"The rain fell, so you don't have to worry." /Youjin/

Chapter 27

[two days before graduation day, at Ojigu]

"Noona! How about this?" Taeyong's deep voice near her left ear made Eunbin startled from her daydream. She turned to see what he wanted to show to her.

The four of them were done rehearsing and joined Eunbin creating artworks for their album. Though it wasn't much, mostly they were just drawing with crayons and coloured pencils. Yuta brought a colouring book as well.

"What is that, Taeyong ssi?" Eunbin couldn't see well and put on her reading glasses.

Taeyong laughed. "Noona~~ is it that bad that you have to put on your glasses?? It isn't that bad, right?" He turned to see others opinions.

The other three were frozen upon seeing what Taeyong drew. It was a mixed gundam and transformers, in red crayon. Eunbin slowly turned her head to see the other three's reactions.

There was five seconds silence between them before all of them laughing to their heart's content.

"It's not that bad, but it's funny." She said while laughing.

He put down the paper and pinched her cheek. "At least I get to see you laugh after frowning all day long, hehe." He smiled with his huge eyes.

"Yah! I want to do that too! I'm noona's number one fan!" Jaehyun tried to pinch her cheek but his hand kept hovering in front of her face since Mark was holding him. "Let me go!"

"Sit down. All of you." Eunbin ordered. "You can pinch my cheek after my graduation. I want to look good on that day."

The four of them agreed. "Okay, noona." Yuta answered.

"Now let's continue our work seriously, shall we?"

"You keep saying that but you're out of focus the whole time. Like your mind is elsewhere." Taeyong said. Inhae entered the coffee station from the kitchen and overheard what Taeyong said.

He stared at Eunbin. 'What is going on? I thought being with Youjin will make her happier?' He thought to himself.

"What? No. No, I wasn't." She said, accidentally exchanged eye contacts with Inhae. "I'm all focused."

Inhae sighed and made earl grey tea. He delivered the cup to her and put it on the table, in front of her. Instead of her, other four pairs of eyes were staring at him, shifting their gazes between the tea cup and him.

"But I didn't order this..."

"It's on me. I may know nothing about what you're going through right now, but this is the least I can help you."

Eunbin stared at the cup silently. Inhae excused himself and went back to the coffee station. The four eyes were still following his movements.

"What is going on with hyung?" Mark asked the others, the latter only shook their heads.

"I thought they broke up..." Taeyong whispered Jaehyun.

Suddenly Eunbin stood up and made the four jumpy. She walked to the coffee station where Inhae was standing.

"Are you busy tonight?" She asked.

Inhae widened his eyes. "My last appointment ends at 8 pm. Why?"

She only stared at him. But he could see something was wrong with her.

[later that night, at a noodle joint]

"You and your noodles addiction." Inhae placed the bowls on the table and set the chopsticks. "Here. The queue was crazy. We're in luck that I managed to order this flavour."

Eunbin just nodded and took the chopsticks. She ate in silence.

"Tell me. I know you." He said without looking at her.

"It's nothing. I'm sorry if this is uncomfortable for you."

"This is not at all uncomfortable. We grew up together, nothing's wrong with this picture." He took the chopsticks and started to dig in. He saw Eunbin wanted to response to his statement so he cut her, with mouth full of noodles. "Don't even mention about us dating."

She smiled. "Okay then, childhood friend."

"Don't you usually go to this place with Yeeun? Where is she?"

"She's busy dating with Haejun and leaving me alone. It's so hard to meet her. She doesn't even come randomly to my flat at all." She ranted with chopsticks in her hand. Inhae lowered her hand since people around were looking at her weirdly.

"Just don't kill me with that chopsticks." He calmed down. The it clicked him. "What about him, Youjin?"

Eunbin dropped her chopsticks. "Well...he left."

"To where?" He continued eating his noodles.

"I don't know. Even his friends don't know where he's at." She stared into void. "Something happened with his father so I'm guessing he's leaving with his family."

"You can't even call him?"

She nodded. "I wonder who's coming to my graduation day. You're busy. Yeuun is still uncertain..."

He drank his water. "Don't worry. I bet he'll come. Youjin." He poured the water into Eunbin's glass. "He cares about you. I used to be the first place for that but I got degraded." He smiled.

"I don't know." She drank the water. "I won't expect anything, then."

"I heard Taeyong wanted to come. Maybe he'll ask the others to join him."

"Really? It'll be fun having them around."

He chuckled. "You will. Just remind them to finish the artwork sooner. They still have lots to be done."

"Just cut them some slack, oppa." She laughed and paused as she called him oppa. "Ah, sorry, didn't mean to.."

"I'm technically an oppa to you, aren't I? I'm older." He smiled softly at her, fixing his glasses above his nose. "It's fine by me."

She smiled back. They knew that although love was not the right word to describe their relationship, the affection was still there, stuck in the friendship area and could never be adjusted. No matter how much they pushed, it would bounce back to square one. Both him and her knew that they would have each other, even when someone else had their heart.