With him spending a lot of time with Jonghun, and Seunghyun trying to juggle life between campus and work, Minhwan seemed to look rather unhappy about being left alone. Jaejin knew that Minhwan was such a sweetheart that the younger guy wouldn't say a word about feeling rather lonely. But Jaejin and Seunghyun noticed it of course. Seunghyun still got to see Minhwan at home since they shared a flat, but Jaejin had to actually make sure that he assigned some of his free time specifically for the younger guy.

"Hyung, you really don't have to go with me," Minhwan spoke up at the end, stopping Jaejin that had been talking about random stuff he could think of.

"Ha? Oh Minhwan, why did you say that? I don't have to, but I want to! Since summer holiday started, we haven't really met each other!" Jaejin insisted.

They were at a bookstore downtown because Minhwan wanted to get some reference books for his sister. It wasn't a secret that even when Minhwan hardly mentioned about his sister, the petite guy was proud of her. And Jaejin was more than happy to accompany Minhwan to the bookstore if it was about the younger guy being such a good big brother.

"I feel uncomfortable about this because I saw Jonghyun-hyung dropping you off and all. He didn't seem happy about it," Minhwan mumbled.

"Oh come on. He won't die not jamming with me for a day. Besides he wants help with his lyrics. Staying at his place the whole day won't give me the inspiration I need," Jaejin shrugged lightly. "Beside I have missed you. Look at these chubby cheeks. What have you been eating?"

Minhwan laughed, his eyes forming thin lines as they disappeared. "A lot of chicken to heal my broken heart because Seunghyun and you have been busy."

There was a warm, fuzzy feeling as he watched Minhwan laughed lightly. The younger guy's cheeks turned crimson in colour while his small eyes were bright. This was why he loved Minhwan. The younger guy was like a warm blanket that made him feel contented about everything. "I'll just look around the shop as well," said Jaejin, quickly followed by Minhwan's nod.

Jaejin walked away, making his way to where the comic section was. Summer holiday was all about the fun, so some new comic books would definitely something that he needed to buy. The bookstore wasn't all that crowded, people would be visiting all the entertainment places this time of the year. Jaejin kind of liked it. He could take his time browsing around without have to worry about his surrounding much.

"Jaejinnie?" A soft feminine voice called out Jaejin's name.

Turning his eyes away from the bookselves, Jaejin blankly looked for the source of the voice. He didn't recognise the voice but he could sense some sort of familiarity in the way he was called.

"Lee Jaejin, right?" The voice called again, and this time he could recall this voice.

"...Noona?!" He blinked in surprise - suddenly remembered this voice way too well.

"Oh dear God! It's really you!!! It has been ages! You look... taller!" the older person exclaimed in excitement.

Jaejin smiled awkwardly. It had been years indeed and Jaejin couldn't even remember the last time he had met her. There, in front of him, was a sweet-looking lady. Her hair was tied up high, the hazelnut colour of it suited her skin complexion well. She wore a beige dress, very grown-up like - showing Jaejin how mature she was, especially with the pearl necklace she was wearing.

"Yeah. I'm already 21, of course I'm taller," he answered, somehow trying to boast the fact that he had passed the legal age.

"Awww, Jaejinnie. I didn't realise that it had been that long. You were only 17 back then," she giggled.

Jaejin just smiled, remembering how they met. He was still in school and she was... what was it again that she was doing when they met? He couldn't recall anything about it.

"Oh, I have to go now. My daughter has a play date with our neighbour's kid. Nice to see you again! You look well," she smiled, tugging her hand forward, revealing a little girl that looked not any older than three. Jaejin obviously failed to notice the girl's present before.

A daughter? Wow, this kid wasn't around back then, Jaejin thought to himself. "It's great to see you again as well, Noona. Take care," he waved her a good-bye, a quick grin flashing on his face.

He stood still as he watched her walking away, hand in hand with her daughter. A well-built man was standing by the door of the bookstore, seemingly waiting for the two of them, throwing them a warm smile. It was random and unexpected. He wasn't that thrilled meeting her but he wasn't rejecting the idea either. The meeting didn't feel important, it wasn't insignificant either. But what he hated about it was how it made his heart ache. That man that was waiting for the two of them... that man... he sighed. That man could have been him. If only he was older back then.

"Got the book you want, Hyung?" Minhwan suddenly showed up.

"O-Oh, Minhwan! You're done?" Jaejin almost jumped, being way too observed in watching the small family left.

"Yes! Whenever you're ready now, Hyung."

Jaejin took a quick glance at the entrance, a feeling of relief washing over him when he noticed that they were gone. "Let's just pay for Dayoung's books, shall we?" he quickly suggested.

Minhwan nodded and didn't ask anything, much to Jaejin's relief.

---

"Song Seunghyun!" Jonghun yelled, groaning as he made a frustrated sway on the spot, was that close to crash his guitar to the nearest wall.

"I'll get it right this time, Hyung! I promise!" Seunghyun quickly pleaded, making a quick glance at his music sheet to check on his chords.

"You better be improving with your Japanese because your progress with your guitar solo is no where near acceptable!" Jonghun yelled - still.

"But my Japanese is doing well!" Seunghyun defended himself.

Jonghun turned around again, facing a clearly had-nothing-to-do-Hongki. Hongki was lazily lying down on the couch, playing with his puppy that he had brought along with him to the practice room. "Is he really improving?!" Jonghun directed his yell to Hongki this time.

Hongki put Prim (his puppy) onto his stomach, staring at Jonghun deadpan-ly. When the singer opened his mouth, Jonghun regretted ever asking because Hongki was now speaking Japanese to Seunghyun and the younger guy was replying Hongki with confidence. Jonghun himself wasn't all that great in Japanese, but he had a rough idea about what the two of them were talking about.

"You two!! Don't badmouth me in Japanese when I'm in the room with you! I can speak some Japanese! I lived with Hongki when he was in Japan doing his indie stuff!" Jonghun complained, realising that Hongki and Seunghyun were discussing the possibility of Jonghun being moody the whole day was because he wasn't getting any from Jaejin even until now.

"Chill, dude. You're too worked out for your own good. As you just heard, Seunghyun's Japanese is progressing well. He'll be ready to be sent off to Japan," Hongki shrugged, putting his attention back to his dear Prim. "Are you gonna be there living with him as well?" Hongki added.

Sighing, Jonghun decided to take a five and took the empty seat next to the couch that Hongki was on - showing an almost sullen face. "No. He'll be living with Yonghwa and his band. Manager Song will be there to take care of him personally though," answered Jonghun.

"Eh?! Who's gonna take care of me if Manager Song is going with Seunghyun?" Hongki sat up on the couch spontaneously.

"Me?" Jonghun rolled his eyes.

When Hongki showed a satisfied look almost right away, Jonghun knew that Hongki would slack around now that his favourite yet strict manager gonna be away throughout summer. Jonghun stood up, his mind still couldn't rest as he kept on worrying over Seunghyun's progress. He didn't know whether Seunghyun was trying his best or not. The younger guy was always with his guitar each time Jonghun met him in the company building. But it was hard to take Seunghyun seriously because he always looked so carefree. Not to mention his annoying Spongebob's smile.

"Doing alright?" Jonghoon asked with a much gentler voice this time as he walked to where Seunghyun was, more because he was tired than anything else.

Seunghyun looked up, staring at Jonghun with a rather conflicted expression. He then slowly shook his head. "Give me until tomorrow morning. I promised you I'll get them all right," Seunghyun spoke up, his tone was showing Jonghun that he was being serious about it.

Jonghun had to admit that since they started to work together, Seunghyun hadn't really disappointed him. True, the younger guy always got it wrong the first few times; but when he said he would get it right by tomorrow, he really did get it right by tomorrow. So despite his little un-fondness towards Seunghyun, Jonghun had learned that he could always trust Seunghyun's promises. Nodding calmly, Jonghun sat down. He decided that he should just sit there and maybe helped Seunghyun with his mistakes.

"By the way, Hyung," said Seunghyun. "Did something happen?"

The musician frowned, didn't understand what Seunghyun was asking him.

"You know... between you and Jaejin-hyung. He has been tweeting some random emo stuff on twitter," Seunghyun continued.

"Emo stuff? On twitter? He has twitter?" Jonghun frowned again, this time in more confusion.

"Of course he does! You didn't know that?! Aren't you guys supposed to be boyfriends or something? Even Hongki-hyung follows him on twitter," Seunghyun pointed out.

"I didn't know. He never mentioned it before. How could Hongki know his twitter?! Oh God that idiot. He should have told me," Jonghun cursed, taking his guitar and putting it on his lap in the process. Jonghun had twitter, but he only followed Hongki and some other close friends. He surprisingly followed Seunghyun too. Strictly to look after what Seunghyun was doing online, he said. "And we're not exactly boyfriends. Not yet," Jonghun added.

“I thought you guys had a fight or something,” Seunghyun stared at Jonghun blankly.

“We didn’t have a fight. Not at all. He seemed fine yesterday,” Jonghun frowned, wondering just how on earth would he have a fight with Jaejin when most of the time they were just being awkward with each other. Though he admitted that things were getting better and they were talking more, mocking each other more, but not to the point where it would cause any fight. “What did he tweet about anyway?” he asked.

“Just random emo tweets. Like ‘What if it was me?’ or ‘I wonder if it’d make any difference if the situation wasn’t so depressing’ or ‘I think I’m having a mental breakdown’. Of course those tweets made me think that you guys had a huge fight or something,” Seunghyun explained. “Maybe I should call him for a drink at the bar like we usually do and try to ask him if anything’s up.”

Jonghun almost dropped his guitar when he heard Seunghyun mentioning the bar, the scene where a drunk Seunghyun just leisurely kissed Jaejin quickly flashed before his eyes.

“No!” he exclaimed. “I mean... it’s okay. I’ll ask him about it or something. I’ll let you know,” Jonghun quickly added.

Seunghyun stared at Jonghun as he frowned, wasn’t sure why Jonghun just suddenly exclaimed. “Sure. Suit yourself,” he shrugged.

---

Jaejin stared at his phone screen, reading (though more like skimming) through his timeline. He wasn’t much of a twitter person like Hongki, but he tweeted regularly and sometimes when he had a lot in his mind he would tweet all day long. Jaejin wouldn’t say that he had things that made him depressed lately, but since his encounter with her at the bookstore the other day, he couldn’t stop thinking of everything that had happened. Or things that could have been different.

Tilting his head, Jaejin frowned when an email went in. It was saying something about someone following him on twitter. He opened this unknown person’s profile, frowning even further while rolling his eyes when he realised whom it was.

“Hyung...” he mumbled, nudging Jonghun that was sitting on the floor with his own leg that was rested along the couch. Jonghun was supposedly working on Seunghyun’s song. Music sheets were scattered all over Jaejin’s coffee table and Jonghun had claimed ownership of Jaejin’s guitar since he got there.

“Hm?” Jonghun answered lazily.

“Why are you following me on twitter?” Jaejin nudged Jonghun again, with his knee this time.

“Because Hongki follows you and I didn’t?” Jonghun answered flatly.

“Hongki-hyung asked me if he could follow me or not. You didn’t.”

“When did he ask you that?” Jonghun turned his head, putting Jaejin’s guitar aside.

“We met when Seunghyun, Minhwan and I went out for a drink. it was long before our date,” Jaejin explained.

“Which date?” Jonghun asked again, the tone he was using sounding like he was accusing Jaejin of something bad. Really bad.

“We had only one date,” Jaejin frowned. “Bottom line, the question now is; why are you following me on twitter?”

Jaejin watched Jonghun crawled to the other end of the couch where Jaejin’s upper body was, getting closer to where he was. The older man leaned his back against the coffee table with legs crossed on the floor. “You can always lock your tweets if you do not want to read them,” Jonghun added.

“It’s nothing like that,” Jaejin sighed.

“Then...?”

For the past few days, Jaejin’s tweets were being rather... depressing, Jaejin would call them. He didn’t want Jonghun to think that he was some emo kid that secretly had some mental issues. There was this one time when Key and Dongwoon called him to meet up. The first thing they asked was whether Jaejin was okay or if anything had happened. Jaejin was so confused about it that he literally laughed when he found out that it was because of his depressing tweets. Key didn’t have twitter, but Dongwoon was always the sweetheart in the gang that he voiced out his concern about Jaejin’s tweets to Key.

“Your timing is so bad, Hyung,” Jaejin whined at the end, resulting in Jonghun frowning in confusion.

“...did you just whine?” Jonghun asked, somehow amazed. “And what bad timing?”

Jaejin sat up on his couch, staring down to Jonghun that was sitting on the floor. Jonghun might be so bad with words, but Jaejin wasn’t any better. He could write, won some stuff when he was in high school. Might be as good as Minhwan’s sister in fact. But when it was about expressing himself... that was a little hard.

“Have you actually read my tweets?”

“I have...” the older guy answered.

“...and?” Jaejin asked again.

When Jonghun went quiet, Jaejin quickly thought that the other guy was so judging him right now. He sometimes wondered why the two of them always ended up like this, stuck in silence. At least this time it wasn’t so awkward.

“Are you okay? You seem pretty down,” Jonghun spoke up at the end. “At least that’s the impression I got from your tweets.”

“Well...” Jaejin shifted uncomfortably on the couch, avoiding any long eye contact with Jonghun.

“You don’t have to tell me about it,” Jonghun mumbled gently, crawling back to Jaejin’s guitar and his discarded music sheets. “Whenever you’re ready to tell me about it.”

“Oh, don’t do that!” Jaejin rolled his eyes.

“Do what?!” The older guy stopped crawling midway.

Jaejin groaned, standing up as he let his fingers run through his short hair. Now he had to explain himself again. This would be different if it was Seunghyun, or Minhwan, or Key, or even Mir! They would not threat Jaejin like this. Like some sort of passive person that needed some extra care when dealing with.

Jonghun, on the other hand, would treat him carefully. The older guy thought beforehand what to do or what to say. Jonghun might think Jaejin didn’t notice that, but he did. He wasn’t on honour roll for nothing. He had concluded that maybe Jonghun didn’t realise it himself, the older guy’s stupid and rather clueless face told it all.

When Jaejin opened his fridge’s door to grab some beer, he could hear Jonghun was following him to the kitchen. “This. Don’t do this,” he sighed, turning around, closing the fridge door.

“What exactly did I do?” Jonghun frowned.

“Treating me like a girl! Dude, I’m not one. I have a not a , for goodness sake!” Jaejin retorted.

Sipping on his beer, Jaejin watched Jonghun being taken aback by Jaejin’s statement. See? The older guy didn’t seem to realise it at all. Jaejin appreciated all the care that Jonghun showed him. Picking him up regularly when the older guy was free, treating him food (though at times Jaejin would insist that he shouldn’t), talking ever so softly when it was just the two of them.

But there were nights where Jaejin would just stare at his ceiling in the dark before he went to sleep. On those nights, he would realise how uncomfortable those actions had made him feel. As much as he wanted to save money on transportation, it wasn’t that he couldn’t just walk home. He didn’t talk softly either. In fact, he had the loud laugh among his friends.

“Is this the thing that has been bothering you? Making you tweet what you tweeted?” Jonghun spoke up. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know how I’m treating you like a girl, but I’m sorry.”

Jaejin almost chocked on his beer. Almost wasn’t even the right expression. He did chock a little on his beer when Jonghun suddenly just came out with a bizarre theory.

“What?!” he quickly wiped the corner of his lips with the back of his hand. “No, no, no, no! Those tweets have nothing to do with you!”

Jaejin could only sigh when he saw how Jonghun’s apologetic expression turned into an extremely confused one. How did this get so complicated? Putting his beer aside, the cold bitterness did very little to make him feel relaxed, the only effect it had on him was the cold pain shooting to his skull. He loved his beer but maybe tonight just wasn’t the night for it.

“There’s this Noona that I used to like,” Jaejin started, pausing to watch the expressing on Jonghun’s face. The lack of it didn’t surprise Jaejin, but part of him was disappointed.

Clearing his throat, Jaejin decided to continue his story telling, “So we went out a couple of times. I liked what we had, until I realised she never really saw me that way,” he continued, leaning his bum against the fridge’s door. “It was my first time liking someone that badly. Probably was my first love.”

“…then…?” Jonghun mumbled, reaching out for the beer that Jaejin had decided to abandon, seemingly in need of some alcohol support himself now.

“Then nothing. She moved away because of work. I was just a boy, so nothing I could do about it,” he shrugged. “But yeah. I met her the other day when I was at the bookstore with Minhwan. Married. One kid. Look happy.”

“And that bothers you?”

“A little… okay, maybe a lot. Like I was regretting why I was so young and whatnot,” Jaejin sighed. “I’m just overthinking stuff really. That’s why I said your timing was so bad.”

“Keep going…”

“There’s nothing more to it,” Jaejin answered flatly.

“I’m not Kibum or Seunghyun, but I can tell when you’re keeping things from me. At least I will always find out about it at the end,” Jonghun rolled his eyes.

Jaejin raised an eyebrow at Jonghun. “You didn’t know about this until you saw my tweets. So you, not being Seunghyun nor Key, kind of does make a difference.”

“You don’t have to stress out the fact that I do not know you as well as they know you,” Jonghun sounded unhappy.

Crossing his arms over his chest. Jaejin’s face turned sour. “You don’t. So man up and deal with it. I don’t know you as well as Hongki-hyung knows you, but I don’t whine over it.”

“I’m not whining over it! Why are you always so cranky when I just want to get to know more about you?” Jonghun blinked furiously, his voice raising much to Jaejin’s surprise.

Jaejin’s throat suddenly felt so tight, his brain freezing unable to think. He didn’t understand what Jonghun was saying; more like he had never seen this side of Jonghun. So short-tempered. What happened? He definitely wasn’t being cranky, he was just annoyed that Jonghun was acting too gentle towards him for his liking. And didn’t Jaejin just let Jonghun know about this Noona?! He did let Jonghun know about him more.

“Where are you going?” Jaejin frowned again when Jonghun turned back to the living room, starting to pack his things.

“Home,” Jonghun answered coldly. “You’re obviously rather out of your mind right now, and my mood is being a ,” the older guy added.

Jaejin didn’t respond to the statement, agreeing on it himself but refusing to voice it out. It irked him a little when Jonghun didn’t bother to put his guitar back to where it belonged, but said nothing as he watched Jonghun making his way out. Why was the older guy acting like this? How the hell was Jaejin being cranky over things? Nothing made any sense that night.

And there was a huge loud noise of the front door being banged close.

------

I'm not sure how they will have a fight, but since both of them are type A, so I guess it will be more of an misunderstanding than anything else XD.

Blah I don't know. I hope this chapter works :P