A week had passed since that day and I visited my mother every day and worked the rest. I put studying on the back burner. I had no other choice, I needed to make money. I took up more shifts when I could and ended up spending most of my nights at the hospital. It was another couple of days before I finally went home and found Jinyoung sitting out there on the wooden platform. I had gotten comfortable and used to his name by then. I never actually said it to him, but I always thought it in my mind.

          It felt like I was really getting attached to him in my mind, but part of that could be because no one had ever stayed that long with me before. No one had ever been by that side for so long. I couldn’t count Jun or any of my other coworkers since that was the only time I ever saw them, at work. As for Jinyoung, I saw him outside of work, during my personal time, in my personal life.

          “Long time no see,” he said that one night when I had finally made it back home. “How’s your mother doing?”

          “Good,” I softly said, still a bit embarrassed about the side that I showed. “Thanks for asking.”

          “It’s no problem,” he said with a gentle smile and sat down his guitar next to him. “Are you busy tonight?”

          “Busy?”

          “Yeah, you have to know the meaning of the word, you’re busy all the time.”

          “I know the meaning of the word, and I was going to try and get some studying done.” It honestly felt like forever since I’d last opened a book, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. He already knew what I normally worked, so I was definitely not going to say that I was taking extra shifts.

          “Hmm, alright,” he said.

          I watched him as he began to pack up his guitar in the bag and stand up. I closed my eyes for a moment and couldn’t believe what was about to come out of my mouth. “Actually, I think I have some time,” I quickly said and closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see his face, but I could picture it. I could picture the smug smile that would come across his lips at hearing my answer. “What?” I asked when I slowly opened my eyes and saw him standing there staring at me, like he was waiting.

          “Nothing,” he said shaking his head. “Let’s go.” He shoved his hands into the pocket of his black skinny jeans, which were still ripped, and walked right past me.

          “Where are we going?” I called after him. “Can’t I at least put my stuff down?”

          He stopped at the edge of the staircase and waited for me while I quickly went and dropped my stuff off inside of my house.

          He didn’t say anything while we were walking and I didn’t ask any questions. I figured that if I asked them, he just wouldn’t answer them. I was curious about where we were going, though. I had no idea where he would want to take me and I questioned on why I was actually following him in the first place.

          But my questions were answered when we arrived outside of a restaurant, a meat restaurant. “What are we doing here?” I wondered. He had stopped outside of the clear doors and was staring through them. I questioned if he was trying to find someone who was already there.

          “There’s some people I want you to meet,” he simply said.

          I followed him into the restaurant and saw the people that he wanted me to meet come into view. Before I saw them, I had no idea what he meant by that. Who would he want me to meet and why? There was no reason that I should meet them. The two of us barely knew each other and we didn’t know anything about each other’s personal lives. Why would he want people to meet me? And it wasn’t even one person, it was multiple, people. He wanted me to meet people.

          There were four other boys sitting at the table already eating and grilling meat. It sounded like one was arguing with another, the third one was grilling meat, and the fourth was just watching, looking like he was amused.

          “Guys,” Jinyoung said, and all of the people suddenly looked our way. The two guys stopped arguing and the other two turned to look at us.

          “Hyung!” They greeted him with a smile, a welcoming one.

          “Sit here,” he said pointing to a seat. I sat between Jinyoung and the guy that was just watching the other two arguing. “Guys, this is Minyoung.”

          “Oh, um…hello,” I said awkwardly introducing myself. I was never really in a situation where I had to introduce myself before. “I’m Minyoung.”

          “These are my friends,” he said pointing to the people around the table. “Guys, introduce yourself.”

          “I’m Junghwan, but my nickname is Sandeul, you can call me by that,” one of the guys that was arguing said.

          “We all have nicknames,” the other arguing party said to Sandeul. “My nickname is Baro. My real name is Cha Sunwoo.”

          “I’m Shinwoo, real name Dongwoo.”

          “I’m Chanshik, or Gongchan.”

          “It’s um…nice to meet you all,” I awkwardly said. The entire situation was awkward for me. I didn’t know that Jinyoung wanted me to meet his friends and I had no idea why he would want me to. I was still trying to figure out the reasoning behind it all.

          “So Minyoung, how old are you?” Shinwoo asked.

          “I’m um…I’m twenty,” I stuttered. “Almost twenty-one, though.”

          “Ah, so you’re younger than all of us,” Gongchan said, “we’re all your oppas.”

          “Oh, um…okay.”

          After that, I just sat back and listened to the conversation. They were all talking about things that I didn’t really understand. They all were friends, after all. I was the newcomer. I had learnt some things about them, though. I learned that Sandeul and Baro were the same age and Jinyoung and Shinwoo were the same age and Gongchan was the youngest. I also discovered that they all had a passion for singing.

          “Minyoung, you don’t have to look so awkward around us,” Sandeul said with a bright smile. “We’re all friends here.”

          “Friends?” I repeated.

          “Sure, why not?” Baro chimed in. “You’re Jinyoung-hyung’s friend, so you’re our friend, too.”

          “Ooh, should we all exchange numbers?” Gongchan pitched in.

          Jinyoung looked my way with a worried face. I could tell that he probably knew what limits I had and what I was and wasn’t used to. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him signaling something to Gongchan, but I stopped it when I opened my mouth to say something unexpected for the second time that night.

          “Sure,” I said with an attempt to smile. I turned to my left and looked at Jinyoung and gave him a smile, too. “Let’s all exchange numbers, shall we?”