“WE’RE FREE MEN NOW!” cheered Daehyun he ran out of the exam hall.

I trailed behind with Youngjae as the other guys high-fived and whooped with joy with the rest of the grade at the notion of no more high school.

“I really don’t know what I’m going to do with myself for the next few months…”

Youngjae ruffled my hair and laughed.

“Knowing you, you’ll be wrapped up in a blanket watching K-dramas all day…”

I turned to him and grinned.

“Totally what I was planning to do as soon as I got home. I’ve been dying to see Heirs with Kang Haneul and Kim Woo Bin.”

“Not Lee Minho?”

I shrugged. Although I’ve had moments with my friends fangirling over Lee Minho, when Kang Haneul and Kim Woo Bin were in the picture… Heh. I could not help but start gushing about the two actors before somehow managing to walk into Zelo. Youngjae chuckled, of course, since he’d be the person who would always be there to witness me being a klutz. He pushed Zelo between us while we kept aimlessly walking around.

“Junhong-ah, save me from her rambling,” whined Youngjae.

Zelo pushed me forward to Daehyun who was walking in front of us. I whipped my head around as I was being pushed and glared at him while screaming insults in my mind – what the heck was he doing?!

“Maybe you should be with Daehyun instead of us, since you both have the gift of incessant rambling.”

He smirked and gave me a shove towards Daehyun. I really shouldn’t have told him that I was planning on confessing today. I squeaked as I went hurtling towards his shoulder, which I ended up grabbing in order to steady myself.

“Hey.”

He slightly turned his head and looked down at me. I gave him a shy smile and dropped my hands.

“Ready to buy me mountains of food?”

“What?”

“It was in our contract from a few months ago, remember? I’ve been getting 90s for multiple papers, and you know what that means!”

I punched his arm, pretending that no such thing happened. With him being our walking trash can, I’d probably be broke by the hour buying him enough food until he was satisfied.

“ Yah! You even promised!”

“Huh? I did?”

He scowled before grabbing my hand and dragged me off, just like the day I agreed to help him with physics, overtaking Jongup and Yongguk.

“We’ll meet you later! There’s something we need to do.”

After letting myself be dragged around by Daehyun, we found ourselves in a café that we usually went to with the other guys. Just as I was about to head towards a table, he shot out a hand and grabbed my wrist, pulling me back in line with him.

“What now?”

“You never told me what you wanted.”

“You should remember.”  

He looked at me blankly and just before I could register the pang of hurt, he tugged on the sleeve of my jumper and beamed.

“Ahh... I was just joking.” He put his hand to his heart. “I swear I’ll always remember what you order, since it’s your favourite drink and you end up ordering it after hours of deliberating whether you should try their new drinks or stick to your usual.”

He slung his arm around my shoulder as it reached our turn to order. He actually remembered that I was the weird person who drank an iced caramel macchiato all year round, rain or shine, summer or winter. Even when I’m sick… though on those days, it wasn’t the best thing to do.

“A regular iced caramel macchiato and iced coffee and a slice of cheesecake please.”

He then turned to me and gave me a huge grin.

“My dear…”

DAEHYUN’S P.O.V

I felt so giddy calling her ‘my dear’… I wonder what goes through her mind when I call her that. She probably thinks it’s just a friendly thing.

I gave her the biggest smile I could muster.

“I realised I left my wallet at home…”

Hehehe Jung Daehyun, you’re a genius.

She glared at me, pretty much threw money at an amused cashier before storming off to a table.

I chuckled as I walked to the other side of the counter to wait for our drinks. She was leaning against the window, puffing out her cheeks as she tapped away on her phone. She normally did that when she was extremely bored after checking everything there was to check on social media and resorted to refreshing the same thing every two seconds. It was cute.

I checked my phone and saw that Himchan had pretty much bombarded me with messages.

From Himchan:

3:46 PM:
YAH! Did you confess yet?!

3:47 PM:
Oh, congratulations on completing your exams :)

3:59 PM:
JUNG DAEHYUN. Stop keeping me in the dark. Have some respect for your almighty sunbae.

4:15PM:
At this rate, I’m gonna get old and wrinkly. You don’t want that to happen do you?

4:17PM:
ARE YOU IGNORING ME ON PURPOSE NOW?!

4:18 PM:
HURRY UP AND TELL HER THAT YOU LUUUURVE HER!

4:19 PM:
Man up and just do it!

4:25 PM:
Daehyun-ah, do you want Hyung to do some aegyo to encourage you?

4:27 PM:
REPLY ALREADY!

Suddenly it felt really hot and stuffy in here. I quickly punched a reply to Himchan before peeling off my blazer before I died from the heat. Just at that moment, our drinks were ready and I hastily took a swig of my iced coffee.

I pushed her ever so coveted iced caramel macchiato and this sounds completely stupid, but her frown immediately turned upside down, and her eyes lit up as they set upon her favourite drink.

I sat down in front of her and glanced up at her just as I was about to eat my cheesecake.

“Cheesecake?”

She raised her eyebrow.

“You’re willing to give up some cheesecake for me?”

I grinned and scooped up a huge chunk of my precious cake.

“Say ahh!”

I put the spoon in and she giggled. I swear they needed to turn up the air-conditioning. Why am I so flustered? Jung Daehyun, you need to chill before she notices anything and think you’re weird.

I quickly glanced at my phone as it vibrated. Like before, it was Himchan.

From Himchan:
4:48 PM:
FINALLY!

4:49 PM:
Come on man… just do it. Stop waiting.

“What’s up?”

“Huh? Oh nothing. It’s Himchan telling us to hurry up.”

Come on Daehyun, you can do it! I opened my mouth, those words, or maybe a string of words that would ultimately say “I like you”, but she somehow beat me to it. By this stage, I was sweating bullets.

“Of course. Should we head over now?”

I sighed.

“Fine. Let me finish my cake first.”

Damn it Daehyun! SO close. You were so close. Maybe I should do it just before we properly meet up with the guys… I quickly grabbed a napkin and roughly wiped my mouth.

You can do it Daehyun. It’s the moment, other than the end of the exams, that you’ve been waiting for.

Narrator’s P.O.V

I tried to resist laughing at the way he shoved the last bite of his cheesecake into his mouth and messily wiped his mouth. He then stood up, grabbed my wrist and dragged me to the basketball court across the road. I swear I nearly died when he grabbed my arm.

I stood there and waved awkwardly as Daehyun greeted Yongguk, Jongup and Himchan, who smacked the back of his head, before he jogged back towards me, scowling. He plonked down on a bench and stretched his arms above his head. Ok. I’ll do it now. I’ll tell him. It’s the perfect spot. I quickly ran through what I was going to say to him before he jolted me out of my thoughts.

“Yah! Sit down!” he cried, patting the bench next to him. I nervously edged myself down onto the bench, staring straight ahead. From the corner of my eye, I saw that he turned to face me, grinning from ear to ear. I bit my lip and turned to look at guys, not daring to make any eye contact with him.

“Isn’t it nice here?”

“Hmm?”

“The view. The view is great here.”

I frowned. What view? We were watching his friends play basketball…

“What? The only thing close to a view here are the guys… Don’t tell me you have a thing for them…”

He chuckled. Oh my god… Please stop talking so I can get this over with!

“No, silly. The view here is just great in general… Fresh air, blue sky, pretty –“

“HEY DAEHYUN! DYOU WANT TO PLAY?”

I glanced at him and motioned for him to go. I was going to be sitting here by myself, but who’s complaining? Like he said, amazing view, but bad timing.

As he stood up to join the guys, he grabbed my hand and dragged me along with him. I stumbled after him, hoping that I wouldn’t embarrass myself.

I stood on the sidelines, watching the game, while at the same time, trying to make it appear that I wasn’t ogling. Maybe I should do it after they play.

“NOONA!”

I whipped my head up and saw Zelo pretty much bounding towards us, with Youngjae trailing behind him.

“Hey, what took you so long? Weren’t you guys dying to play? Or was Youngjae delaying you?”

Zelo walked up to me and pat me on the head.

“I was trying to give you the chance!” he whispered.

Youngjae came and stood next to me before I could reply.

“ZELO! ARE YOU PLAYING OR WHAT?!” yelled Daehyun.

He smirked at me before bouncing off.

Youngjae and I stared at the game for a few moments before he spoke.

“Didn’t you want to go home and sleep?”

I glanced at him, knowing that my face was turning beet red.

He raised his eyebrow and nudged me.

“Let me guess – it’s Daehyun isn’t it?”

I smiled at him, before diverting my attention to that currently sweaty, but nevertheless, perfect guy before us.

 “YOU LIKE D-“

I slapped my hand over his mouth and stomped on his foot. Youngjae winced and glared at me.

“Shut. Up. Tell the whole world why don’t you?”

 Upon retracting my hand, Youngjae looked as if he was deep in thought, lost in his own little world of his.

“It all makes sense now…”

“What?”

“Why every time you talk to me in class, you’d suddenly get all flustered and start rambling… it’s because Daehyun is always there… When he walks in too… You pretty much –“

“I GET IT! It’s not my fault I get so flustered… it’s out of my control…” I pouted.

“So it’s Daehyun’s fault?”

“What’s my fault?”

I turned around, mortified at the thought that Daehyun could’ve overheard. He slung his arm over my shoulder, while clutching the ball with his other arm. My hands automatically shot up to my cheeks in hopes that I could cool them down.

Youngjae smirked, while the other guys peered at us curiously.

I puffed my cheeks out and looked intently at Youngjae, silently pleading him not to say a word.

“We’re hungry.”

“It’s my fault you’re hungry?”

Youngjae shrugged.

“She likes guys who play basketball.”

I opened my mouth, ready to snap back at Youngjae, but decided against it – I wasn’t great with comebacks. I’d probably embarrass myself instead.

“You do?”

I mentally facepalmed myself as all six pairs of eyes stared at me intently. Stupid Youngjae for opening his big mouth. 

Hey guys,

I don't know why, but I'm sorta not into this as much as I was before. Am I dragging it out too much or is this alright? I'm planning to wrap this up very soon... Sorry for not updating as frequently as I thought I would, since I'm free right now. 
Thank you for putting up with this and reading it anyway... I feel like it's not the best :/