At the end of the day, the worst thing about Jinki weren't his overly long bangs, his overly big glasses, or the way a half of his shirt always found a way to get untucked by the afternoon. It wasn't his hit-or-miss puns, or the way his feet would sometimes pull random pranks on the rest of his body. It wasn't even Taemin, whose doctor parents had taught him to care way too much about how well he was doing in the bathroom… well, maybe a little it was that, too.

No, the worst thing had to do with Jinki having been his —

"Fake friend. That's what she is," Taeyeon said, making angry rounds around Kibum's room, two gel patches from Nature Republic stuck below her eyes.

"Yeri?" Kibum replied, knowing full well who she was talking about. 

He was half-distracted by the game he was playing on the computer: it was one of those days. He couldn't find a way to be inspired for creativity when his best friend was being so restless and jittery.

The ups and downs of her on-and-off, and on-and-off again, friendship with a girl from their class called Yeri, had been tormenting her for a while. In Kibum's opinion, you could only perform CPR on a relationship for a limited amount of time before it ultimately ran out of air.

"I mean, can you believe that girl?!" Taeyeon ranted on. "To think that I was coming on to her ugly- boyfriend just because we laughed at a thing together once?! Does it mean that I deserve to be treated like trash now? Does it?"

Kibum, who was sipping his takeout smoothie, realized that he was supposed to answer that.

"No, it doesn't," he assured her, eyes still fixed on the screen.

He'd heard this story before, and the narrative barely changed over time: Taeyeon was invited to parties and gatherings by Yeri and her girls, as well as the sharing of snacks and gossip that she wasn't even interested in, until she wasn't – it was usually for a reason that she had to decipher for weeks afterwards: had someone's guy stared at her? had she stared at someone's guy? did she wear the wrong shoes, or dress too pretty, or talk to the wrong person? Sometimes it was very hard to tell – but the script remained unchanged, and she was no longer welcome on collective trips to the girls' room, and had to be on the receiving end of intense silent treatment and dirty looks until she despaired and did something "right" to be accepted into the club again.

Kibum was aware that he was closer to the "wrong people" list than its opposite. Some of their classmates knew it for sure, some were vaguely aware, and Taeyeon seemed to be one of the few who still had zero idea.

"Like, does she think my self-esteem is that low?"

It was tragic how close she was to solving the whole reason why she couldn't put the twisted romance that her and Yeri's relationship was behind her. But Kibum couldn't tell her that.

"If she does, then she needs to take a long, hard look at herself. She is super insecure.”

"I know, right?!"

He could feel Taeyeon clinging to his words for validation.

She might be free-spirited from a traditional point of view, but she was still tied down by her need of approval – a shared need that Kibum believed to be both a weakness and a future undoing of them both.

If he were completely honest with her, he would say that the only thing that still connected Tae and her frenemy was the feeble thread of her low self-esteem. But he couldn't tell her that: he knew that when she begged him to be honest and braced herself for his answer, she was really trying to be braver than she actually was. Harsh criticism hurt her heart, and she would cry alone in her room later.

He softened near her.

Kibum reasoned that it had to do with Taeyeon's gender, that he wouldn't be like that with a guy. But he had too little reference material to know for sure – brought up mainly by his grandmother and mom, all his life he'd gravitated towards female company: there was no competition, no pressure to walk all over his genuine interests just to fit in.

Maybe, one day he'd have a guy friend – someone who wouldn't make him soft – and find out that some things would be easier. Who knows.

"Isn't she supposed to know you well enough by now to realize that he's not your type, anyway? I mean, that weak jaw? C'mon."

Kibum's strategy was to tell her the truth – just not the whole truth.

"So weak!.. But even if he were my type, he is my best friend's goddamn boyfriend! I'd never, ever think of making a pass at him, no matter what! Not even behind her back, not even if I liked him – let alone right in front of her! What kind of snake do you have to be to try and pull something like that?!"

Taeyeon sounded genuinely anguished. She was wasting her heart on this.

"Major snake," the boy agreed.

He knew that he'd probably fail, but he still wanted to try something.

"It seems like all she does is upset you. You said yourself that she's not your real friend. So, maybe get on with your life? Forget her?"

Taeyeon dropped on his bed with a deep sigh. She thought about something for a minute or two.

"When I say 'fake friend', I don't mean that it was never good and you never had fun. It's just that some people befriend you with their heart, and others only with their brain. The former stick around, and the latter… well, they are the ones who…" her voice, that had started out at such a confident note, trailed off.

"Throw you away?” Kibum helped impassively.

"Well, yeah…" Taeyeon sighed. "But it doesn't mean that what you had was never real."

Kibum turned around in his chair.

"It just means that it was only real for one of you, does it?”

Taeyeon pouted her plump lips. She did have a complicated relationship with hard-hitting truth. She looked for it, respected it, but also, well… it hit hard. The girl said nothing, and Kibum continued with the game.

"And now you're gonna pay for everything you've done," he half-sang villainously, leaning closer to the screen. His laugh was both quiet and evil.

Taeyeon stretched her limbs and got up from the bed to see what her friend was up to.

"What has he done?" She yawned.

"Cheated on his wife with her sister while the baby was sleeping in the next room."

"What a ."

Kibum nodded, looking satisfied – the almighty puppet master.

"Are you gonna put him in the swimming pool and remove the ladders?"

"Nah, he'll get out that way. I'll put this huge carpet near the fireplace and remove the door. And the wife will marry his best friend."

Taeyeon chuckled in approval: Kibum always seemed to know the perfect punishment for a crime of his own creation. She dragged another chair over, and Kibum made room for her in front of the PC.

When the revenge was complete, they checked on the family of Sims characters they had made based on themselves: two perfect-looking young adults, with perfect clothes and jobs, and an infinite amount of money (Kibum had put the cheat codes to use). They had a garden, a swimming pool and a happy bunch of puppies.

"Do you think you'd have fewer problems socially if you weren't hanging out with the fat kid all the time?" Kibum asked in the middle of picking the couch for their new terrace.

"You're not fat. You just have cheeks."

He chortled.

"If the cheeks spread to your torso, they are called sides, Tae."

She hugged him by the elbow – but not before pinching him as a punitive measure.

"Say what you like, but don't be mean to my friend."

Kibum felt the velvety warmth of her cheek on his arm and smiled: he'd finally found someone who would never leave his side. He and Taeyeon were forever.

For a while, Kibum was confused. He wasn't sure how to connect the Jinki he'd shared sandwiches with on a sunny day at Yeouido park with the guy who'd walked out on him at one of the most vulnerable moments of his life. He'd be walking down the street, or trying to sketch something, or sitting in the pew next to his mother on a Sunday morning, and the image would come back to him – warmth draining out from the eyes he'd only ever known to be warm, drop by drop, right in front of him.

Maybe Tae was right. Maybe when Jinki's brain had been too aghast at his friend's actions to function through the crisis, it should have been his heart that would have kept him from running off like he was being chased by a slimy sea monster.

He didn't like that thought. He'd never, ever admit to anyone that he was thinking about another guy's 'heart', but deep into the night, when nothing but pale flickers of light from the passing cars livened his solitude, he allowed the voice of his mind to use those terms.

'Another's heart is a mystery', grandma Kim repeated from time to time. And, although she mainly said that to express her disapproval when her daughter-in-law wondered who had put the empty milk carton back into the fridge (it was always Kibum), there was a lot of truth in that expression.

Where was Jinki's heart wandering?

He just couldn't believe that he'd never truly caught a glimpse of it in the whole history of their friendship. Kibum had even shown his heart a couple of times – reluctantly, briefly, always under a veil of irony or excuses, but he had. Maybe Jinki's heart had been as repulsed by him as his brain? Maybe it wasn't as kind or forgiving as it had seemed, and Kibum had created a projection of a perfect friend and forgotten to consider the actual person behind it?

To think that Jinki's eyes had never been as bright, his voice as excited, his words as considerate when they'd been together as Kibum had perceived them to be, was disturbing. But it was somehow easier than trying to embrace and understand this whole other person in all of their maddening, irritating complexity.

If Jinki wasn’t ‘all bad’, that meant that he had chosen to be bad to Kibum specifically. It meant that he was sharing his goodness with pretty much everybody else while his former best friend was the only one deprived of it. It meant that only Kibum was undeserving of his otherwise very real kindness!

The thought alone had a potential of causing a head-splitting migraine.

Migraine or not, Kibum had to set some terms and agree to them with himself. Contrary to his past tendencies, he couldn’t scratch their mutual memories and decide that Jinki was a bad person just because he’d hurt him.

He was just an awful, awful friend.

He was also a past friend.

They were done.

That’s what he had to accept.

And as days wearily dragged on, it was becoming clearer that acceptance was the only thing left to do. Not a bad person – a bad friend. You had fun in the past. You’re done now.  Repeat in the morning, repeat before sleep – and anytime throughout the day as needed. Provided that there were no surprises or disruptions, they would soon become strangers. And with time, Kibum might even try to forgive himself for trusting another ‘good’ person who couldn’t really handle him.

He no longer hoped for a conversation. From now on, he only prayed to be left alone.

"Hi," Jinki said first thing on Thursday morning. He had arrived at school earlier than usual, too. If he was trying to be frustrating on purpose, it was working.

Kibum scoffed and pushed past him through the doorway. He sensed Jinki's gaze on him as he approached his desk. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw him look around and scratch the back of his head, like a kid who was about to segue into 'casually' asking his parents for a new bicycle because he'd crashed the old one into a tree. He paced awkwardly back and forth – and walked over to Kibum.

"Are you lost?" Kibum asked icily.

It was the first time in a while that he looked his former best friend straight in the face.

Jinki had had his hair cut. His full black hair was still on the longer side, but it didn't impair his vision anymore.

The overgrown bangs had helped create some distance, and now he seemed to be closer somehow. Kibum even felt the urge to take a step back, but he was trapped by the chair behind him.

The absence of glasses on the other boy only maximised that feeling.

Jinki opened and closed his mouth a few times, just like the fish in the aquarium on the first floor that he'd parodied once. He wasn't prepared for this particular test.

"No," was all he could manage after all.

Kibum crossed his arms on his chest to double down on the intimidation. Or maybe to hide. It was all at once and nothing specific.

"Need some time?" Kibum could feel the chill in his own voice.

Jinki pressed his lips together. He seemed to realize that this interaction was shaping up to be a failure.

"No, thanks."

"No need to thank me," the other boy blurted out. Why do you keep talking to him?! Shut up. "So, how much more of my day do you wanna waste?"

The ending of the phrase was drowned out by the screeching sound of someone else's chair being moved.

"Sorry, what?" Jinki asked, leaning closer.

Kibum bit his lip. He was not repeating that.

"I'm not repeating that."

The other boy nodded, slipping his hands into his pockets: he was beginning to feel self-conscious. Kibum hated that he still knew that fact.

"Teacher Park gave me some…" Jinki cleared his throat because his voice got wonky. "Some papers. To, um, help you again."

There was something very annoying about that phrase.

"I don't need your help," Kibum snapped.

Nothing was said for a few moments,  Jinki's eyes were unreadable as he stood there looking at him, and Kibum felt like the walls of the room were about to close on him. He needed this conversation to be over. He needed to be away. Away from Jinki.

Trapped, he continued unloading his bag, slamming the books down on the top of the desk, hard.

"Give the papers to me and I'll do the work myself."

Jinki remained quiet, and wouldn't go away.

"What?!"

Kibum was so weak for crying that out loud, but he was losing control.

"Kibum. I think we need to…" Jinki paused, searching for words. He finally averted his gaze. At some point, he was on the verge of finishing the sentence – and Kibum despised the waiting.

The bell rang, and a bunch of giggling girls rolled into the classroom like a swarm of excited puppies. They saved him, and they also ruined the last chance to resolve anything: next time, Kibum wouldn't let himself get trapped – or be talked to. He had nothing to say to Jinki from now on.

At home, he made sure to erase every mention of 'this guy friend from school' from his blog, including the post from the headphones day. If he couldn't cut Jinki out of his life (nor his mind), he could delete him from his online existence at least.

Having learned his lesson from the Taeyeon-related disaster, Kibum had never put Jinki on his Instagram. But some of their pictures together remained on his phone, and his finger had hovered over the 'Photos' icon at least a few times by then.

He remembered what the pictures were, and he was still not ready to face them. Jinki was on them – alright. No, it was mostly because Kibum would have to look at his own laughing, peaceful expression that he hadn't seen on himself for months before – it could be considered an accomplishment that he was still even capable of it – and consciously erase all evidence of it. As if detached-looking pictures of his takeout drinks, his shoes and him checking himself out in the changing room mirrors, along with the persistent resentment and symptomatically undone homework, were the only things he had ever known.

He was going to delete all that for sure. Honestly.

Just not yet.

The girls bothered him the next day.

There was a flutter among them – like a wave, it started with the one heroine at the epicenter, and dispersed into the stuffy air of the classroom through her friends. There was a vague feeling of urgency, soft rustle of whispers, growing excitement – those were the signs that could only mean two things: either there was an impending bullying episode or someone had fallen in love and was about to let the cat out of the bag.

Guys were mostly oblivious to those unmistakable omens of the incoming mess, but Kibum had gotten into too much trouble himself and had given Taeyeon a shoulder to cry on too many times to be ignorant of them. His head was aching after another bothersome night, and the neurotic excitement in the perfumed corner of the class brought nausea with it.

On a break, he locked his phone and got up from the desk – only for Jinki to wake up abruptly from his respective nap and turn around to face him, as if he'd been waiting for the other boy to budge. His lips parted, but no sound came out, his hand gripped the back of his chair, but he didn't rise. His hair was a perfect bird nest.

"Hell's wrong with you," Kibum muttered under his breath, turning to leave with his migraine-induced frown.

After a silent meltdown in the boys' room during class, Kibum had come to a conclusion that the habit of stress-eating was ultimately working against him. He'd then thrown out his stash of crisps and tucked the Japanese candy box away into the drawer to lessen the temptation (he'd never throw those into the trash: the sweets were a lovely memento). And Taeyeon, who was forever haunted by nonexistent flaws on her athletically lean figure and face, had been on board from the get-go. Like a magician, she'd introduced her friend to a whole array of diets and 'hacks' she seemed to pull out of her sleeve. Kibum had known for sure that her methods, backed not by science, but mostly by sponsored Instagram posts by the girls she looked up to, were dubious: one of those strategies was entirely based on skipping food for as long as physically possible. Having tried that, Tae had fainted right on the soccer field. Kibum's scolding had had no effect on her. "Han Youngjae held my head above the ground and talked to me, and have you seen his arms?" she'd cooed, hugging a couch pillow at her house, her face pale like the wall behind her, but the countenance hopelessly dreamy. In short, her dieting methods were BS, but knowing that your best friend is sharing your suffering is bound to be soothing.

Still, Taeyeon had learned something from the soccer field day, Youngjae's arms notwithstanding. 

"Sometimes you do need to eat," she allowed sagely. "So, when you begin to feel a bit foggy in the head, it's time to get your 'Twix Fix'."

Kibum thought it was one of those fancy online terms that his friend had a talent of absorbing fast, but it turned out to be quite straightforward. On diving under her desk for a moment, she produced two packs of the Twix chocolates.

"They just make everything better," she shrugged.

Long removed from his chubby days, Kibum still treated himself to a Twix Fix once in a while, when all the other remedies for stress seemed to fail. It was a particle of peace in his intense loneliness.

As always, the vending machine was occupied: this time it was the same couple of middle-schooler twins that argued about everything no matter where they were. They seemed to annoy everyone except for Jinki: he said that sighting them was a sign of good luck, but Kibum remained skeptical – last time Jinki had said that, it was the day when he somehow managed to fail a test, and their class got more homework than usual.

The two kids, a boy and a girl with identical bowl-shaped haircuts (Jinki tenderly called them 'mushrooms'), were pointing fiercely at the glass of the machine, arguing over which snack they should get. His former friend would've whispered that the twins were 'too cute', but Kibum, who'd spent too much time trapped inside his head to be patient, wanted to kick them in the pants: anything to make them shut their noise holes and leave already.

"I want the gummy bears!"

"I told you that they make my tummy hurt."

"That's 'cos you're an idiot!"

A kick and an angry yell followed.

Kibum glanced around, both to distract himself from the waiting and to gauge how many witnesses there would be if he lost self-control and, say, flicked the two shiny black balls of stupidity in front of him.

Toward them was walking, yes, Lee Jinki, who was simultaneously counting a bunch of brown little coins on his palm. He was asking to get tripped, and also, who still uses the fifty-won coins nowadays?

"Get M&M's, then!" the little boy raged.

"How many times do I have to tell you?! It's not! Food! You moron!" His sister's identically high voice was on the verge of cracking.

"If I'm a moron, then you're a !"

"I hate you!"

The two siblings had no idea that, while being at the opposite sides of their snack-related conflict, they were united in Kibum's mind by being equally hated by him at the moment.

"Woah-woah, easy there, kiddos. Why don't you get that pack of banana cakes instead? They're filling and you can split them."

'Kiddos'?

The two black balls of nonsense turned around and stared first at Jinki, and then at each other. They ended up getting the cakes, and were gone before their next fight blew up.

Kibum could do nothing right while being watched. The banknote got in, the machine pondered over it for a while and then rejected it like a bad homework: it happened three times.

"You should smooth it out better," Jinki suggested timidly over his shoulder.

'You're the one to talk,' Kibum would've parried if they were still friends: Jinki's bills always looked like he'd sat on them.

He inhaled noisily and pressed the bill between his fingers.

"Helps if the picture faces up."

He shut his eyes for a moment, fingers hovering over the slit to catch the bill on its way out. But this time it worked, and he wouldn't have to bear Jinki's company for much longer.

"Are you getting your Twix Fix?"

"No," Kibum said, doing just that.

Jinki was rather dim if he thought that he was still allowed to use his personal terminology when their friendship was dead.

After the pressing of the button, the machine needed more thinking time: all the kicks it had endured from the local jocks since day one had slowed it down significantly.

"Robbed a grandma before class?"

Yes, Kibum wasn't supposed to be talking to Jinki, but listening to his thoughts wasn't a better distraction right now – Jinki was still there, right in his brain. 

The boy was focused on the coins on his palm.

"We all got our hobbies, don't we?" he mumbled, counting them again.

In a parallel universe, Kibum would've smiled.

"The machine doesn't even accept them."

Jinki shook his head in disappointment.

"All that life of crime for nothing."

He closed his hand with a clink and poured the coins back into his pocket. Kibum felt stupid: it was a trap, a decoy to get him talking. All Jinki ever did was make him break his own rules. Awful, nasty habit of his.

The Twix took a tumble through the belly of the vending machine, but got stuck right above the bottom.

Kibum cussed. Why now? He rolled up his sleeve to give it a good punch. It wasn't a know-how based on prior experience, nor was it a sensible move. He just wanted to punch something.

His fist was blocked by a hand that wrapped around it just in time.

Kibum saw a colorful flash of lights at the karaoke room, felt the taste of lukewarm apple cider on his lips. Hips brushing. Music vibrating deep in his throat.

He flinched away from the triggering touch, but Jinki was none the wiser.

"Gonna hurt yourself that way," he said, his tone uncontrived as usual.

Bending down, he pulled the flap of the machine open. The Twix dropped into the slot.

"Just let in some air."

Kibum almost slapped the chocolate out of the boy's hand. Getting any help from him at this stage was worse than receiving downright abuse.

"There's always a more peaceful way to do things, right?"

Jinki never knew the proper moment to stop talking.

"'Kay, Dumbledore." 

Kibum turned to leave, but his hand was grabbed once more. For a brief second, he was back in the bus with his drenched shirt on, his temples pulsing after running too fast. Jinki, looking just as wet, was smiling at him with a sparkle in his eyes.

"Don't ever touch me again," he hissed, snapping the Twix in his other hand. (For now, the Fix was fixing nothing.) With force, he set himself free.

Jinki looked hurt.

Good.

"We should talk."

"We talked," Kibum said.

"Yes, but it wasn't… it wasn't, like, final."

What was the fool doing? Why was he pushing forward when his opponent had a sharpened comeback for everything he was going to say from now on?

"Gonna get yourself hurt that way." How very fitting.

"Really?" Kibum asked skeptically.

Jinki his lips, and the other boy looked away fast. Anything could be a trigger now. He couldn't afford any weakening.

"I just don't know how to speak to you," Jinki confessed, and it seemed that he was being earnest. He looked too thoughtful, too ashamed to be trying to trick him. His openness was inappropriate.

Jinki was always, always too late to the party.

"Then don't," Kibum replied.

"Let's meet at Ediya and go over your test, and then have a normal conversation."

Kibum shook his head. He felt they were standing too close to each other yet again, but to step back now was no better than giving Jinki what he wanted.

"No."

"Why?"

Because it's easier that way. Let me hate you in peace. Just let me hate you.

"I don't know how to speak to you either." The words came out by themselves, and they made sense to Kibum – as if he was agreeing with somebody else speaking through his mouth. "And at this point, I don't want to."

Jinki's forehead rippled, his eyebrows coming up, but not in his usual cheerful manner. It was a tortured expression. The same he had when realising that something he was eating contained cucumbers, but with much more exhaustion.

"I just… I just don't get it." Seeing him rub his chin with the back of his hand in that exasperated way wasn't typical.

Then, Jinki sniffed and gave a single, sharp head shake. Kibum watched closely. He hadn't been that tense when they had talked before, even when he'd said those stupid, terrible words. Maybe he did care? "I don't understand how, no matter what I say, you seem to hear something el-"

"Jinki, can I talk to you for a moment?"

A mild confusion seemed to descend on Arisa when the two pairs of eyes that now focused on her, were burning with a forceful emotion unknown to her.

It took them a few moments to become fully conscious of her presence.

"Unless you were discussing something important," she said with just a drop of hesitation to her voice.

The air around them smelled of rose water, and Kibum was mesmerized by the accuracy of the smooth black line running along the edge of the girl's eyelid. She was wearing moon-shaped silver earrings. The sunlight bounced off them, reflecting on the silky skin of her neck.

It was happening now.

"Yes, we were," Jinki answered with sudden firmness and turned back to Kibum.

He was unaware of what was coming. Arisa gazed in the same direction, and her sparkly, hopeful eyes seemed to communicate with Kibum silently. It all depended on him at the end. There was no escape.

"No, we're done. He's all yours," Kibum replied, his voice too faded to sound sarcastic.

He walked out of the cloud of the rose water fragrance, turning his back on the inevitable event that he'd used to fear so. Like there was nothing worse than seeing your friend get together with a girl that caught your eye for a minute. He'd been so stupid and naive, and worried for nothing, when things had been so good. Maybe one day he'd be able to smile about his young foolishness, but that future seemed very far off now.

With everything that had taken place, Kibum somehow forgot about the burning love that Arisa had been quietly carrying in her heart. While sensitive, she was patient. She didn't do anything until she was ready for it. She wasn't the type to try and set her world on fire just to gaze at the flames.

The two of them were late for the next class.

Kibum's mind was too scattered to listen to the teacher's instructions, so he sat at his desk, unmoving, staring at the big white clock on the wall. He wasn't even noticing how hard he was biting on his lip. He wasn't reading the book in front of him that he didn't remember opening.

He waited for something that he wasn't sure he wanted to come.

The door opened with a soft creak and Arisa apologized, her little boots clacking across the floor as she hurried back to her seat, back politely hunched. Kibum looked down just in time to register Jinki's crimson cheeks and flustered expression before he ran into a corner of his own desk and looked straight at Kibum. Meeting his eyes, he looked away fast and sat down. The raspy, scraping sound that his chair made when he pulled it up made a few people wince.

"How did it go?" a girl behind him whispered.

"Perfect," Arisa murmured back, and they both giggled.

When the classes were over, it was time for Kibum to run off to his English class, but he took his time. He sorted all his sheets into corresponding compartments in the folder he carried around, like he really intended to check on them later. He arranged the books by size before putting them away. He adjusted the strap of his bag.

He found more and more reasons to stay in the classroom longer, because he was still waiting for answers.

The way Jinki had started getting all worked up back by the vending machine, the way his usual calm demeanor had almost given way to something darker and perhaps more real, had given Kibum some hope. He detested the friend who'd condescendingly offered him 'help' because he'd taken the high road, but he could give a minute to the one who, for a fleeting second, might have been tempted to punch him in the face. To him, at least, he could relate.

He wanted the angry boy to come back and explain to him what had happened. How he'd let Arisa down easy for the sake of solidarity, and the 'perfect' that had fallen from her lips earlier was about something else entirely. 

But neither of those two versions of Jinki seemed to be present when everybody else had trickled out into the hall, and it was just the two of them left in the room. Jinki finished whatever he was writing, struggled with a zipper on his backpack, and was almost out the door, when he turned around.

Kibum was standing by his desk. He wanted to say something cutting, something provocative, but there was a lump in his throat that he couldn't overcome.

Jinki walked toward the window past Kibum and stopped, eyes fixed on one of the sickly-looking plants in the bulky brown pots standing on the windowsill. He wasn't acknowledging his former best friend. 

He picked up the plastic watering can and raised it above the pot, watering not only the plant, but also the edge of the pot and the windowsill.

Maybe he was looking for words? Maybe he was struggling to get out the ones he had found?

"Hey, are you coming?" Arisa called from the doorway.

"Sure," Jinki replied, turning around with the most alienating smile Kibum had ever seen on him.

If he stayed a second longer, he would start believing that he wasn't there, too. 

"You were right," he wrote to his anonymous follower who had advised him against opening up to Jinki. "And I was a fool."

A/N: Dear friends! I want to thank you for reading the story and also to welcome the new subscribers, hope you will stay with me till the end! How's it going? How do you guys keep yourself sane? I thought that the whole isolation thing would somehow be conducive to creativity, but I found myself struggling with most things that require focus. Still, I'm proud of finishing this chapter and I can't wait to hear your thoughts, don't be shy :) More importantly, I hope that you and your loved ones and friends are safe and in good health, and stay that way in the future~ x L.