~♥~ Jiyoung POV ~♥~

Kyou, Karam, and Min Ah all came back into the room together. Min Ah seemed a little nervous while Karam was a little awkward, too.  To anyone else, Kyou would have looked completely normal, but I could tell that something happened. I didn’t ask her about it because I knew she would tell me afterwards.

Min Ah sat back down next to me, so I looked at her worriedly hoping that she would notice. She just gave me a small smile. The room went silent.

Hyunmin cleared his throat. I heard Yun Hee giggle at it, followed by Injun and Jay. I didn’t bother on joining because Min Ah seemed depressed. I thought about asking her to come outside with me, but that may have embarrassed her.

“Who’s going next?” Mika asked after another few seconds of muteness. I hadn’t realized what he meant until he held up the microphone.

“I’ll go next,” Yun Hee sprang up.

Mika held up the microphone with a glint in his eyes. “Do you want to do another duet?”

Yun Hee purposely swished her head so that her hair would cover up the blush on her face. “No. I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“I want to do a duet!” Hyunmin volunteered. I unintentionally frowned at Hyunmin getting in the way of them.

“Okay,” Yun Hee’s shoulders fell from either disappointment or relaxation. I couldn’t tell.

Hyunmin and Yun Hee went up to the front to start a song. They looked through the book and found a song that was sung by two females, but I didn’t catch the artists and title.

After they had begun, I leaned over to Min Ah. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

Min Ah glanced in the direction of Karam before turning her attention back to the table. “I…”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I insisted.

“No, I want to.” She started stuttering not knowing exactly how to say it. “I confessed,” she whispered.

Judging by her expression, I could guess that she was rejected. I didn’t know how to react to this since I had no experience on how to console a broken-hearted friend. “That’s… good, right?”

She didn’t say anything and kept her gaze on her shoes. I took the chance to sneak a peek at Karam. He was watching our interaction. I shot him an anxious look, and he returned it with an apologetic smile. Min Ah didn’t notice.

I patted Min Ah’s knee to get her to listen. “Maybe you should give it a little more time, but don’t give up.” I don’t know if I’ll regret those words in the future, but I know that if I hadn’t said them, I would regret it now.

She nodded. I took that as a sign to leave her be for a while. I turned my eyes back to Hyunmin and Yun Hee, but I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about what had happened. I wanted to ask Min Ah so many questions. What did she say to him? What did he say to her? How did he react? Did he say why? Does he have someone already? I also felt like I needed to apologize. I hadn’t been rude to her or talked behind her back, but I felt guilty for having bad thoughts about her. It wasn’t her fault, I knew that, but I couldn’t help feeling a little jealous. Now that she got turned down, those feeling vanished, but were left with relief and excitement. It made me feel like an even worse friend that I was glad she was rejected.

The song ended with Hyunmin striking a funny pose. Yun Hee mirrored his action, laughing all the way.

~♥~ Yun Hee POV ~♥~

A week had already passed from the time we went to karaoke. It was Saturday. We had a half day in school that day, and my mother’s birthday was in a few days, so Jiyoung, Kyou, and I took the chance to go to the mall and find a present for her. After Dae Guk Nam Ah drove us home like usual, we got changed into casual clothes and caught the next bus to the mall. So far, we had no idea what to get her.

I entered through the doors to the mall and stopped. “Which store should we go to first?” I purposely asked before the other two so that I didn’t have to come up with an idea first.

Both hesitated silently until Kyou said, “It’s not my mother.”

I scoffed at her excuse while Jiyoung walked over to a thick, gigantic map. We didn’t recognize most of the store names.

“Let’s just walk around aimlessly until we find something worthwhile,” I suggested. They nodded.

We traipsed through the mall and stumbled into a few stores here and there, but nothing caught our eye. I remembered that my mother hadn’t been wearing her slippers recently, but I never asked her where they went. I assumed she lost them in the pile of junk in her room.

We continued our search of a store, but this time we knew that we were at least looking for a shoe store. We halted at the first one and went in.

It had navy blue walls that were barely visible because of the sneakers aligned all over the place. There were about ten other people in with us. Kyou, Jiyoung, and I explored the shop until we spotted two familiar faces.

Jiyoung pointed to a pair of boys around our age. “Look. Hyunmin and Injun are here.”

“Is it really?” Kyou peeked over my shoulder trying to be subtle.

“Where?” I asked enthusiastically and turned sharply to the directed area.

Injun noticed in the corner of his eye that some random girls had been staring at him, so he glanced over. He gingerly elbowed Hyunmin after waving us over. Hyunmin was too busy ogling a pair of shoes and ignored Injun.

Injun wore his trademark eye smile when he said, “Hi, Jiyoung, Yun Hee, Kyou. What are you girls doing here?”

Hyunmin stood straight and tore his gaze away from the footwear at the mention of our names. “I didn’t even see you there.”

Jiyoung answered Injun, “We’re buying our mother a birthday present.” She waved her hand in front of my and her face after saying, “Well, our mother. Kyou’s aunt.”

“Oh, that’s sweet of you. What are you getting her?”

“Slippers.”

“They don’t sell slippers here,” Hyunmin interrupted. He made it sound like we were stupid and chuckled.

“How were we supposed to know that?” I glared at his rudeness but he kept his face the same.

“I thought it would be obvious since they only sell brand name sneakers here.”

“Why would I know that?” I couldn’t help the guffaw that came out of my mouth at the look he was giving us.

He shook his head. “I thought it was obvious.” He brought his hand up to gesture the surroundings. There were only sneakers here. You could tell with just one look.

“Oh…” I mumbled. I felt embarrassed now. The two guys laughed at my lack of counter.

“Well, then where would you suggest we go?” Kyou asked.

“How about…” Injun thought. He came up with the name of a store that I hadn’t known, which didn’t surprise me.

“Where is it?” Jiyoung wondered aloud.

“We’ll take you there.” Hyunmin quickly eyed Injun to look for any form protest. “Just let me pay for these.” He held up a box and headed for the closest cashier.

The cashier scanned Hyunmin’s goods with a frown that was probably permanent. He read the register for Hyunmin’s total price. The latter wasn’t fazed by the large number as he brought out his wallet to pluck the necessary amount out.

“Those were some expensive shoes,” Jiyoung muttered when we walked out of the store.

“Shoes are always expensive,” Hyunmin defended.

Kyou raised her eyebrow at his remark. Average sneakers usually didn’t cost that much. “Is that all you guys came here to get? An overpriced pair of mediocre shoes?”

Injun grinned. “Yup.”

I felt nervous thinking about my next question. “Are the others here?” I hope that it didn’t show it in my voice.

I stiffened anticipating Injun’s reply. “Nope. Mika had to work, and Karam and Jay felt like staying in to play video games. I just felt like going out, so I tagged along with Hyunmin.”

I was curious about what Mika’s job could be. Thankfully, so was Jiyoung. “Where does Mika work?”

“He’s a waiter at Samchon-i Daeseong.”

Samchon-i Daeseong was a small restaurant in our neighborhood. I didn’t go there often, but I remembered what it was like. The waiters had to wear a uniform of black slacks, a white button-down shirt, and a black vest. I daydreamed of what Mika would look like in it and how he would act.

The top fit snugly against his lean body, and the pants were a little tighter than necessary. The first few buttons of his shirt were undone exposing his smooth collarbone. His vest was open and hanging from his frame.  Would he smile genuinely at the costumer, or would he act cool and silent just wanting to get his job done? I imagined every scenario I could come up with.

“Yun Hee,” Kyou called, snapping me out of my reverie.

“What?” I looked around dazed to find where she was. Injun, Hyunmin, Kyou, and Jiyoung were all going through a door to a blue themed shop. I realized that I had walked past the area when I was too busy getting lost in my erted thoughts. “Oh…”

Kyou mumbled, “Stupid,” as I walked past her into the doorway.

Finally, ended the karaoke scene~ It felt like forever. Anyway, I thought that the Injun and Hyunmin were a little neglected and lonely, so I decided to add them in for some quality time with the girls... Let's see, what else did I want to say... Oh, if you haven't seen them already, I posted the chapter posters for the last three chapters. They aren't too great. Here is why:

• The contrast on the pictures since I was too lazy to adjust it
• I misspelled "swag" in chapter 10 (although, I did like the sparkles~)
• I forgot to add exclamation points at the end of the chapter names
• The chapter names after chapter 10 are in a different font than the others are (because my sister lost the pdf files of them to copy the text format)
• Chapter ten also has a small bunch of yellow lines at the bottom of the title (which was an area of stars that I hadn't noticed I didn't erase)
• I don't have the Photoshop version of the pictures to edit them (because I'm stupid I don't have much room on my flash drive and I'm too cheap to buy a bigger one)
• I had to make chapters 10-12 posters when my sister was supposed to because she thought she would punish me for not writing in two months

Anyway, she made this poster. I just made the ribbon and glow, but the concept was her idea. The other night, I started making this chapter poster, but it so much. It was really stupid; I don't even wanna say it. I'm glad she made it, though, (even if she was a little cranky about it). ^-^ Thank you~

Chapter 14 should be up by next Monday... or Sunday night... or maybe even Tuesday... It'll be up sometime next week, okay?

These author's notes are always longer than I want them to be. I say to myself all the time, "I'll write, like, three sentences for the author's note, and that's it. My readers probably get annoyed by my rambling," but I always start spazzing on the keyboard anyway. Sigh.

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