of a full growth spurt, arms and legs long and lithe and lathered gold by sports and sunlight.

Sehun, given his weaker immunity system, lingers with her instead of trying to keep pace, though a thought crosses her mind to wonder if he’s only doing so to be kind, and not because of any lack of fitness (he has been coping rather well with PE classes lately). As she stumbles over a small mound of earth, Sehun extends a hand to help her, as he has done for the past five times when the terrain refuses to agree with her.

“Hurry up, slowpokes!” Jongin calls over his shoulder, deigning, for once, to actually look at them when he relays his orders.

“We’re coming!” Sehun yells back, not even bothering to hide his exasperation with Jongin anymore. “It would help if you’d just slow down.”

“I just want to get us there before dinner.” He spins around, walking backwards now. He stretches his arms wide as though to catch every last ray of the sun.

“What is it that you want to show us?” Gaeul says. The humidity and peskiness of mother nature are starting to get to her, and she feels more than a little peeved. That Jongin seemed to climb without breaking a sweat or his smile rubs more salt into the wound.

“It’s a surprise.” It’s all he’s been telling them since the past hour, since he’d knocked on their doors and dragged them out of their homes, spinning excuses to convince them to accompany him in this ludicrous venture beyond the borderlines of the park.

“If you don’t tell me now I’m going back,” she threatens.

“We’re almost there.” Jongin ducks under the branches of a tree and pushes aside its leaves; contrary to his typically inconsiderate self, he stays there longer than she expects him to, keeping his hold, bending it away so she and Sehun have a clear path.

“It’d be a shame if you do,” he says to her as she walks by. He releases the branch and it snaps back into place.

“Why is it such a secret?” Sehun asks a little ways in front, voice floating towards them with the soft flutter of leaves and petals.

“First, because I love to keep you two guessing.” Jongin’s rakish grin breaks wide. “Second because there’s a chance we might get into trouble.”

Gaeul groans. “Jongin!”

“Relax!” he says, holding up both palms. “It’s an unlikely occurrence, unless you two decided to jump.”

“Jump?” Sehun echoes, confused.

“Yeah.” Jongin’s smile is almost splitting his face now, as he clears the last branch above their rocky path.

Gaeul and Sehun find themselves emerging into a small clearing smattered with earth and grass. A little further and it transitions into plain earth, and then a rocky edge, jaggedly split like a chocolate bar to run into a steep decline. Painted against blues and greens is the image of the townscape, in cream and beige and all the light hues of pastel. They look like a child’s playing blocks, a hodge-podge of multi-sized buildings, a town straight off a forgotten story book’s pages.

It’s ancient and haphazard and sunny and beautiful.

Jongin smiles to himself, victorious when both his friends end up speechless. He walks nearer to the edge, pats his hands against a flat boulder and sits.  Sehun follows suit, as trusting as a hound. Gaeul lingers behind in hesitation, but they both called her name --Jongin with his wide and careless grin and Sehun with the wind whipping in his hair --and she finds herself relenting, settling into the spot saved for her in between.

They made small talk but for most of the time they spent there, they spoke very little. They watch the town transition into the burning orange of the late evening sun’s filter, and then fade to blue in tandem with twilight’s emergence. It’s only when it’s almost dark, the clouds puffy with the promise of rain, that she finds a hand extended to her, and a voice declaring that it’s already late.

She takes Jongin’s hand and nods at Sehun’s words, noting, absently, that their roles this time are curiously reversed. Usually, Jongin is not so much the gentleman as Sehun is, while Sehun is not as much given to pronouncing anything as he is to quietly remark it. But these reversals do happen, not often, but in the rare moons when Jongin is feeling kind and Sehun giddy.

They trek back home together, both boys deeply focused on the rises and dips of the terrain to steer their little group towards the least hindered path possible. Jongin pulls aside branches and Sehun watches keenly for hazardous roots, and she pulls them away from what she thinks might be fauna hulking behind bushes. They emerge in the playground that they know too well, and parted ways there, for Sehun lived in a different street and therefore took a different route.

“How did you find that place, Jongin?” she asks, left with only one companion but also slightly glad for it, for however much she likes Sehun’s gentility and thoughtfulness, she still misses the conversations she used to share with Jongin alone.

“I went a little farther than I should have,” Jongin replies, mysterious as ever. “Do you like it?”

She smiles softly. “Yes, I do.”

“Good.” Jongin’s eyes flick to her, brief, though meaningful. “It’s all I hoped for.”

***

Sometimes, in the hours of evening, Jongin would teach Sehun to play basketball or soccer or any sport that he’s taken fancy to that very day.

Typically, this arrangement would involve only the two of them; occasionally, Gaeul would accompany them, if only to observe; on some rare days, they would include temporary members into their circle, like the competitive Luhan for soccer and the overzealous Chanyeol (Sehun’s continued association with Jongin seemed to have convinced Chanyeol to see him with a new light over the years) for basketball.

Today is one of the days when it’s the third occasion, which Gaeul observes from the third floor window as she works to finish the painting due by the next art class.

“The hotties are at it again,” she hears a girl whisper, and whips her head around by reflex.

The girl who’d spoken, along with her companion, winces as they meet her curious gaze. One of them --the companion --smiles while the other continues to eye Gaeul apprehensively.

“Sorry. We didn’t mean to offend you,” the nicer girl says. “It’s just an observation.”

“Why would I be offended?” Gaeul asks.

“Aren’t you dating one of them?” her friend butts in, curiosity plain.

Gaeul wrinkles her nose. “Eww! Of course not.”

“You’re awfully close.” There’s an accusatory note to that tone, as though she suspects Gaeul is lying.

“They’re my best friends.” She puts aside the pallette, sensing that this conversation isn’t going to end as easily at it had started.

“Ignore her,” the kind girl says, pinching her friend on the arm. “She’s only curious because she’s crushing on one of them.”

Her friend gasps. “Eunji! That was a secret, you weren’t supposed to tell anyone.”

“Chorong, you didn’t make it much of a secret with the other girls,” Eunji says, tone dry as she raises her brow.

“But she’s their friend! What would I do if she told them?” Chorong eyes Gaeul darkly, looking mostly unhappy.

“You won’t tell them, will you?” Eunji asks, smiling hopefully.

“I won’t,” Gaeul promises, and in her heart she knows she’ll stay true to it. “But exactly which one do you like?”

This time, Eunji glances at Chorong before providing an answer; the other girl shakes her head vehemently, pulling away, as though trying to put distance between herself and Gaeul. “That’s a secret I won’t tell.”

She spins away without another word, though Gaeul notices the redness of her cheeks before she does. Eunji apologises for her friend’s curtness and goes after her, leaving Gaeul alone with her project, art implements strewn about her workspace.

She picks up a brush and poises it over her painting, but finds her mind straying, and puts it down again. She drifts towards the window, where Jongin is dribbling a ball expertly across the court, ducking flailing arms and quick pounces by Chanyeol, to shoot it into the basket.

Only he doesn’t.

Instead, at the last minute, he feints the shot and aims it at Sehun, who stands close to the hoop but in the clear. Catching Jongin’s intent as surely as the ball that spins to his chest, Sehun jumps, raises both arms, and tosses the ball into the perfect centre.

While the boys below hoot and cheer, Gaeul herself watches and wonders. They’ve been living in their own worlds for so long, it’s strange to think that anyone could have born feelings, or any form of romantic intent, for either Jongin or Sehun. She had them to herself for the longest time; she hadn’t really noticed how beautifully Jongin’s eyes seem to catch the light when he’s smiling and how Sehun’s shiny hair sets his pale face into porcelain flawlessness. Or rather, she’d noticed, but is too used to them to think much about them.

She can see though, how other girls might have found them attractive, how --should she have been any one of them --she could have found Sehun’s laugh musical, and Jongin’s eyes chasms to trap the heart.

***

It’s an age-old saying that there is a first time for everything.

Though it rings true, the flatness of the statement never truly describes the shock of such an experience, the bolt that strikes hard into one’s veins and heart.

In Gaeul’s entire life, she has never seen Jongin shaking in anger, even in the times when a situation is completely unjust to his cause. Except now. Now, he’s so beside himself in fury that the room is lightning and fire, that his shoulders are stiff, his glare sharp daggers.

Sehun, at the receiving end of it, wears an expression of guilt, apprehension, and most of all, sadness. His hands are loose and limp at his sides, his fingers curled into his palms; he hasn’t moved them at all since he tried to raise his hands to touch him, and Jongin slapped them aside.

“Tomorrow?” Jongin repeats, voice sounding thick. “And you only thought of telling us now?”

“I’m thorry,” Sehun says. It’s been a long time since she has heard that lisp; Sehun only allows its appearance when he’s in an incredibly emotional state. “I couldn’t think of a way to make it sound better.”

Jongin snorts. “And this last effort is the one you consider your grandest edition, I assume?”

“Jongin!” Gaeul chides, as hurt brims in Sehun’s eyes. A playful Jongin has the devilish caprice of the fey illustrated in storybooks; an angry one has the cruelty of thorned roses.

Jongin looks away, studying the walls.

“You still could have told us,” Gaeul says to Sehun, softly, because she’s too hurt and shocked to yell or scream. “You shouldn’t have waited until you had so little time --until we had so little time.”

Sehun is digging his nails into his palms now, so hard that his knuckles are white. The alarm in Gaeul’s head rings in warning, fearing that he’ll draw blood; she and Jongin had been told so many times to keep an eye on him that it has become a habit for them to be watchful of anything that might cause him to hurt himself. Even until now, when Sehun is not as weak and hasn’t fallen sick for a very long time.

“I didn’t want to leave! I never wanted to. You had no idea how much I begged my father not to. I thought I could get him to reconsider, but he wouldn’t.” He shakes his head defeatedly. “Even when I wouldn’t eat for two whole days.”

Gaeul remembers seeing Sehun so weak just a week ago. He was paler than usual, feverish. Whenever he spoke, it was in a murmur.

She hears Jongin expel a breath. Whether it is worry or irritation over the current events, she can’t tell, because his gaze is still resolutely on the walls.

She bites her lip, unsure how to respond to both Sehun and the overflowing well of emotions he unwittingly exploded with his unexpected revelation.

“Guys,” Sehun is looking at the two of them, turning his head left, to Gaeul, then right, where Jongin glares mutinously to the distance. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean --I didn’t think you’d care that much even if I told you ear--”

“We won’t care?” Jongin had torn his eyes away from the wall to bore them into Sehun. “Why would you think that we won’t care?”

There’s something helpless about the way Sehun looks at them, a growing discomfort. “Because it would have no effect on you whether I’m here or not.” His voice grows even quieter. “I thought you’d probably be glad to be rid of me; all I’ve ever done is restrict you. Ever since we were kids, every time we do something it falls under your responsibility to watch over me. I understand how you would have hated that --how you could have hated me.”

“We don’t hate you, Sehun,” Gaeul says, shocked that Sehun would think that way. “When have we ever?”

“You don’t?” Sehun looks so much younger than twelve in his hesitance, the way his mouth curves vulnerably, the way he looks up from lowered lashes, beneath the thick bangs above his eyes.

“Of course we don’t!” Instinctively, she strides forwards and wraps her arms around him. Sehun tenses immediately, but his reflexive response soon ebbs into relief, and she feels him slumping in her arms. “How could you have thought that?”

“I always thought you pitied me,” Sehun mutters into her hair. “I always thought that was the only reason you wanted to be friends with me.”

“We have plenty of reasons to,” she says reassuringly, drawing away, smiling when she sees that Sehun has tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. “Am I right, Jongin?” She turns around slightly, towards Jongin.

Jongin looks oddly still, his eyes darker than usual. When he locks gazes with her, she can almost see the layers underneath, the shadowy depths of his thoughts. But he nods after some time, subtly, but surely.

She steps back from Sehun’s arms, smiling. “There you have it.”

She sees it in Sehun’s eyes, the sudden spark of surprise, the light that spreads to encompass every dark corner, the shadows of doubt. A hand extends and clasps its fingers onto Sehun’s shoulder: Jongin, standing next to her, offering silent acceptance to Sehun’s apology besides a wordless one of his own. Sehun smiles at them, but as quickly it came, the warmth disappears, exchanged for a devastating realisation:

“But I still have to leave you two.”

Jongin’s grip doesn’t falter. “We’ll figure something out. Gaeul just got a new cellphone, and as old mine may be, I think it can take a few more calls.”

“It won’t be the same.”

Even in dim lighting, Sehun still looks like a doll, inhuman. But he’s grown a lot, Gaeul notices. Though his frame is lanky, he isn’t all flesh and bones anymore. His cheeks are less sunken, and while pale, are often brushed with colour: pale pink when he laughs, brighter red when he strolls under the sun or chases Jongin across a room.

“We’ll make it work. After all, it’s just Jeju, right?” She tries to smile.

“Just Jeju,” Sehun repeats, but there is endearment in his teasing. “You say it like it’s on your back yard.”

“Now you sound like Jongin,” she says, her lips twitching.

Jongin barks out a laugh beside her, and Sehun grins widely, looking, for the first time, carefree.

Then, Sehun steps forwards, and extends both arms out, one catching Jongin on the back of the neck and the other on Gaeul’s back, to haul them into his embrace. When Gaeul glances at Jongin from over his shoulder, she sees surprise, and a sort of affection on his face she has never seen Jongin explicitly show before. Jongin lifts a corner of his lip into a half smile when he catches her looking, his arm brushing hers as Sehun leans onto their shoulders, holding on to the only two best friends he’s known throughout his life.

(thirteen)

It takes a long time to heal and by then the new school year had rolled around.

In middle school, Jongin throws himself into more sports, spending late evenings in courts and fields. Gaeul often finds him sweaty, hair damp and shirt soaked as he treks to the showers. Often, he’s accompanied by Taemin, whose feminine visage has, over the years, grown to be subject of admiration and conflict for a good majority of the school’s female population. He also developed a close bond with Chanyeol, with whom he freely fools about.

Other than that, he has reestablished his network of friends, and has updated his contacts to include various individuals of various backgrounds. She has, thus far, seen him hang out with Byun Baekhyun in the computer lab, hacking away on the keyboard, the student body president Lee Jinki, whom he’s connected to by mutual association with Lee Taemin, and Kim Jongdae, the school’s master in strategic online war games.

Despite Jongin’s growing circle of friends though, there hasn’t been a single instance when he neglects her. Jongin is always, by routine, there leaning against the wall in front of her house for their morning walk to school, and he hasn’t once violated their custom by bringing along a stranger. He still remains to be the first to answer her texts, even though it’s a simple plead for company, and the last to say goodbye to her, when they’re forced to part ways at sundown.

In a way, the boy from the park with the beautiful, depthless eyes had been given to her to keep.

What are you doing? reads the message when she looks down, Jongin’s name scrawling itself over the top of the screen.

She hesitates, slowing her walk. A stream of students cut around her when she does. Their shoes patter over the slick floors of the hallways, like a march, the scattered battalions of an army.

On my way to lunch. Why?

--CGA

Where are you?

--KJI

In front of the utilities closet, near the stairs on the west wing.

--CGA

Wait there. I’ll come get you.

--KJI

Puzzled, she waits. Jongin’s urgency is rarely without cause, his brusqueness usually only demonstrated in situations of significant gravity. Something in her heart twists. Did he do something to harm himself, or caused something that eventually would? Was he in trouble?

Her ruminations are interrupted when the person in question pops in front of her, all tousled hair and bright smiles. She tilts her head up --Jongin has been getting ridiculously taller these days --and yelps when he suddenly grabs her arm, propelling her down the hallway.

“Jongin, what are you doing?”

“Just keep quiet and follow,” he says, though there is no note of irritation to his voice.

He guides her between impatient bodies, steering her against the current. His grip is firm and sometimes, during the passage of a particularly raucous group, he pulls her close to his side and she catches the scent of grass and dew and rain beneath his collar. It’s not unpleasant, that much she admits.

Jongin takes her through corridors, only to come to a stop in front of a twin set of doors that she’s all too familiar with. He still has his grip on her as he reaches for the knob, only that sometime between here and cafeteria, his hand had slipped down from her elbow to her wrist. She notes how finely his fingers curl around it, how firm his hold but also how gentle.

A figure springs from a seat at the far end of the room as they approach, slight of build and bespectacled.

“Be quick,” Byun Baekhyun says as he transfers his things from a spare chair to the table for her to sit. “She won’t be gone long. I managed to stall her with a false phone call but she’ll catch on. I’ll keep an eye on the hallway and tell you when she’s back.”

“Thanks, Baekhyun,” Jongin says, clapping him on the shoulder with a solemn nod.

Baekhyun catches her eye as he departs and smiles at her slightly. She only manages a look of confusion in his direction before Jongin accosts her again and she’s pulled forward, before a screen, currently with an open Skype window filled almost entirely with Oh Sehun’s face.

“Sehun?” she gasps, half shocked and half screaming from excitement.

“Hi,” he grins toothily. “I hope you two missed me.”

She would have hugged the screen if it isn’t for Jongin’s restraining hand. Instead, she leaps for the empty seat with a wide grin and overwhelms the amused Sehun with questions.

“How did you do this?” she says, whirling around to Jongin, who’s leaning against her chair,  once Sehun has convinced her that he’s hale and hearty. “I thought the school computers don’t allow access to anything relating to social network.”

Jongin shrugs. On his lips is a smug, playful grin. “Baekhyun is a bit of a hacker, and in that respect a willing rule-breaker.”

“It’s a good thing schools in Jeju don’t have that policy,” Sehun volunteers, his voice slightly crackly in the mike. The screen isn’t as clear as she would have liked, but it’s plain that Sehun has been growing his hair. He rakes elegant fingers through it, absently tossing it out of his eyes.

She spins around to talk to him. “I thought we have lunch breaks at different times.”

Sehun grins. “I learnt from Jongin that it’s okay to bend some rules sometimes.”

“Jongin is a bad teacher,” she says, but her lips threaten a smile.

“When I made this arrangement I thought it would end up a reunion,” Jongin says, “not mock-Kim-Jongin time.”

Sehun laughs, and Gaeul rolls her eyes. She feels the pressure on the back of her chair shift, and then Jongin’s head is next to hers, the sweet scent of grass and rain stronger than ever. “So come on, Sehun. You have fifteen minutes to spill the details and sate my and Gaeul's curiosities.”

It ends up being Baekhyun who drags them away from the screen, anxiously warning them that have to leave. They managed haphazard goodbyes at each other before Baekhyun shuts off the computer, hauling his bag over his shoulder and muttering quick instructions to Jongin. Jongin nods, grabs Gaeul again (she notices, despite peril of situation, that it is her hand this time, and not her wrist) and follows. Baekhyun has his back pressed against the wall next to the door and he urges with quick flips of his slender hand for them to do the same.

The door opens, and Gaeul feels her heart in . Sometime during their panicked sprint across the threshold, Jongin had manoeuvred her in such a way that she would end up in front of him. Now, she stands between him and Baekhyun as they wait in trepidation against the wall. A staff responsible for supervising the lab enters with a cup of coffee and a cross frown. Baekhyun’s eyes dart at her, and then to Gaeul and Jongin. As quietly as a mouse, he catches the door before it can fully close and slips in between the crack. Jongin nudges Gaeul’s shoulders, signals her to follow.

The door shuts behind them just as the staff whirls, but Jongin is already dragging her away, leading her in a wild race down the halls. Once, when he glances over his shoulder to check if she’s all right, she sees his face split in a wide grin, wild and carefree.

(fourteen)

“I can’t believe we’ll be meeting Dong Bang Shin Ki,” Gaeul gushes, and Minho’s head audibly smacks against his headrest in frustration.

“Mom, please stop her from saying those four words,” he says, rubbing his temples.  She can see where his dark hair curls against the back of his neck,  the flicks and tousles caused by the hood when he pulled it down. “If she does it again, I swear I might jump out of this car.”

“Dong Bang Shin Ki,” Gaeul repeats gleefully.

“Jongin, please gag her for me, will you?”

“Enough, you two,” their mother chides, both hands parked on the wheel, but her eyes on what she could make out of her children. “Aren’t you both embarrassed, doing this in front of Jongin?”

“He’s around so often that he’s practically family,” Minho grumbles, not untruthfully. “We might as well give him a room and have done with it.”

“You know,” Jongin starts, speaking for the first time throughout the entire journey. His hair is in tufts over his head from where he’d leaned against the window, one earbud plugged in an ear, another dangling like a snake on his chest. “We technically won’t get to meet them. Most probably, we’ll be stuck in a pit somewhere getting ourselves deafened by screaming fangirls.”

“At least we know one of them sees sense,” Minho mutters under his breath.

“You’re such a stickler for details,” she says, ignoring Minho. “Fine. We get to see them. Happy?”

“Not quite. I don’t look forward to being deafened.”

She rolls her eyes and smacks him lightly with the cushion she clutches against her chest. Minho, observing their banter from the mirror, comments:

“Consider yourself lucky, Jongin, that that’s all she ever lets you have. If it were me back there, I’m willing to bet she would have been all claws and teeth.”

“Minho, be nice to your sister,” says their mother, who looks just about done with the business altogether. She sighs, tapping the breaks.

The car cruises before a domed arena, an edifice of brick and stone and pure majesty. Dong Bang Shin Ki’s management team had lined metal barriers for security and guards for the disposal of trouble. The most outrageous addition to scene is, however, the presence of tents, sprouting like mushrooms in the nooks and crannies and sometimes the open road, thick fabric trying to hold ground against the wind.

“They camped out here?” Minho exclaims in pure disbelief. “My God, what is it that this cookiecutter boyband has that makes girls literally fall at their feet?”

“Unfailing good-looks would be one of them,” Gaeul says, as Jongin looks up and out the window in interest. “Quality performances would be the other.”

Minho snorts. “Please, it’s all just a ploy to fool you to part with your money. Tell her, Mom.”

“She did win the tickets, darling,” their mother says, weary of the argument. “Not a single won of our money is spent in this concert.”

“What about transportation?” Minho argues. “Fuel. We’re wasting precious miles here.”

“You were the one who insisted that they shouldn’t use public transport.”

“Do you realise how dangerous those busses are? As much as I trust Jongin, he’s not much of a hindrance when pitted against grown, well-muscled men.”

“Oh, really!” Gaeul intervenes, tugging her brother’s locks from  the back of his headrest. He howls in pain. “You complain when Jongin and I want to take the bus… you complain when mom agrees to drive us. What is it that you want?”

“For you to see sense and not go through with this foolishness. Your pining will get you nowhere.”

She jabs two fingers against his head with a hiss. Minho growls, and shoots a dark glare at her.

“I think,” their mother says, as she slams the brakes hard and they all tip forwards in their seats with a yell, “that these plans coincide nicely with my schedule, and that concert or no we would have been here anyway because of my business trip. So let her have her fun, Minho, and,” she sighs, reaching out a hand to clasp her son’s, “I’ll take you out for a bit of shopping after I’m done, hmm?”

Gaeul grins, almost throws open the door in her haste to escape. Jongin follows soon after, sweeping curious eyes across the lot and the arena. He tugs his earbuds out and rolls the wire between elegantly long fingers, tilting his head, as though in thought. He has been rather quiet lately, ever since he’d found respite in music. Most of the time, one would find him detached from the world, living his own in the form of thoughts and dreams in melodious bouquets of notes.

Minho rolls down the windows and sticks his head out. From the corner of her eyes, she sees a group of girls stare; at seventeen, her brother is indeed extraordinarily good-looking, inheriting the best of their parents’ traits. With unkempt hair and a stony glare, he brings to mind an ice statue, glacial and unyielding; soaked in a smile with the sun picking out the soft colours of his eyes, he is the angel of a brother her friends would take a bullet to have.

“Be careful,” he says. “Don’t get yourself trampled or anything. I’ve still got a bone to pick with you on a lot of things.”

She rolls her eyes, but takes his advice to heart. Minho is cold and irksome, but ever since that incident when she was eleven and he fourteen and he became the cause of why she was rushed to the emergency room, his abhorrence towards her general existence has quelled to mere irascibility, with the added bonus of a certain brotherly protectiveness.

He rolls up at the window as the car glides away. She catches the girls still staring, and wonders quietly why. They should have enough reason to go about their businesses, now that their object of fascination is gone. Then Jongin presses a hand on her shoulder and she realises, with a jolt of surprise, that they did have another reason to stay.

A needle of irritation pricks her she turns her head to look at him, him and his finely sculpted features, not quite as striking as Minho’s yet but already so flawless. Jongin has about him the air of a cultured connoisseur, with a touch of a daredevil’s recklessness.

“I’ve been watching the line,” he says. “And I noticed that it keeps getting considerably longer. If you still insist on this, I think we should get going before we end up queuing halfway across the city.”

“They really should stop staring,” she mumbles under her breath, trudging beside him as they made their way across the carpark.

***

“Omigod. I never realised Changmin would be this hot up close!”

“Why not you say that a little louder? I don’t think he heard you --oh, f--” Jongin ducks away from a wayward board just inches from slamming into his face. He comes up strangely tranquil, but with a deathly dangerous look in his eyes. “I am going to take that board. I am going to take it, and I am going to fling it up the stage for Shim Changmin to trip on.”

“Stop blaming the members for every little issue. They’re hardly responsible for them.”

“It’s their concert. They should at least exercise some control --”

A girl somehow escapes the hold of a guard and tries to climb the stage to touch Yunho’s shoes. They watch as three burly men spring forward to attempt to remove her, valiantly and stoically accepting the  claw marks she rakes across their faces.

“Screw control,” Jongin says, toneless. “If the government were failing and the people were to stage a coup d'état, they should just plant a flag on one of these idols’ hands and put their fangirls in the vanguard. Then we needn’t worry over the money spent on weapons.”

***

“How did it go?” Minho asks, slightly smug as they clamber into the car, looking as if they’d just been through war and back.

“If I were a cat and I had nine lives,” Jongin begins, while Gaeul slumps into the seat beside him, “I would have lost eight.”