Entangled With You (B X B)

Chapter 12 : To be my friend

The message Jisun sent was left read only. After days passed by Minjun still didn’t know what to reply. He had an idea to ask Chan about it, but he abandoned it right after it crossed his mind. Chan wouldn’t help him without teasing him about it first, and he knew that he wouldn’t have the energy to be patient later.

Minjun exhaled a tired breath.

“What is it?” An annoyed voice was talking to him.

Minjun looked at his side. There was Kyungsoo, looking at him- crossed that- glaring at him with those big eyes of his. They were so big that Minjun could never get used to it. It either scared him or amazed him. But the thing was, despite those adorable eyes Kyungsoo had, Minjun really couldn’t find any of his traits adorable.

Minjun rolled his eyes and ignored him.

“Quit it already. You look sappy, it's f*****g annoying.”

See? Kyungsoo could easily become anyone’s favorite friend if he wanted to. But he chose to act contrary to his innocent look instead. What a pity.

Well, who was Minjun to say those? He himself was not that great either.

“Am annoying?”

The guy lifted one of his eyebrows to show him how stupid the question could be, “You opened and closed that certain message on your phone more than thirteen times alread. And yes, I counted.”

He sighed and gave up, “I just don’t know what to reply. That’s all.”

Kyungsoo scoffed at that.

During their self-study times, Kyungsoo was drawing something that looked like a wolf. It looked cool, if anyone asked for Minjun’s opinion. But no one asked so he kept the thought to himself. As for Minjun, he had this Business Fundamental book on his table, opened but not yet to be read.

Minjun turned his phone off, feeling embarrassed after getting caught acting strange by his seatmate. He then shoved it down his pocket.

The university exam was still eight months away but Minjun knew time would quicken its pace at its randomest event. He needed to be ready and prepared. He also needed to try harder, like Chan said, he wasn’t that brilliant.

So Minjun started to read the book he just purchased online last week. He was on the first page and everything that was written was thankfully still easy to digest by his humble brain. He was ready to move to another page when Kyungsoo suddenly talked.

“You don’t have to reply, just talk to that person directly.” Kyungsoo talked without even batting a single glance at him, still focused on his drawing. Then with a sigh he continued, “I just don’t understand there’s people who still want to be friends with you. He even bothered to text you those cringey words… ah goosebumps.”

Minjun froze on his seat.

“You snooped at my phone?”

“I told you, I counted. Whatever. I don’t care, I’m telling you this just so you’ll stop looking at your phone or stop thinking about it for a while. We are in our senior year, I’m telling you.”

Nothing wrong with the things Kyungsoo had said and Minjun knew it was right. So he stayed silent.

-

It was not until another day that Minjun finally knew what to do. Honestly Minjun didn’t know either why he was so bothered by that text he got from Jisun. Why he was bothered by Jisun at all. But maybe...

[From : Han Jisun]

‘hyung, i wanna be your close friend too’

‘tell me how’

Maybe it was the way Jisun made those words and sent them to him. How Jisun was telling him what he wanted so blatantly and wide in the open, to be his friend. It was a dramatic way to ask someone to be friends with, but maybe Jisun didn’t care about his image at all. Maybe it was just how Jisun was. So open. And Minjun was not used to it. It was the first time for him.

Usually, friendship would come to him so casually. Just like how he naturally and casually befriended Chan. No one ever ‘asked’ him to be one like Jisun just did.

[To : Han Jisun]

hej, lets meet

I’ll share the location

But maybe it was not all of those above either. Maybe Minjun was only curious about what made the younger boy want to be his friend. He was curious as to why Jisun even looked at him at all.

After one hour with no reply from the younger, Minjun called Chan saying that he couldn’t make it to their dinner routine today. He wished Chan would tell him that Jisun couldn’t make it too, so Minjun at least would know that Jisun already read his message. But till the second they hung up, Chan didn’t tell him anything about Jisun. So Minjun hung up feeling a bit dejected.

The sound of the ball bouncing echoing throughout the playroom. Minjun played the orange ball for almost twenty minutes already, alone. He wasn’t a basketball player to begin with so he couldn’t score any ball even when he was a solo player.

Minjun couldn’t play this, yet he asked Jisun to meet at a basketball court. He even rented the whole playroom for it.

At first he intended to meet at a court near Jisun’s house, but Minjun didn’t even know where the boy lived.

Then he went for another option, that one court not too far from his own house. But he remembered it had always been ‘booked’ by a certain group, while the place itself was a public facility.

Sigh, this is ridiculous

The only person in that empty court bounced the ball more persistently this time, the sound it made became louder and louder it could hurt anyone’s ear. But to Minjun, the louder the sound the better. So he dribbled the ball faster each time.

Minjun started running, dribbling the ball around the court, not too fast yet not slow either. He couldn’t play this game, but he could pretend that he knew how to play. He could play without knowing the rules and just enjoy the sweat that started to dampen his body.

Whether Jisun came or not, Minjun could still enjoy this.

Minjun rented the indoor court for one hour, and it was nearly the time to end, so he laid on the floor to cool himself down for a while. The rise and fall of Minjun’s chest were apparent.

The operator came running and opened the door to the court Minjun rented, probably to remind him that his time had almost ended. The squeaking sound of the shoes stopped not too far from where Minjun sprawled out.

Minjun lifted himself up, “Alright, I’m done here-”

But it was not the operator. It was the very person Minjun had been waiting for when he had never been made to wait for anyone before. But Minjun didn’t have the time to question his own actions right now.

“Jisun?” Gone were all the light feelings Minjun managed to gain from the exercise minutes ago. His shoulder suddenly became heavy again.

“Am I late?”

Minjun wanted to laugh because wasn’t it obvious? Why would this guy even ask about it? But he still answered anyway, “You’re fifty three minutes late.”