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imma keep it really with you chief, this chapter has 2503 words...I haven't proofread it lol

Lee Minhyuk

The two of us stepped off the bus that lead to the seafront, greeted by a breeze that carried with it the smell of small fried chicken joints along the side of the road and the sea.
Above us the sun shone unforgivingly, the temperature high enough for both of us to hold our jackets in our hands as we walked.

"I haven't been to the seaside since I moved to Seoul," Jooheon suddenly announced. "back when I was in Daegu I would always go to the beach?"

"How come you came all this way just for university?" I asked, falling into a nearby bench. He followed suit, producing a sigh.

"I did it to get back at my Dad," the head tilt I offered him made him elaborate. "when I came out my Dad wasn't okay with it. My stepmother accepted me wholeheartedly but my Dad was just..off about it. He claimed he didn't see me any different but soon stopped inviting me out with him because he thought I wouldn't be interested in the stuff he does and whatnot, and he was a bit..frontal with one of my boyfriends."

"What went down?"

He suddenly laughed. "In hindsight it's quite funny, but we were having dinner and they were talking when he suddenly asks my boyfriend if he's just using me for sex and I'm sat there feeling as if I'm totally naked whilst they're going at each other's throats and my stepmother is trying to calm them down. Needless to say, we broke up not long after."

"Your taste in men is...fantastic." I shook my head.

"I attract idiots, that's what," he smiled. "but I moved because while he had good intentions, he kept on alienating me and then we had a pretty big fight about it, so I moved out here for school on the condition that the moment I asked either of them for financial help I would have to move back. If this restraining order story goes ahead, I'd have to move out and while I can afford that right now, I wouldn't be able to even afford food after that for a good month since that would be all my savings, so I'd probably have to move back home."

The thought of not seeing Jooheon's panicked  face sprinting down the stairs when he's late for work or his smile when he comes into the cafe for coffee made my chest feel tight. It's not that I wouldn't want him to leave, but I have grown used to how he constantly smells of a mix of paint and chalk, how his hair bounces with every move he makes & even some of the random stuff he remembers to text me at 3am in the morning. I'd grown used to him.

Maybe I didn't want him to leave me.

"What about you?" He snapped me out of my thoughts. "You're this strangely anonymous looming presence that has made it their lifetime goal to help me."

"What are you talking about?" I scoffed. "I'm an open book. A transparent person."

"You're about as transparent as a concrete block." He grabbed my arm to pull me up, the two of us beginning to walk.

"What do you want to know - um, I have a little brother, as you know, but he isn't my biological brother because I was adopted-"

"Oh, I'm sorry I didn't want to upset you-"

"No, it's okay, Jooheon. It's not like the cliche adoption stories - my parents are actually really kind to me, most of the time," I said. "I'm also a drug dealer."