August | winrina

Chapter 5 : Soobin

Winter's completely, bitterly, and miserably jealous, and she fucking hates it.

"Soobin is nice," Winter says idly as she looks over at where Soobin Oh is laughing with his friends a few desks over. She's in study hall with Yeji and Ningning, and she has long abandoned her notes in favor of studying the boy from afar.

"Who?" Ningning asks, curiously looking up from where she'd been revising her Chemistry work. "Oh, Soobin."

"Do you think he's cute?" Winter asks, watching as one of his buddies jokingly pushes his shoulder.

She hasn't told anyone yet, but when she was waiting for Giselle so they could head to practice yesterday, Soobin came up to her as she waited and asked her out.

Ningning glances over at Soobin again before glancing at Yeji, who's looking up from pretending not to use her phone to look over at Soobin too.

"I guess?" Ningning says with a shrug, while Yeji just raises her eyebrows. "He's in a band, I think. I mean, an actual band, not school band. He played at that last party the seniors threw."

Winter hums, biting the tip of her pen as she takes in this new piece of information. It's then that Soobin turns on his chair, causing their eyes to meet, and he sends her a boyish grin before Winter breaks their gaze with a bite to her lip.

She thinks back to how he asked her out yesterday, and she feels like an idiot. She actually didn't even realize he was asking her out at first-she'd thought he was just making conversation, talking about this new movie that was coming out that he was thinking of watching, so she replied honestly, saying she was in fact interested in watching it.

She only realized what was happening when he shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to confirm if she wanted to go see it with him.

She didn't know what to do, flustered all of a sudden under his attention, so she said she had to check with her parents, which is possibly the most uncool thing she could say, but he'd grinned at her and said she could text him if she wanted.

So now she has his number in her phone contacts, and maybe she shouldn't be considering it. But he's nice to her and he asked her out, so he probably likes her. He also wants to be seen in public with her, something Karina would never do.

And maybe, there is a part of Winter that wants Karina to see her with someone else, too, and make Karina realize that maybe Winter is not going to wait forever.

Soobin really is nice.

He dresses up for their date, sort of. His hair looks shiny and combed, and the collar on his shirt is popped open. Winter can see the silver necklace he's wearing, and he pulls it up for her to see when he notices her looking.

"I've always worn this one," he says, holding the cross penchant he wears on a silver chain, before showing her the other penchant. "This one I got recently though."

Winter steps closer as they wait in line for their tickets, running her fingers lightly over the detailed silver wing. "Does it mean anything specific?"

"I got it with my bandmates," he says, and Winter doesn't miss the way his eyes trail over her face before she lets go of his necklace. "Just a little trinket to remind me of what the music means, you know?"

For a moment Winter thinks he's messing with her, but his smile is genuine. "So music's your... wings?"

He shrugs, but nods, and Winter doesn't have to pretend to smile at that.

She'd feared this whole date thing would turn out being awkward, honestly. That Soobin would try too hard, and that things would be stiff and weird, but he is calm and nice.