Caratland [Seventeen FF]

-62- (final)

I could feel my cheeks burn and my palms sweat. I was still looking down.
"How am I supposed to say something like that? Was already hard enough to even speak up", I bursted out and mumbled at the end. "On the one hand I really wanted you to know, but on the other I know that you only like me as a friend and I didn't want to ruin this friendship", I added, avoiding eye contact. It was quiet for some time.

I shouldn't have said something in the first place. If I just hadn't said something, Soonyoung wouldn't know and still be my friend, but now I just ruined everything because of my stupid feelings. Why did I even grow these feelings for him? If we just didn't have that trip to the city this all wouldn't have happened. If I had just not open up at all I wouldn't lose something by now. If I just-

"Jihoon?", Soonyoung carefully spoke up. I looked up to notice that tears were actually crawling down my cheeks. And now I even start crying like a baby. I quickly wiped them away, but couldn't help the second wave of tears. "I- uh", he started, but I cut him off.
"You know what? Don't say anything. I know what you want to say, but I don't want to hear it", I said and looked away. It was awkwardly silent after that.
"I know you don't want to hear it, but I have to say it: I actually never thought about us being more than just friends", he then spoke up. Can I run away please? Or teleport myself to a nicer place? Knowing it was a fact itself, but hearing it just hurt so much more. "And I know that might sound really selfish, but can we still be friends?", he then asked. I looked up to see that he had his head low too. I had a lot in my mind, but that definitely wasn't a question I'd expect.
"To be honest I wanted to ask the same thing", I replied.
"So we're friends?", he asked for assurance.
"Yeah, friends", I repeated. Still better than nothing.
"Soonyoung, what are you doing here? And why is Jihoon crying? Or laughing...? What the hell is going on?", I had a familiar voice questioning our situation. It was none other than Hansol, followed by Seungkwan of course.
"I think it's not the right moment to question anything, Hansol", Seungkwan mumbled to him, making me and Soonyoung laugh.
"But-", Hansol wanted to defend, but Seungkwan already pulled him away from us.

"You wanna join the others?", Soonyoung asked me after I left.
"What about your break?", I questioned.
"What break?", he replied grinning, while walking forward.
"But Seungcheol already replaced you", I said.
"He better fires him", he joked and started running.
"Hey, wait for me!", I exclaimed and quickly followed him.

Friends. Even if I'm not to 100% happy with that term, I'm definitely satisfied. I mean how many people on this earth can claim to be friends with such a wonderful person like Soonyoung? When I was young I always thought that I might have angered God or something like that for my life to turn out that way, but today I consider myself as one of the lucky ones. If all these bad things didn't happen, the good things wouldn't have neither.

I looked to the front, where Soonyoung was greeted by the others, who seemed pretty surprised that he was back already.

Yes, Caratland was definitely the best thing that happened to me...

"I'm sorry, we don't have any chocolate right now, but my colleague is already looking for more", Younghyun apologized. "Jae, what takes so long for the chocolate ice cream?", he scream-whispered to one of his colleagues.
"I don't know, ask Wonpil", Jae just shrugged his shoulders, while bringing a box of machine replacements to another spot. The small ice cream shop ran by five young man was at it's peak hours, meaning many demands from impatient customers. Luckily Dowoon just passed Younghyun's way.
"Dowoon, handle the customers for a second", he ordered.
"What? I can't! You know that I can't", Dowoon complained, but Younghyun already left. He walked to the back room and found Wonpil looking for something.
"Are you kidding me? We need the chocolate ice cream right now. What are you doing?", Younghyun bursted out by the sight.
"I might have broken a thing from the ice cream machine", Wonpil scratched the back of his head. Younghyun was at the verge of exploding, but instead just sighed.
"Guys! You need to see that!", Sungjin, the team leader, bursted into the room
"Now is not the perfect time", Younghyun hissed. Sungjin wasn't convinced and just pulled the two men by their arms down the basements. Jae was also already down there standing in shock. Both Wonpil's and Younghyun's eyes grew bigger in size as they saw the same thing as Jae.

A round, in multiple colours shining thing lit up in front of them and the four men were sure that this thing definitely looked like a portal...

THE END