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My knock is soft on his door. The papers and textbooks I balance in my free arm threaten to spill out of my hold.

Jeongguk and I had put the boys to bed twenty minutes ago. I had been planning on going to sleep as well but something inside had stopped me. Had told me I had to do better and do more. It had taken another ten minutes to collect all of my scattered notes and materials and trek my way through the desolate halls of the manor to his room.

Jeongguk answers the door a moment later, looking wide awake despite my own exhausted state.

He grimaces. "Do I have to do a plastic-detector test to see if you have a water gun on you?"

"Not tonight," I say. "Tonight I come in peace."

"Really?"

"No. Unfortunately I come bearing more flashcards."

"The horror."

He remains positioned blocking entrance. His arm is still gripping the door while the other maintains purchase on the doorframe.

"So," I quip, shifting the load in my arms. "Are you just going stare at the bags under my eyes or are you going to let me in?"

He blinks. "I..."

"That's what I thought," I muse, pushing forward. "I have no bags under my eyes."

Jeongguk scoffs. He steps back and allows me to enter his bedroom.

While I used to know his room like the back of my hand, I feel like I've stepped into a completely different space. The king-sized bed is now pushed against the right wall as opposed to the left. His overflowing desk now is now framed by the window and the gaming table is new. It and the TV face the leather couch that cleaves the room, yet they both still face the bed.

Above all, I notice his super hero and celebrity model posters have been replaced by his own pictures, sketches, and paintings. His walls are littered with pieces of art of his own creation, painting a sea of what Jeongguk sees, what he finds beautiful, what he finds inspiring.

The boy himself suddenly skirts past me, snatching up littered laundry and trying to make sense of the already decently neat room. Neat, save for his desk. He seems almost embarrassed by the state, but I know for a fact I still havent fully organized my own temporary one since Sejun went through my suitcase the first day I'd met him.

"Sorry," he says, scratching the nape of his neck. Something catches his gaze and he lurches forward. He chucks a pink thong behind his head. "I really didn't expect you to, you know, be in here."

"Neither did I." I swallow, gesturing towards the couch. "May I?"

"I— yeah. Go ahead."

I sink into the cushions. My limbs are still stiff and my back is drawn straight like an arrow. I still feel awkward. This evening the boys had provided a third party to distract from the underlying tension between us, but now that it's just him and I, and god do I miss their antics.

I still don't know what him and I are.

Friends. We're... friends.

Or something along the lines of that.

I feel the couch sink next to me as Jeongguk hesitantly settles in a respectable distance away. I toss him what I hope to be a smile before searching the pages in my lap.

His figure remains in the corner of my eye. I watch as he tries crossing his legs. Leans back in the couch with his arms crossed. Props an elbow on his knee. Smooths his hair back frantically. I feel slightly better that he also doesn't know how to act around me.

He finally settles on bracing his arm across the couch, though I have an inkling it's the position he'd been caught in when I'd handed him the paper I'd been looking for.

He frowns. "What's this?"

"All the terms you got wrong this evening." I shift closer, pointing near the bottom where I'd written a separate set of footnotes. "These are the pages of the textbook you need to study."

His eyes jerk up to mine. "Really?"

"Really," I reply, "and tonight we're getting through section one through three."

His eyes bulge. "Three sections?"

"You still want your spot on the football team, don't you?" I level my gaze with his. "You still want to graduate and go to university?"

"Yes—"

"Then we're going to do these three sections tonight."

He peers down at the pages before him, soaking in my chicken scrawl. He then glances towards the Biology texbook I'd left face up on the couch.

He smirks, taking in the picture printed of the author at the back. "What's up with this hipster biologist?"

"He's wearing skinny genes," I say without missing a beat.

Jeongguk scowls. "That was horrible."

I ignore his jab and grab the textbook. I turn to section one, splaying the pages across the expanse of cushion that separates us.

"Do you want this or not?"

His head lolls back. Eyes fluttering closed, he heaves a sigh. It takes centuries before he replies.

"Yes, Taehee. I want this."

"Like you have a choice."

I dodge the fist aimed for my shoulder.

And then I start to teach.

•••

We make halfway through section three when I notice Jeongguk's focus completely fading with no salvation to be had.

While he'd once been drinking in my words and explanations like a man starved of water, he was now slowly burning out. He's twiddling his pen between his fingers, gazing at a sketch of his on his wall and seeming distracted every time I ask a probing question.

A quick glance at my phone tells me it's midnight. We've been at this for nearly three hours, and I myself am growing sleepy.

"Okay," I say, slamming the textbook shut. "That's enough for tonight."

Jeongguk sits straighter as I stand up. I move to collect my things that litter the couch.

"You're leaving?"

I cast him a curious glance as I begin to stack my arms with papers. "Shouldn't I?"

"No." He stands with me. "I want to show you something."

I fake gasp. "Is it your collection of belly button lint?"

"Even better."

"Better than belly button lint? Now this I have to see."

He starts walking backwards towards his desk, pointing a finger at me. "Prepare to be amazed."

I follow hesitantly, only to stop as he braces his hands on the edge of his desk. He pushes with ease, causing a handful of pens and stationary clatter to the floor. He kicks them out of the way, leaving a clear path to the giant window.

Which he promptly opens.

"Okay, cool," I quip, resting my papers on the arm of his couch. "So this is a mission impossible type of deal. I feel like water guns would have been perfect for this scenario."

Jeongguk expertly crawls through the space and onto the roof. He then presses a finger to his ear, miming like he's talking to someone on the other line of an in-ear.

"Yes, the target is on her way. She's just taking fucking forever to get to the loading dock. How many times can one trip over their own two feet?"

It's an effort not to roll my eyes as finally make it to the open window and accept his outstretched hand. "Bruno will be happy to know I've found the person I want to throw a grenade at."

Jeongguk snickers as he pulls me through the wooden frame and out onto the roof. The early autumn breeze carries hints of sunburnt summers as it caresses my skin and twins in my hair. The rough shingles of the roof prickle my feet as I work to steady myself.

Jeongguk makes sure I'm solid before leading the way. "Come."

I follow, arms splayed outward like an airplane as we make our way across a flat expanse of roof. The ground seems miles away, but it's nothing compared to how close I feel to the sky. The blanket of night wraps me in it's comforting arms. The sprinkle of stars light the way across the shingles.

Jeongguk eventually uses the flashlight from his phone to illuminate part of the manor that shoots upward about three feet. He places his phone on the edge before hauling himself up onto the top of the house.

I shrug off the hand he offers me this time, wanting to try myself. Though my nerves are fried to shit, I follow the path he took, using the spare protruding nail lodged in the wood as leverage to lift myself up.

I beach my stomach on the roof like a whale stranded halfway to shore, legs kicking out into midair. I quickly swing my left leg, knee scraping against a slate as I use the momentum to push my body to the top of the manor. I roll onto my back to the extent that is possible on a slanted surface before struggling to my feet.

Jeongguk coughs, and I hear what suspiciously sounds like "gracious" fall from quirked lips.

I flip him off.

We climb the short but steady incline that it takes to reach the peak of the roof, and then it's all I can do not to gasp.

Past the expanse of forest and quiet suburbia lays the sleepy city. Much like a drunk drawing up a blueprint, the teetering skyscrapers, towers and colossal buildings seem to have but one goal: make it towards the horizon to find comfort in tomorrow. But from this height they're so small, utterly overshadowed by the sprawling ceiling of stars.

Sometimes perspective is important. And upon the Jeon's roof, looking down at the hazy glow of lights before me, I feel like I'm on top of the world.

I don't quite register sitting down next to him. The world is blissfully silent aside from the dull hum of cicadas and the occasional breeze. Jeongguk and I sit in perfect silence from our own perch of paradise, gazing out into the world spread before us.

"Your mom's going to kill you if she finds out you've been sneaking up onto the roof," I finally say, still overcome by the sight before me.

"Not if I tell her you took me up here."

"Oh, please." I laugh softly. "Your mom loves me."

"Which is exactly why I brought you up here," he says, bumping his shoulder with mine. "For collateral. Besides, Iseul has to be managed somehow. He's impossible without you."

"You'll do just fine without me." I think back to the other day when I'd had to talk the boy down from spray painting his brother's room purple. "On second thought, maybe not."

"Love the vote of confidence." Jeongguk smiles before loosing a sigh. "And to think, after getting two new brothers I'm also getting a sister."

Something heavy settles in my chest as I take in the situation he's in. I didn't think he'd want to speak of her, but she deserves a brother like him. Like Chul and Sejun. She deserves what Jeongguk's father couldn't give him, and what these three boys could give her.

"What's her name?" I ask softly.

"Hyeon." He glances down at hands that are tightly interwound. "Apparently she has my dad's eyes. Like Iseul and I."

"She sounds lovely."

"She is." He smiles faintly, and in his starry eyes I can see the adoration. "He said she gripped his hair so hard she'd left a bald patch."

I nudge his shoulder. "Seems like she's on track to becoming a true Jeon."

This elicits a laugh. He sobers quickly though. "Did you end up texting your dad back?"

"No." I pick at the hangnail on my thumb. Something acrid boils in my gut. "Not yet."

Jeongguk hesitates before dropping it, somehow sensing I didn't want to be pushed on the subject. Maybe it was the way I'd tensed up or the sharpness in my tone. No matter the reason, I'm happy he didn't push. Not when things are slowly smoothing out between us. Slowly but surely.

The past is the past, but it still has a way to come back and haunt you.

And I'm trying my hardest to keep these ghosts at bay.

But up here on top of the world everything else seems small. There's just me and the boy I've known my whole life, looking down on what seems so small and insignificant in the scheme of things.

We are but blips on Earth's trajectory.

But maybe it's high time I start letting Jeongguk in on the past blips in my own bumpy trajectory.

We sit up there for a while longer. I'd have thought it'd been minutes, but a notification from Gi on Jeongguk's phone whishing him goodnight tells me it's two am.

Funny how time seems to pass fast when you don't want it to.

Jeongguk makes his way down the roof first. As much as I do my best to make sure the three foot descent from one part of the roof to the other is mostly from my doing, Jeongguk still brackets my waist with his hands and eases me onto solid ground. He also helps me climb back through the window once more.

Though he does slip on one of his discarded pens on the way to his door and ends up flat on his ass.

I'm rewarded with a colourful string of curses directed towards me as I try to shush both him and my cackling.

"Goodnight, then." I give him a mock salut at the doorway. "I'll see you bright and chipper at dawn."

"Only four more hours to go."

"Gee, thanks for the reminder." I grimace, scratching the nape of my neck to rid myself of the heat crawling up my throat. "...and tonight was fun. Really. It was nice."

Jeongguk offers me a teasing smile as he leans against his doorframe. "Of course you would call studying fun."

"You know what I mean." I tuck my hair behind my ear. "Thanks for making the world seem small."

"Anytime."

He gives me one last smile before I turn down the hall towards my bedroom, feeling like the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders for a moment in time.

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long overdue chapter but some progress? and some emotional stuff?? and bad biology puns??? honestly what more could you ask for????

also in 2020 i was deadset on making it to chapter 20 bcs i had so much time with the pandemic to write (i thought it would be easy). from around the end of 2021 to the start of 2023 i genuinely did not think i would ever reach it. but now here we are july 2023 still going and we have FINALLY made it to chapter 20!!

sunny — 1

writer's block — -3848948484

hugs and kisses,
sunny ☼