SUGAR KISS [YEONBIN] ✓

sixteen

I wake up to a text, but not from Yeonjun.

And it’s fine.

Of course it’s fine. Literally why wouldn’t it be fine?

It’s my sister.

Mijoo:
HAVE YOU WON YET, BUG

Soobin:
NOPE

Mijoo:
Well get on it I miss you and also no one can cook

Soobin:
Y

OU get on it. I have confidence in your ability to turn on an oven

Mijoo:
UGH

Mijoo:
Well. I love you bb. Kick absolute ass.

Soobin:
<3 <3 <3

I don’t say: Well noona I’m fine I think I’m fine but there’s this guy I can’t stop thinking about, and I think teaming up is going to kill us both and also the longer I stay here, the more I think I got here on a fluke. I’ll be home any effing minute ok?

Because I don’t want her to know that I’m panicking. That it’s gotten to the point that every time I walk into that kitchen, it feels like a sentencing, not a gift.

I pick at my pilling shirt as I walk around outside in the heat and make my brain just slow. Take a second.

I want five minutes free of panicking. And wondering how a boy who’s used nothing but clearance pans and on-sale cheap meat and . . . shit, basically, to cook with, who’s never taken extra classes outside home-ec because, SURPRISE, even saying unaffordable is like ha. Hahaha. Understatement, meet my mouth.

But being here, where I am now, feels impossible. And the closer I get to the end, the more impossible it feels.

I keep seeing Yeonjun, cocky and good and just assuming I’m on his level, pushing me forward, and I think: You, Yeonjun. You should be here.

Taehyun, pushing Jaehyun around and destroying every challenge, Jungwon and this total joy that comes over him in the kitchen, so thoroughly that it’s like he forgets the pressure of everything and sinks into it.

And then. Here I am.

And it’s all just—terrifying.

I shove my hands down into my pockets and try to think of something else, anything else.

Then I hear laughter floating up from the trees. “Beomgyu, you can’t say that out loud.”

“Why not? You’re the only one here and you’re not gonna judge me for it.”

“Who said I wouldn’t judge you for it? I’m judging you.”

Beomgyu’s laugh rings out as I round the corner and find them sitting on this picnic bench, facing each other, almost touching.

Taehyun jumps up as soon as he sees me and points. “Soobin is here and he will judge you with me.”

Beomgyu glances up at me and waves, leaning forward on that bench as soon as Taehyun stands, still leaning when he sits.

“Yeah,” I say. “I judge you.”

“You don’t even know what I said,” says Beomgyu.

“He said he—”

“I said I hate cats. I hate literally everything about cats, and if I could travel back in time and create a catless world, I would do it.”

“Oh my god, I am judging you,” I say.

“Cats hate you. Your cat wants to eat you alive and steal your soul. And if it can’t do that, well it’s at least gonna knock your shit off the counter just to watch you have to retrieve it.”

Taehyun says, “What did CATS EVER DO TO YOU?”

“Cats never did anything to me because I refuse to be alone with one.”

“You’re afraid of cats then,” I say.

Beomgyu narrows his eyes. “I like to take precautions around my enemies.”

Taehyun stands again and Beomgyu’s hand moves to curl around the back of his leg, fingers just barely resting there against his skin. “Where you going?” he says. It’s quiet, and I actually blush hearing it.

“Off with someone who doesn’t hate animals.”

“It’s not all animals,” he says, and Taehyun rolls his eyes and steps over the bench to link arms with me.

Beomgyu’s mouth curls up, eyes all mischief when he laughs, and Taehyun waves a fake-offended good-bye to him.

We walk off together, his arm in mine like we’re back in middle school, and I say, “Well, you can’t date him now. He hates cats.”

Taehyun laughs, or puffs out air, really. “There’s a hundred reasons I can’t date Beomgyu  Cats are in, like, the top fifty.”

“Please,” I say. “That boy is so head over heels for you I’m surprised he can walk straight.”

“You don’t know Beomgyu,” he says.

“Okay, but I know what COMPLETELY DESTROY ME, PLEASE looks like.”

Taehyun shakes his head. “I’ve seen him give that look to like a dozen of people, Soobin.”

“I’ve only seen him give it to you.”

He half smiles, like he doesn’t want to, but he can’t help it. He glances back over his shoulder to watch him walk away and says, “Well. That’s because I’m the only person he knows here.”

“You’d think that would be prime no-strings-attached-hookup time then. Is all I’m saying. And yet.”

Taehyun furrows his brow. Like he hadn’t quite thought of that. “Hm,” is all he says.

We’re mostly quiet, slowly looping the quad. Taehyun is lost in thought—over Beomgyu or the competition, I’m not sure. And I quickly get back to the business of stressing out about tomorrow, like that will help anything.

Stressing out, after that, about elimination. We did not perform at peak level the other day with our weird reduction and I don’t know how to fix it, don’t even know if it’s possible. I’m afraid even trying would only make it worse. Though, how could it get any worse?

I am the personification of stress.

Taehyun says, “You okay?”

And I say, “I’m fine.”

Just as feet pound up the pavement behind us, and Yeonjun runs by, on Taehyun’s side.

He glances back when I say, “Thought you didn’t run in the middle of the day.”

“Full of surprises, Choi.”

He doesn’t even slow, just keeps running, and I bite my lip watching his back.

“Uh-huh,” says Taehyun.

I flip him off.

He laughs.

And Yeonjun continues to run.