When you finally entered the stadium, your eyes scanned the room as you searched for bright, red hair. 

“There! There!” Eric whispered, tugging at your sleeve and pointing to the boy with a scowl on his face as he noticed the latecomers. Though the ceremony was well over halfway done, there were still two seats saved next to the glaring teenager. 

“Took you guys long enough, they’re already on J,” Sunwoo muttered as you took a seat next to him, Eric on the other side of you. 

“Well, we had to get flowers! And Eric forgot his yearbook in the car after we already started walking, so we had to turn back and get it,” You explain, however, your eyes were searching for someone on the ground floor of the stadium.

“Fuck! I knew I was forgetting something,” Sunwoo cursed, tilting his head up. Eric let out a giggle at Sunwoo’s annoyance, causing Sunwoo to reach over you and smack Eric upside the head. 

As Eric prepared for his attack, you notice the name on the screen and immediately sit up, your attention on the ceremony in front of you. “Guys, stop! He’s next!”

Sunwoo and Eric immediately put aside their differences and focused on the stage as the familiar name boomed throughout the stadium.

“Ju Haknyeon. President of the debate team and member of the dance team, graduating with a perfect grade point average! Congratulations.”

As soon as his introduction was over, the three of you jumped from your seats to cheer on the upperclassman.

“Yeah! That’s my best friend!”

“Go Haknyeon!”

Cheers littered the stadium, some of his friends from his grade cheering along with his family who were seated a few rows below you. 

You waved your hands in the air, forgetting the flowers that were in your hand, resulting in the few petals that were left on the flowers to fall on the cemented ground. 

You scratched the back of your head as you gazed at the ground in embarrassment. 

“You have got to be kidding me,” Sunwoo mumbles, pulling your hand to force you to sit down as they called the next name. “I can not take you anywhere.”

The rest of the ceremony went by quickly, much of it being Eric whispering his opinions about the graduating class into your ear as you tried to collect every petal on the floor and put it back in the flower bouquet. 

When the ceremony ended, the three of you followed Haknyeon’s family out of the venue to meet up with him. 

His mother hugged him first, tears spilling out of her eyes. Haknyeon smiled down at her, questioning her sentimentality. 

A light smile decorated your face as you watched him interact with his family. It was hard not to admire the guy you were undoubtedly in love with as he laughed with his sisters and relatives. 

Although being underclassmen, Sunwoo, Eric, Haknyeon, and you have been best friends since you were children. You guys met in daycare, and in the funny way fate worked, your moms became friends, and the rest was history. 

However, much to your demise, you had just recently fallen for Haknyeon, not realizing you were in love with your best friend until Eric pointed it out one night. It was too late for anything to happen, anyway, considering Haknyeon was going off to college after summer. 

“Hey, lovebird, let’s go,” Eric waved his hand in your face, snapping you out of your gaze. You scowled at the boy as he laughed, Sunwoo lightly shaking his head at his antics before walking towards Haknyeon. 

“Congratulations you old man!” Eric shouted, wrapping Haknyeon into a hug. Haknyeon laughed in return, lightly hitting the back of his head at the insult. 

When Sunwoo and Eric finally moved out of the way, you extended your arm out, offering Haknyeon the now-ruined flowers. 

Haknyeon merely laughs at the state of the flowers, however, he thanks you nonetheless. “How did you know I liked my flowers torn apart!”

You shook your head in response, playfully pushing him to the side with your now free hand. “I went through a lot of trouble to get those for you, so you better enjoy them.”

Suddenly noticing the disappearance of Sunwoo and Eric, you turn your head to find the two boys. 

“They’re talking to my sisters,” Haknyeon replies, somehow already knowing what you were looking for before you could even verbalize it. 

The two of you laugh as you watch Haknyeon’s younger sister grab the yearbook in Eric’s hand and lightly hit him atop the head with it. 

“Probably deserved it,” You laugh, turning your attention back to Haknyeon. “Oh, that reminds me! Can you sign my yearbook? I know we usually don’t do stuff like this, but it’s your last year, so I thought better now than never.”

You extend your yearbook out to Haknyeon, a pen clipped on top of it so Haknyeon could be the first to write whatever he wanted in the book.

Haknyeon looks down at the yearbook, a small frown on his face. “No,” He adamantly says, shaking his head. 

“What?” You question, your eyebrows furrowing at his denial. 

His frown only deepens as he looks back at you and slightly pushes the yearbook away from him as if he was warding it off. 

“I’m not signing it,” He states again.

“Why?” You look up at Haknyeon in bewilderment. You felt lines form between your eyebrows as you tilted your head to the side. 

“Because,” He starts, pausing to think about how he wanted to word his sentence. “Because only people who are going to part ways sign yearbooks, and we’re not doing that.”

Your heart clenches at Haknyeon’s words, and though you had already decided against it, your eyes begin to water thinking about Haknyeon leaving you behind.

“We’re never going to do that,” Haknyeon affirms, a serious look on his face. You could’ve sworn you hadn’t seen Haknyeon this serious in years.

When you feel the first tear roll down your face, you lean your forehead on Haknyeon’s chest, not wanting him to see how upset you were. 

“Hey,” Haknyeon wraps his arms around you, the bouquet going back to its original state as the petals fall on the floor once again. “Don’t cry. I’m not going to leave you, ever.”

You nod your head, knowing that although he couldn’t see you, he could feel your head against his chest. However, what he didn’t know was the double meaning behind your tears as you tried to calm yourself down. 

“Yah! You made her cry?” You hear Eric exclaim as you hear him walk closer to you. Soon, another pair of arms wrap around you and then another. You assume them to be Eric and Sunwoo, and your beliefs are affirmed as someone whispers in your ear. 

“C’mon, don’t cry,” Sunwoo soothingly says into your ear, patting your head with his hand. 

As you pull away from Haknyeon’s chest, you miss the knowing looks exchanged between the three boys. 

-

When Haknyeon’s family urged the four of you to get ice cream after the dinner you all had commencing Haknyeon’s graduation, you couldn’t help but find it suspicious that Sunwoo and Eric declined the offer. 

“C’mon, it’s on me!” You urged, not wanting the boys to feel left out. 

“Well, if they don’t feel well because they ate too much, you can’t force them to go,” Haknyeon rebuttals, almost as if he was arguing with you. 

“I-” You furrow your eyebrows at his behavior. “Ok, well, we can always go another time.”

You begin to get up from your seat at the restaurant, the four of you being the only people left after Haknyeon’s family left. 

“No!” Eric and Sunwoo shout simultaneously, their eyes wide. The two must have noticed their weird behavior as Sunwoo quickly clears his throat and fixes his composure. 

“I mean, Haknyeon graduated today! You have to treat him, or else it’s bad luck.”

Though Sunwoo’s logic didn’t seem to be, well, logical, you still found yourself walking along the sidewalk with a vanilla ice cream cone in your hand with Haknyeon next to you. 

It was oddly quiet between the two of you, the atmosphere still stiff from the interaction earlier today. 

“I- I have something to say,” Haknyeon finally says after a few more moments of silence. 

“It looks like you were in your head ever since we left Sunwoo and Eric. What’s up?”  You ask, questioning Haknyeon’s odd behavior. 

“I,” He takes a deep breath before continuing. “I don’t know how I ate that entire cone, I wasn’t even hungry, and my stomach has been hurting this entire time.”

You stare at Haknyeon for a few seconds before bursting out in laughter at his admittance. “Haknyeon, if your stomach hurts then you shouldn’t have eaten it. I told you we could’ve done this another day.”

Haknyeon meekly smiles before walking again, staring at the ground as he does. Though Haknyeon confessed, you couldn’t help but feel like there was something else he wasn’t telling you. 

You were only able to take one more bite of your ice cream before he spoke again. 

“I like you,” Haknyeon stops in his tracks as he blurts out the statement. Not registering his words, you take a few more steps forward, but immediately stop as his sentence registers. You abruptly turn around to face Haknyeon. 

“What?” You whisper, not wanting to take his words the wrong way. 

“I like you, like, I want to hold your hand and kiss you and tell you that I like you, every day,” Haknyeon rambles, his eyes wide as if he couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of his mouth. 

You shake your head in disbelief, the words not seeming true. “This isn’t funny, Hak. If Sunwoo or Eric put you up to this then-”

Your words get cut off as Haknyeon takes two long strides to get to you before tugging at your shirt to pull you closer and smashing his lips against yours. 

The ice cream in your hand is long forgotten as you drop it onto the ground to cup Haknyeon’s face. 

The kiss was short, yet passionate, as if this was the last time his lips would ever be on yours. There were no fireworks like they say in the movies, but it was just him, everywhere. 

You pull away first, getting dizzy from the entire situation and feeling the erupting butterflies in your stomach. You take a few seconds to catch your breath as Haknyeon does too, lightly heaving.

“I,” Haknyeon takes a breath of air. “I forgot we were in public.”

A small laugh escapes your mouth, and as soon as Haknyeon sees your reaction, he smiles too. When you take another step away from Haknyeon, you hear your shoe step on something as a loud crunch rings. 

“My ice cream!” You exclaim, stepping away from the puddle and hitting your back against Haknyeon’s chest. 

“Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll buy you a new one,” He affirms, placing a light kiss to the side of your head before taking your hand in his and lightly pulling you to start walking again. 

“It’s a date,” You reply, a dimpled-smile and a light blush overtaking your cheeks as you stare at the ground. 

“That was the plan,” Haknyeon says, a similar smile on his face. 

And at that moment in time, it didn’t matter whether Haknyeon was going off to college because he wasn’t planning on letting you go anytime soon, no matter how many dropped ice creams and ruined flowers he had to endure. 

a/n

The movie moves on from the intense scene, the girlfriend in Paranormal Activity not finding any peace from the demon that was following her. 

“I had the best idea,” You claim, moving away from leaning up against him to look at him. He was still spooked from the movie, jittery eyes following your every movement, and you couldn’t help but let out a little laugh at how easily Eric got scared.

“Just because you like horror movies does not mean you can scare me like that,” He pouts, crossing his arms over his body. 

“I’m sorry,” You giggle, poking his cheek in retaliation. “I just had a really good costume idea for Halloween.”

Eric becomes more interested in the conversation now, realizing that the holiday was only two days away, and the two of you had yet to come up with costumes. “What?” He asks. 

“What if we do matching costumes,” You reason, watching his face for any indication that he was pleased by the idea. The ideas mentioned before all seemed to be a fail because Eric didn’t want to be a baseball player three years in a row, and you had no creative bone in your body. 

“I mean,” He ponders, thinking of matching costumes that weren’t too abnormal. “I’m surprised we didn’t think of doing couples costumes earlier, what were you thinking?”

A scream emits from the screen causing Eric to look back for a second before jolting back to you, terror evident in his eyes. “Bad idea,” He whispers.

“I was thinking,” You continue. “What if you be my boyfriend for Halloween, and I be your girlfriend.”

Eric’s face morphs into disgust, backing away as if you had come up with the worst suggestion he could think of.

“We’re literally already dating,” He scoffs, rubbing his forehead like he had a headache. 

“I know, but it was a good pickup line, right?” You grin, popping another piece of Hi-Chew in your mouth. 

“I really question why I’m dating you sometimes,” He sighs, turning his attention back to the screen. As soon as he does, the main character in the movie gets dragged from her bed by an invisible figure, causing Eric to immediately shout and hide into your side. 

“Probably because I’m the only one who’ll watch horror movies with you,” You say, groaning as you feel your side begin to ache from his tight grip.

Eric shakes his head, glancing over your shoulder to look at the screen. “Changmin will watch them with me,” He reasons, eyes fixated on the scene in front of him. 

“Okay, then go date Changmin then,” You scoff. You try to pry his arms off of you, only to be pulled into him more, practically sitting in his lap. 

“Nah, I’m good,” He whispers, placing a light kiss on your neck before turning to look at you. “Everyone needs their guardian angel with them to protect them from demons.”

You can’t help the heat that arises on your cheeks, the sudden change in his behavior causing you to become flustered. 

“Yeah, well, you are the demon,” You playfully mutter, locking your arms around his neck and snuggling into him- the sudden drowsiness hitting you after your change in position.