A/N: In case it's confusing, the flashback started after the last fight in the previous chapter, and continues here.

“I can't believe he drove that bike himself,” Kibum shook his head when the movie was over.

“I know, right?” Jinki cried excitedly and caught his straw with his mouth.

With the languid crowd around them dispersing, the two boys were standing in the hall, taking their time and finishing their drinks: their family situations were quite different, but they both agreed that just throwing the remaining coke in the trash would be a waste. To tell the truth, their teeth were clattering after sitting without movement in the well-ventilated cinema hall with their icy soda, but both did their best effort to hide it.

When almost everyone else flocked away, Kibum noticed a tall mirror on the wall a few feet away and checked himself out by instinct. Jinki tried to pat down his bed hair.

“Your everyday clothes are pretty cool,” he complimented Kibum with a slight tremble to his voice. “I don't think anybody else could pull them off.”

Kibum scoffed, secretly pleased.

“My mom taught me that it's kind of a b-backhanded compliment.”

He hugged himself to stop the shivering.

“I mean it, though. Almost all the other guys look like they woke up in a tr… trashcan. But you know how to wear sweaters with t-shirts, and your jeans are, like, really tight. It might look weird on some people, but not on you. You look cool.” Jinki turned to Kibum, whose cheeks had slightly changed color. “So, it's pretty much a front-handed compliment.”

“It's a cardigan, not a sweater,” Kibum corrected him.

The other thought a little, sipping his remaining drink.

“Isn't cardigan a type of sweater?”

“I guess?”

“So, every cardigan is a sweater.”

Kibum continued Jinki's thought:

“…But not every sweater is a cardigan.”

They both laughed, and once again Kibum felt very light inside, quite like a balloon: if the hand holding the string let go of it, he'd soar all the way up into the blue sky and float among the cotton clouds without a single care on his mind. He was simply not the kind of person who was used to feeling that way. Is he doing that? Is it just me?

“What do you wanna do next?” Jinki asked.

So, there was a ‘next’, and the balloon felt even lighter now.

“I don't know, I'm kind of peckish.”

“Wanna grab a kimbap?”

If Kibum were alone, he'd surely go for the one burger he allowed himself to have twice a month, but it was twice as expensive as a kimbap if you counted the fries and the drink, so he was about to agree – then he remembered that he was now a man in debt.

“What about a burger instead? On me.”

“Ooooh, look who's rich!” Jinki exclaimed, impressed – and got elbowed right away. “Ow! We could have some ice-cream, too.”

Kibum rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, right. I'm just craving something cold right now.”

He tossed his cup into the trashcan and turned to go to the bathroom.

“You've got to finish all of that if you're a man.”

Jinki sighed, shaking his drink to check how much was left.

“Why did I have to get a large one...”

When Kibum was done with his bathroom business, he took a critical glance at himself in the mirror. Then, he checked his teeth for traces of popcorn, checked his eyes for the morning goo (there was none, but he rubbed the corners just in case) – but forgot to check his reasons for doing so. He just knew that he needed to look good, or better, perfect.

Maybe it wouldn't be too bad if he allowed himself to put his guard down around someone at this school. He hadn't planned to, not this early, but if things were naturally flowing in that direction, perhaps it would be fine. And Jinki, albeit vaguely annoying sometimes, was kind of sweet, so why not him?

He only needed to erase the popcorn moment from his memory for everything to be proper and normal. Whether it was the inspiration he'd gotten from watching a single man survive through at least a dozen explosions, or he simply felt really confident today, Kibum believed that he would be able to do just that. His spirit felt so weightless that, truly, there was nothing that he couldn't do.

He strutted out of the men's room, fully prepared to tease Jinki about being such a slow sipper – but that was not to be. As if blocked by some invisible barrier, he took a few steps and stopped dead in his track.

Kibum was usually glad to see her – sometimes he wanted to, even. She did have a musical laughter, after all. But now, she was standing next to Jinki in her light pastel dress, smiling about something, and already ruining an almost perfect afternoon.

Jinki saw him, both hands in pockets, lingering oddly, and motioned him to come over, looking about three times as excited as Kibum was feeling.

The boy approached them on wooden legs and gave the small group a stiff wave. Arisa had brought a friend with her, whose face Kibum didn't seem to remember.

“You watched the movie together?” Arisa asked with a laugh, as if there was something amusing about that particular pair of people hanging out together.

“We just ran into each other,” Kibum rushed to explain. He almost felt like there was a need to defend himself, but wasn't entirely sure why, since no one was throwing any accusations at him. Maybe he imagined he knew what that laugh was about.

“You know what?!” the girl exclaimed cheerfully with a clap of her little hands. “Since there's four of us, why don't we go and eat some chicken? You love chicken, right?”

She looked at Jinki, Kibum did too, and Jinki glanced back at Kibum, his smile wavering only slightly.

Then he coughed into his fist and accepted the offer with a timid:

“Sure, let's do that.”

The girls gave each other a high five, thus sealing their collective fate. And from then on, Jinki's smile remained joyful and sincere, for he wasn't prone to backtrack on decisions once made. Kibum wished he wasn't, too.

But he knew that something still weighed on his classmate's mind, and it wasn't hard to discern what exactly it was: Jinki had already paid for two movie tickets and treated them both to a big popcorn, which likely amounted to lavish expense in his situation.

“My treat, remember?” Kibum whispered in his ear when they were walking through the revolving door together.

“You sure?” Jinki murmured, forgetting to watch his feet.

Kibum pushed him forward before they would embarrass themselves by getting stuck inside a door.

“I said so, right?”

He was sure that he wasn't doing it out of kindness, and he certainly didn't want to go, not with the girls to entertain and make small talk with, but he had more questions than he had answers, and was profoundly annoyed with himself for being so complicated.

The weather was bright and pleasant that day, and since Kibum was the only one who secretly wished to get this over with as quick as possible, they strolled down the streets on the way to the chicken place without any hurry, and felt free to ogle at the fare of the street vendors and the contents of the shop windows as they walked.

They all had to stop in front of a wooden mannequin wearing a peach-colored dress because it caught Arisa's eye. And even then, although she made them linger and block the way for the people behind them, Kibum was devastatingly unable to be annoyed with her.

“Do you like it?” Jinki asked as the girl marveled at the dress with widened eyes.

“It's really pretty.”

“Why don't you try it on, then? It looks like it would fit,” the boy suggested courteously as she ran a gentle hand along the skirt.

“Oh, no, I have enough dresses at home,” Arisa laughed. “I just wish I could make one like this myself.”

“You know how to make clothes? That's pretty cool.”

The girl's eyelashes fluttered bashfully as she looked down.

“Just very simple things... I wonder what it's made of. It could be viscose, but there doesn't seem to be a label on it.”

“Kibum knows about clothes, too,” Jinki said suddenly, turning around to pull his classmate over by the elbow.

Kibum nearly dropped his phone on the ground.

“What do you think it's made of?”

He sighed, cursing Jinki's sociable nature in his mind, and rubbed the fabric of the sleeve between his thumb and fingers. Then, unexpectedly to all, he leaned over and smelled it.

“The texture is soft like viscose, but I think it's one hundred percent polyester.”

Arisa's friend made a ‘wow’ noise, and Kibum was both pleased and embarrassed.

“You do know about clothes.” Arisa was impressed.

“Looks like you have a common interest,” Jinki said when they continued walking, apparently clueless about how awkward it sounded. “And Kibum can do art, too. He draws and stuff, like you.”

“Really? Can you draw well?”

Actually, yes.

“No, not at all,” Kibum replied with a dismissive wave. “I just dabble.”

“He's too modest,” Jinki whispered loudly into the girl's ear and she laughed.

Then he moved to the side so as to put Kibum between himself and Arisa, thinking, no doubt, that he was being very smooth in his little maneuvers, but the other boy just wanted to ask why he was being like this.

It's not that he hated talking to Arisa. It's just that today, at this moment, he had no words for her.

She asked him something, his answers were short and stifled, his questions absentminded and dull – or, at least, they seemed that way to Kibum. When the inevitable silence went on for too long to be comfortable, Arisa turned to her friend, who had been quiet for a while, and Kibum used the fact that the lace on his shoe came undone as the opportunity to fall behind again.

He hated that he couldn't help being that way: the weather was perfect for being outside, he was with people who hadn't been thrown off by his arrogant temper so far, in short, he had every reason in the world to be having fun, but instead he was shrinking into himself minute by minute, irritated and anxious about almost everything.

His fashionable cardigan was too hot for the weather, too, and he could feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead – as if he needed another reason to be annoyed.

Kibum pulled out his phone and focused on scrolling down his Instagram feed as a refuge. But it was hard to focus on the brooding faces and chiseled bodies in the selfies of the predominantly male models he was following, because he felt the need to be alert: what would other people think if they saw what he was looking at? He was aware that his emotions looked a lot like shame – and ‘shame’ was the code word that evoked a number of memories from his history. But, somehow, his mind jumped straight to the incident that had just happened today. Jinki lacing his fingers through his, again and again, on infinite loop. Surprisingly even to himself, a part of his mind rebelled: ‘What's shameful about that? Is being touched a sin now?!’, it protested in pure indignation.

Moreover, it was just an accident.

A lot of things needed to be taken into account: the dark, the relaxed mood, the natural reaction of the body to human contact. The fact that he had just wanted to grab some popcorn, for God's sake. If it had been Arisa's hand, wouldn't he have been affected way more? If he tried long and hard enough, even just imagining such a situation between them would make his cheeks glow. Right?

If he touched Jinki again in broad daylight instead of the languid and indefinite atmosphere of a movie hall, it would probably have next to zero effect. And even if there is an effect, it will probably....

He dropped his phone on the ground as his heart almost jumped out of his chest.

They were in the middle of crossing the road, and one stupid, distracted driver would have surely hit him if someone walking close to him hadn't reacted fast by grabbing and pulling him out of the vehicle's way just in time.

The car screeched to a stop in the middle of the zebra crossing, gasps of the pedestrians were followed by angry voices erupting into curses and tirades, with the shocked parents and older people forgetting to filter their speech in front of the children in the anger they all collectively unloaded onto the driver – who himself looked scared more than anything.

“Were you even watching the road, you dumb bastard?”

“Using a cellphone at the wheel should be illegal!”

“Are you crazy?! You almost hit the kid!”

A dozen voices at once seemed to be asking if he was hurt, but Kibum's head was spinning so fast, it took him a while to even remember where he was and why.

They were both trembling too hard to be able to move or speak for a while.

As consciousness came back bit by bit, Kibum realized he was still clutching on Jinki's T-shirt, holding onto him with his face pressed into his shoulder, like a child waiting for danger to pass in his mother's arms.

“Kibum, are you okay?” Arisa's clear voice called through the haze.

Slowly, they let each other go.

“You alright?” Jinki whispered, his face paler than Kibum had ever seen on him before.

The boy nodded.

“You?” he asked just as quietly, and his classmate responded in the same way.

“Guys, let's cross the road before the lights switch,” Arisa said as she took Jinki by the elbow to lead him away, and her friend did the same for Kibum. Only when they were separated, he realized that he must have been holding Jinki's hand until then.

The girls found a bench for them to sit on and left to get some water at a 7-Eleven nearby.

Now was a perfect moment to say something, but Kibum just didn't know what. The things that came to mind were either too obvious or too dramatic, or simply felt awkward to say out loud.

“Sorry about your phone,” Jinki mumbled, the kind fool.

Kibum wiped the cracked screen on his jeans.

“It's old anyway.”

His voice wasn't as steady as he wished it to be, and the boy cleared his throat.

“I could've, like, died back there. So... yeah,” he mustered.

They looked at each other, and Jinki shook his head, eyes round, as if he was just realizing what had happened and refusing to accept it.

“No, no. I'm sure that... No.”

He shook his head more and, seeing his distressed look, it occurred to Kibum that his savior must be more scared than he himself.

He sighed.

“You reacted really fast and... it's over now. So, let's eat some chicken and forget about it. Alright?”

Not sure what else he could do here, Kibum lifted his hand as if to hold Jinki's, but changed his mind mid-way and patted his hip instead, hoping that it was a fair exchange for him getting to keep on living.

He removed his hand when the girls hurried over with the water and worried expressions. As Jinki was still only a teenage boy, he had to put on a brave face in front of Arisa and her friend, and Kibum already anticipated the moment when he would get to mock him about it.

The chicken place was full, and they had to squeeze themselves in on two sides of a small table in the corner. Kibum took the spot by the wall and Jinki, in order to give more space to the girls, sacrificed his own comfort and had to sit with his legs spread wide. Kibum also suffered from that arrangement, as their knees were now touching, but said it was fine when the other boy asked if he was comfortable. As if I can say ‘no’ and force you to sit sideways, the snarky voice in his head grumbled as he pulled the hem of his cardigan from under his classmate's .

Arisa, who had been walking behind Jinki, stepped aside to let her friend take the wall seat opposite Kibum, while she chose to sit across from the other boy. It wasn't unnatural, as the two of them were in the middle of a lively conversation, as they had been for a while.

They ordered two portions of chicken – one regular, one spicy, and the girls asked for two glasses of soda as well. Out of solidarity with Jinki, Kibum didn't get himself a drink either: the amount of coke they had had that morning should be enough for a lifetime.

He wasn't a complete defier of manners, so, when everyone was seated (with varying levels of comfort), he put his cracked, but still working cellphone away and listened to the others talk.

Jinki and Arisa both agreed that giving a personal touch to the art project was better than basing it off of dry facts (Kibum rolled his eyes, because no one was looking at him anyway).

Jinki and Arisa found out that they both preferred boneless fried chicken. (Who doesn't?)

They both hadn't started their History papers yet.

They both preferred Harry Potter to The Lord of the Rings.

Kibum imagined that, if he wasn't underage, he'd play a little game with himself and drink every time Arisa and Jinki agreed with each other. I'd have to be carried home.

“What do you think?” Jinki asked, turning to him.

It was beginning to feel like they were conjoined at the hip, but Kibum had zero space to try to change his position without pushing Jinki off the bench they were sharing.

“I believe that, since there would be no Harry Potter without the Lord of the Rings, they can't be compared,” he said, feeling his own smugness. “And the guy who wrote it made up a whole language.”

“And the lady who wrote Harry Potter made up a whole world,” Arisa argued softly.

“Dumbledore is just a less powerful Gandalf.”

“The fact that Dumbledore was human made him more complex,” Jinki countered right away.

“The Lord of the Rings has a powerful message about friendship,” Kibum insisted.

To be perfectly honest, in his heart of hearts, he preferred Harry Potter, too. But also, he would rather play the devil's advocate than just nod and echo off other people's opinions. He might have other reasons to be antagonistic as well, but he wasn't self-aware enough to know about them.

“Friendship is literally the main point of Harry Potter as a thing,” Jinki pushed.

That didn't throw Kibum off.

“That's cute, but Sam literally carried Frodo on his back all the way to Mount Doom, all while having to put up with his ry and never expecting any thanks for saving his life every single day.”

Jinki pressed his lips together as if trying to keep the serious look on his face from changing into something else. He coughed.

“Yeah, Sam would benefit from a little thanks or two.”

Kibum didn't heed his meaning.

“What I'm saying is, their bond crossed the boundaries of friendship.”

He stabbed his fork into a piece of a spicy chicken, feeling Jinki's quizzical eyes on him.

“What?” he asked, chewing.

“I don't get why you never take part in the debates. I think you have a knack for it.”

“Because it would be easy as pie.”

“Or maybe you're afraid of losing at something you're good at?”

Arisa and her friend's eyes flickered between the two boys.

“No, I'm not, because I'm not going to lose,” the stubborn Kibum replied.

He felt that he'd said enough, and when his stomach was full, he leaned against the wall on his side and propped his chin on his hand as Arisa and Jinki renewed their favorite activity – looking for reasons while they were essentially the same person, except that Arisa was a stylish, conventionally attractive, artsy girl, and Jinki, well… Jinki had friends like that weirdo Lee Taemin.

When the conversation reversed back to discussing Harry Potter, it was discovered that an online test had sorted them both into Hufflepuff. Arisa's friend had somehow gotten Gryffindor (which Kibum found hard to believe), and Kibum said nothing about himself.

Jinki glanced at him and cracked up.

“I think I know what you got,” he said through the laughter, and even Arisa covered for a moment. “Voldemort's your uncle. Ow!”

Kibum nudged him in the ribs, and he would've tumbled to the floor from the suddenness of it, if the attacker hadn't caught him by the arm.

“Thanks. That totally crossed the boundaries of friendship.”

Everyone laughed as Kibum said that he already regretted it.

When he inevitably got bored again, he put his phone in his pocket and disappeared into the restroom, giving Jinki a chance to sit comfortably for a while and himself – to escape.

After washing his hands, he thought he'd stay here in peace for a minute or two – and got stuck in his phone, checking the apps, the weather, the UV levels, updating the apps and lastly, googling ‘dog skateboarding gif’.

Kibum jumped up when a girl came out of the other stall. It was Arisa's friend.

“It's a uni bathroom, don't worry,” she replied to his baffled expression.

“Um, sure.”

He was slightly embarrassed to be caught hiding in the toilet, but didn't want to disrupt their friends' sweet tête-à-tête either.

“Never thought there could be two third wheels in the same room,” the girl said, rinsing the soap off her hands.

Kibum huffed.

“Tell me about it.”

“Does he like her or is he just a super-friendly guy?”

“How would I know?”

“Aren't you friends?”

The boy's eyes shifted to his phone again. What were they?

“We're not that close.”

“You might get closer after today, though.”

“What? Why?” he was quick to ask.

“Well, he kind of saved you, right?”

Oh, that.

He shrugged.

The girl didn't hurry back to join the other half of their company either. She crossed her arms and confessed:

“I just don't want her to get together with someone who'll use her for her kindness or popularity. She's had enough of ‘nice guys’ who are actually jerks. Hence the asking.”

“Jinki is a nice person, though. He's not pretending or anything, if that's what you mean. And I don't believe he'd ever use anyone. If anything, he's in more danger of being used.”

The girl narrowed her eyes.

“I thought you weren't that close.”

“I know people is all.”

“What's my name, then?” she smiled.

Kibum blinked at her blankly.

“Jung...hee?” he tried.

“Jungmi, but that's close enough.”

He shook her hand apologetically, and Jungmi suggested coming out before ‘the lovebirds get married’, so Kibum had to follow her.

Jinki greeted them by saying that he and Arisa had been thinking of calling 119, mainly looking at Kibum, who quipped: “Maybe you should've,” before using Jinki's shoulder for support as he squeezed himself into his previous place.

“What were you doing?” Arisa asked, too, and Jungmi replied in jest:

“Kissing.”

Jinki turned to Kibum:

“Really?”

“Not only kissing, but hugging, too,” the boy deadpanned, making the other inexplicably amused – his joke wasn't even funny. Jinki was laughing, and Kibum looking back at him, thinking again, but for a different reason, ‘Why is he like this?’. And he didn't necessarily mean that moment in particular. He just couldn't understand Jinki in general: he seldom complained about school and never got angry for no reason, and how anyone could just enjoy these terrible years of high school, was some kind of absurd mystery that he couldn't crack. How could it be so frustrating, so long and difficult, when it wasn't even real life yet? He couldn't even trust his own body, with its weird reactions and transformations – how could he hope for a minute of peace? Maybe Jinki thought it was all one big joke to chuckle and shrug about.

He reached out and ruffled Jinki's hair, both as praise and punishment for laughing at an unfunny thing, and while he intended to be patronizing, Kibum wasn't sure that he managed to convey just that.

As Jungmi had somewhat confirmed his own thoughts, he could no longer be a neutral observer. He watched Arisa, watched Jinki and tried to make sense of what was going on, although it neither pleased nor excited him.

The girl seemed to be into the boy, and it was hardly news.

Arisa was nice to everyone, but it did feel like she was a little bit nicer to Jinki compared to anyone else. She always listened to others like she cared, but now, she cared so much that she had forgotten all that her mother must have taught her about elbows on the table, and she was leaning toward Jinki as if her whole being was listening to him talk.

Kibum's intuition was telling him that, while he was clearly enjoying being part of that conversation, nothing seemed different about Jinki. He was being his non-threatening, cheery, considerate self – just as he was with anyone he let into his little nerdy world.

But then again, his intuition had served him so poorly in the past – what was the point of listening to it at all? He should know better.

When there was just one piece of chicken left, an argument over who should have it ensued: both Jinki and Arisa were insisting that the other should eat it, and very soon Kibum was ready to punch them both.

Jungmi sent a telltale glance over her soda, which he refused to return, purposely looking the other way.

But then it hit him: their friends were behaving just like a married couple, no matter what his intuition was telling him. Sure, she was giving him the moon eyes, and Jinki was a clueless sap, but one day he'd see, and push the gates of Flirt Land right open. His academically smart, but otherwise silly head would realize that a beautiful, very patient girl had been wooing him discreetly all this time, and the arrow, or rather the hammer of love would hit him hard one early morning. They could even become the campus couple. Other guys would have trouble understanding why a girl like Arisa would be dating a clumsy geek and try to snatch her away, but that would all be useless, because those two were destined to get married and become that smug couple that spoon-feeds each other in public. They'd have a couple of babies, a dog, a car, and live happily ever after.

Ew.

“I'll have it, dammit,” Kibum grumbled, picking up the last piece with his fork and sending it right into his mouth. “See? Problem solved.”

Arisa looked a little relieved, Jinki – a bit disappointed.

“Are you enjoying it?” he asked with a gulp.

“Well, it's cold, but it's still chicken,” naughty Kibum replied, knowing exactly how harrowing it was to hear for that poor generous soul.

Jinki's full lips puckered like a child's, and the other accepted that his ridiculousness was kind of cute at times.

When it was time to pay, Kibum slipped a ten-thousands bill onto his lap, and Jinki gave him a little nod of gratitude.

Arisa then suggested going to a coffee shop all together, and Kibum said that he'd be going home.

“Really?” Jinki didn't look happy about it.

“Yeah, I'm tired. I'm sure you'll have fun,” Kibum added with a little nod in Arisa's direction, but it didn't seem that the other got his meaning.

Don't worry, you'll get there sooner or later.

With a wave, he turned around and walked back to cross the road where the dramatic event of the day had taken place, truly feeling like he'd had enough company for the weekend.

In a way, he let Arisa ago. He just couldn't get the butterflies near someone who only had eyes for a different person.

It made little sense, but Kibum found a small comfort in the thought that, despite the fact that Jinki and Arisa would get married, and have babies, a dog and a car, it was his life that Jinki had almost risked his own to save a few hours ago. Somehow, Kibum had got to know him in a way that it might take her a number of years to do the same.

That night, lying in bed, fresh out of the shower, Kibum got out his diary that he had been neglecting for a couple of months now, drew a deep breath and began his story with the simple words: ‘Well, .’

A/N: Hi everyone! I'm so happy about Jinki's solo album, it feels like a dream, although it's kind of bittersweet. Please, share your thoughts, thank you all as always, and have a good weekend~ L.