Chapter 8  

Provocation

Mino threw a quick glance over at Jihoon. He was digging into his dinner like it was his first meal of the week. Zico on the other hand was just mindlessly twirling his noddles around in his bowl, not eating at all. Jihoon had insisted to cook for them that afternoon since they had yet to eat together since school started, but something was obviously up with Zico and he didn’t think it was a fear of food poisoning. 

    "You know, the other night" Zico began and Mino looked over at him. 

    "When I got home. I really felt like I was walking in on something" he said it in such a serious tone Mino felt a bit uneasy. 

    "I told you we were listening to his radio show. You didn’t walk in on anything, we were only sitting like that because the power went out and it was freezing" Why did Zico even feel the need to bring this up. Their neighbors used to hang out a lot the previous year and he never mentioned it. 

    "If you say so" Zico said and finally began eating his dinner. Mino watched him for a minute before continuing on his food too. 

Jihoon went on to talk about his weekend plans for the coming weekend, a trip with some guys he worked with to a mountain cottage. They both encouraged him to have a fun time, but Mino was mostly happy because that meant he might the the place for himself if Zico too got plans. 

    "He is quite cute isn’t he?" Zico said after they were all done with dinner and Jihoon clumsily tripped over a pile of books on his way to the bathroom. 

    "Eh? I guess" Mino replied now looking at his phone. Seungyoon’s first proper radio broadcast was to go live in about an hour and he really didn’t want to miss it. 

    "Not Jihoon, Seungyoon" Zico said turning in his seat to look at him. 

Trying to keep a straight face he looked up at Zico from his phone. In comparison to himself who had only been with women had Zico dated a guy before, tiny fellow with really odd hair, he thought his name was Kyung something.. 

    "Why would you say that?" he asked casually, making sure not to meet Zico’s piercing gaze. 

    "Just an observation" Zico said, an odd smile playing on his lips. "Don’t you agree?" he added after not getting a response. 

Parts of him wanted to tell Zico to back off, but for some reason didn’t he find it in him to say it. Was he unsure of his feelings? Since when did he become such a coward? His mind was already making up excuses for him like "its all so new" and "the fact that Seungyoon was a guy" but the truth was that he wasn’t ready to be confronted about attempting to be in a serious relationship. 

    "He is my type you know" Zico finally said which made him snap out of his spiraling train of thought. 

    "Really?" he asked meeting Zico’s gaze for the first time. 

    "Mhm" Zico responded and Mino was about to say something along the lines of mine too when Zico’s phone started ringing. He got up and excused himself before going to his bedroom to answer the call. 

Watching Zico’s back disappear into his room he was left to ponder what in the world was up with himself. He should have just told him to back off, just like with those girls at their date before. What was it he was missing? He’d never had an issue with stepping up in these situations before. 

He had just decided to go clear his mind a bit by working on some music for school before the broadcast when Zico returned from his room. 

    "I’m going out for a bit" he said flashing his usual toothy grin. 

    "Okay, see you" he replied and went to his room. 

Seungyoon looked at the watch on the wall feeling useless. The power outages that had happened over the last couple of days had caused computers to get fried all over campus and now it had become apparent that the tech room they had booked for the radio broadcast had suffered the same fate. 

To make things even worse were the two most experienced guys in the club sick with a flu and so they had not been able to fix it. The last one who had been their only hope had called a friend for help, but now less than an hour before the broadcast was there still no friend to be seen. 

He was just about to go buy himself some coffee when the door opened and Zico walked in. 

    "So whats the issue?" he asked before even sitting down. 

The friend that had been called on was Zico? Why weren’t he surprised. Zico was everywhere on campus and probably the one of his neighbors he’d run into the most at school. The fact that he was studying the same subject didn’t take away from things either. 

    "Hi there neighbor!" Zico greeted him happily before switching seats with one of the radio guys behind the row of computers. 

    "Well this one is completely dead isn’t it?" Zico said after just a couple of minutes, instead of trying to fix the computers had he brought up and connected his personal laptop to the system instead. 

In the end had they been ready to go live just in time thanks to Zico who had joined as an extra guest after some persuasion from his friend. Seungyoon who was still anxious about going live for the first time found it surprisingly comforting to have Zico there as he spoke a lot and probably would have his back should he mess up. 

Since this was the relationship column was it mainly hosted by two girls in the club and two boys. Today’s theme was friendship and most people who called in got pretty standard issues which even he would have felt comfortable giving advice on. He felt that Zico got some good input too, but mainly they let the girls run the show as they were the ones with the most experience. 

He was relived when it was all over as he had almost expected Seunghoon to call in something as a joke to mess with him seeing as both he and Jinwoo had promised to listen in. 

Thankfully had there been no bad jokes although one question hit home with him as it concerned a friend who suspected two of his friends were together without telling him. 

He and Mino weren’t together though, they just liked each other, whatever that contained. They were dating, but not exclusively or? He sure was, but he didn’t expect Mino to, even though he hoped he was the only one. Maybe he needed to discuss this with Mino soon. 

    "Hello, you in there?" he snapped out of it too look directly into Zico’s smiling face. 

    "Ready to head home?" he asked pulling on his long coat, before opening the door for him. Most of the others had already left, but he said his goodbyes to those still left before walking out the door. 

Zico quickly caught up to him as they walked beside each other down the long hall towards the campus square. Most of the lights were off and one of the fluorescent lights by the exit were blinking ominously. 

    "You saved us today" he said smiling over at Zico who was checking the timetable for the bus on his phone. 

    "It was fun, I’ve guested on the student radio before, but never on this show" he said brows furrowed while looking at the phone. "We just missed the bus, it’s another 30 minutes until the next one" he continued before looking out at the dark outside. The storm had subsided considerably over the last few days, but it was still raining and pretty cold. 

    "Should we go grab a coffee at the convenience store by campus while we wait? We can see the bus stop from there as well" Zico suggested and he agreed. It would be a better spot to wait than these dark halls.

They made their way to the convenience store quickly dodging the tiny rivers created by the rain that was flowing across some parts of the pavement. They bought each their coffee’s and sat down on the barstool’s by the window with a view of the bus stop. 

    "How has university life been so far?" Zico asked taking the lid off his coffee to heat his hands on the rising steam. 

    "Good, I like it a lot" he admitted burning his tongue as he took the first sip of his coffee. It was too bitter for his taste, but he had thought to pick up a bag of sugar and was now trying to pry the lid off his coffee without spilling it on himself or the counter. 

Zico just shook his head at him and laughed a little before holding out a hand silently to offer his help. Giving up he gave it to Zico who took it off in one swift motion. 

    "Thanks" he said already pouring a whole bag of brown sugar into his coffee. 

    "Thats a lot of sugar" Zico noted before taking a sip off his own coffee. "Ah, so hot. I think I burned my tongue" he complained before starting to blow air onto his coffee in a poor attempt to cool it down. 

    "Welcome to the club" he murmured sticking out his numb tongue to prove his point. Zico stopped mid motion and smiled before nodding. 

    "I think I can see it actually, both harmed after a brave encounter with convenience store coffee" he concluded while laughing a bit and Seungyoon laughed too. 

He liked Zico, he was easy to get a long with and easy to talk to. They spent the rest of the wait for the bus talking about their lecturers and their favorite school subjects. He was almost a bit disappointed when it was time to go to the bus. 

Taking a seat next to Zico on the bus he looked quickly at his phone to see no new messages. He had hoped Mino would have listened in to the broadcast and maybe left him a comment on how he thought it had gone, but there was nothing. 

    "Ah, right" Zico said beside him looking at his own phone. "Jihoon talked me into going to the movies with him this weekend to see this new action movie, but today he told me he’s going away all weekend with people from work" 

Zico held up his phone showing him an email from Jihoon with tickets to the cinema that weekend. 

    "Think you want to go? I already asked Mino, but he said he got plans at school on Saturday" Zico asked already putting his phone away. He thought about it for a moment, Mino had not mentioned any such plans to him, but he didn’t know about his schedule at all so Zico was probably right. 

    "Sure" he said with a smile, he’d wanted to see that movie for a while and was secretly hoping he and Mino would go, but it didn’t matter, there were lots of movies for him and Mino to see later. 

When they got home he was happy, the broadcast had gone well and now he had plans on the weekend to look forward to as well. He only hoped to hear from Mino before going to bed and the day would be perfect. 

He was greeted by Seunghoon and Jinwoo who were watching one of Jinwoo’s dramas huddled together on the couch both petting a cat each. 

    "Well done today!" Jinwoo cheered once he saw him. 

    "You should have told us Zico would be joining you" Seunghoon added before praising him as well. 

    "The questions weren’t bad at all, anyone could respond to those" Jinwoo continued before turning his attention back to the tv. 

    "The theme was friendship though, later there will be worse ones like breakups and such" he explained while making himself something to eat. 

    "You can do it" Jinwoo cheered heartily at him, but Seunghoon had already turned his attention back to the tv as someone was dying a particularly terrible death. Jinwoo noticed the screaming from the poor dying man on the screen and was soon fully absorbed in the war scene as well. 

Smiling he finished his food while sending Mino a message, occasionally throwing a gla