New Students // NCT Renjun

IT'S PARTY TIME

February passed and Renjun and I grew close. I hung out with him and Mark and Chenle in school and I met his other friends Jaemin and Jeno when we we're eating out in the city. It became a regular thing for us to meet up on weekends and visit places. It was still too cold to go to the beach, but I didn't mind. I was starting to love Jeju. Renjun showed me the good restaurants and pretty places. For a while everyone asked me if I was dating him. I denied obviously, but I kind of wished I could say yes. Unfortunately, Jeju wasn't the only thing I was falling in love with. My crush on Renjun had turned into a regular subject between me and Rachel. Almost every night she would encourage me to hit on him - and almost every night I rejected. I wasn't planning on confessing to him. It was just a tiny crush and I was sure that he didn't like me romantically. And even if he did, it would just make things harder for us. I would leave in nine months. I couldn't afford getting too attached.
I didn't want our hearts to break.
Nonetheless I considered Renjun to be my friend. And as his birthday had been coming closer I'd wanted to make something for him. I had already bought a present: A gray hoodie and a cake I baked myself. The cake was beyond hideous and the definition of diabetes. I had tried to hide how deformed it was by covering it in a lot of chocolate and adding coconut toppings. Then I had attempted to write his name with icing, but it looked more like RFNIUN. I'd thought about drawing a little Moomin with icing, but after my massive failure trying to write his name I'd decided not to.
His birthday had already passed, but because it had fallen on a Thursday this year the party was today, on a Friday. Renjun had texted me his address, a time and with the consent of our parents we had planned that I was going to sleep over at his house.
Now I stood in front of a door in a big apartment complex. My heart was beating way faster than it should as I rang the doorbell. A friendly looking Chinese woman opened the door and smiled brightly. "You must be Sofia!"
Now that I was meeting Renjun's mother for the first time I was painfully aware of the deformed cake in my hands. I ran my hand through my hair desperately trying to straighten it a bit.
"Yes, that's me."
"Sofia!" Renjun appeared behind his mother's back. "You're here!"
I could see the others peeking from a doorframe inside of the apartment - Jeno, Jaemin, Mark, Chenle and two guys I didn't know.
I didn't particularly like strangers and/or social gatherings, so in that moment the thing I wanted to do the most was turn around and go back home. Still, I took off my shoes and went inside. I followed Renjun into the living and dining room and put my cake on the table. The other guys joined us and Renjun began to introduce us.
"This is Jisung, a friend of mine. He goes to another school, that's why you haven't met yet. And that's Haechan, I actually didn't invite him, I don't know what he's doing here."
"I'll just go then" Haechan said.
"Bye bye!"
Instead of going out the door, Haechan walked straight into Renjun's arms. I was the only one laughing. The others seemed like they were used to this kind of dramatic scenes.
The attention turned to my cake.
"Thank you so much for the cake, Sofia. It...It's very..."
"Please. Don't say anything." The room burst into laughter.
Soon everyone had a piece of cake on their plate. Mark was the first one to try it. "Hey, it doesn't actually taste that bad!"
In fact, the cake tasted pretty good. The whole cake was gone in about ten minutes, but as soon as we finished the cake Renjun's mother put a giant pot of hot pot on the table. I had never tried hot pot before, but it was delicious.
While eating the boys jokes around and I started to feel more comfortable.
After that the day went by fast. Renjun unpacked a few presents (he had already received most of his presents on Thursday). I was happy that he liked the hoodie I got him.
We played video games for a few hours and I permanently gained everyone's respect by not only beating Mark but also Jaemin. In the evening we played the most intense game of monopoly I had ever witnessed - I was almost certain that our friendship wouldn't survive this game. We never found out because Chenle flipped the board midway through the game.
At around 8 PM everyone started to leave.
After I helped his mom clean up and wash the dishes, Renjun and I went to his room.
He had prepared a mattress, a blanket and multiple pillows for me. I threw the pillow I brought myself onto the mattress and examined the room. His room was clean except for his desk. Papers, pens, lotion, books and water bottles were scattered all over it. But what really cought my eye were the paintings on the walls.
"I had no idea you could draw that well" I said amazed. I softly touched one of his drawings. Most other paintings were fantasy-like scenes, painted in great detail and color, but this was a simple, realistic drawing of a boy and a girl walking through a city.
Renjun cleared his throat. "Shall we get ready for bed now?"