"Today's going to be a good day," Carwyn beamed as he dragged me to the hospital parking lot with an unnatural pep in his step

Today was the first day we were going to pursue my bucket list, and instead of listening to my pleas to start sometime during the afternoon like reasonable people, Carwyn insisted we start fresh!

And unfortunately, I had to go to the hospital with Sae at five in the morning since she had an early surgery. I had a solid plan to sleep in one of the on-call rooms, but somehow the world just fucking aligned for Carwyn to be there with Dr. Clem at the same time.

Basically, we ran into each other in the lobby, I couldn't reject him in front of their guardians, and now I'm stuck with an annoying morning person at ass o'clock.

"To think I could be sleeping right now," I grumbled, practically dragging my feet against the pavement as we approached Carwyn's car.

"Well cheer up," Carwyn said, joining me inside. "As a thanks for getting up and joining me, I'll feed you, how does that sound?"

"Why are you making it sound like I'm some caged animal?" I frowned, watching as Carwyn started the engine, already reversing. Someone was in an enthusiastic mood.

"Do you want food or not?" Carwyn glanced over at me only to be met with a deep scowl.

"Well, duh. You're dragging me out against my will!" I rolled my eyes. "Where are you even taking me anyway?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Okay technically you consented, so I'm not taking you out against your will," Carwyn said in a matter of fact way. "Also, it's a secret. You'll see if you stay patient."

"'You'll see if you stay patient',"I mimicked him in a high-pitched voice, my nose scrunching.

Carwyn gave me a 'really' look. I shrugged, pretending I didn't do anything wrong. "Oh come on now stop being a kid. It's part of your bucket list if that makes you feel better."

"I still feel like I'm being kidnapped," I shook my head, glancing out the window and really considering barrel rolling out of here. If it kills him, it would be a bummer, but hey, I would go out with a bang at least.

"Would it change anything if I say I'm taking you to a diner?"

"Just say we're getting smoothies again, you fucking health freak," I mumbled, jabbing my thumb behind my shoulder to the backseat.

"Fuck you. It's actually real food and I'm not a—,"

"—And before you argue, don't think I haven't already noticed your gear back there. It smells like man musk."

"Is it a good man musk?" Carwyn wiggled his bushy brows at him. I grimaced.

"It smells like fucking elephant ass." I shot back. "Like elephant ass smothered with sweat."

"Ouch," Carwyn clutched his hand over his heart, suddenly sniffing loudly from his side, "You're hurting my masculinity. Y'know I pull women with that smell."

"Well they probably have like some type of nasal issue because bro, it fucking reeks," I said as I rolled down the window, not wanting to be suffocated any further by shit that smelled too much like Carwyn Clem. It made my eyes burn, water even, to just look back there.

"What do you even play?"

"I'm a hockey player," Carwyn said smugly. God, it was so smug I wanted to gag. "And I run track. I also play baseball so you can say I'm good with handling sticks."

I snorted, "You know how ridiculous that sounds?"

"It sounded impressive," I corrected him. Of course he missed the innuendo, but I could piss him off with that later. "But yeah, I play a lot of hockey mostly. I couldn't dump my shit at my mom's place so—,"

"You live with your parents?" I raised an eyebrow at him. When we stopped at a light, Carwyn turned toward me, staring at me as if I said the stupidest thing ever.

"No, I don't. I'm twenty, I live in a dorm," Carwyn cracked a grin. "I just keep my hockey crap at her place 'coz it doesn't fit in my dorm. Plus Namjoon doesn't like my stuff laying around his apartment."

"I see," I hummed, nodding my head a little when we started moving again.

"Why? Do you live with your parents?" Carwyn asked. At that, I tried not to wince. I pressed my lips together, clenching my fingers into fists over my lap, watching my veins ease and protrude beneath my pale skin.

"We're not there yet," I settled with, and thankfully, Carwyn didn't pry any further.

It wasn't really awkward when the car fell silent, mostly because Carwyn decided to crank up the radio, and that was enough for me to find a reason to remain quiet. However, that shit didn't last too long when I realized this radio wasn't any normal kind of radio—

"Fuck you," I shot up in his seat, shaking my head as I tried to reach for the radio to change it. "Shut the fuck up, you're so stupid. I hate you."

Carwyn slapped my hand away, unaware of how much pain he was causing me. "What?" He didn't look bothered.

"Oh my god, I fucking hate you," I cried, itching to change the radio. Carwyn merely shrugged like it wasn't some big deal. God, how much more unlikeable could this guy get?

"Dude, who the fuck listens to country music willingly?" I managed to get out right as lyrics about a fucking tractor, whiskey, and some southern fling started to destroy my eardrums.

"What?" Carwyn asked innocently, cranking it up more. "Don't you like it?"

I shook the side handle desperately, groaning when it wouldn't budge. "Someone please. Please, help me."

"It's country music!" I tried to reason, but he wasn't having any of it. "C'mon, it's Luke Combs. You don't like Aldean or Morgan Wallen?"

"No!" I nearly wailed. "Please, change the radio. Change. The. Radio."

"Jeez okay," Carwyn said defensively, switching it off. "You don't like country music?" I shook my head, staring at him like he was some mad man.

"It's not even good country," I spat, "Like, I'll deal with old Taylor Swift or Kacey Musgraves. They're icons, but actual country music? Man, I don't wanna be your friend."

"You're mean," Carwyn pouted, "And to think I was gonna buy you pancakes."

"Pancakes can't make me forget this atrocity," I slumped in my seat, ears ringing with that horrible, horrible music choice. "We can't be friends, dude."

"Well too bad," Carwyn smirked, reaching over and flicking the side of my head. I shot up in my seat, shoving his hand away much to the other's amusement.

"We're gonna be the bestest of friends."

"That'll never happen," I stressed. "Never. You tried to murder me. I'm already dying, bro. No need to shave off more of my time."

"God you're dramatic," Carwyn rolled his eyes, "To think I thought I already knew how dramatic a person could get until you."

"I hate you," I turned my entire body to face the window, not daring to associate myself with someone who willingly likes country music.

"You'll learn to love me, and you'll forgive me too," I mused. I shook my head, scoffing, wishing this day could be over already.

"That's never going to happen. In your dreams, tractor boy."

Okay, maybe I did forgive Carwyn a little bit.

The pancakes at the diner he brought me to were fucking heavenly, like if I were to ascend into heaven, I wanted to pass onto the afterlife with these pancakes by my side. How could I not? It was the perfect ratio of cakey, fluffiness, and sweetness with the divine addition of whipped cream, bananas, and chocolate.

This diner was pretty cool, too. In all the years I lived here, I didn't realize this place existed, and to be honest, I was enlightened. It was a small building, but it was really cozy with all the neutral colors and brick walls. There were a lot of plants around, soft music playing in the background, and honestly, it looked straight out of some Pinterest aesthetic moodboard.

I hated Carwyn a little less for this, but I was never ever going to admit that out loud. Pancakes were great, I loved them, but jokes on Carwyn! I also loved my dignity too.

"You happy?" Carwyn had his arm draped over the booth, watching me with a smug smile as I forked more into my mouth. I was basically on cloud-fucking-nine.

"Shut up," I said after swallowing, quickly wiping my mouth with a napkin as the older one let out a gentle laugh. "I'll let you off with this one."

"Really? Well, now I know. To cheer you up, we get pancakes," He smiled softly, taking a sip of the coffee he ordered. "I've never seen you like this. Usually you're always in fight mode."

"If I were in fight mode, I wouldn't be able to enjoy these," I gestured at my half empty plate.

"Right," Carwyn propped his elbow on the table, resting his chin on his palm. I raised an eyebrow at him while I took a sip of water.

"Can you stop staring at me like that?" I said, jutting my chin at him. Carwyn pointed at himself.

"Me? I'm not staring, I'm watching."

"That's the same thing," I said, nose scrunching. "Are you psychoanalyzing me?" At that, Carwyn chuckled slowly.

"Nah, but I noticed another thing. You don't complain about a lot of things," Carwyn pointed out, tipping the edge of his mug toward me. The skin between my brows furrowed.

"Have you met me?" I frowned.

"No, I mean, like, you don't complain about food."

"Why would I complain about this?" I asked, chuckling incredulously. "Whoever thinks this shit isn't good has issues. Like, this is godly."

Carwyn glanced down at the table, the smile he wore straining a little over his lips. Perhaps if I were somebody else, I would ignore it, or miss it, but I wasn't. I knew when a topic strayed too close to home, or rather, hit a nerve.

Unfortunately, I couldn't really see his expression very well, for his fringe toppled over his eyes. Carwyn traced shapes around the rim of his cup, while I, on the other hand, wasn't so sure what to say. If there even was anything I should say.

"You're right," I ended up saying, though my words were stiff. Carwyn's head whipped up, making me flinch at the suddenness, but before I could speak he was smiling like a lunatic again.

"I like this place, so I'm glad you do too," Carwyn said, voice wavering a little. My gaze narrowed, though I said nothing. I shouldn't question it.

"How did you find out this diner exists?" I tried to change the topic. Carwyn shrugged once more, again refusing to meet my eyes.

"Came here a few times. Fun fact," It did not sound like a fun fact, "this is the first time I've been here in a while."

"Oh," I said, my fork freezing above his food. I glanced up at Carwyn, trying to study his features only to come up with nothing. He sounded bothered, and yet, he was smiling normally.

"I just thought you'd like it here," Carwyn quickly added.

"Well I do," I nodded slowly, "Thank you."

"You thanked me? Man, I'm touched," He said, batting his eyelashes at him. "You like me now, Jase?"

"Nope," I shook my head, thankful he wasn't acting weird anymore. I didn't know how to really deal with that anyway, "But I like these pancakes though."

"Of course you do," Carwyn chuckled curtly.

With that, neither of us said anything else, eating our breakfast in silence. I didn't mind, but I couldn't ignore the fact Carwyn whipped his phone out. I caught him from the corner of my eye, watching him discreetly as Carwyn's expression blanked as his thumb scrolled through his phone.

I wasn't sure what that was all about. Carwyn was confusing, a bit too confusing for my liking. Never in my life had I met someone whose mood switched as frequently as his. One second he was smiling and cracking jokes, and the other time he would be frowning and uncharacteristically quiet.

Not that I really cared since we barely knew each other. If Carwyn had problems, so be it. Everyone had problems. I didn't want to hear about it. Call me rude or inconsiderate, but I had my own shit to deal with.

Plus if I were to give advice, I wouldn't know what to say. And even if I did, I doubted Carwyn would listen.

That was the thing about people I noticed. Whenever they were troubled, they'd get stuck, and of course, I understood why. When shit happened, my life just stopped, like everything else in the world came to an abrupt halt and I was the last person to shut down.

Shutting down sucked, but that was how it worked. How life worked. Eventually I got myself going again, things stayed shitty, but that was how it was. The thing was, people were so easily caught up in the shitty things, they never really tried to find a way out.

Sure, there were things that couldn't be avoided. People got severely depressed, or suicidal. Others dealt with shit way differently than I did. But when it came to other things, to the people who were lucky to even have some way out, they just expected things to magically get better. And in turn, when people offered help, they'd ignore the advice.

People only wanted to listen to what they wanted to hear, but I just couldn't get behind that anymore.

If you want things to change, make the change. Force yourself to make the change because in the end, that was better than suffering long term and never getting better because you were waiting for something that you had to initiate.

Nobody was going to fix your issues for you. Life wasn't a cliche. There wasn't going to be some lover who'd whisk you off your feet and make your problems go away. You wouldn't just wake up and things would magically disappear.

I didn't mean to ignore everything. That wasn't the way to go. It was acceptance, really. Accepting that everything sucked. But just because the world sucked and everything seemed to be against you, didn't mean things wouldn't get slightly better if you just tried to accept things and move on.

What mattered was to try. I was trying. Sae was trying. Even if the situation sucked, it wasn't impossible to turn something bad into something good, even if it was just by a little bit.

It was either to do nothing and hurt more later, or to try and find a way to hurt less now.

Either way, I didn't say that out loud. I could just be reading too much into this. It wasn't my business anyway. When we were done, we got up to pay at the front. Unfortunately, Carwyn still wasn't talking to me, but I didn't mind that.

Or well, he didn't speak for too long because when they approached the cashier, Carwyn's expression bloomed into another smile, "Jinyoung!"

"Carwyn! It's been a bit!" The guy named Jinyoung exclaimed, a smile mirroring Carwyn appearing on his big lips.

"Jinyoung?" I murmured to myself, watching as Carwyn leaned over the counter to give the worker a bro-hug. The two instantly started to catch up, leaving me there, standing awkwardly on my own.

"I was wondering if you guys would come back!" Jin said brightly from what I chose to hear, but before I could come up with an escape plan—

"Who are you? I've never seen you with Carwyn before," Jin asked, pressing a finger to his chin, and suddenly the two of them were staring at me.

Great.

My shoulders slumped as I gave him a blank look, my lips pressed into a tight line. "Hi?" I said, barely waving at the cashier dude.

"This is Jason," Carwyn answered cooly, saving the situation from getting any more awkward.

Jin hummed, scanning me over, "Well, I see. It's nice to meet you. It's refreshing to see new people." I mumbled it back, averting my gaze to the floor, my hand finding its way on the nape of my warm neck.

"So," I turned back to Carwyn, thankfully. "When are you guys going to visit me again?"

"Dunno. We've been busy," Carwyn replied. When I caught that, I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering why he said it when that wasn't the case. Jin, however, didn't question it.

"Oh, well, that's fine," Jin waved him off. "Hope you two are doing good. Food's on the house." This time he was looking at me, but even so, it didn't ease the confusion spurring in my chest.

"Thanks my guy," Carwyn patted Seokjin's shoulder. "I'll let 'em know you said hi." I didn't smile when he said that, instead he was facing me and gesturing to come with him.

Joining his side, I tried not to question the weirdness of the situation. Why would he do that when I was standing right here? Carwyn refused to meet my eyes so there was no way I could get an answer from him. Even so, we waved goodbye to Jin and exited the diner.

"Did you used to come here with someone else or something?" I asked, holding the door open for him. Carwyn said nothing, instead, he ignored me and walked ahead.

If this were a different case, I would call him an asshole, but now wasn't the time.

"No," He eventually said, fishing his keys from his pocket. "I didn't. He's just stupid."

"Well alrighty then," I replied dryly, matching his energy with ease, but I couldn't deny how weird it felt to have Carwyn so moody.

"Yeah," Carwyn coughed into his fist. "Ignore him. He doesn't know what he's talking about."

"Oh does he now?" I snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. The two of them came to a stop in front of the diner, and for once, Carwyn was looking at him again.

"I'm serious," Carwyn shrugged, "Come on, stop with the dumb questions. You wanna see where I'm gonna take you, or not?"

"Sure but—," My voice drifted off when I made the mistake of glancing over Carwyn's shoulder. In the second I regretted, my body stiffened, my hands turning into clenched fists at my sides as my gaze met another unfortunate pair of curious eyes.

It was a group of people, but that wasn't who I was concerned with. It was the person standing in the center— the douchebags of all douchebags but the thing was, nobody would know because he pretended he was the shit, with that stupid smile and big, "caring eyes" that fooled people.

And god, a horrible chill rippled through my spine. Seeing him again was like a punch to the fucking gut, knocking all the wind out of my already weak lungs. I wanted to get out. Now.

"I? Are you good? You look pale," Carwyn said, worry washing over his tanned features. "Are you sick? Is something wrong I—,"

"—It's nothing. Just walk. Now," I said through gritted teeth, nudging Carwyn to go but it was too late.

"Jason? Is that really you?" I inhaled sharply, a wave of nausea washing over me when I heard his artificially sweet voice.

"Who are you?" I willed my eyes shut the moment Carwyn started to speak, begging for him to just catch the hint and fucking go.

"An old friend of Jason's. I'm Eunwoo," Eunwoo said. I could feel his eyes on me. "Who are you?"

"I'm Carwyn," He said, his voice sounding deeper than usual. "It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise," I could hear the smirk in his words. "Man, it's been a long time. Last time I saw you, you weren't looking so great. Chemo, was it?"

"Yeah," I forced out, digging my nails into my palm as my lungs squeezed painfully tight. "Can we please get going," I whispered to Carwyn who stepped closer to me.

"Well, cool we had a great little reunion, but I think we should get going," Carwyn grinned, reaching down to grab my sleeve. I whipped my head to see his face, only to see that Carwyn was staring back at him, concern in his eyes.

It was concern, but for once, it wasn't accompanied with pity.

"C'mon, we can catch up, Jase. Like the good old days." There were no good old days.

"Nah, we're good! See you!" Carwyn said, tugging me along. I swallowed thickly, forcing myself to stare straight ahead, hating how weak I felt. If this were some other world, I'd punch him, but god, I was too physically weak. So, so fucking weak.

Carwyn was strong, though. He managed to drag me to the car and get him inside all in one go. He was fast when he wanted to be, not hesitating to get in and start the car so they could get as far away from them as possible. Neither of us said anything, and for a while, I covered my face, leaning against the window while he drove.

For once, I couldn't help but feel grateful. It was a small gesture, but it didn't mean it meant nothing. Well, it was something. It wasn't everything, it was something I never thought anyone would do for me, and yet, Carwyn stood up for me.

Of all people, Carwyn stood up for me. Fuck. I wished I could laugh at that right now.

Of all people, it was him. Carwyn fucking Clem.

"Who was that douche?" Carwyn asked when we were on the freeway, after I finally sat up, finally able to breathe properly.

"A dickhead," I replied, throat hoarse. I didn't want to explain, but I couldn't help but feel If owed this to Carwyn. "We were friends before I got sick. We were close-ish, but when I got sick, he ditched me."

"He ditched you?" Carwyn breathed out.

"Yeah," I nodded stiffly, the truth spilling out of me before I could shove it back down. "When people at school spread rumors and talked shit, he never defended me. He just left me, and when I confronted him. . ." I took a deep breath, sinking back into the chair with my hands through his hair.

"He said I shouldn't ever get sick, as if I could control it. As if I deserved it."

"That's so fucking fucked," Carwyn whispered. He shook his head, jaw clenching. "I hate that. I hate people like that."

"He probably thought I was an attention seeker," I whispered softly, running my palm down my neck. "It looked like it, I guess. When I got sick, I had it easier than—,"

"— Never say that. You did not have it easy. Don't let inconsiderate motherfuckers downplay your struggles, Jase," Carwyn cut him off sharply.

"You had a hard time, and he didn't help you. Fuck, he didn't even stay for you."

"It's not a problem," I muttered, not wanting to think about it anymore. At that, Carwyn scoffed bitterly.

"It is," Carwyn said, and for a second his voice softened, "You don't deserve that."

"You don't know what I deserve," I finally found my voice, my shoulders squaring as I regained control. I might have been weak physically, but there was no way I'd let that motherfucker fuck with my head again.

Carwyn didn't say anything. I guessed it was better this way. It wasn't Carwyn's problem, so he wasn't obligated to worry for him. Plus it wasn't a big deal, I was just overreacting. It hurt then, but it wasn't that bad—

"Where does Eunwoo live?" Carwyn asked out of nowhere.

"What?" I blinked.

"You heard me," He said gruffly. "Where does he live?"

"It's like fifteen minutes away. It's in a neighborhood near the highschool I went to," I said slowly.

"You can tell me where it is, yeah?" I nodded.

Suddenly, Carwyn aggressively flicked his turn-signal, glanced over his shoulder, and merged to the road leading them away from where the hospital was. I sat up, glancing back at the exit they

missed, my eyes widening.

"Hey where are you going?" I asked, shoving his shoulder. Carwyn merely turned his head to flash me a stupid smirk, one that didn't make me feel eased at all.

"You wanted to get revenge on someone, yeah?" Carwyn said. I nodded, about to open my mouth but—

"— Then let's get revenge on Eunwoo!"