courtesy of fate, destiny and the like.

his hands go for the hoodie of his jacket, he doesn't dare pull it back. he adjusts it and makes sure the face masks covers at least half of his face. though it always has irritated him, he has to wear it. unless he wants this grocery store to be mobbed by ikonics, then he can take it off and flaunt his face around freely. but that wasn't even an option. nope.

along with hanbin's request for ice cream, chanwoo remembers jinhwan telling him to buy some mayonnaise and a-class bread. he doesn't even know what the latter is, so he just assumes the older member wants the best kind of bread in the store. chanwoo finds the shelves for bread and taps the saleslady shoulder to ask for advice.

she turns her head around so fast, her hair whips his eyes. he blinks a little, and he thought he must've been seeing things because this girl in blue is so not the saleslady, instead a much more familiar and unwelcomed face appears before him. 

the scowl is immediate on her features, even if she's covering half of it under a black mask. "what?!" her voice is both muffled and toned down to a whisper. he rolls his eyes.

"do yourself a favor and don't wear blue around here," he pushes her. not too rough, not too soft. she's always saying he's hurt her, but really, chanwoo is more considerate and thoughtful than she would let on. "it makes me think you're on of the salesladies. move, please." 

she doesn't just move, she walks away from him. she carries a loaf of bread under her arm, her other hand holding up her wallet. chanwoo realizes he's staring, so he looks back at the loaves of bread and sighs. out of all the days.

an hour before he was "ordered" to the grocery store

the music stops and hanbin's yelling replaces it. his voice bounces off the walls, and even jiwon is staying quiet. he's rooted to his spot and looks like he has zero intentions of stopping hanbin. jinhwan, however, looks concerned at the black haired boy who's at the receiving end of hanbin's wrath.

"hey," he pokes donghyuk's shoulder and the younger one, today's mistake repeater, bows his head. apologizing. but hanbin doesn't want any of that now. "you're the main dancer aren't you? how pathetic can you be, kim donghyuk? get your head out of your ing and start doing it properly or else i swear to god, i will -" he stops himself, unable to simply let it out anymore.

he throws the remote control to the stereo across the room and the crash echoes all around, but only donghyuk flinches. chanwoo looks away from the scene. there's a minute of silence, hanbin does nothing. nobody does. 

"i'm hungry, see ya." chanwoo announces. he placed every bit of courage he had into those words. going up against a lion hanbin would be suicide; only chanwoo was dumb enough to take the challenge of course. he can clearly see junhoe through the mirror, standing at the back with yunhyeong, shaking his head in exasperation. 

but their leader lets out a breath, angry and irritated. "go to the store. buy me some ice cream while you're at it." hanbin says, walking away from donghyuk to sit on the bench. jinhwan pitches in, telling him to buy bread and some mayonnaise. chanwoo nods before leaving, that's how practice for today ends. 

that same evening

"what're you doing here?" chanwoo asks, or more like accuses. 

junhoe, at the same time, says. "what's up, sua?"

sua, unbelievably, completely ignores chanwoo and smiles at junhoe. "oh hello, i was just looking for b.i-senior. is he busy?" he couldn't believe his ears. did she just use formalities with junhoe? and not him? did she just call hanbin "senior"? and not him? the nerve of this girl.

"yeah, he's busy. get out."

sua doesn't even look at him. "well, junhoe-senior. can you please tell him choice37 is looking for him?" she bows. "thank you, i'll go now. goodbye." she was like a robot, adding those "-yo" in her words and sentences. speaking formally to junhoe. ignoring chanwoo completely and making him annoyed in the process because if that was her plan from the beginning, then she definitely succeeded. 

junhoe whistles, low and impressed, when sua disappears around the corner. "how'd you get her so angry?" 

"i don't know." chanwoo does know. it's just that he doesn't care. girls or little sisters like sua shouldn't even be intervening in matters between chanwoo and her brother. he knows she's mad because of that draft he saved in his phone. seven words. he knows it'll mean the world to him.

why couldn't he just send it?

congrats on your debut, by the way. 

the first stage

"hey," 

eunbi nods, stepping to the side to make way for the members of this newest boy group. babies, they practically are. they're debuting today. eunbi thinks of an excuse as to why she had been watching them pre-record their debut stage, but she's coming up blank and empty. 

"hello," they greet her, one by one, they bow down and eunbi is a little bit flustered at how she's crowded in the elevator with them.

damn, she knew she shouldn't of have stuck to the very end of the recording. but when she caught them walking to where she was standing, she just panicked. it's a good thing nobody asks her about her presence, not even bin. 

this guy with the blonde hair tries hard not to make any physical contact with her, she's already buried deep at the back. an arm blocks the blonde guy from her, and in comes a face she's all too familiar with in an elevator of unfamiliar ones. "hey... err, again." he sounds less surprised than the last 'hey'. 

eunbi almost smiles. "hi, bin." almost. it's been too long since they've seen each other, and she's just seen chanwoo a few hours ago.. it's too crazy for words. "congrats on your debut." 

he smiles, big and wide and sincere and eunbi remembers it so well. it almost hurts. she can't keep looking at these boys, at chanwoo, at bin, because every damn time she does... she always wants to go back. always. to the past, to the before. it's impossible, but eunbi just can't stop the nostalgic longing she feels these days. 

it's why she hates chanwoo. he can navigate around the past so easily, it's like he doesn't even care at all. oh, wait. he doesn't. that, and the fact that he can't admit to his faults when they were younger.

it's why she can't hate bin. bin shares the same ideals as her, shares the same longing she feels from the strands of her hair to the tips of her toes. he and she were like dogs and cats, always bickering, always fighting, if chanwoo wasn't there to stop them they would've ripped each other's throats out long ago.

now they're two persons with one mind. 

it's crazy. 

when the elevator door opens and she can finally breathe again, she's almost disappointed when bin waves goodbye. 

the thirteenth win

he got to see her like that, crazy and letting loose, all the time when they were younger. when the days were longer, when ice cream made her forgive him, when chanwoo and he still talked like there would be no tomorrow. he was used to that attitude, to those silly dances and boisterous laughter. it used to annoy him to no end.

but seeing it again, seeing it now, made him smile despite himself. sanha frowned when he saw bin smiling and announced, "hey, this guy is weird! he's smiling for no reason at all!" 

the other members laughed, but minhyuk is the only who doesn't. when they get back on the back of the van, the two of them together, he borrows minhyuk's phone since his is already drained. he searches up for tonight's episode of show champion and sure enough, it's already uploaded.

he skips to the end and when the video buffers, he pauses it and waits. minhyuk gives him a look but he refuses to explain himself again anymore. he's already said a million, no, a billion times. they're friends. eunbi and he. they've always been friends. nothing more, nothing less. they won't stop being friends, today was an example.

she watched him, he tells minhyuk, or us maybe us as astro but she was watching me too. we saw her, you saw her. she was supporting me, us, don't you get that?

minhyuk purses his lips and looks away from bin. "i also saw the way you looked at her. i get that. and it's dangerous."

"no," he whispers, shaking his head. the other members are rowdy, noisy, bin is almost glad. they can't hear what's going on with minhyuk, they don't have to anyway. "you don't get it still. i only looked at her like that... because... because well, frankly i haven't seen her in a long time and the one time i do see her, in person and not just on the screen, i completely space out and just stare.

she's gotten prettier. eunbi has. she used to be so gross and snotty, but i could see how she changed. the moment i laid eyes on her, i knew. she was a changed person."

minhyuk doesn't like to question or confront his older members, so he shrugs and plugs some earphones on. he turns to his ipod and bin turns to minhyuk's phone. 

he watched the whole thing, even though he was there himself. at the corner, while she was in front; a front runner, a chart topper, a winner. she's done so well, so good for someone who didn't even want the idol life in the first place. bin had wanted to congratulate her himself, but minhyuk had pulled his arm and the opportunity slipped away. just like that.

he kept looking. looking at her. 

she never looked back. 

midnight; how it goes

chanwoo, can you tell sua to reply? please?
received 12:32

he's not his lap dog. he won't run to do whatever favor he needed. he's not at bin's beck and call, but it seemed as though the latter can't agree to that. that, or he just doesn't care of what chanwoo even thinks. and what chanwoo thinks is that moon bin is the personified definition of pathetic for texting him every single day, with such trivial and random and nonsenseical things, without a tinge of embarrassment or pride in his words. 

chanwoo groans, he gets up from the couch and scowls when the lights of the practice room are too bright. damn, junhoe forgot to turn them off again. he sighs. jinhwan must be worried sick over him now, he has to go back to the dorm soon. 

never again 

chanwoo closes the door to the practice room behind him. when he walks the hallways and turns the corner, his heart literally almost stops. he closes his eyes and doesn't open them until he feels the janitor passing by him. "god," he sighs, hearing music from one of the practice rooms to the left. sua. 

"hey!" he had to shout. when he did, jennie had to mute the stereo. sua looked back, surprise coloring her features for a second before she goes into a resting face. he can't believe he was doing this. after a minute or so of debating with himself outside the room, he finally found the courage to open the door. now, he wasn't sure if he had any courage left to say the words. 

"moon bin said you should... reply..."

jennie looked at chanwoo to sua and back to chanwoo again, but he doesn't wait for a reply.

he shuts the door when he leaves.