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staytheb · 10 months

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Just A Little Bit; Falling For You - Chapter Five: networking

Word Count: 6,611 Summary: The cousins attend their school's event and end up interacting with their Love Interest during the event. previous chapter || next chapter

updated: 6.1.24

"I can't believe I got separated from the others." Serena mumbled to herself with a soft chuckle.

"I knew Hanyoung was such a distraction, but didn't think I'll be distracted for that long."

Serena got distracted with talking to Hanyoung and even asking him about his father's company despite already talking with a few others and got her lanyard stamped by a few of them, too.

"At least I got another stamp out of it though." She said to her with a laugh.

"This should be good enough for my extra credit, too."

Hanyoung had pitched the business well every now and then, but he, too, just needed a distraction from others and wanted to talk with a familiar face. Then an actual person wanted to talk about the business and she excused herself, but didn't forget about getting a stamp from him either.

"Hmm, what should I do now?"

Serena weaved in and out of other participants, mingling with various friends for a bit here and there, but wanted to search for her sister and cousins.

"I wonder where they are?"

Yet, couldn't find them, but continued to make her way out of the hall and to other parts of the hotel.

"Hmm, maybe they left the hall and went outside."

She found herself in another large room with one of the indoor pools on the lobby floor and was amazed by the nighttime view of it.

"Wow, this is really pretty."

She moved closer to view the outside better, but avoided being close to the pool itself as she didn't want to fall in and ruin the dress since she wasn't the one that had rented it. Still, being at this formal school function of sorts made her realize that she would rather work in a place in casual wear than formal wear.

"Park Minseo?"

Serena heard her name being said from behind her in a familiar yet questioning tone as she slightly turned her head to see who the person was. She was surprised to see Heeseung standing there that she did a double take as he wore an all black three piece vested double breasted suit and not the normal wear he usually wore.

"Um, hi, Heeseung."

She just hoped it wasn't obvious because compare to Hanyoung, she seemed more surprised of Heeseung all dressed up and found herself feeling some sort of way about it. She shook those thoughts away and plastered a small smile on her face while turning the rest of her body to face him properly.

"Hey yourself." He greeted.

He flashed her with a friendly smile as he gave her a once over.

"You look quite lovely this evening, Minseo."

Serena felt shy under his watchful gaze, knowing that Heeseung has never seen her dressed up like this before. Well, for what she knows for that matter.

"Uh, thanks, Heeseung."

She didn't know how to take his compliment and the awkwardness settled in. Serena wished she could be anywhere, but here with him. She shot Heeseung with a small smile and with one of her hands, moving in an awkward up and down motion towards of his own attire.

"Um, you look quite handsome yourself." She complimented, meaning every word of it.

"It's a good look on you."

"Oh, thank you."

A chuckle escaped his lips as Serena suddenly grew even more shy in front of the male.

"I appreciate that."

"Oh, yeah. Nice."

She however figured it may be due to the overall event and seeing him and herself in this sort of unfamiliar setting outside of school and just out of their normal circumstances in general.

"So, um, what are you doing here?" She inquired a second later.

Heeseung chuckled before answering.

"The networking function."

"Oh, yeah true, but um, I mean like here at this spot."

Serena didn't know why she lost her composure just now, but felt awkward being within Heeseung's presence of all places for this school event.

"Ah, just needed a break from the crowd in the main hall. Yourself?"

"Me, too. I just got done talking with a friend for his parents' business."

A chuckle left her lips.

"He needed a distraction and I didn't mind talking with him."

"Oh?"

Heeseung's demeanor slightly shifted, but a polite smile remained on his face.

"A good friend of yours?"

"Um, yeah, I like to think so. So far he hasn't bothered me much like the other boys." She answered with a sheepish laugh.

"Oh? Other boys? There's more?"

Heeseung cast her with a slight amused look, but his eyes remained unreadable for some odd reason.

"Oh, yeah, there's quite a lot of them."

Serena dismissed that as she chuckled nervously, wondering if she had said too much for his liking or something.

"Grew up with a lot of them, too, unfortunately."

She tsked, recalling her childhood.

"They're kinda annoying to be honest and now that I think about it, they're still annoying to this day."

Serena knew she was rambling now and needed to stop.

"Um, anyway, enough about me. I'm not at all that interesting."

She re-directed the conversation elsewhere and gave him a curious look.

"What about you though? How is everything going for you?"

She hoped she could not talk about herself, but he didn't respond right away and she quickly filled in the silence to get him to talk.

"Any of the businesses and or people seem to interest you to work with them after graduation? Or whatever."

"Ah, there's quite a few, but I haven't really decided yet." He replied with a small smile after a few seconds.

"How about you?"

She felt relieved when the conversation got going again.

"Um, not really. I mean, some are interesting, but none of them felt right for some odd reason or other."

Serena cast Heeseung with a puzzled look.

"I'm surprise that I didn't see you around the event at all though."

"Yeah, me too." He agreed, shooting her a smile.

"But then again there were a lot of us going about the whole area."

"Yeah, pretty much."

The two share a laugh and just as Heeseung opened his mouth to ask another question, Serena got bumped from behind and stumbled into the pool a moment later.

"Minseo!"

Heeseung reached out a hand to catch her, but missed the opportunity by a few seconds. His head snapped to the right of him to see who had bumped into Serena to cause her fall into the pool.

"Did you do that on purpose, Yoo Taeha?"

"It was an accident, Heeseung. It's not like I purposely did it." Taeha countered, making a face.

"I was just moving so fast when I saw you and I honestly didn't see her at all."

Honestly, she didn't sound all that convincing as Heeseung sighed, slightly annoyed about the whole situation.

"Forget it."

Heeseung completely ignored Taeha as he crouched near the edge of the pool while holding out his right arm when Serena resurfaced. However, Taeha felt miffed about Heeseung ignoring her though.

"Over here, Minseo."

Serena glanced over while treading water to stay afloat.

"Swim towards me."

Others had glanced over at the trio, but remained where they were as they didn't want to involve themselves in the sitaution. Only one hotel staff rushed over to assist with Heeseung as he informed the man to fetch a couple of towels.

"I'll help you out."

Serena swam over and took his offered hand. Heeseung pulled her closer to the edge of the pool before taking her other hand in his to help get her out of the water.

"What just happened though?"

She looked at him as he slightly motioned with his head towards Taeha's direction once Serena's feet safely steadied itself back onto solid ground. She softly sigh and quitely groaned, wondering how she was going to explain this to Hanyoung and the price it may cost to get this clean properly, too.

"This is gonna be such a hassle."

However, she paid no attention to the other woman, knowing that this was just another jealousy moment on Taeha's end as Serena knew how she was like, having known her since high school as well. Anyway, Serena felt some type of cloth covering her a moment later. She realized it was Heeseung's suit jacket.

"Are you sure?"

Serena eyes widened at the fabric drapped over her. Heeseung smiled warmly before quickly glancing away.

"You're the one that needs it more than me at the moment."

"But I'm sure I could get a towel or something." She reasoned.

"I really don't need it, Heeseung."

Heeseung continued to avoid eye-contact.

"It's coming, Minseo, but you definitely needed something right now."

The way his words came out made her questioned why he would say it like that. She glanced down and realized she was in white and the dress now seemed a bit too fitting for her than before.

"Crap." She muttered towards herself, wishing she had chosen a different dress than this one.

Serena shot him an uneasy, but grateful smile.

"Anyway, yeah, but thank you, Heeseung."

"You're welcome, Minseo."

Taeha didn't like the interactions as she tried to get Heeseung's attention again.

"C'mon, Heeseung. Let's return to the event." She suggested with an overly sweet tone.

"There's this one company I think would suit you a lot."

Taeha made to grab Heeseung's arm to pull him away from Serena, but he turned his head and gave her a firm look while shaking off her grip.

"You do realized that there's a slight incident here that needs to be taken care of first, right?"

"Yeah, but I'm sure Park Minseo would be fine without our help. She doesn't look like she needs any help."

Taeha looked at Serena.

"Right, Park Minseo?"

"I would be fine regardless if I wanted your help or not, Yoo Taeha." Serena responded in a dry tone, not paying attention to her.

"So, your concern is not needed though. Thanks anyway."

Serena was too busy examining her lanyard to make sure that the stamps haven't smudged.

"Please, please be okay."

Luckily, the stamps haven't smuged all that much and she could still present this to the faculty tomorrow.

"Oh, they're fine. Thank goodness."

Plus, she didn't want to go around to the businesses again for more stamps.

"Because I don't wanna talk to anymore of them."

Well, maybe Hanyoung and Junyoung could help her for sure if the stamps washed out.

"Well, there's two, but even then I don't wanna do all that again."

Anyway, Taeha rolled her eyes, but faced Heeseung again with that overly sweet appearance.

"See, she's fine, Heeseung. Let's go."

"I'm not going with you and I'm going to make sure that Minseo is fine."

"But I-"

Taeha instantly stopped talking once she noticed Heeseung's expression. She huffed, released his arm, and rushed off, leaving the pair behind. Serena chuckled at her behavior with a shake of her head.

"Some people, I swear." She mumbled while keeping the lanyard dry against Heeseung's suit jacket.

"Did you want me to call your male friend or something?" Heeseung asked a moment later.

She eyed him weirdly as she heard the hesitation in his voice when he asked the question, but dismissed it and the situation at hand.

"No, it's okay. I don't want to bother him about what had just occured as it doesn't concern him."

Just then the same hotel staff returned with two large towels, rushing over to the pair while apologizing for the wait. The pair told him it was fine and to not worry as Heeseung immediately took them, thanked the staff before leaving, and quickly placed one around Serena's shoulder and the other draping over her head.

"Need to make sure you get dry soon."

He flashed her a warm smile and Serena just nodded, suddenly feeling flustered by the overall situation. She realized that a lot of what he was doing was something she herself would like to experience with a significant other. However, she quickly dimissed those thoughts as she knew her brain would start imagining Heeseung as that someone for her and she did not need it. Especially when her sister and cousins wished for her own boy problem, too.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"Oh. I should retur-"

"It's fine. You can return it to me another day."

"Oh, okay."

Serena stayed where she was in hopes that Heeseung would eventually leave her alone and returned to his friends, but didn't. He stayed right beside her and so she glanced at him curiously as his eyes focused on her now than before.

"Hmm?" He hummed with a tilt of his head.

Serena felt the immense urge to ruffled his hair and rubbed his face like she would do to a dog, but she refrained from doing so and slightly backed away instead.

"Um, don't you need to meet up with the others though? I'm sure you can spend your time socializing and networking some more without worrying about me."

"Nah, I really don't mind, Minseo. However, I'm sorry about Taeha though."

"Don't worry about it." She dimissed with a reassuring smile.

"No need for you to apologize on her behalf since she's a grown woman. She's always been like that and I can handle myself."

Serena flashed Heeseung an appreciative smile.

"Thanks though."

"Welcome, but I would rather know you're safe than anything else."

Heeseung said it in such a casual way that an outsider might have mistaken the two as something. However, Serena wasn't an outsider, and tried to play it cool.

"You don't have to. I'm doing fine, Heeseung, so you can leave. It's really not your fault."

She's done enough interacting with him in such a short span of time already and needed to escape now. Serena knew that karma was working it's way around her and she needed to settled the matter without catching some sort of feelings and the likes. Yet she pondered on why he was making her feel this type of way compared to another of the guys in their friend group. Still, Serena had a feeling that Heeseung didn't mind with how much they've been interacting so much than before.

"Anyway, I'm gonna find the others. It was good seeing you and thanks. Have a good night and I'll return you your suit jacket later. Thanks again."

Serena dashed off, leaving a bemused Heeseung behind. Still, a ghost of a smile graced his features as he watched her disappearing from his sight.

"Maybe coming wasn't so bad after all." Heeseung said to no one in particular as he glanced about him and made his way back to the grand hall.

Meanwhile, when all that happened between Serena and Heeseung, the other three had their own interaction with a specific someone.

"I don't know why I keep drinking this when I don't even like it at all."

Kierra made a face while still taking sips of her drink.

"I blame Junyoung for this."

A giggle escaped her lips.

"Then again, I really do hate wasting stuff." Kierra mumbled to herself with a slight chuckle as she took another sip from her third glass of non-alcoholic champagne as the live orchestra began again.

"This isn't so bad, but I would rather be home then come here again."

Kierra was surprised that the school got a live orchestra to play for such an event as she thought it was just people talking business and whatever.

"At least the music is nice."

Kierra lost sight of her sister and cousins midway through the event as everyone wanted to check out something different. However, they did agree to meet up after two hours of doing whatever they wanted and so Kierra found herself sitting at one of the tables just chilling after getting like three stamps. Kierra just got done talking with Junyoung about his father's business a while ago, entertaining him until an actual client wanted to discuss business with him.

"Care for a dance, Hayoun?"

Her head shot up upon hearing a familiar voice to see Jay standing before her, slightly bowed with his right arm extended towards her.

"What are you doing here?"

Were the words that came out of her mouth instead. The corners of Jay's lips quirked up at her words, but he remain calm.

"I'll answer you if you join me for a dance first."

His offered hand still lingered before her and so Kierra downed the rest of her drink before setting the empty glass down and placed her hand in his. Anyway, she was in a good mood and didn't want to appear rude, but even more so Kierra didn't feel as Jay had no ulterior motive behind this.

"Sure, Jay."

Jay led the two of them to the dance floor as he adjusted their positions. He held Kierra's right hand in his left as he placed her left hand onto his right shoulder while his right hand settled onto the small of her back. She soon felt highly aware of how close all this was between the two of them. She hadn't realized just how much taller he was against her and wondered why she was suddenly thinking of these things about him. However, she soon realized that she's never dance like this before in her entire life either.

"I don't know how to dance this dance, Jay." Kierra admitted with a nervous chuckle.

"Are you sure you want to dance with me still?"

Of course, this helped distract her from the closeness between her and him although she wondered why they even had a dance floor to dance in the first place, but figured it was just an elite thing or whatever.

"Don't worry, Hayoun." He assured with a comforting smile.

"Just follow my lead."

"Ah, okay."

Luckily for her though, he seemed like a natural at this as she soon followed his lead with ease and felt relieved that she wouldn't be making a fool of herself.

"I don't think I've ever seen you all dress up like this before since I've known you."

Jay initiated conversation although Kierra thought he would tell her why he's here, but answered nevertheless.

"Yeah, this is just only on special ocassions of sorts from time to time and I don't think there were any events with you in it where I had to dress up though."

Kierra actually gave Jay a once over of his all-black outfit. She had to admit that he looked way too good in his two-piece suit and decided to be nice to him.

"As for you, you're quite handsome yourself though. I don't think I've seen you like this either."

Kierra wanted to facepalm herself. Why did she have to say it like that, but she caught the slight smirk that Jay had on his face. He enjoyed it.

"Thank you. This is a from time to time thing also."

Kierra refrained from rolling her eyes.

"Right."

Jay chuckled.

"The color is a good look on you."

She was caught off guard from his simple compliment, but slightly nodded.

"Ah, thanks."

Silence fell between them which Kierra actually didn't mind though. However, she did avoid eye-contact as Jay's stare made her nervous and shy.

"So, you and Hwang Junyoung are a couple?"

Came Jay's question.

"Not even close."

She glanced at him with a puzzled look.

"We're just co-workers and he was just telling me about his father's business."

She still eyed him.

"How do you know him though?"

Jay cast Kierra with a firm smile.

"Well, his father and my father do business together although him and I were different ages and so we never became actual friends."

"Oh, cool."

Kierra knew that Jay came from a wealthy background, but she never really let that fact sink in until right now. Was he here for the school event himself or to host his father's business like Junyoung and Hanyoung, too. She hoped that her life wouldn't turned out like one of those chaebol k-drama plots that her sister and younger cousin like to watch though.

"Hmm?"

Kierra missed the question that Jay asked as she was too lost in her thoughts.

"Sorry, but what did you say?"

"It's okay."

Jay shot her a reassuring smile before repeating his question.

"Were you able to make copies of the photos from last semester?"

Crap. She did not and hoped that Jay would've forgotten about those. Apparently not. Then again, Kierra recalled that he had mentioned them last time and she even agreed as a lot of them came out nicely despite believing them that they wouldn't.

"No, but I'll definitely let you know when I do and give you a copy for sure once I get it all together."

He nodded and she hoped the dance would just end now. Still, she didn't get her answer from her question from earlier.

"So, why are you here, Jay?"

Jay smiled.

"To help spread my father's business and to network, of course."

"I see."

She then realized something.

"I totally could've asked you to give me a stamp."

"For free?"

She felt offended.

"Obviously, not. I'm not like that."

However, she thought it.

"Then again, it would've made things easier instead of talking with random businesses and people."

A chuckle escape from her lips.

"Still, Junyoung was around and so there's that. So, I guess I didn't need you."

Jay didn't comment, but he slightly frowned upon hearing that.

"Anyway," Kierra continued speaking.

"It must be a lot of work, huh?"

She cast him with a sympathetic look as Jay smiled with a small shrug.

"Not really, but it's fairly easy as my father has walked me through it."

"Hmm, that's nice of him."

"Mmhmm. Anyway, how about you? Are you here to network, too?"

"Not really as I don't want to work for any of these company in the future, but I forgot that I already signed up with the others and couldn't back out from the event."

"That seems like you."

"And how would you know that?"

Jay cast her with a smirk.

"I know a lot, Hayoun."

"Yes, of course you do, Jay. I know about your vast knowledge."

"Is that so?"

Kierra could hear the teasing in his tone, but didn't comment on that and said something else.

"Anyway, I'm surprised to run into you now compare to earlier."

"Yeah, me too. I didn't think you'll be here."

"Why is that?"

"Doesn't seem like your type of thing."

"Highly true, but luckily I got others to encourage me to just give it a try."

She smiled, turning away, but not catching the way Jay had smiled afterwards towards her.

"Anyway, Jay," Kierra focused her attention onto him.

"Was there a reason you wanted to dance with me?"

"Yes and no." Jay answered honestly before giving her a soft look.

"Do you wanna know the reason why?"

"Not really."

However, Kierra didn't pursue the topic as the song came to an end, not trusting herself to react well if Jay did explain himself along the lines of just wanting to dance with her or something like that. In the midst of thanking Jay for the dance and about to excuse herself, she felt herself being rudely bumped out of the way.

"What the?" She mumbled upon feeling the pushed.

Kierra stumbled a bit, but gained her footing with the help from Jay as both his arms came out to hold her in place.

"Thanks, Jay."

"Welcome, Hayoun."

However, their little moment was interrupted.

"Hi, Jay."

Came an overly sweet and fake-like innocent tone. Kierra knew the difference, having dealt with these type of people in the past that weren't genuine.

"Could I have this next dance?"

Kierra inwardly groaned upon seeing the person, seeing her face around campus yet the name of this person eluded her mind though. Still, Kierra disliked people like her that wanted the attention on them without regards to those around them. Maybe it was a good thing she didn't recall this person's name.

"Jeon Hyewon, hi." Jay greeted her, but Kierra could tell that it wasn't a pleasant greeting though.

"And no."

"What? Why not?"

Kierra never liked Hyewon as she was one of those mean girls of sorts that looked down on others and expected others to cater to her needs. Or from what Kierra has seen from her own experiences and heard from friends and others, too. Thank goodness the two didn't have the same courses or were in the same departments either. Still, Kierra didn't want to stick around and tried to discreetly walk away from all this, but Jay thought otherwise as his hands still remained firmly on her arms.

"I have to accompanied Hayoun for a while before returning to my father's business."

Kierra snapped her head to stare at him as Jay pleaded with his eyes for her to go along with it. However, Hyewon wasn't pleased.

"This is an open function with our school, Jay. She can be fine by herself. There's no need for you to accompany her."

Honestly, Kierra didn't mind ditching Jay and leaving him with Hyewon, but she knew he wouldn't be thrilled if she ditched him like that and this would add on to the whole whatever thing between them that others think they had going on if Jay brought it up.

"Sorry, but Jay's telling me about his dad's company and we're busy networking." Kierra chimed in, sounding as convincing as possible.

"Have a lovely evening though and maybe you can dance with someone else, too."

Kierra flashed her a smile as she took Jay by his upper arm and pulled them along and away from Hyewon.

"Thank you." Jay thanked her in a soft tone.

She smiled at him.

"Don't mention it."

Kierra's hands stayed where they were on Jay's arm as she looked about her, wondering where her sister and cousins were. She saw none of them in sight and when her face brushed against Jay's shoulder did she realized how close she was against him again.

"Sorry."

Kierra released his arm and took a step back with a sheepish smile as Jay cast her with a serious look.

"By the way, were you interested in hearing about my father's business?"

"Honestly, no."

She sheepishly laugh.

"Sorry. That was to help you out, too. However if you need to tell people, then I don't mind."

She flashed him with a small smile a a soft look graced his features.

"Nah, you're good, Hayoun. Just wanted to make sure about the situation. I could still give you the stamp though."

"Oh, no worries about that, Jay. You don't have to do that. I'll let you give that to those who actually listened to the business pitch."

"It's fine, Hayoun. I don't mind." Jay reassured her.

Just as she was about to declined again, one of his hands reached out for the lanyard hanging around her neck. Kierra stood frozen where she was and just let Jay do as he pleases.

"Don't be weird about this, Hayoun." He remarked as she scoffed.

"Okay. You were the one that did this and expect me not to be weirded out, Jay?"

He chuckled as his other hand reached into his suit pocket to produce a stamp of sort as he used it to a fourth stamp onto her card.

"There you go."

Now she knew what he wanted to do, but didn't know why he couldn't just tell her that in the first place.

"Um, thank you, Jay."

"You're welcome."

Still, Kierra felt a little awkward now and decided to make her escape.

"Um, I need to get going. See ya."

She hurried away without giving Jay time to respond. Jay watched her retreating figure with an amused look while putting away his stamp.

"That was so delicious, Chef Lee." Melanie and Linna complimented one of the older woman's dishes.

"Thank you, ladies."

The chef smiled widely as she prepared another dish for the pair to try.

"I have to use the toilet, please excuse me, but I'll definitely be back for more."

"Of course."

Melanie left the kitchen and headed towards the restroom. Somehow the two stumbled into the hotel's kitchen after wandering away from the event upon hearing such good reviews about other dishes that weren't being served for the buffet hall and came upon the female chef herself.

"I overheard the two of you talking about a certain sandwich and I couldn't help myself, but to try and make y'all one. So, here you go!"

The chef set two plates in front of Linna. Linna's eyes lit up upon seeing the delicious food while doing a little jig in her seat.

"So what you're about to eat is a smoked pork sandwich served on toasted sweet potato buns and the meat flavored with my special gochujang marinade, and topped with kimchi slaw."

"Oh, that definitely sounds and smells delicious. Thank you!"

"Welcome and enjoy!"

The chef left Linna to enjoy the latest meal. Linna stared at the sandwich with a gleeful face as she took a few pictures to post for later. However, before she could dig in, she heard a familiar voice from behind her.

"What are you doing here in the hotel's kitchen?"

Turning her head ever so slowly, Linna eyes landed on Sunghoon. Before she could control the words from falling out of her mouth, they came without filter.

"What are you doing here?"

Sunghoon quirked a brow as he smiled.

"I asked first."

Linna made a face, causing Sunghoon to chuckle at her reaction. He noticed the sandwiches and joined her.

"Ooh, what is this?"

Linna told him as she eyed him.

"What are you doing here though? Shouldn't you be socializing and networking?"

Sunghoon laughed as his eyes shifted over to her.

"You didn't answer me first, Jung Jiyeon."

Linna rolled her eyes, but nevertheless answered although Sunghoon noticed yet didn't comment on it.

"I was hungry and the chef invited us down here, wanting to share more of her food."

"Us?"

"Ah, me and Youngseo. Youngseo was here with me, too, but she went to the bathroom. That's supposed to be for her to eat."

"Oh."

Linna heard his voice dropped and smiled at him cutely before recalling how she was supposed to feel about him.

"Um, anyway, you can eat it. I'm sure she won't mind."

Sunghoon perked up.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Thanks."

Sunghoon immediately dug into the meal and Linna quietly watched him eat. She found it endearing on how cute he looked, but shook those thoughts away.

"Aren't you gonna eat?"

"Hmm?"

Linna didn't hear his question as Sunghoon repeated his words.

"Oh, um, I ate a lot. You can have it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Linna just hoped that Melanie wouldn't be too upset for not being able to eat the sandwich and would be fine with that as Linna basically did give her meal away without her actually knowing that she was gonna get another one.

"So, I answered your question, Park Sunghoon. Now, answer mine, please."

Sunghoon chuckled before swallowing and replying.

"Jake mentioned that the food was better down here instead of in the hall and that his parents knew the chef that worked here. So, he and I came to explore, but he had to do something else first and I came alone."

He flashed her a small smile soon afterwards.

"Although I'm not alone now that you're here with me, too."

Linna hoped that her face didn't reveal how shy she became upon hearing those words.

"I see." She responded as simply as possible.

"Mmhmm, but did you want to apply for all of these companies?"

Sunghoon smiled again before returning to the food.

"Uh, just mainly wanted to check out the function." She answered.

"However, a few look promising, but I dunno yet."

Linna continued to watch Sunghoon eat as he moved onto the second sandwich right away. She became aware of their situation and what she was wearing. Linna sat upright, leaned back, and crossed her arms over her chest. Sunghoon took noticed.

"Are you cold?"

"What? No. I'm no-"

Sunghoon immediately slipped his suit jacket off, cutting Linna from finishing her sentence as she watched him instantly drapped the dark gray fabric around her shoulders and making sure she seemed comfy.

"Um, thanks."

Linna took comfort in the clothing, but these interactions with Sunghoon were making her feel all sorts of way. Just a moment ago they were comfortably talking, but now she just wanted to run away and hide as her shyness took over again.

"You look very pretty in your dress by the way." Sunghoon complimented as Linna partially hid her face within Sunghoon's jacket.

"It's a nice color on you."

"Oh, thank you."

"You look handsome in your outfit, too, minus the jacket, but still handsome."

He flashed her a bright smile.

"I know."

Linna scoffed with a roll of her eyes, but froze upon realizing how she responded.

"Did you just scoff at me and roll your eyes, Jung Jiyeon."

"No, Park Sunghoon. I did no such thing."

Gosh, Linna realized she sounded like her sister and older cousin.

"You did."

Sunghoon continued the argument.

"I did not."

"Yes, you did."

"No, I didn't."

It dawned on her on how easy she was making conversation with her crush in such a semi-formal and semi-casual way compared to when they were in high school or with their other friends. Her mind panicked with that thought so, Linna abruptly stood, removed the jacket, and left it on the counter.

"Um, I gotta go. Bye and have a good night."

She hurried away, leaving Sunghoon to process what had just happened. At that moment, the chef returned, wondering who he was.

"Excuse me, but what are you doing in my kitchen?"

"I was hungry and saw a friend. Sorry. Bye."

Sunghoon grabbed his jacket and the half-eaten sandwich, thanked her for the meal, and ran off soon after.

Turning the corner after coming out from the restroom, Melanie ran into someone with the person taking a hold of her from falling over.

"I'm so-"

"Sor-Park Youngseo?"

Melanie froze, not wanting to think it was who she was thinking it could be right now. Although she knew he would be here since having seen him around earlier, but didn't initiate any sort of contact though despite their other friends being scattered about the place.

"Oh, it is you. Hi."

A familiar giggle followed after the revelation.

"Hi, Jake, and yeah, it's me."

Melanie shot him a small yet awkward smile.

"I'm really sorry about bumping into you just now, Jake."

"It's fine, Youngseo, it's fine. I'm sorry, too."

Jake's hands remained where they were as Melanie became aware of the physical contact of skin to skin. So did Jake, and his hands fell to his sides.

"So, what are you doing all the way here and not in the main hall?" He asked a moment later.

"I could ask you the same thing, but I'm here because I was invited to check out the kitchen."

"By who? Do I know the person or persons?"

"Um, I dunno."

Melanie laughed sheepishly and re-directed attention away from her.

"Anyway, Jake, what about you?"

She flashed him a friendly smile.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to check out the kitchen food, too." Jake responded.

"My parents told me there's a special chef making delicious food and had to check it out."

"Oh, interesting. She does make some amazing food."

"Oh? You've met Chef Lee?"

"Yes. Jiyeon and I just had this amazing cake and she just made us this sub sandwich, too."

"Wow, seems like you're getting some special treatment."

Melanie chuckled, realizing she and Linna were.

"Yeah, something like that. Yeah, well, um, I don't want to kee-"

"Oh, no, you're not." Jake interjected with a smile.

"I rather talk to you than talk to those interested in my father's business. That was another reason why Sunghoon and I left the main hall just now."

He flashed her with another smile.

"The conversations could get really boring and they usually talk about the same thing, hundreds of times."

"Oh, I see. That is boring."

Silence quickly fell between the two as Melanie attempted to make small chat as to not be so awkward with the male.

"Um, you look very handsome in your suit though." She complimented him.

"Totally different than what I normally see you wear."

Jake chuckled as he glanced down at his attire.

"Ah, yes, thank you. Thankfully it's not a daily thing."

His eyes focused on Melanie.

"I could say the same about you, but you do look quite beautiful though."

"Ah, thank you, Jake."

She smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle within her dress.

"It's a good look on you, Youngseo."

Melanie didn't mind compliments, but for some reason, this one coming from him sent her a whole different type of feels. So, she just nodded in agreement.

"Anyway," Jake re-directed the topic elsewhere.

"Is it just you here or the others around? I didn't see you throughout the whole event."

"Well, there is a lot of us and I didn't see you until now, but yeah I came with the others."

Melanie flashed him a small smile, lying about seeing him, yet she wasn't gonna let him know that. Jake slightly nodded with a nonchalant expression as he took a moment to recollect his thoughts and tried to form his words while she patiently waited, having a feeling he wanted to say something else and maybe who she came with. However, Jake mentioned something else.

"So, why don't you and I return to the kitchen? I'm sure Sunghoon should be there by now and probably met up with Jiyeon, too." Jake suggested with a friendly smile.

"Um, yeah, su-"

Melanie stopped in mid-answer when she noticed a drenched woman in the distance, but recognized the dress pattern as her sister's. So, she focused on that instead of what Jake had to say.

"Uh, sorry, Jake, but I gotta go."

She focused her attention onto him with an apologetic look.

"Oh, okay. Yeah, no problem."

Jake cast her with a small smile and she did the same.

"Yeah, but see you later for sure."

"Yeah, um, okay. Yeah, Youngseo, see you later."

Melanie flashed him an apologetic smile as Jake watched her go with a curious look, following after a woman wrapped in towels and a familiar suit jacket.

"That looks like Heeseung's."

His brows furrowed, wondering what had occured, but dismissed it shortly afterwards.

"Whatever. He'll probably tell me about it if it turns out to be his."

Jake proceeded to the restroom before bumping into Melanie earlier. Meanwhile, the cousins met up and decided to go home once learning of Serena's unfortunate incident. Serena messaged Junyoung and Hanyoung about what occurred and they reassured her that they'll take care of it and for her to not worry about it all. She thanked them for understanding. Throughout the ride they relayed their stories to one another, agreeing their lives were turning out like a k-drama series and hoped it would die down soon. Although there were some teasing involved as well as they all couldn't help it. Anyway, they just need to live life normally like they did before all this occured. For some reason, they didn't trust their current life to stay the same though and that something was bound to shift again in their every day life routine.

#staytheb #enhypen scenarios

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staytheb · 11 months

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Just A Little Bit; Falling For You - Chapter Four: spring term

Word Count: 6,229 Summary: Spring term has started and Melanie has a rumored about dating Jake already. The cousins participate in a White Day event due to two of their friends and Ni-Ki catches on. Serena gets caught by Heeseung upon delivering a love letter for Sunghoon written by Linna. previous chapter || next chapter

updated: 6.1.24

"So, when did you write Jake a confession letter?" Linna asked Melanie, joining her at one of the two university's libraries.

They were currently at the Central Library for their Thursday's tutoring session as the spring term's been in session for about two weeks now. The pair had tutoring every Tuesdays and Thursdays after their classes were done for the day. Melanie cast her cousin with a puzzled look.

"I've never wrote him one." Melanie clarified with a weird look.

"What makes you think I wrote a confession letter to Jake?"

"Oh, so you didn't give him a love letter?"

Linna shot her cousin a weird look, too, as Melanie shook her head.

"No, I didn't."

However, she cast her cousin with a look.

"What makes you think I gave him one?"

"Well, that's what I've been hearing all around campus all day today."

A giggle escaped from Linna's lips before continuing.

"Well, more amongst the female population though."

She gave her cousin a pointed look.

"They're the one talking about it and wouldn't stop either."

Melanie rolled her eyes before explaining upon recalling the said event.

"Oh okay. I remember now."

She sighed.

"So, technically I did give Jake one, but I didn't write it."

Another sigh left Melanie's lips.

"This girl, Kim Nara, from my Tuesday and Thursday class kept insisting I give it to him and basically just shoved it in my hand while running off afterward."

Linna's brows furrowed.

"Okay, but why you though?"

"Because we're close and he and I have a Monday and Wednesday class, too."

"That's it?"

"Yeah, I think so."

Melanie shrugged.

"Honestly, I don't really know, but Kim Nara didn't have the courage to give it to him and thought I could be of help."

Another sigh escaped Melanie's lips.

"I gave it to him the same day she gave it to me when I happened to see him during school, but she didn't identify who she was in the letter."

"Really?"

"Mmhmm. So, that left him to give it back to me yesterday since I was the one that gave it to him."

Linna quietly laughed at the whole thing as Melanie rolled her eyes, slightly annoyed.

"Apparently, Jake corrected her grammatical errors and she's blaming me."

"You read it?"

"I basically skimmed it, thinking it was math notes until I actually stared at the words because he didn't put it back in it's envelope and the letter looked normal, too."

Linna giggled as Melanie rolled her eyes again while casting her cousin a pointed look.

"Anyway, shouldn't you be with your own tutor by now?"

Linna giggled again.

"Well, Yonghee's running a little late today, but that's why I'm just bugging you until then."

"Must be nice."

Linna's tutor, Kim Yonghee, was actually Serena's ex-boyfriend back when they were in their first year of high school although they attended different high schools at the time while dating for less than a year. They broke up amicably before the start of their second year and remained friends of sort to this day.

"Don't worry, Youngseo."

Linna grinned mischievously.

"Jake will be here soon to accompany you."

Melanie frowned as she swatted at a giggling Linna.

"Stop. Do I need to bring up Sunghoon for you."

Linna stopped giggling, scowling.

"Please, no."

"That's what I thought.

"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, we're meeting our sisters at Simplistic after tutoring's done since they're helping their favorite person with an art assignment at the moment."

"I did not sign up for this." Serena grumbled while painting.

"I can't believe I got roped into this somehow."

"Nah, for real." Kierra agreed as she, too, was painting.

"Why are we even here in the first place?"

"Ni-Ki tricked us some how." Serena commented, giggling.

"I did not. Y'all agreed, but just forgot." Ni-Ki clarified.

"Oh, right."

The two recalled that moment when he asked him for their help last week. Anyway, the pair were helping Ni-Ki with his art banner while in one of the art rooms and it's been less than an hour since they started.

"Don't you have other friends that can help you?" Kierra questioned despite enjoying herself.

"I do, but they're busy and you two are never busy." Ni-Ki answered with a knowing smile, still painting.

"What makes you think that?" Serena asked, pausing in mid-coloring.

Ni-Ki didn't look up as he continued to paint the outline of his main character in the center of the banner.

"Because the two of you have no life besides work and school."

"True." The pair agreed, chuckling.

The trio continued to work until Ni-Ki got bored and ended up fingerpainting onto his two friends.

"Yah! Nishimura Riki?!"

Both wiped off the paint from their cheeks and glared at him. Ni-Ki laughed with a cheeky look, clearly enjoying what he had just done. Just as the pair were about to retaliate with Ni-Ki about to make a run for it, the classroom's doors opened revealing Heeseung and Jay.

"Yo, Ni-Ki! We're here."

"Yeah, let's hurry so we can get to dance practice."

Both parties just stared at one another until Serena broke the silence.

"Alright, cool then."

She pointed between herself and her cousin.

"Hayoun and I are gonna go now."

Serena softly smacked Ni-Ki on the right cheek with her left hand that was painted yellow to get back at him.

"Oh, yes, let's go."

Kierra did the same thing, but with her right hand against his left cheek, leaving a red handprint. The cousins admired their artwork with a grin.

"Ooh, very nice."

"Such a lovely artwork."

The two giggled while they pressed their painted hands onto the canvas.

"Now, that's leaving a mark." Kierra commented as she and Serena chuckled.

"Yes, definitely a mark for sure."

The pair glanced at Ni-Ki.

"Later."

"Wait." Ni-Ki called out to them.

"Nah." The pair responded, laughing.

They ignored him while waving at Ni-Ki.

"Okay, buh-bye!"

Both grabbed their belongings with their clean hands, shot a smile at Heeseung and Jay before dashing out of the classroom to wash off the rest of the paint as they laughed along the way. Jay and Heeseung stared after the duo with an amused smile before focusing their attention onto Ni-Ki.

"So, to be honest..."

He shrugged nonchalant while shaking his head with a sheepish laugh as he wiped off the paint from his cheeks.

"I actually don't have that much left to do."

Melanie was working on a few math problems, using the formula that Jake had to re-explain to her as she didn't quite understand it in class on Tuesday, when she felt eyes on her a moment later. She briefly glanced up to see Jake staring at her with a small smile.

"Uh, yes?"

She seemed hesitant in saying something.

"How's it going?" He asked as he flashed her a friendly smile.

"Much easier, Jake. Thanks."

She returned the same gesture yet hoped he would look elsewhere. For some reason, before any of this, she hadn't minded, but not all of a sudden, she did.

"No problem, Youngseo."

Her eyes returned to her paper yet the feeling of being stared at remained, but not as strongly as before and didn't comment on it. Melanie quickly finished the rest of the problems before handing it over for Jake to review. Just then the timer on his phone went off, signaling the end of their tutoring session.

"Ah, sorry. It seems our session ends here." He apologized as she shook her head.

Melanie actually didn't mind it all too much that it was now over.

"It's okay, but thank you for the much needed help."

"Yeah, I don't mind, Youngseo." Jake said in a cheery tone.

"You're easy to teach and learn quickly than others."

Just before he handed Melanie her paper back, Jake quickly took a photo of it.

"I'll review your work after dance practice and let you know if something is wrong."

"Awesome, and no rush. This isn't due until next Thursday anyway."

"Okay, cool."

The pair collected their materials, packed up their things, and headed to the entrance of the library together.

"I'll see you in class next Monday then, yeah?"

Jake cast Melanie with another friendly smile as she briefly nodded.

"Yeah, Jake, see you then."

She flashed him a smile.

"Take care."

"Later, Youngseo."

He shot her another smile before heading off first even glancing back to shoot her another wave and smile.

"Yeah."

She felt some type of way when he did that as he's never done that before. Still, Melanie just remained calm, cool, and collect about it while letting out a deep breath.

"This is ridiculous." She muttered, shaking her head.

Melanie turned the other way, ran a hand through her hair, and knew that her sister and older cousin would tease her about the so-called rumor going around about her and Jake if it spread that much at all. Then again, it might not be all that since only one person would've cared as Kim Nara was the concerned party and probably got offended about the whole love letter situation.

"So you and Jake are lovers now or something like that now?"

Serena directed her attention onto her sister with a teasing look as Kierra gasped playfully.

"Wow. I can't believe you didn't tell us that you and Jake are an item now."

Linna snickered at the situation as Melanie rolled her eyes at the older two.

"It's not even like that." Melanie scoffed.

"Where did you even hear that from?"

The quartet were having snacks and drinks at their workplace in a corner booth, away from others as to not distract their co-workers.

"Minseo and I overheard this group of girls talking at the school gate when we left earlier." Kierra explained with a giggle.

"Seems serious yet not so serious."

"Seriously, people love to gossip." Melanie mumbled, annoyed.

"What else did they say?" Linna probed, interested.

Kierra replied nonchalantly.

"One of them was upset about spelling corrections on a letter and that he couldn't have done it and it must be that 'Park Youngseo' person that did it out of jealousy or something like that. The girls were clearly upset and angered."

Melanie sighed with another eye-roll.

"So dumb and that's Kim Nara's fault for not letting Jake know that it was her that wrote the letter."

Kierra diverted the conversation elsewhere instead.

"Forget them. How did your math tutoring go with Jake then?"

Melanie shrugged nonchalantly.

"Same as normal. He'll check my work after dance practice. Other than that, we both know the real story and the rumors can suck it."

The three hummed in agreement as Kierra cast her sister with a knowing look.

"So, what about you and Sunghoon then?"

"Nothing."

Kierra just wanted to tease her sister some more.

"Don't be like that." She cooed, playfully.

"Any new developments?"

"No." Linna flatly said with a shake of her head.

"None whatsoever."

"Well, maybe y'all can do a double date or something."

"No!" Both younger sisters answered causing their sisters to raise a brow, amused.

"Oh?"

Just as Kierra wanted to now tease the younger two, Serena changed the subject.

"Hey, Hayoun, who's the model in your photographs?"

Kierra almost spit out her drink, but Serena continued speaking.

"The one for those couple-like project from last semester."

Kierra side-eyed Serena to which the latter just smiled in response as she wanted Kierra to have a taste of her own medicine.

"She has the portfolio at home. The model, he's a student of Hyebi University, too."

"Ooh, who is it?"

"Is it someone we know?"

Kierra slightly glared at Serena, but brought out her phone nonetheless.

"It's Jay."

"Ooh la la." The younger two cooed as they went through Kierra's gallery.

"I blame you."

Kierra shifted her attention onto Serena as the latter shrugged.

"Hey, that's a 'you and Jay' problem."

Kierra scowled.

"Shut up."

However the younger two wanted to join in the teasing to get back at Kierra.

"What's wrong with Jay, Hayoun?"

"Yeah, Hayoun, what did he ever do to you?"

Kierra knew the two younger ones were teasing, but still.

"Everything." She grumbled.

"Why was he your model?" Linna asked a second later.

"Or how did he become your model?"

Kierra sighed before speaking.

"Our professors are best friends and they thought it would be cool to collaborate or whatever last semester."

"So what did he get out of it for being your muse?" Melanie inquired a second later.

"His muse in return." Kierra mumbled.

The younger continued their teasing upon hearing that.

"Ooh, that's cute."

"Yeah, so what has he done that's inspired by you?"

Kierra sighed, not really wanting to tell the duo, but gave in anyway.

"Some fashion clothing designs."

"Ooh." The duo cooed as Linna recalled something.

"Hey, is he the one gave you that cute cream colored scrunchie with Pochacco on it?"

"Yes." Kierra confirmed as Melanie eyed her.

"Okay, but why haven't you worn the said scrunchie though?"

"I just never found a reason to wear it. That's all."

"You should wear it." Linna suggested as Melanie nodded.

"Yeah, you should so that he knows you appreciate his efforts."

"I'll think about it." Kierra responded.

Before the two could teased further, Serena re-directed the conversation elsewhere after checking her phone.

"Hey, Woojoo and Sujin just messaged if we could help them out with something."

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!" Sujin greeted the crowd as Woojoo introduced their friends onto the makeshift stage.

"Please give a warm welcome to, WHITE WISHES!"

The cousins politely waved at the crowd gathered on their school's campus where Woojoo and Sujin were a part of the Student Council and needed a last minute act to join the other performing acts after three of them dropped out last night unexpectedly. The cousins were bribed with snacks and drinks for another month again for helping out once more. However, the the younger two didn't mind at all in helping this time around, but the older two caved in so easily into their sisters' hands.

"These lovely ladies are gonna charmed their way into your soul with their performances!" Woojoo continued, enthuasistically.

"Yes! So, please treat them kindly!" Sujin chimed in a second later.

The quartet were disguised in their performances outfits, courtesy of their friends. Each one wore a white long-sleeved knee-length slightly loose dress, with a long off white wig, knee-high white socks, white vans, small fairy-like wings, and a feathered white eye mask with different colored accents to differentiate one from the other. Kierra with green, Serena with purple, Melanie with red, and Linna with blue. People definitely couldn't tell them apart unless you knew them well enough or looked a little too closely to figure them out from one another for sure.

"Happy White Day to everyone and enjoy our White Day Stage this late afternoon!" The pair concluded as the crowd cheered.

Sujin and Woojoo walked off the stage as they cheered on the quartet.

"Good luck, ladies!"

"And thanks again for helping us out."

The quartet nodded, smiling.

"You're welcome."

"Yeah, no problem."

However, they psyched themselves and each other up for their short segment despite finishing their classes and tutoring sessions for the day not that long ago. Again, they just didn't think they would have returned to doing something like this after Jungwon's birthday. Still, they were also not about that life either as school and work took up a majority of their time, but free food for like two weeks won out like always.

"One, two..." Melanie led the greeting before introducing themselves as a group.

"We're WHITE WISHES!"

One by one they introduced themselves with their so-called stage names.

"I'm Peony Wish."

"I'm Bear Wish."

"I'm Chocolate Wish."

"I'm Marshmallow Wish."

They introduced themselves with Melanie first, followed by Linna, Kierra next, and lastly, Serena. Woojoo came up with their names this time around as it pertained to gifts normally given on White Day and the quartet drew from hats of what stage name they would go by as well.

"And we're WHITE WISHES!" They repeated in a sing-song tone as Melanie continued speaking.

"Please watch over us kindly."

Unknown to them, several of their friends showed up to check out this White Day Stage and the performers for the fun and curiosity of it all since it was new this year.

"So, why aren't we at dance practice again?" Jake asked his friends.

"Because the dance instructor wants us to." Heeseung replied with a shrug.

"Something about a break or a new perspective of whatever."

"Oh, okay. That makes sense."

"Honestly, I think Instructor Kwon just has a crush on the Student Council advisor and forced us out here." Jay remarked as Sunghoon agreed, pointing somewhere.

"Look over there. There he is with Advisor Kim."

"Where?" The others asked as they followed to where Sunghoon was pointing.

"Wow."

"He makes it so obvious." Jungwon commented with a laugh as Sunoo agreed.

"Yeah, but he's surely smitten for sure with Advisor Kim."

"Well, as long as he's in a good mood, then that's good for us." Ni-Ki remarked, happy about the situation.

Their attention went towards their dance teacher, chatting with the advisor and how he acted differently around her than when he was around them. They found the whole thing comical and just plain weird. Anyway, soon their focus went towards the female quartet as they were the first to start off the White Day Stage event.

"Didn't our sisters say that they're doing something different this year with performances, too?" Sunoo asked Jungwon as the latter nodded.

"Yeah. I mean, they could've asked us to join. I'm sure Instructor Kwon wouldn't have minded since he would be interacting with Adivor Kim, too."

The group watched as the cousins performed their segment, but found them all too familiar, especially Ni-Ki as he observed them a little longer than the others.

"One, two..." Serena began the greeting before finishing as a group.

"This was WHITE WISHES!"

The four bowed to the now larger crowd than before.

"Thank you so much for having us this evening."

The cousins walked off stage as another act came onto it. Both Woojoo and Sujin awaited for the four with presents in hands.

"These are a little 'thank you' gifts from us to you." Woojoo informed them with a smile, while offering the gift bags out towards them.

"So, we hope you like them!" Sujin stated, hopefully.

"Aw, thank you!"

Linna, Kierra, Melanie, and Serena took the gifts before opening them excitedly. Each content contained a small-sized random lop rabbit plush, two small random scented candles, and a variety of snacks consisting of different types of chocolates, cookies, candies, gummies, jellies, and marshmallows.

"Thank you so much for the gifts!" The quartet thanked their friend as they each expressed what they like the most.

"I definitely loved the bunny!"

"I've been needing new candles!"

"I can't wait to eat the jellies."

"I can't wait to eat all the chocolates."

The pair giggled as the six moved away from the stage to talk a little more before the pair had to go back to being in charge for awhile longer while the quartet made their way back to the Student Council room to change. On the way there, they were blocked by Ni-Ki as he had snuck away from the others.

"So, how's it going?" He cooed with a playful tone.

The quartet stared at one another while eyeing the male.

"I will keep this a secret as long as y'all buy me something to eat every day." Ni-ki bargained as the four looked at one another again.

"Don't you already get free food from her the most though?" Melanie said as she pointed at her sister.

"I do, but this time I want to make a request in what I want to eat or drink with the rest of you." He reasoned as the quartet sighed.

"Does it matter?" Linna asked looking between the four of them.

"That he knows and we let the others find out, too?"

"I guess, but then they might start requesting for us to do more stuff, too." Kierra said, making a face.

"I knew this was too much of a hassle."

"Or we can just silence Ni-Ki with a beat up." Serena suggested with a laugh.

"That would definitely make him back off.

The male backed up and eyed his friends, warily.

"I didn't do anything to deserve that."

"We know." They chorused with a chuckle.

"Y'all are mean." He commented as the four laughed again before giving in.

"Alright, alright, but you can't take advantage of this or we will beat you up for sure." Melanie stated as Ni-Ki nodded happily.

"Okay, cool. Let's get dinner."

"Not so fast."

Linna stopped him before speaking again.

"We already have plans tonight."

"What kind of plans?" He inquired, calling their bluff.

However, they weren't bluffing.

"We're hanging out with Sujin and Woojoo." Kierra informed him with a nonchalant look.

"Something came up and so we're hanging out with them for the rest of the day."

"Oh. Okay."

"Yeah, so can you wait for another night?" Melanie asked as Ni-Ki nodded.

"Okay, but don't take too long to decide like always."

"Yeah, yeah."

Serena threw one of her snack gifts towards him.

"What's this?"

"Sweets as a compromise."

"Thanks, Minseo."

"Welcome."

Ni-Ki happily ran off to join the others while the cousins continued on their way to change before getting sidetracked by Ni-Ki.

"C'mon, let's get changed and meet the other two at Simplistic." Linna suggested, motioning her head towards one of the school's building.

Sujin and Woojoo wanted to hang out with the four to treat the cousins out for a White Day moment after learning that their boyfriends had cheated on them. So, the pair didn't want to celebrate the holiday with their scumbag exes as they were now trying to get them back, but they didn't want to take them back. Woojoo and Sujin were also ashamed to let their other friends know about it either. So, they just wanted to hang out with Melanie, Linna, Serena, and Kierra only since they were the only ones that really knew about the secret relationship they had.

"So, you're the one leaving the letters for Sunghoon this past week, huh?"

Serena retracted her hand, but left the light blue envelope behind. She shifted her gaze causally towards Heeseung and recalled Ni-Ki telling her that no one would be here at this time, but guess there was always that one person though.

"Leaving them, yes." Serena answered nonchalantly.

Still, this was her third time to leave a letter for Sunghoon in the past week or so, but this was the first time she's been caught in the act.

"Have a problem with it?"

She cast him with a small smile.

"No."

Heeseung cast her with a polite smile as his eyes glanced from the locker and back to her.

"However, gotta tell you 'sorry', but Sunghoon isn't interested."

She supressed a laugh from escaping before responding with a playful expression.

"Me either."

A bemused look graced his face.

"Then why are you leaving him love letters?"

"It's from someone else and I'm just helping out."

After the quartet's hangout with Sujin and Woojoo, Linna wanted to confess to Sunghoon with letters after talking about relationships although she wouldn't signed her name, but with a simple drawing of an orchid, her favorite flower. Linna convinced herself to write the letters to Sunghoon first and then eventually it would encourage her to later do an actual face to face confession some day. However, Linna couldn't bring herself to actually give him the letters, whether in person or in secret and so resorted in having Serena being the one that did the delivering instead. Serena wasn't please, but she needed new writing materials and eventually agreed.

"Anyway, bye."

She left it at that and made her way around him to leave as he followed.

"Wait a minute, Minseo."

"Yeah, no."

"Oh, c'mon."

Serena ignored Heeseung, but found his tone just now cute.

"Who's this Orchid that likes him?"

Serena's brows furrowed, wondering why the person was dubbed 'orchid', then recall that that's what Linna signed off with.

"What makes you think the sender is 'Orchid' though?"

She casually glanced over her shoulder at him, but freaked upon seeing how close he was. Serena backed away, almost tripping over her own feet, but Heeseung had reached out to steady her.

"Whoa, be careful, Park Minseo." He advised, teasing her a little.

"I'm fine, Lee Heeseung."

She quickly brushed off his hold from her while righting her position again.

"Anyway, thanks and bye."

She began walking off again, but he matched her pace in no time.

"Anyway, it's because it's always a blue envelope that's left there."

"So?"

"Other letters that Sunghoon gets is either in classes or in person."

"Mmhmm."

"Well, this one from Orchid is always left behind."

"Oh, I see."

Serena had to changed tactics, but figured that since Sunghoon isn't interested that she may not have to deliver more in the future or have to see Heeseung.

"Um, didn't you just say that he's not interested?"

"Yes, but he should know who gave him the letters." Heeseung reasoned.

Serena scoffed.

"Not really if Sunghoon's not interested."

Heeseung persisted.

"Is it someone we know?"

She eyed him.

"Quite persistent, aren't you?"

He chuckled.

"Yeah, but anyway, who's his secret admirer?"

"Well, that's for me to know and you to never find out."

Serena grinned at him.

"Anyway, Heeseung, I'll let the sender know that the receiver isn't interested at all."

Serena faced forward and continued walking and before Heeseung could probe further, he was surrounded by their schoolmates once they exited the building. She casually glanced over her shoulders and saw the distressed look in his eyes despite himself being way too polite for his own good.

"For someone so tall and bright, he does look like a deer caught in the headlights right now."

She softly chuckled, but sighed in defeat as her steps hesitated before turning around. Serena knew she was gonna regret getting involved like this and being around the male longer than she wanted to, but she couldn't leave him alone like that either. So, Serena quickly walked towards the group and reached a hand through them to take a firm hold of Heeseung's hand.

"Hey, Heeseung, c'mon. Sunghoon's waiting."

He cast her with a confused, but relieved look as he allowed her to lead him away from the others. Once in the clear did she let go of his hand when they rounded another department building a moment later.

"Sorry." She apologized while casting the male with a half-smile.

"It looked like you needed help and I dunno if I took you away from anything important."

"Ah, no, it's fine. Thank you and no, not really." He assured her with a thankful smile.

"They just wanted to ask me about school stuff and other non-related school things."

"Ah, okay. Still popular as ever, I see."

"Oh?"

There was a hint of amusement in his tone and Serena knew she would've regretted it.

"Don't mind my words, Heeseung."

She flashed him a smile.

"Anyway, you're welcome. See you never."

"Hey, wait a minute. Minseo!" Heeseung called out, but she shook her head while shooting him an amused look as she took a few steps back.

"Nope. Gotta go. Buh-bye!"

Serena already did her part for her cousin on a few ocassions and needed to keep it to a miminal as much as possible if she didn't want to interact with Heeseung constantly like this. He didn't follow after her, but watched her retreating figure with a slight tilt of his head and an amused smile.

"Was she always like this during high school, too?"

"So, apparently, Sunghoon isn't interested, Linna."

Serena announced once she met up with her sister and cousins at the university's Lift Library.

"Really?"

Linna sounded so sad and Serena patted her shoulder.

"He actually said that?" Kierra asked with widened eyes.

"No. Heeseung did."

She made a face.

"He caught me in the act."

"Wait, does that mean he'll tell him about you?"

"Maybe. Not sure."

Serena shrugged nonchalantly before glancing at Melanie.

"Maybe my situation will turn out like yours and Jake."

Melanie rolled her eyes with a laugh.

"We're not even like that, but will you be okay with rumors of you and him?"

Serena shrugged while shaking her head.

"Not really, but I would prefer it didn't."

"True. Anyway, let's focus back on Jiyeon."

All focus went onto Linna as she caught their stares.

"What?"

"An in-person confession would be better." Kierra reasoned.

Linna seemed uneasy.

"I mean, Sunghoon is quite popular and has a lot of admirers."

Serena scoffed before speaking.

"Okay, true, but that's not always the case."

The other three stared at her as Serena elaborated.

"C'mon, y'all watched those shows and movies enough to know, but okay."

Serena made herself comfortable.

"Like, usually a person with a lot of admirers don't even like those that surround themselves around them in general. It's because those admirers only like the surface parts of that person and not the deeper levels of them."

Serena looked from one to the other, hoping they got the gist, but continued on anyway.

"Or these admirers who aren't even close to that said person always have this idealize expectation of that person and so get disappointed when that person doesn't match that idolized one. Honestly, said popular person doesn't feel like they are actually being appreciated and just being used for clout and the likes."

Serena chuckled with a shrug.

"Still it's usually a more or less stereotypical perspective of it all. Depends on the person and situation at most. Then again, you'll never know unless you yourself find out and get it from the primary source."

Linna nodded.

"That's what I thought, too, ever since I realized I had a crush on him since our high school days."

She softly sighed.

"However, this is real life and not one of those shows or whatever. I don't want to give him the impression that I'm only around him because of that since a lot of girls in my class fond over him too much and he always hung out with his friends, too."

"Well, it's different now. Like, we have the same set of friends and mutual friends between us." Melanie commented while looking at Linna.

"Which in your case, it's different since you built the trust and friendship and are actually cool with those he considers his friends, too."

"Yeah, true."

Linna gave the trio a confident smile.

"One day, I'll do it on my own time, but for now, I'm good where I'm at."

"Fine by me as long as I don't have to deliver any more love letters." Serena grinned.

"So that leaves Youngseo and Jake, as well as Hayoun and Jay."

"It does not." They countered as Serena laughed.

"If y'all do stuff, then maybe Jiyeon could go through with her confession for Sunghoon."

"I just said Jake was cute that one time and I never said that I actually liked him like that." Melanie stated with a roll of her eyes.

"There's a difference."

"Yeah, what Youngseo said." Kierra agreed.

"Don't be like Woojoo, Sujin, and the others as they think there's something going on between me and Jay."

She clicked her tongue.

"Almost all our friends keep thinking he and I got something going on."

"Don't you?" The other three chorused as Kierra groaned.

"No."

"Well, are you and Jay going to have more photoshoot assignments this semester like last semester?" Melanie inquired a moment later.

"No." Kierra answered, relieved.

"Thank goodness as neither of our professors brought up another collaboration."

"Aww, that's too bad." Linna chimed in.

"I'm pretty sure he would've loved to spend more time with you."

"Don't even start."

"Nah, it would've been cute." Serena marked, laughing.

Soon, Serena continued teasing the others, but stopped once they started bringing up her possible involvement with Heeseung. Then they got onto the topic about their friends wondering about Seohoo and who he was to them as they all thought he was four-timing them of sorts since the cousins hung out with Seohoo often. Yet the cousins left the matter alone as they knew the truth and Seohoo found it entertaining and even suggested for them to use him as pretend boyfriend if needed.

"Alright, here you four go." Chanran announced as he set down four different fruit slushies in front of the cousins.

"My special fruit-ades for team members."

"Yay!" The four cheered as they each grabbed their drink.

The quartet decided to hang out at Simplistic, not wanting to return home just yet once classes were done for the day and had a day off from work as well. Chanran mentioned his specialty drinks that he was testing out which was basically made with both milkis and chilsung cider while mixing with actual fruits and syrup flavoring.

"So," Serena began after taking a sip of her mango slushie.

"Is there any way we can ditch the school's social gathering or networking happening this Sunday?"

"Oh, please, someone say yes." Kierra exlaimed in agreement, after sipping her peach slushie.

"I wanna opt out, too."

"Y'all can't do that."

"Yeah, we've already signed up."

Linna and Melanie argued, also having drank their red guava and strawberry slushies, respectively, before the pair spoke again.

"It shouldn't be that bad from what I've read and others have been talking about." Melanie said, giving the older pair a look.

"There's gonna be free food and future job opportunities with companies we may wanna work for in the future if we decide to stay and live here longer or maybe even permanently. Also, don't forget about the extra credit bit, too."

"Yeah." Linna chimed in.

"It's only for one night and the first time ever that the school is doing this. If it's successful, then they'll do it again next year and thereafter."

"But there's a dress code." Kierra and Serena chimed in unison with groans.

"And what's wrong with that?" Linna countered as Kierra made a face.

"We got nothing fancy to wear."

"Yeah, the dress code has to be formal or semi-formal." Serena chimed in as Melanie nodded.

"True, but y'all can wear pant suits though if y'all didn't wanna wear dresses."

"Oh, right, but even those are a hassle, too."

"Well, it is what it is. Gotta suck it up."

"So dumb."

Suddenly a voice suddenly spoke from behind them.

"What's going on over here?"

The quartet turned their heads to see Hanyoung hovering nearby with a curious face.

"Anything interesting to help pass the time?"

"Not if you know where we can rent or buy fancy dresses for cheap." Serena replied as Hanyoung nodded.

"I do."

"Really?"

"Yes. What's it for?"

"Our university is doing a social networking gathering of sorts and expects a lot of their students to be there to impress." Kierra explained while glancing around her.

"But Minseo and I don't want to attend, but need to attend as we already signed up and it counts as participation grading."

Simplistic died down and so the others really had nothing to do as the previous customers have left, too.

"Ooh, sounds fun though."

Hanyoung chuckled while glancing between the four.

"Would that be for this upcoming Sunday for Hyebi University?"

"Yes. How'd you know?"

"Surprisingly, Junyoung and I will be there, too. Also, Seohoo's been talking about it for the past several days, too."

"Really? Why will y'all be there?" Melanie inquired, puzzled.

"Our parents have businesses and we're the ones representing them since they have other obligations to handle."

"That's pretty cool."

"Mmhmm."

Hanyoung cast them with a sweet look.

"So, when do y'all wanna go clothes shopping though?" He asked sincerely.

"Junyoung and I can free up our schedule to assist y'all for the ocassion. We asked Seohoo, but he said he got all of that figured out on his own accord."

"I can't believe I'm wearing such a dress for this event and even more so than I ever thought I would." Serena slightly complained, even if in awed.

She, her sister, and their cousins arrived at the Four Seasons Hotel's venue hall as they wore the same styled strapless fitted gown, but in different colors. Serena in an off white, Kierra in a rose gold, Linna in a mauve rose, and Melanie in a smoky blue. They were rented out by the duo although the cousins informed them that they would pay them back, but Junyoung and Hanyoung dismissed it as a friendly treat. Luckily for Serena and Kierra, their friends eased their nervousness by suggesting something more comfortable while still staying classy.

"Well, Seohoo was supposed to meet up with us, but he left earlier with his friends." Linna remarked as Melanie nodded.

"Yeah, I mean I would, too, but he told us last minute and we could've gone with Sujin and Woojoo."

"For real."

The other three agreed.

"However, I think those two are gonna arrive later as they have Student Council matter to take care of first as this was part of it or something like that." Linna informed.

"Oh, yeah, that's right. I forgot they mentioned that." Melanie chimed in.

"Anyway, where are we supposed to go again?" Kierra asked, looking about the venue.

"Were we supposed to pick up our name placard or a name-tag somewhere?"

"Let's just follow the other students." Serena suggested.

"I don't see any signs and it would be helpful if they did or someone was out here."

"Yeah, I know right." Kierra agreed, looking around.

"Still, let's just followed everyone else. That's our best bet."

"Alright, let's go." Melanie said as she began walking with the others following after her.

"By the way, what should we do when we get inside?" Kierra asked a second later.

"Like, I didn't really fully read the e-mail that they sent us."

"Of course you wouldn't." Linna commented as Kierra chuckled.

"Um, first we check in, then they'll give us a pamphlet, and afterwards we'll just go about the place." Melanie explained.

"I think they also have a separate place for food though as they're so much of us."

"Oh, yes, please. I forgot to eat earlier and am hungry." Linna replied, rubbing her stomach.

"Hopefully there's enough options."

"Yeah, no, I hope so, too." Melanie agreed.

"We can check that out after checking in first."

"Now that I think about it after reading the e-mail," Serena thought out loud after putting her mobile phone away, "We don't really have to stay for that long or for even the whole time that we're here."

She glanced at the other three with a an easy-going look.

"We just need to check in, mingle around for a bit with some proof that we came by talking to some of the businesses here by getting our name-tag either signed or stamped, and we can leave after doing so. Or in our case, just hang out in the buffet hall to eat and then leave afterwards."

Kierra grinned, liking the idea.

"Oh, yeah, let's do that for sure."

"Right."

Serena chuckled as Kierra continued.

"Right. Anyway, food can never go wrong unless prepared incorrectly or whatever."

Their sisters rolled their eyes with a laugh.

"Of course."

The four giggled as they reached the part where the hotel staff had tables aligned with their name lanyards for them to take and enter the hall.

#staytheb #enhypen scenarios

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staytheb · 11 months

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Just A Little Bit; Falling For You - Chapter Three: valentine’s day

Word Count: 6,774 Summary: The cousins make chocolate with their friends telling them to give it to someone they like. The four then ended up having dinner with friends and their Love Interests. There’s another college party later before the spring term starts. previous chapter || next chapter

updated: 6.1.24

The cousins, Sujin, and Woojoo decided to make attend a class to make chocolates on Valentine's Day while their other friends had other plans for the so-called holiday as well. Honestly, the four didn't really care what they did on this commercial holiday, but were persuaded by the other two since the quartet weren't around in Seoul for Valentine's Day either as they would usually either returned during the fourth week of February. Woojoo and Sujin confessed to the cousins that they had boyfriends and wanted to make them chocolates instead of store bought ones. The pair roped in the other four to join them and so they went early in the morning and just got done not that long ago.

"Can we go eat now?" Serena suggested once they left the place, making a face.

"I missed breakfast, chocolate making took too long only because everyone wanted to perfect their chocolates, and it's way past lunch time."

She frowned, rubbing her stomach.

"I'm hungry, but I dunno what I want to eat though."

"Oh yeah, let's eat. I'm hungry, too." Kierra agreed.

"One of y'all choose because I dunno what I want to eat either."

"Okay, so, where should we eat then?" Linna asked while looking between her friends.

"Well that depends." Melanie said, glancing from one to the other.

"What is everyone craving or want to check out?"

The friends discussed where they wanted to eat until Woojoo asked about their chocolates.

"Who are y'all gonna give your chocolates to?"

"No one." The cousins responded as Woojoo glanced between Melanie and Linna.

"Y'all should give them to Jake and Sunghoon, respectively."

Sujin grinned, pointing at Kierra.

"And you could give your chocolates to Jay."

Kierra whipped her head to glare at her.

"Why would I do that, Kim Woojoo?"

Her eyes narrowed at the other three, already knowing that her sister and cousins thought so, too.

"Y'all think I like him or something?"

"Well," Sujin began with a nervous laugh, "The two of you do banter like y'all are close despite you saying that you aren't."

"No, we don't and I do not, Yang Sujin."

"Yeah you do." Her cousins and sister countered and Kierra rolled her eyes.

"Whatever."

The others laughed as Woojoo focused her attention back onto Linna and Melanie.

"But no, for real. I think this is a great opportunity for you two to confess as it didn't work out on the last day of the year."

Melanie and Linna shook their heads as Woojoo gave up and focused her attention onto Serena instead.

"Minseo just needs to give her chocolate to whoever she likes."

Serena burst out laughing at her friend's wild thoughts.

"I don't like anyone, Woojoo."

Woojoo shook her head.

"Lies! I know you have someone you like, Minseo."

Before Serena could respond, her cousins and sister answered instead.

"Oh, she does!"

"Yes, she does!"

"It's someone we all know!"

"What? Who? When?" Sujin and Woojoo jumped in, wanting to know.

"Who is he?"

Serena eyed the other three as they giggled, but cast her friends with a serious look.

"It's no one. I don't like anyone."

"There's no way that's true when Hayoun, Youngseo, and Jiyeon said something just now." Woojoo argued as Serena shrugged.

"They're not the one being questioned."

"But who is this person anyway?" Sujin asked a second later, chuckling.

"Is he a part of our friend circle."

"It's no one." Serena insisted while shooting her sister and cousins a narrowed look as the trio chuckled, but didn't respond.

"Oh, c'mon." Woojoo exclaimed.

"You must like someone after all of this time since your last serious boyfriend."

"I don't and believe whatever you wanna believe as I already know the truth." Serena repeated with a nonchalant look.

"So, just leave it be."

Woojoo grumbled as the others laughed. However, Serena gave Woojin a look, wanting to tease her friend now.

"By the way, what's the name of your boyfriend and do we know him?"

"I dunno if you do or not." Woojoo answered with a sheepish laugh.

"As for his name, he still wants to keep our relationship hidden."

"Is that a good thing though?" Kierra inquired, puzzled.

"I mean, how long have you guys been dating?"

"Not that long."

"Yeah, not that long." Sujin chimed in, thinking.

"Our boyfriends are friends though, but we don't mind keeping it hidden for the time being either."

"Well, I hope the two of them are good guys and we get to meet them one day." Melanie said, shooting her friends a smile.

"That's all that matters."

"Yeah." Linna agreed, chuckling.

"As long as they treat y'all well, we don't mind, but worry about your own boyfriends and not about our love life."

"But it's fun." Woojoo argued.

Before the cousins could countered, Sujin intervene.

"Anyway," Sujin interjected, "Woojoo and I got a date with our boyfriends, so we'll see y'all later."

"Oh my goodness. I totally forgot about that."

Woojoo giggled as held her chocolates cutely.

"I can't wait to give this to him."

"Ooh la la." The cousins cooed as the pair giggled with giddy expressions.

The friends parted with the pair going on a Valentine's Day date with their boyfriends while the cousins figured out where to eat on this couple holiday.

"By the way, this is from all of us as a service and for helping us earlier." Eunchan informed the quartet.

He placed a large bowl of cheese rabokki for all of them to share as the cousins assisted their friends at work when it got super busy all of a sudden, deciding to try the Valentine's Day special.

"Added a bit of extra service for y'all, too."

The cafe got overwhelmed with various couples in wanting the same special, too while there were only five workers on the floor to handle it all. The quartet also ended up giving their co-worker friends the chocolates they had made for dealing with this as the owners and their other co-workers had requested the day off, leaving the five to work it instead.

"And these, too!"

"We hope you like it!"

Two other workers placed two freshly baked cakes with white frosting and icing and in the shape of an obscure animal.

"Thanks, Hanyoung and Junyoung." The four thanked the males as two others joined them.

"We hope you like them and enjoy it." Seohoo beamed brightly.

He and Chanran each set a special dessert drink in front of them.

"This is the extra pieces from the cake along with the Valentine's Day Special." Chanran informed them.

"Thank you!"

Despite how the items looked, it was delicious and the cousins were appreciative of their co-worker friends in caring for them like that. They also made a mental note in gifting them something next time for their consideration and putting up with all the couples that had came into day and probably later tonight as well.

"Okay, so we got the five work boys gift certificates to shop wherever they wanna shop at." Melanie said as she handed the envelopes to Serena.

"What?"

Serena looked at her sister, but not taking the envelopes.

"Hold on to these because your bag is bigger than everyone's."

"Wow."

Nevertheless, Serena took the gift certificates and placed them inside her tote bag. Once leaving Simplistic, the cousins ended up in Hongdae to shop for their family and friends back home and for their co-worker friends as well. Luckily, it was more of window shopping than actual shopping as they figured they could just send them stuff later on, but now it was reaching evening time and so that meant dinner time.

"So, what do y'all wanna eat for dinner now?" Kierra asked once they were back on the streets.

"It's getting a little late and if not, then should we buy and make food at the house?"

"Either works." Linna replied with a shrug before suggesting a few spots.

"Unless we go to Seogyo Bap House, Meal Plan B, or even Amando that's around here."

She pointed to a few spots around them.

"Whichever works although i don't feel like cooking tonight either though."

The four continued to walk along the sidewalk as they debated on what to do about dinner.

"Oh, yeah, me, too. I don't feel like cooking tonight either." Mealnie said, deciding on a spot within the vicinity.

"However, I'm so down for Seogyo Bap House. Let's go there."

"Okay, cool." The other three agreed.

"Sounds good."

The cousins walked down the streets to get to the restaurant and when they arrived, they happened to noticed kids and friends once they entered the restaurant and three of the four wanted to backtrack immediately.

"Nevermind. I change my mind. Let's go to Meal Plan B instead. I want a burrito." Melanie said as Linna nodded.

"Yeah, let's head over there. Besides the burrito, I've been craving their hotdogs, too."

"Don't worry about it. I'm pretty sure they won't notice us."

Serena brushed off their concerns with a a nonchalant attitude.

"Besides, there's other places to sit and they're already eating, too."

Serena spoke too soon as Ni-Ki, Jungwon, and Sunoo noticed them in the distance and actually waved them over.

"Right. Wouldn't noticed us, huh." Kierra remarked saracastically as Serena shrugged indifferently with a chuckle.

"It is what it is."

However, she cast them all with an amused look.

"Fate just happened to work in mysterious ways."

Kierra eyed her, grinning as well.

"So does the invisible string theory and the red string of fate, too."

Serena frowned, knowing what her cousin was hinting at.

"Whatever."

At that moment, Jake, Sunghoon, Heeseung, and Jay focused their attention onto them with the cousins slightly waving out of politeness.

"Should we stay though?" Melanie inquired a second later as Linna shook her head.

"Nah. I think we should just go."

"I second that." Kierra chimed in, nodding.

"Honestly, this would be like a Valentine's date of sorts if we ended up being seated near them and they try to have us join them." Serena mused a moment later.

However, the trio shot her a not-so-nice look.

"My bad, my bad."

Serena chuckled as Melanie looked at her sister and cousins.

"We should just leave."

"Honestly, this place is somewhat packed. Let's go." Linna chimed in soon afterwards.

"Yeah, I actually agree with these two." Kierra followed along as Serena chuckled.

"Fine. If that's what y'all want, then let's go, but y'all need to figure out another place because I'm not feeling Meal B though."

Just as the four were about to turn around and leave, a staff came up to them.

"Good evening, ladies. If you would follow me, please."

The staff motioned with their head towards the group of seven as the quartet gave each other knowing looks.

"It's just dinner. Let's just eat and we can dip afterwards." Serena assured as the other three glared at her.

"Of course you're not bothered by this."

"When is that wishful thinking gonna happen?"

"I hope sooner than later because it's annoying that she's not getting affected at all."

Serena just rolled her eyes, but the trio still eyed her with displeasure at their current circumstance.

"Just treat it as an outing with friends and we'll be fine." Serena reasoned with a shrug although a hint of a smile graced her features.

"I mean, it's not like y'all will be seating beside your crush or person of interest either."

The trio still didn't like the idea, but they were hungry and the wait wouldn't be that long as it would've been.

"Fine."

"Okay, cool."

The four followed the staff as they sat the four of them next to the seven male's table and left after getting their orders.

"Hi!" The seven greeted as the four flashed them all smiles, doing the same.

"Hi!"

"Anyway, no date for a couple night out?" Ni-Ki teased as the cousins eyed him.

"No, but what about you?"

"Yeah, no dinner date either?"

The six males laughed as Ni-Ki rolled his eyes, but continued speaking.

"I thought the four of you would join the rest of our friends for an amusement park and dinner date thing that they had planned."

"Nah." The quartet dismissed, causing the other four to discreetly feel relieve upon hearing that.

"Anyway," Serena looked over at the males with a small smile, "We're just chilling."

"Hey, do you know what happened with my sister?" Jungwon suddenly asked.

"She said she was with y'all earlier along with Sunoo's sister."

"Oh yeah, did something happened to them? They wouldn't tell us and were being all secretive." Sunoo added as the four shrugged, nonchalantly.

"Girl stuff."

"They're fine."

"Why do you wanna know?"

"Don't worry about it."

Jungwon and Sunoo made a face as the others laughed.

"They'll let you know when they're ready." Melanie added, giving them something than nothing.

"So, just chill until then."

Soon casual conversation flowed between both parties throughout the rest of dinner. Even though three of the four cousins were tense at first, overthinking things whenever a particiular someone directed minor attention onto them. Serena had no issues, conversing with them all, but became aware of the other three's vibes and so didn't tease them and even directed the attention elsewhere if they felt uncomfortable. However, she did notice a particular someone paying a little more attention to her and so she dismissed that idea, not wanting to read too much into it or think that the trio's new year wish was about to be granted.

"Let's go to the nearest noraebong."

Once dinner ended and they were all leaving the restaurant, the subject of coin karaoke came up and the seven invited the four to come join them with the 'more the merrier' motto attached to it.

"Ooh, yeah, let's go singing!" Sunoo cheered, latching his arms with Linna.

"Jiyeon owes me a duet or two."

"Shoot." Linna tsked.

"I thought you forgot about it."

Sunoo eyed her as she giggled.

"What, Kim Sunoo?"

"You know what, Jung Jiyeon, and no way I would forget that. " He responded.

"You owe me from last, but because of that, it's doubled now."

"But I don't want to." Linna declined, whining a bit.

"Can't you do a duet with Youngseo?"

"I can, but..." He trailed off.

"But what?"

"It's because of me." Jungwon interjected, laughing.

"Since Sunoo claimed you as his partner, then that means Youngseo owes me a duet from last time, too."

He grinned at Melanie.

"But it'll be two now."

"I never said that and why should I give you another one." Melanie denied with a nonchalant look.

"Where's your proof, Yang Jungwon?"

Jungwon shot her a look.

"Your spoken promise was proof."

"I don't promise anything though."

"Yeah, you did and you're not getting out of it."

"Why don't you just sing with Minseo though?" Melanie suggested.

"She owes you like twenty songs."

"Oh, right."

Jungwon recalled, nodding.

"She does and Hayoun, too."

He tsked.

"They keep saying later and I never claim their laters."

Sunoo recalled that, too.

"Oh, yeah true. I have so many duets to do with them."

He and Jungwon shared a look.

"Why do they keep getting out of owing them to us?" Sunoo asked to no one in particular with a shake of his head.

"Because they're good at that." Jungwon remarked with a disbelief laugh.

He and Sunoo turned to find their friends while calling out their names.

"Minseo?"

"Hayoun?"

It became a questioning tone when neither of them didn't spot the two amongst the others.

"Where did they go?"

The others turned their focus on locating the two when they noticed another person was missing from their group of eleven. A few seconds later they heard Kierra and Serena yelling at Ni-Ki in the distance in the middle of the night with the latter laughing sheepishly at the pair's misfortune.

"Yah! Nishimura Riki!"

Ni-Ki had tried scaring Serena and Kierra while sneaking up on them upon their escape a while ago. However, he ended up distracting them instead whereby the pair tried to hit him and in the process the two tripped over themselves, slightly causing their ankles to ache at the moment. Melanie and Linna refrained from laughing at their sisters' misfortune, but knew this was the results of their own actions though.

"You dumb brat."

"Ugh, I hate you, Ni-Ki!"

Came Kierra and Serena's angry yells as they tendered to their feet and legs to make sure nothing was actually broken or seriously injured and were just minor aches instead. Then again, they, too, were at fault as it wouldn't have turned out like this if they had just stayed put.

"You're so dead!"

"Ah, my bad."

Ni-Ki somewhat apologize with a sheepish laugh.

"Didn't think it would turn out like that."

"Liar."

"So dumb."

Kierra and Serena glared at Ni-Ki until their attention went elsewhere.

"Can you stand up, Hayoun?"

"Can you stand up, Minseo?"

Both Jay and Heeseung asked as they looked at the pair, respectively while rushing over to them upon hearing their cries.

"Probably." Kierra and Serena responded, ignoring the two's concerns.

"But I'm good."

Just as they were about to lift themselves up, a hand appeared in front of their faces, and the two reluctantly accepted the two's help.

"Thanks, Jay."

"Thanks, Heeseung."

"Welcome, but can you walk."

"Yeah."

Serena and Kierra made the attempt to walk a few steps, but winced upon the slight pain and limped upon doing so. So, Heeseung and Jay placed their other hands on their shoulders out of respect instead of their mid-back to keep them upright and steady, respectively, while each pair continued to hold hands, too.

"Um, thanks."

"I can see that you can be nice, Hayoun." Jay commented as Kierra eyed him.

"I am nice, Jay."

"Not to me at times."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Kierra dismissed the male as she tried to shoo him away.

"I should be fine now."

"Oh, okay."

Jay reluctantly let Kierra go as she was able to stand on her own without much pain, but he continued to observe her. Meanwhile, Serena politely patted Heeseung's right hand with her left to let him know that she wanted him to release her, even though she felt suddenly awkward of their interactions once again.

"I should be good, Heeseung."

"Oh, yeah, right."

He immediately removed his arms from around Serena as she stood upright on her own without wincing or wobbling too much.

"Thanks again."

"Yeah, Minseo, welcome."

However, Melanie and Linna watched the scene with mischievous looks as they leaned towards one another.

"Hmm, maybe there is something between my sister and Jay." Linna whispered as Melanie nodded.

"Yeah, I can see that, but too bad that my older cousin keeps denying that."

Linna nodded.

"Oh yeah, me too. If she wasn't so mean to him, then the two could be quite adorable with one another."

"Mmhmm."

"Anyway, besides those two, I'm just more surprised about your sister and Heeseung though."

"Oh, yeah, I know right. Even though we all wanted something like this to happen to her for so long."

Melanie and Linna chuckled.

"Oh, I know, but this could be the start of a beautiful 'what goes around, comes around' aspect."

"Oh, yeah, for sure. She deserves it."

"Yes, our wishful thinking from the first day of the year is coming true even though it took a while to get here."

"I know right. Better late than never though."

"Oh, yeah, definitely."

The two giggled until they were softly nudged by Sunghoon and Jake, respectively, as Linna and Melanie's attention focused on them while wondering when these two stood beside them when it was supposed to be Sunoo and Jungwon.

"What's so funny, Jiyeon?"

"What's so funny, Youngseo?"

"Nothing, Sunghoon."

"Nothing, Jake."

She flashed him a smile, but each cousin had a different reaction after saying those words. Linna suddenly turned shy upon seeing the way Sunghoon looked at her just now and she turned away, stepping closer to Melanie. She couldn't recall when he started being this close and interactive with her all of a sudden. As for Melanie, the awareness of Jake was becoming a little too much at the moment and she slightly shied away from him, too, also stepping closer to Linna. However, a slow smile graced the two males' faces, but remained silent.

"So, what should we do?"

Sunoo's voice caught everyone's attention as they all faced him.

"Are we calling this a night or are we still going to a coin noraebong?"

"Nah. I can't walk anymore." Serena declined while pointing at Ni-Ki.

"Blame it on Ni-Ki."

"What?" Ni-Ki exclaimed, bewildered.

"I barely did anything to you, Minseo."

He eyed her, making another face as Serena shrugged indifferently.

"Don't care. I can't go now."

Serena ended up backing away just fine without much hinderance to her steps and Ni-Ki and the others noticed.

"I thought you couldn't walk, Park Minseo?" Ni-Ki called her out as Serena laughed sheepishly.

"Honestly, I just don't want to sing with you, Nishimura Riki."

He rolled his eyes, but didn't comment.

"Then you can sing with me!" Sunoo suggested as Serena shook her head.

"Yeah, Sunoo, no thanks. I don't wanna sing at all."

"No way, Minseo. You're coming with us." Jungwon announced as he walked towards her.

However, Serena wanted to be difficult like always as she cast Jungwon with a playful look.

"Fine, but I'll only go if you can catch me. Bye!"

Serena dashed off with Jungwon giving chase.

"Yah, Park Minseo, get back here! I'm going to get you like I did last time."

"Why does she always do this even though I would've done the same, but I know my limits?" Kierra mumbled to herself with a shake of her head.

"She knows that something always happens when she gets like this."

Jay glanced over at her with a small smile, but worry still etched in his face.

"How are you doing?"

"With what?"

She momentarily forgot that she was hurting earlier as well.

"Your foot."

"Oh, that. It's fine now."

She rotated her ankle to show him that she was fine.

"Good to know."

"Mmhmm."

"Hey!" Jungwon called for the attention upon returning with Serena a moment later.

He securely held her by her bag's strap to prevent her from running away a third time.

"We're all going to the coin karaoke." He announced as Serena made a face, but spoke.

"But we need to go to the convenience store first."

Everyone cast her with a curious look as she continued speaking.

"I got hurt again."

She held up her skinned hands as a mischievous look graced her features.

"Jungwon pushed me down earlier."

Jungwon eyed her with a sheepish laugh.

"No I did not."

"Yeah, you did." She countered, grinning.

"You pushed me too hard."

He scoffed with a roll of his eyes.

"I was trying to grab you by your bag's strap, but caught your hoodie instead."

"Same difference. Yang Jungwon."

Serena tried to tug her strap from out of Jungwon's grip, but he held her tightly and even moved his hand from her bag's strap to hooking arms with her instead.

"I'm not gonna run away again."

She eyed him when Jungwon did that.

"Sheesh, you're so violent, Yang Jungwon."

Jungwon scoffed, still holding onto her tightly.

"I'm pretty sure you're the one that's violent, Park Minseo."

"Touche."

However, neither noticed a particular someone watching their interaction curiously with slight envy.

"Whatever, let's go!" Sunoo exclaimed, urging his friends to move to their next activity.

"Let's sing as many songs as we can before it gets too late."

The group of eleven hung out for another two hours with Sunoo and Jungwon claiming all their duets with the cousins. Suprisingly, the quartet didn't mind at all about the nightly hang out of coin karaoke and being around the seven males. Surprisingly, the females ended having at least one duet with a particular person, but treated it like a normal thing and tried not to make nothing out of something either. Still, they all had fun and just went with the flow as they wouldn't know when they would hang out like this again once school started up again and would take up a majority of their time again.

"So, where to next?" Serena asked as the four left the tea drink shop, Gong Cha, with drinks and snacks in hands.

School started in less than a week and the four went out school shopping for supplies and stopped by the bubble tea place for their fix.

"Should we go back home or actually get something to eat?" She continued, looking at the others.

Before the trio could suggest other places to go to, the cousins heard their names being called in the distance.

"Do you hear that?" Kierra asked while looking at the trio.

They paused while trying to focus on hearing better.

"Ah, fuck."

Came Serena's muttered response as she tried to move out of the way upon recognizing the voice belonging to the person running towards them, especially headed in her direction. Just as the three turned around to see who it was, they witnessed Serena being glomped by Seohoo's older brother, Hanjun, and was unable to move out of the way in time.

"PARK MINSEO!"

The pair went crashing onto the sidewalk as the trio avoided getting splashed by Serena's drink. The three refrained from laughing at the incident, but burst into a fit of laughter a second later anyway. Serena cast her sister and cousins an annoyed look.

"Baek Hanjun." She scolded in a firm tone as her eyes fixated on her friend.

"Oops."

The playful look disappeared from his face as he immediately stood up.

"My bad."

Hanjun cast Serena with a sheepish smile as he offered a hand.

"Psh. Yeah, right." She scoffed.

"I know you did that on purpose."

She reluctantly took it with a sour face.

"Why couldn't you have done this to Youngseo, Hayoun, or Jiyeon?"

"You were closer."

"Wow. You're a jerk."

"That's you."

"True." Serena chuckled as the two nudged one another playfully.

"So, no more service for you at Simplistic."

"Oh, c'mon. It wasn't that bad." Hanjun dismissed in a nonchalant tone.

"You're still fine."

"Whatever."

"Oh, hey." Another voice greeted.

"Now I know why Hanjun ran off just now."

The other person was the eldest brother, Taeyoung, another friend of theirs.

"Yeah, I'm sure." Serena commented as she nudged Hanjun as he just smiled at her.

"Always, Minseo."

Linna soon noticed the bags Taeyoung carried.

"Oh, are you having a party or doing something tonight or maybe later?"

"Yeah, we are actually." Taeyoung confirmed with an easy-going smile.

"It's just a small gathering before the new school term starts."

However it turned into confusion.

"Seohoo didn't tell y'all?"

Taeyoung and Hanjun attended a different university, Seoul University, which was their rival university, than Seohoo and the cousins.

"No." The quartet answered.

"Although we wouldn't mind not attending since it's y'all's friends from your school." Kierra added, chuckling.

However, Hanjun then cast them with a bright smile.

"Nah, you definitely gotta come." He exclaimed.

"It's been a while since we hung out and y'all stayed behind instead of going back home too."

His face brightened even more.

"Also, it'll be great to have you join us as Minhee will be there, too, and he misses the four of you just as much as we do."

"Of course he does since he acts just like the three of you." Melanie remarked with a laugh.

Kang Minhee was another friend and the son of Eunmi's long-term boyfriend, Kang Minwoo. He also attended the same university as Taeyoung and Hanjun.

"Sorry, we can't. We got work later today." Kierra declined, making up a lie.

"No you don't." Hanjun called her bluff.

"Yeah, we do."

Serena intervened, staring at Hanjun.

"Anyway, why does it matter to you if we come or not, Hanjun?"

"Because you owe me cookies, Minseo."

"You're the one that owes me cookies, Baek Hanjun."

"Oh, right. I do."

He recalled with a sheepish laugh.

"I stole your stash and never replaced them."

Hanjun dismissed it.

"Whatever. Forget about it. Just come. It'll be fun."

Linna and Melanie answered for them.

"We'll be there."

They flashed their sisters a mischievous smile as the older pair just ignored it.

"Alright, cool. I'll send you the address." Taeyoung said as he faced Serena with a small smile.

"Don't worry, Minseo. There will be others that Hanjun can annoy at the party."

Hanjun poked her cheek.

"Don't forget to bring me my cookies."

He ran away laughing with Taeyoung following him shortly afterward as Serena rolled her eyes.

"I'ma burn those cookies."

"I can't believe you've been hiding here the whole time." Kierra huffed as she joined Serena at the side of the house, away from the party.

"Psh, yeah right." Serena scoffed.

The party was held at the Baek brothers' friends' house where Seohoo and Minhee had shown the four around before they got separated by their friends to do various activities. Serena shot her cousin with a tired look.

"I just got away from some people asking if I was either Minhee, Seohoo, Taeyoung, or Hanjun's girlfriend due to the photos we took during Seollal." Serena explained.

"I dunno why they even care as I hardly know them, but I guess the boys' love life is something special or whatever."

"Oh yeah, me, too. Honestly, they're just guys being guys."

Kierra nodded, annoyed.

"Anyway, I mean, nothing against Auntie Eunmi, but her sons are so unlike her."

"I don't know how such troublemakers were born from such a lovely woman as Auntie Eunmi."

"I know, right. Minhee isn't bad either, but some of his so-called fangirls are kinda obsessive. Thank goodness we attend different schols."

"Oh, yeah, like for real."

Serena cast Kierra another tired look.

"Anyway, where have you been?"

Kierra joined Serena on the cemented parking space and leaned against the side of the house, tiredly with a laugh. There were no other people around them and she took in the emptiness of it.

"Hanjun found me and basically dragged me all over to play some games and I ended up playing as his partner for a majority of them."

The two shared a laugh as Kierra continued speaking.

"Anyway, I just told him and the others I needed to use the bathroom, but now I'm here."

The pair giggled as they sat like that for a moment longer in the comforting silence.

"Let's ditch our sisters and go back home first."

This time around, Serena suggested the option with Kierra scoffing.

"Oh, so now you wanna ditch them when I wanted to ditch them last Christmas."

Kierra shot her cousin a miffed look as Serena chuckled with a nod.

"Yeah. Why not?"

"Okay, I'm down. Let's go." Kierra agreed immediately as the pair laugh while standing back on to their feet.

"Let's hurried before we get find out."

The pair turned around upon hearing footsteps coming from behind them to see their sisters looking panicked.

"Hey, what's up?" Serena asked in concern, all thoughts of escaping disappearing.

"Did someone do something?"

She eyed one to the other.

"Or did something happen instead?"

"No, no." The younger pair replied before clarifying.

"Sunghoon is here."

"Jake is here."

"Oh."

Was all that came out of Serena's mouth while Kierra's eyes widened at the realization a second later.

"Oh, shit. Is Jay here, too?"

Linna and Melanie nodded while Serena rolled her eyes with a good-nature smile as she mused on the idea of her sister and cousins interacting with the three guys at this party if they didn't go home. Melanie and Linna knew their sisters were here as it was a quiet spot and away from the other party-goers, surprisingly. The other thing was that hte pair also hoped to make an escape going this route instead of the normal way.

"What if we stay now?" Serena suggested as the trio protested.

"Hell no!"

Serena laughed and backed off when they brought up Heeseung.

"Heeseung's here, too." Melanie and Linna chimed, shooting her a knowing look.

"Okay, okay."

She scowled.

"I'l back off."

"Serves you right." Kierra remarked as Serena nodded.

"Yeah, yeah."

She waved off her cousin's teasing.

"Anyway, we still have to go through the front door as I already tried leaving through this way." Serena explained, chuckling.

"So, yeah, there's no exit this way."

"Wow."

Kierra eyed Serena.

"So, there was a reason you stayed there."

"Yeah, basically."

Serena let out another laugh as she glanced from one to the other.

"Anyway, let's go."

The four soon made their way back to the party. Before they could round the corner of the house, their path was unfortunately blocked by four unfamiliar males.

"Good evening, ladies."

Ignoring them, the cousins tried to make their way around them, but the males blocked their path once more.

"Aww, we just wanted to chat a little longer. I'm Park Jinwoong." Jinwoong said while he introduced the others.

"And this is Ahn Sunyong, Kwon Jaehyuk, and Song Hyoram."

The quartet just stared at them in boredrom upon introductions, but Kierra and Linna recognized one of them. They cast each other a look.

"Hey, isn't he familiar to you?" Kierra asked her sister as Linna nodded, making a face.

"Unfortunately, yeah, he is."

The one they recognized was Sunyong and couldn't believe he was still trying to hit on them despite clearly having a significant other.

"What's up?" The other two asked, as they quickly and quietly explained the situation.

"Oh, wow."

"Yeah, let's go."

The cousins once again ignored them and tried to maneuvered around them once more, but the males blocked their paths again.

"Oh, ladies, don't play so hard to get." Sunyong said in a tone to be smooth and charismatic.

The sisters ignored them once again and continued to walk around them, but the males were quite persistent and blocked their path a fifth time.

"Hey, we just wanted to talk." Jaehyuk explained although his tone didn't seem friendly now.

Serena and Kierra shot them looks, standing in front of the their sisters to keep a distance between them and the two males.

"Well, we don't."

"And have been trying to ignore y'all."

"Don't be like." Hyoram said with a sickening smile.

"Yeah, no thanks." Kierra and Serena declined.

"Is everything alright?" Another male voice suddenly spoke from behind the two males.

"No." The cousins responded, seeing Taeyoung and Minhee.

Taeyoung was the one that had spoken and immediately stepped in.

"May I asked who invited y'all here?"

"We're friends of a friend that has a friend that lives here." Jinwoong answered.

"Well, so do we, but I've never seen y'all's faces before." Minhee state in a matter-of-fact tone with a dark look.

"Which I would suggest for the four of you to leave our four friends alone over there." Taeyoung chimed in, not amused.

Minhee moved forward as the four males looked at one another and begrudgingly left on their own accord, grumbling. Once they were out of sight, the cousins faced their friends thankfully.

"Thanks for helping us out."

"No problem."

Soon, miscievous smile graced their faces a second later.

"Let's go play some beer pong."

"Y'all cheated."

"No, we didn't."

An argument erupted between one of the beer pong tables as the cousins and their partners glanced at the said table. However, the cousins had caught each others' eyes and knew what the other was trying to say without mentioning it out loud.

"Sorry, Taeyoung, but I'm done for tonight."

Serena cast the male with an apologetic look.

"I'll buy you something Pochacco related to make up for it."

"What about my cookies though?" Hanjun suddenly asked, overhearing what Serena promised his older brother.

"You didn't bring me my cookies."

"Yeah, how come I don't get free food from you, too?" Seohoo asked, also sulking with Minhee doing the same.

"Yeah, you said you would get me something last time and I still haven't received that 'something', Park Minseo."

"I'm working on it." Serena lied.

Serena totally forgot about that and now she definitely had to work on that before they start pestering her. Kierra, Linna, and Melanie laughed as they knew something like this would happen as it was a habit of Serena to do so.

"I want the biggest Pochacco doll you can get." Taeyoung smiled as he told Serena as she rolled her eyes.

"Ugh, fine."

The friends bid goodbyes as the cousins made their way towards the inside of the house to leave through the front entrance. On their way out, they realized how late it was already and debated if they wanted to ask the Baek brothers to spend the night as they lived nearby with their mom. They turned back to ask the trio and Seohoo was the only one ready to go as the other two wanted to stay and were already spending the night here.

"Yeah, let me grab my things." Seohoo informed them.

"Wait for me outside."

The quartet gave him the 'OK' sign as Seohoo went to grab his things so that they could go home together. The quartet made their way out of the house and when the cousins exited the front door and lingered around in the front of the house, they happened to see four familiar faces as several of the party-goers were chilling around up front.

"Oh, hey." Heeseung, Jay, Jake, and Sunghoon greeted the quartet with surprised looks.

"Uh, hi." The cousins greeted back, equally surprised as they had totally forgotten about them.

The pair of sisters didn't recognized the other people within the group that the four men were hanging out with as they didn't see Sunoo, Jungwon, Ni-Ki or their other mutual friends amongst them either. They each wondered who they knew to be at the same party, too. Still, the quartet figured that by now the four males would've had left by now or somehow missed them while on their way home.

"Leaving already?" Jay asked, but his gaze focused more on Kierra than the other three.

"Um, yeah." Kierra answered with a slight nod.

"It's getting pretty late and we have work tomorrow."

Well, Kierra did as the others had it off, but she used the royally 'we' to feel comfortable.

"We could walk you to the bus stop if you want out of safety." Jake offered as his gaze landed on Melanie after saying it.

"Or to the nearest train station if needed." Sunghoon suggested as a small smile graced his face before meeting eyes with Linna.

"Um, I think we're good." Both Melanie and Linna responded with a thankful smile.

"Thank you though for offering."

Serena caught eyes with Heeseung a moment later and the two cast each other with polite smiles. Although she felt awkward about it as she soon had a realization that all the years of teasing her sister and cousins was about to make it's way back to her sooner than later because of that guy. She wasn't sure why she was feeling like this all of a sudden, but tried not to think too much about. However, lately, it's been hard as it presented itself a lot lately since the new year started. So, yeah, maybe the three's words from earlier this year was about to come back at her sooner than later.

"Um, anyway," Serena interjected to get themselves away from the group.

She felt all of a sudden weirded out by that eye-contact a moment ago and wasn't sure how to feel about it. Still, she dismissed the thought and focus on the situation at hand and needed to make an escape alongside the other three.

"We're fine and just waiting on another friend of ours to head home."

"Hey, ready?" Seohoo appeared as he interrupted Heeseung, Sunghoon, Jay, and Jake from asking something further in time.

"Yeah!" The quartet answered hurriedly before casting one last look at the males.

"Maybe see you around the campus though. Bye!"

Kierra, Melanie, and Linna ran ahead out of urgency with giggles while leaving Serena to pull Seohoo along with her just as he bid goodbye to his friends within that said group while the four men watched all five retreating figures. Curiously, wondering how close the four were to this Seohoo and why they felt uneasy, too.

#staytheb #enhypen scenarios

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staytheb · 11 months

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Just A Little Bit; Falling For You - Chapter Two: party

Word Count: 6,887 Summary: The cousins attend their friends’ birthday party and end up having fun with friends and interacting with their Love Interests before leaving. previous chapter || next chapter

updated: 6.1.24

"It's so freaking cold, man." Serena complained while shivering.

"And it's too eary for this, especially on a Sunday."

The quartet were currently on the rooftop of their home, co-owned by their fathers, while overlooking the city of their quiet neighborhood as they awaited for the early morning sunrise some time after seven. Linna and Melanie came into their sisters' bedrooms to coaxed the two into watching the first Seoul's sunrise of the 2023 new year and to wish on for some good vibes to began their new year, too. The four returned home late last night after hanging out with their friends and so the older pair were quite grumpy about being woken up earlier than wanted while the younger pair had too much energy to continue to sleep in despite wanting to.

"It's because you're not wearing a puffer jacket, but a thick hoodie, and probably didn't even grab any heating packs." Melanie deadpanned.

"Also, we're watching the sunrise which happened to fall on a Sunday, too."

"I know, but still, I had a thermal sweatshirt underneath last night, but took it off later on and just slept with just my shirt instead." Serena explained, groaning.

"Anyway, this hoodie was also the first one I saw that was closes to me and put it on right away without thinking of anything else because two people wouldn't stop rushing us about it."

She cast her eyes onto the younger two, still shivering.

"Also, I misplaced my hot packs and didn't feel like searching for it as well as my puffer jacket."

All four wore hoodies, sweats, socks, and slippers to observe the tranquil scenery around them despite the chilly weather save for Serena as the other three also had on their puffer jackets to withstand the cold early morning weather.

"Here." The trio offered each of their heat packs to Serena, which she graciously took.

"Thanks."

"Anyway, why are we watching the sunrise again?" Kierra questioned with a yawn, uninterested.

"Because it'll be our first Seoul sunrise for the first day of the year." Linna explained.

"I mean, we always slept in on the new year back home so this should be added to our memories compare to previous years."

"I have enough memories." The older two chimed, yawning.

"Oh, just stay and then we can go back to sleep for a while after it's over." Melanie told them with her phone ready to capture the view.

Linna did the same thing before casting the other two with a weird look.

"Yeah. I thought y'all like the whole scenery thing."

"We do, but it's too early for this shit." Kierra responded with another yawn as Serena nodded, also yawning.

"Yeah, for reals."

However, amusing thoughts swirled around Serena's head as a slow smile graced her face.

"Anyway, here's to a new year of y'all chasing after your boys and making even more memories with them."

She threw her hands in the air, happily.

"Yay!"

The other three glared at her.

"Shut up."

"Oh, be quiet."

"Wow, don't even start that."

Serena giggled.

"Why not? It's fun."

However, she frowned after hearing their words and the fun wasn't all that fun now.

"Let this be the year Serena has her own boy problems!" Melanie wished into the morning air.

"Yes, let Serena get a taste of her own medicine!" Linna chimed in soon after.

"And let that boy be Lee Heeseung, please!" Kierra added, laughing.

"Y'all are hella annoying." Serena commented as the trio told her the same thing.

"So are you."

"You're the one that started it."

"Takes one to know one."

A moment later, the sun slowly rose a few minutes before eight and they wished each other a happy new year, remembering that they haven't done it yet.

"Happy 2024 New Year!"

They talked about the new year and such while they continued to watch as the colors in the sky changed with an awe look before heading inside after taking a few more pictures. The older pair return to their rooms to get in another two hours of sleep while the younger pair went about getting ready for work unlike their sisters even though they worked at the same time.

"Will there be anything else for you, sir?" Linna asked the young man after inputting the last item onto the system.

The person flashed her a not-so-charming smile, but Linna wasn't impressed by it despite the young male constantly flashing her one every so often since enterting Simplistic. She found another person's smile even more charming than this guy and in no way would this guy win over him.

"Yeah, can I have your number?"

Linna remained calm while responding.

"Unfortunately, we're not allowed to do that while working."

She flashed him a feign polite smile while repeating her previous question.

"So, will there be anything else for you, sir?"

This still didn't deter the man from his pursuing.

"Do you attend Hyebi University?"

Linna sighed, not wanting to confirm or deny it as she wasn't interested. She just stared at him as he continued.

"How about a date afterwards?"

He flashed her another smile, but it made Linna become even more uncomfortable from his constant pursuit despite indirectly dismissing him on several ocassions. Luckily, Kierra overheard the whole conversation and intervened in the end. Kierra replaced her on the register while Linna asissted Melanie with the drinks.

"Hello, sir. Will there be anything else you'll like to order?"

"Hey, I was still talking to her."

"Yeah, and now you're talking to me."

Kierra flashed him a small smile that didn't reach her eyes. She hoped he got the message.

"So, will there be anything else for you tonight?"

The man re-directed his attention onto Kierra instead with that same non-charming smile.

"Would you like to go on a date with me after work?"

"Sir, either you pay for your food or I'll have to ask you to leave."

Apparently, he didn't get the hint and now Kierra had to change tactics. Heeyeol had been in the office since opening, speaking with several people over the phone while leaving the quartet on their own. Eunchan wouldn't be in for another hour and so had to deal with it on their own.

"So which will it be?"

The same smile remained on her face as the young man grumbled incoherently before pulling out his phone and tapping it against the machine.

"Thank you."

Kierra flashed him another smile.

"Your number is twenty-two and your order will be out shortly."

He avoided eye-contact with her while taking his number tent and hurried off to the furtherest table from the counter. Kierra held her smile before turning around with an annoyed look. Luckily there wasn't another customer in line. She clipped the receipt on the line before gazing over at her sister and cousins.

"Either me or Minseo will run his order out to them. He's number twenty-two."

The trio nodded, understandingly with Serena scoffing.

"I swear, some people are just so annoying."

"For reals." The other three agreed as they all got to working on the rest of the order.

A moment later, the door chimed indicating a customer had either entered or exited, and it was a young woman. They greeted, but she completely ignored them. The female made her way towards the young man from earlier. She kissed him on the cheek before taking a seat from across him, holding his hand, happily. Linna shook her head as not long ago he had flirted with her and her sister despite having a significant other.

"If you two lose, then you'll have to give us kisses on the cheeks." The cousins' friend, Nicholas, declared, smiling.

"If you win, then we will give you kisses on the cheeks."

"What's up with you and kisses, Nicholas?" Serena remarked with a laugh.

"Don't you have admirers that you can do all that stuff with?"

The cousins attended their friend's, Saerom, birthday party a few days later as they always missed out since going back home during this time and would return closer to the next school term. Currently, Kierra and Serena were playing their nth drinking game for the night against Nicholas and their other friend, EJ.

"You know you and Hayoun love my kisses."

Nicholas blew them another playful kiss as Serena smacked the invisible kiss away.

"You're such a flirt."

"Only for you and Hayoun."

He shot Serena a knowing look as Serena shook her head.

"Get real. You should be giving those kisses to someone else."

"Who?"

"That's for you to figure out."

"Meanie."

"Mmhmm. Because she's gonna move on if you keep this up."

"Who is 'she' though?" Nicholas probed, but Serena shook her head.

"Not telling. Anyway, if Hayoun and I win, then you two have to give us piggy-back rides back to Girls' One's house instead."

That house were lived in by Woojoo, Sujin, and a few others as Girls' One was one of the nicknames of the homes of their female friends to tell which house was who for easier comprehension. Girls' Two was the other house that they were partying at the moment. The same went with their male friends in a similar manner of Boys' One and Boys' Two.

"Oh, are y'all staying with them tonight?" EJ asked.

"Mmhmm. Their place isn't as packed as this house." Kierra stated.

"Also, it'll be late to go back home after this since we're all drinking."

"Then EJ and I will just have to win then to get them deserved kisses."

Nicholas swung an arm around EJ's shoulders.

"Right?"

"Yeah." EJ agreed half-heartedly, but laughed nevertheless as he looked at the female duo.

"Now let's finish this game."

"Fine by me." Serena responded while shooting her ping pong ball, making it in.

"Whoo!"

The cousin high-fived as Kierra readied herself to shoot and also made it in a second later.

"Drink up!"

The male duo drank with the others around them while cheering for either team, wanting to see which one would win. Soon the pair won with Kierra making the last cup, causing the two males to down the rest of the remaining cups.

"Yay!" The cousins cheered as Serena faced Nicholas.

"Will you be able to carry me later?"

"Yeah...no." He responded with a giggle as he leaned onto a giggling EJ as well.

"Can you?" He asked his friend as EJ shook his head.

"I don't think so either."

The two let out giggles and just as they were about to drink some more, Serena took their cups from them.

"No more. We'll finish these."

Both Kierra and Serena drank both cups despite Nicholas trying to grab his cup back.

"I said no more, Nicholas."

Serena blocked him from reaching for his cups.

"But I'm not done yet, Park Minseo."

"No."

"Ugh, fine. Meanie."

"Good. Y'all need to sober up."

"Me, too." Kierra chimed in.

"I need to sober up, too. I can feel it hitting me now."

"Come sober up with us then."

EJ motioned for her to join them, but she dismissed him.

"Nah, I'm done for tonight and who knows if Nicholas will try to give me kisses in the process."

Kierra shot Nicholas a playful look as he grinned at her while wrapping an arm around her and pulling her closer to him.

"Do you really think so lowly of me?"

"Yes."

The two shared a giggle as Nicholas leaned his head against hers.

"You always play so hard-to-get."

"No I don't."

"Yeah, you do, especially evading one particular person I know."

Kierra's brows furrowed.

"Who?"

"I'll tell you if you tell me who Minseo likes."

Kierra chuckled.

"She doesn't like anyone."

"Oh, don't lie. I know she does." He remarked as he leaned even closer.

"Then tell me about the person that I should focus on that likes me."

"I'm not telling you because you should learn that about yourself."

"Oh, c'mon." He begged, but EJ intervened.

"C'mon, Nicholas. Let's go chill over there."

"But Hayoun needs to tell me what she knows."

"Nah, EJ, take him."

"Okay, okay."

EJ giggled as she pulled his friend away as the pair bid the cousins a wave.

"Alright, now are they done playing their own beer pong game?" Serena said as glanced to the other tables.

"Oh, there."

Kierra pointed to the furthest table from them.

"They're going up against Fuma and K and apparently are winning against them."

The cousins got closer and watched their sisters finished the game against the male duo.

"No!"

"Yay!"

Came the two different responses.

"Hey, Minseo. You saw that Youngseo's elbow passed the table when she threw that last shot!" K called out to Serena.

"Right? You saw that, right?"

"Hey, I did not." Melanie disagreed.

"And don't bring her into it since you lost."

"Because she always takes my side that's why."

"Only because you're too clingy." Serena remarked as K pouted.

"Hey, don't say that. No, I'm not."

"C'mon, K. Let's just drink up and play another game." Fuma said as he handed K his cup of the remaining drinks on the table.

"Okay. Let's play another round."

The two males cheered as they giggled.

"No way, you two." Linna declined.

"I ain't playing another round with y'all."

"Yeah." Melanie chimed in, agreeing.

"You two are too tipsy."

"No we're not." The two denied while giggling some more.

"Yeah, y'all go over there and sober up with EJ and Nicholas." Serena ordered the two as she grabbed their cups from out of their hands.

"Now, these are mine."

She blocked them from reaching for the cups as Kierra helped to shoo them away to join the other two to sober up.

"Go chill and then we'll talk about another round."

"Okay, okay, but another round for sure when we sober up." K repeated as the cousins nodded while the two went to join Nicholas and EJ.

"Yeah, yeah."

"How are you feeling after drinking some more?" Melanie asked her sister as Serena finished the two drinks.

"Peachy."

Serena flashed her smile, knowing her sister knew she wasn't, while setting the cups onto the table and faced the younger two.

"So, are we done for the night?"

"Yeah." The younger two replied.

"But I think I need to sober up before we go though." Melanie said as she rubbed the side of her head.

"I'll get you some water or snacks to help you." Linna offered as she walked off first.

"And I'm gonna use the toilet." Kierra said as she, too, followed after her sister.

"Okay, so you," Serena pointed at her sister while pointing to the other side of the backyard, "Go chill with the others, needing to sober up."

"Yeah, yeah." Melanie dismissed her sister while already making her way towards that direction.

As for Serena, she pulled out her phone to message the others about leaving soon, not sure if they were ready to go or not. However, in the process she had turned around to walk off somewhere yet had taken a few clumsy steps. A hand immediately came out to steady her.

"I guess you're clumsy off the ice, too."

A giggle followed.

"Or is that just the effects of the alcohol, Park Minseo?"

Serena briefly glanced at the person to see Heeseung, noticing a red flush upon him.

"I guess to both, maybe?" She answered with a small smile.

"However, I noticed that you're way drunker than me, Lee Heeseung."

"Nah." He giggled as she eyed him.

Heeseung giggled again before admitting a few seconds later.

"Okay, maybe just a little though."

Heeseung chuckled as Serena smiled.

"Anyway, thanks, Heeseung."

"You're welcome, Minseo."

Heeseung flashed her a warm smile while letting go of her upper arm. Serena unconsciously rubbed at the spot that his hand was just at with her free hand, feeling weird about it, and remembered that she was supposed to contact the others upon seeing her mobile phone. Before she could excuse herself, Heeseung spoke first.

"So," He began as Serena tilted her head out of curiosity in wondering what Heeseung wanted to say to her.

"Hmm?"

"I shouldn't have agreed to a game with those two." Melanie muttered, slightly annoyed while rubbing her temples.

"Then again, Jiyeon wanted to play before school started up again."

A soft chuckle left her lips.

"Of course, it's my fault for drinking more than I should have though."

She continued rubbing at her head while slowily making her way to the others when a water bottle popped up in front of her, causing her to stop in her tracks.

"Oh, what the?" She said, startled.

"Sorry, Youngseo, I didn't mean to frightened you."

The familiar voice came as she saw that it was Jake that offered her the drink.

"I watched you playing earlier and for your safety got you some water to help you out."

Melanie still seemed hesitant, but noticed that the bottle itself hasn't been opened either.

"Um, thanks."

She shyly smiled as she took the offered drink as Jake smiled in return.

"Welcome."

His face became amused upon seeing Melanie struggle with opening the water bottle. He wanted to offered his help, but saw how determined she seemed in wanting to open the bottle by herself and didn't intervene. She suddenly felt like she was being watched intently and looked up to see Jake's eyes upon her. She flashed him an awkward smile, but then shot him a suspicious look.

"You didn't do this on purpose, did you?"

Jake laughed with a shake of his head with a firm look and hands in the air.

"No, no, I did not."

He cast her with a smile.

"I swear, Park Youngseo, that I didn't do anything to the bottle."

She still gave him a suspicious look as he laughed in disbelief.

"No seriously, Youngseo, I didn't tamper with it."

"Okay, good."

She decided to trust him while offering the bottle back towards the male.

"Then could you help me out?"

"Sure."

Jake helped Melanie as she thankfully took back her drink.

"Thanks, Jake."

"You're welcome again."

She flashed him with a quick smile before taking a sip of water as he looked about them before focusing his eyes on her again.

"I didn't realized that we had a lot of mutual friends between us."

"Um, yeah, me either."

Melanie closed the bottle while looking about them as well before focusing her eyes onto Jake.

"Then again we definitely had different schedules that never crossed paths."

"Yeah, you're right, you're right."

The two stood there in silence before Jake spoke again as Melanie tilted her head.

"So..."

"Hmm?"

"What should I grab for her?' Linna contemplated as she arrived at the coolers filled with refreshments.

"I did say I'll grab her water, but soda wouldn't be bad either."

Just as she made to grab either option, her eyes spotted a bottled of orange juice instead.

"Ooh, she'll like that better and so would I."

Linna grabbed two of the same orange juices before closing the cooler's lid. She stood upright again while trying to open one of the bottles to drink out of it, but for some reason was having trouble opening it.

"Seriously?" She muttered to herself, annoyed.

A cough sounded from behind her.

"Would you like some help, Jiyeon?"

Linna whipped around upon hearing a familiar voice.

"Oh, Sunghoon, hi."

Her heart thumped against her chest upon laying eyes on him, but focused back to what he had asked her.

"If you could, please."

She casually handed him the bottle as Sunghoon smiled while opening it easily, and handing it back to her.

"There you go."

"Thanks."

She happily took back her drink and took a swig out of it before thanking him again.

"Thank you again, Sunghoon."

"No problem, Jiyeon."

Linna took another drink and later closing it as she felt awkwardly shy being this close to Sunghoon, and so she tried to maneuvered around him to leave.

"Um, anyway, bye, Sunghoon."

"Hey, Jiyeon, wait."

Sunghoon blocked her way as she backed up a step to keep some distance between them.

"Um, yes?"

"So..."

"Ah, I feel so much better." Kierra mused to herself, already feeling sobered as she left the bathroom.

She turned the corner, but ended up tripping and falling on to her hands and knees against the hardwood floor. She and the other person groaned as Kierra sat on her knees and looked over her shoulder to see a still sleepy Jay with his back against the wall.

"Seriously?" She muttered as she turned around on her knees to face the male.

"Jay."

It seemed he hadn't heard her and Kierra felt like he had just fallen back asleep. She stared at him with a small smile and a shake of her head.

"I guess you haven't changed much, huh?"

Still, Kierra didn't want to leave Jay like this.

"Jay?"

No response. She leaned closer and placed her hand onto his arm to give him a slight shake while speaking in a soft, but firm tone.

"Jay. Jay, c'mon, wake up."

Still, Jay remained unbothered and Kierra rolled her eyes while shaking him hard.

"Yah. Park Jongseong."

Kierra was on the verged of actually smacking and hitting the male to wake him up, but luckily he stirred away. His eyes fluttered open to see Kierra in front of him.

"Hmm? Hayoun?"

He said her name in such a sweet and soft tone that it tugged at her heart, but she shook those thoughts away.

"Okay, finally."

Kierra leaned away as she eyed him.

"Were you really just gonna stay sleeping right here in the hallway?"

"Um, no?"

Kierra shook her head as he wasn't there when she entered and wondered how he could have fallen asleep right here in just a minute or two. Then she recalled that was one of his special skills in falling asleep within a minute.

"Did you have too much to drink tonight?"

"I don't think so." He answered, still drowsy.

"Are you sure."

"Yes."

Kierra knew he didn't sound so sure and so did Jay, but continued to be confident in his answer.

"Well, I think you should go home." She suggested.

"You must be tired or had a little too much. I mean, you don't live that far away from here, right?"

"I don't and I'm fine, Hayoun."

"Right. Sure you are."

"I am."

Kierra gave him a look as he returned the same look back.

"Seriously, Hayoun. I'm fine."

"Okay, fine. You're fine and I'll just leave you alone then."

Kierra huffed as she made to stand back up, but Jay hurriedly reached out a hand to stop her without a second thought, pulling her towards him and causing her to fall against him in the process. Although a quick second, but felt like forever for Kierra as she stared in shock at Jay with him doing the same thing.

"Hayoun, I'm sor-"

"Apology accepted. Don't worry about it, Jay."

Kierra used his upper body to push herself away from him, not wanting to hear anything else and just wanting to get away as soon as possible. The whole thing was making her brain blank out yet her emotions were making her feel all sorts of way

"Um, I gotta go. Stay safe and get home and then fall asleep in your bed." She advised him despite initially wanting to make her escape.

"Bye."

She quickly stood upright and ran off, a bit clumsily, before Jay could apologize once more. He ran a hand through his hair while leaning against the wall in defeat.

"Why did I even do that in the first place?"

However a soft look graced his features upon the concerned words she had said just a few seconds ago.

"So, um, how did you and Sunoo become close?" Sunghoon asked, catching Linna off guard.

"What?"

"I mean, like, how did the two of you become such good friends?"

Sunghoon stumbled upon his question with another question as she found it adorable, but refrained herself from showing that after recovering from the first question.

"Um, well, besides through Woojoo, of course, but Sunoo and I got close through our hobbies and interests." Linna answered with a small smile.

She and Sunoo hung out a lot during their high school days and even now into their college life alongside the others with movie nights, cafe trips, and whatever the others felt like doing, too. However, she and him had a lot of play dates as Sunoo always found fantastic places to check out whenever they found the time to do so.

"Why do you ask?"

"Oh, just curious as you two hung out a lot during the two outings at Lotte World."

Linna tried not to let his words sink in too deep and casually tried to find reasoning with it and her next words.

"He and I did hang out with the others a lot, too, though."

"Um, yes, true."

Sunghoon had no idea why her answer bothered him. Before he could ask something else, he noticed Kierra coming up to them after exiting the house.

"Hey, sorry, Sunghoon, but Jiyeon and I gotta go. Bye."

"Um, bye Sunghoon." Linna bid him goodbye with a small wave as she allowed her sister to pull her away.

"Bye."

Sunghoon also waved slightly as a sigh left his body while he watched the two head towards the corner part of the backyard.

"So, Youngseo, what made you stay in town instead of going back home for the winter holiday?" Jake asked with a cute look.

Melanie hadn't noticed how adorable Jake appeared to be until now. Then again, she did admit to her cousin and friends that he was cute and all, but at the time she was just trying to play along with them. Now she knew that she was seeing him in a different light than before and needed to not do that. She dismissed the thoughts and hoped that her face didn't show anything differently to Jake.

"A change of scenery is all."

She flashed him a smile. Despite the past few years that they've known of one another, Melanie has never told Jake that she also grew up outside of South Korea and that she knew English. Of course, the situation for it never really presented itself for it. Melanie knew that Jake assumed she was from another province and not from overseas. Then again, the cousins did have a so-called aunt that was a close friend of their fathers that used to live in Sokcho though.

"I just wanted to see how Seoul would be like during this time around instead."

Although the cousins could've stayed and attended school back home, they all opted to travel and studied overseas and settled in South Korea compared to Thailand. The latter being their mothers' homeland, but their mothers weren't comfortable with them traveling alone. However, thanks to the so-called aunts and her three sons, the quartet had others that can watch over them if needed which set their parents' hearts at ease to allow them to study abroad.

"Oh."

Was all that came from out of Jake. Melanie wasn't sure how to take that though as she wasn't sure if he was upset at her words or expected something else. Then again, a sweet smile was still evident on his face.

"Um, how about you?" She asked a moment later, making conversation.

"Don't you usually go back home, too?"

Jake, too, would go back home for the holidays, but Melanie never really kept tabs on the guy and just heard stuff in passing.

"I do, but this time around I thought to stay in Seoul instead of going back to Brisbane."

Jake flashed her another smile and just as she was about to ask a question of her own, she suddenly felt two arms latched onto either side of her.

"Hey, you two, but sorry, Jake, we gotta go." Kierra interrupted the pair with a somewhat apologetic look and tone.

"Yeah, Jake, sorry. Bye." Linna bid him a quick bye as she tugged on Melanie's arm to signal her cousin to do the same thing.

"Uh, yeah, Jake. Sorry. Thanks for the water and have a good night."

Melanie waved goodbye as she was pulled along by her cousins to find her sister. Jake watched the trio with an amused smile and waved goodbye as well although a slight pout appeared upon his face a few seconds later.

"So, how close are you to Nicholas, EJ, and K?" Heeseung asked as Serena raised a brow.

She thought to herself on why this was the question that he had wanted to ask her.

"Um, well, we were classmates and attended the same high school." Serena answered honestly as a laugh left her lips.

"Since then, those three and a few others have just been appearing in my life."

Heeseung didn't know what was funny, but a small chuckle came out of him anyway.

"Ah, okay."

"Mmhmm. Um, how do you know them?" Serena repeated his question back to him, not really thinking.

Heeseung chuckled.

"We're also high school classmates, played on the same basketball team, and now attend the same university."

"Funny that we had them as classmates in high school, but never saw the other with them though."

"Yeah, but it's so weird that we never hung out together despite having mutual friends, too."

"Mmhmm, yeah."

Truthfully, despite all the mutual friends amongst them, the real reason was that Serena hardly socialize and only did enough to live through high school and so far in her university years. She hated the attention from others and disliked fake people, not wanting to be associated with them. Still, Serena was lucky she grew close to some good people and remained in good graces with others that didn't rub her the wrong way. Then again, she had Kierra a majority of the time as they hung out more, but for some reason the two of them always attracted people when they didn't want to and just became friends of sorts in the end. They were nothing like their social butterflies of a sisters which added even more to their so-called social circle even if they more or less grew to become friends over time.

"Yeah, what a small world." She commented, but then Kierra's words from the other day sprung up.

She inwardly groaned about the stupid invisible string theory. However, she hoped that her face remaiend stoic and didn't looked weird to him.

"By the way, Minseo, d-"

Heeseung was interrupted when Serena's cousins and sister showed up.

"Sorry, Heeseung, but we all gotta get going." Kierra interrupted him without knowing as she flashed him a smile.

"We're all just feeling a little tipsy and need to walk it off."

"Yeah, bye!" The other two agreed as they rushed Serena along.

Serena cast Heeseung with an apologetic look while giving him a slight wave with a slight head bow. Heeseung held up a hand to wave back as for some reason he felt disatisified with his interaction with Serena. Anyway, the four text their friends, letting them know that they ended up leaving earlier. Luckily, they had the house's passcode. The four later talked about what had happened while also teasing one another in the process, saying it seemed like a cliche drama plot of sorts.

"So, there's fifteen minutes left and we're good on pre-closing." Melanie stated while looking around.

There were no customers in the store and the latest one had just left a few minutes ago.

"Minseo and I finished the load of dishes from earlier, too." Kierra informed as she and Serena smiled.

"Yeah, there were a lot of them. Did not expect to get that rush two hours ago."

"I know right."

"Well, we're all good now." Linna assured with a bright smile.

"And all we have to do is do some last minute cleaning of equipment and dishes, and then we're good for the night."

"Mmhmm. We'll sell whatever we have on hand and if we don't, then Seohoo can take them back home." Serena remarked as their childhood friend and co-worker, Baek Seohoo, glanced at her.

"Why do I have to take them back?"

"Your mom and brothers wanted something."

The mother in question, So Eunmi, was the so-called aunt and a close friend of their fathers, and she now resided in Seoul alongside her three sons. Seohoo being the youngest of her three sons.

"Oh, right. I forgot."

"Mmhmm."

Melanie looked around them again, remembering what she wanted to discuss with them.

"Since it's Seollal and Heeyeol gave us the okay for it, I was thinking we can briefly do ramen and tteokbokki instead of the rice balls." She mentioned.

"We can also do rabokki, too."

This was the quartet's first Seollal as they went home for the winter holiday. So, they enjoyed the quiet and calm Seoul since many went back to their ancestral home for the three-day holiday.

"Ohh, that sounds good."

Seohoo nodded, approving of the idea.

"I'm all for it."

"What about hwachae instead of ice bars?" Linna inquired.

"Or we just keep the ice bar, too.

"Ooh, that sounds good, too. Let's keep both." Seohoo exclaimed, happily.

"What else? I mean still keep the bottled and canned drinks as those are easy to work with, right?"

"Yeah." The cousins replied.

"Oh, let's add some sausages so that we can add that to the rabokki." Melanie chimed in, already craving the meal.

"Actually, let's just add the rice ball back as it works well with the corn cheese." Kierra said, changing her mind.

"The customers would also like eating them alongside the ramen and tteokbokki, too."

"Okay, cool. I'll re-write the menu stand with the updates and message Heeyeol about the changes, too."

Serena walked off to do just that as it was easier to work in the back without the customers seeing.

"I'll go and update the P-O-S with the items so we don't have to do it early in the morning."

Kierra flashed them a smile while she made her way to the back office to access a computer to do so.

"What should we do?"

Seohoo looked from Linna to Melanie.

"We can make a list of all the items we're gonna need for tomorrow to make sure we have enough ingredients." Melanie suggested as Linna nodded.

"Yeah, and we can do some parital shopping after work or super early in the morning, too."

"Oh yeah, sounds like a great idea." Seohoo agreed with a nod.

"Just let me know if you want me to take care of it instead or a majority of it."

"We will."

The trio went about the rest of closing and helping the other two if needed.

"Alright, Jungwon," Sujin announced to get her brother's attention as she stood on the makeshift stage within the restaurant the party celebration was being held at.

Sujin and Jungwon's parents rented out a section of the restaurant for Jungwon's birthday party celebration with few interruptions from other patrons.

"Tell me that I'm the best sister for getting you the best birthday gift ever!"

"You're the best!" Jungwon excitedly yelled as the others within his party cheered.

"Whoo!"

Besides the immediate and some extended family there at the event were Jungwon's six close friends. Sujin only invited Woojoo as it was her brother's birthday and didn't need to invite others to it as she already got the cousins to come as entertainers due to them being a K-POP cover group back in high school. Woojoo was the only one that knew the cousins were here to perform for Jungwon's celebration. The quartet weren't keen on returning to those days, but felt like it would be a good deed to do as Jungwon was a friend and Sujin begged them for entertainment purposes. So, this was more of a compromise as the four always missed his birthday in the past since they were back home until this year.

"Of course I am, anyway," Sujin continued on.

"I invited some special people to give you awesome stages."

Sujin motioned towards and announced the quartet as the four were standing off to the side in their black and yellow outfits, matching their so-called group name.

"Please welcome, The Bumblebees!"

The four casually came onto the stage while waving at the crowd while hoping that they wouldn't be recognized at all. Their outfits consisted of shoes, sweat pants, hoodies, face masks, and snapbacks to overall conceal their identities. The only thing you could make out for sure were their hands, hair, and possibly their eyes if they adjusted their hats another way to reveal them. Sujin was the one who came up with their name as they were her favorite. She bribed the four with snacks and drinks for a whole month in doing this favor for her since the cousins were reluctant to participate.

"1, 2," Serena began as they finished as all four, "We're The Bumblebees!"

The four didn't introduced themselves individually, knowing they wouldn't stick around for long, as the attendees and other restaurant goers cheered loudly with Sujin being the most enthusiastic.

"Once again, The Bumblebees, and enjoy!"

Sujin quickly stepped off of the stage, allowing the spotlight to shine on her friends while making her way off to the side to control the music for them. The quartet gave her the signal to start as they got into position. They rearranged the choreography of the songs to fit their team of four as they have already done these songs in the past based on other choreographies they've learned from others online and through the female dance team of their school. Once they finished there were loud cheers and applause as Sujin joined her friends.

"Whoo!" She cheered alongside the others.

"Please give another warm applause to The Bumblebees!"

The audience cheered and clapped once more.

"Now, we'll have to say goo-"

Jungwon interrupted his sister.

"Wait. Can I make a request?"

Sujin looked at the quartet before Linna motioned with an arm for Jungwon to proceed to what the request was.

"What is the request?" Sujin asked her brother.

"Can I ask them to do All I Wanna do, but with me joining?"

Both Kierra and Serena immediately replied, not wanting to partake in such an activity.

"No."

"Well, there's your response." Sujin responded before speaking again.

"We'll now sing the birthday song and that will end our entertainment for this evening."

Sujin led everyone in the birthday song as a cake was brought out and placed in front of Jungwon. Once the song ended did he blow out the candles. Before anyone else could asked the four questions, they waved goodbyes and dashed off while laughing. Ni-Ki stared after them curiously as finding the sound of laugher familiar, but didn't ponder on it longer as he soon became interested in the mentioning of cake.

"So, who wants a piece of cake?"

Upon hearing the cake bit, both Linna and Melanie made their way over to the table and each stood on one side of Woojoo.

"Could we have some cake to go, too, please?"

Serena and Kierra joined the trio a second later after having to use the toilet.

"So, we'll be outside as you two grab your pieces." Kierra informed the younger two as they bid Woojoo and Sujin goodbye while wishing Jungwon a happy birthday.

"Can you take mine? I need to use the toilet." Melanie said as she dashed off in a rush.

Linna casually watched her cousin run off before focusing her attention onto the delicious looking cake. When she finally got hers and Melanie's slices, she was too happy and in thought about it, Linna turned too quickly and ran into another body causing the cake to smear hers and the other person's clothing.

"I am so sorry." Linna immediately apologized as the other person calmly told her it was also his fault.

"No, no. It was my fault."

Linna's brows furrowed upon recognizing the voice and glanced up to see Sunghoon.

"Park Sunghoon?"

She didn't realized she said his name out loud.

"Ah, yes." Sunghoon confirmed with a sweet smile.

"Do I know you...?"

"Ah, no." She denied.

"You don't have worry about that."

Linna side-step around him, nervously, lying as she didn't want the confrontation at all.

"Once again, I'm sorry about this whole thing."

Sunghoon reached a hand out as if to stop her.

"Ah, wait a minute."

"No, no, no." Linna repeated as she evaded his hand and ran off while softly yelling a 'sorry' behind her.

A sheepish laugh left his lips as Sunghoon stared at her retreating figure until it turned the corner. He looked down at his clothes as a sigh left his lips, wondering if his friends had any spare clothes for him to wear for the mean time. On the way home, Linna explained about the cake incident as Melanie asked where her piece of the dessert was upon not seeing any in Linna's grasps. The trio teased her some more, but Linna just groaned in embarrassment about it all.

#staytheb #enhypen scenarios

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staytheb · 11 months

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Just A Little Bit; Falling For You - Chapter One: lotte world

Word Count: 6,674 Summary: The cousins spends their first Christmas in Seoul as well as the last day of 2022 at Lotte World with friends. masterlist || next chapter

updated: 6.1.24

Four cousins made up of two sets of sisters, Serena and Melanie, and Kierra and Linna, were currently on winter break from their university and working part-time at a cafe. While living in Seoul, the four went by their Korean names out of convenience. Park Minseo and Park Youngseo and Jung Hayoun and Jung Jiyeon, respectively, but sometimes amongst just the four of them and away from others they would end up using their English names, having been born and raised mainly in the States.

"So there's an order of seaweed rice ball, a loaded mochi waffle, a lemon cloud ade, and a cherry blossom ice cream." Melanie read back the order before announcing the overall total.

"That'll be a total of thirteen thousand and five hundred won."

Melanie ran the register while Kierra, Linna, and Serena made the orders as two others ran out the orders and even cleaned the area while doing so, too.

"Here's your number and your order should be out with you shortly." Melanie informed the customers.

The cafe, Simplistic, sold various yet simple items and if you came in during the last half an hour before closing, all items were discounted, so that the shop could start afresh the next day.

"Less than fifteen minutes left and I can actually snack to my heart's content." Serena muttered to herself, but the others clearly heard her.

"I know right." Kierra agreed with a sheepish laugh.

"I mean, it's easy to take a drink and then work, but snacking is a bit harder."

"True that." The others chimed in with a laugh.

"Go ahead and eat a rice ball and mochi waffle or whatever you want." One of the two males co-workers said as the other nodded in agreement.

"Yes, go ahead."

The cousins happily cheered at being given the small treat.

"Thank you, Chanran and Eunchan!" They thanked the pair as they each made their own rice ball and mochi waffle.

"Welcome."

The male duo laughed at their co-workers' behavior before walking to the back of the store to double check products and others things for tomorrow. The cousins had finished making their own rice balls and taken a satisfied bite out of it when a group of seven young men entered soon after.

"Oh, it's kids and friends." Serena commented with a chuckle upon recognizing three of them right away.

Despite knowing all seven of the males, she was much closer with the three younger ones as they bothered her the most.

"Um, we'll be in the back." Linna said as she and Melanie ran off with only Kierra hearing them while Serena didn't.

Serena took noticed and leaned closer to Kierra to ask her about it.

"Why'd they leave?"

"You're so clueless despite making fun of them and using their situations as inspiration for your story plots." Kierra commented as it finally dawned on Serena.

"Ah, right, right. I never really thought about it though."

However, Serena cast her cousin a playful look.

"But you're my favorite muse of them all."

Kierra scowled with a roll of her eyes.

"Yeah, I know, but I hope that you'll get your own karma with one of the other four."

Serena scoffed.

"Ni-Ki, Jungwon, and Sunoo are babies." She reasoned, seeming offended.

Kierra chuckled, amused.

"Then that leaves you with the obvious answer, cousin."

"No way."

"Yes, way!" She cheered.

"And so you get with Heeseung as the other three are off limits since you shipped them with the three of us."

"Obviously as those three fits y'all as I already used the three of you as my muses."

Serena grinned before frowning.

"However, yeah, right. Heeseung and I aren't compatible at all."

She tsked.

"If I didn't like him back in high school, then what makes you think I would like him now?"

"You never know though." Kierra remarked, shrugging.

"Things change and so do people."

She eyed her cousin.

"Besides, this isn't high school and we're in university now."

"I do know and feelings don't change so fast."

Serena rolled her eyes as Kierra grinned.

"Some times they do and life is unpredictable."

"Whatever."

"C'mon. Don't you believe in the invisible string theory and the red string of fate, too?"

Kierra nudged her cousin.

"I know you do because you write such things that you have to do some research on them, too, for realness of sorts."

"Yeah, and so?"

Serena rolled her eyes in good-nature.

"Those are things I write for fun."

She smiled.

"Besides, I enjoy reading other people's stories and the myths, too." She reasoned.

Kierra scoffed.

"Yeah, I know."

Serena ignored her.

"Mainly, it's just something I don't really think of much happening in real life, Hayoun." Serena commented while nudging her cousin back, slightly annoyed.

"Also, get off my back and go do something else."

"No. I feel like this is just deserved and the three of us are tired of being your muse some times."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever and besides, Heeseung's too tall."

"You're just short."

Kierra laughed as Serena scoffed.

"I'm considered slightly tall for an Asian girl and so are you. It's our sisters that are tall for an average Asian girl."

'Yeah, that's pretty true. People always think you and I are the younger sister."

"I know right."

Serena chuckled before casting her cousin with a Cheshire smile.

"By the way, does that mean you accept your fate with you-know-who?"

"No. Now shut up." Kierra declined with a sharp look.

The two nudged one another playfully while awaiting for what the seven wanted to order. Anyway, Linna had a crush on the one named Park Sunghoon. Melanie is friends and was tutored by another named Sim Jaeyun, who also went by Jake. Kierra has this weird relationship of sorts with a third named Park Jongseong, who also went by Jay. As for Serena, well she had had classes in the past with Heeseung, but their paths hardly crossed and didn't interact much out of school where all eleven attended the same same school, Hyebi University. However, they were all friends with a lot of mutuals between them, especially when the cousins were also friends with Sunoo and Jungwon's sisters.

"Now it's your turn."

Kierra nudged Serena to work the cash register. Serena shot her cousin an annoy look before facing the young men with a polite smile.

"What can we make fresh for you tonight?"

Ni-Ki leaned closer with a lovable smile.

"You think you could add in a bit of service for us, Minseo?"

"Not for you."

The others busted out laughing at the unexpected interaction while Ni-Ki rolled his eyes in good-nature as Serena smiled.

"Is Youngseo and Jiyeon around?" Jungwon inquired, curiously.

"Yeah, they're in the back."

Serena pointed to behind her.

"Do you want to talk to them instead?"

"Nah, I'll talk to them later," A Cheshire-like smile graced his features, "But I can talk to you, too."

"No."

"Wow."

Jungwon scoffed, eyeing Serena as she chuckled before turning her gaze over to Sunoo.

"How about you, Sunoo?"

"Do you have any mint choco related items?" Sunoo asked, looking around the menu and the display.

"I don't see any listed."

"Because not many are fond of it, but yes, we do, Mint Choco Lover." Serena cooed playfully with Sunoo chuckling.

"Yeah, yeah. So, what do you got?"

"We have a mint syrup we can use to make some stuff like putting it on the mochi waffles and ice cream. We could try blending some as a shake if you like."

"Oh, perfect. Yeah, I'll think about it."

Sunoo flashed her smile as Serena did the same thing while inputting more than the half-off discount before glancing at the others as it was nearing closing time.

"Alright..." She trailed off upon connecting eyes with Heeseung as he flashed her a warm smile.

Soon, Kierra's words immediately came to mind and she got distracted of what she was gonna say next.

"Uh..."

She instantly avoided eye-contact and looked to behind the group and at the wall instead.

"Okay, yeah, so what would you like to get started with?" She asked, hoping he and the others didn't catch that awkward moment just now.

"Do you still have a lot of protein options available this late?" Sunghoon asked a second later as Serena nodded.

"Yes, we do."

She slight tilted her head.

"Anything in particular you'll like to order?"

"Uh, pyeonyuk?" Sunghoon said in a questioning tone. as Serena nodded.

"Yeah, we got plenty of that."

"Okay, thanks."

"Welcome."

She glanced around at the others.

"So, what can we get started for the rest of y'all?"

Some spoke at the same time while the others glanced at one another wondering what the other was gonna order. Serena heard a few items, but did not input any of it into the register, wondering if this was gonna end well.

"Yeah, we'll take one of everything."

She glanced over at Jay who had spoken with Kierra shooting him a disbelief look.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, Hayoun, seriously."

Jay shot her a wide smile as Kierra scowled, but still spoke in a polite tone.

"Let me double-check on the ice bars."

"Okay."

The smile remained on Jay's face as Kierra's scowl shifted to a netural expression while she crouched down to double-check on the ice bars. Serena hadn't noticed as she continued inputting one of every menu item into the system after hearing each of them order.

"Um, anything else while she checks that?"

They once again spoke over one another before they got their order in control. Serena inputted all the other additional orders into the system while preparing all the bottled and can drinks as they continued to order. Serena re-confirmed the group's order as it got bigger once all seven mentioned in detail what they wanted for sure.

"Alright, your total will be ninety-eight thousand and seven hundred and seventy won."

"Wow. Really?"

"Mmhmm."

They were surprised of the total, expecting it to cost more. Serena refrained from chuckling at their reaction before hearing one of them speak. Suddenly four cards were offered to Serena by the oldest four although she wasn't sure which one to take. Each one insisted that he would be paying for all of them with neither of them backing down. Serena did the only thing she knew that would settled it faster

"Hey, Hayoun."

"Hmm?" Kierra hummed while grabbing all the ice bars after getting the rest of the bottled and can drinks.

"Left or right?"

"Left."

"One through four."

"three."

"Me or them?"

"You."

"Thanks."

"Mmhmm."

The seven were confused about what had just happened, but realized what it was for as Serena tapped the card of the third person, counting from the left side of her which was Heeseung. Serena gave him a polite smile after indicating for him to swipe, remaining calm, cool, and collect.

"Your order should be out with you shortly and your number is five."

She flashed him a quick smile while motioning to the tables.

"Please have a seat anywhere you like."

"Thank you." The group thanked her as Heeseung shot her a smile while he took the number tent.

"Thanks, Minseo."

"Welcome, Heeseung."

He lingered around and she watched him, curiously.

"Did you need something else?"

Heeseung smiled, shaking his head.

"Not really, but weren't you working at that Gong Food place earlier this year?"

"Ah, that. Not anymore. I quit."

Serena wasn't aware that Heeseung knew that. Before Heeseung could comment, Jake interrupted him and Serena's focus went towards him.

"Hi. Sorry, but could we push like three of the tables together?"

"Yes, Jake, you can." Serena replied.

Jake smiled as he and the others pushed two small tables to make an even bigger one together while thanking them.

"Thanks, Minseo."

"Welcome."

Heeseung shot her another smile before walking away as Ni-Ki lingered at the counter this time around while he pointed behind Serena.

"Can I have one of those first?"

She glanced over her shoulder to see the jars of lollipops she and the others had brought for themselves before focusing back on him.

"No."

"Not even one?"

"Nope. They're mine."

"There's like a lot, Minseo."

Ni-Ki pouted as Serena shook her head still.

"And your point is, Ni-Ki?"

"You're mean."

"I know."

"Please?"

"Not uh."

"Fine."

Ni-Ki made a face before changing topics.

"Anyway, what are y'all doing on Christmas day?"

"Working." Serena responded, not missing a beat.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"All day?"

"No. Just the day time."

"Hmm, interesting."

"How so?"

"Just is."

She eyed him.

"Why?"

"No reason."

"Liar."

Ni-Ki cast her with an amused look as Serena eyed him.

"Why are you asking, Nishimura Riki?"

He chuckled upon hearing his full name.

"I'm just asking, Park Minseo."

"Hmm, then I ain't gonna give you my lollipops."

"C'mon. There's like so many."

"Yeah, I know."

"You're mean."

"I know. Didn't we just go through this earlier?"

"Yes, but I thought you would change your answer."

"Not with you."

Serena chuckled as Ni-Ki made a face, but relented.

"Fine."

Serena flashed him a smile as he walked away, sulking.

"Alright, so Eunchan and Chanran are busy with manager duties so it's just me and you as our sisters preferred to keep their distance at the moment." Kierra informed Serena as the latter's brows furrowed.

"Wait, why do they wanna do that?"

"You know why, but anyway, we'll just take it out per set to make it easier."

"Okay, cool."

Serena lifted the tray of canned and bottled drinks with two hands before remembering something. She set the tray back down before grabbing a handful of lollipops and placing them onto the tray with a knowing smile. The rest of the night went fine despite Melanie and Linna staying out of sight until the group had left, not wanting to interact as they preferred to do it on school grounds instead of outside of it, especially during breaks from school, despite their sisters teasing them afterwards.

"Let's turn back." Kierra suggested, whispering for only the three to hear.

Come Christmas evening a couple of days later, Kierra and Serena eventually found themselves at Lotte World alongside their sisters, close friends, mutual friends, and several others they attended school alongside with. Ni-Ki and friends were also present and were casually conversing with their other mutual friends, too. Still, Serena and Kierra were a bit apprehensive as they preferred a smaller outing due to not socializing as much as their sisters. Then again, Melanie and Linna weren't looking forward to the nightly outing either upon seeing Jake and Sunghoon, respectively, within the crowd.

"They did not say that he would be here and so I don't want to be here." Kierra continued.

By 'he', Kierra meant Jay.

"I'm with Kierra on this though. I thought it would just be a girls' night out and not like a classmate slash friend trip." Linna agreed with a slight nervous tone.

"I didn't think he would be joining us, too."

For Linna, 'he' was Sunghoon. Despite how she found him cute and all, that didn't mean she wanted to be around him like this. She was okay at keeping her distance.

"Maybe it won't be that bad. I mean, Woojoo and Sujin would've told us." Melanie reasoned with a calm demeanor.

Woojoo was Sunoo's sister and Sujin was Jungwon's sister. Serena shot her sister a weird look.

"Didn't you like run away last time from Jake when the others came to Simplistic?"

"I didn't run away from Jake. The dishes needed to get cleared up."

"Right."

"Anyway," Kierra interjected, "Melanie actually gets along with Jake though."

Linna nodded.

"Yeah. They're a lot closer compare to me and Kierra."

Melanie rolled her eyes.

"He's just a classmate and my math tutor."

"Again, why did you run away when he came in that night with the others, hmm?" Serena inquired with a quirk brow, not dropping the matter.

Melanie nonchalantly gave her sister a vague answer.

"Because I can."

Melanie dimissed the issue.

"Besides, I mean, if you actually think about it, we all don't have to do the same thing as them since there's so many of us and it's not like they would notice."

"Yeah, that's true." Serena agreed with a nod.

"Like we can hang out in different areas and even do different things, too."

Melanie cast the others with a knowing look.

"Besides, it's not like Ni-Ki, Jungwon, Sunoo, and the others are just gonna hang out with only us for the night, too, when there are all the others around for them to play with as well." Melanie reasoned.

"Besides, I'm pretty sure there's a few of them that just wanna get this chance to hang out with some people in particular, too."

"True, but that depends if we can do anything since it's super crowded tonight." Kierra commented with a sigh as Serena agreed.

"Yeah. I forget that a lot of couples and families come to these places during special days and what not."

Their friends and several other voices loudly called out for the quartet, realizing they'd fallen behind and hurried on over to the rather large group just outside the major recreation complex with polite smiles.

"Hi." The quartet politely greeted the party.

"Okay, cool, y'all are finally here." Ni-Ki said with an excited tone.

"Let's go on the Atlantis."

He immediately hooked arms with Serena and Kierra while pulling them along in the direction of the building.

"Can't we do a different one? I would prefer if we did something else before the Atlantis." Serena complained with Kierra agreeing.

"Yeah. Something like the World Monorail or the Fantasy Dream at least?"

"Ooh, if so, then I vote for the Gyro Drop, Gyro Spin, or even the Gyro Swing!" Ni-Ki suggested instead with a laugh.

Serena continued to complain.

"Nah, not yet. Let's do a simplier ride before doing the big ones."

She turned to look over her shoulders and connected eyes with Sunoo.

"Sunoo, please help me."

"What do you want me to do, Minseo?" Sunoo responded back as Serena chuckle.

"Take me away from him."

"Nah."

"Oh, c'mon. We can even do the Studio Slick."

"Oh, yeah! Let's go!"

Sunoo ran to catch up with the trio as Serena broke free from Ni-Ki's grasp and hooked arms with Sunoo as the pair ran away, giggling.

"Yah! Minseo! Sunoo! What about me?!" Kierra called after them, but the pair ignored her.

Ni-Ki grinned as he pulled Kierra closer.

"You still got me."

Kierra eyed him before a thought came to her.

"Let's race. Whoever wins gets to choose the first ride, yeah?"

"Okay."

"1, 2, an-"

Kierra ran off first, leaving Ni-Ki behind.

"Don't cheat!" Ni-Ki screamed after her, his long legs catching up.

"I have to!" Kierra yelled, not looking back and running as fast as she could to ditch the younger man while laughing.

The rest of the party stared after their friends either amused or confused before following after them, discussing their own plans.

"Alright, who allowed Ni-Ki to take us on the Jungle Adventure in this weather?"

Both Kierra and Serena asked their sisters as the quartet were in the restroom drying themselves off after going on the ride through the rapids inside a dark cave a few minutes ago.

"The both of you did."

Both Melanie and Linna confirmed, annoyed.

"Oh, yeah."

At first it was just the older pair that hung out with Ni-Ki, but the younger two joined them for awhile as the group went around Magic Island before finding themselves at Adventure. Anyway, the four continued to pat themselves dry as best as possible, knowing how cold it was inside the theme park itself as well as the cold weather outside of it, too.

"Let's get some hot chocolate after this." Melanie suggested as Linna agreed.

"Oh, yes, please. We need that for sure."

The cousins hoped they wouldn't get sick because of it just to give their friend some fun memories.

"Y'all can get hot chocolate, but we're get something else." Kierra said, pointing to herself and Serena.

"Since we don't lik hot chocolate at all."

"Yeah, yeah."

The other two agreed.

"Definitely need it."

Once they exited the restroom, Ni-Ki patiently waited for them while playing on his phone. He looked up when they neared as he smiled, playfully.

"The others are at the skating rink and they're waiting for us to join them."

The quartet looked at one another, tiredly, but mustered up the energy to nod and appear fine.

"Sure."

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"Alright."

Neither of them knew how to ice skate or have ever bothered with the sport, but decided that they would get hot chocolate later.

"Can't yall just stop hugging the side?"

Ni-Ki carefully skated alongside both Serena and Kierra as the two were using the rink's ledge to keep their balance.

"At least move away from the ledge like Jiyeon and Youngseo."

"You're not that good yourself." Serena countered with a laugh as Kierra eyed Ni-Ki.

"Actually, why not go and pester the other two?"

She was too focused to keep her balance to not fall.

"They're not that fun like you two, but okay. Fine."

Ni-Ki just rolled his eyes before slowly, but clumsily skating away. Kierra glanced behind her to look at her cousin.

"How about we just ditch our sisters and go home once we circle back to the entrance?"

"Sounds good, but we can't ditch them like that. Besides, it would look bad on the others if we just left, too."

Serena cast her cousin with a pointed look as Kierra sighed.

"Well, it was worth a try."

Just then, Kierra wobbled as she tried to look ahead of her again, but out of reflex her hand went out to grab a hold of Serena's arm or body. Serena noticed and tried to move out of the way, but couldn't in time.

"Wait. No. Hayoun. Yah, Jung Hayoun, don't gr-"

Both of them went crashing to the icy ground. Serena slightly smacked Kierra while groaning and just resting on the cold floor as other skaters passed on by them.

"This is why we're not supposed to reach out to one another when learning how to skate and that we might fall."

"My bad."

"Did you not pay attention to what Sunghoon said earlier?"

"Not really."

Kierra sheepishly laughed as Serena barely smacked her, feeling tired. Serena sighed a second later.

"I seriously did not want to spend my Christmas this way."

"You and me both."

The pair chuckled more at their current feelings and predicament than anything else.

"Do you need help?"

Kierra and Serena immediately quit laughing as they gaze up to see Jay and Heeseung hovering above them with concerned looks while holding out their hands for them to grab on to, respectively.

"No thanks, Jay. You're just as bad as I am."

Kierra pushed Jay's hands away, but he insisted.

"No, I'm not."

"Yeah, you are."

"I'm a little better than you, Hayoun."

"Yeah, right. I've watched you skate earlier and you're so bad."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Shut up."

"C'mon, Hayoun. Just take my hand."

"No, Jay."

The two argued for a while longer while Serena cast Heeseung with a polite look.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Serena accepted Heeseung's assistance as he pulled her to her feet whereas Kierra reluctantly accepted Jay's help. However, both ended up struggling themselves, causing a domino effect. Kierra fell against Jay, Jay then knocked into the back of Serena's legs, and she ungracioiusly fell on top of Heeseung, causing them to all fall against the cold floor. The four groaned in slight pain with Serena quickly rolling off of Heeseung, apologizing, and Kierra hitting Jay on his upper body, annoyed.

"I told you that you were just as bad as me."

"I didn't think it was that bad."

Kierra smack him once again as Jay flinched upon being hit.

"I'm sorry."

She gave him one more smack before rolling away from him with a huff. Jay groaned once more, but stayed quiet not wanting to be hit by the female a fourth time. The group of four slowly got up on their own accord while some of their friends watched from a distance. Melanie chuckled at the scene while standing still, wondering if it wasn't so bad to come out tonight.

"What are you laughing about, Youngseo?"

She turned her attention to see Jake as he stood beside her, wondering why he was standing beside her. He, too, gazed in the direction she faced.

"Did something happen?"

"Yeah, something like that."

His gaze focused onto her a moment later as his lips quirked up.

"Hmm, make sure you don't end up like those four over there. Safety comes first."

"Noted."

She cast him with a small smile before slowly skating off a bit clumsily. Jake strided alongside her just a bit better although he stole glances at her figure to make sure she was skating along fine on her own.

"By the way, this new school term coming up, will you still need my help with math again?"

She totally forgot about that and knew that she'll need more help once school started up again. Math was never her strongest subject since young and she hated the continuation of it even into her university years. She nodded, not looking at him as she focused all of her attention on keeping steady and ahead of her.

"Yes, please. I look forward to our tutoring sessions again along with your patience."

A smile graced his face with a simple nod, looking ahead of him as well.

"Me, too."

Meanwhile, Linna minded her own business and moved along fine at her own pace, getting used to the ice. Somehow Sunghoon assumed Linna needed assistance due to her cautious movements while making another go around of the skating rink. Still, of all the others he could be concern with, why did he have to come on over and check in on her.

"Take my hand, Jiyeon."

Sunghoon offered his hands out for Linna to take, but she ended up just latching her hands onto his forearms instead after his persistence.

"You're doing much better than before, Jiyeon." He praised, but her attention focused more on their situation than of her own skating.

Sunghoon carefully skated backwards, leading Linna along as she skated foreward while each held onto the other's forearms. Yet she faced their pair of skates than of the person leading her. Despite his encouragement, she didn't respond. He watched her a bit longer as a teasing thought crossed his mind. He made the movement of letting go of her forearms, causing her to slightly panicked and became alert. She reached to grab his forearms again, but in the process she ended up wobbling and missing his arms. This caused her to tumbled onto her butt as she swung back to counteract from falling forward.

"Are you okay?" Sunghoon immediately asked as Linna nodded, not looking up at him.

"Yeah, Sunghoon, I'm fine."

Linna couldn't looked at him as her attention looked around her instead, feeling embarrassed and awkward. Sunghoon observed her while backing away a bit to give her room to stand on her own again.

"You're not hurt anywhere, right?"

"I'm not, but thanks."

Linna cast him with a soft smile before slowly getting back to her feet. She wobbled and he almost reached out to assist, but backed off once she steadied herself.

"Um, thanks though."

"Um, yeah, you're welcome."

Just as Sunghoon opened his mouth to say something else, Woojoo popped up and took a hold of Linna's arm.

"Hey, sorry, Sunghoon, but us girls are gonna ride the carousel."

Woojoo dragged Linna away as they gathered with the others, exiting the ice rink to head to the Camelot Carousel while Linna let out a relieved breath.

"Why are we here at Lotte World again?" Kierra questioned with a disbelief look and tone as the quartet arrived at the recreation complex a couple days later.

"Especially on the last day of the year. Y'all know how it gets, right?"

She eyed Melanie and Linna.

"Couldn't we have gone to Lotte World Tower or COEX to see fireworks instead?"

Kierra looked around them at the large crowd coming and going about the theme park.

"I mean, we've already been here and don't really need to check it out further."

"Yeah. Did y'all forget how some people have said it gets super crowded here around December, right?" Serena added, mirroring Kierra's expression.

"Heck, even SEOULIGHT would have been better to see a cool light display than Lotte World's rides and such. It's kind of a hassle."

The duo still continued to slightly complained about having to spend their last hours out and about on the last day of 2022.

"Also," Serena began, "I'm sure the two of you didn't forget that I clearly told y'all that I was gonna sleep in on the new year, too."

"That doesn't sound so bad because I really don't have time for this, but I do got the time to sleep though." Kierra added with a laugh.

"Oh, we'll be fine." The younger two dismissed their sisters' words.

"Let's just have a little fun before the year ends since we always went home for the holidays." Linna reasoned.

"It is our first time to spend it like this in general?"

"Yeah, it is and we should make the most of it since we couldn't go back home like usual." Melanie agreed while shooting the older two a look.

"Even if it's crowded, it's not like we do this all the time. So, let's just have some fun for tonight, yeah?"

The younger two convinced the older two to spend their last hours at the popular theme park again since everyone else had already made their own plans for the last day of the twenty-twenty-two year. Although the cousins couldn't return back home for winter holidays due to some miscommunication on their part and not wanting to book expensive flights at the last minute had decided to just stay in Seoul for the winter vacation. Unknown to Kierra and Serena, but Linna and Melanie had planned ahead of time with Woojoo, Sujin, and others, to spend the last day of the year with one another despite the heavy traffic.

"Hi!" Woojoo and Sujin greeted the cousins as they hugged one another.

"So glad to see y'all!"

"Now that we're all here, let's go inside." Sujin said as Woojoo pointed a thumb over her shoulders.

"Also, we're sorry for not notifying y'all earlier about the others tagging along."

"Huh?"

The quartet titled their heads upon hearing that.

"What do you mean?" Kierra questioned.

The four looked to where Woojoo had pointed to an even larger party than last time. They all waved and greeted one another out of politeness and friendliness.

"Yeah, well," Sujin began, "Woojoo and I were talking about it the other day and our brothers overheard us."

"But we were talking quietly yet they still heard us somehow." Woojoo reasoned with an apologetic look.

"And so they told several others, who in turned told several others, and now there's a huge party."

"It's all good." The quartet dismissed as they made their way towards them.

Usually they weren't fond of such large crowds in general, but it couldn't be helped. Also, they didn't have to hang out with every single one of them either. So, the others continued on with Serena and Kierra trailing behind just a bit slower than the four, not all that excited to spend their last day at an amusement park.

"Now that Jay's also here, are you and him gonna have more couple moments before this year ends?" Serena inquired, amused.

Kierra scowled upon remembering her last photography assignment before winter break started.

"Ugh. I rather not."

"But like you can totally make a small photobook, especially with my words included on all the photographs you have."

"Yeah, I know you would think so. Besides, I told you not to bring that up."

"I have to since you promised to give Jay copies."

"Oh, shit. I forgot about that."

"Wow and here I thought you and Jay would become official."

"Shut up. You're a jerk."

"Takes one to know one."

"Touche."

The two shared a giggle or two amongst them.

"What are you two talking about?" Sujin asked, coming up to the two and interlocking her arms with each of them.

"On how much sweets we're gonna buy for ourselves." They chimed at the same time.

The two glanced at one another, impressed, as how scary it is at times when they reply at the same time with the same things.

"Ooh, yeah. They have some nice selections." Sujin commented with a smile.

"Let's go."

She dragged the other two along with her to follow after the others to meet up with the rest of the much larger group before they entered the amusement park with several of them splitting into smaller groups soon afterwards to do whatever is that they wanted to do first.

"Sunghoon is really good at ice skating." Melanie commented as she and Linna watched the male gliding around the ice rink, effortlessly.

"Yeah, he is." Linna agreed, slightly in awe.

"I heard that he's been skating since he was younger and even wanted to be a figure skater, too."

"Oh, nice. He has the form and skills for it."

"Mmhmm."

The pair were taking a break from other activities after returning their skates while watching their other friends either on the ice or around the place. Their sisters went off with Sunoo, Jungwon, and a few others to buy some headbands and other merchandises.

"You should confess." Melanie commented after a moment of silence.

She noticed how her cousin was watching Sunghoon's figure throughout the ice rink despite many others being on ice with him.

"Yeah, right."

"I mean, you would rather admit your feelings instead of having regrets, right. Yeah?"

"I guess, but I dunno."

Linna sighed while watching Sunghoon skate with the others.

"I feel like he likes someone else."

"Who?"

"I dunno. Just a feeling."

"Well, it could still be you." Melanie suggested in a matter-of-fact tone as Linna scoffed.

"Yeah, right."

Linna redirected the conversation elsewhere.

"Anyway, enough about me."

She chast her cousin a look.

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

Melanie cast Linna with a puzzled look.

"Are you gonna confess to Jake any time soon"

Melanie rolled her eyes with a scoff.

"We're not even like that."

"But you never know."

"But I do know."

"How so?"

Melanie let out a huff before lifting two fingers while speaking.

"One, he and I are just school mates. Nothing more. Two, Jake also just tutors me in math. Again, nothing more than that."

She cast her cousin with a pointed look.

"There's really nothing else there and I honestly don't really see him like that despite him being attractive and is a fun guy to be around, but we don't really hang out though outside of all that."

"Why not though? I mean, he's been your tutor for like three years and y'all never thought to hang out?"

Melanie shrugged.

"Dunno, but other than that, unlike you and Sunghoon, I don't really have a crush on the guy."

Linna really doesn't believe her cousin's words.

"Nah. There has got to be something going on between the two of you."

"Honestly, there isn't."

"I feel like there is."

"That's just you then."

Before Linna could counter, Woojoo and Sujin suddenly joined the two and sat next to them.

"Hey, so what are you two talking about?" Sujin inquired with a michievous look.

"Something interesting?"

"Nothing." The pair responded as Woojoo rolled her eyes before speaking.

"Yeah, right. I saw Jiyeon staring intensely at Sunghoon earlier."

The quartet's eyes focused on the ice rink, locating the said male with Jake, Ni-Ki, and several others.

"Jiyeon has a major crush, but won't act upon it." Sujin teased her as Linna nudged her playfully back.

"And I won't."

"I think you should." Woojoo suggested with an encouraging smile.

"I mean, nobody wants to get rejected, but isn't that better than not knowing?"

"I'm okay with not knowing though." Linna answered, although not too confident.

"Right."

Woojoo and Sujin cast their eyes onto Melanie as she looked between them.

"What?"

"You and Jake." They replied as Melanie rolled her eyes.

"There's nothing between us."

However, their conversation was cut short when Serena appeared before them.

"Hey, so I'm gonna go home." Serena informed, having come upon them.

"Why?" They questioned.

"I did something to Jungwon earlier just now."

A giggle escaped from Serena's lips as she held something behind her back.

"Does it have something to do with what you got behind you?" Sujin inquired as Serena grinned mischievously.

"Maybe, maybe not."

They laughed as Serena's name was yelled out by said person.

"Yah! Park Minseo!"

Serena didn't turn to face the person, but the other four did.

"Ah, so yeah, gotta go."

She giggled.

"Buh-bye!"

Serena ran off with Jungwon running by a moment later, trying to catch up to Serena. Kierra stopped by having spotted the trio, running after her cousin and friend.

"If Sunoo comes by, denied that you saw me and Minseo going this way."

"Why?" Woojoo asked, but Kierra didn't answer her question.

"Just because."

"But weren't y'all with him and the others to buy headbands?"

"Yeah, we were."

Kierra tentatively touched the sparkly and large orange bow headband on her head.

"This is so not my style, but Sunoo insisted."

She flashed them a smile.

"Anyway, we agreed to get them to take pictures and during that time, Minseo wanted to do something and I followed through."

A chuckle left her lips.

"So, we may or may not have caused some trouble for Jungwon and Sunoo."

"That's cute." They commented as Kierra nodded with a smile.

"Yeah, but um, yeah, okay, thanks, and bye!"

She ran off in the same direction as the other two before giving the trio any time to respond. A few seconds later Sunoo appeared before the trio.

"Hayoun and the other two ran past you guys, right?"

"Yeah." They responded automatically.

"I knew it."

"What did she do?" Woojoo inquired, curiously.

"Yeah, what did she and Minseo do?" Sujin chimed in a second later.

Melanie and Linna had a feeling of what it was, but didn't say anything.

"Minseo stole our chocolates and candies while Hayoun distracted us." Sunoo explained with a light laugh.

"Jungwon's also upset that Minseo made him lose focus when he was trying to win a plush toy and later ate all of his jellies while doing so."

The quartet laughed with a nod.

"Sounds about right."

"Anyway, gotta go before something happens."

Sunoo cast the four with a salute before running off after the other three.

"Wow, those two really attract trouble, don't they?" Sujin commented.

"Pretty much." The duo agreed with a laugh.

"Hey, let's watch the fireworks." Woojoo suggested a second later.

"Are you gonna confess to Sunghoon when they shoot off?" Sujin teased Linna as she just nudged her playfully, not commenting.

Of course, Linna made no confession that night, but Woojoo and Sujin got Melanie to admit that she thought Jake was cute as the four enjoyed Lotte World's fireworks alongside with their friends. Meanwhile, Kierra and Serena were caught by Sunoo and Jungwon while being forced to pay back the snacks. The two also had to try and win a random plush doll, too, until the area closed for the night. Neither Serena or Kierra were able to do so, either out of spite or due to Jungwon messing with them. Still, the night ended well as they all watched the night sky light up and they wished one another a happy new year into 2023 alongside a stronger friendship.

#staytheb #enhypen scenarios

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