I Was First | Joshua Hong

Chapter 5

I cleared my throat as I saw Joshua slowly approaching my direction the moment he got out from their car. It wasn't that long when I got out from ours myself and so I made myself believe that I wasn't purposely waiting for him.

But it's normal between friends to go to their respective classrooms together, right? And it's not like where in a more than friends relationship or anything thay deals with romance...

Yes, we're not, but to be honest, I couldn't help but to feel a little hurt by my own thoughts.

We're not fated to be lovers because fate brought us together to be friends, that's it, nothing more, nothing less, and I don't want to ruin the friendship that we have right now.

If sacrificing my feelings could mean to us being close then I would hide it for the rest of my life. It's not like he has the same feelings with me and we're not cut out for each other, honestly speaking. Even just by the way we look, everybody can see the big difference.

"Hey!", He greeted when he got beside me.

"Hey Josh!", I started to walk and so did he. It's a good thing when I started to have feelings for him, I didn't become awkward when with him.

"Oh right, I heard from Lily last night...", He started, and there I suddenly got anxious. What did he hear from her? Did Lily tell her that I went last night because of him? I'll be dead meat if she did. The secret that I'm not supposed to tell him for a lifetime—

"...that Winton got sick."

And that I felt more emo just by thinking of sacrificing my feelings for—Wait what?

Winton?...Oh Winton!

"Y-Yeah. He keeps vomiting since the other day.", Joshua just nodded, his lips a little pouted.

I inwardly sighed. I'm not kidding when I felt so relieved after hearing my dog's name.

Winton is our dog, slash, my furry friend whom I talk to sometimes because my sister is useless to talk to. Winton came to us eight years ago, when I was still nine and Joshua as well. We played with Winton a lot when we were kids, even until now but not that constant anymore.

"He'll get better, right?", He asked and I was confused at first as his tone really seems to be devastated but I just eventually nodded.

"Yeah, of course he will.", I looked at him. "But why'd you look so worried?", I mean I'm worried too but it feels like he's in a different level kind of worried.

"Just... We've watched him grow from a little pup and it just feels like he's way older than us now."

He's right. Now that, that's in my mind, now that it came to me, I now know why he's feeling like that. Winton has been with us, together in our childhood and I can't even imagine loosing him.

Without any of us realizing, we've already reached infront of our classroom. The whole atmosphere on the way here was unusually sad. It was just unusual that he's like that.

He walked first inside and I just followed him from behind.

I sighed as I perched down on my seat. I stared at his back for a brief moment before initiating to lean on my desk but I was stopped by a very loud high pitched voice that called my name.

It was Dokyeom, he was just still on the doorstep but already caused a scene. Everyone's attention diverted to him and to me. I furrowed my brows at him and his mouth shaped into an 'O' as maybe he realized what he just done.

He quickly pulled out a beam, looking at everyone before walking towards his seat, besides mine.

"Sorry.", He uttered the moment he did sat on his seat. "I didn't intend to make a scene first thing in the morning involving you so once again, I'm sorry.", I faced him but what made me more confused is that he didn't even looked like he was kidding.