sweet lies. / skz hyunjin

[ 十 ]

/ hyunjin.

we were renting our bikes as jeongin approached me. "so you're the hyunjin sunbae that suni noona has been talking about?"

i chuckle, nodding slightly. he was cute and smol. "yeah, and you're jeongin?"

he nodded, suddenly ending the conversation as suni handed him a bike. lastly, suni gave me a bike and we began following seungmin and jeongin as they leaded us to their "hideout".

"don't you want to lead as well?" i ask, riding beside suni's bike. "you've gone to the hideout numerous times, right?"

"yeah, of course! but i'm pretty bad at directions," the girl nervously chuckles, causing me to smile lightly. "anyway, how is your first week going?"

"pretty good! my grades already somehow increased," i say, smiling at the setting sun.

"somehow? you mean, thankfully to my wonderful tutoring?" she jokes. "what about friends?"

"i became good friends with you, obviously, and your friends. thanks for that, by the way," i say, my smile widening.

"wait, so we are your only friends? you're practically the prince of our school already! i wouldn't be surprised if you had a girlfriend already," she says, making me nearly choke on my saliva. "how about fangirls? how many notes are you getting in your locker nowadays?"

"just a few... and i'm not usually the type to have tons of friends," i say, looking at her take one of her earbuds out as she listened to me more intently.

"you're just the overall nice, good looking, and tall guy. yep, okay. oh, and i would share my earbuds with you, but that isn't the best idea when riding bikes," the girl says, smiling. her smile almost felt sincere to me. "oh, and eunri wanted me to ask you on a date for her, but don't worry. she's asked out every boy at the school already!"

"she asked out your friends, too?" i ask, curiously. at first, it upset me that she was asking me out but for someone else, but seems that this isn't that big of a deal.

she began to laugh, causing seungmin and jeongin to stop in their tracks and almost crash their bikes as they looked back to her. they gave me two thumbs up before rushing off again.

"yeah! first, she asked felix out and he started laughing hysterically, thinking it was a joke. but she started crying because she didn't think he was taking her seriously and he apologized like five million times. second, she asked seungmin and seungmin pulled the 'i am asian' card saying that he liked her, too, but his parents would never let him date anyone in high school. which was a lie, but she nearly kissed him after that and seungmin fell on his butt and ran away. so they've been awkward ever since. oh, and she did ask jeongin out, but i wasn't there when that happened. but he said that he panicked and said that he didn't like girls," she rambled. i smiled at her chuckles she'd let out every so often as she recalled those memories.

"really?" i hummed, wanting to hear her talk longer. "what do you guys do friday nights?"

suni shrugged a little. "felix and i usually go grocery shopping together for our families. you can join if you want to since i will be all by myself tomorrow and have to buy both our families' things. our parents are really close."

"oh, cool. what's your family like?"

"i have two parents who literally are the best and then two little siblings. maei, my little sister, is 6 and obsessed with boys. she's apparently really popular at her elementary school. she would probably like you. jungi, my little brother, is 4 and really likes to dance. he's already taking dance classes despite his young age. he would probably like you, too," she says, smiling.

we arrived at the hideout soon after she finished her last sentence. it was an abandoned art school. we all parked out bikes outside as we all went into the big dance studio.

there were pillows and cool lights all over the room and was even a projector that seungmin was messing with. jeongin was kicking around a soccer ball, attempting to nutmeg suni.

"this is really cool," i mutter in amazement.

"there are roller skates over there if you want to skate around," jeongin chirps, giving suni the soccer ball as he put on some of the roller skates. "this place is full of fun."

suni sat in the corner and took out her textbooks and notes. seungmin played an action movie on the projector and pulled me to sit beside him and suni. "don't mind jeongin. he doesn't usually study with us here. he's just here to runaway from his home."

we began working on homework and accomplished a lot. seungmin and jeongin fell asleep and i could tell suni was dozing off, too, as she was attempting to finish the science question. she must be tired...

i suddenly hear soft snores escape suni's slightly agape mouth. i rest her head on my lap lightly and take off my jacket to cover her legs. taking her earbuds out of her ears slowly, i wished for her to have good dreams. i was tired, too, but i didn't want to sleep.

you know you're in love when you don't want to sleep simply because reality is suddenly better than your dreams.