Last night, Namjoon slept over. I didn't though. Because he was a loud snorer. At one point, I was standing over him with a sock, threatened to shove it down his throat. And what was worse is that I was a light sleeper. Every loud snort he made in his sleep had my eyes snapping open. So, that was annoying.

I think the only times I ever truly hated Namjoon were at nights. I mean, I couldn't recall how many nights I stayed up promising to end our friendship by the next morning because of how irritating his snoring was. It was painful.

Plus, Namjoon denied it. Ever since I knew him, he had never once admitted or accepted the fact that he snored in his sleep. But despite how it pissed me off to hear and watch him dramatically defend himself, I knew it wasn't entirely his fault. He didn't know he snored. It was his only saving Grace.

I managed to finally fully fall asleep at 4am when his snoring had gone down so, when I woke up that morning, I was still feeling exhausted and drained. I frowned when I found him sat on my reading desk, eating cereal and watching me.

"And you accuse me of snoring," He said to me with a smile, shaking his disheveled hair.

"You do," I said matter of factly in a groggy voice. I rubbed my eyes, yawning tiredly.

"So do you," he accused, shrugging my shoulders.

"Me? You're a liar." I shuffled out of bed and stretched on my toes. "Where's Aqua?"

"Your loud snoring made her leave," he said with a mouth full, splattering milk all over my rug.

"Dude," I groaned, watching the white dots disappear into my dark blue rug.

Namjoon was watching the floor, too. He only dragged his socked feet over the stains in a useless attempt to wipe it off. "Sorry. I'll wash your room for you."

"You will wash my room?" I scoffed.

"Someday," he said. "Probably never."

I shook my head. He was just unbelievable. I left my room, fixing the band of my pajamas bottom. Namjoon followed behind.

"Do you have to go to school today?" Namjoon asked as I bounded the stairs.

"Do you have to ask me that question every day of my life?" I retorted.

"Please, don't go to school. We can stay back and play games all day long," he whined childishly.

"And waste a whole day of learning new things?"

"Dude, there's probably nothing even new to you anymore. What else do you need to know?"

"How to make enough money to make all the bad guys disappear," I teased.

"You can do that with 500 bucks. I know a guy."

I rolled my eyes at Namjoon's suggestion. "You're making so many bad friends."

"Not bad, my guy. Important," he said almost sounding wise. But he was Namjoon. I could never see him as wise.

"With you, there's probably no difference," I said.

There were times I wished I was like Namjoon. When I wished I was carefree and took risks without bothering about the consequences. Namjoon would jump into things, that scared me half to death, with a smile on and he would say, 'what could go wrong?' And while my mind would spiral and almost go bunkers with how much could go wrong, nothing would actually go wrong with him.

I don't know if it's luck or it's his Faith that nothing bad was going to happen. But I couldn't be like that. I couldn't be so nonchalant about things. I was a very rational person, and to a fault because it made me highly paranoid and sensitive. It made me restricted. It made me anxious. Sometimes I was worried about it. Sometines I was grateful for it because I knew I was not going to get half as lucky as Namjoon was. So, it was better to be safe than sorry.

And it made me wonder if I ever would get over the fear of having things go wrong in my life if I didn't take my time to think things through.

My mother swiveled from her stool when she heard me enter the Kitchen. "Morning. How did you sleep?" She asked, as I go over to plant a kiss on her head.

"Namjoon was here, you know the rest," I told her knowingly.

She chuckled.

Namjoon changed his gaze from a hardened glare to a soft stare. "Pay no mind to Jin. He's lying. You know me."

Mama laughed, picking up her mug. "Jin snores in his sleep, too."

"What?" I turned from the fridge to her. "I, what?!"

Namjoon burst into laughter. "I told you! You snore like a tractor!"

I ignored Namjoon and swallowed. My voice mellowed as I spoke to my mum. "Do I really snore in my sleep?"

She nodded. "Since you were a baby," she answered me. "But it's not as bad as Namjoon."

My eyes shut in disappointment at the new found information. I felt embarrassed of myself, because I had realised a misunderstood situation in middle school. Back then I had fallen asleep in assembly, throughout that day in the hallway, my schoolmates continued to look at me, smiling and whispering. Honestly, I had thought they were looking at me because of my looks—that morning Mum had commented on how handsome I looked—but I knew why now.

I shook my head, shaking off the thought and choosing to accept my fate. "Where's Aqua? I haven't seen her this morning." I made a quick glance around the room as I set my bowl down along with the carton of cereal.

"Oh, I let her out to play for a while. I'll let her back in soon," Mum explained.

I nodded. "Ah, okay." I filled my bowl and began to eat.

The room fell silent for a moment. The only sounds were from my metal spoon scraping against my bowl and Namjoon slurping the cereal without his spoon.

Mum busied herself with the morning paper which I never bothered myself with. And from outside, I could hear Aqua running around and chasing God knows what. It was a normal morning.

After breakfast, I washed my bowl and started to make my way out of the Kitchen to prepare for school when mum called me back in. "Are you going to the Library today?" She asked me, folding the newpaper in half.

I shook my head. "I'm not sure. Why?" I asked.

"Come home straight, okay? I need you to clear the guest room."

"Are we having a guest over?" I asked curiously. Even from our family, it had been ages since we had guests over, that was why we transformed it into our parking store.

"Your Aunt Soohyun," She explained. Her best friend from University.

"Aunt Soohyun? I thought she was in London," I asked.

Mum nodded. "She's visiting Korea and since we have an extra room, I told her she could come stay with us until she leaves. I'm hoping to convince her to move here permanently."

I nodded. "So, when does she arrive?"

"Next tomorrow, but I need this place tidied today."

I nodded in understanding. "Will do. I'll have Namjoon move the heavy stuff," I said as I began to head up the stairs. Luckily, Namjoon had slipped back upstairs so he didn't hear us.

"Oh God, no," My mum cried. "That child is so thin. He'll snap his spine or collapse."

Chuckling, I shook my head. "He'll live, Mum."

I freshened up and changed into my uniforms. I wanted to so badly toss my extra pair at Namjoon and make him come with me. I hated that he dropped out and did absolutely nothing with his life except chase after guys old enough to be his father.

He laid on my bed, laughing into his phone. Momentarily, I wondered whom his current prey was but I wasn't ready for the argument that would accompany the question. I didn't want to go late to school. I finished dressing up, gathered my books into my backpack and turned to him.

"Are you leaving anytime soon or do you intend to waste away in my room all day while your mates are out and about trying to secure a future for themselves?"

He smiled up at me and showed me a finger heart. "Have a good day, baby." In other words, his future meant nothing to him and he'd rather spend the day sleeping and eating my food. He was a lost cause.

"Don't burn down my house," I warned as I made my way out of the room, shutting it behind me. Halfway down the stairs, he connected his phone to my bluetooth and started blasting Lana Del Rey.

I left the house with my heart a bit out of it's socket like it always was whenever Namjoon stayed over, alone. My walk to school took a little over fifteen minutes. Although, the bus I always took to school was at the bus stop when I had passed, I decided against going on because the weather had looked warm and friendly.

At the school gate, I remembered what mum had said to me about the guest room so I pulled out my old iPhone 8 and sent a text to Namjoon.

Don't leave. Have a surprise for you after school.

With that sent, I walked into the school compound and once again, became part of a community of scholars. The school compound was littered with boys and girls dressed in ash blazer over white shirt and black trousers/skirts. Chattering, loud laughter, horns and then, I felt a clap on my back and heard a cheerful, "Hey, bro!"

I turned and Yoongi was falling in step next to me, with a grin on his face. "So, that history assignment was something, huh?" He was bouncing next to me, his breath smelling of strawberry, courtsey of the lollipop hanging from his lips.

"Yeah. It was. I spent all of last night on it."

He gasped and I turned to see him in pretend shock. "You, Jin, spent all of last night doing homework?"

I shook my head, chuckling. "Yes, Yoongi. I have a hard time doing homework sometimes, too." It was amusing and ridiculous how my classmates thought of me as Einstein because of my grades because I knew how hard it was for me.

I had to study extra hard to keep up with schoolwork. If we had a quiz on a Thursday, I studied all of Wednesday night/Thursday morning. If I walked into an examination hall without studying, I'd flop. I forgot things easily, so I had to study often to remember.

"Sure, sure. But you're like so intelligent. You're definitely going to be valedictorian, you know? You or Taehyung. That dude's head is on fire, as well. You both have fucking volcanoes burning up there," he said, tapping the side of his own head.

Yeah, Taehyung. He was alright, I guess. And by alright, I mean he was just as on fire as Yoongi had gushed about. He'd won the Mathematics state's championship three years in a row. He was the pride and joy of the school. And I was honestly happy for him because he worked hard for it. Very hard.

Oh, and I knew that because, before Namjoon, Taehyung used to be my closest friend. Now, we don't even speak in the same space. If we were in a room and he spoke, I'd stay quiet. When I spoke, he'd keep shut. That was life. Shit happens.

My phone vibrated in my front pocket. It was my insane friend.

Joonie: Whaaaaat? A surprise. Nailing myself to the floor of your room.

Good. I nodded to myself and with Yoongi still following me and talking about how he was going to run for student body president for the new school year that just begun, I made my way to my locker. We had our lockers in the hallway, and mine was at the extreme end of the second floor, close to my first class of the day.

"I've always had a dream to become president," he said, leaning on the locker next to mine and staring off into space with a faraway look. "You should run."

"I thought you wanted to run."

"Well, I'm not as smart as you."

"Putting yourself down is not going to help you be student body president," I told him, placing my books into my locker, leaving just my notebook and English Textbook, since that was what we had for first period. "You have to believe in yourself, man."

"Oh, no, no, no. I believe in myself. I just also believe you'll make a better president."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence but I'm not interested." I was already way under the spotlight than I had hoped for. I wanted to spend my last year as quietly as possible without going for every competition, debate or excursion. Nothing extracurricular, just regular school stuff. It wasn't exactly an advisable thing to do but I was, honestly, tired to making my entire life all about school work. I had nothing else going for me besides that but I just wanted to take it down a notch. "You run for it. I'll vote for you and support you in any way that I can, yeah?"

I turned away, glad we had the conversation, more glad it was over. But standing in front of me was Taehyung, then he turned to Yoongi and spoke. "Excuse me. Can we talk, Yoongi?"

I didn't stand around to hear their conversation, less because of how uncomfortable it was and more because I didn't care what they had to discuss. I gathered my materials in my arms and removed myself from the equation, tapping Yoongi once on his arm as he nodded his okay to Taehyung.

Classes came and went as normally as they could. During History, Mrs. Lee had picked special interest in my Goryeo monarch, Gwangjong of Goryeo. Turned out, she and a bunch of my female classmates had watched a Korean drama that had been based on his life.

It had turned into a topic of discussion and while I sat back and watched them argue back and forth, surfing through google, checking on his life and comparing it to the series adaptation, already knowing from their complete involvement that I was getting an A, our English teacher, Mr. Cho was handing his resignation letter to the principal.

School went by fast. Seconds turned into minutes and then hours, and soon it was three and the whole school became a market place. Everyone was happy to go home, smiling wider, laughing louder than they did this morning.

I took the bus home that afternoon. The lovely weather of this morning must have been pissed off whilst school had been in session, because the dark clouds hanging over in the sky was full of threat to divide the city in two. I didn't want to risk getting rained on, so I fetched my bus pass and took a seat at the back of the bus, plugged my earbuds and headed home.

Namjoon was in the living room, sprawled on his stomach on the floor with a bowl of cereal in front of him when I got back. "Yo," he called as I stepped in waving at me. "How was educationing?" He asked, but before I could retort that educationing was not a word and he'd have known that if he hadn't dropped out of school he added, "Your.. um.. dad's friend called the house line this morning."

I felt instant irritation. I chewed my bottom lips until it started to hurt then when he turned to look at me, I shrugged. "Cool," I said.

Namjoon knew so he dropped it. Whatever message had been passed to him, he knew passing it on to me would not end well for him. So, if it was anything important, he'd wait until my mum got back and then he'd tell her. "So, my brother's band is taking a little break."

"Oh."

"Oh?" I heard the amusement in his voice. He was probably going to start teasing me. He always took his time to embarrass me because he rarely had the chance to do it. "Are you excited?"

"Is he coming back?"

"Yup. For a week or so. But you should know this, don't you like stalk all his socials?" He wriggled his brows.

Not anymore. I haven't known anything about Hoseok's life for a long time. It was best not knowing.

"Shut up," I said to him, instead.

"Where's my surprise?" He asked, sitting up, forgetting the bowl of soggy cornflakes.

For a second, I was lost. What surprise was he talking about? Then, it hit me. Oh, that surprise. The one I promised to give him after school. I nodded. "Let me change first."

"You can't leave me in suspense! I spent all day searching your room for it."

"It's not in my room." With that, I left to change. I didn't bother showering seeing as Namjoon and I were about to get really dirty. When I got back, he was pouring the soggy cereal into the sink and watching the milk drain through the holes with utmost fascination.

I guess it was time to give him his surprise. "Let's go," I said, and started to walk away, down the hall to where the guest room was. Namjoon jogged after me. I felt his excitement and it was hilarious to get his hopes up only to smash it with the truth that his surprise was going to be him swimming in dust for the next two hours.

I turned the key at the mouth of the door, bent the handle and pushed it open, then gestured into the room as a sneeze escaped me. I exclaimed, "TADA!"

Namjoon peeked into it, squinting, his brows furrowed, his face a mix of curiousity and confusion. He was looking for his gift. "Where is it?" So adorable.

I smiled at him. "Can't you see it?"

"All I see is dusty useless stuff."

"Exactly. I'm giving away all the dusty useless stuff to you, and in appreciation for my kind gesture, you're going to help me move heavy furniture and clean this mess of a room because my mum's best friend is coming to stay with us and this room needs to be tidied before she gets here in 2 days." With that, I pulled out a face mask, wore it and stepped into the room, pushing things with my leg to create a walkable path.

"You can't do this to me, Jin." I heard Namjoon say. "I was excited for the surprise."

"Shut up and help me out. I have-"

"Assignment to do," he said, mimicking me. I didn't sound like that, like a low budget Bugs Bunny. "You always have assignment to do. If doing homework was actually a way to success, my father would not be a multimillionaire."

"Your dad is smart. Street smart. If you want to be successful, you have to be book smart or street smart. Your dad is street smart. You're street stupid that's why you go around dating married men and getting chased like a criminal."

"Oh my God," He groaned, rolling his head around to indirectly say I was tiring him with the topic. "You're killing me, my bro. Can you forget that ever happened?"

"Will you help me clean this place then?" It was time for negotiation. Life was all about give and take. Compromise. If he helped me clean the room then I'd give up the pleasure of constantly reminding him of his many mistakes.

He glared at me, but nodded his head like a cartoon character. "Yes."

I walked over to him, tapped him on his face and held out the extra mask I'd brought to him. "Good decision, my bro."