The Project 'Buddy'

~23~

The sun rays shone through the window of the room. Jungwon fluttered his eyes open, making sense of the room around him. It definitely wasn't his dorm room, the bed was smaller.

Where am I? His head was hurting and he groaned, realising that he had drunk last night...a little bit too much. He stood up groggily, stumbled a bit as he leaned against he doorway.

Jungwon took in a deep breath, and strode out the room towards the living room, where he heard noises coming from the kitchen. When he reached the end of the hallway, he was met with 4 familiar faces.

"Good morning, won!" Sunoo greeted from the kitchen countertop, drinking some mango juice.

"Hey won," Jay hyung smirked and Jungwon jumped. He grinned when Jungwon looked like he wanted to smack his face with his house slipper.

"Are you trying to rizz me up? Yeah cause that's not working. Bye, do not talk to me, BYE," Jungwon interrupted when Jay tried to correct himself. Sunoo giggled while Niki, who had been quietly admiring morning Sunoo, snickered at Jungwon's antics.

"Ay, all I said was 'hey'!" Jay whined but Jungwon just put his palm right in front of his face, signalling that, 'bish, you either don't talk or talk to my hand'.

"Ughh, what's with all the noise in the morning?" someone grumbled from the hallway. All heads turned to where Jake was rubbing his eyes, blinking awake.

Jungwon tilted his head. "Hyung? Why are your lips so swollen?"

Jake frowned. "My lips-?" he was cut short when he met eyes with Heeseung, who flirtingly smirked back at him. "Hey pup," he teased and everyone in the room gasped.

And just like that, it seemed like everything was just coming back to Jake, which Jungwon didn't know what but whatever it was, it made Jake go beet red. He turned around embarrassingly, tugged at his hair and shouted, "Aish! Kim Sunoo!"

"You're welcomeee," the latter replied cheekily, knowing very well that he was the reason whatever had happened last night because he invited Heeseung to sleep over with his friends.

"You guys had breakfast?" Jungwon asked, looking around at the group.

"Yeah. Jay made some pancakes over there. You can have-oh no wait you need to have some. Jay made it especially for y-MMMPH!" Sunghoon muffled out when Jay smacked his palm over the guy's mouth.

"Don't listen to him, just eat," he smiled threateningly at Sunghoon while releasing his hand so the latter could breathe. Sunoo giggled at the two but Jungwon knew it was mostly for Sunghoon.

"I'll....wait for Jake Hyung," Jungwon trailed off, sitting on the sofa instead, definitely not beside Jay though.

"Um, guys, I gotta go," Niki suddenly announced, rising from the sofa as he looked down at his phone.

"Where?" Jungwon asked, the exact moment Sunoo whined, "aw do you have too?"

"Um...," Niki looked over at the both of them while Jungwon gave Sunoo a surprised look and Sunoo himself was shocked. He didn't show it though, he just widened his eyes slightly, signalling to Jungwon: "Why did I just do that? Yeah I know, what the hell did I just do?"

"...I'm meeting Taki, Daniel and Geonu at the dance studio. We're practicing for our competiton in Japan with K hyung. Is that alright with you guys?" Niki glanced at everyone and they all nodded.

"Okay! I'll get going. Do you guys want anything when I get back?"

"Some snacks-"

"AND MINT CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM!"