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Chapter 6: Prove It

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Wiping my eyes made no difference. It was definitely him. The boy from the museum shot daggers at me with his eyes from across the room, and I held my breath waiting for him to say something about our previous altercation. Instead, he just sat there, silently.

What the hell? Is this building some kind of alternate universe portal? Why do all these people I’ve met keep showing up randomly?

“Well, now that you’re officially up,” JB said, already back to stirring up pancake mix in a bowl, “everyone, this is Alice. Alice, this is Yugyeom,” he motioned with his elbow as he stirred to the curtain-haired boy who greeted me with a cereal-stuffed smile, “and next to him is Youngjae.”

The friendly otter-looking fellow gave me a skeptical glance, “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet both of you. I’m sorry to barge in so randomly like this. You were all asleep last night when I-,” I paused, trying to think of some way to express the sentiment of when I showed up at your gate in the middle of the night like a stalker but, you know, without sounding like a crazy person.

JB saved me, yet again, “when we reunited.”

I nodded gratefully. They didn’t look too surprised and carried on with their eating.

I guess he’s already filled them all in on the details.

The boy in the back had ceased staring at me. He had closed his eyes and was massaging his temples, but, at JB’s last words, he abruptly stood up and made a bee-line for the door.

“You’re already here, Jinyoung, you might as well stay for breakfast,” JB looked up from his batter with mild annoyance but kept stirring.

“No offense, but I don’t think I can hold down anything right now, much less your cooking.”

There was no doubt about it being him now. The voice was identical despite being somewhat less melancholy than before.

I guess he really doesn’t remember anything. He would have said something by now. Not that I’m surprised. He was really out of it before.

“Well, you wouldn’t know how my cooking tastes since you never eat with us.”

“Why would I want to waste my time doing that?”

This time JB set everything down before speaking, “At least stay for our guest if not for us.”

Jinyoung looked me up and down.

“No, thanks,” he his heels and started once more for the door.

“We need to have a vote.”

That stopped him dead in his tracks, and he turned around with a muffled sigh.

“Whatever vote it is, I’m sure it can wait until after the room stops spinning,” the bitterness grew in Jinyoung’s voice.

Jackson took it upon himself to break the growing tension, “You know, I read an article called ‘8 Natural Hangover Remedies’ that was very informative, Park Gae. That girl, Hwasa, wrote it, the one who writes the student-lead underground newspaper. I’ll forward it to you if you want,” Jackson had already pulled out his phone before Jinyoung could open his mouth to protest. “There, sent. Take your time. I’m sure we can just vote after the babies get back from their freshman orientation. Right, JB?”

JB sighed as he dropped the first bit of batter into the sizzling pan in front of him, “If it’s okay with Alice, it’s okay with me.”

“Uhm, sure, I-”

“Great,” Jinyoung cut me off, “I’m going back to sleep, then. Don’t bother waking me up again.”

“Good night,” Yugyeom piped up in a clearly sarcastic, sing-songy tone, “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

Jinyoung just kept on walking until he was out of sight down the hall.

“So,” Jackson started up again, “are you guys excited about your big day?”

I looked back at him slightly confused, “Oh, sorry, Alice, I don’t remember if we told you or not already, but BamBam and Yugyeom are going to be Freshmen at JYPU too this year.”

“Really? That’s great, so I won’t be totally alone at orientation then.”

“Mhmm,” BamBam added while motioning for me to sit on the other side of him at the breakfast bar, “and, just so you know, Youngjae will be a sophomore this year. JB, Jinyoung, and Jackson are all going to be juniors, and Mark will be a senior.”

“Sorry, guys, breakfast is almost done,” JB remarked as I sat down.

“It’s okay. We still have time. So if you guys are all different ages, how did you end up meeting?”

Mark smiled at my question, “I’m surprised JB hasn’t bragged about it to her yet.”

JB blushed, or at least I think he did, “Give me a chance, why don’t you? It’s kind of a long story.” He started serving up pancakes as he talked. “See, all of us are in different years and different majors, but we met, because, well, because-”

JB was really bad at complimenting himself. That was one thing I remembered clearly from our childhood years. That and purposely trying to act cute were his fatal flaws, maybe his only flaws, actually.

Youngjae helped him, “This house is well-known by a lot of the students at JYPU, new and old. Most of them call it the ‘Air Castle.’ It’s kind of silly, but ever since JB’s dad built it several years ago, only the most talented students attending the university have applied to live in this building whenever there’s a vacancy. They call it the ‘Air Castle,’ because it means ‘a fanciful or impractical notion or hope.’ That’s kind of how hard it is to get accepted to live here.”

“So, let me get this straight,” my eyes widened looking around the room, “you guys must all be super talented to stay here, right?”

Youngjae nodded, while the others just shrugged.

“You might say that, but we don’t really like to be treated specially or anything because of it… Well, that goes for most of us.”

Yugyeom snorted at Youngjae’s words.

“Could you possibly be referring to the queen of the house?”

“You know, I really don’t understand half of the things you say, but, if you are talking about Jinyoung, then, yes, that’s who I was referring to.”

I zoned out for a minute, but my eyes lit up as I began thinking a mile a minute.

That must be why the practice studio here is so nice, but they must pay a fortune to live here. Wait, were they re