Jongin

I smiled as the breeze ruffled my hair lightly, reminding of my mother's gentle fingers running through my hair.

"Dude, snap out of it." Tao waved his hand in front of my face. "I get that you like the girl, but could you not fantasize about her while I'm talking to you?"

I made a face at him, to which he responded with an even stranger face and then a wistful look in the air. "Yeah, we've all been there. Even I have. God, when I think about those white legs..."

I pretended to gag. "Don't tell me what happens next, I have enough graphic images in there already that I would like to forget."

Tao giggled dreamily. "This one I don't want to forget."

"Jesus, dude, keep it to yourself! I was just thinking about my mother!"

Tao looked at me, horrified and definetly (in his opinion, at least) violated. "Your mother? What the is wrong with you? I, at least, was thinking about someone my age!"

My face got hot as I tried to explain. "No! Not that way! I was thinking about her fingers! In my hair! Well, this is just getting better and better. Never mind. Who were you molesting in your thoughts, if I may ask? Just so I can warn her."

Tao glared at me, which, with his eyes, successfully freaked me out. "Just for that comment I'm keeping it to myself."

I opened my mouth to complain, but was interrupted by several voices yelling loudly out of the open door of a house we had just passed.

One of the voices, clearly a female's and clearly the closest, shouted, "Jongin, you little , I am so going to kill you!"

"Oh, great, speak of the devil. Watch out," Tao muttered.

I had hardly heard his warning when a force slammed into me from behind and wrapped its extremities around me, almost knocking me to the ground.

Another voice behind us snapped, "ing hell, Meilan, stop pretending to be a baby koala and get off the poor boy!"

I felt her grip loosen somewhat, but not disappear completely, until Tao peeled a very pissed Meilan off of my back, refusing to put her down until she promised not to attack me again.

Since both Meilan and Surin weren't wearing any jackets of some sort, I figured Meilan had run out when she had seen me and Surin had followed to prevent murder.

"You selfish little bastard, could you just think about her safety once? Would it kill you to listen to me? Huh?" Meilan looked at me through threateningly narrowed eyes.

I looked at Tao for support, but he was no help at all, looking like a lost puppy, completely torn between two treats.

"Jesus ," I said under my breath, blowing my bangs out of my face. "Look, gingerbread girl, I already said I would go, so....bye." I turned around to continue on my way to Chinhae's house.

"Fine!" Meilan fell into step beside me, defiantly crossing her goosebump-covered arms. "If I can't stop you, I'll come along and mess it up for you."

"Please don't."

Surin tugged on Meilan's hand. "Why do you feel the need to ruin the budding relationship of our best friend?"

"Because I don't think Jongin is dumb enough to be able to up on his own," was her emotionless answer.

Since I wasn't sure whether to be insulted or not, I decided to take it as a compliment. "Well, thanks, I guess..."

"Don't be happy about it. If you were dumb enough, I would be leaving you alone," Meilan snapped.

Surin rolled her eyes. "Yeah, we got that part. I still don't get why you want them to not be together, or whatever you want to call what they have together."

Curious for the answer myself, I looked over to Meilan to see her looking a little lost, trying to figure out what to say.

"Well?" Surin raised her eyebrow impatiently.

"It's for her own good," Meilan snapped, looking slightly relieved at her somewhat truthful answer.

"Sure it is."

Meilan rubbed her cheek in frustration. "Look, believe what you want, just...let me do this. I have a good reason."

In their mild argument I saw an opportunity to get away. My eyes met Tao's and we started to walk away quietly. Unfortunately, Meilan noticed and abandoned her defense to follow determinedly. Surin tried to grab her arm to keep her in one place, but only got dragged along with us.

With each step I took my stomach sunk lower in dismay and my heart swelled in happy anticipation. As Chinhae's house rose up in front of us, both feelings reached the breaking point. It felt like I was dragging my stomach behind me like a pathetic ball on a chain and my heart had become insanely obese and was fluttering lazily.

At my tentative knock, the door flew open to reveal a small woman with a round happy face. "You must be Jongin! Chinhae has told us so much about you! Come in!" She smiled and waved me in, accepting the bouquet of carnations I handed her with exclaimations of their beauty. Once I had passed the threshhold, Tao, Meilan, and Surin became visible to Chinhae's mother. "Surin! Meilan! Oh, do come in and have dinner with us, my dears! And who is this handsome young man? Meilan! Did you finally find someone that fulfills your many criteria? Or did you, Surin, replace that dear boyfriend of yours, Minseok?"

I supressed a snort as all three of my tag-alongs went bright red and started stammering unintelligible excuses.

Tao was the first one to manage to get a comprehensible sentence out, so the girls fell silent to let him speak. "No, ma'am, I was just accomanying Jongin, since it was on the way home, anyway. My name is Huang Zitao."

"Oh. Well, nonetheless, you are welcome to come in and have dinner with us, as well."

"Thank you, ma'am." Tao bowed respectfully and came to stand beside me.

"Please, call me Sunhee." Sunhee turned back to Surin and Meilan. "Now, young ladies, do I have to ask you again to have dinner with us?"

"Sunhee, we can't possibly accept this invitation! I mean, you alrealdy have two guests, plus two other teenagers, and a husband!" Surin protested.

Meilan sniffed the air that was wafting out of the kitchen. "Are you making spare ribs? And...Yangnyeom Tongdak?"

At Sunhee's nod Meilan turned to Surin and said earnestly, "I think we can accept the invitation. It would be rude not to, especially now!"

Surin scoffed. "You only want to go in because of your evil little plan and the spare ribs."

"Let's not forget the fried chicken! And how dare you accuse me of something like that!" Meilan put her hand on her heart and feigned hurt.

Surin opened to retaliate, but choked on her words when Meilan elbowed her in the ribs, saying how glad they both would be to eat with the Parks in a sweet voice.

Chinhae

The dinner was very strange, and not just because I was sitting beside Chanyeol. For once, he wasn't being the usual hyper puppy, something that always disrupted the peaceful atmosphere that our parents always worked hard to produce, which, of course, was something strange in itself, but not the strange thing. It wasn't even that we were three more than originally intended or that one of those three I had only met two or three times, and briefly.

The strange part was, that one of my best friends was staring daggers at the guy I liked and another one of my best friends was staring daggers at her.

Meilan sat across from Jongin, glaring at him and gnawing on a bone. Surin sat next to her and occasionally looked up from her plate to try and telepathically communicate something to her. When she realized that her silent attempts to draw Meilan's attention away from Jongin were in vain, Surin gave her a hard charly-horse on the arm.

"OW!" Meilan rubbed her arm and hit Surin back lightly, whispering, "Can't you see me trying to intimidate someone?"

"Yes. I also see that it isn't working." Surin shot a meaning glance at Jongin, who was completely engrossed in eating the big pile of chicken in front of him and answering the questions my parents were asking him. "There must be something wrong with him."

Meilan looked disappointed and gave all her attention to her food, adorably oblivious of the intense and slightly scary gaze Tao had fixed on her.

After dinner I offered to help my mother with the dishes along with Surin and Jongin, but was locked out of the kitchen along with Jongin and told to  have fun with him. What "fun with a male" means to my mother is a mystery to me, so we just decided to let our selves get ushered upstairs by Chanyeol, stopping only when we heard an odd squawk from the foot of the stairs.

We were glad to have looked down, for we were met with a hilarious sight: Meilan was struggling to get up the stairs, but was being held back by Tao, who had effortlessly grabbed one of the belt loops on her black skinnys with one hand and was inspecting the nails on his other hand.

"Tao! Let go of me!" Meilan snarled at him.

His only reaction was to grin up at Jongin, who gave him a thumbs up, while trying to keep Chanyeol from falling down the stairs laughing. That infuriated Meilan even more and she let herself fall back, her confidence that he wouldn't catch her being verified as he lost his balance, falling backwards with Meilan on top of him.

The huge crash alerted my father and he came out of the living room to see what had happened. At first he chuckled alongside the rest of us at the funny scene, but then realized it was his responsibility to see if they were okay, since neither of them were legal adults.

"Meilan? Zitao? Have you hurt yourselves?"

Meilan paused in her thrashing to reassure him. "No, Kangdae, we're fine, Zitao's just a little clumsy and he pulled me down with him."

Tao opened his mouth indignantly to defend himself, but Meilan manged to cover it with subtlety while she adjusted her position so she was comfortably seated on his stomach, clearly causing him discomfort.

We turned our back and continued up the stairs to my room as Tao pushed her off and started tickling her as a punishment to her squishing his liver.