Your friends had been pretty mad when you finally showed back up at the hotel. While you had the forethought to text your teacher sometime in the night that you were out and safe, you didn’t say anything at all to your friends.

When you finally drug yourself back over to your room, still in the same clothes from the night before looking pretty disheveled and unable to stop smiling you were greeted by a handful of frowning adults.

“And where have you been all night?” Julia demanded, crossing her arms over her chest. You closed the door silently behind you.

“Just… Sightseeing,” you stated softly.

“Yeah, but with who?” Caitlin insisted. Your cheeks reddened, betraying almost immediately who you had been out with. You still tried to deny it.

“Who even says-”

“Have you not seen the post yet?” Julia interrupted before you could speak. She rolled her eyes. “How is it we see all the stuff about her boyfriend before she does?”

Your eyebrows raised in a way that must have seemed a little comedic because it made Paige- who was also in the room for some reason- giggle. You pointed at her.

“Did you guys tell her?” You exclaimed accusatorily, your brain doing a mental 360. While you trusted Paige not to tell anybody or make a big deal out of this, you worried what would happen if too many people knew about this. You didn’t want anyone to find out and get mad at Jihoon, especially since the two of you weren’t even sure exactly what you two were.

“Oh they didn’t have to tell me anything,” Paige stated in response, putting her hands on her hips. “All I had to do was look to my left to see him kissing you.”

Your face turned beet red.

“Wha-”

“How could you two be so careless, you idiot?” Julia asked, sharply hitting you over the head. You pouted again.

“I told him not to,” you mumbled softly, but no one in the room seemed to care. Caitlin just shook her head slowly and reached forward as if she were about to hit you too. “Don’t do that! You should be hitting him!”

“How long have you two been a thing?” Paige practically squealed, rushing over to you and grabbing your hands. You were surprised by the action, but forced a laugh from your lips instead of showing your discomfort.

“Oh, we aren’t a thing,” you mumbled. “Uh, just friends I guess.”

“Friends who are with each other for the first time in weeks for ten seconds and he is already dramatically pulling you into a kdrama worthy kiss?” Paige asked, raising her eyebrows. “Seems plausible.”

You scoffed and dropped your bag to the ground, sliding your shoes off your feet.

“It’s complicated,” you mumbled softly. “I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed.”

Before anyone could say anything else you shuffled past them and fell face forward on your bed, glad to be back in your hotel, but already missing the time you had spent with Jihoon.

-

Once you got back to Korea from Japan, the first thing you did was start working again.

You picked up more hours at the little store then you ever had before, and started spending all your free time there. You studied on breaks or between gaps in shifts and did your homework in-between sleeping and everything else.

Your friends were giving you space, even though you didn’t really need it. They had just assumed you were trying to consume yourself into as much as possible to help you forget about the fact that Jihoon was still in Japan.

But you weren’t upset really, you were fine.

Happy even.

You finally felt like you were in the groove of things again. Like you had control over your life again.

You had just gotten through a short rush at work and were turning to grab some supplies to restock when the bell to the store dinged sweetly.

“Hi! Welcome! If you have any questions! You can just ask me!”
Instead of a grunt in response, you heard the sound of something falling and a sharp gasp.

“Y/n, you’re back.”

You turned around in surprise and found yourself staring at a boy your age. He was in a black shirt that was a little long on him, and he had on dark jeans and colorful shoes. You vaguely recognized him, but you had to think of…

“Jongin?” You asked hesitantly. He broke out into a large smile.

“You were in Japan for so long!” He blurted.

“It was only a week,” you mumbled back.

“A week too long, I’ve been itching to hang out with you.”

He strolled over to the front counter and rested his elbows on it staring at you with a strange expression on his face. It made you frown a bit. You hated to be scrutinized like this, especially by someone you didn’t know. And even more so, you were confused with his excitement at seeing you. The two of you had only ever met once. There was no reason for him to have missed you at all.

Somewhere in the back of your mind you knew that he hung out with Caitlin and Julia, and that he had been asking you guys if you would all ever hang out altogether, but you had a habit of cancelling on those plans, insisting you had homework or work itself.

Eventually they stopped asking you to come, but they always told you when they were hanging out with him.

“So when do you get off today? You’re not doing anything afterwards are you?” He asked you. You wrinkled your nose.

“Well-”

“Don’t say you have homework, I swear all you ever do is study and work. Hang out with me y/n!”

You stared at him silently for a long moment, wondering what his angle could possibly be.

He didn’t know you, but he was clearly intent on hanging out with you. It was honestly hard for you to tell someone no once, much less multiple times in one sitting. You didn’t want to hang out with him. That much you knew for sure. But you also didn’t want to disappoint the oddly excited guy.

All you wanted to do, to be entirely honest, was to go home and see what Seventeen had been up to. Their promotions in Japan should be coming to an end soon. You would surely see Jihoon again soon. He could be back in Korea today for all you knew and if you went out you might run into him.

“When does your shift end,” Jongin repeated. “I know you want to say no, but you aren’t giving me a chance! Hang out this one time with me, and if you don’t have a good time you never have to again.”

Before you could respond Jongin wrinkled his nose.

“God, I sound like such an atypical nice guy,” he mumbled, partly to himself. “I just really want the chance to get to know you!”

He still seemed bothered by his own words, so he kept rambling, leaning back away from the counter a little bit as he did, silently putting space between you too.

“It’s just your friends talk about you so much and you seem so cool and I just really want to get to know you and they said I have to be assertive, but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable and-”

You cut him off with a small giggle, one that startled you and him. You didn’t want to admit it, but quite honestly it was pretty cute the way he was tripping over his words just to convince you to come hang out with him. You hardly ever met anyone who was this willing to put in the effort to hang out with you one on one.

You liked to cancel plans with people if it seemed like other people might not go, and while you thought it could come off pretty evidently when you didn’t want to be alone in a room with someone, your message didn’t ever really come clear with some people even when you didn’t budge. It meant you being stuck in some situations that left you wildly uncomfortable.

His eyes lit up as he looked at you.

“So?”

“I get off in an hour,” you replied with a roll of your eyes. “I mean, if you really want to hang out that badly-”

“I’ll just stay right here,” Jeongin replied, hoping up on the counter of the little store. You stared at him in surprise, which just made him roll his eyes. “There’s no one here, join me up here.”

You squinted at him, so he patted the space next to him.

“Come on now, don’t be such a stick in the mud,” he mumbled. You sighed and crawled up onto the counter next to him, scooting over so that you had plenty of space in-between you had him. He laughed at the action. “So it’s true then.”

“What’s true?”

“You’re always an anxious mess,” he replied. “I’m not going to bite, you know?”

You hated the way that specific choice of words ripped yourself from your current situation. You thought back to that warm day with Jihoon. You thought about the park, and the sun in your eyes as you looked at the other boy wondering why on Earth he was so insistent on spending time with you.

“Come closer, I only bite when people want me to.”

You remembered the way Jihoon would laugh when you said something that amused him. The cute little way that his fingers would hesitantly prod at you, hoping to get you closer to him, hoping to make you more comfortable in his presence.

You thought about the pictures the two of you had taken that day. You didn’t think that you appreciated them enough. You had gotten to be that close to him and take a picture right there next to him. Even though you had been confused at the time, looking back on it all you could do was wish to be in that situation again.

“Why do guys always say that?” You mumbled back. “I don’t think you are going to bite me.”

“You sure act like it,” Jongin commented. “But you sure shake a lot less now.”

Your eyebrows furrowed as you looked at the boy next to you.

“What do you mean?” You mumbled. He reached his hand out, waiting for you to put your hand in his. Normally you wouldn’t do it. Normally you wouldn’t bother even humoring a guy like him. Someone who thought they knew you at a glance. But even so, something about this whole situation- being out of your comfort zone so radically like this- it made you think of Jihoon.

If you were going to be a better… Whatever you were to Jihoon then you would have to learn to be more social with him, more trusting of other people. More like you used to be once upon a time.

You put your hand in his, and after only a mere second his fingers prodded at your hand. He traced his fingers along the lines on your palm, and flipped your hand palm up, palm down, palm up, and palm down a few times before pausing to just hold your hand.

“When I first met you, you were shaking like crazy, but today you’re just normal,” he replied. You looked at your hand in his and shrugged offhandedly.

“Yeah, I have been shaking a lot less I suppose,” you mumbled.

You thought back to when Jihoon had mentioned your shaking hands, frowning a little deeper.

“Is it really that obvious?” You asked softly. Jongin pondered the question.

“Not to most people I don’t think. I always just paid more attention because of how your friends talk about you.”

You pulled your hand away from Jongin’s, an action which he didn’t seem to find too troubling as he just looked at his own hand, glanced at yours and then slid his hands under his legs.

You decided he was a little weird. A different weird from everyone else that you had met here in Korea. While Jihoon was weird, he was more weird because he was an idol who had actually developed some sort of interest in you. He paid attention to your mannerisms, more so than most people at least. He seemed to care about how you felt, liked your company, actually wanted to kiss you. It was more than you could say for most people you met.

Jongin seemed to kinda want to get to know you, but even right now you couldn’t understand why. He kept saying that it was because of what your friends would say, but you couldn’t imagine that they were saying such great things that it would make him this interested in you.

A finger flicked you in the forehead, which startled you into looking over at Jongin, he had an amused expression on his face.

“What are you thinking about?” He asked. Then he furrowed his eyebrows. “Your boyfriend? How’s he?”

Your eyebrows rose slightly.

“What boyfriend?” You blurted despite yourself. He laughed.

“Don’t be embarrassed about it, I won’t tell anyone,” he insisted. “It’s that idol right? Lee Jihoon?”

“I’m not dating Lee Jihoon,” you argued back, hitting him lightly on his arm.

“Ah, are you guys not using labels?” He asked. This time you weren’t nearly as gentle. You put both of your hands on his shoulder and pushed him off of the counter. He laughed as he almost stumbled into a display of food, just barely catching himself.

“Seriously, though you must miss him. He’s in Japan right now, right? Did you see him while you were there?” He asked. He hopped back up on the counter and gave you a sincere smile.

Normally you wouldn’t say anything to him, but you couldn’t help it at this point. He looked like he really wanted to know and you honestly really wanted to talk to someone about it. You felt like trying to hold in all of your feelings towards Jihoon was driving you crazy.

“Yeah,” you admitted softly, looking away from him to look at the palms of your hands. “We like kinda went on this huge date cause he said I should get out and see the city, and he kissed me like… Everywhere we went.”

The smile that spread across Jongin’s lips was borderline addictive. It made a smile cross your lips too.

“Shut up,” you mumbled.

“You really kissed all that much?” He teased lightly. “What else did you guys do?”

“Nothing crazy. Talked,” you replied. “But it was the most time we have ever spent together. We were together the entire night. He said that we did good for our performance, and reassured me-”

You cut yourself off, hating the way you sounded- like some stupid school girl who liked a boy for the first time and knew nothing at all, but it just made Jongin smile harder.

“Have you ever dated someone before?” He asked. Before you could answer him, he sighed. “Wait, I know this you haven’t.”

“And I still haven’t,” you repeated. “Jihoon just sees me as…”

You weren’t sure how to finish that which made Jongin chuckle.

“It’s so cute how clueless you are,” he mumbled. “Jihoon definitely likes you. He’s not the type of idol to go around just kissing fans.”

“Oh cause you know him so well,” you replied with a roll of your eyes. He shrugged.

“I know you don’t want to get your hopes up, or get too excited over something that could very well amount to nothing,” he said softly. “I’m the same way honestly.”

He began to fiddle with his own fingers, seeming to get a little nervous to just talk about it.

“I kinda have a crush on…” He trailed off uncertainly, and then shook his head. “Look, just- You gotta stop acting like this relationship with Jihoon is life or death. Just enjoy it! It’s your first relationship and Jihoon likes you. It’s that simple.”

The word made you completely drop the topic of who Jongin had a crush on. Instead you just stared at your lap.

Simple.

Another reason that you couldn’t believe that Jihoon liked you. This situation was anything but simple. For crying out loud you were an international exchange student, who would only be in town for another handful of months. You two hardly got to talk or see each other, and when you did you had to be careful about who saw and you couldn’t just take pictures with him and go on dates because he was an idol and if the fans knew who knew what they would do.

So how come when you were with him it was like all of that went out the window?

You didn’t think about your time left here, or how unlikely it would be for you guys to stay together forever, or even think about how careful you had to be to make sure no one would find out about you two. All you thought about was Jihoon’s smile when you looked at him. The soft tone his voice took when you two were together.

You pressed your lips together.

“Just enjoy it, huh?”

“I mean look at yourself, your spending your time in Korea, what? Studying and working? That’s all?” He asked. “You need to have some fun. Live a little.”

“Yeah? Live and what? Go hang out with you tonight?”

Jeongin’s eyes gleamed with light.

“Well, I mean…”

“Shift ends soon,” you replied with a sigh. “After that, I’m all yours.”