I struggle to lift my suitcase into the boot of the car, having to use my leg to balance said suitcase off the ground. Fortunately, Kai notices my struggling and he reaches over to help me load my cargo into the boot with a strained groan. When he rhetorically asks me if I packed my entire family in my suitcase, I jokingly reply that my extended family is coming along too. While he's grinning in amusement, he eventually manages to lift my heavy suitcase off the ground enough to place it in the boot.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch my older brother exiting the house.
As he's walking over to me, I scowl in both confusion and premonition. He's either here to see me off or to embarrass me and I am leaning into it being the latter.
That is until I see the camera swinging around over his shoulder and a sigh of relief escapes me. I must have forgotten to pack it in my suitcase. I thought I did; I guess I did not. I would have cried if I left without my camera because of the number of videos and pictures I would have missed out on taking... too many to count. This is why I love my brother sometimes. He is a nuisance a majority of the time I'm around him, but the little gestures like this, they make up for it.
"You forgot your camera," he says to me once stood before me and I take it from him gratefully.
"Did you bring the one I bought for you?" Kai muses behind me and I nod my head to answer his question.
After contemplating on whether I should put the camera in the suitcase, I instead safely wound the neck strap around my shoulder, remembering the hassle it was zipping the suitcase closed.
"Keiji?" Yang Jin murmurs in surprise and slowly I turn around, blinking in surprise.
"Yang Jin?"
With my face pulling in flabbergast, I ask, "Wait, you two know each other?"
"Yeah," my brother responds distractedly, his gaze still firmly stuck on the other participant in this conversation who I notice swallowing a gulp down his throat almost fearfully. What exactly is going on?
My gaze flickers around between them and my mouth parts awkwardly. "Uh... how—"
"How do you know my younger brother? Seong Jin, why are you hanging around this guy?"
"He's a friend, I guess. Wait, how the hell do you two know each other?"
"Why the fuck are you hanging around Seong Jin?" Yang Jin demands, glowering past me at the guy standing behind me.
Even though my mind is in a bemused haze of some sort, in fear of a physical altercation happening, I quickly put a hand against my brother's chest and block his path to him. Still Yang Jin is glaring at him over my shoulder, and I can already feel the tension turning the air unpalatable and thick, you'd need more than a scissor to cut through it.
Yang Jin then looks down at me and earnestly says, "Seong Jin, stay away from this guy. He's bad news."
"What are you on about? He's my friend."
"I don't care. Break whatever friendship you have with him. You don't want to be hanging around the likes of him, trust me. He's bad news. He'll ruin your life."
Ruin my life? While blinking rapidly, I throw my head over my shoulder to look at Kai for an explanation. "What is he on about?"
He doesn't meet my gaze and instead addresses Yang Jin, "I'm not that sort of guy anymore, Yang Jin. Can we not do this in front of him, please? I haven't told him about that yet. Can we have a sidebar so I can at least explain myself?"
Yang Jin neither agrees nor disagrees with the proposed sidebar. He merely stares him down venomously.
I'm standing here, wondering what the actual fuck is going on. What has he not told me yet? My gaze swiftly shifts over to puncture his face enquiringly. What is actually going on? I feel like I'm in a fever dream of some sort. There's no way this is real, right? Before even talking about why my brother is warning me to stay away from him, I want to know how they even know each other.
After a few seconds of unfilled silence, my brother spins on his heels and walks over to the side, arching his eyebrow expectantly when Kai doesn't follow along. Then while burying his chin in his chest, he decides to drag his feet over to my brother. I look around at the heavens for an answer and throw my hands in the air in my bemusement.
What the hell is going on? I'm so confused. How do they know each other?
"What's the holdup?" Taylor muses curiously after jogging over to me. "We're all ready to get on the road."
"I don't know. Yang Jin and Kai apparently know each other."
"What, seriously?" she muses, her voice rising in disbelief and my gaze flickers over to her to see her eyes are watching them in shock. "It's such a small world. Who would have thought?"
"What I want to know is how they know each other."
"Maybe they know each other from high school. Do you think Kai was in the same school as us since Fleance is in our school too?"
"Maybe." But why would Yang Jin warn me to stay away from him?
After a while, Kai eventually returns over to me and visibly dodges the curious, demanding look I give him with a dismissive smile before reaching up to shut the boot and walking over to settle into the driver's seat.
Yang Jin stands on the lawn and when he feels my questioning gaze on him, he glances over at me and I don't miss the concern in his eyes. When people from the other cars yell at me to pick up the pace, I reluctantly make my way into the passenger seat of the car.
Then we're manoeuvred into the road, following after the two cars in front of us.
The silence during the car ride feels uncomfortable after that reveal. I never in a million years would have guessed that he knew my brother. Why would Yang Jin tell me to stay away from him though? And what did Kai mean when he told him that he's not that sort of guy anymore?
In my discomfort, I look out the window at the many houses blurring past. At least it's not entirely quiet, there is some hush music coming from the radio. I can faintly hear the clicks and button mashing coming from the backseat.
Turning around, I peek through the gap of my seat to look at Richard and I furrow my brows at him in intrigue. This is the second time that I have been around him and it seems like he's always on that Nintendo Switch. Must be nice. All he's worrying about is advancing to the next level while I'm sat here, being plagued by so many thoughts.
"He's a gamer," Kai says aloud which brings my gaze over to him. "Like a serious gamer. He has a whole setup and everything."
While gazing at him, my brows furrow suspiciously. I know exactly what he is doing. He is trying to brush past that awkward encounter. I don't know if I should let him. Then again, whatever it is, I want him to trust me enough to tell me when he's ready.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, he's really good too. I don't think I have ever won a game against him unless he lets me. I have been trying to convince him to stream, but I'm sure you've noticed, he is a bit... less talkative than the average person."
"I would definitely sub if you started to stream," I throw out, looking up at the rearview mirror to see if Richard has acknowledged my words and I don't miss the little smile that twitches onto the corner of my lip.
"That's what I said," Kai echoes afterwards and then he addresses his friend, "So, how 'bout it, Richard? You already have two guaranteed, lifetime subscribers right here."
"We'll see. Maybe after I'm done with my degree," Richard replies without really glancing up from his game.
"Speaking of degrees," he exclaims, now focusing his attention on me and he asks, "Any word from the university yet?"
"Which university?"
"Thee university."
"Oxford?" I muse, even though I'm pretty sure he's speaking about that university in particular.
For confirmation, he nods.
"Not yet. I think they might be waiting for my portfolio and my final results before they accept me into the school... or reject me. Or maybe it's not even that. Maybe the Skittles incident just put Mrs Freon off entirely."
"Mrs Freon isn't the only deciding factor. Besides I'm sure she can understand. You were probably nervous. It was your first time in Oxfordshire. Your first time in Oxford. Was it your first time being interviewed too?"
"Mm-hmm."
"There you have it. I know I was shitting my pants when I first met her. From the moment I was handed that box of tissues until the moment she dismissed me, my hands were as clammy as... what's something clammy?"
"I don't know."
"Oh. Anyway, I'm sure you got in. You're smart and yeah, I mean anyone who gets an interview with the University of Oxford is smart," he rambles on and in the end, I'm confused about whether he's trying to reassure me that I will get accepted into the university or trying to encourage me to be realistic. "Then again, you were stupid enough to eat Skittles during said interview."
At the glare I direct at him, he chuckles.
"That's right. You did do that," Richard mutters in the back. "Who told you that was a good idea?"
"I was nervous, okay. Anyway, how long until we get there?"
"About four hours," Kai answers and once we've stopped at a traffic light, he hangs his arm around the headrest of my seat and looks at me. "I didn't know we were going all the way to Lynton. You failed to mention that bit."
"Oh, I had no idea as well. Dominic basically planned this whole thing. Whenever I asked him where we were going, he would just shrug mysteriously."
At first, I think he genuinely had no idea where to take us, but the more he kept dodging the question, the more I started thinking maybe he wanted it to be a surprise.
"It's good, the retreat he booked out," Richard inserts and again, I turn around to look at him in interest. "There's a lake and hot tubs and the cabins and lodges are well furnished."
"You've been there before?"
"Yeah, I went there once with my aunt and uncle. If I remember correctly there was also internet there."
"I thought the point of a retreat was for us to discard our devices and just reconnect with Mother Nature."
Richard's face grows ashen. "You're not gonna take my Nintendo Switch, are you? Kai, you cannot let them take my game away from me because if that is the case, I would have just stayed in Oxfordshire."
"No one is going to take your Nintendo Switch, don't worry."
"I don't know, I might."
Petulantly, he hugs it against his chest to protect it from me, and I grin in my amusement.
"You know, when you asked me to hang out and chat the day away with you at this retreat, I did not expect it to be so many people. I forgot how popular you are."
Sinking back into my seat, I ask, "What are you on about? I'm not popular."
"While I was still in high school, in the eleventh year to be precise, I remember you were part of that popular posse with Riley and James."
So, he was in the same school as me. "Oh, my God. You knew me while I was in the ninth grade?"
"I wouldn't say I knew you. I was aware of your presence," he says and when I see the laughter in his eyes, I frown suspiciously. "I remember you wore braces back then."
"God dammit," I mutter under my breath and rub a hand over my face to obscure my oncoming blush. "How come I was so oblivious to you?"
"First of all, ouch."
"No, seriously."
With a slight laughter leaving him, he says, "I tried to be as invisible and inconspicuous as possible. Besides, at the time I was hanging around people outside of school who were much older than me. That's how I met your brother."
Curiously, I hang onto his last statement. He met my brother when he was going through his rebellion phase, staying out late at night and arriving home, drenched in cologne as if that would have been enough to hide the smell of marijuana on him.
"By the way Richard, you are probably gonna have to take over after two hours. I don't think I have the willpower to stay awake for the entire four hour trip. I barely got any sleep last night because of my introduction to Astronomy paper."
"Seong Jin can take over. I trust him not to cause an accident."
"You shouldn't. I don't even trust me not to cause an accident."
"I'm glad you said it because I was thinking it."
Warningly, I flick Kai across the temple, and he reaches over to tickle me so I immediately inch away from him, pursing my lips to contain the laughter that wants to escape me from his actions.