you're gonna hate me if I say it ]

[ bro. If you tell me what the hell she told you, I'm gonna come to your room and steal your plushies >

]

[ how did you come to talk about that? How dare she say that and never tell me I'm cute? >

♡ ]

[ why didn't you tell me about it? I thought you only paid a few dollars! >

I sigh but leave the application to open the one for my bank account, and I scan my fingerprint to enter it, make a transfer, and I send him thirty dollars to keep the twenty left on it that I will need for tonight with y/n.

Now that it is done, I text him again.

[ There's some money in your bank account. And I told you already. If you need money, you tell me about it, I'm here for you and DO NOT want to get to know that you stay with no money for such a stupid reason. Okay? >

[ Idc. If you don't show me your bank account next time I ask you, I'll add even more money to it anyway, so don't even try to lie to me >

[ I love you, stop feeling bad for literally everything you do, alright? I do this because I want to and it makes me happy to be there for you all the time >

He does not answer, making me feel worried again. I know he hates the situation he is in, even if he barely talks about it, the fact that I ask my parents to give me more money so that I can always spend it on him and make sure he has enough makes him feel bad when this is his parents' fault for not giving a damn about him and his well-being. He just does not understand that, he puts the blame on himself for being who he is and believes he deserves it.

This freaking hurts me so much because I sometimes feel powerless.

[ I said I love you :( >

[ no need to thank me, I'll have enough, don't worry about it

"I'm here," y/n softly speaks through the silence that I could hear around me. "I'm sorry for making you wait so long," she apologizes for no good reason, so I quickly make sure to reassure her. "What are you talking about? It was five minutes. I'd wait for one hour or more if I had to, don't worry," I smile at her and see that my words were efficient, but my eyes cannot help peeking down at her clothes.

The jacket I love to see her wearing, with an oversized red sweater, a black checked skirt, and thigh-high socks.

I do not compliment her no matter how much I feel the urge to do it, and I just smile, but she catches me and leads us to the outside. "Let's go."

"Are you still not over the kiss I gave you?" I tease about this one thing I dared to do but cannot stop thinking about, and she giggles without putting her eyes on me. Since I want her attention a lot and get that kiss from those soft lips of hers, I move forth and cup her waist to give a small squeeze and see her twitch but bump into me.

She is like a little baby.

"Come on," I poke her waist again, loving to see her smile and hear the sound of her laughter. "Stop, please," she turns around to have her body against mine, and I give her a break. "Hm. Only if you hug me."

She does not think twice before embracing me, so I return it but squeeze her in my arms. Now that she is trapped in my clasp, I bend my knees and tighten my hold around her to pick her up, and I carry her in my arms but hear her laugh nervously. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"I'm taking you to the restaurant," I do not show any signs of weakness, but the feeling of her thighs getting crushed under the pressure of my arms sends some undeniable pleasure through me. "I can walk you know."

"Yeah, but I like this," I do not even deny it or try to hide it. "Imagine we fall right now. I'll end up on you like in k-dramas."

"No thanks," she does not share this same dream, and I gape. "How can you not want to live this type of moment?!"

"It's awkward, and it's gonna hurt," she states facts, and I cannot say otherwise. "Well...you're right but still, it'd be worth the pain."

"No," she shakes her head to still disagree with me, and I drop her on the ground. "Don't you want to make me happy and make my dream come true?"

"Falling onto a girl like in k-dramas is your dream?" she indirectly judges me, and I pretend to be offended. "So mean of you to say it like that. What's your dream? Uh?"

"Having a happy life," she saddens the mood, but I think the same. "Well, that's one of my dreams too. Don't you have like a dream that you're a bit ashamed of?"

"Hmm...not really," she makes it hard to believe it, so I try to dig a bit deeper into her mind. "Seriously? Nothing like 'One day, I'd love to make eye contact with a very attractive boy, and—" my sentence cannot even be finished that I receive a hit in my torso, but I follow her while laughing and keep her close to me. "I'm sorry, I just cited one of my dreams."

"Oh yeah, and that attractive boy is Hojun, uh?" she finds it funny to make this joke, so I poke her waist again. "Ha. Ha. You're a funny girl."

"What? That wasn't a joke," she repeats it with seriousness, and I stop walking to stare at her. "I was talking about you! You know what I meant, dammit, and stop saying he's cute or attractive all the time."

"Why? Does it bother you?" she slides her hands in the pocket of her hoodie, but I step forth to tower her with my height. "Yes, it does."

"Uh. And why is that?" she asks when she knows the answer to it, so I smirk but stick my body to hers, staring down into her eyes. "You never say that to me."

"You're a little baby," she whispers to me and steps back to leave, but I catch her arm, constantly finding a pretext to touch her. "I'm not a baby. You are."

"Me? I'm not either," she never puts an end to this argument, but I chuckle and slap the back of her head before heading to the restaurant, and I stop in front of the door. "Come on. Open for me, gentlewoman," I give her what she wants, and she does not even refuse, she opens the door for me and lets me in first.

"Thank you," I wait for her to come in as well, and we move to an empty table. "I tried to find a great place to go to but couldn't find any that was nearby, so I hope you're not disappointed..." I do not tell the truth, hiding the fact that I wanted to go to the theater with her and planned everything with the tickets but then chickened out at the last moment because I fear that she would not feel comfortable with the fact that it feels too much like a date.

"I am, but it's okay," she sits down and shoots a bullet through my heart. "Wow...alright...thank you for being honest," I join her and take my jacket off, but she leans towards me to be physically close again. "I'm joking. I love this place a lot."

"Hm," I pout to get her pity, but instead of comforting me, she slaps my arm. "Come on, stop making that face."

"You're hurting my feelings even more!" I laugh without even being able to control my reaction, and she smiles at me, feeling no guilt or empathy. "Don't you hurt mine all the time too?"

"Fine..." I do not even try to ask for a hug or anything that could make me feel better, and I drop it. "Let's eat, at least food will make me happy."

"Yeah, me too," she agrees, and we grab the menu.

•••

"Can I ask you a question?" she stops chewing on the meat to broach another topic, both of us never taking a break from being curious and questioning one another. "Yeah," I put some Kimchi in my mouth and look at her, the heat of the meat grilling in front of us radiating against my face.

"Alright, no need to answer if you don't want to, but like, I was wondering if...maybe...I know I'm talking about this again but—"

"Soul it out," I sneer at her hesitancy, seeing through her body language how difficult it is for her to let her words out. "When did you meet Hojun?"

"Five years ago, and we became friends pretty quickly," I tell her, some memories coming back to fill me with joy. "And have you stayed together since then?"

"Yes, we finished school together, we spend summer together all the time as well, we barely go out without each other, so we're like brothers because we never stay away from each other for too long and we do something everything together. Like, we picked this university together si that we knew we wouldn't be drifted apart," I Scolari to her all that could be interesting to know since she seems curious about our relationship, and that I always love talking about it.

"Oh, that's why you're so close," she now understands it more. "What about you and your best friend?" I take this small opportunity to get more information about that guy, not missing my luck. I am too possessive to not try to know more about him. He is too close to the girl I like for me to not be jealous. "We know each other since middle school, so it's been a while."

Great. I am so happy about this. "Oh, you must know each other more than anyone," I fake a smile, but the one she has on her face engender a slight hint of stinging envy inside of me. "We do. We both have the same mindset, personality, so we often agree on the same stuff and all, so that's pretty great and special to have a relationship like this."

"Hm..." I nod, swallowing the food but feeling every inch of it go down my throat. "And doesn't he have a girlfriend or boyfriend?" I cross my fingers for him to have someone, which would reassure me a lot since that means there are boundaries between them. "He doesn't, he's too busy with his studies, and he broke up a few months ago, so he doesn't think about having another relationship so soon."

"Ah yeah..." I shake my head up and down. "And did he break up with them because of studies?" I attempt to get a deeper look into this, hoping for her to not feel like I am going too far. "No, it was because the girl kept on badmouthing me. She didn't like me, for some reason, and he decided to break up with her because he doesn't stand it when someone acts like that with me."

Even better, he breaks up with his girl for her.

"But what about you? Hojun told me that your two relationships both ended because of how close you both are," she mentions the last I never like to remember if this is not just about Hojun, but I still do it for her so that we can know each other's past. "Well...yeah. It's always very complicated whenever I'm with someone because they never understand the relationship I have with him. Like, I swear I'm not a cheater, I never tried, thought about doing it, or got tempted to do it, but the last girl I dated literally told me 'It's me or him' after she got mad that I spent the day with him because his father did something to him, but I answered her and made it clear that I do not pick between anyone because I love both of them, but the love is different, and I will never forgive myself if one day, I refuse to be there for Hojun because of my girlfriend, but she didn't appreciate it because she wanted me to tell her that I pick her, so she got mad and said 'Alright, then live your life with this asshole', and that's when I lost it, I couldn't control what I was saying because of the anger, and I yelled at her, and that's when we broke up."

"Why would she even call him that? Weren't they friends?" she does not misunderstand this, to my greatest relief, and I give her more details. "They weren't close at all. At first, Hojun was pretty friendly with her, so he was kinda acting like he does with you, but at some point, she told me that she wasn't comfortable with our relationship and didn't want to talk to him anymore because she thought I was cheating on her with him. She never trusted me, and that was pretty painful for me because I was in love with her, but Hojun means the world to me too, and I have to be there for him since his life is shitty as fuck, he has no one other than me, he's always been treated like shit by his parents, so...yeah...I'm maybe in the wrong for doing this, but I can't change, and I don't want to."

"There's a question I'd like to ask you. I've been thinking about it but never really dared to ask," she doubts again, fearing that I could not react well, but I let her go ahead with ease. "Don't be scared to ask me anything you want. I'm really open to any type of topic, so don't be scared."

"I just wanted to know...like, you know with Hojun..." she takes a few seconds to be able to say it, peeking at me and glancing away many times. "Don't you have feelings for each other? Have you ever felt anything more than brotherly love?"