Sung Jong’s POV

I looked around the place while Kasumi stood in the line behind me. I glanced at her and looked at Woohyun. He was glaring at me as if he was wishing he was the one who was standing with her instead of me. He so have a crush on her.

Suddenly I had a brilliant thought.

“Kasumi,” I called as we waited for the line to move in the canteen. It was moving so slow. “What do you think about Woohyun hyung?”

“Deh?” She looked up distractedly from the menu.

I chuckled softly when I met her smile. Even blur she was so cute. “What do you think about Woohyun hyung?” I repeated my question.

She frowned thoughtfully. “Oh, uh . . . he’s a nice guy, I guess,” she finally answered. She turned back to the menu, choosing her meal carefully.

I arched an eyebrow at her answer. “That’s all?” I asked incredulously. Haha! I bet that Woohyun would be hurt once he hears that the girl he likes said that he’s nice — and that that was her only comment about him.

Kasumi shrugged, picking up a tray and began scanning the food for what she wanted to eat. “Well, I think he’s nice because he’s patient with me with my work and he always finds a way to make the tutoring lessons a lot more fun than when I’m in the classroom,” she elaborated.

“Oh.”

“He’s really nice and really kind.”

“Yeah, he is,” I said sarcastically. “Sure, he’s nice enough to ditch me and tell the teachers he didn’t want to be my tutor anymore.”

She shrugged, not saying anything, and I knew she didn’t want to take sides in case it looked like she favored one more than the other, which got me curious.

“Who do you like the best among the Infinite members?” I asked.

Kasumi frowned and looked up to me. “I don’t like that question,” she replied and turned back to the food. “It makes me choose between you guys and it’s not fair. You all have your bonus points.”

“But if you had to choose?” I urged.

She refused to answer my question and eventually I decided to drop it and we lapsed into silence once more.

I watched as she picked her food out carefully. I noticed that all she had on her tray was salad, and an egg sandwich. Then she added a small carton of milk along with it — totally ignoring the steak and meatballs and spaghetti.

In fact, that was what she had been eating for the past few days. She always chose the salad and sandwiches instead of trying out the ddukbokki, kimbap, and all those other food we always eat.

“Hey, Kasumi, are you vegetarian?” I asked. “You only chose an egg sandwich and a salad. Or are you on diet?”

She looked at her tray, then at mine, and realized what I meant. “Oh, anni . . .” She shook her head and smiled a small smile, looking back down at her own tray. “I just can’t afford to eat such a nice meal.”

It didn’t strike me that she was poor. I mean, this isn’t a private school, and spaghetti was only about five thousand won. It wasn’t a lot of money. Add in a drink, which was about a hundred won.

It’s not much, really.

“I only have five thousand won with me,” she went on as if she read my mind. She smiled a small smile and just shrugged, looking down at her food. “That’s how much I get for lunch money every day.”

“Oh. Erm, I see,” I said lamely. I didn’t know what to say because my parents always give me ten thousand won for lunch money and then a hundred thousand won per month for allowance.

I wonder how much she got for her allowance every month.

She paid for her food and I paid for mine, before I led her to Infinite’s table at the far end corner and saw that the others were all teasing Woohyun about Kasumi. I smirked, shaking my head.

Ah, hyungs.

“Hi,” I said as I slid down next to Hoya.

Everyone purposely left an empty spot next to Woohyun for Kasumi to sit down and were grinning like idiots.

He was blushing like crazy when she sat down next to me, even more when their fingers accidentally brushed against each other, but Kasumi was totally oblivious to everything that was going on.

Hyung should just admit that he has a crush on her, it’s so obvious, I thought, shaking my head. I sighed. I need to work on him.

“Hey, Kasumi,” Dongwoo spoke up as we began to eat our lunch, “you don’t have tutoring today, right?”

She nodded, taking a small bite of her salad. “Why do you ask?”

He shrugged, taking a huge bite of his udon. He chewed on his food before he swallowed to answer her question. “Do you want to hang out with us after school? We were thinking of going to that ddukbokki stall and eat there.”

“Hey, that’s a great idea,” Myungsoo agreed, and this time we all genuinely wanted to hang out with Kasumi, having nothing to do with setting her up with Woohyun anymore.

The only times we’ve ever hanged out with her was when she has tutoring with Woohyun, where she would just relax with us while we eat some snacks before they go upstairs for him to tutor her while we played video games downstairs, and during breaks and lunch time — and that wasn’t always. And we also didn’t know much about her — in fact we knew almost next to nothing about her personal life.

Maybe if she came with us, we could get to know her better and also —

“I can’t,” she replied softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Why not?” Sungyeol wanted to know.

“I’ve got some stuff I need to do after school.”

“Can’t you change it to another day?” Hoya pleaded.

“Yeah, I mean, we hardly ever get to hang out with you,” Dongwoo chimed in. He was pouting subconsciously.

She bit her bottom lip, playing with her salad but stopped when Myungsoo gave her a look (he doesn’t like it when people play with their food. He said that we should be considerate to the people who made the food for us). “I – I don’t know,” she said hesitantly. “This is kind of important, though. I’m not sure —”

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” Myungsoo reassured her.

Dongwoo poked his head. “Shut up.”

“Don’t tell Myungsoo to shut up, hyung,” Sungyeol said.

“Oh, please, like you don’t want her to come.”

“I do! But still!”

“Traitor.”

“Please?” I begged, ignoring the other two. I really wanted her to come. I wanted to get to know her more than what I already know, which wasn’t much.

“Guys —” Myungsoo started to say.

“Please?” Hoya, Dongwoo, Sungyeol and I begged.

“Hey, just leave her a