Chapter 9 - The Lecture

  You can finally reach home after the risky walk you went through school earlier. You succeed exiting the school gate without the teachers noticing by hiding when you sense one of the teachers nearing, and vice versa.

  The moment you open the door, you found nobody there so you assumed that Jongup will home late. You traipsed lazily to your room to toss your bag on your bed and doing your usual routine when you got home. After you get changed, you walked downstairs only to halt and find the front door hung open. You blinked several times, as you remembered you already closed the door before. You were about to made your way to close the door when a pair of arms carrying two cans of cold soda wrapped around your neck coming together with a sudden weight bumped behind your back making you stumble forward from the sudden crash, but you managed to gain back your balance. “One cheer for Jongup's victory!”

Your shoulders slumped down as now you knew who that was.

“For what?” You asked lazily. He snickered before proudly answer your question.

“For winning against my little sister!” He beamed then clinked both the cans in front of your face before hand one can to you. You reluctantly accepted the can but didn't open it. He opened his can before take a sip of the soda. He changed his position from backhugging you to head-locking you. “Come on, take a drink. You must be tired from running away from our Zelo,” a smug grin was shown on his face since the beginning.

Your face fell immediately when hearing his name. You seriously need a calm moment without any mention of that name.

“Don't bring that topic please,” you whipped your head to his direction before protest, “And what the heck is 'our Zelo', you dimwit.” you flicked Jongup's forehead then pried his looped arm off your neck.

“Ouch, don't be such a coward Tae, and who gave you permission to touch my precious forehead?!” He rubbed the sore spot while nagging at you. You, of course, ignore his wrath as you plopped yourself on the couch before opening the soda can.

“You better close the door than wasting your useless yell—” a loud bang of a slamming door made you stop mid-sentence then looked over your shoulder only to see the grumpy Jongup stormed towards the couch you were at before he slump his body right beside you. “Good.” You nodded once and returned your attention to the TV program.

“You should be thankful that I still didn't throw you to a dumpster because of your attitude, Moon Tae Rin.” Jongup said after he took another gulp on his soda. The creases on his forehead still didn't decrease.

“What's wrong with my attitude, Moon Jongup?” You calmly asked back while your eyes still fixated on the screen. He mentioned your fullname, then you will do the same. When he included your fullname into a statement or question, that usually means seriousness.

“Many,” he breathed out, “So many that even  ten pieces of paper wouldn't enough to write all of your bad attitudes.” You scoffed when hearing his answer.

“Yes because your writing is worse than kindergarten kids, and even one piece of paper only fit one sentence of your handwriting,—wait, one word to be exact.” You flatly finished your statement.

Jongup looked not so pleased with your answer, “I'm being serious right now, can't you at least show respect towards your older brother?”

Respect. That word seemed can't be go together with Jongup's name. You just simply couldn't change your attitude towards him. You already comfortable by treating him like this.

Well, this wasn't the first time he talked about your behaviour. He often bring this kind of topic whenever you made mistakes which made him go nuts. And this simple flick-on-the-forehead was included regarding to that 'Jongup's Dislikes' list along with the other things that he won't appreciate if you disregard any of them. And being the  you, of course you kept on doing the things he prohibited for his own sake. And, of course you kept getting lectured by the faultfinder, Moon Jongup.

“I just can't,” You flatly admitted. He sighed before he took a deep breath, preparing for his typical admonition. You straightened yourself a bit, feeling alerted from seeing Jongup's action.

“You know, there are so many problems with your attitude. Specifically towards me. Don't just because we are only about one year difference so you can act all at will. Me, your older brother feel being neglected to be honest, because, yes, you never hear me and take my reprimands seriously. You surely consider them as nonsenses and rubbishes, you might think that I just talking bulls and act like a wiseacre. But no, I talk like this for your own benefit. I won't talking s if you watch your attitude, Tae. I would definitely not.”

You felt yourself sank bit by bit during his lecture session. True that you already received such lectures before. But, you either didn't know that in every lecture he utter, you always inevitably feel different feelings and miraculously realize your fault. You mentally thanked God that his lecture was already over. You supposed.

“And about fixing your attitude,” he resumed his admonition after he paused for a while. You groaned silently as you took another sip on your unfinished soda. Your guess was wrong, he didn't get tired yet from pushing you down. You felt like escaping this house whenever this kind of situation happen. You diverted your gaze elsewhere, searching for any distraction but ended up found none. Even the TV program seemed like only some moving pictures without any voice. All you could hear was Jongup's unstoppable lecture.

You fiddled the can and tried to focus only on it. Your mind kept telling you to leave but you declined, because that would only be a stupid move that could bring you to hear the longer lecture than it ought to.

“But, from the accident that happened this morning, I just realize,” Jongup paused for a bit, you stopped as well from fiddling the soda can.

“What's with the sudden enthusiasm, dear?” A smug grin made an appearance on his face as he shifted closer to you. You gulped down your saliva  nervously.

“W-what?” You replied feigning deafness.

“You heard me,” Jongup's voice became stern for the moment. You sighed in defeat before you forced yourself to change your expression to the usual nonchalant one.

“Well, his headphones attracted me,”

Jongup put his chin on the edge of your shoulder as he looked up and tilted his head a bit. “Really?”

You nodded once as you tried to focus on the TV. Jongup blinked his eyes a few times before he widened his eyes, attempting to be like a lost puppy and pouted his lips, acting cute.

“You lied to me,” He whined cutely like a kid. You watched him in disgust as you shrugged your shoulder off to make his face fell off your shoulder. “No.”

Other people, especially the girls in your school might be swooned by his cuteness. But not you. In your eyes, Jongup was just a fool, annoying brother that you hate but can't help to love for. You already witnessed his endless cute acts and of course you already used to it. And his cuteness really couldn't work on you, despite everyone said that you were lucky to see him acting cute so easily and frequently.

You used to clap and coo happily if Jongup act cute in front of you, when you were a kid. He used to cheer you up by doing cute things or dancing funnily when you were feeling down or even when you cried. He even hugged you to comfort you from the sadness you felt. But as the two of you grew older, you found it wasn't necessary anymore for him to do something like that. You were a grown up girl now, and you could take care of yourself. There's no need to ask him to lift your mood up by acting cute anymore. Only by talking to each other without any bickering can simply lift your mood, though.

“Yes you did.” Jongup insisted. “Two days ago, you said that you didn't care about him. And yet you just got busted tailing after him this morning,”

“I didn't know that was Zelo. And I didn't follow him, he's just walking in front of me. And I like his headphones. So that's all just coincidence.” You managed to find an at least logical excuse.

“When common people walk behind a stranger, they usually keep a good space to the person in front of them. Except if they were in a crowded place, I bet you know that. And i'm really sure that the road was pretty empty. Well, maybe there's three or four persons walked past me, but that's all. And I found that you were right behind him, I could tell that you were following him.”

You scowled at his oh-so-accurate remark. “It's up to you then. I'm just telling you the truth anyway, I didn't even know that the gigantic boy who walk in front of me was that Zelo guy.” You stayed still with your blunt personality that made Jongup pursed his lips in irritation. He sometimes got tired of your coldness but he couldn't lose so easy on you, because, yeah he was still the hard-headed Jongup. You may be a cold person, but he didn't actually care since he kept on succeeding to make you pissed off and made you go out from your cold state. And he thought that was actually a thing that can be proud of. Melting—or even boiling the cold Moon Tae Rin from an ice into a stream of fume was absolutely one of his favorite daily things to do. He always found it amusing to see your usual flat face transforming to the full-of-rage one.

“Says the one who already busted that she was obviously tailing after the guy.” You scrunched up your nose at Jongup. Already tired to start any mouth battle, you tried to focus your attention only on the TV, hoping that you couldn't hear Jongup's reply anymore.

Hearing no answer from you, Jongup began to nudged you shoulder repeatedly making you beyond furious. Then the next move was a bit unpredictable. Jongup ended up lying on the floor with a loud thump because of your sudden kick. The annoyance and hatred that fulfil your soul made your kick became so powerful that it could make Jongup fell off the couch.

“Stop disturbing me.” You coldly said as your cold stare fixated on the boy who was groaning in pain.

“Stop irritating me!” Jongup half-yelled as he rubbed his aching . You found a pair of earphone that placed randomly on the carpet which actually was Jongup's. You carelessly plug the earbuds to both of your ears and dumbly but expressly didn't plug the cable to your phone or anything. Instead, you just fiddled the end of the earphone with your fingers.

“And stop ignoring me! You think i'm dumb huh?” He shifted his way to your place before he pull the earbud that plugged on your ear harshly.

Yes, you are. You mentally answered him as you rubbed your ear, muttering incoherent things about how you hate Jongup and how stupid he was.

“And you think i'm deaf?” He peevishly asked you because he caught a few words you muttered before, but his attention was on his phone screen.

You lazily shrugged as you got up from the couch and made your way to your room. The mood to watch the TV already disappeared because of Jongup. You decided that it would be better if you watch a movie in your room than being disturbed by him.

Meanwhile, Jongup who at first planning to call Zelo in purpose to annoy you, still dialed Zelo's phone number to know about what he did to you earlier.

After a while, finally Zelo answered his call with a hum.

“Hey, about the culprit who spurted the juice earlier...” Jongup began with a smirk on his face.

[A/N] I'm so so so so sorry for the late late update..

but anyway,

Happy Birthday Zelo! Thanks for being my boyfriend since we're still in diapers. Lol kidding. but yeah, best wishes for you. I love you.