Seul let herself be guided by Hanbin to wherever he wanted to talk with her. They settled for under the tree at the side of the main school building. It was a well known place for couples in school to hangout but since students were still in class, it was empty.

"You wanted to talk about something?" Seul stared down at his hand around her wrist.

Hanbin nodded, releasing her wrist and hiding his hands behind him. "Yeah, and you're going to hate me for this."

He must have done something bad, but why is he telling this to me? Sure, Hanbin was more on the rebellious side of students who did skip classes a few times in a month but she couldn't imagine him doing something awful to her to that extent that she would hate him. He'd been such a great junior to her, treating her out and teasing her playfully from time to time. 

"Kim Hanbin, are you joking around again?" Seul laughed uneasily. "I mean what could you have possibly done to make me hate you? It's not like you spread rumours about me or stole anything from me..."

"That's not it, Seul noona, I  "

"Alright, tell me. Surely, it can't be that bad. It's not like you're going to tell me you're the culprit behind that dating article months ago."

Hanbin's eyes seemed to widen for a second, making her heart stop. She hoped that look wasn't meant for what she'd said. The air around them was starting to get tense with no one talking. Even the breeze blowing past them and the calming sound of the tree leaves rustling above was unable to ease the tension.

"I am," he broke the silence, his voice heavy with so much guilt, "I was the one who wrote it. It's stupid, I've had a crush on you since I freshman year. I thought you were pretty brave, always promoting your club in school assemblies and I even saw you sometimes after school in the club rooms working hard at your articles."

Seul never realised that Kim Hanbin liked her, was I that dense? Her blood was boiling and her fists were clenching. He kept this a secret for six months. The topic about liking her could wait because what was most important to her now was that the culprit was in front of her. All this time, he'd been around her but she was too occupied with everything happening in her life to notice. Taehyung already had suspicions about him ever since Hanbin said he wanted to join 'The Hanguk Gossip'.

"So you decided to make Taehyung and I the hot topic for I don't know, three damn months? Why?" Seul scoffed, turning away from him. She wanted nothing but to get out of here.

"It was a dare from my friends, they knew I liked you. They saw how much I hated it when I saw you with Taehyung sunbae so they told me that if I could make it look like his club put you and him in a false dating article, you would hate him more for spreading lies."

He probably never thought that the article actually made the both of them spend more time together because they had to. In a way it did create distrust among them though. Seul instantly disliked Taehyung a lot more when she was first alerted about the article.

"Well you failed. I don't hate him as much now, in fact you brought us closer. Hanbin, I don't know. I trusted you, I really did eventhough you slacked off. You had a motive all along, didn't you? It was to get close to me and I bet you never cared about the club in the first place." Seul pushed her hair back, about to leave, until Hanbin grabbed her arm.

"Wait  "

"Just go, Hanbin! Just ing get out of here!" Seul tried to struggle out of his grip but he wouldn't let her go.

She didn't care if he was trying to reason with her, she wanted out. Now. Her mind was in a mess and her eyes were blurry because of the tears which were forming. Everything a minute later happened so quick, it was a blur. Seul remembered Hanbin releasing her after holding on to her so tight before she saw him on the ground, groaning in pain.

"Seul, are you okay?" A pair of arms held on to her shoulders.

Seul looked up to see Taehyung with no other emotion on his face but concern. He took her in his arms and her head as he mumured 'it's okay' countless times, relieved that she was fine. He pulled away, his hands sliding down to her arms, then holding on to her hand. Seul let herself be taken away by Taehyung. They shouldnt've been wasting time here.

"We're should go back to the field now, we're holding them up."

Seul nodded with her head hung low, letting her long hair cover her face. 

"What did he say to you?" Taehyung asked. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"Just... nevermind." Seul sighed, tightening her hold around his hand. "Sorry, Taehyung. I don't really feel like it now."

For the whole bus ride, Seul wasn't intent on talking too much with her friends. She had her earphones plugged in, blocking out the chatters of her schoolmates. She was sitting next to Seungcheol and he noticed how much of a deflated mood she was in. Thankfully, he gave her some personal space and shook his head at Joshua and Bobby when they started talking to her. 

They arrived at the airport an hour later. It was a whole frenzy of high school students talking, laughing and goofing around. There were only a minority of students who followed the teachers silently and they were at the front of the group. She could imagine how tiring it must have been for the teachers to keep track of one hundred and twenty students. They were lucky the other ninety seniors had decided to focus on their studying. 

After an hour of lining up to check in, thirty minutes of going through security checks and making sure everyone was present in front of the gate, they were all set for boarding. Seul found her seat and grinned because she was lucky enough to be sat at the most back in the middle row. It seemed that all the students were sprawled around the economy class, there wasn't a whole area reserved for Hanguk High students.

On Seul's left was a girl from another class named Jisoo and she was pretty popular among the students in school. Jisoo was gorgeous, but Seul mainly liked her because despite being one of the hottest girls in the year, she treated everyone around her with kindness. She gave Jisoo a small