0325 ⤅ stray kids leeknow

part eight - hideout

Hyunjin's POV; 0329

"Ugh, police sirens again? I'm getting so sick of that sound."

"Might as well get used to them, we do live in Seoul," I joked.

"Well, ever since what happened with Min- uh, that teenager, it seems as if it's every night."

Since we met at the interview, I had to get to know Seungmin more. Something about him was just captivating, maybe it was his welcoming smile or his calm voice. Whatever drew me in, I knew I needed more of it, so we talked every night, finding out that we had so much in common, such as our love for music. Who knows how many hours we spent talking about Twice and our shared love for Dahyun and argued over which title track is their best one (It's obviously "Heart Shaker", and every other opinion is wrong).

But I found my heart beating a bit faster when "Seungminnie" flashed on my screen, and my typing speed became increasingly slower because of my shaky hands and nervous thoughts of crafting the perfect message. Soon, my eagerness couldn't wait any longer, I had to spend time with him and become even closer. If I had felt nervous when sending him a message before, it had definitely became worse as I stood next to him. He was shorter than me and tiny, something cute that I didn't notice before. In fact, I noticed more and more to like about him.

We sat in my room, Seungmin lying on my bed facing the ceiling and tossing a wadded piece of paper in the air and catching it again over and over with a thoughtful, but distressed look in his eyes. While I took pity on him for the incident a couple nights ago (he said there was something he couldn't talk about), I giggled to myself, especially at how narrow his eyebrows were and at his lips sticking up in a pout.

I crumpled up the notebook paper I was drawing on and playfully threw it at his head, the paper hitting him square on the nose. Seungmin flinched, his eyebrows shifting to that of surprise now, and then looked to me like a sad puppy. It was difficult to resist the urge to wrap him in my arms and rock him until he fell asleep.

"What was that for?" he whined.

"I got bored I guess," I giggled at his childish voice. In retaliation, Seungmin grabbed the pillow he was resting his head on and threw it in my direction, flying past me and hitting the mirror on the wall, instead. It swung back and forth, threatening to fall, before Seungmin panicked and stumbled off my bed toward it muttering 'no's over and over, almost tumbling to the ground. He was able to catch it before it hit the hardwood floor.

"Your aim sucks," I joked. He turned only his head to glare at me, the rest of his body frozen as he cradled the glass mirror. I helped him place it back onto the nail it originally hung from while sticking my tongue out because of my height. "You should really be more careful, Minnie." He gaped at the nickname.

"If you're gonna call me that, I get to call you something, too," he pouted and poked my shoulder, trying to act tough. It was falling flat.

"I've never had a nickname," I laughed, "Well, actually I've been called 'Jinnie' a couple times, but it never stuck." Seungmin tilted his head to study my face, pure concentration taking over his expression. I copied him with a smirk, but he didn't notice because of his thoughts.

"Okay, I got it," he suddenly stood up tall and smiled proudly, "First if all, you don't look like a 'Jinnie', so... I think we should take the first syllable of your name, 'Hyun', and add an 'ie' sound to that! So Hyun-ie... Hyunnie. Cute, right!"

The boy didn't stop to catch a breath. I smiled warmly at him, his excitement making me giddy, and I took him into my arms suddenly and swayed side to side. It was purely platonic in the moment, but as I came down from my short-term high, I realized that Seungmin was tensed up, unsure of how to respond. His face was beat red with his glasses pushed down to the bridge of his nose, and he held his head low, almost in embarrassment as he shyly wrapped himself around my neck, standing on his tip toes a bit to reach.