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Chapter 4

Your leg began to bounce, nerves.

You leaned back in your chair, keeping your book propped open with your left hand, and chewing thoughtlessly on the tip of your thumb as you did so. You didn't chew on your fingers. In fact, you didn't really have bad habits like that. Sometimes you wondered what it was like to have a habit like that. You've had nervous ticks before. The normal things. You just sometimes wondered what it would be like if you had picked up other ones instead of the ones you had. So you consciously played with them, until you subconsciously picked it up, doing various odd habits from time to time.

The chair in front of you slid out from under the table. You glanced up in surprise, and what you found there made you jump.

Jihoon.

"I didn't expect to see you here," he commented. His expression was soft. He had makeup on, a lot of it, but it didn't hide how heavy his bags were under his eyes. Even his smile, while genuine, was weary.

He set two trays on the table, one in front of you.

"Evening," you responded. Seeing Jihoon smile made your concerns momentarily melt away.

He looked so damn happy, just to see you.

It was odd to think that anyone could feel happy just because you were there. Especially someone who you had realistically spent so little time with. But he was.

You knew that the boys had just been doing practice and heavy promotions for their upcoming comeback. In the pictures you had seen, Jihoon hadn't looked all that happy. You had been trying to avoid thinking about how down he may be feeling with the stress of being an idol.

The last time you had looked at someone and seen them smile at you, you hadn't wanted to smile back. You couldn't remember actively seeing someone in person, and wanting to smile at them when they smiled at you. Even your friends you didn't want to smile back to because you didn't want to lie. You didn't want to manipulate them into thinking that you were happy when you really weren't.

This was the first time in at least a year that you smiled right back without feeling that dread in your stomach for smiling and not really wanting to. Probably because you wanted to smile.

"What's this?" You asked gesturing towards the trey that Jihoon had brought to the table. He tilted his head.

"Macaroni and cheese. I'm hungry," he replied. You gave him a small tilt of your head.

"Why is there two treys?" You reiterated.

"For you," he replied. "It's dinnertime you should be eating."

You were a pretty impressionable person.

There were certain people that you held pretty highly in your heart. You never made it known that you held them so highly so they would probably be surprised to hear exactly how often they were in your thoughts. Unsurprisingly enough, Woozi was one of those people.

You remembered times in the past when those influential people had told you something that made you change something about yourself completely.

It was always something that you had been thinking yourself already but hadn't been comfortable enough to say out loud.

You were told once that your hair didn't look that good down. That was your high school crush. You didn't wear your hair down for the next four years, and only wore it down after you got it cut.

You were told at another time that you looked good in bright colors. That was by a childhood friend. You wore bright colors from then on.

One time, a guy had liked you. He was nice, but you weren't sure how you felt about him. Your best friend at the time was very aware of everything that went on in your life. You wanted him to meet the guy you knew liked you. You knew that his approval was what you were looking for. If he didn't approve of him, well... You knew you wouldn't want to date him.