If Jongin had ever felt like the world had stopped turning before, it was never like in this moment. The sky crashed down and the oxygen had left his lungs without ever being able to come back. To say that he couldn't breathe was not an exaggeration. It felt far more dramatic than he could explain.

The words kept ringing inside his head but they still didn't make sense. They never made sense in the first place and they probably never will. Soojung was talking to him but he didn't feel like the message was for him. It couldn't be for him, it had to be directed to someone else. They weren't going to break up, it didn't make sense.

"I am sorry Jongin, we can't go on like this anymore."

"Sometimes love fades away but in this case I was lying to myself the whole time. I did something bad Jongin, something very bad."

"It is my fault, it's all because of me, you did nothing wrong."

"Please don't look at me like this."

"I am sorry."

"No."

Those words were supposed to have left a mark but he wasn't even sure how the conversation went. It was blurry.

Did he even listen to everything she said? Jongin definitely started zoning out after he words two special words: breaking up.

"No," Jongin mumbled again. He had been looking at his phone for over thirty minutes (had it really been thirty minutes? He couldn't tell) and sat down on the first bench he found after walking out of the classroom Soojun had asked him to meet up. Jongin missed a class, his biology class more precisely, and it was the first time in his life that he didn't show up to a lecture. He couldn't find the will to spend three hours listening to his teacher talk about the reason why there were only one type of sugar used in the ADN and why certain bacterias were useful. He didn't care.

"The number you have dialed is currently out of reach, please press—" the female voice repeated.

"Why is it that everyone is letting me down?" Jongin said as he ruffled his hair out of frustration.

[...]

"So would you mind telling me what we are doing here?" Sehun asked as he fiddled with a box of cigarettes that he was holding for the simple purpose of annoying his lab partner.

"We are going inside," Seulgi answered after taking a deep breath. She checked again if it was the right place, put her phone into her jeans' back pocket and let out a soft giggle. It was the one, the place she dreamed about since she moved into the city. She smiled.

"I think you're making this a lot more intense than it is," Sehun scoffed. There was an obvious hint of mockery in his tone and he dearly wished he could make her feel miserable, just a bit, oor maybe react to the least but Seulgi was unmovable to his remarks. It was like talking to a wall.

"It is a special moment for me Sehun, you can mock me all you want after."

"This is ridiculous," he rolled his eyes before grabbing her wrist. "Let's go."

"Wait," Seulgi said as she took her hand back. "I want a picture."

"Why are you being a ing tourist Kang Seulgi, you literally live two minutes away from here," Sehun snapped. "I get that it's a very special moment for you but I have other things to do than go to a ing café just to do a lab report."

"You said the f-word twice Sehun,” she let him know as she fiddled in her backpack as if it would make him stop using the word. “Would you please take the picture for me? I'll send it to my dad," Seulgi smiled brightly as she handed him her phone. "I want him to know that I am doing well and that I get to do everything I ever wanted."

"Of course you had to be a ‘Daddy's little girl’ or else it wouldn’t make sense," Sehun mocked. Seulgi pretended as if she hadn't heard anything as always and thanked Sehun nevertheless as he positioned himself to take the picture, camera in hand. "Tilt your head, it looks unnatural."

"Like this?"

"Forget it, it's worse."

"Then what do I do?"

"I don't know, just pose like you would for any other picture, we won't spend the whole day here Kang Seulgi," Sehun spat.

“Can you tell me a joke?” Seulgi asked him hesitantly. “I think I look more relaxed when I laugh in pictures.”

“Do I look like a ing comedian?” Sehun frowned.

Seulgi smiled at the thought of Sehun’s angry and annoyed expression telling jokes to other people. It didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t much but she would take that as joke.

Seulgi moved a bit to the left, pushed her hair back and delivered a warm smile towards the lens while thinking of the comedian Sehun would never become. Her smile had to be genuine or else it wouldn't be good.

Sehun buffered a bit, confusing the smile she was sending his way for him instead of the camera and clicked.

“It’s ugly,” he muttered as soon as he saw the picture. It became a habit to insult Seulgi even if she hadn’t done anything to piss him off. At least not yet.

“Thank you anyway,” Seulgi smiled before taking back her phone to check the picture. “It’s not so bad? It’s not even that bad,” she told him with a questionable look. “You scared me for a second.”

“I said what I said,” Sehun said before taking her backpack and grabbing her wrist at the same time to enter the café. They had spent enough time outside and apart from Seulgi’s whole personality, Sehun also hated how she always found a way to make him feel embarrassed.

“See it’s nothing, it’s just a coffee shop like any other,” Sehun said as he quickly roamed the café for the perfect table for the two of them. Seulgi was obviously too happy to be there to mutter a single word or to stop looking at the clients like they weren’t actual people but only part of the café's dreamy decor. Sehun had to bring her to a table at the far end of the café while making sure she wouldn’t trip on anything (it would be embarrassing for the both of them) as she was too busy looking everywhere but in front of her.

As they sat down, Seulgi wouldn’t stop looking at every detail from the pictures on the walls to the plants near the windows and had that simple spark in her eyes that showed how extraordinary a simple visit to a café was to her.

That’s so exaggerated, almost lame, Sehun thought although he didn’t voice this remark out loud, thinking it might really hurt her for once.

Even so, he had to admit it was a nice place: not too many people, nice decoration, chill music in the background and a pleasant smell of coffee, hot cocoa and sweet vanilla in the air. This place was warm and welcoming, just like Seulgi thought.

“Can we start working on the lab or did we come here to look?” Sehun said as he tapped on the table with his index finger to get Seulgi’s attention.

“Yes of course! I am sorry, this is all very new to me,” Seulgi apologized. “I’ve never been to a café before,” she explained a bit embarrassed.

That was new, Sehun noted. He realized that Seulgi never showed that she was embarrassed before, no matter how much he would mock her. Even when she made a mistake, she would say that humans are naturally flawed and would apologize with a smile but embarrassed? That was only something exclusively reserved for Jongin.

“You lived under a rock didn’t you? At this point, it would make sense,” Sehun seriously said as he handed her the menu.

“My aunt preferred that I would meet with Wendy at home or at her place and if we wanted to go out, it would only be to the movie theatre. Thank you,” Seulgi said as she took the menu.

“And you couldn’t tell her that you went to see a movie even though you went to a café?” Sehun deadpanned.

“You mean to lie to her?” Seulgi silently gasped.

“Yeah.”

“No way, that’s forbidden.”

“Who is going to punish you for lying if your aunt never knows?” Sehun asked a bit annoyed by Seulgi’s usual saint mentality.

“And what if she asks me what was the movie about?”

“Then you come up with something, I don’t know.”

“Another lie,” Seulgi pointed out. “What do I do if she asks me when did the movie start or end? How long it lasted? Who are the actors?”

“Is she your aunt or a police officer?”

“Lies, lies, lies,” Seulgi shook her head. “It’s bad to lie Sehun,” she finished as she decided what she would order.

There was a slight pause after the waiter came to pick their order. Seulgi wasn’t the type to talk if she didn’t have anything special to say and Sehun wasn’t the type to talk at all, although it didn’t seem that way because he always had something bad to say about Seulgi to Seulgi. And he did it again after thinking of how annoying she was with her opinion on lies. It wasn't a sin for Christ's sake.

"Nobody's going to die if you lie once in a while," Sehun said to break the silence.

"Sure, but it's still bad," Seulgi answered as soon. "It's not because something doesn't have big and negative consequences that you can do it, just like it's not