CHAPTER NINE

Despite Jongin calling her name various times already, Soojung was still dozing off and was in her own world. The only thing that made her look at him is when he accidentally puts ketchup on her cheeks by using one of the French fries that they bought. He initially wanted to feed it to her, but now that she’s looking at him, she finally takes a bite of it.

“If you told me that we’re going to have another date, I would have prepared myself better.” He utters as a joke. Soojung was about to say something, but after opening slightly, she just sighs and becomes quiet once again. “It’s about Jinri and Chanyeol, right? That’s why we left the villa so sudden?”

Nodding slowly, Soojung admits that she can’t face either Jinri nor Chanyeol. “More than me walking on them, though I’m having problems to remove that scene out of my mind, I’m also hurt by the fact that my best friends hid that to me – maybe I can still understand Chanyeol not telling me since we talk less, but Jinri?” She then slams her palms into the table to ask him, “You keep secrets from me too, don’t you?”

“M-Me?” Jongin was surprised but was quick to deny her accusation. As far as he could remember, he isn’t keeping anything from her. “Why would you think that I’m hiding something from you?”

“I don’t know, maybe because everybody has done it to me.” She tells him, grabbing the glass of orange juice that she had to have a sip. “My family did it, and now Jinri’s doing it… I won’t be surprised if you did it to me too. I bet you knew about Chanyeol and Jinri too.”

“I did not! I was equally surprised as you were.”

Instead of arguing with him, Soojung remembers that she walked on them and started cringing once again. She complains and fears that she might never forget about it again, and how awkward it will be if she faces both of her best friends. Seeing how miserable she is feeling, Jongin then suggests them to have a movie marathon so that she could forget what happened at the end of the day.

“Hmm, are you asking me out?” Soojung asks in a teasing tone, avoiding his gaze as she once again sipped on her drink.

Actually, he didn’t think about it until she joked about it, but now that she mentioned it, there isn’t anything wrong if they continued their little date that they had back then that was cut short when he caught a fever. Smiling mischievously, he declares upon her, “It’s a date. My treat.”

“Deal.” She smirks. “However, if I don’t forget about what happened this morning by the end of the day, you’ll have to do something for me. I haven’t thought of anything, but I’ll let you know if I do.”

Ah, how much Jongin loved her teasing him. He, for whatever reason, was excited to do whatever she wants him to do. “I’ll do anything, just for you.”

They say that Busan is filled of movie lovers as the city holds their yearly international movie festival and even has an area dedicated to films. Basically, it’s the perfect place to watch a movie both a foreign or local one so Jongin was very much excited to have a movie marathon with Soojung.

An hour after their brunch, Jongin and Soojung went to city’s biggest cinema and decided to watch a foreign horror movie to start off their movie marathon. With a bucket of popcorn on his right hand and a cup of cola on the other, Jongin lead the way to their seats while Soojung followed. Thankfully, the theatre wasn’t that crowded and only a few people were inside, which Jongin was secretly glad for.

Since Soojung hasn’t seen any movie in Korea in ages, she expresses her excitement to Jongin who couldn’t help but smile upon seeing the wide grin on her face. She looked so ecstatic and all giddy, and he teases her for being like a child. Just like their younger, high school days, the first thing Soojung does was to hit him and he could only laugh. It has been a long time since they’ve teased each other like that.

30 minutes into the movie and Jongin hasn’t stopped glancing at Soojung. Unlike him, she was super absorb by the movie and wasn’t looking elsewhere but the screen. It’s not like he didn’t like the movie, in fact he was quite interested. It’s just he has been thinking of making the moves on her by wrapping his arm around her shoulders and has been wondering whether he should do it or not. Very cliché, he knows. But now that there aren’t much people around them, he might as well do something.

However, he noticed that Soojung that was slowly leaning towards him. Thinking that it was her own way of starting a skinship with him, he just kept quiet, but was still smiling as he waited for her to get closer. But Soojung didn’t place her head on his chest just like he thought she would. She was just actually reaching for the popcorn that he had placed further to her.

“Pass me the popcorn, please.” She orders him, tapping his legs as she thought that he wasn’t paying attention to her. Her eyes don’t move away from the screen, even when he passes her the tub of popcorn nor when she utters him a quiet thank you. Frustrated by the fail skinship, Jongin pouts as he starred back at her starring at the screen. While doing so, an idea struck in his mind.

When a scary scene happens, Jongin purposely lets out a scream, hiding and covering his face with both of his palms. This of course catches the attention of not only Soojung but the other viewers as well. Honestly, he wouldn’t dare do something as embarrassing as that but since there aren’t much people inside, he didn’t care as he successfully caught the attention of Soojung.

“What’s gotten into you?”

“I’m scared.”

Weirded out by his confession, Soojung looked at him with an eyebrow raised. “Jongin, this isn’t the first time we watch a horror movie together. I know you don’t get scared by these things.”

Jongin tried his best to put up an offended expression. “People change, you know!”

“This is just one of your ways to get closer to me, isn’t it?” Surprised by how easily she guessed his plans, Jongin looks away.

“I’m going to deny that, but it would probably make me feel better if you hold my hand.”

As soon as he finishd his sentence, Soojung rolled his eyes, though she is quite impressed that he’s willing to shed his ‘manly’ image just so he could get close to her. Since there aren’t much people around them, she had decided to remove her flip flops and scoot right next to him. The cinema didn’t have any arm rest to divide the seats so it was much easier to cuddle, but they made sure they got tickets for the couple seats on their next movie.

And their day went as it was, with a different movie genre every two hours. Jongin was still unable to concentrate on the movies that they were watching, not when Soojung kept on hitting him when something hilarious happens, or when he had to give her tissues when she starts crying. But basically the fact that it was their first time to be very close that got him slightly nervous.

It was already almost ten o’clock when they watched their last movie, a French film starring Vincent Cassel. Though the actor was in his earlier 50s, she couldn’t help but gushing about him – mainly because of his acting skills, but still Jongin was still lowkey pissed about it. The only thing that stopped her from talking about the movie was when his phone rang. He actually had tons of phone calls before but was unable to answer because he had it off.

“Who was it?” She curiously asked.

“Oh, it was Jinri. The boys said that they’re-” Jongin caught the exact moment when Soojung’s expression changed from being excited to having a mental breakdown once again after hearing her best friend’s name come out from his mouth. He had actually forgotten the accident from earlier that day and she seemed to have forgotten it as well, but it was all ruined. Feeling a bit guilty, he promised that he’ll still help her forget about it since technically the day hasn’t ended.

Apparently, Sehun wanted to go camping so when Jongin and Soojung came back. The three were already on the beach by the villa, with the tents already placed. Though Soojung didn’t want to sleep in the beach, she had no choice as she didn’t want to disappoint Sehun, no matter how annoying he was for her.

Speaking of Sehun, he together with Jinri and Chanyeol just roamed around Busan that day without Jongin and Soojung since neither answered their calls. They were supposed to go shopping, but Jinri refused to buy anything as her dear best friend wasn’t there and exclaimed that she will feel bad if she buys anything without her. It didn’t soften Soojung’s heart, however, as she isolated herself from the group. She was sitting near the water, letting it touch her toes, while the rest of the gang were sitting around a camp fire.

“Soojung-ah! Come here!” Jinri calls for the nth time to no avail. She then turns to Jongin to accuse him of whatever’s happening to her best friend. “What did you do to her Jongin?”

Offended, he gasps. Both he and Soojung agreed that they won’t straight up confront the two about what they saw, but he was ready and was about to defend himself, only to be cut off by Chanyeol.

“Yeah, what did you do Jongin?”

“She must have not enjoyed it.” Sehun says, and Jongin could only roll his eyes. The sad part about it, Sehun doesn’t even look like he’s still joking. He genuinely believes that they did it on that tiny storage room when it’s the two people sitting beside him were the ones who did it.

“Okay, first of all – cut with that bull. We didn’t do it, alright? Second of all, I didn’t do to her.” He explains in the calmest way possible.

“I kinda believe Jongin on this one.” Chanyeol starts off, “He’s a classy man. He’d be the type of man who’d carefully plan their first time and would probably have all these petals and to make it all romantic.”

“Ah, something you never did to me.” Jinri casually utters, earning the boys attention. Because of her remark, Sehun giggles and had to bite his lips so he could stop.

He was so close on making a judgemental comment on their choices of the places where they do it, but Jongin had to shut his mouth, not wanting the issue to grow bigger. “You know what? To prove my innocence, I’ll bring her here. That will show you all that I didn’t do anything.”

“Hmm, good luck with that.” He hears one of them say, and he didn’t even bother to know who it was. He wasn’t actually very confident of convincing her to sit with them, but he might as well try.

When he got there, Soojung was still pretty much bummed out because of it and was mumbling to herself. She was even startled when he crouched down beside her, probably not expecting someone to come and talk to her.

“Tell me the truth. Am I overreacting, Jongin?”

“A little, yeah.”

Taken aback by his a little too honest answer, Soojung couldn’t help but to show a hurt expression and Jongin quickly apologizes. The latter then receives a punch from her.

“If you think you talking to me will convince me to sit with you guys, you thought wrong.”

“Listen, my love.” Suddenly, Soojung didn’t hear the waves crushing, the wind blowing nor whatever he was talking about. The word ‘love’ just kept on repeating on the back of her head, and thankfully, she knew how to control her expressions. “Didn’t we agree not to confront them about it now? If you keep acting this way, they’ll notice that there’s something wrong so just come with me and pretend like we don’t know anything about it.”

Not wanting to admit that he was right, Soojung stubbornly looks away from him. “I don’t care.”

“If you don’t stand up and go there, I’ll carry you myself.” Soojung, still not looking at the boy, pretended like she didn’t hear anything while cracking up a small smile. “Wow, so you really want me to do it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about- Hey! Put me down!” She was unable to finish what she was about to say as Jongin had already carried her, bridal style if I may add. Despite her complaining to put her down, Soojung may or may not have purposely tightened her grip around his neck and hug him a little tighter. She herself wasn’t sure if she did that because she wanted to be closer to him, or whether she just wanted to lowkey strangle him. Either way, she was glad that she did, especially since he purposely dropped her right next to Jinri’s seat when he knows that she doesn’t want to be next to her.

“I ing hate you.” Soojung glares at Jongin as he sat down right next to her.

“Oh my, is Californian Soojung back? Is she dropping her good girl image once again?” A dramatic Sehun gasps, obviously referring to how Soojung was when they were in their senior year. Though the question wasn’t for anyone in particular, he was expecting someone to answer but received no response.

Ignoring what Sehun has just ask, Soojung noticed that everyone had a bottle of soju beside their chairs. It surprises her, knowing how choosy her friends were and how they didn’t like soju because of how ‘cheap’ it was. She was somewhat offended that they weren’t offering her anything, but still kept quiet even though she feels Jinri’s eyes on her.

“Why- What’s with this awkward atmosphere?” Chanyeol laughs in attempt to start up a conversation. It doesn’t work, unfortunately.

“Shall we share a secret to talk about something?” Sehun also tries, but they didn’t seem very interested, especially Soojung who kept on looking at her nails, as if there was something wrong with them.  “Okay, I’ll start first… Did you guys know that I actually had a crush on Soojung way before she left for Los Angeles-”

“What the actual ?!” “Are you kidding me?” Both Jongin and Soojung said at the same time. Hint, Soojung said the second line, so just imagine the glare and anger Jongin had as his expression. Lowkey afraid that Jongin might do something to him, Sehun immediately continues what he wanted to say.

“But then she left so my crush went to Jinri instead.” Sehun confesses. As it their first time hearing this, the four friends looked at Sehun, waiting for him to say that it was all a joke, but the boy looked serious and didn’t look like he was going to take all of that back.

“Ew.” Jinri mumbles, but since everyone was currently speechless, they all heard her disgust loud and clear.

“What do you mean ‘ew’, Choi Jinri?! You should be honoured that the most handsome friend of yours liked you!”

Jinri looked more disgusted after Sehun said that.

“Didn’t I tell you that I had a crush on her after Soojung left?” Chanyeol questions. He was pretty sure Sehun was one of the first people who knew that he liked Jinri back when they were younger, but he doesn’t remember Sehun ever mentioning that he liked Jinri as well (nor Soojung actually).

“That’s why I switched to Yoona noona.”

After hearing him mention her cousin’s name, Soojung immediately raised her eyebrow. “Oh, so you had a crush on unnie too, huh?” Though she didn’t say anything else, that expression on her face was saying that Luhan will hear about it and that he will probably kill him after that.

“Wait, you got it all wrong. We- Uhm, we all had a crush on her, I swear. I wasn’t the only one! Plus, I was a young boy! What do you expect?”

“You were like, eight years old.” Jongin exclaims. Though he doesn’t say anything else, it was quite obvious that he was judging him by the fact that he had a lot of crushes.

“W-What’s your point?”

“You were like, ing eight years old.” He repeats. This time, he does it with a more judgemental tone.

“Well, Jongin. I’m sorry I wasn’t already eighteen years old when I realized that I had a crush on Soojung just like when you told me that you were into her-” Not meaning to say that out loud, Sehun immediately covers his mouth with his palm. Soojung looked as surprised as when he confessed that he had a crush on her. Did Sehun just blantantly say that he knew that Jongin loved her, way before Jongin confessed to her?

As she expected, Jongin was mouthing Sehun something, but immediately smiles and pretended like he was doing anything when Soojung looked at him. “Kim Jongin…”

“Y-Yes?”

“Did you tell Sehun that you had a thing for me way before you told me?”

“I-I might have done that, yeah.”

“He also told us too.” Chanyeol says, and Jinri immediately hisses at him. How can he not see that Soojung was lowkey pissed about what was happening?

“Wow. Just, wow.” Soojung laughed, though she did, it was obvious that she wasn’t really happy on the inside. “And nobody even told me? Amazing.”

“It’s all Jongin’s fault.” Jinri says, and the two boys quickly agrees.

Jongin tried to defend himself from them, as usual. Why does his friends always throw him under the bus? However, Soojung didn’t seem to care about what he was saying as she stood up to grab Jinri’s soju. It was almos