Everland Amusement Park was as busy as ever. It was bustling with people of many ages, sizes, hair color, and skin color; many tourists seemed to be all there as well. Mina was never much of a fan of crowds, or amusement parks. She wasn’t exactly having the time of her life here, she even tried to get her mom to not let her come.

    Mina hurried behind Jinyoung and Youngjae trying to stay as close as she could with her class. Jinyoung glanced over to Mina and noticed her discomfort as they pushed through the crowds around the amusement park. “You okay, Mina?” he asked.

    “No,” Mina admitted. “I don’t like crowds… and I’m not a big fan of amusement parks either.”

    Jinyoung hummed in response and pulled Mina over to an empty bench nearby and gestured her to sit down. “Let’s stay here until the crowd dies down a little.”

    “But, what about the class?” Mina looked back and watched as their classmates disappeared into the crowd.

    “They’ll be fine. Sit,” he said. With no further excuse, Mina sat on the bench and heaved out a heavy breath and muttered under her breath. Jinyoung sat next to her. “How come you’re not a fan of amusement parks? Did something happen?”

    Mina folded her hands in her lap. “I had a bad experience when I was little. I got lost in the crowd and got separated from my parents. Since then, I haven’t been a huge fan of both.”

    Jinyoung nodded. “That’s understandable.”

    They both sat quietly on the bench, Jinyoung watching as countless amounts of people moved passed them. “I’ll tell you what,” Jinyoung started, gaining Mina’s attention. “We’ll hold hands, so you don’t get lost and we won’t get split up.”

    Mina chuckled softly. “Do you always use that line on girls to get them to hold your hand?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “This is the first time I’ve used it.” Jinyoung held out his hand to her as he stood up off the bench. “Ready?”

Mina cracked a smile and put her hand in his, standing up with his help. He shot her a soft smile before leading her through the crowd. Her grip on his hand tightened as she trailed behind him.

“Shall we head over to ZooTopia?” Jinyoung asked as they broke off from the crowd.

“Ah! Yes!” said Mina, an excited tone in her voice. “I want to see the penguins! I love penguins~ They’re so cute!”

Jinyoung smiled at Mina’s enthusiasm and nodded. “Let’s go find the penguins then.”

 

Jinyoung’s smile stayed on his face as he watched Mina get excited over every animal they saw.

    “Oppa! Look,” she said pointing to the penguins as they slid on their stomachs. “Aren’t they the cutest?!”

    “Ah! Jinyoung oppa!” Mina happily pointed. “The baby polar bear!”

    “Aww~ look at the tigers! Whoa!”

    

How cute, Jinyoung thought, the fond smile on his face stuck there as he watched her. He followed behind her, his hands in the front pockets of his jeans.

“Ah! Oppa! A petting zoo!” Mina said, grinning at him. “Let’s go!”

“Lead the way.” Jinyoung followed close to her as Mina happily skipped over to the petting zoo. Mina immediately went over to a sheep and pet it.

“Oh, my gosh! So fluffy!” She giggled happily as she caressed the sheep’s wool. “Oppa, come touch it!”

Jinyoung kneeled next to her and reached for the sheep. He patted it softly and smiled. “He really is fluffy.”

“Oppa, let’s take a selca with it.” Mina pulled her phone from her pocket and opened the front camera. “Smile~” Jinyoung smiled as Mina posed with the sheep and snapped the picture. She took a couple more photos and grinned looking over them. “I’ll send you these later, okay?”

Jinyoung nodded. “Are you hungry now, Mina?” He stood up from his crouch and brushed the dried grass from his knees. Mina looked up at him and nodded.

“Bye bye, fluffy sheep.” Mina giggled, patting the sheep’s head before standing. She brushed the grass off of herself and took Jinyoung’s hand, following him out of the ZooTopia zone over to the Global Fair zone.

“Oppa! Let’s go get cotton candy!” said Mina. She pointed to the candy store in front of them and beamed happily. “Let’s get a big one and share!” Mina didn’t even wait for a response from Jinyoung and was already at the candy store, ordering a cotton candy for them both.

Jinyoung chuckled and walked next to her. He pulled out his wallet and paid for the cotton candy. Mina thanked the worker when he handed them their cotton candy and Jinyoung led Mina over to an empty bench nearby. Mina sat first, a big grin on her face as she held onto their cotton candy.

She let out a giggle, holding it up over her face. “Oppa, look! It’s bigger than my face!” Jinyoung let out a laugh as Mina peeked out from behind it to look at him. “Here, oppa~” Mina said, plucking a piece of the light pink cloud-like candy and held it out to Jinyoung.

Jinyoung looked at Mina for a short moment before eating the piece she offered.

“Good?” she asked. Jinyoung nodded in response and Mina grinned taking off a piece for herself and ate it.

Jinyoung smiled as he watched her. He glanced around noticing many teenage girls staring at them with jealous eyes. He knew what they were thinking, “Ah~ she’s so lucky”, “I want a boyfriend like that. I’m so jealous!”

Jinyoung glanced back to Mina who was enjoying the cotton candy. Does she even think of me in that way? he wondered.

 

“Thanks for being with me today,” said Mina as she walked with Jinyoung toward the exit of the amusement park. “I had fun.”

    Jinyoung smiled. “No problem. It’s the least I could do to get your mind off the crowd and your hatred for amusement parks.”

    Mina laughed. “Thanks for that. Being with you made me feel a lot better. In fact, I’d like to come back again another day.” She smiled back at him as they both approached the meetup point where the rest of the class was already waiting for them.

    Jinyoung opened his mouth to say something but closed it again when Youngjae shouted. “There you two are!” He groaned and dragged them over to the class. “We’re going to take a picture; the last picture on a field trip before we graduate.”

    Jinyoung rolled his eyes. “We lost track of time. We were having fun.”

    Youngjae made a face of annoyance. “We were here to do work. Did you two even do it?”

    “Of course we did. And then we had fun.” Jinyoung grinned.

    Mina giggled and wrapped both of her arms around Youngjae’s arm and Jinyoung’s arm. “Don’t fight~ Smile~”

    Both boys exchanged slightly annoyed looks with each other before looking at the camera the teacher was holding. Mina smiled, leaning her head against Jinyoung’s shoulder. A wide grin spread on Jinyoung’s face as she did and the teacher snapped the picture.

 

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

 

Mina laid in her bed on her stomach, her hair still dripping wet from her shower. She kicked her legs back and forth as she held her phone in her hand, watching her group chat with Momo and Sana.

        紗夏 (Sana)

        - How was the amusement park?

    もも (Momo)

        - I’m still jealous! I wish I could’ve gone with you!

Mina smiled and typed her response saying they should plan a day where they all go together and sent the picture of her and Jinyoung with the sheep as well.

    紗夏 (Sana)

        - How cute!!

There had been no response from Momo. Instead, she started a group call and Mina answered it. Before she could say anything, Momo said:

“Date him! Put him at the top of your potential boyfriend list, Mina-chan!”

Mina frowned and stared at her phone for a moment before putting it back to her ear. “What? Seriously?

“Yes! Can’t you tell that he likes you?” said Momo.

“How do you figure that?” Sana’s voice emerged.

“Are you kidding? Don’t you see the look in his eyes?” Momo whined. “Seriously, Mina. He’d he a better choice than Jackson.”

“Jackson?” Mina repeated. “What makes you think I would want to date Jackson?”

“Mina, you haven’t exactly been hiding your worry for him this past week,” Momo replied.

“That is true,” Sana added. “You did seem a little more concerned for him than you were about Mark oppa.”

Mina paused. Have I really been more worried about Jackson oppa? she wondered.

“Look, I don’t mind you having a crush on Jackson, okay?” Momo said. “I just don’t think he’s a good match for you. I know him. Back when I was… When I was dating Jaebum oppa, Jackson went through a ton of girlfriends in a few months.”

“That’s true,” Sana said. “I mean, he hasn’t had any girlfriends recently, but I don’t really think he’s a match for you either.”

Mina shut her eyes tightly and groaned. “I’m hanging up. I need to think about this…”

She quickly hung up the phone before either Momo or Sana could say anything. Mina sat up on her bed and sighed heavily. Do I really like Jackson oppa? she wondered. Mina sat in silence for a few minutes before her phone’s text tone went off. She looked at it and noticed it was an unknown number. The message read: Hey, Mina. It’s Jackson

Mina’s eyes went wide reading the message. Her heart skipped a beat as another message came through. She quickly unlocked her phone and read the message.

- I want to apologize to you. Sorry for almost kissing you that day, and sorry for fighting with that idiot. He started it though, so it’s not really my fault

Mina stayed quiet as she watched her phone, waiting for more messages to come through. To her surprise, one more did. And it read:

- You probably don’t even like me after everything I did to you, but I think you should know how I feel about you regardless. Mina, I like you. In fact, I may even be in love with you. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you lately and I even get insanely jealous over—

    Mina shook her head and quickly shut off her phone. She threw it onto her nightstand and stared at it for a long while as tears slowly filled in her eyes. Was it happy tears? Sad tears? Mina couldn’t tell the difference right now.

    “Oh… Oh, my god,” she muttered quietly. She ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face. “This… cannot be happening right now…”

    She took another glance at her phone and groaned loudly before shoving her face into her pillow. No, no, no, no. This can’t…. Why?