Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 22/36
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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Yet the next morning brought nothing to live up to my expectations. Kibum and I greeted each other like any other day, actually everyone acted like any other day. Well, except for Donghae, who smiled and waved at me on his way to the soccer field. I waved back, earning a meaningful look from Yumiko and a mouthed ‘Kim Kibum.’ I stuck out my tongue at her, but then quickly dragged her and Zhou Mi in front of me when I saw Heechul arriving.
Somehow he still noticed me, however, and set for us. I was lucky enough to have the bell ring right at that moment, so I hurried inside, thereby avoiding his rage. I successfully did so the rest of the day as well and left with Kibum immediately after our last class. Yet Heechul wouldn’t be Heechul if he just let it all go, so I got a call from him in the car on my way to Kibum’s house.
“Snipe!” his voice boomed through the phone the moment I picked up. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to! Why did you ignore me all day? I wasn’t even able to glare at you for leaving me alone to be bored to death yesterday.”
“That’s exactly why, Chullie.” I replied with a smile on my face.
“Where are you right now?” he demanded to know. “So that I can kick your butt after all.”
“I’m in Kibum’s car on my way to his house.” I replied, chuckling. “But I don’t think Bummie will appreciate it if you burst into his house just to kick my butt.”
“Oh so now it IS Bummie, huh?” Heechul mumbled, sounding a lot less ‘enraged’ already.
“It’s been Bummie for a while, Chullie.” I glanced aside at Kibum, who showed me an amused grin. “He sends you his regards, by the way, and hopes you enjoyed your time brushing cats and watching tennis.”
“You told him?” Heechul shrieked into the phone, making it hard for me to hold back my laughter as I moved the thing a bit away from my ear to not get deaf. Even Kibum heard him, laughing softly and mouthing a ‘This is so Heechul’ to me. I grinned widely, but tried to keep my voice normal as I replied.
“Well of course I told him. What else could I do when you interrupted our conversation? Our dear friend was curious what was so pressing that you had to call so urgently yesterday. I had no other choice but to tell him.”
“You.. You’re so.. But.. And.. Ugh, never mind! I’ll see you tomorrow, Snipe, and don’t even think about running away from me then!” he bit back at me, before his voice changed completely and he happily added: “Say hi back to Kibum. I hope you two enjoy your afternoon together. See you tomorrow, Snipeydoodle.” before hanging up. I turned to look at Kibum again, frowning.
“Snipeydoodle?” I asked dumbfounded, making Kibum grin.
“He called you that?”
“Yes he did. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Snipeydoodle? Oh, he’s so dead when I see him tomorrow. I should call him Heesteregg.” Those words made Kibum laugh out loud.
“Heesteregg? Wonderful! Please let me be around when you call him that. I want to see his face!” he replied, grinning widely. I laughed as well upon imagining the situation. We arrived at his house moments after. He pulled over in front of it and shut down the engine, before getting out.
We again spent some time in his room before going out to take pictures. That time we went to the rather forgotten and abandoned old swimming pool, taking pictures in between the ruins of the building. When I had enough of posing in front of his camera, I went up to him and took it out of his hands to take a look at the pictures. I walked towards the remains of a wall to sit down, dragging him along with me since the band of the camera was still around his neck. He sat down next to me and watched along, making sure that I did not delete any pictures that he didn’t want to be deleted. It was when I was about halfway through the pictures that I decided to strike a conversation.
“So.. Yumiko tells me you only take pictures of things that are valuable enough to you.” I therefore said, successfully getting his attention with it. He turned his face to look at me and smiled amusedly.
“She does, huh?” he asked, making me laugh as I remembered my very much alike conversation with Yumiko the previous evening. “I am a little offended that you think that funny.” he mumbled when he saw me laughing, but the hint of a smile on his face made it obvious that he wasn’t serious, so I merely smiled innocently, going on with looking through the pictures. “But yes, it’s true. Why would I take a picture of something that has no value to me? What good would it do to make myself able to look at something forever when I don’t even intend to give it a second glance?”
“That strangely makes sense, you know.” I replied, looking up at him and grinning. He smiled, but didn’t answer, so I leaned against him again, careful not to choke him with the band of his camera. Luckily he took the thing from around his neck and put it around mine, before wrapping an arm around my middle. I froze slightly when he did that, but when no other initiative came, I relaxed again.
We sat like that for the rest of the hour, me leaning against him and his arm resting around my middle. Six o’ clock came too fast for my liking and even though he kissed me on the cheek again as we each went our own ways, nothing really exciting happened that evening, leaving me slightly disappointed as I walked home.
So was Yumiko when I told her the events of that day. She did like the pictures, however, and didn’t fail to compliment Kibum’s photographing skills, claiming that he could’ve just as well majored in that. I disagreed by saying that he wouldn’t have enough valuable things to take pictures if he did that, after which Yumiko suggested that I should give him some very valuable babies then, which made our conversation end in a pillow fight.
The next couple of days I spent with observing my other friends, noticing for myself what Kibum had told me that Monday. Yumiko did indeed send unnoticed glances at Sungmin, but spent lots of time with Zhou Mi as well. Kyuhyun and Nana seemed the same as ever, bickering but happy, and Kyuhyun’s obvious love for her was indeed..well, obvious. Jongwoon and Jungsoo wore normal clothes to school again and spent more time again with Heechul’s group of friends.
Speaking of Heechul, he did come to me in school on Wednesday, but instead of giving me another lecture, he invited me to have dinner over at his place that Friday evening, because Heeyoung hadn’t seen me for so long and it would just be a nice thing to do. I smiled and accepted, saying that I would have to tell my mother, though.
That’s how I ended up spending my Friday evening at his house, earning random comments from his sister about how I seemed to look healthier and happier that almost made me suspect her to have talked to Yumiko. The evening passed without much to talk about, however, except for the sole fact that Hangeng had gotten himself a part-time job in a café in town. I promised him I would visit soon to see how he handled the plate, which Heechul immediately used as a ‘good opportunity to crash the café with the whole group.’
And so that happened. The next Monday afternoon found our whole group of people entering the café where Hangeng worked. We had really brought everyone. I invited Kibum, Zhou Mi and Yumiko. The latter on her turn invited the whole soccer group, including Siwon’s girlfriend Sung Yeon. Heechul himself invited his whole group together with Jungsoo and Jongwoon, who all brought their girlfriends along - which meant Haerin, Heeyoung and Ga Eun - and of course Eun Hee didn’t want to be left behind either, so there were twenty-three of us, excluding Hangeng.
One thing was certain; the owner of the café could hardly believe his eyes when he saw so many of us come in, pushing tables together and stealing chairs from all around to have enough seats to sit together, before we all greeted Hangeng happily. He told us the next day that he had gotten a serious tip for bringing his friends along and that the owner had told him that he could do that more often, whenever he wanted to even, so we promised to always try and meet there if we intended on just having a drink in a café.
We sat there for the rest of the afternoon, spoiling my hope on spending that day in the park with Kibum. In the whole week, even during the weekend, he had taken no further steps, nor had we actually really talked, making me start to doubt his intentions behind the kiss. The fact that my afternoons were starting to get planned by Heechul again as if I would not get out otherwise also didn’t really encourage anything of course.
I voiced these doubts to Yumiko at a certain point that afternoon, while everyone else was concentrated on the snooker game that the boys were having. She still was the only one who knew about the kiss, aside from Kibum and me, and I was happily keeping it that way. She also had not told anyone, which I am forever grateful about. No need to make my other friends start celebrating and encouraging marriage
“Nothing yet?” Yumiko asked when I told her and I shook my head.
“No!” I mumbled frustrated. “It’s like it has never happened or something. He doesn’t talk about it either, like he has forgotten all about kissing me.” I shook my head and sighed.
“Maybe he has. Maybe he was completely drunk that day and doesn’t remember anything anymore.” Yumiko brought up, making me give her a sarcastic look.
“Yes. That could have been possible if it were Heechul we’re talking about, but Kibum? First of all he never gets drunk enough to have forgotten what he did by the next day; secondly, he was acting completely normal; and as a third, he didn’t even smell like alcohol. So no, that’s a quite impossible scenario.” I then replied, making her chuckle.
“I guess you’re right.” she admitted. “But seriously, he can’t just let it go like that, I’m sure he still remembers. So then why doesn’t he do anything anymore?” In all her affront, she started talking a little louder, which caught the attention of Zhou Mi who was standing a mere two metres away from us. He walked towards us and I gave Yumiko a helpless look, before smiling at him.
“What are you girls talking about? Seems like something’s really bothering you.” he said, smiling back at me. He casually took place at my left side and looked at us. Yumiko pulled me a little closer towards her to be able to mumble ‘I don’t think he’ll tell anyone, let’s just tell him and maybe he knows more about it.’ into my ear, which I could only agree with. So I mentally prepared myself, before leaning a little closer to Zhou Mi.
“Last Monday I went to the park with Kibum and he kissed me.” I told him softly. He grinned and turned to look at his friend, which made Yumiko pull his shoulder so that he would turn back to us and not stare so obviously. He was still grinning.
“So he actually did, huh?” he then asked amused. Yumiko and I looked at each other in surprise, before turning back to Zhou Mi, obviously wanting to know more. “Oh please! Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed yet, Yumi. I can understand about Soojin, because like they say; love is blind, but you? I knew the moment I arrived here that he had a thing for you, Soojin. I asked him about it a few weeks later too. He admitted it, but said he didn’t feel ready yet to do anything. Something about his personality. I guess he did feel ready now.”
“He..already had a thing for me three months ago?” I mumbled shocked, staring at Zhou Mi disbelievingly. He grinned and nodded, making Yumiko nudge my shoulder and grin at me with a meaningful wink. I smiled for a moment, but then frowned, turning back to Zhou Mi. “What do you mean his personality? And if he has a thing for me since way back then, then why doesn’t he do anything anymore now? I feel like he doesn’t really care about it all.” Zhou Mi grinned and softly patted my shoulder.
“You know.. Kibum’s kind of a shy person when it comes to important things. He’ll wait until he is completely sure that the other person will agree before actually doing something.” he then told me, letting out a slight sigh.
“Who are we talking about?” Jongwoon asked, suddenly standing next to Yumiko. All three of us looked up at him in shock, only barely keeping back the surprised sounds. I wanted to make up an excuse or something, but Zhou Mi was first.
“Kibum. About his weird personality when it comes to important things.” he told the elder, revealing nothing and everything at the same time. I mouthed a short ‘thanks’ to him, but he merely smiled his signature happy smile.
“Ahh, Kibum, yes.. He’s a strange one.” Jongwoon then said and I couldn’t keep back my laughter when I heard those words, which nearly made me choke in my coke. Luckily Jongwoon was kept from asking me questions when Heeyoung suddenly took his hand and came to stand with us as well.
“You’re one to talk.” she voiced my own thoughts with a smile on her face, earning herself a ‘Ha-ha you’re so funny’-look from her boyfriend. I wanted to scream seeing yet another person coming to stand with us, but kept my mouth shut, just letting the others talk as if it all wasn’t my business. “But who were you talking about?” Heeyoung meanwhile continued, looking at us as well for an answer.
“Kibum. They were saying his personality is so shy when it comes down to important things.” Jongwoon replied, nodding at Zhou Mi as he did so. The latter nodded as well to confirm this. “Which is very true. Like how he never does something before he’s sure the other agrees as well. Or how he takes the first step and then waits until the other one takes the second step. He used to like a girl a year back, said he liked her for a while already, but he never even talked to her. When I asked him why, he said he wanted to make sure she wouldn’t mind talking to him before doing so.” Jongwoon shrugged as he said that, but I suddenly understood things a lot better.
“Who was the girl?” Zhou Mi asked interested and I felt my own interest rise as well, pointing my eyes at Jongwoon. Right at that moment, however, we were interrupted by yet another person wanting to know what was going on.
“Hey. What’s the gathering about?” All heads turned to look at Kibum when he said those words.
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