“Kai.”

When he didn’t budge, I gave him another shove. My giant of a best friend lazily tugged his ear pods out of his ear and turned to me. It was clearly too early in the morning, because he looked like he could do with more sleep.

“What?”

“Look over there.” I nodded toward the two rowdy seniors sitting a few rows behind us. One of them was Choi Soobin, my brother. The other was his best friend, Choi Yeonjun. People often mistook them to be brothers.

I mean, they practically were. Yeonjun spent more time at our house than I did.

“I see two cocky seniors on a school bus… and you’re related to one of them. What’s new?” Kai answered, reaching up to stretch his long arms.

“Look at Yeonjun.” I said as quietly as I could. They wouldn’t be able to hear us, but I’d rather play safe. “I wonder why he doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

Kai rolled his eyes. “It’s because he’s ing weird.”

“Hey c’mon…” I shot Kai a look, who returned a shrug.

“What? Oh my god Soojin, you were there when he tried to dye his hair with crayons a few summers ago… don’t tell me you forgot that.”

I didn’t forget. I just chose not to remember.

Honestly, I didn’t know why Yeonjun did attempt to dye his hair slime green with melted crayons. I just knew it got a lot worse when my brother decided to help him out and almost gave our entire family food poisoning. But Yeonjun was so apologetic about it mom and dad let him off easily.

“Hey Kai, remember when we used to play matchmaker?”

Kai scrunched up his nose. “Yes, but that was in grade school.”

He was still sleepy. He could barely keep his eyes open, and he was trying to put his earphones back in his ears. I stopped him from doing that.

The bus was slowing down outside our school campus. As everyone rushed to get their belongings together before the vehicle stopped completely, I looked out the window and saw her.

Her long hair bunched up in a ponytail. I had to twist my body around to glance at her face and I was so glad I did. She had beautiful, curved puppy eyes, and an elegant nose. She didn’t need to wear any makeup, but she was hands down the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Her maroon blazer told us she was a senior, just like Soobin and Yeonjun.

Like Soobin and Yeonjun. Yeonjun and Soobin. Yeonjun… Yeonjun.

“Holy … look at that senior-”

Kai only had to take a single glance in my line of vision to know what I was thinking of.

“Oh hell no.” Kai was aggressively wrapping his earphones around his phone. The bus doors were open, and everyone were filing out to get to class. “Soojin, no. Forget it. Just let them be, okay?”

“You’ve got to help me set her up with Yeonjun. Please, Kai. Yeonjun deserves it.”

“Yeonjun deserves what?”

The owner of the name and voice was standing right behind Kai. It was hard to read his expression behind his scruffy, ‘I just got out of bed’ look, but there was just something about Yeonjun that made you not want to look away from him once making eye contact with him.

He cracked a lopsided grin.

“Yeonjun deserves… a kiss from Soojin!”

He howled with laughter at the disgust on Kai and I’s faces, then cheekily ran off the bus when my brother threatened to smack him.

Soobin and Yeonjun were soulmates. That’s what they called themselves. And frankly, nobody could disagree. When Soobin first started going out with his girlfriend Yeji, Yeonjun boycotted the friendship for a few days and lousily hung around Kai and I. It was only when Yeji begged Soobin to make the effort and spend more time with Yeonjun, that he decided to go back to being soulmates again.

Over the summer, Yeonjun had his hair recoloured a soft light brown, which made his dark hazel eyes stand out. His lips often curved and formed a pout. Over the years, I learnt that it was something of a habit. He would pout at me whenever we made eye contact. He would pout after doing something cheeky and got found out. He was really out there thinking people would get away with even the biggest of troubles if they were cute.

As obnoxious and as weird as he was, Yeonjun was pretty darn cute. He managed to get away with a lot of things.

Unfair, but there we have it.