Caratland [Seventeen FF]

-43-

Soonyoung poV:

The next days were weird. Jihoon completely avoided any contact and conversation. Communicating while working became really hard since he even avoided eye contact and worse nothing of this had a special reason. He didn't talk to the others either, resulting in everyone asking me if we faught. It was as if he returned to that old Jihoon, who wouldn't talk to anyone and stay alone all the time. I knew something was off, but this time he wouldn't even talk to me so I had no chance of knowing what was going on in his head. Did I go too far with my jokes?

It was lunchtime and Jihoon was nowhere to be seen. Hansol, Seungkwan and Chan were talking about something, but I wasn't really listening.
"Soonyoung!", Hansol suddenly shouted, startling me.
"What?", I asked for repetition.
"You really don't wanna try talking to him? He isn't even eating anymore", Seungkwan asked.
"If he'll stop avoiding me, I would", I replied sighing.
"How do you two work together? You can't even talk to each other", Chan questioned.
"Minghao and Jun also somehow worked together back then", Hansol shrugged his shoulders.
"I go back to work, ain't that hungry", I said and stood up.
"Okay", Chan just said. I think most of them realized that I was busier in my head than in real life, so they kind of stopped asking me to stay.

I went back to work and saw Jihoon there sorting out coins. This time I'll catch him for sure.
"Jihoon, you're confusing the boxes", I told him, as he put the silver coins into the green box.
"Oh, you're right", he mumbled, avoiding eye contact. He quickly pulled out a blue box and transferred the coins there. I went over to help him, but he quickly distanced himself from me, leaving at least a one meter gap.
"Why are you avoiding me?", I asked straightforward.
"W-What? I-I'm not a-avoiding you", he stuttered, his face exposing him as he turned red.
"Then why are you acting as if we had an argument or something? You don't even talk to the others!", I questioned. He didn't replied, but hurried putting the coins in the other box. I rolled my eyes and sighed. "What is it? We all know that something is wrong? Is it because of my jokes? I'll stop then. I really didn't mean to offend you or something", I apologized, waiting for his response.
"No! No, it's not because of that", he shook his head.
"Then what is it?", I asked again and approached him.
"Nothing", he shook his head, taking a few steps back.
"There's obviously something", I grabbed his arm to make him turn around, forcing him to face me. For a moment he just stared at my eyes, but then he looked down again, freeing himself from my grip as his cheeks turned red.
"I bring the coins to the storage", he murmured, taking a box and almost running out of the stand. Did I do something wrong?

After the work day, we went eating at the taco shop again. This time with Mingyu, Wonwoo, Seokmin, Seungkwan and Hansol.
"It makes more logic like that. I mean why putting afford in cutting shapes that are more difficult?", Mingyu responded to Hansol's question.
"Yeah but why is cheese round in the first place?", Seokmin asked.
"How should we know? Are we like cheese specialists?", Seungkwan asked back, biting in his taco.
"Let me change my opinion: I think Hansol is the dumb one of you two", Wonwoo said, grinning.
"Hey, I'm a hidden genius!", Hansol complained. I just listened half hearted to their conversation. I never thought that Jihoon would someday just bounce back to his old self. I even forgot how difficult it was to approach him, but now...
"Ah, by the way. Soonyoung, since half of your time already passed, are you thinking of extending your contract with caratland?", Mingyu suddenly asked, pulling me out of my thoughts. All eyes laid on me, while I looked down to my half eaten taco.
"Good question. Well, my mom thinks that it's just temporarily so I guess I need to see how the rest of the year is going to be", I thought aloud. Yeah, I never thought of that before.
"I can't imagine Soonyoung not working here anymore. No, that shouldn't happen, never stop working here, okay?", Seungkwan said and shook his head by imagining me not being around here.
"Yeah, you somehow made this place livelier. As if you've made a team out of a bunch of loners", Mingyu agreed, Seokmin nodding after Mingyu's last sentence.
"I didn't do anything, y'all just changed like that. I just did my job", I laughed a little flustered.
"Still not admitting?", Hansol asked jokingly. They kept making jokes over small things that happened since I came, making me feel a little bit better.

"Ah, vacation week starts now, right?", Mingyu realized excited, clapping in his hands.
"Vacation week?", I questioned confused.
"That's the week we get off and don't allow any customers in", Seokmin explained.
"We always need to calculate these since it changes all the time", Seungkwan added.
"Basically it's one of the weeks in a year where we would make the less amount of profit", Hansol concluded.
"I thought y'all just work until you ask Seungcheol to get free time", I thought aloud.
"We're also humans. If we didn't get these vacation weeks, I would have quit a long time ago", Wonwoo confessed.
"So what are y'all going to do?", I asked them.
"We're going to get our driver's license", Mingyu said and pointed at himself and Wonwoo.
"Wow, I think it's the first that that Wonwoo's going to leave the island", Seokmin said shocked.
"I can't stay here my whole life and I thought the first step in normal life is getting a license. That tall idiot just followed me", Wonwoo explained.
"True", Mingyu laughed in a mocking way, annoying Wonwoo with little pinches.
"I'm going to meet my uncle at his pizzeria", Seokmin raised his arm.
"I guess I'll just lay in bed and be happy to be unproductive", Seungkwan shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, me too", Hansol agreed and gave Seungkwan a high-five.
"Well, I guess I'll stay too", I said, already planning the week in my head. I could finally finish that bag of tangerines, while playing earth conquer. Yeah, sounds good. Jihoon probably would- Oh right, we don't talk to each other...
Realizing that fact, made me immediately sad again.

What's wrong with Jihoon this time?