Being too non-confrontational by nature, Jinki didn't say outright that he wasn't happy with Kibum's decision to do ‘the art part’ of their project in digital form – he simply sighed and tilted his head, but said nothing. That couldn't possibly be Kibum's problem. Hadn't he established from the start that he'd take care of the art? Didn't he have the right to choose whatever worked best for him? He was going to ignore Jinki's subtle sigh-heaving and lip-pursing. That would teach him about staying in his own lane.

But if anything was certain about him and Jinki, it's that nothing was certain.

“I'm thinking a white, red and blue color scheme, like the flag,” Kibum said when they were walking down the hall together after the chemistry class.

“Yes, I know the flag,” Jinki sighed.

“I'm going to trace a bunch of pictures in Photoshop and make a collage,” Kibum continued, ignoring the unsatisfied cloud floating by his side. “I'll put the Namsan tower in there, the Han river, some skyscrapers, a tiger, the five mountains, and the Sun and the Moon for the King and Queen...”

“That's amazing,” Jinki remarked limply.

“And then maybe a big dragon wrapped around the Korean peninsula or something. Donning a Silla crown.”

“That's really cool...”

No, this cannot continue.

Kibum groaned and stopped walking.

“What's your problem?”

Jinki turned around and stopped, too.

“What do you mean by my problem? I said it was really cool,” he said, looking back at him innocently.

Maybe he could've fooled somebody else, but not Kibum.

“Exactly,” he answered, crossing his arms. “If you actually thought it was cool, you would've said ‘pretty cool’, not ‘really cool’.”

Jinki's eyes flickered: he likely hadn't thought about it before.

“Would I?”

“Uh-huh. So, spill it. Come on.”

Jinki pressed his lips. He'd been caught red-handed.

“I just think that the physical format is better. It's more fun and easier to collaborate on.” Kibum opened his mouth to argue, but he continued: “Yes, I know that you're in charge of the art part. But I wanna help, or at least have some say in it... It's kind of boring to just write the text.”

Kibum stuck his hand to his side.

“It's not easy to work with paper and glue, especially when there's drawing involved. It gets messy and it's easy to ruin the whole thing at any moment.”

“Yes, but isn't it the fun of doing art?” Jinki countered, throwing his hands in the air. “If we mess up, we come up with creative solutions! Together.”

It was Kibum's turn now to give a sigh. “I kind of already started...”

“Oh.”

Jinki was truly the master of the ‘dropped my ice-cream on the ground’ look: even Kibum was beginning to feel sorry.

“But I guess we could... collaborate.” His mouth twisted for a moment when that last word was forced out, as if by saying it out loud he sacrificed a chunk of his personal dignity.

But it had a magical effect on his project buddy: Jinki's eyebrows relaxed and went back up, his eyes sparkled behind the glasses - in short, the sun came out of the clouds again.

“Cool! So, can you bring the file and open it on a school computer or...?”

Kibum bit his lip, thinking. The computers at school were too slow to run Photoshop, he didn't have a laptop

– only one possible option remained… But should he really suggest it?

“Or you can come to my house and watch me work,” Kibum blurted out before giving himself time to debate it.

As he waited for an answer, his grip tightened around the strap of his backpack just a little.

Jinki blinked.

“Can I come tomorrow, then?”

“Sure.”

“After my taekwondo class?”

“Um, sure.”

They began walking again, and Kibum wondered to himself what he had just done. But Jinki was nonchalance embodied: he told Kibum in a classic Taemin manner that he needed to ‘take a dump before class’ and merrily skipped down the hall.

“That's… pretty cool,” Kibum muttered to no one.

He reminded himself that Jinki was truly the least scary person at their school, that certain mature material hadn't ‘worked’ on him and that it was okay to have someone over again after all this time.

I'm sure it will go fine. Nothing's gonna happen.

Watching Jinki bump into the Biology teacher on his way to the restroom and apologize at the speed of five bows per second only helped that conclusion solidify.

On Wednesday, Kibum closed the door of his room behind him and took a critical look around. In his previous life, he'd never worried much about keeping it tidy in case someone dropped by – his mother usually did the cleaning, so there never was a big mess anyway. Occasionally, Taeyeon, sprawled on his bed with her phone in hand, must have seen him pick up some stray laundry off the floor, and neither of them had minded.

But now, he wondered: what did his room say about him? Would it perhaps reveal too much? There could be secrets that he might want to keep to himself, only even he didn't know all about them yet.

Kibum took a deep breath.

You're not here to be judged. And he won't be here to judge you.

He threw out an empty soda can, rearranged his books so that ‘Twilight’ was hidden in the back, and the few encyclopedias that he owned exhibited in front, shrugged into his kimono-like robe that his Japanese friends had given him as a parting gift, and waited.

Minutes went by slowly, his mood changed a few times and in the end all the nervousness disappeared: ultimately bored, he his computer, opened the Photoshop file for the visual part of their project and set to work.

By the time Jinki, slightly dampened by the drizzling rain outside, took a first tentative step into Kibum's personal kingdom, he was completely absorbed in his artistry. He hadn't even had time to go back to his low-key anxious state from before, and the sudden panic from the fact that he was wearing a freaking kimono robe (as he usually did, to be fair – it was comfy and visually pleasant to be in) only struck him when it was too late.

“Took you a while, huh?” Kibum said, taut and kingly in his swivel chair.

Walking deeper into the new world opening before him, Jinki launched a simple-hearted narrative that involved missed buses, forgotten phones and something-something that Kibum didn't bother to recognize as words. He should have accepted by now that, when it came to subtle domination, Jinki was a difficult, if not impossible target.

Jinki moved around the room slowly, studied its contents with curiosity and respectful deliberation, and Kibum could not say that he didn't like it: his room deserved to be carefully examined, and his confidence in the way it represented his personality grew minute by minute.

“You're a fan?” Jinki asked, pointing at the signed CD of BoA displayed proudly in the bookcase.

“A casual one.”

Jinki smiled, taking the precious artifact in his careful hands.

“My mom loves her. How many CD's did you have to buy to get in?”

Kibum pursed his lips.

“Twenty,” he confessed, making the other chuckle.

He then moved on to the books, and Kibum watched with certain amount of pride as he began to pull out the imposing tome of the ‘Illustrated History of Art’ – when all of a sudden ‘Twilight’ came hurtling down from the back of the shelf.

Damn.

Jinki bent down to pick up the unfortunate book off the floor, and Kibum made a simultaneous move to rise from his chair (to do what exactly? wrest it out of Jinki's hand and toss it out of the window?), but ended up dropping back down. It was useless: his little secret was discovered.

At this point, he could only justify his subjectively dubious literary choice by mentioning that he hadn't actually bought the book and it had been given to him by a friend (Taeyeon, to be exact, so it would be kind of tricky to even try to return it now). He prepared to say just that, but Jinki spoke first:

“You know what's weird about this?”

Kibum gulped.

“What?” he forced out.

Jinki took his time, studying the cover – which was evidently too well-used to be passed off as having been barely touched.

The ruler of the little kingdom braced himself. Judge me if you want. I'm bigger than this. Or even if I'm not, I'll pretend that I am.

“You know how he had to do high school over and over?” Jinki said, finally.

“Um, yeah?”

The boy turned around.

“Can you imagine taking exams for a hundred years? Like, Math and all that for eternity?”

“No, but I thought you loved school.”

“Nobody loves school,” Jinki huffed, returning ‘Twilight’ to its previous position, banished behind the more respectable titles – which was kind of embarrassing in itself. “I hate the tests as much as the next guy. Unless...”

Kibum raised a finger at him.

“Don't you dare make a joke about ‘the next guy’.”

Jinki laughed.

“It could be a good one.”

“Jokes based on well-known expressions are never good.”

The encyclopedia was picked up again, and Kibum's confidence restored.

“I don't love school,” Jinki continued. “But isn't it, like, the most peaceful time?” Speak for yourself. “Apart from the studies, we don't have to do much, we can still play and fool around, but when it's over, it's like... The real stuff begins. Life's gonna get hard, you know?”

The silky pages of the expensive book (Kibum's grandmother's gift) rustled softly under Jinki's touch.

“You're smart, you don't have to worry,” Kibum said, crossing his legs and resting his elbow on the edge of his desk.

His friend sent him a quick eye-smile.

“There are many smart guys around. Doesn't make anything simpler.”

Kibum wasn't sure if he had heard him say anything bordering on bitter before.

“Skills such as yours are valued in our society.”

So, he was comforting Jinki: that was new, too.

“Sure,” the boy nodded, studying a classic painting depicting a beautiful youth, standing with his hands tied behind his back, his body pierced with arrows. “But isn't it best to love the things you're good at?”

“I think it's something that everyone's conflicted about,” Kibum shrugged.

“But you don't need to be. Even your room shows it.”

Jinki put the book back into place and made his way to the easel. Instead of a canvas, a drawing book was perched on it, ready to be opened and perused again.

“I don't know, does it?” Kibum wondered. He wanted to hear more.

Jinki asked if he could see the sketches, and the artist permitted him with a nod.

“It's just very you. It's... artistic and cool. Not like the others.”

Kibum his lips. In some way, it was amazing that this boy, who just some weeks ago had been a total stranger, now had enough of an idea of who he was to say things like that. But, in a way, it was kind of unsettling: did he really have to go through this again?

He actually wanted to know what Jinki thought of his works, but he didn't feel like asking outright.

“Do you think it's good to be not like the others?” he asked instead.

“Sure, why not? Especially when it means that you have a special talent that most people don't. It must bring some kind of happiness. I know I would be happy if I had one.”

So, despite that drop of vague bitterness, Jinki was incomprehensibly naive. But didn't it fit perfectly well into his overall character?

Personally, Kibum knew of about two dozen reasons why it wasn't all rainbows and sunshine to be the one who stands out. But he could also think of twice as many reasons why being just like everybody else wasn't good enough for him either. It was an endless fight, and too long and deep of a conversation to have with someone he only barely knew still.

Or maybe it was just a little too scary to get so close to that anxious knot that he carried around with him like an awkward accessory that was impossible to take off and leave at home just because it ruined his outfit – or a good portion of his waking hours.

Either way, Kibum was satisfied enough with how Jinki handled his first official introduction into his world – even though, to tell the truth, that experience equated to only getting through the doorway of a house and catching a faint glimpse of the rooms inside.

“Come over here,” he called. “Let's do the thing.”

Jinki put the album back on the easel with a sense of reluctance that was, in a way, flattering.

His lips formed a smirk that Kibum was well familiar with by now: Jinki was amused by something he had just thought of, and if one wanted to know its meaning, they either had to ask, or wait until he shared it on his own accord – which might not even happen. When Kibum did ask, he was usually left with a feeling of disappointment, because many of those thoughts were so trivial, he couldn't imagine smiling about them.

With that ability of making himself smirk just by thinking something, how come Jinki still needed friends?

“What?” Kibum asked, already expecting the most mundane answer in the world.

“Can I do some homework first? I didn't have the time today.”

There it is. Positively nothing to smirk about, and Kibum had stepped into that trap like some amateur fool.

The problem was, it took colossal effort on his part to keep his own mouth from smiling – for no reason at all.

“No, you can't,” he deadpanned from his throne.

They looked at each other for a moment, which somehow turned into a staring contest where both boys were trying not to blink. When Kibum began to feel his eyes getting drier and itchier by each passing second, he gave up.

“Ha!” Jinki cried out, clapping his hands.

“It's because I've been working,” Kibum argued, never one to accept failure easily.

“Working on being bad at not blinking?” Jinki retorted cheekily, and the other boy rolled his neck on top of the chair, groaning out loud in despair.

This boy was impossible.

“Can I do it on your bed?” Jinki continued nonchalantly.

“No.”

He settled down on said bed and began ping his backpack.

“Can you lend me a pen, too? Mine ran out of ink today.”

“Use a pencil.”

Jinki actually gave it some thought.

“I don't think it's right to use a pencil for this.”

“Then use an imaginary pen.”

“I can, but then I'll get a very real F.”

Kibum begrudgingly tossed a blue pen at his friend, which he caught.

“Who cares about E's and F's when life is short and everything is a lie?”

He was just fooling around now: it was impossible to stay tense for a long period of time around someone like Jinki.

The other boy tutted.

“A bundle of joy, this one,” he muttered, flipping between the pages of his copybook to the accompaniment of low thunder rolls in the distance.

Kibum laughed heartily, sinking back into the comfort of his chair.

He was glad not to be alone.

On the days when he didn't have the afternoon classes to run off to, Kibum didn't mind strolling to the bus stop together – unless he was forced to endure Taemin's exhausting presence, that is, which almost felt like a price to pay for having a nice time hanging out with Jinki alone.

Today, he was out of luck again: Taemin intruded on them at the gate of the school. Moreover, after walking on the side for a while, he somehow squeezed himself in between the two boys and dominated the conversation without a slightest bit of shame.

Did I behave the same way at my other school? If so, it certainly explained a lot.

Upon offering a vivid description of the injury one of his classmates had sustained after getting his finger slammed in the hinge of the door of the Biology class, Taemin told Jinki to come over to his place.

Kibum, who'd been tuning out throughout Taemin's storytelling, listened for the answer.

“No, I can't today. I have loads of homework to do.”

“You can do the homework at mine, and then play games.”

Jinki shook his head.

“No, 'cause I never get anything done around you,” he argued with calm confidence.

So, Jinki wasn't that much of a doormat, then. Even though it had nothing to do with Kibum, he rather liked his frankness.

“Boo,” Taemin replied in his mature manner. “Your loss.”

He left them alone, and Kibum instantly felt like there was more oxygen in the atmosphere now that he was gone.

According to the screen announcement, his bus would be arriving in a few minutes, Jinki's – a little later. It was almost time to say goodbye for the day.

Kibum wanted to say something, but wasn't sure what exactly: they had already talked a lot that day, so no words were necessary. But were they somehow needed? That was another question.

Watching the leaves falling down slowly from the trees lining the other side of the street, he relaxed his shoulders and slid his hands into the pockets of his uniform trousers. He didn't know what was wrong with him.

The two boys glanced at each other and Jinki gave him a little smile of amity.

When Kibum finally came up with something to say, he saw Jinki look over his shoulder and wave at someone cheerily.

What now?

It was, of course, Arisa – the final piece of their puzzle, walking towards them with a tired, but sweet expression, to complain about all the work that had to be done until tomorrow and get some relief from the fact that Jinki shared every single one of her frustrations. In a way, Kibum understood where she was coming from.

Kibum checked the screen again: his bus was two stops away now.

“I'll just study at this nice little cafe nearby, I think,” Arisa said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I can't concentrate well when I'm in my room…” Her voice trailed off like a distant lullaby.

“Just don't forget to take breaks every hour or so. It's not good to overwork yourself,” Jinki advised her kindly.

“Sure.” Arisa sneezed into her hand. “Sorry...”

Kibum's bus was almost there.

“Maybe rest it out today? I think you need a break,” his friend suggested.

The girl took out her embroidered handkerchief and smiled apologetically.

“No, I shouldn't get lazy. So… I'll go.”

“Okay, just take care.” Jinki leaned over to give her a supportive pat on the arm.

Arisa laughed, looking down. The pink hue on her cheeks suited her complexion well.

Sometimes Kibum forgot that those two were going to get married in a few years: it was easy to do so when Jinki insisted on being so obtuse.

“Yeah... I'll… I'll go then...” Arisa murmured, finally.

“See you tomorrow!” Jinki chirped with another wave.

“Yes… I loved your still life with the apples last week, by the way,” she said to Kibum, who was biting his lip as he watched the traffic lights at the crossroads.

“Thanks. You did well, too,” he said with a distracted nod, wishing he knew what else to add, except the same “See you tomorrow.”

As soon as the sweet apparition vanished (no doubt, unsatisfied), the bus was here to take Kibum away, too.

The door opened, he inhaled to say one last goodbye, but as his fingers reached for the T-Money card that he carried in his back pocket, something else happened.

Kibum turned to Jinki and said:

“Wanna come over? Gran made soup today.”

“Sure,” the other said simply, and the moment of parting was pushed back again.

Kibum's grandmother took immediate liking to Jinki. Which was not surprising: he was well-mannered, a helper, ate well and studied well, and on top of that, liked old people's jokes and was good at them too. Kibum knew that, by letting them meet, he had introduced a new name into their household – one that he'd be from now on compared to whenever he was not up to par. It was okay: Kibum knew that Jinki was not the kind to take pleasure in being superior to his friends, and that made him a safe rival.

Grandma Kim had never liked Taeyeon the same way, undeservedly so, Kibum felt. But it wasn't hard to understand the reason: Taeyeon had been too modern, too liberated, and although she had mostly minded her manners around her elders, one could just feel that she belonged to the new era and had her own strong opinions. Which was precisely why Kibum had liked her so much.

He could see that Jinki was in no position to try to interrupt or wrap up the ongoing conversation on how music had been so much better some forty years ago, so at some point he took the boy's hand, told grandma Kim that they had work to do and led him away to his room. Kibum wasn't so keen on sitting down to open his textbooks again: he just wanted to have his friend all to himself.

Jinki didn't hurry to take out his books either. He dropped on the bed and cheered as Kibum excavated his stash of snacks from the depths of some obscure drawer.

Candy wrap rustled, and Kibum ordered:

“Open your mouth.”

Jinki obeyed – and laughed uncontrollably when a lollipop was put on top of his tongue. He had to take it out for a moment for safety reasons.

Kibum, who had gotten himself the same lollipop too, waited patiently as he put the candy back in his mouth and got the first proper taste of it.

“Mmm!” Jinki exclaimed finally, his brows rising in delight. “It tastes like vanilla ice cream! What is it?”

“Vanilla ice cream candy.” Duh.

Kibum plopped on the bed next to the other boy with his secret box in hand.

“Wow, where are these all from?” Jinki wondered, studying the tempting treasures.

Kibum propped himself on an elbow, mirroring the other boy's position.

“From my Japanese friends,” he answered, not without pride. “We send each other stuff sometimes.”

Jinki picked out a melon candy and examined the wrap.

“You have Japanese friends?”

The other nodded.

“I have Japanese friends. I met them at a language exchange course.”

“That's so cool. I used to have an internet pal a couple of years ago, a girl from Busan.”

“What happened?”

“Why do you think that something happened?” Jinki retorted, trying to look offended, but without much success. He was self-aware enough to admit that the question was valid.

“Because it's you. Something always happens.”

“Well, it's kind of...”

Jinki rolled onto his back and put his arms beneath his head. He heaved a sigh.

“She went to Jeju with her parents in summer...”

“And?”

“She sent me pictures of her there and all. And I told her that my girlfriend has the same dress, and I think she didn't like it, 'cause she didn't reply.”

Kibum knew by now that, with Jinki, one could safely expect the unexpected, but he did need a moment to process what he'd just heard.

Girlfriend?

“Then, in a couple of weeks, I messaged her again just to see if she's okay, and in a few days she replied that she was going through a hard time because her hamster had passed, and that she saw no potential in our relationship since we both had changed, and she was not the same girl she had been three months ago. So, that was it.”

When no reaction came, Jinki looked at Kibum, who was biting his lip absently.

“You're not gonna laugh or call me names?”

“Oh, yeah, you're ridiculous. Ha.”

Jinki gave him a nudge.

“What?”

He couldn't understand Kibum's unresponsiveness.

What, indeed?

He should just ask – it shouldn't be a big deal. It's not even that important... But if it's not that important, why ask at all?

Jinki took the lollipop out of his mouth, it glistened in the orange glow of the twilight sun coming through the curtains. Time was ticking, and they still hadn't touched their books.

“Do you have a girlfriend now?” Kibum asked directly.

“Does it seem like I do?” Jinki parried, amused.

Was he even capable of being earnest? Sometimes Kibum just wanted to smack him.

“I guess not, then.”

He forgot to be awkward and lay down by his friend's side, putting his head on his own pillow where it rightfully belonged.

Kibum felt the mattress vibrate with Jinki's laughter.

“Why, is it so obvious that I don't?”

“I mean, she'd have to compete with Taemin for your time.”

“Oh, actually…”

They turned their faces towards each other, and Kibum realized that his bed, although generally spacious, did not allow for two adults to lay side by side and have comfortable distance between them. Jinki was awfully close. Was the waft of vanilla-flavored air coming out of his mouth, or did Kibum still taste it in his own?

He gulped.

“Taemin has a girlfriend,” Jinki told him confidentially.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I have no idea what their arrangements are.”

Kibum tutted, shifting his eyes back to the ceiling.

“Are you shocked?”

“That Taemin has ‘arrangements’? I'm shooked.”

It is true that they had a lot of things to do: Math exercises alone were a pain, and that without mentioning the History essay and whole pages of formulas in the Physics textbook that needed solving and were probably as easy for Jinki to crack as they were impossibly hard and boring for Kibum. If they wanted to have anything done, this was the time to quit lying around and reach for those school bags. It's what they should be doing... but neither of them seemed to want to.

“I'm a bad influence on you,” Kibum said, finally addressing the academically indisposed elephant in the room.

Jinki lifted himself up to attend to the candies again.

“It's all the sweets,” he shrugged.

“Should I take them away, then?”

Now Jinki did look offended.

“What an awful thing to say.”

They both laughed, and a silence fell between them again. Kibum wasn't good at those, and often felt the pressure to say something – even when words just weren't coming, as it often happened with Arisa. But being quiet with Jinki was somehow okay.

He was feeling drowsy, too – maybe that also played a part. He was relaxed, and even those unsolved exercises seemed like someone else's business right now.

“Wanna watch me draw?” Kibum asked in a true moment of guard put down. “Our thing,” he elaborated for no reason.

“Sure.”

“See you at my desk in two marshmallows, then,” he said, sitting up.

Jinki, who was absorbed in consuming the aforementioned snack, tried to bargain:

“But I haven't even checked the traffic yet. Let's say four, just to be safe.”

Kibum was strict, but not too much so:

“Three is the limit.”

A/N: Hello readers! I apologize for the long break. After my phone broke and I lost some of my writing files that I had failed to update copies of, I needed time to accept the loss and begin re-writing most of this chapter all over again. In many ways, it was for the worse, but in another way, it was for the better, as I had more time to reflect on how I want the story to progress and now it is more complete in my mind than it was before. I never stopped thinking about it and it is as dear to me as it was at the beginning, perhaps even more so now. The chapter that resulted was twice as long as an average one, so I decided to break it in two parts and I will upload the second half soon, as it is ready. I hope that you guys are still here and can forgive your author for the huge delay. Thanks always for your support and welcome to the new subscribers! Enjoy and take care~ L.