Forever Young : Im Jaebum

「chapter three」

"How was your date?"

I looked at Jaebum. He was sitting on the couch, drinking from a bottle of milk and scrolling down on his phone, most likely searching on the internet again. I put down my bag on the table and sat down beside him.

He set down his phone on the table and turned to face in my direction.

"How was it?" he repeated his question.
"Fun," I answered, thinking about the night's events.
"How was Mark?"
"Really nice,"
"Did you like him?"

I stared at him for a long time, wondering why he was asking so much questions. Was he always like this whenever his friends went out on dates or is he just like this to me?

"He's okay, I guess..." I paused, thinking of a word to describe him. "He's too quiet for me,"
"Is he?" he said, in a tone of mild amusement.

I raised my eyebrows at him.

"What? It's a question!"
"You're out of your mind,"
"Just answer me!"
"That wasn't even a real question!"

He made a face and grabbed one of the pillows, hitting me with it repeatedly with a pout on his lips. I shot him a glare and rolled my eyes.

"Kid,"
"Only you can see this side of me,"
"Yeah, no one would want to see Im Jaebum acting so childishly, not when you have your chic image back at the college, right?"
"Aish, this girl..." he hit me again with the pillow, this time, hitting my head.
"Yah!"

And you can imagine how a pillow fight started from that.

"So when are we leaving for Seoul? Your exams are already in two weeks,"
"By the end of the month, then,"

Exams were always by the start of the month, two weeks, then the term's done. In this case, the semester's done after two weeks, so after exams, I'll be free to go to Seoul with JB.

I already told the school, and I wrote a letter saying that I was going to drop out. They let me, thank god they did, I thought they were going to make me stay until the end of the year...

"Did you start packing already?" he questioned me.
"Of course not. I'll wait till the last day, you know me,"
"Okay," he nodded. "And back to our original topic, how do you like Mark?"

~*~

"What song is that?" I asked, sitting down on the piano seat beside him looking over his shoulder at the paper he was scribbling on. "New cover?"
"Yeah," he nodded. "What do you think of the arrangement?"
"It's better than the original,"
"No way," he shook his head.
"It is!" I nodded.

He raised his eyebrows at me.

I find it strange on how he always asks me about the arrangement of a song he's going to cover, but whenever I say it's better than the original, he denies it. Why bother asking me, then?

"It's really nice, I swear!"
"Thank you,"

He's so weird... Really...

"Play it, will you?"

And he did, immediately. He is always like that, singing immediately upon request, and that's actually one of the things I like so much about him as a best friend.

The words I'm saying right now,
I don't know if they'll hurt you
They'll probably make you hate me forever.

I really like the way he sings it... It sounds so nice, different from the original in a way, and it still has that same vibe from the original version of the song. Which is probably why I love his covers.

But right after he finished the entire chorus, he suddenly stopped, making me shoot a glare at him. I was enjoying it so much...

"Why'd you stop?"
"I haven't gotten to that part yet."

I made a face, causing him to let out a chuckle and ruffle my hair.

"Next time,"
"Why not now?"

He laughed at me again. I probably sounded like a child whose candy was being taken away, but still... I wanted to hear more of his singing. He got up from the seat and headed to the kitchen.

At that same time, my phone started vibrating. I opened the text message that just came in, scanning it quickly before typing a reply. And then a call came in.

"What, Mark?" I asked. He laughed softly.
"Bad time?"

We have gotten quite close these days, after that first date. We're not dating, I haven't said yes to his request of a second one, but we're actually good friends now.

"What do you want?"

Close enough for me to speak informally to him.

"Help,"
"With what?"
"Help me apologize to Jackson,"

Apparently, him and his best friend, Jackson, are in a fight because Mark didn't agree on accompanying him to his basketball game, which is honestly a pretty lame excuse to fight.

But then again, from what I've been seeing between the both of them, Jackson's not really mad at him, he's putting on a show, and Mark just can't realize it...

"Say sorry. It's that easy,"
"I tried that already! He's still ignoring me!"
"Then corner him in school or something,"
"I repeat. He. Is. Avoiding. Me."
"Drag him in a classroom. Lock the door. Don't let him leave. Talk. Make up. Done."

I immediately ended the call. If Mark really wants Jackson to talk to him again, then he has to find his own way to corner him. Like they say, 'if there's a will, there's a way'

"So..."

I turned around, surprised, to see Jaebum standing behind me with a freakishly annoying yet strangely attractive smirk on his face with his eyebrows raised.

"Mark and Jackson,"

He gave me a nod and went back to his portable piano, picking up his pencil again and starting to press the piano keys, finding the right tune. I sat down again and he raised his head to look up at me.

"You're seriously going to watch me like this?"
"Yup,"

He didn't bother arguing with me. It's not going to change the fact that I'm watching him anyway.

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I'm sorry this took so long!! But luckily, exams are done already so I might update this again this weekend :) How was this chapter?? What do you think of it?? (It wasn't much, though... I apologize)