ten minutes later, the waitress comes with the food.

"enjoy!" she said, bowing and walking away. the boys and y/n said their thanks while staring at the food in front of them. jooheon was the first to take a bite of his brunch. when the filling of the dumpling landed on his tongue, he hummed and smiled.

"this is delicious!" he spoke while chewing.

"don't speak while chewing your food!" kihyun scolded, slapping jooheon's hand with his chopsticks. kihyun wiped his face with a napkin. "you spit in my face!"

jooheon swallowed his first dumpling. "sorry, hyung."

y/n looked at both of them and giggled. the boys looked at her and laughed along.

"see, this is just the typical kihyun." minhyuk started to explain. "he is like the mom of the group, and he nags us a lot. i will feel bad for his future girlfriend."

"if he can get one." changkyun mumbled, loud enough for everyone on the table to hear.

"stop it!" kihyun scolded the two boys. he was embarrassed by being exposed in front of a girl.

"damn, it must be nice having friends." y/n mumbled to herself. kihyun, who was sitting by her, heard her. he felt guilty, as he did not mean for his friends to hurt her feelings. he pretended that he did not hear anything and continued to eat.

~ time skips ~

"thank you for paying." y/n thanked the boys, opening the door for them to exit the restaurant. she then said her goodbyes to the waitresses who knew and loved her.

"no, thank you for letting us eat there!" jooheon exclaimed. "their dumplings were amazing like you said they were."

"of course. i cannot lie about that!" y/n laughed.

"and their japchae, wow." minhyuk rubbed his stomach with his hand in circles. "delicious!"

"i always order that whenever i go there, i can never get tired of that."

the six of them walked and talked while heading back to the dorm.

once reaching to the dorm, shownu unlocked the door, while the others took their shoes off and walked in. they all plopped onto the couch in the living room.

"y/n, you still have a little under ten minutes with us." changkyun said while looking at the clock. "do you have anything you wanna do in mind?"

"not really. i mean, we just ate, and i am full."

"let's just talk." minhyuk suggested. "is there anything you wanna know about us y/n?"

"how is your connection with the other group?" y/n asked. the boys thought about the question for a while.

"i think we are on good terms with each other?" changkyun replied, not sure about his answer.

"we hardly talk to them, and we only tell them congratulations whenever they do better than us in the monthly evaluations." jooheon added.

"in my opinion, they seem a little suspicious though," minhyuk said. everyone else looked at him wanting to know why. "y/n, please do not say anything. i don't want your dad to kick us out for talking bad about the other group."

"i will not, i promise!" she replied. "i am sure it won't affect your debut, though."

"okay, good."

"continue hyung!" changkyun complained.

"keep in mind that this is just my opinion." minhyuk warned. "i may be a stupid person, but i like to overthink stuff sometimes."

"anyways, have you noticed the other day how they did not talk to us? usually, when we congratulate them, they always say that we should have deserved their compliments and stuff. but it seemed like they were mad at us for doing better than them for the first time."

"i also caught one of them glaring at me." changkyun joined in. "when i caught him, he just smiled and gave me a thumbs up. that was the fakest thing i have seen in my life."

"what about you y/n, you talk with all the groups in the company. how is your connection with the other group?" minhyuk asked. "we will not judge, promise."

"well," y/n started, memories started to flash through her head. she wished she did not ask that question in the first place.