ℙ𝕒𝕚𝕟𝕥 𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕚𝕟𝕤 ⭒ ℍ𝕦𝕒𝕟𝕘 ℝ𝕖𝕟𝕛𝕦𝕟

[ 20 ]

Jeno chuckled as he carefully set the block at the top of the tower, leaving only one middle block at the bottom to hold up the entire rickety structure. "Good luck trying not to knock it over."

"I quit," Chenle announced, sitting back against the couch. "I'm being bullied."

Jeno gasped disbelievingly while Jisung laughed and slapped his best friend's arm repeatedly from one side of the couch. "Hey, you can't just quit right before it's your turn!"

Chenle huffed defiantly, slapping Jisung back in the process. "I'm allowed to quit whenever I want. If I don't play, I can't lose."

"Songmin's here! We should get going,"  Eunhye said over the noise of the three playing Jenga, taking the chance to flick Chenle in the forehead. "And you, listen to Jeno. You can't give up because you know you're about to fail."

"I swear everyone's teaming up against me," Chenle grumbled. Despite seeming disgruntled and rubbing the new red spot on his forehead, he helped Jeno and Jisung pack up the Jenga blocks.

Songmin exited the house first, stepping out into the night and leaving the door open behind her so that the others could come out as well. It was cold, much colder than she had expected. A cold ocean breeze made its way through the thin forest between the beach and the house. It easily pierced Songmin's jacket—the fabric was thin now after a few years of being worn—and she shivered as it touched her skin, raising goosebumps over her arms.

It was quiet, too, but it was soon disturbed as the rest of the group trickled out of the house one by one. The small crowd included the three Jenga boys, Eunhye, and Chaeyoon and Renjun, whom Songmin hadn't seen in the living room.

"There's this little resting spot just a couple minutes walk away that my parents and I used to go to, I could lead us there," Chaeyoon offered. In the dim light radiating from the house porch, Songmin could see that she was wearing three layers. This only seemed to make the cold more apparent and Songmin drew her own jacket tighter around herself even though it did nothing to make the cold any less.

A murmur of general agreement at Chaeyoon's proposal rippled through the group and they took off, walking into the forest parallel to the beach on a well-trampled path of leaves and dirt.

Songmin let herself lag behind the rest of the group, allowing their chatter to become more and more silent as they advanced further and further ahead of her. She could just barely feel the soft crunch of leaves under her feet, her mind wandering off into the problem she'd been working on earlier to take her attention off of the low temperature. I'm just not sure how to get around that one nuance. I vaguely remember some theorem that I've seen before that might help, but I just can't seem to recall exactly what the theorem said. Maybe if I can think of what it might've said, I can find a proof for it on my own, though that might be a waste of time...

"Songmin-ah."

Eunhye's voice pulled Songmin out of her thoughts. She lifted her gaze up from the ground to find that her best friend was walking beside her, presumably having dropped back from walking with the others. 

"So, I was thinking..." Eunhye began, speaking slowly and taking particular care in choosing her words, "I've been meaning to talk to you about your parents for a while."

A moment of silence passed. Songmin didn't want to talk about her parents, so kept her eyes averted and didn't respond. She hoped desperately that Eunhye would drop the topic.

Unfortunately, she didn't. "You still haven't told me about what happened that last time you went to visit them."

No response.