used to love. | sunsun

16. koi fish n' ice cream

The discomfort didn't leave Sunoo's body as he felt dizzy and clutched at his chest for the rest of the ride. He felt a hand on his shoulder before glancing up to see a worried Sunghoon furrowing his eyebrows. "I told you not to drink it," he whispered, "Are you okay?"
In fact, Sunoo wasn't feeling any better, but he nodded slightly, not wanting to worry the elder, and feigned a small smile on his face.

Not really trusting Sunoo's words, Sunghoon took off his headphones and placed them on Sunoo's head instead, causing Sunoo to get somewhat flustered to the point his ears turned red. After scrolling through his phone for a while trying to find a good song, he finally clicked to play one, glancing at the boy to his right before leaning his head on the little boy's shoulder. A smirk forming on his lips, "I think I missed this." He mumbled sweetly, knowing Sunoo couldn't hear him because of the music playing in his ears - 8 Letters by Why Don't We.

🎶'If all it is, is eight letters, why is it so hard to say?'🎶

Sunoo tried to hide his — this time true smile, as he listened to the lyrics, hoping more than anything that he wasn't giving himself false hope. Gathering his courage, he leaned down to the sleepy Sunghoon and whispered as quietly as he could, "Yes, you're a coward," before chuckling to himself.

Shortly after their arrival at Incheon Airport, they took off again after a light lunch. Luckily, Sunoo felt much better after some fresh air and talked to Jungwon the whole time on the airplane, more energetic than ever, thanks to the sleep he previously had on Sunghoon's head on the bus.

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Silvergrass greeted them as soon as they stood in front of the hotel 'tangerine mountain' where they were staying at, to get some rest after all the travel. The hotel was a bit high in the mountains, surrounded by lots of tangerine trees and a clear river.

Still wearing Sunghoon's silver headphones around his neck, he sat on a rock next to a small pond with koi fish to get some rest for his dragging legs, staring at the beautiful green landscape while other students were already taking photos and videos for their social media.

A little girl, no older than five, was staring at him, curiously. She was holding a tangerine-shaped ice cream in her left hand and a stone in the other. Standing close to the koi fish pond, she licked on her ice cream while swinging her ponytails back and forth. You know how children behave when they wanna brag about something.

Sunoo smiled back and gave her a little wave finding the child adorable. Instead of waving back or even giving him a small smile, she threw the big rock she had into the pond, ignoring the large wooden sign that clearly stated not to feed or throw things into the natural pond — but the child either couldn't read yet or was just being a brat.
Water splashed and the poor fish swam away from the little attack that was created. She repeated this process over and over again, staring at Sunoo each time before throwing the stone.

Some old aunties started to stare at the two and Sunoo felt the need to stop this child before anyone approached him, so he tried to talk to the girl as gently as possible. "Hey...please don't throw stones in the pond, poor little fish—"

The girl had the audacity to throw another stone in and turned her head to look at a large white stone before running towards it. "Little girl, stop playing with the stones already!"
As she was about to get the stone, she bent down and the ice cream slipped from her fingers and fell to the ground, making the brat scream and tear up annoyingly.
Sunoo panicked as more attention was now drawn to him and he looked like he had just bullied that angel face that was actually a devil in disguise.

Where the hell are this brat's parents?? Please take care of your kid, geez!

And perhaps he shouldn't have hoped for them to come, as the child's mother now began to blame him for making the girl cry and made a whole scene out of it. "How can you act like that towards a small child?? What did she even do to you." She dramatically placed her hand on her waist and sighed loudly.

"There you go."

Jay had seen the scene a while ago and bought a new ice cream for the child, and surprisingly, she immediately changed her expression after receiving it rapidly. "Maybe take care of your child instead of blaming others for helping." He smiled. A few aunties who saw the scene agreed with Jay and started talking. He took this opportunity to grab Sunoo's hand and silently leave the scene, heading to the other boy's that were distributing rooms. "Thanks, hyung.." Sunoo whispered, feeling a squeeze on his hands from his 'hyung' in response.

"Where have you been?" Jungwon asked him,  mouth full of cake as he looked at Sunoo.

Realizing Sunoo was still gripping Jay's hand tightly — thanks to the stares of the other five boys, particularly intense from one particular guy — he let go of Jay's hand and clumsily tucked his hair behind his red ear, "Ah.. I got held back by an annoying kid. Thankfully, Jay came to rescue me so—"

By chance, he made eye contact with Sunghoon, which made him nervous as he stuttered. "So... uh... how should we divide the rooms?" The only thing he could do was change the subject to divert the attention from himself.

Fortunately, or so he thought, Heeseung picked up on the question and responded with a shocking answer that Sunoo didn't really want to hear. "How about we just divide it up the way we distributed the seats on the bus. That would be Jungwon, Jake, Niki and me. Then Sunghoon and you two would be in the other room."

Ah, You're kidding.

"I wouldn't mind that, would you?" Jay asked, putting an arm around Sunoo while staring at Sunghoon with lazy eyes. Not letting Jay win, Sunghoon stood up and leaned closer to Sunoo's face while removing his headphones from Sunoo's neck. "Not at all," he said confidently.

Haa.. This will be a tiring trip.
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Author's Note:
Hi hi everyone, finally a new chapter! Things get heated between the three. Do you think Sunoo would be influenced by Jay's gentle movements and heartwarming actions?
It hasn't been long since I last wrote a note on my chapters, but I felt the need to write to you..
We're about halfway through and I've noticed that the chapters are getting shorter and shorter lately, which I'm sure might disappoint some of you. I'm sorry! (T^T)

Anyway, the next chapter will be out on Sunday! I wish you a nice last day of the week, dear readers..