[FIC] It's Complicated

Title: It's Complicated
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 15/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.

- - - - -

The next morning I was woken up by my mother, who was freaking out about having a prince sleeping in our guest room. I groaned and tried to ignore her at first, but when I remembered Heechul, I was up in no time. After washing and getting dressed, I walked into the guest room, to find Heechul just waking up. He seemed surprised to see me, so I gave him a happy ‘Good morning, sleeping beauty.’ as I rested against the door frame. It was only after a lot of explaining and convincing that he realised what he was doing in my house. Once all that was clear, he merely asked for breakfast before going home, leaving me to be bombarded by my mother with questions that I patiently answered. I was glad when the afternoon came and I could visit my cousin to help out with building his garden shed, no questions asked.

The big surprise came in school the next morning, where I arrived just in time to see Jongwoon - my nerdy, loony Jongwoon - hugging my arrogant, freaky Heechul. They laughed about something and I could see them starting to walk away. Heechul then suddenly noticed me and they immediately changed directions to walk up to me.

Heechul smiled and thanked me for some reason that was rather unknown for me. He then swooped me up in a hug and moments later another pair of arms was wrapped around me too. And then more and more arms came and there was more squeezing until I elbowed my way to freedom. Once out of the big group of arms and what not, I saw that I was surrounded by practically all my friends. From Heechul’s group down to Kibum’s. Only Eun Hee and Haerin weren’t around because they went to a different school. The only ones not involved with the group hug were Jungsoo, Jongwoon and Kibum.

“Thank you.” Jongwoon told me the moment I had regained my composure and he gave me a pat on the head. I was too stunned to say anything and just stood there staring at them like crazy.

“W-what? Did I do something?” I finally mumbled, making them chuckle.

“After you talked to Heechul’s sister, she called me and I made Jongwoon call Heechul.” Jungsoo said with a smile. “Then Heechul seemed to have been told some good things as well for he was willing to listen for once and yesterday the whole fight was cleared out.” He turned to Heechul. “Took you long enough, Chul-ah. Three whole years to finally make you listen to us.” I expected Mr. Incredibly Arrogant to explode at the lack of honorific’s, but he only smiled.

“You could have just pinned me to a wall in the corridors, hyung.” he said, amused, and I stared at Jungsoo with big eyes as I had never known he was older than Heechul. “I’m sure you have effective ways to make people listen.” I stared from one at the other.

“So what? You’re all a happy bunch of friends now and three years worth of ignoring is cleared up after one meagre phone call?” I asked disbelievingly.

“Meagre? I think I just lost half of my monthly pay on that phone bill. We were practically calling for half a day and after that we went out to have a drink and talked even more.” Jongwoon protested. That made me look up at him in surprise.

“Oh?” I said, totally forgetting the whole point of the conversation when I added: “You have a job?” It made him smile and pat my head again. I was starting to feel like a little kid.

“I help out in my father’s garage three days a week.” he then told me with a smile on his face.

“Oh.” Again I had to realise that I knew basically nothing about some of my friends. Yet, in my own defence, I did have a lot of them and I had only known Jongwoon for a month or two.

“But hey, we’ve decided to go to the movies to celebrate. Will you come along?” Heechul then asked. When I looked at him he seemed to be rather happy with the way things had turned out.

“Now?” I asked in utter disbelief. I had maybe half an hour until my classes started.

“No, this Friday, silly.” he replied.

“But on Friday’s I go.. No wait, you’re probably going along, right?” I turned to the three that I would normally spend my Fridays with and they nodded. With a sigh I surrendered. “Ugh, yah, fine.. Movies, why not? What time should I be there?” I questioned, looking at Heechul again.

“I’ll pick you up.” he replied, but I shook my head.

“And have you drive me home to crash at my place again? No, no, I pass. I’ll borrow mom’s car or take the bus or something.” There was a deadly silence after my words and people all stared at me. Well, everyone stared but Kibum, who merely smiled at the other’s reaction.

“You can drive?” Hangeng asked, making me look at him.

“Of course I can. What do you think I am? A moron?” I replied.

“Yah! Then why have I been driving you around all the time?” Heechul demanded to know.

“Beats me. Why have you, really? You always show up at my door before I can even think of driving myself, so don’t give me that look!” I snapped back, successfully shutting him up. Kibum, who was already used to our bickering, smiled and put an arm around my shoulders. Jongwoon and Jungsoo were giving us worried looks, however.

“Why don’t you let Hangeng or Heechul pick you up and I’ll take you home?” he said. “I promise I won’t crash at your place if you promise you won’t scare me to death this time or make me drive into the creek.” I chuckled as I remembered my sudden laughing fit and Jongwoon was grinning as well.

“That sounds like a nice idea.” I mumbled, taking Kibum’s arm and picking it from around my shoulders again. “Just don’t make me cry this time.” He broke out in one of his rare wide grins and ruffled my hair playfully. I laughed softly as I put it back in place. “Are Haerin and Eun Hee coming along as well?” I then asked, which made Jungsoo and Jongwoon nod. I immediately turned to my three female friends. “Cool! I’m going to introduce you to them! They’re the best!” I said, raising my thumbs. The girls laughed.

“Is it alright if I bring someone over too?” Tae Woo then spoke up. “I don’t want to leave Ga eun alone on a Friday evening. We normally go out then too.”

“Bring anyone you want. Just make sure that those you bring can get there, pay and get back home again as well.” Heechul declared. I smiled.

“Well, that’s settled then. Now excuse me when I go and find my teacher. There are some exchange students from China, Japan and other countries coming next week and I need to lead one of them around as my mother thought it great to play adoption centre.” I said, waving at everyone and walking away. I had only twenty minutes left by then, so I hoped that my teacher wouldn’t be talking too long, for I really couldn’t miss my Japanese class. Especially not since the girl coming to live at our place was a Japanese girl. Before I had even reached the entrance of our university, Kibum had caught up with me.

“My mother had the same idea as yours. Mind if I walk along?” he asked, smiling a little. I shook my head as I walked on.

“Yah, Snipe!” Heechul called from behind me. I didn’t even turn to look, but I was listening nonetheless. “Thanks again, you’re the best!” His words surprised me so much that I stopped dead in my tracks, but Kibum put a hand on my back and gently pushed me into moving again, doing it in such a way that it looked like I had just waited for him a second and we then walked on together.

“Knowing Heechul, he’ll do that a few more times today.” was all he said and I couldn’t disagree on that. I would find out the truth of his words throughout the rest of that day as well, but for then, I simply walked to the room of our teacher.

Misses Kim gave us a big load of information about how to take care of our transfer students and which places to show them first on the day they arrived. After that, she gave us a crapload of paperwork to give to our parents about the when, where and how of picking the transfer students up when they arrived. As if that wasn’t enough for us to deal with yet, there came another rush of explanations about all kinds of unspeakable things that apparently should be taken care of as well.

By the time she finished her long explanation, it was an hour later and attending Japanese class was a long lost hope in my mind already. Kibum asked me if I wanted to throw some balls, but I politely declined, mentioning that it was only nine in the morning and that I really didn’t feel like it, but that he was free to throw some balls if he wanted to and that I would watch. He declined that offer, however, and instead dragged me to the soccer field right outside our school’s grounds. We sat down on the highest set of bleachers and he got out a bottle of water to drink.

For the following time, we sat and talked and I got to know that he was having a Chinese guy over, so I told him about the Japanese girl that was coming to my house. He noticed the obvious lack of enthusiasm in my voice and jokingly asked if I wanted him to come live with me and the two exchange students to go live at his house. I found myself actually considering the suggestion, which made him laugh and ruffle my hair.

Our conversation went from the exchange students to our own home situation, where I told him about my sometimes hyperactive mother who considered Heechul a prince and was a sucker for shopping and shoes, and my calm and rational father who worked hard to keep up with his wife spending all the money. We ended up laughing over my poor father and I smiled as I told him that, in the end, they still loved each other dearly, which was what counted most. He agreed with me on that one.

He then proceeded to tell me about his own parents who had divorced around the time he was eight. That actually was something I already knew, but he told me anyway and I didn’t interrupt him. He went on explaining how he now lived with his mother, who worked as a kindergarten teacher, which made me remember Heeyoung’s dream. When I asked him about his father, his face darkened a little and he told me about the man he hardly ever saw who lived rather far away and didn’t even bother to call or send a card at his son’s eighteenth birthday or any of the other important days for that matter.

By the time I started noticing my surroundings again, there was a bunch of guys playing soccer on the field and when I looked at my phone to see how late it was, I realised Japanese class had already long finished and there were about twenty minutes until our next hour, seeing that we had ditched our current class, History of the Art, anyway. So we got up and set back down the bleachers, leaving them behind us.

As we were walking out of the soccer field, a guy came running in opposite direction, nearly knocking me off my feet when he dashed past. He threw an ‘I’m sorry’ over his shoulder and flashed me a gummy smile before running on. I found that he looked strangely familiar. That’s why I followed him a little longer with my eyes, seeing how he joined his friends playing soccer.

“Who are they?” I asked Kibum, making him burst out in a fit of laughter that took me by surprise. He chuckled some more before being able to answer.

“That’s so typically you to ask.” he told me. “They’re like our year’s Heechul and group, but without the eccentricity. Popular kids, soccer players until their last breath. They have a lot of fanatic admirers around school, boys and girls alike. Boys like them for their soccer talent, girls like them for both that and their looks, I guess.” I nodded and followed his gaze towards the group again. There were about five of them. “Two are Jungsoo’s cousins, one other has a girlfriend, the two last are often said to be gay for they are mostly found in each other’s company and hardly ever give girls a second glance. I don’t really think they are, though.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked, surprised that Kibum new all the latest gossiping. He smiled.

“They’re cool kids despite being popular. I’ve talked to them a few times. Once I even played some soccer with them. Well, that made me feel like a failure.” he then replied, grinning again.

“When did this happen?” I wondered aloud and he nudged my shoulder with his.

“Despite what you might think, I do hang out with other people than just you, Jungsoo and Jongwoon. I must admit that lately most of my time is spend in either your, their or Heechul’s company, but back in the day I was probably kind of friends with them.” he said, sounding slightly offended, and although the smile on his face showed me he was just kidding, I couldn’t help but blush as I quickly set off to the school, followed by a widely grinning Kibum.

“Looks like someone’s having a good day.” I muttered, but he didn’t hear it or pretended not to.