In the first morning of their stay at Jihoon's apartment, Minah found herself waking extra early. In the bed adjacent to hers, Seungcheol was asleep, dead as a log after working on his college work into the wee hours. The soft predictable rhythm of his typing had lulled Minah to sleep the night before, and a part of her was oddly grateful towards her temporary roommate for that. She got out of bed noiselessly, making sure to tip-toe her way across the room and close the door behind her . 

The first person she bumped into (literally) was a half-awake Jihoon who looked like he was passing her room to head to the bathroom. His already small eyes were practically missing in his morning daze as the boy rubbed his squinting eyes. His terrible bed hair brought an involuntary smile to Minah's face, as she watched the hair at the back of his head stick out in all sorts of unglamorous angles and directions. It wasn't always easy to catch Jihoon in his imperfect moments. 

"Oh." Jihoon looked at her blankly, as if surprised by her presence. In his state, he probably forgot that Minah and Mingyu had both moved in. 

"Morning." Minah replied. She had hoped for a more enthusiastic greeting, but images of what happened yesterday flashed in her head and she decided against it. The two awkwardly shuffled past each other, after Jihoon let Minah use the bathroom first. Meanwhile in the kitchen, an early-riser Mingyu had already helped himself to ingredients in the fridge and whipped up a breakfast for four. Minah decided to let her brother's light-hearted humming in the kitchen distract her wildly beating heart.

Breakfast was an uneventful affair of Mingyu being oblivious to the odd avoidance of eye contact between Minah and Jihoon. The shorter male had now gelled his hair into a slightly more presentable state, and was trying to brief the twins about house rules while suppressing his morning angst (he really was not a morning person). Mingyu was bombarding Minah with questions about her night spent as Seungcheol's roommate, and that was perhaps the only time when Jihoon looked at her directly and made her feel like all three of them were a trio again. As the three of them got ready for school,  Jihoon surprised the twins when he rushed out of the door first, looking slightly frezzled while staring at his phone. 

"Mina is waiting for me downstairs, I got to run. See you guys in school." The boy said as he practically ran out the door, leaving the siblings thoroughly confused. 

"His girlfriend really sticks to him all the time huh?" Mingyu commented off-handedly, not seeing that his sister was chewing her lips as she stared at the door, deep in thought. 

"Ya, and so does he."

--

When the siblings waited at their usual lunch spot for Wonwoo, they were surprised to see the smaller figure of their childhood friend walking side by side with the bespectacled boy, his girlfriend nowhere in sight. Wonwoo wore an unreadable expression as he walked next to Jihoon; ever since the latter got attached, Minah noticed that Wonwoo had been slightly abrasive towards Jihoon. While she was grateful for his unsaid support, she did feel bad that Jihoon and her little lie had caused Wonwoo to misunderstand the boy. Although to be completely honest, much of Wonwoo's savage remarks and irritation had been directed at Lee Mina, more than Jihoon himself. Even Mingyu said that Wonwoo's attitude and clear dislike for Jihoon's girlfriend was making it uncomfortable for him sometimes, even though he understand where he came from.

Minah could only imagine her brother's similarly baffled expression as Wonwoo and Jihoon approached them. It seemed that they were talking about the recent Chemistry test that everyone had, and Jihoon was asking Wonwoo a bit too enthusiastically about how his class performed and what were his answers to the trickier questions. 

"Okay, but honestly how did you balance the equation to ensure the ethanol question was correct?" 

Mingyu and Minah exchanged looks. 

"Hey Jihoon, where's Mina?" Mingyu asked in hopes of stopping the talk about the test. He was not very confident about it. 

"Oh, she's with her friends," Jihoon said, scratching his nape rather uneasily. Something in his tone made his explanation sound suspicious, but Minah decided to not press on about it. 

The atmosphere was something familiar yet foreign at the same time. Perhaps it was because Minah had not had dinner with Jihoon for a while now, but she felt that the boy was eating incredibly fast. Perhaps unhealthily so. 

"Jihoon, do you perhaps want to...chew?" Wonwoo said, barely two mouths into his own lunch as Jihoon finished up his last few spoonful. 

Lunch was not much of a conversation because everyone was too unsettled by Jihoon's eating speed. Before Minah could react and finish half her food, Jihoon had already grabbed her by the wrist and quickly left the spot, leaving M