⊷ 64
Even Taemin and Ji-yoon's house struggled to provide a space large enough to host dinner for so many people. Yet, this wasn't a hindrance for the girl. She was happy to see everyone close to her come together for a home-cooked meal. Ji-yoon enthusiastically called it a family dinner, albeit that certainly stretched the term 'family'.
Regardless, Ji-yoon had a hard time calling them anything else at this point. Or, at the very least, after all that they went through and all the work they did, she felt that they were close enough to consider them more than co-workers.
Xiaojun pushed out a thoughtful hum. "I was gonna ask," he began, "Why didn't you let Haechan come with you to meet Min-jun?"
Ji-yoon frowned at the question. "I'm not dragging my agent boyfriend into this," she commented. "I felt bad enough that he went with me to see Changbin that time. But Min-jun? That's too much."
"He knows anyway," Sungchan pointed out. "So he is implicated in it to some degree."
Ji-yoon narrowed her eyes at the younger. "You are oddly talkative these days."
Sungchan shrugged.
"Then what about the other three?" Renjun wondered. "Why can you drag them into it?"
Despite usually being straightforward, she was now hesitant about what to say. Claiming that she cared enough to attempt to keep Haechan free from guilt, then using the next moment to explain how the same wasn't true for the others would have made her feel horrible.
Frankly, she hadn't put much thought into whether Kai or San or Sungchan should join her that night - she just let them. Because that's how it was. That's how it had always been.
Still, she couldn't get herself to say that right away. Perhaps she was being unfair? Maybe this was wrong?
Or maybe she was just overthinking, causing San to answer in her stead.
"Because that's just our life," he explained with a casual shrug of his shoulders. "We aren't prosecutors or agents. We just look out for each other, that's what we do."
Sungchan nodded wordlessly whereas Kai added, "Right. Even if she didn't tell us, we'd still go and find her to make sure she's okay."
Yangyang inhaled sharply through his teeth, sensing a chance to annoy Haechan. "That's to say her boyfriend wouldn't?"
Haechan quickly threw a glare at the younger. "Don't say nonsense. She asked me to stay out of it and told me that they were going to be with her," he defended himself quickly.
Yangyang laughed. "Alright, whatever you say~"
Hendery shook his head as he pushed out a sharp tsk. "Outrageous."
Haechan played along and rolled his eyes, while both boys watched Ji-yoon to see if the little banter made her feel better. It seemingly did.
"Putting aside how shitty this whole situation was," Winwin said all of a sudden, "we got to write some pretty good articles."
Hendery chimed in by saying, "It really helped us a lot that you kept us up to date with everything."
"I'm happy you reported on it," Ji-yoon said, grateful to have their support. "Either way, you are good journalists. You are doing well, with or without me."
Yangyang faked a tear. "Thank you, miss benefactor," he joked which caused the girl to roll her eyes.
"As for Haechan," Chenle said out of nowhere, "If you aren't planning on coming home anymore, do we have permission to turn your room into a storage room?"
Half of the Dreamies laughed, the other half nodded in agreement. Haechan, however, was left dumbfounded.
"I didn't move out," he pointed out.
"But you've been gone for a while," Jisung commented.
"To stay with Joon," he said. "She was injured."
"So when she is no longer injured, you'll come back home?" Chenle asked curiously, putting him on the spot. Ji-yoon, more amused by the situation than anything, lay her eyes on her boyfriend too, waiting for an answer. The attention of most at the table was suddenly on him.
He frowned, looked from Chenle to Ji-yoon and back to Chenle. "I pay rent," he said eventually. "Leave my room alone."
Kun hummed knowingly. "He's gonna stay here."
Sensing that Haechan was getting a little irritated, Ji-yoon sighed heavily. She put her arm around the boy.
"Of course he is," she said confidently. "As if I'd ever allow Sunshine to leave."
Jaemin exhaled understandingly. "No surprise he's not coming home. Joon's keeping him hostage." The girl smiled at Jaemin for the quick support.
Right away, Ji-yoon felt Haechan's tense muscles relax a little. He was by no means a shy person. However, considering how long it took him to tell her his feelings privately, she could only guess how difficult it must have been to discuss things openly with everyone there.
He was smart. Brave. But shy with his feelings.
It was cute in Ji-yoon's eyes.
Meanwhile, Jeno totally ignored that situation. He was seated close to Kai and happened to glimpse at him every so often.
"I wanted to ask," he began, question directed at the boy that soon looked at him, "we know about San and Sungchan but how did you end up getting close to Ji-yoon?"
Yangyang hummed, recalling that, "She said that she gave him the option to either join her or die. So I guess he must be less weary of life than Joon and agreed to join her."
The girl frowned. "I'm not weary of life."
"That is a lie," Ten commented, "and we all know that." Half the table nodded at that, leaving Ji-yoon baffled.
"Wow okay."
Kai laughed. He put his cutlery down briefly as he thought back to that night.
"I used to be part of a small gang," he explained. "My boss... he wasn't a good person but I had no one else, so I just stayed with him. Until one night when Ji-yoon happened to see me."
She slammed Kai's head against the alley's brick wall. It was not hard enough to injure him but hard enough to hurt.
She let go of him and watched him drop to the ground. Pushing himself against the wall, eyes squinted slightly at the pain, he gazed up at the girl.
"Kai, right?" she asked.
He frowned. "How do you know my name?"
"Because you are an idiot," she commented drily. "One for not being careful enough, two for hurting innocent people."
Kai, even though he would have liked to pretend as if he did, had nothing to say to the latter. He wasn't proud of himself, he couldn't justify his actions. Blaming it on his boss was too bad of an excuse to even dare utter it.
She took his silence as a wordless agreement. "At least you are self-aware."
Getting irritated, Kai pushed himself up. Though he was standing for now, it was hard to keep himself on his feet. The fight he had with the girl before left him feeling weak and slightly dizzy. He had to lean against the wall behind him for support.
"What do you want from me?" he asked, trying to sound more intimidating than he was. He could tell that the girl before him was younger than him.
Still, he felt like she had the upper hand.
"What I want?" she, too, questioned. She hummed as if this was the first time she ever even thought about it. "I want you to choose."
"Why did you want him to join you though?" Lucas wondered.
"Well, just... after giving it some thought, that was one of the only solutions I came up with," she said. "I had talked to his boss before, he was a helpless case. The same was true for his colleagues."
Kai's eyes were glued to Ji-yoon. It had been years, yet he had never before heard her reason for asking him to join her.
"Kai wasn't quite like them. Whenever his boss made them hurt someone, Kai would come back afterwards to patch them up," she recalled. "I realized then that he wasn't a bad person. He was just a little lost. There was potential in him and I wanted to support that."
Ji-yoon looked at the older with a smile.
"And he turned out great, didn't he?"
However, the first response to her explanation was not a confirmation. It was an empty exhale, full of betrayal.
"That's why you always let me beat up people?" San wondered, feeling like he had been deceived. "You said it was because I was strong but you just didn't want Kai to do it."
"Well, both are correct," she explained nonchalantly. "You are pretty strong. But yeah I also don't want him to do it."
Kai smiled. "That's pretty nice of you. Thanks."
"Wow," San exhaled flatly. "Okay. Alright. But what about Sungchan?"
"Sungchan doesn't like to get his hands dirty - quite literally actually," Ji-yoon commented. "That's why I usually let him to do office work. He prefers that."
"These are some interesting reasons," Changbin noted quietly.
"I like hearing them," Jisung said in return. "Usually it just feels like she's acting on a whim. It's nice to know she actually thinks about what she does."
Ji-yoon frowned. "I never act on a whim."
"That's another lie," Taemin commented.
"I always think about my actions before I do anything!" the girl argued vehemently which caused half the table to frown.
Sungchan hummed. "What about when you told Min-jun to stab you because you were bored?"
Ji-yoon froze. She narrowed her eyes and slowly turned her head to look at the younger boy. "Yah!" she whisper-shouted. "Whose side are you on?"
"You did what?" Jungwoo asked, staggered.
"Ji-yoon," Taemin warned judgmentally.
"It was on purpose!" she urged. "No one likes to do as they are told. If I tell her to stab me she won't do it. And it worked too! See? Makes sense. Ignore Sungchan, what does he know?"
"Then what about when--" Sungchan began but cut himself off when the girl kicked his leg.
"If you don't shut up I will kick you out of the house."
Although he considered ignoring her threat for a moment, he decided to leave her be. He had already annoyed her enough for today, leaving his duty fulfilled. It was his very own way to look out for her - by snitching on her to her brothers.
"I can't believe this kid," she muttered.
"For once we aren't the ones she likes the least," Felix whispered proudly to Changbin who had to smile.
"Are you still upset about that?" he questioned compassionately. "I told you it's understandable that they didn't trust us."
"Actually, I wanted to apologize," Haechan stepped in, causing everyone to go silent. Changbin froze. It sounded genuine but it felt like a trap.
Haechan? Apologizing?
"I distrusted you and your intentions. I don't think I was wrong to be cautious but I made it hard for you to help us even though you just wanted to do well and get away from everything," he said.
Taemin hummed. "I wasn't the nicest either," he said. "But I want to thank you for your help with this."
Changbin looked at Felix.
Felix looked at Changbin.
"Taemin even asked to make sure you two are coming," Ji-yoon threw in there to make sure her brother's intentions were known by everyone at the table. "When I said I already invited you, he seemed pretty happy."
Felix, less reserved than the older, grinned right away. "That's so nice, thank you!" He looked around, eyes briefly sweeping over everyone present. "It was cool working with you so I hope from now on we can be friends."
Jisung smiled. "I like him," he whispered to Chenle who laughed and nodded in agreement.
Sungchan watched them closely. He found it admirable that Ji-yoon made friends so easily and that her friends also usually got along well, even if it came with a long warm-up period. While this wasn't a concept he could sympathize with, he knew that she was a social person and so he was happy for her.
"You collect friends as if you'd get a free one after every 10 of them," Sungchan noted drily.
After Jisung's comment a moment ago, the conversation had died down. Sungchan's introversion contradicted Ji-yoon's extraversion and yet he wanted to help her with her guests a little. So, as random as his words seemed, they served as an easy gateway to a different conversation topic.
Ji-yoon sighed. "I'll actually kick you out," she warned.
"You'd feel bad after one minute and ask me to come back inside," the younger pointed out. Ji-yoon couldn't argue with that but she didn't like being called out like this.
Irritated, she turned to her brothers. "Why is he so sassy?"
Jungwoo raised a brow. "You are looking at us? You raised him."
She paused. "Yeah right." She considered it for a second, then changed her approach. She gave Sungchan a thumbs up. "That's why you are so smart."
Taemin laughed. "Now you're just making up things."
She huffed. "You guys are never on my side."
Jaemin reached over, patted the girl's head. "They just like to tease you," he reasoned, offering a warm smile to the girl who reciprocated it right away. "Don't mind it."
She sighed. "You are so nice."
"We are also nice," Taemin argued.
"You are annoying," Ji-yoon countered quickly, "that's what you are."
Jungwoo, unbothered by her comment, soon switched the topic. "By the way, why didn't you invite Mark? Aren't you friends?"
Mark frowned. "Yo, Jungwoo, I'm right here."
"Almost didn't notice you," he deadpanned then quickly noted, "I meant Tuan. He's happy to be able to work freely now. I thought you'd want to have him here."
Ji-yoon shook her head. "You know him, he doesn't really like people."
Haechan agreed before he mumbled, "I noticed."
"It's nothing personal," she assured. "Besides, the news about Kang got him so excited that he started working right away."
"Another workaholic," Taemin commented and looked at his brother. "Just like someone else I know."
Jungwoo frowned. "Hey, I made time to come here."
"Yeah," Taemin said, "you better. Else I'd have dragged your ass over here."
"This family is so peaceful," Chenle commented jokingly, making Ji-yoon laugh.
"It's how we show affection," she noted.
She took a deep breath and looked at all the friendly faces that surrounded her. She looked at her family and friends. Those that had been with her for a while and those that had joined her only recently.
"I wanted to thank you all," she said eventually, "for coming here but also for being there for each other - and for me - throughout these past months." She felt a flush of happiness overcome her. "I feel like whenever we met recently it was always because something bad happened."
She smiled and clasped her hands under the table.
"I'd be happy if we could meet like this from now on. Just... to have a good time and talk, you know?"
Her unusually warm and comforting words came as a surprise. The boys looked at her and each other, all with the same expression on their faces. One of happiness and comfort.
Haechan subtly reached under the table. He slid his hand between hers, causing her to let go of her own hands and intertwine her fingers with his instead.
She looked at him. "I'd love that," he said with a smile.
Though overwhelmed by the sudden flood of genuine affection, the others all agreed. After nothing but uncertainty, they finally felt safe. They finally looked forward to the next day without a sense of dread lingering in their minds.
Before them lay a future that had seemed unreachable not too long ago. It was one where they could all live together happily, their biggest worries caused by trivial matters. And most importantly, a future they could all experience together.
Future ⊶
not me getting emotional over my own story lmao
there is still one chapter left but this was pretty much the end of the story content-wise, we'll just get a last SunshinexJoon chapter in 65, so my final "thank you"s for sticking around will find their place there
but I wanted to thank you already for reading thus far and for commenting and for everything else, I really appreciate your support - it made writing this story way more fun too!
love you lots 💚💚