“What does he want at this time of the day?”

 

In a room illuminated by the faint beams of sunlight escaping through the windowpanes and engulfed by the scent of old books surrounding the whole area, Sanha wandered through various sections of their university’s library early in the morning. Seoul National University proved to be one of the country’s best and prestigious universities there is in South Korea, offering various undergraduate & postgraduate programs and providing access to a wide range of resources to help individuals hone their skills and knowledge in their certain areas of interests. Although the university library proved to be a challenge to newcomers, Sanha had no problem navigating himself to the section he needed to be. He followed a familiar route; a left from the literature section into a flight of stairs, straight ahead for a few footsteps and a right from the multimedia arts section, and another right to reveal his destination.

 

Once he found a familiar figure sitting at the far end of the table, he went to slap the figure’s back playfully before sitting himself beside him. “Good morning Eunwoo. What do you want?”

 

“Morning! Straight to the point as always.” Eunwoo responded as he tried to collect his thoughts before communicating it. “You remember the guy I told you I like?”

 

“Moon Bin from English 101? The guy that you’ve been secretly taking pictures of for years?” Sanha recalled the boy who had captured his best friend’s heart while also fixing his bag at the side of the chair.

 

“Yeah, him. Listen, I need a favor from you.”

 

Sanha raised his eyebrow at him, knowing that the other had an ulterior motive behind his next words. “I’m listening.”

 

“Ok. So remember when you told me that I don’t have the guts to ask him out or if he ever asked me out that I’ll chicken out? Well, I asked him out and he said yes!” Eunwoo excitedly said in a hurry, not giving Sanha time to comment on his question.

 

“Great. I’m happy for you. So what’s the problem?” Sanha responded, monotonous and uninterested in his tone. To be fair, it was really too early in the morning and he wanted to sleep and not attend his morning classes.

 

“Uhm... do you remember the boy who’s always beside him?” Sanha wasn’t really in the mood to guess names or remember faces early in the morning so he just shook his head no.

 

“His name is Park Minhyuk. He’s Bin’s childhood friend. Well, I feel like he also likes Bin.”

 

“Why do you think so?” Sanha questioned as he yawned.

 

“Because the other day when I asked Bin out, he suddenly in my happy moment with my prince charming and he just suddenly said he wanted to come. Bin, being the kind handsome oblivious prince that he is, just said yes and that it could be a double date.”

 

“So what do you want me to do?” Sanha interjected, already knowing what entailed next.

 

“Go on a double date with me. Try to get close to that Minhyuk guy and distract him from me and Bin.” Eunwoo took Sanha’s hands and squeezed it while doing his best puppy eyes. “Please, please, please.”

 

“Too much work. What’s in it for me?” Sanha said, not getting affected by the other’s futile attempt in acting cute.

 

“A possible love life?” Eunwoo said half-jokingly.

 

Sanha rolled his eyes and stood up. “Bye.”

 

“Wait! I was just kidding. I’ll treat you to cheesecake factory and fries plus I’ll help you with your modules in English 101.”

 

“Deal. When’s the double date?”

 

“Around Thursday next week. I’ll tell you the details once I talk to Binnie.”

 

Easy, Sanha said on his mind as he got his things to leave and go attend his morning classes with Eunwoo. Park Minhyuk, whoever you are, be ready because Sanha the er is coming.

 

*

 

Morning classes proved to be one of humanity’s hardest challenges, especially when the professor talked ever so slowly and presented the topics in such a dull and unstimulating manner. Classes in the afternoon weren’t helpful either; students feeling sleepy after eating their hearts out at lunch, the ever so slow passing of time, completing it all off with the cold breeze the air conditioner blew that made for the perfect temperature to nap or daydream into somewhere else.

 

Today would be the same as any other day. Except for this specific day, Sanha would need to accompany his tall handsome companion to a double date that he regretted he approved of. It was one thing that his brain didn’t comprehend what he was in for that morning, it was also another thing that his brain didn’t realize that it would mean more unnecessary work for him to do for the days coming.

 

Sanha would be lying if he said that he didn’t care about the double date. In fact, that was all that occupied his mind for the past few days. He became conscious of what he should be wearing, what to say, how he should style his hair, how to get the attention of Park Minhyuk and lead him away from Bin and Eunwoo, and other unnecessary thoughts that didn’t really help him accomplish anything.

 

Before he could finish his thoughts on what to do on certain situations of the double date, the sudden sounds of chairs being moved by bustling bodies standing up and trying to exit the room brought Sanha back to his senses and to also do the same. Today is the day. Time to get this over with.

 

*

 

14:25

 

Sanha fixed himself before going to the front entrance of the performing arts department’s building; a five-storey building that housed more than a thousand music major students, designed with pearl white walls surrounded by clear reflective glass windows. Eunwoo had instructed him to go and wait for him while he brought them their dates.

 

He checked his watch. Five minutes early. He checked himself in the reflection of the front door of the building; he fixed the wrinkles of his favorite millennial pink shirt, shook off some dust from his black jeans which has not been washed for more than a month now, and slightly messed his hair. When he was satisfied of what he looked like, he fished for his phone in his pocket and fidgeted with it as he waits for his hyung.

 

14:35

 

He had been turning his phone’s lock screen on and off as he continuously waited for Eunwoo to arrive. It took another minute of doing so before he heard a voice calling out his name, diverting his attention to the person who called him. Finally, they’re here.

 

Eunwoo was walking towards him with two guys following him from behind, chatting about some topic Sanha could not hear.

 

“Sorry, did we take too long?” Eunwoo apologetically said to Sanha

 

“It’s ok. I haven’t really been waiting for that long,” Sanha responded sarcastically. At the end of his peripheral vision, he could see the two guys curiously listening to them and looking at him, making Sanha conscious.

 

“Sanha, this is Binnie and Minhyuk. Bin, Minhyuk, meet Sanha,” Eunwoo introduced to each of them, pointing and gesturing to each person as he said their name. Sanha tried his best not-awkward-but-not-to-friendly smile. He examined each one starting from Eunwoo. Eunwoo was wearing a millennial blue coat and a collarless shirt, paired with black jeans and white shoes.

 

“Hi Sanha! Nice to meet you! I’m Moon Bin but you can call me Binnie. You look nice,” Bin enthusiastically smiled as he shook Sanha’s hand. The boy was wearing a light blue striped shirt and black jeans paired with denim shoes, making his complexion pop. It’s not really a question why Eunwoo would fall for someone like Moon Bin; a stylish individual who excelled both in sports and academics, and not to mention his great personality and sense of humor.

 

“Thank you! You look nice too Binnie,” Sanha smiled and responded. He looked at the person beside Bin and examined him; tall but not as tall as him, wearing a white shirt with some text on it and a pink bomber jacket over it, paired with black ripped jeans and white shoes, hair colored similar to his brown hair but slightly lighter. He’s quite handsome, actually.

 

“Hi! I’m Yoon Sanha, nice to meet you,” Sanha initiated and gestured to shake the other’s hand, taking the boy’s attention from Bin to him.

 

“Hello. I’m Park Minhyuk,” Minhyuk responded, trying to mask his disinterest.

 

*

 

If Sanha had doubts about whether or not Minhyuk had feelings for Bin before he had met them, then all doubts have now disappeared into thin air. As they were heading to the bus stop, Sanha could see that all of Minhyuk’s attention was on Bin. Minhyuk would walk beside Bin, would only talk to Bin, and would glare at Eunwoo when he would speak to Bin. It was fascinating really; it was as if Sanha was watching some animal documentary on how a mammal protects its natural habitat against predators.

 

As the bus arrived, all of them went in and swiped their bus cards one by one. At the far end of the bus, two rows of seats able to fit two people each were available. Before Eunwoo spoke and offer to seat with Bin, Minhyuk pulled Bin’s arm and dragged him to one of the seats so they both sat together. Sanha, who was last to get in and had just finished swiping his bus card, looked at his hyung and dragged him also to the other seat. He wanted to laugh as at the boy’s defeated face. Sorry hyung. This is really funny.

 

The two boys seating ahead of them were talking about something in their class while Eunwoo was doing something on his phone and Sanha just stared at the window. Sanha got a little curious about what Eunwoo was doing and was about to peek when he heard a sound coming from his phone.

 

STILL DON’T BELIEVE HE LIKES BIN? HELP ME PLEASEEEEE

- Cha Eunwoo

 

Sanha looked at Eunwoo, who was already looking at him with wide eyes and pointing to the people ahead of him with his eyes.

 

I’ll think of something. Just calm your down and relax for a while.

- Yoon Sanha

 

*

 

The bus ride to the cinema was quite stressful for Sanha, with Eunwoo constantly bugging him to do something. As they were about to leave the bus, Sanha made sure to push Eunwoo so that he was suddenly in front and beside Bin. Good thing that Bin had good reflexes too as he was able to catch Eunwoo. I might’ve pushed him too hard. It was fine though as Eunwoo seemed to have liked it, still trying to awkwardly balance himself while trying to hide the blush off his face. He also winked at Sanha and mouthed ‘thank you’ as they were getting down the bus. As they walked to the cinema, Sanha tried to speak to Minhyuk so that he could distract him.

 

“Nice weather we’re having today, isn’t it?” Sanha said, mentally kicking himself for not creating a better topic. Looks like it didn’t really mattered that much as Minhyuk seemed to have snapped out of his reverie.

 

“Uh.. what? Yeah,” Minhyuk responded. Ok Sanha think of a better topic, an expandable one.

 

“Hey Minhyuk. What to do you think of Astro’s new single?” Fck what’s a good topic to distract?

 

“Always You? I like the message and melody of the song but I guess I prefer Call Out more,” Minhyuk responded, interest sparking in his eyes. Sanha was dumbfounded because to be honest, this is the first time someone that’s not in his group of friends knew who Astro was and knew their recent stuff.

 

Bin and Eunwoo, who had been walking beside each other and leading the group to the building, had to stop for a second and glance at two as Sanha made a loud gasp. It made all of them stop at their tracks. Minhyuk, who was the most startled out of group, tried to do something by speaking to him.

 

“Uhm... I’m sorr-“

 

“Oh my god. You too? I really liked Call Out too when it was released and I think that is the superior Astro single out of all the new songs of the special mini album. Tell me, how do stan Astro?” Sanha said almost too fast that Minhyuk wasn’t able to catch a word.

 

“No way! You stan Astro too?” Minhyuk responded almost too enthusiastically.

 

Both of them stayed like that, fanboying over their music and artist, on their way to the building. Eunwoo and Bin smiled at each other at the sight of the two. It really is amazing how humans can spiritually connect to things they feel similar to. Both of them were laughing and chatting like old friends who had not seen each other for years. They were so deep in their own world that when Eunwoo handed the tickets for the movie, both of them only looked at the tickets with a questioning face and mouthed ‘what?’ as a response. Both of the tickets given to them were seated beside each other and the ones for Bin and Eunwoo are seated beside each other below them.

 

“Uhm... ok. We’ll buy popcorn,” Sanha replied, already having a hunch that Minhyuk would immediately protest. He took Minhyuk’s arm and started walking so that Minhyuk couldn’t say anything.

 

“What flavor should we take?” Sanha asked, examining the popcorn machine.

 

“Anything’s fine,” Minhyuk replied. Sanha could sense the disinterest in his tone a mile away so he just chose cheese and salted caramel popcorn since it’s his favorite. The cashier had punched their orders and handed them the items. Sanha was about to tell Minhyuk to get the other popcorn and drinks when he saw that the former was looking at Eunwoo and Bin with an obscured emotion painted in his face. Jealousy? Hurt? Uneasy? Sadness? Which is it?

 

The movie was fine; it was a generic romantic comedy movie that had the same happy ending with the couple kissing at the end. Throughout the movie, Eunwoo and Bin would occasionally touch hands reaching for popcorn or reaching for their shared drink. And to that, Minhyuk was more agitated than before and had only focused on the both of them. At first, Sanha worried that Minhyuk would make a scene and stand up and just sit beside Bin but it didn’t seemed to be the case. Minhyuk had an old cranky man seated beside him and when Minhyuk was about to throw a handful of popcorn to Eunwoo and Bin when he first saw them touch hands, the grandpa scolded Minhyuk. That resulted to all the people watching in the cinema look at their direction. Due to that embarrassing scene, Minhyuk just stayed quiet while Sanha breathed easily as he didn’t have to do anything to stop Minhyuk.

 

*

 

After heading out of the cinemas, the group decided to eat at a nearby korean bbq place around the street. The place wasn’t fully packed, with only half of the tables still unoccupied. The place’s menu offered a variety of options for Korean and international dishes. They decided to seat at the far corner of the restaurant, ordering various meats to grill and some beers to compliment with the taste of grilled meat.

 

Because Sanha was too occupied in ordering and telling the waitress to give him a glass of water since he didn’t like to drink beer and Eunwoo being too slow, Minhyuk sat beside Bin. Defeated, Eunwoo just sat beside Sanha but made sure he was facing Bin.

 

Moments later, the waiter had brought a variety of meats to their table and some side dishes. Sanha, being the person who was the hungriest in the whole table, started to put some meat to the grill tediously. He wasn’t really interested in the group’s talk about the movie; more importantly, he wasn’t interested in inserting himself to the conversation when all Eunwoo and Minhyuk are doing were fighting on asking Bin’s opinion on some of the scenes and then laughing, both saying that they felt the same. I have no energy for this. I just want to eat and go home already. I have too many essays and school works to write.

 

While the others were talking, or the two arguing anyway, Sanha put his attention to the meat and making sure that it was evenly cooked at both sides. When he saw that the meat was good enough to eat, he reached for it using his chopsticks but was blocked when someone took it. Eunwoo, who had lost to their battle of who-can-get-Bin’s-attention, took his chopsticks and grabbed the first meat that was cooked and put it on top of Bin’s rice. Everyone’s attention was diverted by Eunwoo’s action; Bin smiled and slightly blushed as he thanked Eunwoo, Minhyuk looked a mixture of disgust and disbelief, and Sanha, the most affected, just looked at Eunwoo with anger as his nose flared and his eyebrows furrowed. The fck? That was my meat. I cooked that. This sneaky hoe.

 

After that incident, it became a feeding competition between Minhyuk and Eunwoo with both of them giving the freshly cooked meat to Bin. Bin, being an oblivious person who just liked to eat, only thanked the both of them as he ate all the meat that was given to him. Sanha was sulking at the corner, still nose flared and eyebrows furrowed, and started making a small quadrant of meat for himself before the two took all of it. What an eventful day today is. Sanha just sighed to himself, eating the side dishes and observing the three.

 

*

 

“How did it come to this?” Sanha asked himself while carrying Minhyuk piggyback style.

 

At one point of their little competition, Bin stopped eating and talked to Eunwoo about their take home English module. They both started talking in English, leaving Minhyuk dumbfounded in a corner and couldn’t to the conversation as he doesn’t really know much English words or topics to be said. And so, Minhyuk just started drinking the beers in the table while eying the two as they happily conversed in another language. Sanha and the other two were all in their own worlds that they didn’t notice that Minhyuk was already sleeping. Once they announced that they’re done eating, that’s the only time they had noticed Minhyuk passed out in a corner. Before anyone could say anything, Eunwoo suggested that Sanha take Minhyuk to his home for the night as both of them lived only a block away. Sanha was about to protest but Bin agreed and both of them proceeded to go and pay the bill. Bin also whispered to Sanha to “spend quality time of getting to know him” since Minhyuk is basically a different person when he’s drunk. And so with that, Sanha is now carrying Minhyuk while trying to walk at Han River.

 

“Binnie~ I want a kiss,” Minhyuk proceeded to tighten his hug around Sanha’s neck and made a kissy face and started kissing Sanha’s neck. Sanha was startled, half partly due to the kiss and half partly due to the sudden restriction of his breathing due to Minhyuk’s tight hug, and tried to balance himself as both of them were on the verge of falling.

 

“Minhyuk stop it! I’m not Bin-hyung,” Sanha said, panting as it took double the effort to walk and talk at the same time. He could feel the burning sensation of his cheeks and ears.

 

“Theeeeen who are you? I only want my Binnieeeee,” Minhyuk whined.

 

”Trust me, if only your Bin took you, I wouldn’t be in this mess. Why are you so heavy?” Sanha retorted, slightly annoyed. Suddenly, Minhyuk pushed himself off of Sanha and stood up, pouting and glaring at him.

 

“Take that back!” Minhyuk said.

 

“Take what back?” Sanha responded.

 

“I’m not heavy!!!” Minhyuk shouted, making some strangers look at their direction. Sanha, who was really startled, apologized quickly since he didn’t want to make a scene in the place where he always walked to go home. He was sure some of those familiar strangers see him everyday and remembers him.

 

“Alright... you’re not heavy... you’re just fat,” Minhyuk started chasing Sanha, who was laughing and running but also checking if Minhyuk was at sight as the boy is drunk and he still needs to take him to his home. Once Minhyuk was able to catch Sanha, he showered him with playful slaps at the back.

 

“Hahahaha... ok stop I won’t tease you again. You can walk now, right?” Sanha asked. Minhyuk nodded. Sanha started walking but stopped a few steps when he felt that the other was not following him. Sanha turns around and saw a pouting Minhyuk. “What’s the problem?”

 

“Minhyuggie is tired. Minhyuggie wants a piggyback ride.” Wow that’s MY thing.

 

“But you’re hea-“ Sanha stopped as Minhyuk glared at him for what he was about to say.

 

“Can I just – uh – hold your hand or something? I’m kind of tired today.”

 

“Ok~” Minhyuk responded very happily, and extended his hand. Cute.

 

In the streets barely lighted by the street lamps and the night sky, they continued to walk to Sanha’s home with their hands holding each other’s. Surprisingly, after a couple minutes of Minhyuk’s drunk aegyo phase, Minhyuk would just randomly share about some stories from his past, not really talking to anyone in particular. And there, Sanha was listening with all ears, laying all his attention to the drunken storyteller, laughing and responding to him, learning more about the guy. Sometimes Sanha would reciprocate and tell some embarrassing stories in his past, which made both of them laugh like lunatics. They continued this cycle of storytelling until they reach Sanha’s home, earning some confused stares from some passerby’s on their way as both of them looked intoxicated and deranged.

 

*

 

As soon as Sanha opened the door to his small apartment and led Minhyuk to sit on the couch so that he could take off his shoes and socks, Minhyuk laid himself on the couch and slept. Sanha, examining the hot mess who was sleeping sheepishly on his couch, started to take off the other’s shoes but left his sock as he might find it cold when he wakes up, took a pillow and blanket from his bedroom and tucked him in. Sanha took a good look at Minhyuk as an assurance that he wasn’t cold. After a second of looking at the boy sleeping soundly, Sanha went to exfoliate and brushes his teeth before going to bed.

 

He was about to go to sleep when he heard a message notification coming from his phone.

 

Are you guys home already? Bin escorted me home.

- Cha Eunwoo

 

Yep. Minhyuk’s already sleeping.

- Yoon Sanha

 

Ok. Just checking in. Good night. Thanks for today, I owe you one <3

- Cha Eunwoo

 

Yeah you do. Night~

- Yoon Sanha

 

Sanha turned off his phone and put it in the coffee table to charge overnight. He was about to go to back to his room when Minhyuk started sleep talking.

 

“Bin?”

 

“Hmm?” Sanha responded unconsciously.

 

“That tall guy... what’s his face... Sanha?,” Minhyuk continued.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I think he’s really cute. Can I keep him in my pocket?”

 

Sanha giggled, “sure, why not?” Minhyuk just smiled and continued to sleep. Sanha made sure that the door was locked and that the lamp was on before he turned off the lights and went to his room, a smile visible in his face.  

 

I’m too tall for your pocket, idiot.