The next morning, Jongin’s all neat and good-looking at around 11 am. He makes sure to bring his book and a small notebook just in case inspiration hits him, and he needs to write down a quote or a short poem. He sees another notification of a text and he opens it, smiling,

From: Sehun-ah

wake up jongin, rise and shine! clock’s ticking, I’ll be meeting u in the middle carriage but just make sure to pop ur head out so I don’t go in the wrong carriage ok c:

From: Jongin-ah

sure, reminding u again the carriage is straight ahead when u get into the station >w< I’m leaving exactly at 12!!

Jongin closes his phone and goes to take his mug and makes a quick hot chocolate. He sees Jongdae from the corner of his eyes, his eyes half-closed, and hair messy straight out of bed. “Hey, where are you going so early?”

“It’s already 11, Hyung, it’s no longer early.”

“These hours are still counted as early for me,” he takes a seat at the counter, “Where are you going?”

Jongin honestly doesn’t know where Sehun’s taking him, so he thinks of a way to avoid a morning interrogation from his brother, “I think I’m going to this place, blocks away.”

“What place?”

“This building,” and Jongin hesitates because he really doesn’t know anything.

Hearing the word building, it alarms Jongdae awake and his brows arching, “You’re not going to a park?”

“I’m trying to go somewhere else other than parks,” Jongin tries to come up with a good reason, “Wait, why do you care so much?”

“It’s odd knowing you’re going somewhere not even related to parks,” Jongdae’s lips suddenly turns into a wicked smirk, “Are you going with someone?”

Holy , spot on, hyung, Jongin sighs and Jongdae notices that in a blink.

“You’re sighing! That means it’s true!” Jongdae’s excited tone a higher pitch.

"They could just be a friend you know," Jongin's voice trails softly, Sehun is indeed his friend anyways, why does he complicate the matter even more.

"You never hold back when you're telling me you'll hang out with your friends, but you resisted telling me just now," Jongdae's voice edging in cockiness, noticing every little detail of his younger brother.

To make it even worse, he sees his oldest brother, Minseok, walking to the kitchen counter, hands still rubbing his sleepy eyes and hair very much disheveled. Jongdae calls him out, the boy perking up in annoyance and Jongin wants to die right this instance.

“Yo, Minseok! Little bear is going out with someone!” the oldest boy widens his eyes in surprise, eyes glancing to Jongin.

Minseok walks at a fast pace and grabs a seat next to Jongdae, fully awake and his voice is slightly hoarse, “Who are you going out with?”

“None of both your concerns,” Jongin massages the temple of his head, because why does he have such nosy older brothers. He sips the hot chocolate, trying to prevent a headache caused by them.

“It’s our concern if it’s about our little bear,” Jongdae coos at him, hands propping his chin as he sees Minseok doing the same, looking very interested in the mysterious person he’s going out with.

“Good god, can you guys stop calling out baby nicknames for me? I’m old already!” Jongin doesn’t realize that he’s pouting, cheeks blushing in embarrassment, and at that, the two older brothers are squealing in their seat, Jongdae’s hand coming up to pinch Jongin’s cheek as he tries to swat it away.

Minseok’s voice chimes in, “Old enough you can even step up your game with someone.”

Jongdae exclaims aloud ‘oohh’ and asks for a high five from Minseok, in which he gives it to him, grinning widely at Jongin.

Jongin rolls his eyes, finishing his hot chocolate, before grabbing his things as fast as he can—thank god his things are on the counter already—, and heads out the door, mumbling, “See you both later.”

The last thing he hears is a very loud laugh from both his older brothers and he’s dying inside out of the embarrassment and torture they put him through every day.

Jongin hops on the train in the Q line just before the clock strikes exactly 12 pm, sighing in relief because he doesn’t want Sehun to hop on the train and seeing he’s nowhere to be found. He manages to send a short text, saying he’s on the train already and he plugs his earphones in, playing one of his favorite songs.

He sees the stations passing by and keeps an eye for the station Sehun’s in. After passing many stops, he’s finally by the station and spots Sehun standing from the window of the train. He eventually looks up, just in time when Jongin comes out the door halfway, motioning Sehun to hop on.

He grins and runs to the doors, his earphones are also in but he pops one out as soon as he faces Jongin, “So are you ready for the surprise destination?”

“You know, my brothers teased me a lot because this is the first time I’m going to a place other than parks.”

“Wait,” Sehun breathes a laugh, “So you never go anywhere else?”

“Hell no, I’ve been to other places with friends, just not alone.”

Sehun nods his head in amusement, lips slightly pursing, “But right now you’re not going alone.”

“At first, they thought I was going alone,” he shifts his gaze downwards, “Until they found out I was going with someone.”

Sehun laughs at the sight of an embarrassed Jongin, looking like a kid with his fingers tapping onto each other, “You’re not even going out on a date, you could count me in as a friend.”

Jongin looks up, and Sehun is still in the middle of laughing until he catches his breath, “I mean unless you want it to be a date,” and he winks playfully, flustering Jongin further more. He ends up smacking a laughing Sehun with one hand, his other hand gripping onto the rail.

After passing more stations, Sehun nudges that they’re going out to the next stop. They get off on the said station, as Sehun leads him the way. He starts blabbering about the building they’re about to see, “This is so far, one of my favorite places in the city.”

“What’s the name of the building?”

“You’ll know when you see it.”

They walk a couple more blocks until Sehun starts walking slowly, hands pointing to a building—more like a tower—, “There it is. The tallest building in the city.”

“You should’ve said that you’re going back to see the tower instead of it being a surprise.”

“The real question is, have you even gone up to the observation deck?”

Jongin shakes his head, he only knows there’s an infamous tower in their city and the closest he’s been to the tower, is just driving past it. He knows it’s weird that as someone who lives in the city, he’s never been up in the observation deck. He feels like it’s more of a tourist attraction and he wants to avoid those places.

“You’re not living, Jongin,” Sehun chuckles.

“I just like to avoid places that are too crowded with tourists.”

“You became a tourist by never going up there, Jongin.”

Jongin shakes his hand in dismissal, matching his pace with Sehun’s as they enter the tower. He spots a very long line for the ticketing counter, his head feeling dizzy already at the sight of people, until he notices Sehun walking sideways from the line.

“The line’s over there, Sehun.”

“I noticed, but do you honestly want to go through all that?”

Turns out, Sehun is taking him to a self-ticketing machine and he enters a line of digits from his phone, and the screen shows “Ticket Confirmed” and two tickets is printed out of the machine. 

“I came prepared,” Sehun grins, before pointing a finger at Jongin threateningly when he’s about to ask, “And this is my treat, so shut up and enjoy.”

Sehun gives one of the tickets to Jongin, and there’s a certain word that caught his attention, printed in black ink, the word VIP gets his eyes bulging in disbelief, “You bought VIP tickets?”

“I’m avoiding all possible long lines because it’s the weekend,” Jongin looks back to the ticket in his hand, he knows VIP tickets cost a ton more, “Yes, you’re welcome, Jongin.”

Sehun smiles smugly at Jongin before nudging him to put the ticket around his wrist, it works similarly like a wristband. They come up to a guide, showing their wrists and she opens another line for them.

They pass by a long line of people having to go through a bag scanner, their eyes staring at both of them in jealousy and confusion, meanwhile, Sehun and Jongin has no queue in front of them and they pass through the scanner in no time. 

Jongin is trying so hard to conceal his dork self, but fails when he says, “Holy , I feel like such an important person.”

“The beauty of a VIP pass, you should try it more.”

“I’m fine with just this treat. If I go through more VIP passes, I might get broke.”

“Oh right, you don’t really need VIP passes,” Sehun hums, “You’re already a VIP to me, so don’t worry.”

Jongin tries not to blush and he glares at Sehun, who’s smirking triumphantly, “You smooth er.”

They head into rows of elevators and eventually, a tour guide points and motions for them to take the elevator going up nearby. There’s a crowd gathering in front of the elevators, waiting for the door to open.

When the doors to the elevator open up, they rush in slowly, crowding into the slightly close space. There’s a tour guide inside the elevator, pressing the close button when everyone’s in, as he says his formal greetings, “Welcome! We’ll be heading up to the 94th floor in a speed of 15 minutes.”

Jongin accidentally blurts out, “Wow!” in the middle of the quiet enclosed space, earning a few glances, and Sehun chuckling beside him. The car ride up is smooth, it didn’t feel like going up at all—with an exception of something going on with his ears because of the change of air temperature—. 

The doors finally open up and there’s another guide welcoming them, “Welcome to the observatory deck!” Sehun goes out quickly and pulls Jongin with him, heading to the outdoors section. 

The outdoors is crowded as expected but Jongin doesn’t care because god bless whoever built the tower, what a beautiful view it is from up here. It’s currently Autumn where it’s getting windy and colder, there’s less sunlight, so getting up the deck at 1 in the afternoon is fine.

“So, what do you think, Mr. Ugh-Too-Much-Tourist?” Sehun grins, standing beside him, as they’re near the clear glass, the view towards the city. He’s taking out the camera from his bag, turning it on.

“I’m ting bricks,” Jongin sighs at the view, “I can’t believe I resist myself not going here.”

“Regret always comes in the end, mate,” Sehun looks through the viewfinder, a finger on the shutter button, “You’re welcome, Jongin.”

“Thank you, Oh Sehun, for dragging my here. Thank you for making this as a surprise destination or I might’ve refused to go at all,” Jongin grins widely at Sehun, and the latter turns away from his camera, it stunned him to see Jongin’s bright smile.

Jongin gazes back to the view, taking out his phone to take photos, “It’s so beautiful.”

Still staring at the black haired boy beside him, Sehun mutters softly, “It’s beautiful indeed,” no longer paying attention to the view beyond them. It’s weird how they just met yesterday but Sehun feels they’re getting closer and it’s only day 2. 

Sehun smiles, seeing Jongin’s serious face, holding his phone out as he takes shots that suit to his liking. He looks back to his camera, just in time when Jongin turns his head around to Sehun, smiling at how Sehun’s busy taking photos, his finger pressing more buttons, perhaps changing the settings to his camera, a frown etched on his lips before he goes back, looking into the viewfinder.

Suddenly, an idea pops into Jongin’s head and he takes a couple of steps back, making sure Sehun’s back is in his view and he holds out his phone, taking a few shots.

He looks at the photos and they turned out nicer than Jongin’s expectation, and he’s proud of himself. He opens the Instagram app, and uploads the photo, tweaking it a bit with the editing feature within the app. 

When he’s satisfied, he uploads it without tagging Sehun, he comes up with a caption, “for one whose beauty is catching up with the view.” He’s patting his chest, once again very proud of himself, for coming up with the caption.

Eat that caption, Oh Sehun.

Sehun looks to his side and surprised to see Jongin is not beside him. He looks behind, sighing in relief when he sees Jongin smiling to whatever is on his phone screen. He comes up to him, “What are you smiling at?”

Jongin locks his phone and puts it in his pocket right away, “Nothing. Just read something amusing.”

“I bet you find my back amusing. That’s why you’re behind me.”

Jongin rolls his eyes, “Shut up, narcissist.”

They walk around the observatory deck, another part of the deck has a view of the sea, and Jongin lets out a satisfied sigh. 

He goes straight to an empty spot and stares to the view bared in front of him. Sehun walks up slowly behind him, hands still holding his camera and he finds a great angle to take a photo of Jongin.

The view in front of Jongin and his messy black hair makes it all prettier, so he opts to make Jongin laugh because honestly, his laugh should be one of the eight wonders.

“Jongin, stay there and pose like you’re a masterpiece,” wait, what the hell was that, Sehun curses.

But Jongin laughs.

Jongin laughs as he looks to his side, and Sehun manages to capture the perfect moment and he smiles in triumph when he looks at the shot he took.

“What was that for?” Jongin asks when he fully faces Sehun.

“For your candid shot.” 

“Jeez, you always take photos of me, why can’t I take one of you?”

Sehun laughs, before handing his camera to Jongin, and they switch places. He looks into the viewfinder, and sees Sehun right in front of him, just standing there while he glances to his side, and how does this guy manage to look like a model just standing there.

Jongin presses the shutter button a few times, with Sehun still not looking into the camera, just gazing to his side or to the view of the sea. Jongin shakes his head, “Can you look into the camera once?”

Sehun doesn’t usually pose while looking into the camera because he likes candid poses but for the exception of Jongin, he turns around and looks into the camera, lips sealed tight and his brows drawn in a rather dashing way.

It makes Jongin a bit flustered, he can feel the heat creeping up his cheeks and he thanks for the camera, hiding most of his face from Sehun. His finger pressed the shutter hurriedly because Sehun’s stare is piercing him through the camera, metaphorically of course.

“Jongin, are you done?”

“Just a couple more,” Jongin points his hand to him.

Sehun shakes his head, his silver-gray hair blown by the wind and it looks soft, but out of nowhere, he starts making silly faces to the camera and Jongin laughs while snapping the shutter button continuously, trying to get every face he made because seriously, Sehun making weird faces is gold.

In the end, he laughs, reaching out for his camera, not before Jongin manages to take a snap of Sehun laughing. He looks into the shots Jongin took, in silence, “It’s honestly decent, don’t expect too much, Sehun.”

Sehun glances at him and Jongin couldn’t read much of his gaze. Then he smirks, “These are good, Jongin! But not as good as mine.”

“You’re an but I’ll take that as a compliment, so thank you.”

“Honestly speaking, you’re a natural,” he winks at Jongin, and the latter grins.

After taking a few more shots, they decide to leave the deck. They head down the tower and sees the growing line for admission tickets. Sehun exclaims, “Glad we got to the top earlier.”

“Glad we got the VIP tickets,” Jongin chuckles.

“So where are we going to next?”

“To my favorite pocket park.”

Sehun tilts his head in confusion, “What’s a pocket park?”

“It’s called pocket because the size of the park is small and you can’t see it just by passing, you have to find it, like a pocket.”

Jongin walks ahead of Sehun, leading the way and he starts noticing his phone had been buzzing nonstop, so he takes out his phone to see a lot of notifications from his Instagram and alongside, a few texts from his friends and his brothers.

He opens the comments to his Instagram post and sees,

byunbh: OH WHO’S THIS FELLA

parkchnyeol: @byunbh @junmyeona @amberllama @jungkrystal OUR BABY NERD IS ALL GROWN UP

jongdaekim: did u get that from a movie

jongdaekim: anyways YO @kiminseok LITTLE BEAR HAS PICKUP LINES NOW

amberllama: I’m offended he posts a pic of this guy but not us

amberllama: have we grown apart ;;;;

jungkrystal: @amberllama tbh we’ve grown apart with him the moment we screamed at his face when he’s reading ;;;;

junmyeona: jongin since when did u date someone?

byunbh: MOTHER HEN LEAVE THEM ALONE @junmyeona 

parkchnyeol: LET THEM BE MOTHER HEN @junmyeona

junmyeona: I WAS ONLY ASKING WTF @byunbh @parkchnyeol

Jongin rolls his eyes, sighing at his friends’ c