[FIC] It's Complicated

Title: It's Complicated
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 4/36
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.

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The next day, when I arrived at school, Hangeng came up to me all by himself to apologise for what had happened the day before. He had made me a whole new lunch and everything to make up for it and when Heechul came running as well, showing his best puppy eyes, my kind heart had soon forgiven them. Which didn’t meant that I suddenly spent all my time with them. I spent most of my free time in between classes playing ball with Kibum and only occasionally had a chat with Hangeng or Heechul when I met them in the corridors. In the evenings, when I got home from school, I would get back to playing The Last Call with Heechul like nothing had ever happened. He tried a few times to bring up real life, but I would just ignore his tries and keep on playing. After a while, he gave up on that and my life went back to the same as it used to be, with the only change that I had a physical workout every day.

Kibum didn’t talk much, but the things he said at least were useful. Throughout the hours of playing together or competing against one another he taught me a lot of new tricks and moves that I hadn’t been able to do before. Apart from that, I also learned a few things about him because of my constant questioning. Apparently he was majoring in Asian languages, just like me, with a minor in English. He even had some of the same side classes I had. That’s why our school schedules were often very alike and so we easily found times to go out and play some ball together. Some days we’d have more time than others, but I always enjoyed the stress reliever in between classes. What I liked most was that, no matter what I said or did, he would never act arrogant about it.

Heechul on the other hand.. The slightest compliment would make him explode into arrogant comments and would turn the happy conversation in to one big ‘praise Kim Heechul’-fest. And his arrogance knew no boundaries. If it had just been the comments about himself, okay, I probably could learn to live with those Lord knows I do now, but it was the fact that he thought he could just decide for others as well that bothered me. Especially at times when he decided to do that to me.

‘I have to go now, Snipe. Hannie and Hee Young noona are pestering me to spend some ‘family time’ with them. Tsk.’

‘Your noona is home? Of course you should spend time with her then! Off you go! I’ll finish this mission for us and then go to bed myself. It was a tiring Friday.’

‘Will you be here tomorrow?’

‘Do you really still have to ask? But yes, I’ll be here tomorrow.’

‘Great. Then you have time to come with us. I’ll pick you up at two in the afternoon, okay?’

‘What!? What do you mean pick me up? Come with who?’

The person you messaged is not online at the moment.

I cursed him with ever possible insult I could come up with and then continued throwing random nonsense at him, but he didn’t come back online.

So there I was, the next day, not showered and still in my pyjamas by the time the bell rang. I didn’t even bother anymore to wonder how he got my address, but I refused to go with him when he didn’t leave me a choice. That’s why I ignored the sound of the bell and calmly continued playing the game. I was certainly not going to go down and open the door for him. Sadly enough, there was still a certain other thing living in the house called a mother that didn’t think the same as I did.

“Soo Jin! Your friend is here!” she called out to me from downstairs, only moments after the bell had rang. Great..

“Kick him back out, please!” And slam the door in his face as well so that he’ll walk around with a black eye or a broken nose for a while. I heard the door slam shut, but didn’t even feel the least bit of hope that he might have really gone away again. To say it in his words: ‘Kim Heechul doesn’t let himself be thrown out. Ever.’ Sure enough, my door was soon opened and a way too happy Heechul burst into my room. His face fell, however, when he saw me behind my computer.

“What’s this?” he asked offended. I shortly glanced up at him, before returning my attention back to my computer screen.

“This is my room. What does it look like it is?” I replied, killing another opponent and calmly crawling towards the next one. There was a short silence, before my desk chair was suddenly pulled backwards, away from the computer. Two hands replaced my own on the mouse and keyboard and a few keys and clicks later, he had neatly logged me out. Before he could completely shut down the computer, however, I pushed him away.

“Yah, you smelly piece of rotten fish!” I exclaimed, kicking a foot in his general directions that completely missed its goal. I quickly put my computer on lock so that he couldn’t do anything with it unless he found out my password. “What do you think you’re doing?” I raised my voice in anger. “Storming into my room like this, turning off my computer game and even taking the liberty to shut down my whole computer! And now you look at me like I don’t have the right to be angry!?” I shot him one of my most deadly glares, which seemed to shock him.

“We had an appointment!” he then replied, looking genuinely surprised because of my actions. I was at a loss for words, as he sounded really CONVINCED of his own statement. When my first shock faded, I jumped up from my chair.

“Yah! Kim Heechul! Don’t you even think that I am going to bow to your every whim! YOU made an appointment, but you never bothered to ask if I was okay with it. Here’s a bit of information for you, sunbae..” I made sure to make the last word sound as mocking as possible. “Some people don’t agree to your every wish. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I DO NOT want to go somewhere with you?”

He stared at me in utter surprise for a while, before being able to reply. “But why wouldn’t you like to come? You like basket, don’t you? We let you borrow the basketball field for the past few weeks, to make sure you could play with your boyfriend. So why wouldn’t you want to play with us?”

“That’s not the po.. Let me BORROW the field? What nonsense is that? It’s the school’s basketball field, not yours!” I stared at him, dumbstruck.

“We used to play basket there every day, but suddenly you appeared to be playing basket as well, so I convinced the others to let you.”

“Wait.. Boyfriend?”

“He is not your boyfriend? What’s his name again?”

“Kibum.”

“Yes him.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Whatever. So why don’t you want to come?”

“Because you never asked me if I wanted to come or not. Why did you never tell me I was taking away you and your friends’ playing ground? I would simply have found another place to play ball.”

“You’re a friend of mine too. Friends share, don’t they? Why would I take away your place to relax?”

We were standing there, looking at each other in silence for quite a while. I was surprised by his words. It was the first time I heard or saw him confirm that we knew each other as more than ‘some dude/girl in my school who I happen to game with.’ When after a few minutes, still no words came from me, he raised an eyebrow. I shook my head to snap out of my surprise, ignoring the strange warm feeling that was taking over my insides. I sighed.

“Look. I appreciate that you came up with the idea of inviting me over, but you should wait for someone’s answer first, before simply assuming they’re okay with it.” I then said.

“So you don’t want to play basket with us?” he asked, adding in a disappointed mumble: “I wanted to introduce you to the others.” That was the first time I realised Heechul actually gave a damn about me. He wasn’t just dragging me around so that he could show off his new toy to his friends, he really thought me one of those friends. The cold distance between us when we were at school had completely come from my side, mainly because I was so used to being by myself. Kibum had been the first person in years I had done something together with in real life, without being ordered to. Realising Heechul also had a human side to him kind of melted my heart and even though I had been set on not going, I felt myself already slowly starting to give in to the idea.

“Who is us?” I therefore asked. His eyes shot up to my face.

“Hannie, me and the guys you saw a few weeks ago..” he slowly replied, inspecting my expression to see if I was becoming less reluctant.

“You’re inviting me to go out with an all guys group?” I couldn’t help but to sound disbelieving as I said that. Was he really going to drag me into a group of only guys?

“There are girls coming too, but they usually don’t play basket. I just thought you wouldn’t mind to play with the guys. If you don’t want to, you can just sit with the girls.. We play in a sports hall. First we have a drink together, then we play some basket or soccer until we get bored. It’s possible to take a shower there, but we mostly go home for that and then meet up again in the evening for another drink together. Sometimes at a club.” he explained. I nodded thoughtfully.

“It’s okay, I’ll play with the guys.” I then said. His face broke into a smile upon hearing those words. It surprised me that he was so happy about a simple thing like me joining in on the group outing. “Give me a moment, though, I’ll get dressed.” I then added. He grinned.

“You’re not going like this?” he asked, motioning at my clothing. “I think it looks quite sexy.” I eyed myself and rolled my eyes.

“Of course! Because what could be sexier than baby blue pyjamas with kittens on them and a pair of fluffy, pink bunny slippers.” I then replied sarcastically, but I was smiling anyway.

“Exactly my point.” he told me as I walked towards my wardrobe to find something fitting to wear. I heard him follow me, so it wasn’t surprising that, when I opened the small space for my clothes, he chuckled. “You were right.” he happily said. “Your computer would indeed not fit into this.” I could only laugh over his complete change of subject.

“Soo Jin, come help out a moment please!” my mom then called from downstairs. I rolled my eyes at her wonderful timing and muttered some insults and curses very sweet compliments as I turned to Heechul.

“Can you find my gray-red training for me and a white tank top? I’ll quickly help her and then come back to get dressed. She probably lost her phone again or maybe the car keys this time.” I told him. Just to not go against my own advice, I waited until he agreed to my words before running off.

As expected, my mother had indeed lost the car keys somewhere. I found them in 2 minutes, hidden under a few envelopes on the kitchen table. She thanked me when I handed them to her, but I could see that she was dying to ask me a whole lot of questions about the guy who had come for me. To escape such never ending questioning, I quickly ran back up the stairs with the truthful excuse of having to get dressed to leave.

Immediately when I entered my room, Heechul handed me the pieces of clothing I had asked for. He had surprisingly managed to find them without making a mess out of my room like I usually did. Deciding to ask him about that later, I quickly disappeared out of the room and into the bathroom to get dressed.

Five minutes later I came back out with combed hair, brushed teeth and still in my pyjamas.

“Yah! Do you really think I’ll wear this?” I said, showing Heechul the sleeveless top that maybe just covered my chest and left my belly for everyone to see. He let his eyes rest on it a moment, before frowning.

“It’s a top, right? You asked for a tank top, here you got one. Put it on. It’s going to be warm in there and you’ll be grateful that I gave you this.” he lectured me, turning me around and pushing me all the way back into the bathroom, basically locking me up inside.

I had no other choice but to get dressed and put on the exposing top. Looking at myself in the mirror, I thanked Kibum for playing basket with me for weeks, ince I had at least lost some of the lazy fat that I had gathered over my year of not really doing anything. but I still zipped the training closed to protect my dearest bellybutton from all the possible staring. Once I got out of the bathroom, Heechul basically dragged me towards the stairs, only leaving me time to grab some personal things because I bit his hands. After some curses on his side and some happy chuckles on mine as I put on my shoes, we finally walked out the door and stepped into his very expensive-looking and shiny black car.