[SJFF] That Someone Is You - Chapter 7
Title: That Someone Is You
Characters: Eunhyuk, OC, SJ members
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance, Drama
Word Count: 2,589
Summary: She was fully prepared to submit herself to a life that she wasn't remotely interested in living. Then she met him. Unfortunately, life has no intentions in going easy on the both of them.
~ * ~
07
“You’re starting to creep me out, Hyukjae,” Donghae said out of the blue. He had been observing the older man for a while now, and easily came to the conclusion after seeing Hyukjae’s mannerisms.
“Us,” Sungmin corrected the younger male, just as the dancing machine tore his gaze away from the window with a look full of confusion.
“What are you guys talking about?” he frowned. Hyukjae deftly jumped over the backrest of the sofa, sliding in neatly into the empty seat next to Donghae as he waited for their reply. Judging by their curious expressions, he had a feeling that he was in for a long interrogation. At least it wasn’t something new to him, so he knew what to anticipate.
“Your dreamy face,” Youngwoon pointed out. “Don’t you realise that you’ve been grinning at nothing in particular way too much these days?” he then added with a shudder, before roaring out in laughter with the other Super Junior members who were lounging around in the dorms.
Hyukjae’s face turned red from embarrassment at the older man’s words, and he blinked innocently at his friends. “Do I really do that?” he blurted out hesitantly, earning frustrated groans from everyone in the next moment.
“If you didn’t, what do you think made it possible for us to ask you about it?” the burly man said again, shooting a look that was a cross of disbelief and mock hurt at Hyukjae.
“You have also been humming to the tune of many love songs. Too many for it to be normal for the likes of you,” Shindong interjected, handing over his packet of potato chips to the man when he asked for it.
Donghae, whom had been nodding along in agreement with his other friends’ comments all this while, also took the opportunity to speak up about the matter. “Didn’t you tell me that you broke up with that Hwayoung girl, though? Please don’t tell me you’re with her again, or I might really consider about giving you a punch that you truly deserve - whether we’re friends or not. You’ll need a wakeup call.”
“What?!” Hyukjae exclaimed, choking on the potato chip he had just inserted into his mouth at the sound of Donghae’s comments. He did not expect his group members to bring up that name again, especially when they harboured such ardent dislike for the girl. “Don’t even remind me of her. There’s no way in hell I would get back into a relationship with her after all that torment I’ve been through,” he scowled, feeling incredibly incensed that they would actually have such a perception about him.
Hyukjae wanted companionship, that much was true, but he wasn’t desperate.
“Good grief,” several voiced chorused together at his reassurance. The boys visibly loosened up after Hyukjae’s statement that he wouldn’t even think about having anything to do with the girl called Hwayoung. Even if he would turn a blind eye towards it, they weren’t particularly keen about having to face the daily harassment from her ever again.
They even changed all their phone numbers for good measures.
“If you’re not fawning over that girl when you have that stupid grin of yours plastered on your face-” Heechul muttered as he busied himself with the gaming console he had extorted from Kyuhyun, earning a dark look from Hyukjae. He duly ignored it, opting to continue with his train of thoughts instead. “-then what on earth is wrong with you?”
“He’s probably out of his mind,” Kyuhyun, who was watching Heechul’s game with deep interest, commented distractedly. He yelped in pain when Hyukjae reached over and hit him in the head.
“I’m perfectly normal, thank you very much,” he huffed indignantly, sulking in his seat at the amount of confidence his group members had in him - which virtually amounted to none. Did he appear as a person who was desperate for a girlfriend to his friends?
Then again, he didn’t really want to ask them that question. Chances are the answer would be yes.
“Please don’t tell me you’ve found another new girl,” Jongwoon exclaimed in horror, wondering how in heaven’s name Hyukjae was able to change girlfriends at such an astounding speed. “Seriously, Hyukkie, it has only been two weeks since you’ve ended your relationship with Hwayoung. Two weeks!”
“I wouldn’t be surprised even if Hyukkie hyung did,” Ryeowook suddenly said, earning yet another dark scowl from said man. The eternal maknae sent a saccharine sweet smile at Hyukjae; one which made the latter shudder in fear. Ryeowook knew full well about the older man’s track record in dating, and wasn’t at all hesitant about using it against him.
In short, Ryeowook was a devil in disguise.
In the end, Hyukjae heaved an exasperated sigh, knowing that the odds were stacked against him. There was no way he could win an argument when everyone else in the room was hell bent on teasing him. “Fine, if that’s how you guys want to do things, I’ll play along with you,” he mumbled miserably, slumping into his seat.
“About time you gave up,” Heechul shot with a smirk, eyes still fixated on the device in his hands.
“So who’s this girl?” Donghae laughed, jabbing Hyukjae in his side to egg him on. The older one of the pair irately blocked his hand away so that he could concentrate on what to say. He had to come up with his choice of words carefully.
“I don’t know her name,” Hyukjae finally admitted. He leaned backwards when six other voices literally yelled in his face at the same time at his answer. A grimace was plastered on his face as he rubbed at his ears, trying to get rid of the ringing sound in his ears as a result of that. “Ouch, guys. Seriously, have you ever heard of volume control? I still need my sense of hearing to earn a living, you know,” he deadpanned.
However, it was either Hyukjae had spoken too softly - he could hardly hear himself over the ringing in his ears - or his friends couldn’t be bothered with what he had to say at all, because they started rambling in a completely different direction.
“How could you not know the name of your girlfriend?! Did you just randomly pick her out of a crowd of screaming fans chasing after you this time?!” Youngwoon was the first who shouted his reaction. Hyukjae frowned at the query, trying to understand what the hell was going on, but before he could even respond to it, Ryeowook had interrupted his train of thoughts.
“I’m disappointed in you, Hyukkie hyung. You take the term ‘playboy’ to a whole new level,” he had said, shaking his head solemnly as if to prove his point.
That was more than enough to render Hyukjae completely flustered. “Wait!” he exclaimed in a distressed manner to gain control of the situation. “What girlfriend are you talking about? I don’t recall getting myself another girlfriend since Hwayoung, and I certainly did not admit to getting one either,” he grounded out, snapping his head in Kyuhyun’s direction when the latter seemed as though he wanted to say something about it. The younger man immediately made a face at him and resumed watching Heechul’s game.
“Then that doesn’t really tally with your actions, Hyukkie,” Donghae commented thoughtfully. “Knowing you, there’s not much of a reason for you to spare a look at girls who aren’t our fans or those who have not talked to you before.”
“Is she pretty?” Youngwoon therefore asked, as he knew about the main exception to the points Donghae had raised. Any normal guy - Hyukjae included - would have their heads turned whenever any woman who was pleasing to the eye passed them by.
Nonetheless, the next thing that the main dancer said effectively stunned them all. “Actually, come to think of it, I think her looks leans towards the average side,” he confessed.
It wasn’t too far from the truth, really. The girl wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous like a number of others whom he had met - and some, dated - yet there was something about the girl that made him stop and stare. He couldn’t even pinpoint the reason why, but he found himself thinking about her way too frequently than he should have.
Heck, he didn’t even know her name to begin with. All he gathered about her was that she loved to scribble in her notebook at the university’s waterfront, and that she wore apple-scented perfume. He really could not forget how the aroma lingered in his mind long after she had walked past him the other day with a small, satisfied smile playing on her lips.
“Are you sure you’re the real Lee Hyukjae?” Sungmin asked sceptically, earning a frown from said man.
“I am, and I would like to maintain that I am perfectly sane,” he huffed, hopping off the sofa and reaching for his sweater on the clothes rack. “If you guys are done with all the questions, I’ll be heading out. See you guys at dinner,” Hyukjae then said, easily slipping out of the dorm before anyone else even had the opportunity to respond.
The boys who were left in the living room feeling confused about the change in Hyukjae’s behaviour exchanged a brief look with each other, before shaking their heads at the same time.
“He’s definitely not acting normally,” they concluded.
* * * * *
The moment Seohyeon stepped into the dorm room shared between her and Min-ae, her roommate immediately pounced on her as though she was an intruder. She couldn’t even move a single inch because the blonde was holding her firmly in place, and her head spun from the multitude of questions being thrown at her by her best friend. Seohyeon could not even process any of them because Min-ae was speaking at an inhuman speed.
Only when Seohyeon snapped at Min-ae a full minute later did the blonde girl get a grasp of the situation and stopped talking.
“Geez, Min, what is wrong with you?” the shorter one of the pair scowled at her friend when the silence had settled in, earning a sheepish grin from the latter.
“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “I was just worried about you, Hyeon. It’s already so late at night and you wouldn’t even answer my calls.”
“And you couldn’t have waited until I’ve settled in comfortably before you bombarded me with questions?” Seohyeon commented in mock exasperation. “Really, I thought you would’ve at least noticed that my phone is on my desk,” she then added, pointing indiscreetly in the direction of the said piece of furniture.
However, she learned a split second too late that she shouldn’t have told Min-ae that she had forgotten all about the electronic device when her friend was recovering from her ballistic mode. Her roommate literally blew up again at the information.
“How could you not bring your phone along with you when you head out alone?! What if something happened to you and you had to contact someone about it? You could’ve been killed, or worse - raped by psychopaths lurking on the university grounds!”
Much to the blonde’s dismay, her best friend started laughing despite the fact that she was actually being reprimanded at the moment. “Don’t you think that the words ‘raped’ and ‘killed’ should be switched around? I really don’t think anything could be worse than getting myself killed, Min,” she managed in between laughs. Nevertheless, Seohyeon promptly pressed her lips into a thin line when Min-ae scowled at her.
“This isn’t a situation to be laughed at, Shin Seohyeon. I was worried sick about you,” the long-legged girl frowned. In Min-ae’s eyes, Seohyeon was usually more responsible than this. She would always make it a point to ring her up with a public phone whenever she had forgotten to carry her phone along.
Seohyeon sent an apologetic smile at her friend’s direction when the latter voiced up about her concerns with a sincere intonation. She dropped her bag on the floor, moving forward to pull the other girl into a hug. It was an action which they would frequently carry out whenever either of them made a mistake; something which kept their friendship going strong throughout the years.
“I’m sorry, Min. I should’ve called you when I had the chance,” Seohyeon cooed as she released her hold on her friend, this time grinning at her. It didn’t take long for a smile to break out on the latter’s face - a sign that all was forgiven.
“So what have you been up to the entire day? Apart from going to church, I mean,” Min-ae prompted, leading her friend to the latter’s bed so that they could sit and chat. It was a routine of theirs whenever they spent the day apart, ever since they had enrolled in the same university.
“The usual, I guess,” Seohyeon shrugged. “I went to the waterfront again when I got back from church.”
“Did you manage to get a lot of writing done, then?” the other asked, practically well-versed with Seohyeon’s tendencies by now.
“Well… not really? Some guy sat close to me on the wooden bridge for several hours and I got distracted multiple times because of him,” the short-haired girl recollected, blushing slightly when she remembered how he kept stealing occasional glances in her direction.
At the sound of that, Min-ae let out a teasing cheer. “Ooh, were you distracted because he’s hot, or because he kept on talking to you?”
Seohyeon hit Min-ae’s arm playfully at the query, although her cheeks betrayed her by turning a deeper shade of red. “It’s neither, Min!” she said. “I couldn’t really see his face because he was wearing a face mask, and he didn’t speak to me either. It was just… he made me feel so self-conscious when he keeps staring like that. You know I can’t write when somebody’s scrutinising me.”
“Hmm, so it’s yet another mysterious guy, huh?” Min-ae tapped her chin in deep thought.
“Yeah,” Seohyeon muttered distractedly, trying to recall the pair of dark brown eyes she had looked into on several occasions. It seemed familiar to her, yet she couldn’t fathom why she felt that way. She was sure she had never seen the man around much - if ever - on campus.
“Who did you have dinner with, then? You never liked eating alone,” Min-ae suddenly asked, catching Seohyeon off-guard. She wasn’t expecting for her best friend to change the subject so soon, but figured out that the blonde probably couldn’t come up with any questions regarding the man in the face mask.
“I…” Seohyeon hesitated a little, biting on her lower lip as she contemplated about what to say. In the end, she heaved a small sigh, deciding that Min-ae would probably get upset whether or not she told the truth. “I actually went out with Shin-il sunbae. He happened to drop by the waterfront and caught me sitting alone there.” Or living in self-isolation, as he had put it, she recalled.
Much to her surprise, Min-ae actually remained relatively calm at the revelation and the mention of their senior’s name, merely saying that “I don’t think it’s much of a coincidence on his part, but whatever” and allowed things to slide. The blonde also muttered something about the conversation being over and wanting to go to bed seconds later, leaving Seohyeon staring in awe at her friend’s back.
She had escaped from the questions much easier than she had expected.
Characters: Eunhyuk, OC, SJ members
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance, Drama
Word Count: 2,589
Summary: She was fully prepared to submit herself to a life that she wasn't remotely interested in living. Then she met him. Unfortunately, life has no intentions in going easy on the both of them.
~ * ~
07
“You’re starting to creep me out, Hyukjae,” Donghae said out of the blue. He had been observing the older man for a while now, and easily came to the conclusion after seeing Hyukjae’s mannerisms.
“Us,” Sungmin corrected the younger male, just as the dancing machine tore his gaze away from the window with a look full of confusion.
“What are you guys talking about?” he frowned. Hyukjae deftly jumped over the backrest of the sofa, sliding in neatly into the empty seat next to Donghae as he waited for their reply. Judging by their curious expressions, he had a feeling that he was in for a long interrogation. At least it wasn’t something new to him, so he knew what to anticipate.
“Your dreamy face,” Youngwoon pointed out. “Don’t you realise that you’ve been grinning at nothing in particular way too much these days?” he then added with a shudder, before roaring out in laughter with the other Super Junior members who were lounging around in the dorms.
Hyukjae’s face turned red from embarrassment at the older man’s words, and he blinked innocently at his friends. “Do I really do that?” he blurted out hesitantly, earning frustrated groans from everyone in the next moment.
“If you didn’t, what do you think made it possible for us to ask you about it?” the burly man said again, shooting a look that was a cross of disbelief and mock hurt at Hyukjae.
“You have also been humming to the tune of many love songs. Too many for it to be normal for the likes of you,” Shindong interjected, handing over his packet of potato chips to the man when he asked for it.
Donghae, whom had been nodding along in agreement with his other friends’ comments all this while, also took the opportunity to speak up about the matter. “Didn’t you tell me that you broke up with that Hwayoung girl, though? Please don’t tell me you’re with her again, or I might really consider about giving you a punch that you truly deserve - whether we’re friends or not. You’ll need a wakeup call.”
“What?!” Hyukjae exclaimed, choking on the potato chip he had just inserted into his mouth at the sound of Donghae’s comments. He did not expect his group members to bring up that name again, especially when they harboured such ardent dislike for the girl. “Don’t even remind me of her. There’s no way in hell I would get back into a relationship with her after all that torment I’ve been through,” he scowled, feeling incredibly incensed that they would actually have such a perception about him.
Hyukjae wanted companionship, that much was true, but he wasn’t desperate.
“Good grief,” several voiced chorused together at his reassurance. The boys visibly loosened up after Hyukjae’s statement that he wouldn’t even think about having anything to do with the girl called Hwayoung. Even if he would turn a blind eye towards it, they weren’t particularly keen about having to face the daily harassment from her ever again.
They even changed all their phone numbers for good measures.
“If you’re not fawning over that girl when you have that stupid grin of yours plastered on your face-” Heechul muttered as he busied himself with the gaming console he had extorted from Kyuhyun, earning a dark look from Hyukjae. He duly ignored it, opting to continue with his train of thoughts instead. “-then what on earth is wrong with you?”
“He’s probably out of his mind,” Kyuhyun, who was watching Heechul’s game with deep interest, commented distractedly. He yelped in pain when Hyukjae reached over and hit him in the head.
“I’m perfectly normal, thank you very much,” he huffed indignantly, sulking in his seat at the amount of confidence his group members had in him - which virtually amounted to none. Did he appear as a person who was desperate for a girlfriend to his friends?
Then again, he didn’t really want to ask them that question. Chances are the answer would be yes.
“Please don’t tell me you’ve found another new girl,” Jongwoon exclaimed in horror, wondering how in heaven’s name Hyukjae was able to change girlfriends at such an astounding speed. “Seriously, Hyukkie, it has only been two weeks since you’ve ended your relationship with Hwayoung. Two weeks!”
“I wouldn’t be surprised even if Hyukkie hyung did,” Ryeowook suddenly said, earning yet another dark scowl from said man. The eternal maknae sent a saccharine sweet smile at Hyukjae; one which made the latter shudder in fear. Ryeowook knew full well about the older man’s track record in dating, and wasn’t at all hesitant about using it against him.
In short, Ryeowook was a devil in disguise.
In the end, Hyukjae heaved an exasperated sigh, knowing that the odds were stacked against him. There was no way he could win an argument when everyone else in the room was hell bent on teasing him. “Fine, if that’s how you guys want to do things, I’ll play along with you,” he mumbled miserably, slumping into his seat.
“About time you gave up,” Heechul shot with a smirk, eyes still fixated on the device in his hands.
“So who’s this girl?” Donghae laughed, jabbing Hyukjae in his side to egg him on. The older one of the pair irately blocked his hand away so that he could concentrate on what to say. He had to come up with his choice of words carefully.
“I don’t know her name,” Hyukjae finally admitted. He leaned backwards when six other voices literally yelled in his face at the same time at his answer. A grimace was plastered on his face as he rubbed at his ears, trying to get rid of the ringing sound in his ears as a result of that. “Ouch, guys. Seriously, have you ever heard of volume control? I still need my sense of hearing to earn a living, you know,” he deadpanned.
However, it was either Hyukjae had spoken too softly - he could hardly hear himself over the ringing in his ears - or his friends couldn’t be bothered with what he had to say at all, because they started rambling in a completely different direction.
“How could you not know the name of your girlfriend?! Did you just randomly pick her out of a crowd of screaming fans chasing after you this time?!” Youngwoon was the first who shouted his reaction. Hyukjae frowned at the query, trying to understand what the hell was going on, but before he could even respond to it, Ryeowook had interrupted his train of thoughts.
“I’m disappointed in you, Hyukkie hyung. You take the term ‘playboy’ to a whole new level,” he had said, shaking his head solemnly as if to prove his point.
That was more than enough to render Hyukjae completely flustered. “Wait!” he exclaimed in a distressed manner to gain control of the situation. “What girlfriend are you talking about? I don’t recall getting myself another girlfriend since Hwayoung, and I certainly did not admit to getting one either,” he grounded out, snapping his head in Kyuhyun’s direction when the latter seemed as though he wanted to say something about it. The younger man immediately made a face at him and resumed watching Heechul’s game.
“Then that doesn’t really tally with your actions, Hyukkie,” Donghae commented thoughtfully. “Knowing you, there’s not much of a reason for you to spare a look at girls who aren’t our fans or those who have not talked to you before.”
“Is she pretty?” Youngwoon therefore asked, as he knew about the main exception to the points Donghae had raised. Any normal guy - Hyukjae included - would have their heads turned whenever any woman who was pleasing to the eye passed them by.
Nonetheless, the next thing that the main dancer said effectively stunned them all. “Actually, come to think of it, I think her looks leans towards the average side,” he confessed.
It wasn’t too far from the truth, really. The girl wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous like a number of others whom he had met - and some, dated - yet there was something about the girl that made him stop and stare. He couldn’t even pinpoint the reason why, but he found himself thinking about her way too frequently than he should have.
Heck, he didn’t even know her name to begin with. All he gathered about her was that she loved to scribble in her notebook at the university’s waterfront, and that she wore apple-scented perfume. He really could not forget how the aroma lingered in his mind long after she had walked past him the other day with a small, satisfied smile playing on her lips.
“Are you sure you’re the real Lee Hyukjae?” Sungmin asked sceptically, earning a frown from said man.
“I am, and I would like to maintain that I am perfectly sane,” he huffed, hopping off the sofa and reaching for his sweater on the clothes rack. “If you guys are done with all the questions, I’ll be heading out. See you guys at dinner,” Hyukjae then said, easily slipping out of the dorm before anyone else even had the opportunity to respond.
The boys who were left in the living room feeling confused about the change in Hyukjae’s behaviour exchanged a brief look with each other, before shaking their heads at the same time.
“He’s definitely not acting normally,” they concluded.
* * * * *
The moment Seohyeon stepped into the dorm room shared between her and Min-ae, her roommate immediately pounced on her as though she was an intruder. She couldn’t even move a single inch because the blonde was holding her firmly in place, and her head spun from the multitude of questions being thrown at her by her best friend. Seohyeon could not even process any of them because Min-ae was speaking at an inhuman speed.
Only when Seohyeon snapped at Min-ae a full minute later did the blonde girl get a grasp of the situation and stopped talking.
“Geez, Min, what is wrong with you?” the shorter one of the pair scowled at her friend when the silence had settled in, earning a sheepish grin from the latter.
“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “I was just worried about you, Hyeon. It’s already so late at night and you wouldn’t even answer my calls.”
“And you couldn’t have waited until I’ve settled in comfortably before you bombarded me with questions?” Seohyeon commented in mock exasperation. “Really, I thought you would’ve at least noticed that my phone is on my desk,” she then added, pointing indiscreetly in the direction of the said piece of furniture.
However, she learned a split second too late that she shouldn’t have told Min-ae that she had forgotten all about the electronic device when her friend was recovering from her ballistic mode. Her roommate literally blew up again at the information.
“How could you not bring your phone along with you when you head out alone?! What if something happened to you and you had to contact someone about it? You could’ve been killed, or worse - raped by psychopaths lurking on the university grounds!”
Much to the blonde’s dismay, her best friend started laughing despite the fact that she was actually being reprimanded at the moment. “Don’t you think that the words ‘raped’ and ‘killed’ should be switched around? I really don’t think anything could be worse than getting myself killed, Min,” she managed in between laughs. Nevertheless, Seohyeon promptly pressed her lips into a thin line when Min-ae scowled at her.
“This isn’t a situation to be laughed at, Shin Seohyeon. I was worried sick about you,” the long-legged girl frowned. In Min-ae’s eyes, Seohyeon was usually more responsible than this. She would always make it a point to ring her up with a public phone whenever she had forgotten to carry her phone along.
Seohyeon sent an apologetic smile at her friend’s direction when the latter voiced up about her concerns with a sincere intonation. She dropped her bag on the floor, moving forward to pull the other girl into a hug. It was an action which they would frequently carry out whenever either of them made a mistake; something which kept their friendship going strong throughout the years.
“I’m sorry, Min. I should’ve called you when I had the chance,” Seohyeon cooed as she released her hold on her friend, this time grinning at her. It didn’t take long for a smile to break out on the latter’s face - a sign that all was forgiven.
“So what have you been up to the entire day? Apart from going to church, I mean,” Min-ae prompted, leading her friend to the latter’s bed so that they could sit and chat. It was a routine of theirs whenever they spent the day apart, ever since they had enrolled in the same university.
“The usual, I guess,” Seohyeon shrugged. “I went to the waterfront again when I got back from church.”
“Did you manage to get a lot of writing done, then?” the other asked, practically well-versed with Seohyeon’s tendencies by now.
“Well… not really? Some guy sat close to me on the wooden bridge for several hours and I got distracted multiple times because of him,” the short-haired girl recollected, blushing slightly when she remembered how he kept stealing occasional glances in her direction.
At the sound of that, Min-ae let out a teasing cheer. “Ooh, were you distracted because he’s hot, or because he kept on talking to you?”
Seohyeon hit Min-ae’s arm playfully at the query, although her cheeks betrayed her by turning a deeper shade of red. “It’s neither, Min!” she said. “I couldn’t really see his face because he was wearing a face mask, and he didn’t speak to me either. It was just… he made me feel so self-conscious when he keeps staring like that. You know I can’t write when somebody’s scrutinising me.”
“Hmm, so it’s yet another mysterious guy, huh?” Min-ae tapped her chin in deep thought.
“Yeah,” Seohyeon muttered distractedly, trying to recall the pair of dark brown eyes she had looked into on several occasions. It seemed familiar to her, yet she couldn’t fathom why she felt that way. She was sure she had never seen the man around much - if ever - on campus.
“Who did you have dinner with, then? You never liked eating alone,” Min-ae suddenly asked, catching Seohyeon off-guard. She wasn’t expecting for her best friend to change the subject so soon, but figured out that the blonde probably couldn’t come up with any questions regarding the man in the face mask.
“I…” Seohyeon hesitated a little, biting on her lower lip as she contemplated about what to say. In the end, she heaved a small sigh, deciding that Min-ae would probably get upset whether or not she told the truth. “I actually went out with Shin-il sunbae. He happened to drop by the waterfront and caught me sitting alone there.” Or living in self-isolation, as he had put it, she recalled.
Much to her surprise, Min-ae actually remained relatively calm at the revelation and the mention of their senior’s name, merely saying that “I don’t think it’s much of a coincidence on his part, but whatever” and allowed things to slide. The blonde also muttered something about the conversation being over and wanting to go to bed seconds later, leaving Seohyeon staring in awe at her friend’s back.
She had escaped from the questions much easier than she had expected.