Eccedentesiast || Bang Chan

11

I was looking for jobs online when I received an email from Jihoon's homeroom teacher. I clicked on it without any hesitation only to see a video embedded on the letter itself.

"Dear Jihoon's sister, it has come to my attention that you didn't attend the family day yesterday so I took the liberty of taking a video of our Jihoon's hard work. Please do attend the next event with him!" Then the video came after. I pressed play and the video I saw impressed me. I didn't know Jihoon could dance and sing.
It was a video of him and his other classmates dancing to Miroh by Stray Kids...

"We're home!" A voice called out and in came Jihoon and Jiyeon, still wearing their uniforms. "Jiyeon, get changed quickly. I'll start making dinner..." He said, putting his bag on the floor and then started to make rice.

"Jihoon." I called out from the bed.

"Yeah?"

"You didn't tell me yesterday was family day." I told him, kinda feeling bad about him not telling me.

"Don't worry, mom and dad never came too." He said. "We just wasted time lounging around school." He lied.

"Your teacher sent me this." I made my laptop screen face him and thus the video of him dancing was revealed.

"They forced me to join." He rolled his eyes and went back to cooking.

I smiled, remembering memories from the past when he first saw BigBang on tv. He memorized TOP's rap after hearing it once from the TV. The next time I saw him, he was rapping TOP's part although clumsily, he had a sense of rhythm. That was when he was seven.

I quickly sent the message to Chan and asked if he could watch it and then if we could have a call later on. Just like I expected, it didn't even take a minute for him to read and reply with an, "Of course, I'll call you later when I get back the dorm. I love you."

"Dani..." Jihoon called my name ever so gently while cutting some vegetables on the counter. "Are you sure you're not going to enroll for next season?" He asked.

"As of now... But don't worry about that." I shrugged but I could feel the worry he feels. "If you're concerned, just make me delicious meals every day alright?"

"Don't you need to buy more iron supplements for your anemia? I checked the medicine cabinet earlier and your pill bottles are empty." He reminded. But in all honesty, I stopped taking them. I feel better anyway and there has been no fainting spells for a year now.

"I'm all better." I answered.

For a few hours, I stayed on my laptop, browsing for job openings and all that. My siblings were able to have an early dinner already and were currently doing their homeworks quietly. I kept on checking my phone to look for messages from Chan but there were none.

I'm not a clingy girlfriend. I understood if he doesn't message me for an entire day... Or week. I always knew he's a difficult person to date. Ever since we were younger, I never was the one to take the first step because I didn't know where my limits were... I was cautious. But after spending a lot of time with him, I began to understand just how far I had to stand away from him. For some reason though, I wanted to message him a lot these days, I wanted to call him every night before I went to bed... I wanted to see him more. Was I being greedy? Am I being like this because I didn't have to pour all my attention at school anymore? That was probably it. I just don't have a place to put my attention to so I divert my attention to him.

As if he heard my thoughts about him, he was suddenly calling. As usual, I answered without missing a ring. I turned the video on and suddenly, the emptiness inside  started to fill with warmth. "Hey handsome." I smirked. Chan has always been too shy for compliments. Just as I thought, he started to become giddy just by that. "Have you seen the vid?"

"Yeah! He's good, I'm impressed really!" He said. "Does he want to become an idol?"

"He hates the attention but he loves to dance and sing." I whispered. But unfortunately my dear brother heard it.

"I do not!"

"Well he def has the talent, the skills amd the face. Why don't you encourage him to give it a try? I can forward the vid to the casting team." Chan whispered.

"Really? That would be great!" I cheered. I wanted to open up all opportunities for my brother. I wanted to encourage him to follow whatever it was he wanted because those were the things I didn't have and struggled with. I had to determine my entire life all on my own.

"I miss you... By the way, how's college?" He asked. That was it, the big question I was dreading. In a world where I didn't have a direction, he was like a compass who kept on guiding me towards a future I dreamt of. I didn't want to lie to him like this but I didn't want to worry him either.

"Oh its so-so..." I answered with a vague statement because I literally don't have anything to say.

"Then, if you're free tomorrow night, do you want to visit the ramyun house we used to frequent? It would be our first date out."