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SEOUL
AFTERNOON
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✧──────✦ sumin wasn't sure how ended up at karaoke with some of the worst singers she's ever met in her life. her twin, sooah and her boyfriend, and jugyeong screamed the lyrics of a song while herself and suho sat in the booth with a growing headache.
after a few songs and two bottles of water later, sumin stood up to go to the bathroom. suho noticed her leaving and asked "where are you going?" he may have come for jugyeong, but he didn't think he could handle the tone deafness any longer.
"bathroom, but i'm grabbing food too." the two of them silently snuck out of the room while the others picked another song. sumin did her business and met suho at the convenience store downstairs.
while she looked at the rack by the window, she noticed seojun's motorcycle sitting right outside. sumin blinked as jugyeong walked over to it and pretended to kick it a few times.
"suho," she looked down the aisle. "i'll be right back."
sumin jumped down the last few steps and walked over to jugyeong, "whatcha doin'?"
the girl jumped and looked up at her, "nothing!"
seojun walked over to sumin leaning on the bike and jugyeong waved her hands around frantically, "i swear i didn't do anything!"
"did you do something to my bike?"
"i swear i didn't touch it! it looks like i did, but i didn't." jugyeong struggled to prove the truth and blurted out words that sounded like bad excuses. sumin pushed off of the motorcycle to a standing position as jugyeong ran into the karaoke bar out of fear.
"are you here by yourself?" sumin asked the boy.
"i texted to see if you wanted to come," he pointed to the phone in her hand.
sure enough, was a text from seojun with a timestamp from an hour ago. "oh, sorry. i was held against my will and they turned my phone off." sumin had horrible study habits and the group ended up jumping her and stealing her phone to get her to focus. "do you want to get dinner? there's a nice place around the corner."
seojun nodded and sumin texted her sister that she left and suho was probably alone in the convenience store if she wanted some alone time with him. the friends hurried around the corner after hearing both of their stomach's growling.
"han seojun, it's been a while!"
"why is it you of all people," sumin quietly whined at the sudden appearance of sungyong and his friends. all she wanted was a peaceful dinner with seojun.
"surprise." he looked over to sumin, "why'd you bring a girl like her down a dark alley?"
"like me?" sumin defended. before she could even take a step towards ripping the disgusting bowl cut from his head, seojun put an arm in front of her.
two seconds later, seojun had his hand around her upper arm and pulled her in the opposite direction.
sungyong yelled at their sudden disappearance, "get them!"
lucky for sumin, she'd been on the track team up until last year when her father had her focus on her studies. although seojun began to pull her, he ended up being dragged by sumin's pumping arms in an attempt to sprint faster.
the two ran through the back alley's of the city and hid behind a couple of crates. sumin pulled seojun down after her and peeked through the holes of the crate. she saw the group of guys run past and one stray behind them. sumin leaned up and was instantly confused as to why suho was running after them.
suho followed the group of guys following jugyeong and seojun into the dead end. the only people he found were a half dozen boys that looked like they hadn't taken a shower in days.
"why'd you follow us?"
"he goes to saebom too."
"are you seojun's friend?" he showed obvious disgust at the last comment.
sumin pointed at suho who was now surrounded and seojun just shrugged his shoulders, "not my problem." she remembered that he was a martial arts prodigy, so she just leaned back against the wall and watched until he finished them off.
she checked her phone and it hadn't even been five minutes before they all laid on the ground or ran away. they stepped out of their hiding spot and walked up to him.
"are you stupid?" sumin started off. he looked at the two of them like they had four arms.
"where's jugyeong?"
"at the karaoke place? where else would she be."
"she ran out with seojun."
"i ran out with him, we were going to get dinner."
"oh," suho looked around the alley trying to find something else to say to dig himself out of the grave of embarrassment.
sumin looked at seojun, who was glaring at the awkwardly standing guy. "wanna come to dinner with us?"
they both answered, "no!" one louder than the other, before she could even finish the question. she put her hands up and backed away out of the alley. once seojun didn't come out after her, she walked back in.
"do you jugyeong?" sumin recognized this as seojun's voice.
"what about you, do you like her?" she rounded the corner to stop a potential fight, and she'd rather not hear his answer.
"i think i might."
sumin paused right behind seojun, whose back was to her. suho looked directly at her with what she could tell was pity. her sister may have seen him as a love interest, but him and sumin had more of a platonic, sibling relationship that continued until he shoved everyone out of his life. from years of quiet observation, she didn't doubt that he knew about her feelings for seojun.
she immediately held her breath and turned out of the alley. to hell with dinner. sumin entered the karaoke bar that still held the tone deaf singers to grab her school bag, and stormed out before anyone noticed.
just what was so good about her? is it because she's nice? is it because she's pretty? is it because she's an idiot? sumin bit at the insides of her cheek at the bus stop as she tried to find just one thing to hate about her. she wondered if she could silently hate her existence even if there was nothing to hate.
it wasn't like she led seojun on, it wasn't like she went out of her way for him. sumin just couldn't wrap her head around it. absolutely nothing was jugyeong's fault, and sumin hated that she had no one to blame.
the bus pulled up along the sidewalk and she pressed her bus card to the scanner to pay for the ride. she ended up deciding to sit in the back instead of the middle in order to mope without people staring.
a figure sat directly next to her, so she moved closer to window. the person moved over again, so she moved farther. eventually she was squished against the window and looked up.
"do you need something, suho?"
"i don't understand why you like him."
"he's hot." she wasn't lying, he was.
"that's it?"
"of course not, he's nice to me." sumin thought about the times in middle school when seojun would find her first and invite her out to play a game or eat lunch with him and his friends. in middle school was probably when she struggled the most with her family situation, so having someone like him kept her stable.
"that's it?"
"does there need to be anymore? he's good to me and that's all that matters."
"he was probably just saying it to spite me," he tried to console her.
"stop talking to me about it or i'll sob," she answered blankly as the window looked extremely interesting. sumin's hand reached for her rubber band and snapped it a few times against her wrist in boredom.
suho's hand slapped her wrist, "stop it."
"what are you, my mother?" she set her hands back down on her lap and waited for the ride to be over. sumin decided to end the silence and ask another question, more for sujin's sake than hers. "do you like jugyeong?"
the silence was all she needed to slouch down and try to come up with ways to avoid seojun until she got over her silly middle school feelings.