The House on Mass. Avenue | Rensung

Untitled Part 4

The pencil twirled around Jisung's tired fingers and his head was resting on his other hand, his less tired fingers drumming rhythmically on his jaw.

Looking his right, Jisung was a bit saddened that he couldn't see the ocean from where he was seated in his room. Maybe he could moved the desk to sit next to the window. Shifting a bit in his seat, Jisung leaned back and stared at the filled paper in front of him.

It was his first character -nameless - but he knew that it was a boy. A sketch of the boy took up most of the page and it was finished, but Jisung wasn't sure how well he liked it. On either side of the sketch of course was all of the personality notes and he thought that was more solid that the look of the character. He still needed to decide a name too.

Jisung let out a groan and placed his pencil down on the desk, stretching out his fingers and moving to massage his wrist. He glanced bitterly at his type writer sitting off to the side, waiting impatiently for the day when he could finally move past the planning phase and begin writing again.

A knock came from his open doorway and Jisung turned to see Chenle hanging onto the side of the doorframe, his knuckles resting on the wood. "How's it going in here Ji?"

"It's going fine Chenle, don't you have classes?" Jisung asked, furrowing his eyebrows as he looked at the watch clock on his wrist, the time pointing to read that it was just past noon. Chenle shook his head in response.

"Nah, they cancelled classes for the day. I was just studying in my room, which reminds me-," Chenle looked pointedly at Jisung's tired hand resting in his other as well as the furious scribbles on his papers, "-I wanted to take a break and I think you should to. Have you even explored the surrounding area?"

Jisung moved to rub the back of his neck, smiling sheepishly before shaking his head. Chenle sighed and motioned for Jisung to stand up, beckoning for the younger to follow him. "We can go grab lunch and looked around town near here."

"Oh, sounds good then," Jisung said, standing up from his desk and moving to grab his jacket which was hanging in his wardrobe. Tugging it around his shoulders, the duo made their way down the hallway - careful as always to snap their fingers in front of the mirror - and then down the stairs. Chenle had been right, the mirror was the easiest one to remember.

Walking out into the lukewarm weather, Jisung's eyes roamed out over the ocean, catching sight of the other island resting miles and miles from where they were. Following Chenle's lead, the duo began to walk towards town and, after close to twenty minutes of walking, Chenle was quick to declare that they had arrived on the main street.

The road was filled with cars driving almost bumper to bumper, stopping more than often at the several crosswalks to let crowds, couples, and single people walk from street to street. Either side of this main road was packed with shops, ranging from gift shops to fashion boutiques to restaurants.

The first shop that the two had passed was a sort of geeky shop, filled to the brim with old show figures among other things. The sidewalks themselves were beautiful as well, filled with plants, decorated lampposts, and the occasional dog sitting next to their owner at an outside dinning space.

"Wow this is cozy," Jisung commented, feeling a bit overwhelmed and yet relaxed at the dozens of people wandering around. It was nice to see the lingering remaints of people trying to smush in their vacation time this last week of August before September started the end of Summer vacation.

"It's actually quite surprising to still see this many people here," Chenle commented as they stepped to the side to let an older couple moved past them, the streets being quite narrow indeed. "Usually the streets are a bit more barren than this, sorry about that!" Chenle laughed and apologized, Jisung quick to shake off the boy's apology.

"No, I'm glad that I get to kind of see the shops while they're still lively," Jisung reasoned and Chenle nodded, guiding the boy down the streets to point out the various shops.

There was actually a wide variety of shops, the restaurants especially. From what Chenle had told him, there was this nice Irish restaurant which served amazing pita bread with potatoes, bacon, leaks, and ranch dressing. There was also a fancy Greek place as well as a regular American 'Hamburgers and Fries' sort of scene.

Moving on from the food, there were also dozens of clothing stores that ranged from touristy merchandise to a British store which had expensive yet well-made clothing, of which was very much in style according to the older college student. Mixed in with those, there were the odd unique shops that sold cooking needs or other random bobbles.

Situating himself in one of the chairs at an outside dining table, Jisung smiled at Chenle who was just coming back with two cups of ice cream, the two previously having stood in line for a little over ten minutes at the busy ice cream parlor.

"Thanks Chenle," Jisung said as he took the strawberry flavored ice cream out of the boy's hands, Chenle moving to sit down in the seat across of Jisung with his own vanilla ice cream.

"Of course! This place always has the craziest lines during the summer so you better be happy that you didn't come then," Chenle said, both looking back at the smaller looking line, "One time Donghyuck and I waited outside for close to a half-hour just to get the new ice cream flavor - oh what was it? - mango and pineapple, no that wasn't it. Apple? No, hmm, well I guess it'll come to me later."

"Well let me know when you remember," Jisung said with a mix of sincerity and teasing in his voice, something Chenle picked up on as he rolled his eyes and sighed at Jisung's joking nature.

"Hey," Jisung started after taking a couple of spoonful's of his ice cream - it was absolutely fantastic in his opinion - and he pointed his small, plastic spoon at Chenle, "I really have been wanting to ask about this whole 'rules' thing? You and Jaemin never really explained it to me."

Chenle frowned, putting a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth as he thought. Finally he let out a sigh, "Donghyuck and Jaemin have been there the longest with myself, Jeno, and Renjun afterwards. Mark just arrived a month or two ago. If you ask anyone, Donghyuck and Jaemin would know the most, although I do think they're the most hesitant in explaining anything."

"Explaining what exactly?" Jisung prompted and Chenle gave him a pointed look. There was a strange look that came over the boy's face and Jisung shivered at the sudden chill that blew over him, his hair ruffling lightly in the small burst of wind.

"It's hard to explain, you'll figure it out yourself soon enough that's all that I can really say with explaining it," Chenle placed another spoonful of ice cream in his mouth, "Jisung I really hope that you can rely on me when you're staying at the house and here in general. It's tough to get adjusted to a new place and although I can't really explain what's going on exactly, I want you to be able to rely on me if anything happens."

Jisung balked a little at the sincerity in the boy's tone and in his facial expression. The younger of the two choked a little bit as his emotions closed up his throat and he shook his head, his face beginning to burn a bit. "Y-yeah, okay, yeah, uh, I'll be sure, um, to yeah." Jisung smacked his forehead down on the surface of the table and Chenle's loud and rambunctious laughter filled the air.

Regardless of his aching forehead, Jisung felt himself smile a little at the ground. It was nice to have someone like Chenle around.

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