“Why are we here?” I asked Jongin.

He took a bite from his sandwich that was frightfully large. I was still carrying my tray from the cafeteria and the lunch didn’t exactly look too appetizing. I stabbed it with my chopstick, then decided that I’d get something from the convenience store for a snack instead of eating the food. It reminded me of Jinyoung’s cooking, which just made it worse.

“If you’re not having that chicken, I will,” he said without answering my question.

I squinted at the dish. “That’s chicken? How the hell are you going to eat that?”

“I know chicken,” he declared before taking my plate from me.

The school roof was nice and empty. Empty because Jongin had gotten to it by picking the lock with a bobby pin and it wasn’t restricted for both teachers and students due to the fact that it didn’t actually have a railing around it and was technically extremely dangerous, but it was a very Jongin thing to find multiple ways around locked doors.

“Why are we here?” I asked again as I turned my attention to the only edible thing on my tray, the rice.

Jongin shrugged. The chicken dish didn’t seem to have killed him yet. “It’s nice and quiet,” was all he said.

Chapter 34

Jinyoung was waiting with the food when I came inside the apartment, and he’d actually taken some time to dump the takeout from their original plastic containers into plates. He’d even gotten me mango juice.

It was as feast as we’d ever get, seeing his cooking skills and the time he normally had in his hands. I nearly dropped my backpack (which I was informed Baekhyun had retrieved for me—the thing was in better condition than I was) when I saw the table. I stared at the table for a couple of seconds, too much to comprehend because it wasn’t quite clicking—my brain was still lingering on five minutes ago and what Kai said—and I must’ve stood in shock at the doorway for a good fifteen seconds before shuffling robotically inside and pushing it shut behind me.

Jinyoung frowned at me. “Why are you just standing there staring at me?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused. “Hurry up. The food’s going to get cold.”

That was how, apparently, that I ended up sitting across from him at the table, sipping mango juice out of a straw (I had absolutely no idea where he’d gotten it from) while munching on spicy chicken. Jinyoung ate relatively slower than I did—I hadn’t even realized how starved I was until I actually saw the food—and by the time I was halfway through my bowl of rice, he’d barely finished a quarter. As fast as I normally ate, even this was pretty quick for me. I wasn’t sure why. Probably because Kai had apparently asked me on a date and the fact didn’t quite sink in yet and my mind was short-circuiting because of it, and

I glanced up at him. “What’s the occasion?”

He blinked, slightly distracted. “What do you mean?”

I gestured at the table, then decided it wasn’t enough and pointed at my mango juice instead. “What’s the occasion for this?”

My brother shrugged. “I was hungry?”

“Obviously.”

He shovelled a huge mouthful of rice into his mouth, which I’d been doing continuously for the past five minutes. “How do you eat so much these days? You eat like, half your weight.”

I shrugged, then snatched another piece of chicken. The chicken reminded me of Kai. I did not want to think of Kai because it led to more confusion. “I’m just hungry today.”

“Not just today,” Jinyoung muttered before digging in again.

The rest of lunch was spent in lighter talk. I kept on getting distracted, always going back to what he’d said at the foot of the building. I had gotten to the point of debating whether or not it was real, and if it was real, whether or not it was some kind of joke. If it wasn’t a joke, then it meant that he was actually asking me out for a date, and if he was asking me out for a date, then it meant that he liked me, because most people didn’t ask someone they weren’t interested in out for a date. On the other hand, that was more comprehensible, so going around since the beginning was just making my head hurt more.

I was going for thirds of the fried rice when Jinyoung stopped me. “Woah,” he started. “Do you have something on your mind right now?”

I frowned, then dropped the spoon because he’d pulled the plate away and I couldn’t reach it anymore. “What do you mean?”

“That’s your fifth cup of mango juice, Mira. There’s two litres of mango juice in that.”

I opened my mouth, snapped it shut, then managed an, “oh.”

He watched me set my chopsticks down. “Seriously,” he said. “Is there anything? School? Grades? Friends?”

I fidgeted in my seat. “No,” I said lamely. “I’m just very hungry.”

Jinyoung didn’t look very convinced, but it was very like my brother not to press. He gave in with a sigh, then, as an afterthought, decided to assign dishes duty for me.

***

Jinyoung left very soon after I started washing the plates (there weren’t many), so it gave me some time to stand still and think through things properly. Not to say I actually got anywhere—I really didn’t, and I always got stuck on how the hell does Kai like me and why the hell he would—and it occured to me that maybe, just maybe, I was overthinking when I dried the same plate for the sixth time.

The kitchen seemed to be more of a mess after I finished the dishes than before. I mopped up the floor, wiped the table, tucked in the chair (Jinyoung had an annoying habit of never doing so, and it drove me insane) before heading back to my room and flopping onto the bed.

For at least five minutes, I replayed Kai turning around and calling it over his shoulder like he had the right to be so casual. A date if you want it to be. It was a very Kai thing to say, and if it hadn’t been directed to me. Maybe I would’ve been awfully sad if it had been directed to someone else, but it would actually make sense, and my head wouldn’t be hurting at the moment.

I picked up my phone. The screen was cracked, still usable, and I stared at Kai’s contact for a good thirty seconds before throwing the device back onto my bed. I couldn’t call him. Not now. Because I couldn’t handle it, and because he specifically set a time. Maybe he’d think I was cancelling on him if I called him. Maybe I’d panic if I did so and actually cancel on him. The possibilities were absolutely endless.

After a little bit longer of contemplation, I dragged myself up from the bed and actually stood up.

There was no point fretting, I decided. It wasn’t going to do anything, I was apparently avoiding my phone too. The clock read one thirty six, which meant that I had exactly three hours and fifty four minutes before Kai was going to be at the bottom of the building, and exactly three hours and fifty four minutes before I had to see him.

I still hadn’t quite figured out how I was going to ever face him again, which was a bit of an issue because there was apparently a date scheduled in the evening. Deciding that that was a problem to tackle when it actually came up, I grabbed a towel and headed for the shower.

***

Jinyoung found me at three fifty eight panicking over what outfit to wear. It was a bigger problem than it sounded because I absolutely had no fashion sense, and I couldn’t piece anything from my closet together.

He knocked on my door. I had temporarily put on pajamas, and a couple of seconds later, he stuck a head inside. “I bought ice cream,” he said. “There’s matcha. Wait, is that a facemask?”

I frowned at him, then reached up to peel it off. “I’ve had it on for thirty minutes. I forgot about it.”

He shuffled inside the room. “Why are all your clothes on your bed?”

“Spring cleaning.”

“Then I’m assuming you don’t need help finding something to wear for the date?”

I never quite understood the figure of speech with jaw dropping and what not, but I was the living embodiment of it following Jinyoung’s words. I gaped at him, absolutely speechless, then managed to squeak, “How do you know?”

Jinyoung shrugged. “I was told.”

I stared at him with wide eyes for a little while longer, unable to respond from the shock, before I finally managed to say, “Told by who?”

He pointed at something in my closet, then pulled out a dress that I hadn’t tried to wear in at least over a year. “This would look nice.”

“Who told you about this?” I pressed, then accepted the dress when he handed it to me. He was right. It did look nice, and it wasn’t overly fa