𝐏𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑 | 𝘬𝘮𝘨

𝙫𝙞.

He gasped at my accusation. "ME? STARING AT YOUR PHONE? HOW DARE YOU."

I only gave Mingyu a blank stare throughout his offended "speech." The fact he was raising his voice and acting so out of character gave his bluff away so I just let him continue. After he finished though, he just crossed his arms and went to sulk in the corner—the corner being the edge of his seat in the van.

"You don't have to lie, you know that right bitch boy?" Silence ensued between the two of us. I see how it is, he's using the silent treatment huh? For some reason all my life I've had the largest hate against the silent treatment—probably trauma. Because like you can curse me out or whatever but the moment you start ignoring me? That's when it's too far.

I then stopped to cringe at myself. What the fuck? Why did I want his validation oh my god! But of course, I had to uphold my ego so I tried to shrug it off and act like I didn't care one bit, not one bit at all. Thankfully my act didn't have to go on longer seeing as the bus came to an abrupt stop and a huge yell caused me to practically jump out of my seat.

Looking over at Mingyu who was grabbing his bag, I figured that meant we had arrived. Earlier in the day I researched the restaurant that Hosh said we would be going to. Surprisingly yet unsurprisingly it was a 5-star restaurant in Gangnam, not to mention one of the most high-end ones. Well if I'm being honest I kind of expected this seeing as their career was so successful and the fact that even the chill clothes they were wearing were entirely name-brands. And even despite looking put together, I sort of felt self-conscious to wear something so casual at such a fancy restaurant.

I contemplated pulling my oversized sweater over my outfit but that wasn't any less casual than what I already had on so that was scratched. But after contemplating for a while I just settled for going along with it. The 80-degree weather seemed to not even matter—I just had to look good.

"Ji!" Just after we exited the van, Hoshi came running up to me and attempted to jump on my back. Seriously why does he keep thinking I can carry a grown-ass man like him? I'm surprised my back isn't broken by now. Thankfully though he slid off and resorted to hugging me as we walked, simultaneously starting a deep explanation of why Dino is horrible at gaming.

I was completely immersed in his surprisingly interesting rant until I felt a nudge on my shoulder causing Hoshi to let go of me to balance himself. As I looked ahead to see who the culprit was, my eyes landed on Mingyu's. He was looking directly at me, sending shivers down my spine. I quickly looked away though trying to save myself from the thoughts conjuring up in my head only to notice we had now reached our table.

I guess I had been so immersed that I didn't notice we had already been checked into the restaurant and were called to be led to our table. Or should I say enormously large table? Seeing as we were such a large party, our table was fucking huge. But what confused me though was that we were in our private little room. Well actually, they were celebrities. They probably put in an extra request with the restaurant so the press wouldn't ambush them. Look at me go, the first day on the job and I'm already an intellectual in the idol culture.

Seungcheol thanked the waitress and they all started finding their seats as if they had some sort of a seating chart, which they probably did. Thankfully Hosh noticed my awkward stance and invited me to sit next to him. I gladly accepted until I realized who was going to be to my right. Seriously what does this world have against me?

I tried my best to scoot my seat closer to Hoshi to hopefully avoid any unneeded interaction with bitch boy. Even though he probably didn't give a shit about me right now there was nothing I wanted to do more than get away from him. It's just the tension because of earlier that was weirding me out not to mention our first interaction which completely rubbed me the wrong way.

Luckily though, seventeen have weirdly interesting conversations and I found myself almost dying laughing at their stories and contributing just to shit talk Hoshi to show my love for him. Yes, the alcohol and good food were probably making everything funnier, but it was peak entertainment regardless.

As I was taking a bite of my food, my phone buzzed in my back pocket. All of the members were currently immersed in another one of Seokmin (my new best friend)'s stories so none of them seemed to notice when I pulled out my phone. I was extremely confused seeing as I had my phone on silent with only my favorite contacts allowing notifications.

Trying not to disturb the fun environment, I checked my phone under the table only to notice the message was from my brother and all that I could see from the lock screen was a message that read

Call whenever you're free, it's urgent

Panic immediately filled my mind. My brother wasn't one to type so seriously let alone message me at all, so my head went straight to the worst.

"Hey Hosh, I'm gonna head to the bathroom," I whispered to Hoshi and he nodded his head in understanding. He seemed to not notice my urgency as I was notorious for hiding my emotions when needed. I'm not a fan of always hiding emotions of course, but let's just say my skill comes in clutch for situations like this.

Making my way down the hallway I shorty realized that I had no idea where I was going. Honestly, my urgency was what was driving me so I had forgotten to stop and ask for directions. I refused to stop though and I continued to let myself make it outside the restaurant. I stepped into a more secluded area and went to immediately call my brother.

"Hyun, what's up what's going on?" There was a clear hint of worry in my voice and I found myself pacing around a bit to keep myself from freaking out.

"Jiyeon, mom...she um." His voice was breaking and at the mention of my mom, I immediately went into more of a panic state.

"What Hyunjae? What about mom?" He took a deep breath.

"Mom had one of her freakouts again and kicked me out." My immediate reaction was to sigh. Our mom was the quite opposite of stable and honestly some part of me wondered why dad was still with her. It was so bad that sometimes it felt like she wasn't even our mom, just some person who had a bad case of the superiority complex.

And it's not like this certain action was unpredictable either. She did that to me a few times when I was a teenager and I guess she must have not fulfilled her satisfaction through me so much that her pathetic ass had to do the same for her other child. Sure, we would come home the next day after staying at a friend's house and all would be well and #worldpeace but regardless, it was tiring. Mom was just tiring.

Not to mention the fact that Hyunjae didn't have a car or was even old enough to get his license so besides calling me he had no options except for 'roughing it out' on a bench for the night since all of his friend's parents were relatively strict. Luckily for me, a few of my friends' parents didn't give a shit about who their kids were hanging out with so whenever mom got in a bad mood I always had somewhere to crash. But then again, Hyunjae and I weren't exactly similar, and well different people attract different friendships.

"Are you um. . .okay, I guess" All of a sudden a voice rang through the courtyard practically scaring the personality out of me. And that was saying a lot not even Soonyoung could do that. As soon as I finally processed that a person had just spoken to me I looked up to see who it even was and the moment I did, a scoff left my mouth.

Seriously why is he here again!?