Beyond This Fucked Up World [choi yeonjun]

Chapter Thirty One - Meeting Up With A Criminal

[6. September 2022]

Through the clouds shone the sun, sunbeams getting blocked by gray cotton-like structures in the sky. In times like these I could look up and admire the sky without having the urge to sneeze. And now it was even easier to do it while being on my bicycle as Kai was pushing the two-wheeler behind me with his hands gripping the basket attached to it.

"Eve, I have literally no fun in pushing you any further." Kai complained with a panting voice, but he didn't make any effort to stop what he allegedly didn't want to do.

"I have a lot of fun right now, I don't know what you mean." I teased him, smiling at the sky.

"Yeah, you're not the one pushing a bike with a person on it."

"I'm not the one deciding to keep doing things I don't want to do." I countered and needed to gulp.

At this moment, Kai released his hands from the basket and I felt the immediate lack of stability, resulting in me abruptly hitting the brakes. I almost fell from my bike if my feet hadn't caught me by stepping on the ground in time.

Because of the unexpected interruption while being pushed, my chest hit the handlebars a little too harshly and I had to grunt in pain. Instead of throwing various curse words at the taller one behind me, I caught sight of where we both were at the moment.

After our shift at the coffee shop was over, Kai and I decided to go to the old swimming pool where the others were already waiting for us. I had my bike with me and Kai thought it would be fun to push me a bit while I still sat on top of it. He liked the idea for about seven minutes until he had visibly and audibly enough of it.

"Finally." Kai gasped and supported his hands on his waist to hold himself up better.

I ignored him and focused on the other boy in front of me, who climbed down out of the broken window and sprinted over to us with a wide, open smile on his face. On my face appeared a bright smile as well and I couldn't help but feel the butterflies raving around in my tummy.

His laugh could be heard from meters away and when Yeonjun almost stood in front of me, he made his way around the handlebar of my bicycle to get closer to me. I saw his hand making its way towards my right cheek, placing itself on top of it gently and then getting followed by a soft kiss on my lips.

I tilted my head more to the side to face Yeonjun properly, reaching my left hand over to his waist and holding my bike safely in the other.

In the midst of the kiss I heard fake sounding gagging noises coming from beside me. I knew that Kai was watching us, but I couldn't stop Yeonjun from kissing me. For the mere reason that I didn't want to and for the second reason that I didn't care.

With a quick movement we broke away from the kiss and before I could say anything to Kai, who was visibly outraged by our intimacy, Yeonjun took care of that instead.

"If you feel offended then maybe you should search for new friends."

"No, thanks. I will just rip my eyes out instead."

Without another word, Kai made his way to the abandoned building and climbed through the window to get inside. I turned my head back to Yeonjun, who still held me close to his chest. A silly smile greeted my gaze.

"Did you miss me?" He asked me and his grin grew wider with every second my cheeks got redder.

"Of course not. I would never anticipate wanting to meet up with a criminal." I explained with a bantering tone and needed to hold back a bigger grin.

"Yeah, yeah, come on, moral nag. We have places to go." Yeonjun proclaimed and in the same breath he took me by the waist and threw me over his shoulder.

"What are you doing?!" I screamed out and heard my bicycle fall on the ground as no one was holding it up on its wheels anymore.

Yeonjun didn't answer my very high pitched question and instead just carried me over to the building next to us. On the way I needed to listen to Yeonjun's very amused laughter, not finding any of it hilarious myself.

The only thing I could see was the back of Yeonjun and the ground plastered with gravel and dirt. I could feel my head filling up with blood and my face getting hotter with any passing second my face had to be upside down.

When we finally reached the broken window on the side of the building, Yeonjun put his hands on my waist again and placed me down into the window frame where I could sit comfortably. At least I didn't have to climb up into the window as I was already sitting inside of it.

"Be lucky that you have a personal chauffeur." Yeonjun argued when he saw the look on my face.

I kept quiet and said nothing to it. The look of annoyance on my face already told enough of what I thought about his hilarious move and even though I didn't mean it seriously, I still played along with it longer than expected.

Yeonjun took a step closer to me and wanted to put his arms around my waist, but my intentions were quicker than his. I gently pushed him away from me by the shoulders, which gave me enough time to quickly get up from my sitting position and run further inside the old swimming pool.

I stopped at the edge of the empty pool, looked across the large hall and saw three boys at the smaller pool that was filled with water. Beomgyu stood dressed inside of the tank, splashing water at Kai and smiling broadly at him. He seemed the complete opposite of his saturday self.

Taehyun sat beside the tank pool on a folding chair and fiddled around with the cast on his right arm. He still looked a bit battered, but I didn't know if it was just his normal behavior or if it was because of what happened last saturday.

Meanwhile, Kai was taking his revenge at Beomgyu and dashed water on him without being in the pool himself. His grin was purely mischievous and it was clear that he enjoyed it with every fiber of his body.

Everyone was there, except Soobin. He was nowhere to be seen.

A weight pushed itself on me and I felt some soft hands gently making its way towards my stomach, hugging me from behind. Yeonjun and I staggered a little back and forth before we came to a halt again a little after. He let his chin rest on my left shoulder, making me a little nervous to look in his direction.

Beomgyu became aware of us standing across the big, empty swimming pool and excitedly lifted up one of his arms and waved at us exaggeratedly, splashing water from his wet sleeve everywhere. He yelled out a loud greeting and completely ignored Kai's annoyed face as all the water landed on his face.

I waved at him less exaggeratedly and watched as his smile grew bigger at that sight. Taehyun then finally looked up from the cast on his arm and also caught the eye of me, waving in my direction as well.

I wanted to walk over to them and put one foot forward, towards the ladder closest to me, but two hands held me back and I was unable to move away from where I was standing.

"We are going outside!" Yeonjun yelled to the others with a big smile on his face. I turned my head to my left shoulder and only then realized how close he was to my face, my lips.

"Hm?" Yeonjun distanced himself from me a little so that he could get a better look at me.

"I just let you greet the others first before we go do our own thing." I put on a playfully sad expression.

"But I wanted to go play in the pool, too." He giggled shortly.

"Wanna go into the water with full clothes on again? You can do that later, let's go."

He turned my body in the direction we had come from and separated his body from mine without taking his hands off my waist. He gently pushed me to move forward and I did as he gestured.

I looked over at the others one last time and waved at them with a sad look before concentrating on where I was going.