[CONTENTID1]

Red is Her Color

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[CONTENTID2]

"Because when I'm with you, everything is fun."

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[CONTENTID3]

Jongin was waiting in line to get his food at the cafeteria when someone smacked his shoulder strongly. He winced in pain and turned around to find Soojung standing behind him with a mischievous grin.

“Hi, Jongin.”

He sighed and rubbed the stung spot on his shoulder. “You don’t have to do that just to greet me, I’m against violence.”

Soojung pouted as he turned away and ignored her liked usual. She was thinking that after yesterday incident he would be softer to her, after all they had that deal. But no, as if something plugged out of his system, their relationship had gone back to square one this day, where he ignored her and she needed to try harder to get to know him better.

“What are you going to eat today, Jongin?” She asked him as she tiptoed her way to peek behind him. But he was too tall and she was getting tired of peeking, so she settled down with resting her chin on his shoulder. “Hmm, the kimchi fried rice smell really good from here. Let’s eat that!”

He glanced briefly at her and breathed out in defeat. “Two kimchi fried rice, Aunt Yang.”

“Thank you, friend.”

Jongin’s head snapped toward her direction and she saw the frown on his face. “Are you trying to ruin my mood today?”

She shook her head and blinked innocently. “No, no, of course not, my friend. Why are‒”

“Then stop calling me friend.” He cut her sharply and turned away to take their orders as he thanked the old woman before he walked out from the line. “Go and buy the drink. I want an orange juice today.”

She narrowed her eyes but her lips curled up in a teasing manner. “Okay, friend.” And she ran away right before Jongin could open his mouth to protest again.

“Jesus, why is she so damn annoying.” He hissed before went to an empty table and placed the trays down. Soojung came not too long after that, still with her annoying grin that he wanted to rip from her lips badly.

She gave him the orange juice that he wanted. He reached out to take the juice from her hand but suddenly she pulled away. He glared at her. “What are you doing?”

“You know, I have an allergy to apple and I accidentally buy this…look.” She showed him the juice in her other hand. “Can we change?”

“You’re totally planned everything!” He accused her and took the apple juice with a grunt. Soojung saw him opened the lid and drank half of the bottle angrily. She bit her lips as she wondering if she had gone too far but paused when she realized that their table was too quiet.

“Where are your other friends?”

Jongin pointed lazily to the table three rows behind her and she indeed saw the three were there. Chanyeol was sitting beside his girlfriend and chatting nonstop with Kris who sat across him. Seungwan looked bored to death, to be honest. Sitting with boys must be exhausting, not that Soojung felt the same, though. Jongin was different from them.

She knitted her brows in confusion. “Why are we sitting separately from them? You’re not fighting with them, do you? Jongin, you hardly have a friend‒”

“I’m only making sure that you eat properly for lunch without their disturbance, okay? Stop assuming strange thing, Jung Soojung.”

After hearing his answer, she could not help but cooed. The teasing glint was back on her eyes and she pinched his cheeks liked he was a ten years old boy whom just accomplished perfect mark on his first test. “Oh, as expected of my tsundere friend! You’re indeed a sweet cinnamon roll!”

He quickly removed her hands from his cheeks and looked at her as if she lost a screw on her brain. “Do you think I’m enjoying my time piggybacking you yesterday? You’re heavy and annoyingly nosy. I never want to do that anymore.”

She dismissed his crude answer with a simple wave, not even a look of disappointment planted on her face. “Okay, fine, I’m so, so sorry, I know you’re a tsundere. I’m sorry I brought up an embarrassing topic for you.”

He disregarded her word and choking down his kimchi fried rice hurriedly with a scowl.

Soojung smiled at him, unbothered by his response. “What class are you having after this, Jongin?”

“Biology.”

She clapped her hands excitedly with a gleam on her eyes when found out that they shared a same class after this. “Then let’s go to the class together.”

“Finish your meal first.”

She chewed on her bottom lips and continued to eat in silence. She would add Jongin hates it when we speak during lunch to her How to tame the almighty Kim Jongin 101 notes later when she at home. Believed it or not, she started writing it yesterday night after he took her back home and she already filled the first page with every detail she saw by her own eyes yesterday and the day before yesterday.

Long minutes passed with thick silence between them and in no time, Jongin had done with his food when Soojung only ate half of it and she panicked when he stood up from the seat.

“Wait, where are you going?”

He looked at her weirdly. “Restroom…you’re not planning to follow me everywhere, do you?”

She blushed slyly and shook her head hastily.

It was for a millisecond that Soojung saw one corner of his mouth lifted slightly, created a rare smirk on his lips and she could feel her heartbeat rose. A déjà vu feeling from yesterday event emerged inside her head and it made her shut tight, afraid if she would let out something absurd.

“I’ll come back here, if that’s what you want to ask.” He said before left the table completely.

“What was that…” She muttered and placed her palms on her cheeks, it felt warm. “Do I have a fever?”

—

“Are you two officially going out now?” Kris asked as he picked the seat beside Jongin in English class. He putted his backpack on the table with a hard slam. “How come?”

Jongin glanced briefly at the taller before his attention was back on the book in his hands. “I don’t know who are you talking about, but for your information, I still am single.”

Kris puffed his cheeks and blew air to the bangs that covered his left eye. “But Seungwan is really mad that she can’t talk to Soojung at lunch and Chanyeol said you told us to stay away from Soojung at that time.”

“Seungwan is going to make Soojung skipped her meal again. She has stomach disorder and I need to make sure she eats properly…at least for the rest of this week.”

Kris tilted his head, clearly did not understand Jongin because he had no idea about the deal between the latter and the new girl. He scrutinized Jongin’s expression before let a shrug. “I like that girl.”

“Go get her then.”

“That’s not what I mean, dude.” Kris sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose dramatically. “I like her for you.”

Jongin sent him a dirty glare. “Are you out of your mind? You can keep her for yourself.”

Kris’ lips pursed in a tight line before he gave up confronting Jongin about Soojung and decided to flirt with the girl who sat in front of him. Jongin saw that and shook his head.

Mr. Lau entered the class with his goofy smile while greeting the students at the front row. He placed down the maps on his desk before wrote something on the whiteboard and Jongin needed to squint his eyes to see what was he wrote.

STUDY TOUR AT OSAKA, JAPAN. 5 DAYS TRIP.

All of sudden, the students began cheering loudly as if they won a two million won lottery and Jongin grimaced at how noisy the class been. Loud of chattering exchanged between the girls and the boys who were excited because they had something else to do besides studying boringly at school.

Kris nudged him from the side and he saw him smirking conceitedly.

“Whatever you’re thinking right now, don’t do it.” He reprimanded him.

Kris chuckled and leaned closer to him. “School trip is mean to be wrecked, anyway. Let’s run away at the night and have some fun, with Chanyeol too, of course.”

Jongin still remembered what happened during their last trip, when they were a sophomore. They were visiting Thailand at that time and Kris was setting the exact runaway plan. Jongin was not the one to break the rules, but Chanyeol had the room key and he could not enter the hotel room without it, so Jongin ended up following the two to a nightclub and went back half drunk. He did not even remember what he drank but they were lucky because the teachers did not know about it.

Jongin bit his bottom lips. “I’m not going to join you two.”

“I’ll just find my way to take you along with me and Chanyeol.” Kris smiled confidently. “We’re going to share the same room this year too, anyway.”

Mr. Lau pounded on his desk in attempt to grab some attention, which he did and he grinned gratefully. “Kids, I have some information regarding the study tour next week.” He waited until every voice inside the class getting calmer before continued. “Because you’re already in your senior year, we’ll make it a little different than our usual study tour. We’re going to have an outdoor activity for a day and you have to sign up a group consisting five to six persons and every group need to have both boys and females member. You can register your group later after school in Mr. Kang’s office. And the rest of information will be delivered next Friday by Mr. Gong at the Gym.”

Mr. Lau grinned in satisfaction as the kids started to chat between themselves again. He was also excited for the trip, actually. There was nothing better than to go on a vacation in throngs, especially when Ms. Yoo, the young and beautiful Biology teacher was also present.

“For my class today, you’ll going to have self‒study time. Behave yourself and if you want to skip the self‒study session, you have to be careful so we both clear from the punishment, o