A loud knock on her front door scared Byeol and she almost dropped her food. She cautiously made her way to the front door and opened it to her best friend's smiling face. Behind Minki stood Jisung and what Byeol assumed to be his friends. She stepped aside and let them all come in. After the last boy entered, Byeol shut and locked the front door, then led everyone to the living room.
"So, uh. What exactly are we supposed to do here?" Jisung plopped on a couch, his friends following his actions. MInki and Byeol sat together in the loveseat and shrugged their shoulders.
"Usually when I come over, we just watch K-pop videos, but I don't think you guys would like that." Minki pulled Byeol onto her lap so she was sitting sideways.
"Well we'd have to agree with you on that," a boy with blond hair and the most adorable freckles spoke up. He then turned to Byeol and smiled. "I'm Felix by the way."
The girl smiled in return and Minki gasped. "That's right! Introduce yourselves, losers!"
The boys all laughed at her demand.
"Hi, my name is Seungmin." He had the sweetest smile and his voice was like honey to Byeol's ears.
Byeol turned to the last boy waiting for an introduction, but he was too busy looking at something on his phone. She coughed to get his attention, but it didn't work. Everyone looked around at each other before Jisung got up and slapped the side of his head.
"Hey! What was that for?" The red haired boy shot his head up and sent a glare towards Jisung.
"You need to introduce yourself to our host dipshit." Everyone laughed at the name calling as the boy's face turned a bit pink when he turned to face Byeol.
"Oh, sorry. Something very important was being discussed." He gave a nervous smile. "I'm Jeongin."
Byeol smiled at him and his cheeks turned a little pinker, causing the girl to smile bigger. "It's nice to meet you all. I'm Byeol."
"Also known as my wife, so if you wanna tap this," Minki slapped Byeol's butt causing the latter the squeak, "you're going to have to ask me first."
Everyone except Byeol laughed at Minki's actions.
"So Byeol, I've seen you around at school, but I've never seen you other than that. What exactly do you like to do?" Felix sat back in his seat as he waited for an answer from the girl.
"Well, I take my studies very seriously. So I spend most of my time either studying for upcoming exams or if I need a break, I hang out with Minki. In fact, this party on Friday is going to be the most social interaction outside of school that I've ever had." Byeol saw Felix's face turn to a surprised look. "What?"
"Well it's just, I thought a girl as pretty as you would be having more fun than that, especially with a best friend like MInki." Byeol blushed at his compliment and when he noticed, Felix chuckled. "Byeol, I'm going to tell you right now. I only spoke truth about you being beautiful, but try not to catch feelings for me or my boyfriend won't like it very much."
"Oh, no. I was just-," Byeol chuckled. "Nobody has called me pretty before, so it felt nice." She smiled up at Felix.
"Okay, so again. What are we going to do?" Jisung started bouncing his leg up and down as he got anxious from just sitting around.
"Well, we have board games and stuff. Or Netflix." Byeol got up and headed to the game closet and started reading out the names of games.
"I vote we Netflix and chill." Minki opened her arms when Byeol turned around and the girl chuckled and fell into her best friend's arms. "Me and Byeol haven't had a good cuddle session in a while." The two girls giggled while the boys watched.
"Dude, they act like more of a couple than you and Minki." Seungmin spoke up causing the others to laugh.
"Yeah, but Byeol doesn't get to kiss and touch her like I can," Jisung wiggled his eyebrows and spoke in a suggestive tone, resulting in a very red-faced Minki.
"Okay, so Netflix it is." Felix got up and turned on the TV, clicking on Netflix. He then Handed the remote to Seungmin. "You pick. Nothing scary since I don't have Binnie to hold onto."
Seungmin searched through the movie options and finally selected "Lilo and Stitch". Everyone settled back in their seats and watched the movie. Byeol noticed that Jeongin kept checking his phone and she felt that it was kind of rude, but he did say it was something important.
The movie finally finished around 9 P.M. and the boys decided to give them some girl time, so they said goodnight and left Byeol and Minki in the house. As soon as the door shut behind the boys, MInki turned to Byeol with a scary smile on her face.
"So, Byeol. I saw you looking at Jeongin during the movie, do you like him?"
"What? N-no. He was on his phone and the light from it was distracting me." Byeol looked down as she felt her face heat up. She felt Minki's stare burning into her, so she caved. "Okay, fine. Do I find him attractive? Yes, but I don't know him well enough to know if I like him. Besides, he's popular at school and I'm a nobody. It'd never work."
"Babe, you're popular by association with me and Jisung. Everyone knows who you are. And I've known Jeongin for like 2 years, I think you'd like him. He just needs a little time to warm up to you."
"No, Minki. I need to focus on my schoolwork. I don't have time for a romance. Or even time to fantasize about one. I have to get the top grades for my dad, you know that. Speaking of which, guess who is headed this weekend because my dad could only find one ticket to where he's at. Again." Byeol turned to her friend, tears threatening to fall.
"Aww babe, I'm sorry." Minki pulled her friend into her arms and comforted the silently crying girl.
"I'm so sick of him doing this! I work hard to prove myself but he never acknowledges anything I do! I'm just waiting for the day that my mom tells me that he moved to Busan and she will be going with him. But they're going to leave me here. You know it's going to happen." Byeol sobbed into her friend's chest as Minki rubbed her back. "I haven't even seen him in 4 years, Minki!"
"I know, I know," Minki spoke softly.
"It just-"
A phone ringing cut Byeol off and the girls looked at each other before Byeol saw the phone on the couch. She picked it up and the caller ID said that Seungmin was calling.
Byeol: Hello?
Person: Hello? Uh, Byeol? It's me, Jeongin. I think I left my phone at your house, it must've fallen out of my pocket. Can we come back and get it?
Byeol: Um, *sniffle* sure.
Jeongin: Hey, are you okay?
Byeol: Yeah, I'll see you guys when you get here. Bye.
She hung up the phone before Jeongin could respond.
"Who was it?" Minki sat down next to Byeol, handing her some tissues.
"Oh, this is Jeongin's phone, he said it must have fallen out. They're coming back to get it. Can you give it to them? I'm going to go get ready for bed." Byeol wiped her tears with the tissues and left Minki on the couch with Jeongin's phone as she headed up the stairs.
Just as Byeol shut her bathroom door, she heard the voices of the boys downstairs. They were muffled so she couldn't hear what they were saying. She was drying her face after washing it when Byeol heard a soft knock on the door, followed by Minki's voice.
"Byeol?"
"Hmm?"
"Uh, The guys invited us out to ice cream, their treat. Do you want to go?"
"I don't know. I'm not really in the mood to socialize more." Byeol opened the door to see her beaming best friend.
"Oh come on, how can you say no to free ice cream?" Minki grabbed Byeol's hand and jumped up and down like a child.
"Okay, okay. I'll go." Byeol smiled at her childish friend and went into her room to grab some shoes. After putting them on, she headed downstairs with MInki.
As the two girls reached downstairs, the boys all smiled at them.
"Yay! You're joining us!" Felix walked up to Byeol and wrapped one of his arms around hers as he led her outside, the others following.
"Okay, we have to take two cars. Jeongin and I drove, so Minki and Byeol with me and Seungmin and Felix with Jeongin?" Jisung wrapped Minki in a back hug and rested his head on hers as he spoke.
"Aww, but I wanted to ride with Byeol." Felix pouted next to the girl and she smiled.
"Fine, Byeol can go with you and Jeongin, and we'll take Seungmin." Jisung released Minki from his arms and they headed to his car as Felix pulled Byeol to a sleek black car with red trim. Jeongin got in the driver's eat and Felix pulled the girl into the backseat with him.
"See you guys there!" Minki called out before Felix shut the door and Jeongin started the engine. His car roared to life and he peeled out of Byeol's driveway.
"Jeongin! This is a neighborhood! Slow down for fuck's sake!" Byeol held onto Felix as if her life depended on it. The boy driving just chuckled as he slowed down to a normal speed and kept driving.
Byeol didn't think it was possible for someone to talk nearly as much as Minki, but the way Felix was talking about soccer, BIGBANG, and his boyfriend made her rethink that. After about a 10 minutes drive, filled with Felix's talking and some soft background music, the three teens reached the ice cream shop. They stayed in the car until Jisung pulled up next to them and then they all headed inside.
Inside the ice cream shop, it wasn't very busy. As they all went to stand in line, Byeol just told Minki what she wanted and went to save a table for the 6 of them. She sat down at a half-booth-half-regular-chairs table and laid her head on the table. Her eyes felt heavy and she realized that her crying from earlier had made her sleepy.
She heard the chair across from her slide out and when she looked up, the dark brown eyes of Jeongin met hers. He gave her a small smile as he sat down.
"Are you okay? You sounded like you were crying on the phone, and you looked like hell when you came down the stairs."
"Gee thanks," Byeol replied, full of sarcasm causing Jeongin to laugh.
"What I meant is that you looked like you had some shit going on. I mean, I know we just met, but I'm a decent person who doesn't like to see people suffering." Jeongin smiled at the girl again as she took a deep breath.
"It's just some family stuff, I'm fine." He raised an eyebrow as if he didn't believe her. "I promise!" Byeol stated with a smile causing him to smile back at her.
Just as their conversation ended, the others came to the table with all of their ice cream.
"For my baby Byeol," Minki placed a small bowl of matcha ice cream in front of Byeol as she sat beside her friend. Everyone else sat down at the table and started talking.
Instead of joining in on the conversation, Byeol silently ate her ice cream while thinking about her parents again, thank you Jeongin for bringing it back up. She felt something kick her foot and looked up to find Jeongin giving her a questioning look. Byeol looked down as she smiled and shook her head. The bells on the shop's door jingled indicating people coming inside.
Everyone at the table turned to see who came in. It was a group of five guys, some Byeol's age and one looked pretty young. She noticed Jeongin's jaw clench as he spotted the new boys. As she looked at the table, Byeol noticed all of the guys and even Minki on edge now that the new boys were here.
As they noticed the table of guys and the two girls, the new guys walked over to Byeol's table, smirking.