the two of us stood at han seojun's apartment door. i looked at suho baffled as he knocked on the door. when there was no response, he fished a key out of his pocket and unlocked it himself.
"since when do you have his keys?" i asked him.
"i've always had a copy of his keys, remember? his mom trusted me to check up on him when we were close," suho said, as he entered first and slipped his shoes off. i did the same and followed him inside.
"sit," suho pointed to the couch and i scanned my eyes around the neat and organized apartment, there was no trace of him. suho crossed one leg over the other and left hen crossed his arms. i could hear a door open but it wasn't the door to seojun's room so i assumed it was the bathroom.
"what the-" seojun almost jumped at the sight of two people in his living room.
there was a cut on his lip and as my eyes dropped to his knuckles, i saw that they were bruised. he tried to hide them but i already saw them.
he had just taken a shower so his hair was still wet and there was a towel around his neck. seojun sat on the sofa chair to the right of suho and exchanged silent glances with the fellow black-haired guy.
"i know you want an explanation for everything but first off, i want to tell you that i'm doing all of this for a reason. you hated that i was involved with troublemaking guys, and i distanced myself from them. but ever since they started bothering me again, i went to find out what they want from me," seojun ran a hand through his wet tangled hair and sighed.
"they want me to join them again but i declined. i skipped school to make money so i could pay out what i owed- those fuckers really just want to get back at me for leaving," seojun's expression was pissed. his eyes narrowed and stared at the ground in front of him while suho sat there, with a perfectly calm but stoic look on his face.
"i'll lend you the money." suho said in the most monotone voice, and looked straight ahead wall where a family portrait of seojun, his sister and his mother was placed.
"no way in hell-" seojun stood up and i rolled my eyes.
"why not? it's better owing him money than being ordered around by a bunch of delinquents! for fuck's sake, it's suho. why can't you just let him help you?" i snapped. he paused for a moment in silence, before turning around to glare at suho.
"he killed seyoon. song hyojin, he killed your best friend, and you're still close with seyeon's murderer?" seojun's fists curled and i could tell by the deepening of suho's breath that he was on edge too.
"i didn't fucking kill him. i was going through my own shit in my personal life and i happened to miss his phone call. is that enough for call someone a murderer?" suho leapt up from his seat and grabbed seojun by the collar.
"yah lee suho, take your hands off of him!" i grabbed suho's forearm and pulled him away from seojun, to which he willingly let go.
"you just want someone to blame because you're just as equally guilty as i am for not picking up his call," suho spat, as his chest rose up and down. i turned to see that tears were forming the in the corners of his eyes. seyeon is always a topic that reopens wounds.
"is it reasonable to be fighting like this? seyeon meant a lot to me, but clearly he means a lot to you guys too. why are you guys blaming each other for something that we didn't know would happen?" i could imagine how disappointed seyeon would be at us right now.
he was a ball of sunshine that was kind and playful, who always forgave more than he should. the three of them were so close as trainees that it didn't matter that i met him first.
"it took so much for you two to be civil with each other again, why throw it all away again?"
"seyeon would have been upset that we're fighting, wouldn't he?" seojun finally spoke after a few moments. suho turned his head to the other guy and muttered something rare that i only heard from him a handful of times.
"i'm sorry... i know that my dad caused a lot of pressure for him to train hard, only to pull him out of the debuting group, and i should have convinced him not to," suho said, as a pained look appeared on his face. his hands fiddled with the fabric of his pockets because even i can't deny that it wasn't the truth.
even if suho's dad was the ceo of move entertainment, that subjected none of them to favoritism.
"forget it. you know how your dad is," seojun said, as he sat back down on his seat again. "let's just not fight anymore, it really is fucking tiring."
"yeah," suho agreed quietly, "i'll bring you the money tomorrow morning and let's resolve all of this. we really only have us three left, don't we?"
seojun went back to school the following week and things slowly went back to normal.
i'm really glad that suho and seojun at least aired out those old feelings of resentment and moved on from it because i couldn't imagine them not being there for one another.
it felt nice seeing seojun back in his uniform at our cafeteria table with the rest of our friends, laughing and joking around.
"make sure you guys properly pack for the weekend camping trip," myungsoo said to us- well mostly the guys since sooah, jugyeong and i were focused on the new stargram contest that a lot of the social media users were participating in.
"-so you basically enter the contest by uploading a selfie on your social media account with #stargramcontest and the top 10 most liked posts get to be featured a video with popular influencers!!" sooah almost ran out of breath explaining it to us so quickly.
"that sounds so cool!" i could feel her excitement rubbing onto me as i grabbed my phone from my bag and began following the instructions that sooah gave.
i uploaded my best selfie where i had perfected my makeup with excellent natural lighting that sooah gasped when she saw it.
"that's the one!! upload it, hyojin! you're really going to win at this rate," she giggled as jugyeong grinned in agreement. sooah and jugyeong had already amassed three thousand and five thousand likes respectively, so i don't know just how well i'll catch up.
by the end of the day, i had gotten four hundred likes. i usually don't care too much about social media but i wanted to be in the top 10, even if it felt unattainable.
"are you still looking at your stargram contest post?" seojun leaned over my shoulder and peered at my screen.
"yeah," i responded as i scrolled through all the supportive and occasionally flirty comments that were left under my post.
"i really want to win. winners get to be featured in a video with popular social media influencers! doesn't that sound like a fun opportunity?" i asked my unimpressed boyfriend who simply shook his head.
"they're really just a bunch of people who are famous for being good looking or doing the weirdest things that made them go viral. i don't see what's the hype with them," seojun said, as we reached a crosswalk. the light was red and we were about to reach my house so i didn't want to bore him with this topic anymore.
"are you excited for the camping trip?" i asked him and a smile grew on his face, as he intertwined his fingers with mine.
"hell yeah, i can't wait to hang out with our friends out of school campus. it sucks that it's impossible to make plans where every single one of us is present," seojun said, as the pedestrian light signaled that we could cross.
"most of all, i can't wait to draw on lee suho's face," seojun had that mischievous smile as he walked me to my street and then kissed me goodnight like usual.
the next day, i felt so giddy in class.
i gained several thousands of likes overnight and honestly it's become a little obsession to check my likes count so often.
"holy shit, hyojin, you're in 8th place for the contest!" sooah squealed as our other friends huddled over my seat during break time.
"did you buy likes?" suho looked at me suspiciously and i glared back at him.
"i didn't even know buying likes is a thing! but no, i really didn't," i said proudly, as myungsoo laughed and came to my defense by joking, "she's pretty and she earned her spot, no need to be so suspicious."
"what the fuck are all these comments under your post?" seojun butted in, with annoyance in his voice.
"'if only we know what you look like from the neck down,' 'i definitely wouldn't hold back if i was her boyfriend,' and 'let me take you out on a date?'" seojun looked so upset as he looked to me and i shrugged.
"didn't you say i cared too much about what other people think of me? i'm not letting it bother me now, am i?" i responded, and went back to looking at my likes count continue to grow.
"hey, don't worry too much. the world is full of weirdos and she can just put her account back on private after the contest, can't she?" sooah reasoned with seojun, who simply wasn't happy about it.
"actually, i kinda agree with seojun on this one. these comments are particularly gross," suho grimaced as he read some of the comments and looked to jugyeong, before saying, "maybe it's safer to not participate."
"but..." jugyeong's voice trailed off.
"chill out guys. we can't stop people from commenting nasty stuff, but we can be supportive when we can-" myungsoo tried to take our side but seojun tugged at his uniform tie in frustration and muttered curse words under his breath before he left the room.
"your boyfriend's not too happy, huh," myungsoo pointed out the obvious while i shrugged again.
"he'll get over it," i said, as myungsoo laughed in response. he sat down on the seat in front of me and turned around to face me. he gestured to lean in and i did so, as he muttered, "i guess we shouldn't let him find out that i bought likes for you?"
i almost gasped.
"what?? why did you do that?" i whispered back in shock, before looking around me to see that sooah, jugyeong, suho and taehoon were huddled behind us, scrolling through the endless stargram contest entries.
"because..." myungsoo smiled with those deep dimples of his, "i couldn't help but feel bad that you looked so sad yesterday. but i swear, aside from a small portion, the rest of the likes really are yours."
"pinky swear?" i asked, holding up my pinky finger.
"pinky swear." with his, he linked it with mine and sealed it with our thumbs.
"you're honestly more supportive of me at this than my actual boyfriend is," i sighed, as i picked up my phone again, as if it's a habit to log onto stargram and check my post statistics.
"what a shame he's not flaunting someone as pretty as you. if i had a chance with you back when i first saw you at the dance competition with ryujin, i'd let you do whatever you wanted," myungsoo grinned and it was a nice thing to say. however, i felt that it was kind of a weird thing to say to someone's girlfriend.
"oh haha- holy shit! where'd my post go?" i frantically reloaded my screen as i tried accessing my stargram contest entry and nothing showed up.
"hey, are you guys able to see my post?" i turned around and asked the four individuals glued to their phones behind me.
"nope. what the heck happened?" jugyeong furrowed her eyebrows as she showed me on her phone that i was gone from the top 10 ranking.
"hold on. isn't chorong a hacker? like i heard he's capable of hacking into accounts and-" and then it hit me that it's a likely possibility that seojun went to chorong and asked him to delete my post.
i was just about to leave the classroom and look for han fucking seojun, when he showed up on his own.
"you asked chorong to hack my account and delete my post, didn't you?" i glared at the tall guy who simply looked back down on me with a nonchalant expression.
"oh really? i thought i only asked him to get rid of the perverted comments," he said in the least convincing tone ever before finally admitting, "okay maybe i did. but i did it because 'm concerned and i don't want you to be sexualized by a bunch of random strangers on the internet. who knows what they're capable of?"
"why would it ever reach that extent?" i said with frustration evident in my voice and crossed my arms.
"because it can and has happened to so many people before! you don't need fucking creeps nor a stupid contest to help you meet a bunch of famous weirdos. you're pretty and we all know it, just put your safety first can't you?" seojun tried to reason with me and reached for my arm but i only slapped it away.
"being the girlfriend of a guy who used to associate with delinquents is already dangerous enough for me, but you can't even compromise on a silly stargram contest? han seojun, you're fucking unbelievable." i hate how he can't see how jealous and selfish he's being.
"maybe i really should have given a chance to myungsoo instead, at least he's supportive of me."
[author's note]:
apologies for the slow updates, and thank you for your continual support!
i appreciate your comments and votes!^^