Clique (txtXitzy)

8. Day 14

"Ice cream, anyone? My treat." Kai offered the rest of the team when they were preparing to get home after practice. Yeonjun and Yeji looked like they didn't want to rest at all.

"Yes please!" Beomgyu bellowed in delight. Ice cream, the word that makes your troubles go away.

"Ice cream chillin' chillin' ice cream chillin'," Yuna hummed, "I'm in!"

Kai nodded at her, then shouted at Yeonjun's direction, "Hyung, want some mint cho—"

"Not the damned word, please Kai? We KNOW you both love that flavor but you don't have to turn it into a taboo word," Soobin whined.

"Jeez, hearing it makes me wanna," Taehyun added after a split second of reconsideration, "Brush my teeth."

"What's the deal with mint chocolate?" Yeji giggled on the floor of the court. She was lying down in fatigue and satisfaction after scoring the winning point of her first round with Yeonjun.

"See, noona? There is absolutely nothing wrong about saying mint choco but the hyungs—except 'Yeonjun-oppa'—hate it so much to the point that we're not allowed to say it or even buy mint chocolate ice cream to put in the dorm kitchen freezer. What kind of bullying is that?"

"We're not bullying you, Kai," Soobin guffawed, zipping up Yeonjun's duffel bag after tidying up for him.

"Yeah, you're bullying the creator of mint choco!" Hueningkai huffed. "It's not even bullying anymore! You would probably get applause from Hitler for dissing the creator so cruelly!"

Everyone couldn't help but burst into laughter at the not-so-little guy. If the author were to say 'little guy', she would technically be forgetting that that guy was a whole foot taller than herself. Anyways, Kai's 'complain-rapping' was done so cutely, nobody would actually think he was serious.

"Aigoo," Yeonjun clutched his stomach as he wobbled his way to a bench from the court to find himself some balance, "Let's go get that flavor. I'll call the ice cream truck to come over to the JYP University bus stop so we don't have to eat delivery Baskin Robbins."

"Daebak!" Kai cheered, turning his mood around by 180º.

"Hueningkai is a funny guy," Ryujin shook her head lightly with a smile on her doll face.

"He's a giant baby," Taehyun agreed with her, "It sometimes makes me worried."

Ryujin punched his shoulder playfully, "I don't think so."

"Yeah, Taehyun's never worried about anything," Beomgyu said. "If our practice room ghost jumps at him when he's learning a dance, he would probably tell her to get lost or bully the shit out of her til she lets him dance in peace."

"This has nothing to do with the topic but I wish our building had ghost stories to tell too," Lia chipped in.

"We don't have one because JYP is creepy enough to scare them off on his own."

"Do you have a sort of grudge against that man or something? You chose JYP over YG last time you had a chance but now you're complaining?" Chaeryeong smirked, joining the conversation.

"If I chose YG, when the hell will I debut? I don't wanna end up watching you guys get all the fun while I rot at YG's trainee dorm like Jennie did before Blackpink."

Everyone else came closer to be able to catch up on the tight discussion that jumped from random topic to random topic like parkour. After Yeonjun phoned the Ice Cream Truck Ajussi and played another two rounds with Yeji, he decided to call it a day.

"I wanna hire Hueningkai as my letigator*," Beomgyu laughed on their way to the bus stop of the campus. The part of the residence of buildings belonging to only JYP University where their basketball hall settled was at the far end, whereas the bus stop was near the entrance. To get there would usually take a 10-minute walk, and that day the girls tagged along way behind because the ice cream truck was supposed to arrive at the place where the BigHit kids took their last bus ride of the day. Thinking of Baskin Robbins already made them want to drool.

*letigator= the kind of lawyer who argues you out of problems with the government.

"Actually, I wanna hire Hueningkai as my wingman," Soobin replied with a goofy dimple smile on his face, " 'except Yeonjun-oppa' ."

"Bro, what is WRONG with you?" Yeonjun groaned. Somewhere unseen, Hueningkai was laughing his head off into the sleeve of his hoodie so that his hyungs wouldn't hear.

"No, hyung, what on earth were you thinking when you told Yeji to just call you 'oppa'?" Soobin slapped his back, "I thought you're MY one and only oppa?"

"I'm going to call Arin right now to say you cheated on her with me."

"Nononono wait—!"

Arin was a member of the netball group called Oh My Girl. She was Soobin's secret girlfriend, and they were pretty much googly eyes for each other even if she was a year older. They were MCs for sports events and always did shows together because everyone loved their chemistry. At first, the netizens said that it was like a sweet brother-sister relationship, but then they were called 'the next Vsoo' because they were legendary MCs with legendary moments who won KBS' Best Couple Award of last year 2020. Soobin was funny and cute with his typo brain, Arin always gave the best reactions to his occasional mispronunciations, and their overall behavior as MCs was the full package. They even gave a nickname for themselves. Arin + Soobin = Abin. But of course, everyone except the kids only knew that they were adorable best friends. Dispatch better not tell the world that the MC duo was dating each other. Behind BigHit's back! TXT still had the rookie dating ban because they weren't two years old yet, so Soobin had asked for undercover-relationship advice from his BTS sunbaes. BTS were experts at hiding their relationship.

But of course, nothing can conquer a ship called Yeonbin.

After the ice cream truck left and the rookies sat down inside the deserted bus stop, they began eating their ice cream and continued their separate conversations on different sides of the stop.

"It's just that I prefer when younger girls call me oppa," Yeonjun explained to his little family, "it makes me feel kinda like, a person who is mature."

"Not because you're actually a narcissist and love to feel basically worshipped by your fangirls?" Beomgyu teased.

"What the?"

"Beom and Yeonjerry hyung, you may stop your sissy fighting," Soobin patiently reprimanded. Or practically begged for them to give him some peace. Those two people LOVE to fight and scheme creative mischief against each other. They were quite a handful for tired-faced Soobin. Those days, it felt like his batteries were only ice cream, almond milk and bread. And Arin's video calls.

"Where would we be without Ryujin?" Yeji asked. They were still talking about the same thing. "Our power forward player is irreplaceable, really."

"Call me irRYUplaceable," Ryujin joked dryly, "No that's not funny, don't laugh!"

"You too, Yuna, you're the best centre player and no one can replace you, okay? Chaeryeongie is beautiful and no one should call you ugly, okay? Lia doesn't have to be perfect at dancing and playing perfectly at the same time because everyone knows it's hard, okay?" Yeji began tearing up quietly, "It's tiring to stay sane when everything is being piled on our backs like this and everyone would lash at us if we drop something."

"Aw, eonnie," her members came to her care and gave her a group hug. Yeji sobbed a bit harder but made it as muted as possible so that their opponents on the other side of the bus stop could talk in peace. Also so that they don't perceive she's a person with a weak mental health. They all were. Nearly all K-sport athletes had fragile emotional stability, but some were excellent at hiding it whereas others were not. Yeji was among the best at acting fine.

Hueningkai never saw the leader of a group break down like that. Nobody else seemed to notice. For a second, he wished he could do something about it. But one second passed quickly, and he returned to ignoring the girls like they always had.

(a/n) thank you for waiting for new chapters and for voting!! i'll try to update more often, aka as soon as the wifi's available again. stay safe, y'all, don't get sleep-deprived like me.