Chapter 10

They had both sent Sanghyuk to his sister since she would always pick him up after school. Leo had not seen what she looked like, but it was apparently enough that they see Sanghyuk hopping inside a black car. 'It's always been like that,' N told Leo. 'You don't have to meet her, but she always counts on me to accompany Sanghyuk until she calls to pick him up...' Leo wanted to ask how N would be able to tell if it was the right car or not, but ultimately decided against it.

Once they were by themselves, Leo took his lifelong friend to his house since his family would not mind anyway. They discussed about where they would go beforehand and by default, it had to be Leo's house. N even warned his lifelong friend, 'You're not allowed to go to my house, you got that? Promise me that you wouldn't!' He held up his pinky finger in front of Leo and waited until the other did the promise with him. Leo rolled his eyes, but twisted N's little finger with his anyway.

The sun had finally set, yet N refused to go home unless he heard the song that Leo had been working on. Given no choice, Leo had put on the track disc on his player for them to listen together. The two sat next to each other, earbud in each of their ears. When the track started playing, N began moving his head along to the melody and had his eyes shut. This only gave Leo the opportunity to take in his lifelong friend's features: the chestnut brown dye on N's hair was fading and Leo did not even realise it until he paid attention now; N's ear had two piercing holes on them, but it was only the bottom one that he had put an earring on. Leo shifted a little to check if N's other ear was also pierced, and he only found that he was unable to because of their positions. He sighed and pressed his back on his bed. Leo's eyes travel down from his lifelong friend's head to his clothes and noticed that N was wearing long sleeves. He quirked an eyebrow, thinking about the previous days and realised that even the school uniform that N would normally wear had long sleeves. Leo found it odd since it certainly was not yet the season for warm clothes –

Before he knew it, the instrumental track of his song had already ended. Leo shook his head and just proceeded to put the disc back on its case. But then, N suddenly said that he needed to go. He was in a hurry, and did not provide any detailed reason as to why he was.

N unplugged the earbud from his ear and turned to Leo. 'Hey, Leo,' He said, but Leo did not seem to budge and merely ejected the disk from his player. 'Hey, Leo,' N repeated and this time, he poked at his lifelong friend's cheek. It was soft, He thought. Leo's skin was so soft, and above all, his skin was quite fair. He was felt envious and wished that he had fair skin too, so people would not bother him because of his skin colour. It was not something that he was proud of about himself. 'Leo~' N whined for the umpteenth time, and still, Leo had not even looked at him. 'Okay, be that way. I just want to tell you that I needed to leave so goodbye, Leo!' He stood up from the carpeted floor and dusted non-existent dirt off of his clothes. 'And before I go, remember that even if we're lifelong friends, you're not allowed to come to my house!'

Unbeknownst to N, Leo was not ignoring him even if did seem like the case. He was preoccupied with the words that had sprung to his mind when he listened to the instrumental track with N. It never happened to him before. It was as if he had a sudden burst of inspiration that he simply could not stop replaying the words in his mind to fit in with the instrumental. And by the time he escaped from his thoughts, N was already heading towards the door – 'Where are you going?' Leo inquired, getting up from the carpeted floor.

N blinked. 'Home. I told you that already! Weren't you listening?' –

– Leo definitely should have listened when he was told not to go to N's house. He sighed, thinking about how his lifelong friend had never mentioned a reason why he should not pay him a visit. But how could Leo not drop by anyway? N obviously needed it especially because of the previous exchange of words with Hongbin that made him upset. Although it may be true that he was physically closer to his lifelong friend, it was also a fact that he still did not know a thing about N, too. It would keep Leo up at night simply because he never had something to think about besides soccer before. Now, he had to worry abou