I woke up late, around 11:45 and had to rush to prepare myself for the big day ahead of me. That night I had a dream that everything went totally haywire and there was a huge fight between Leo and Hakyeon. I prayed that that wouldn’t happen and that everything would go smoothly, but of course, these were my friends—something had to happen. 

    I made my way down to the restaurant that we had all agreed to meet at for lunch. I was the last one there when I arrived and everyone, surprisingly, already seemed to be in deep conversation, especially with Hyuk. They were all, except Ravi, surrounding him and asking him about Japan. I sneakily made my way to the table and surprised them all.

    “Hongbin!” Hyuk jumped up and hugged me, followed by Hakyeon, though I don’t know why. I sat down between Hyuk and Ravi and we all started talking. Leo even did quite a bit. 

    “How’s work?” Ken asked the rest of us. I opened my mouth to talk but Ravi answered instead.

    “I wrote a new song for that girl group, A Pink. Do you guys know them?” he asked, looking around the table. Everyone nodded their heads, listening closely. Ravi seemed pretty excited to tell the story. “You know that new song that just came out? Well, that’s the one I wrote and it’s done pretty well, I’m really proud.” He smiled. Hakyeon held up his glass of coke in the air.

     “A toast to Ravi and a toast to getting the gang back together!” he shouted and I swear the whole restaurant heard him. Everyone clanked glasses and started laughing. I was so happy with myself for getting the group back together and it didn’t even seem like anything changed. 

     Eventually, after all the food was ordered, people went off into little groups, speaking with each other. Leo and Hakyeon were sharing thoughts and Ken and Ravi seemed to be dying of laughter on their side of the table. I turned to Hyuk for the first time in years. I hadn’t realized how much I did miss him until this moment. I watched him for a second before starting to talk, unsure what I was going to say, but just letting words run out of my mouth. 

     “So, did you like it in Japan?” I asked. He looked up at me and nodded, swallowing the food in his mouth.

     “It was great, though, I missed Korea more.” he explained, sticking his chopsticks in his rice and pulling out some. “I learned a lot of Japanese while over there, which comes in great use at some points, but it’s good to be back.” he chuckled. I took a sip of my drink and smiled in return. 

     “We missed you here as well.” I gave a small nod, speaking for the rest of the guys when I really was talking about only myself. He shrugged a bit, but laughed and we continued this conversation until Hakyeon returned his attention to us.

     “Hyuk, did you miss Hongbin?” Hakyeon seemed to have an evil look in his eyes. I wanted to punch him, but held back. Hyuk looked a bit surprised at the sudden question.

     “Well, I guess. I missed all of you.” he laughed embarrassedly, rubbing the back of his neck. I glared at Hakyeon and concentrated on eating my food I had ordered. Suddenly, someone was poking my shoulder and I looked up to see Ravi. As I looked at him, I started remembering all the things that had happened before the seven years came between us; the good and the bad. I wondered why we let all the stuff break us apart, because honestly, Ravi was one of my best friends.

     “How’s Hyuk?”

     “Good.” I responded, not knowing where this was going.

     “How about Hyunsik?” 

     “I don’t know. I think he’s well.” I blinked. Why is he concerned with Hyunsik? 

     “It seems Leo and Hakyeon--” he started, but I cut him off.

     “What do you want to talk about?” I asked, trying to get to the point. He seemed surprised, but he still continued talking.

     “I told my boss about you and he seems pretty interested since I know you’re actually a good singer. Do you want to maybe come for an audition?” he offered. My eyes widened. I never thought about joining one of the many entertainment companies in Korea, but that’s not what bothered me—it was the fact that Ravi had suggested me to the CEO of the company.

     “I’ll… think about it.” I said, still in a bit of shock. I don’t know why he didn’t offer this to Leo instead, since, although he says he wants to focus on his sports career, he is quite an amazing singer. Ravi seemed to accept this and he turned his attention away from me and over to Hakyeon who was trying to get someone to listen to his story.

---

     After the meal, Hyuk and I agreed to go hang out somewhere and catch up. I was quite eager to do so, since I really did still have a few feelings for him. It wasn’t just that, though, I missed him. We walked around the city together talking. I realized Hyuk had hardly even changed that much since the last time I saw him and honestly, I was glad for this. We somehow ended up at a park that was down the street and we were walking through it. Hyuk was telling me about some of the people he’d met in Japan and although I was listening, I wasn’t really paying much attention.

     By now it was 3 and there were a lot of people walking around as well. We chose a bench to sit down on and watched the others go by. There were numerous amounts of couples walking back and forth which made the mood between us awkward. I guessed the Hyuk was thinking about the exact same thing as I was. 

     “Did you get my application?” he asked, suddenly, breaking the silence. I looked over at him and chuckled lightly.

     “I was kind of surprised you had applied.” I commented. He nodded.

     “I need a job and I knew you’ve been working there for a while, so I thought, why not?” he nodded quickly, his face filled with a glowing smile.

     “Your application looked pretty good, so you might be getting a call for an interview sometime soon.” I started talking business, changing the mood entirely.

     “I’ll be expecting it!” he said excitedly and I couldn’t help but chuckle. I began telling him about the other people working with me and how Jessica hated working too hard and Ilhoon broke stuff a lot, but they were good kids either way. Hyuk seemed to be highly amused by the employees at the shop but I wouldn’t blame him; they seemed quite the odd balls by the descriptions I was giving him. 

     Once again, the conversation turned and next thing I knew we were talking about what happened before Hyuk left, which put me into an awkward silence. I didn’t expect this of all conversations and I couldn’t tell him I still liked him a bit. He didn’t seem to notice this and so he continued talking, until he said something that caught my attention.

     “I really missed all that when I was in Japan,” he was talking about the last few days before he left. “I missed you most of all, though and I guess I was nervous to tell you at the lunch since everyone was around, especially Wonshik.” he went on, talking as if I wasn’t really there. It reminded me of Hyomi’s rants. He continued. “I’m really sorry I left for Japan in the first place, I realize now I shouldn’t have done that. I bet you like someone else already and I’m still living in the past. That’s kind of why I was so scared to come to the lunch—I knew I had to face you.” He looked down at his hands in his laps. I leaned over and hugged him tightly which caught him off guard. Soon, he hugged me back, though and we sat like that for a little while.

     “Coincidentally, I still like you too.”