19.09.2014 (Friday)

How nice of my brother to drop by the shop (unintentionally). Now, if he can keep his mouth shut about Squishy, that'll be great.

Another Friday at the shop.

I thought it would be uneventful, but then again, when was it ever lacklustre since I met Squishy?

"Kyungsoo-oppa, I'm so bored..." I purposely dragged the last word while I stretched my arms, yawning as I did.

"You have your essay to complete, and it's due tonight." He rearranged some cups close to the preparation area. "So I'll have to force my jagi to do her work."

"But I have absolutely no inspiration for this!" I let an exasperated sigh escape my mouth, "I'm usually quick with narratives, but I just can't think of the plotline for this one!"

"What is it about?"

"It said to recount some of the embarrassing or awkward moments in my life." I cried, clawing at my face in a frustrated manner.

"What's so hard about that?"

"Everything!"

"You're just trying to procrastinate."

"No I'm not." I denied. Squishy was about to say something but I noticed a group of customers arriving at the storefront so I turned his head in their direction with my hand before he managed to utter a single word. "Shop duties!"

"I'll let you off this time." He groaned while trudging to the counter to take their orders. That was when I realised my brother, Soobyung, was in that group.

Hurriedly trying to cover myself, I darted into the kitchen, unfortunately succeeding in knocking a chair down. It seemed to have caught Squishy's unnecessary attention, because he yelled out a "Jihyun-ah, are you alright?" in response to the noise.

"Uh I'm fine!" I shouted back, which was a terrible idea as my brother recognised my voice.

"Noona? Is that you?"

I slowly shuffled out of the kitchen, revealing myself to my brother and his group of friends since the cat was already out of the bag.

"So it is you."

"Why are you here anyway?" I questioned before he could ask me anything.

"I should be asking you the same question."

"Yah answer me first, I'm your noona!"

"I'm hanging out with friends, duh. How about you?" He squinted his eyes suspiciously at me. "I heard from mom that you were self-studying with friends in school."

"Please don't tell mom." I pleaded, "I'll treat you and your friends to bubble tea."

"I wasn't planning on telling anyway, but since you offered..." A sly grin crept up to his face. "Who is he?" He referred to Squishy.

"Him? He's just a friend." I let out a nervous chuckle.

"Hey wait aren't you that guy from the mall?" My eyes widened when he mentioned it. He hadn't forgotten about spotting me with a guy in the mall over one of the weekends!

Before I could reply, Squishy beat me to it and said, "Yes, I am. Now I'm working part-time after school."

Okay, so now we were officially partners in crime.

"Hm okay then. So our free drinks?" A lopsided smile spread across my brother’s face.

I grumbled when he reminded me of the five drinks I had to pay to shut his mouth up. Pleading Squishy to help me prepare half the drinks, I mixed the flavours unwillingly. When we were finally done, I slammed the cups on the counter (without damaging them of course), then pushing them to my brother.

“Here you go, babo. Anything else?”

He thought for a while before exclaiming, "Good luck for Squishycookies by the way!"

I froze when I heard him say the ship name. How did he know? And if he already knew, he was just putting up an act pretending he didn't?

"How did you..."

"Instagram is a wonderful place." He signed the shape of a rainbow, which only caused me to roll my eyes.

Ugh, I should have remembered that he was following me on that social website, where all those shippers constantly comment about the ship on almost all of my new photos.

“Thanks for the drinks, bye!” My brother waved before leaving with his friends, who seemed pretty happy from receiving free drinks.

"Well that was awkward." Squishy commented, which instantly gave me the main idea of what I could write for my assignment.

"Oh my god thanks oppa! You just gave me an idea! I'll go home and type the essay out!" Blowing a kiss to him, I sprinted out of the shop.