Gwiboon is pretty awesome. She’s relatively tall, has a healthy set of C-cups and beautiful blond hair. She’s well-dressed and knows fashion well. Her eyeliner is on point and she knows how to make a mean highlight. She has nice grades and good friends. She knows how to manipulate guys to do her bidding and she’s popular among the girls. She’s good at what she does and she has dreams and ambitions to strive towards. Yes, Gwiboon is pretty awesome according to herself.

“Hahahahaha, Gwiboon is a cusk!”

Oh, right, and Gwiboon is also a C-rank demon and the other higher-ranking demons in her university like to remind her.

She scowls and Taemin steers her away from the laughing group of demons before she can attack them. Even if her demonic powers are relatively useless, her kicks are usually well-placed.

“Deep breaths, Gwi,” he says while he walks her down the hallway, hands firmly on her shoulders. Gwiboon huffs.

“They deserve to get their asses kicked and you know it, Tae,” she says and Taemin sighs a little.

Gwiboon and Taemin have been best friends since middle school. She had helped him with English class and soon they had learned secrets about one another that nobody else knew. Taemin is an A-rank demon, but Gwiboon likes to forget that.

Gwiboon has always resented the ranks, but the past year of annoying freshmen that think it’s a joy to point out to her that she is less than them is starting to get on her nerves. There are a lot of C-rank demons around the world. They’re needed the most and even though they’re not what humanity usually think of as demons, they’re essential. It just bothers her that she’s still made fun of.

That’s why she has taken up martial arts and that’s why she has such a mean high kick. Gwiboon isn’t afraid to fight the other demons but Taemin usually doesn’t allow her the satisfaction.

“Why don’t they understand that they need us, though?” she asks exasperatedly as she puts her hair into a pony tail. Jiwoo, a fellow C-rank demon, sighs beside her and pulls her skirt up so it rests on her hips.

“I don’t know. You shouldn’t bother with them Gwi,” she says and Gwiboon frowns at her reflection in the small mirror.

“Maybe not, but it’s rude and you know it. See you on court.”

With those words, Gwiboon leaves the locker room and walks onto the tennis court.

Gwiboon plays tennis because it’s fun and because it helps her with her temper. It’s a way to de-stress when everything else is stressful. Taemin watches from the bleachers outside the tennis court with another young man beside him. Gwiboon glances at them and waves when she gets eye contact before she turns to her opponent today. Minsoo looks at her with a glint in her eyes before she sends the ball over the net and in Gwiboon’s general direction. Gwiboon locks her eyes on the ball before she slams it back towards Minsoo with her ratchet.

She’s lying on the floor in her dorm room in an oversized sweater as she finishes her essay for tomorrow. It’s 1 AM and her neck hurts but she needs to finish this. She can’t hand in something only half-finished. Gwiboon is a perfectionist and she only hands in the best of the best. A few minutes later she looks up and notices the small card. I’m sorry, it says. Gwiboon scoffs and rips it in two before she hides it underneath a half-eaten bag of chips.

Taemin smiles wide and Gwiboon hates him already. She’s wearing sunglasses to hide the dark circles beneath her eyes from another night of only a few hours of sleep. She flips him off and he just starts laughing.

“Aw, what happened to you yesterday night?” Taemin asks and Gwiboon grumbles something incomprehensible. Another boy joins them at their lunch table and looks at her with a raised eyebrow. Gwiboon rests her head on her arms as she splays out on the table next to her lunch.

“Are you okay?” the newcomer asks and Gwiboon ignores him. Taemin laughs again.

“She’s fine,” he tells him and Gwiboon looks up and glares at him.

“Come here Jjong, I need you,” she says and wiggles her fingers in Jonghyun’s general direction. He changes his seat so he can sit next to her and Gwiboon leans on his shoulder. Jonghyun and Taemin are eating their lunch while Gwiboon almost falls asleep on Jonghyun’s shoulder. That is until Jonghyun starts hiccupping and Gwiboon bites her lower lip. Taemin snorts but doesn’t say anything.

The legends of demons in human history have always made demons out to be terrifying horned creatures that are evil incarnate. That’s not the reality, however. Gwiboon looks like the humans around her in college except for a birth mark on her hip that looks a little like two horns. The birth mark is the only fool proof sign of demonism.

Gwiboon knows that demons have a different natural smell than humans but most hide it with human perfume and that makes smell a horrible way to distinguish between humans and demons.

And then there are the ranks which no human legend speaks of.

C-rank demons are the lowest ranking demons. They’re mostly just a nuisance to humanity, an annoyance in their existence. It’s the hiccups in embarrassing situations, the songs that are stuck in your head on repeat. It’s the stumbling over air and the walking into lamp posts when everyone is near and looking. It’s all those little things that is nothing but annoying to humanity. Those are the things that C-rank demons can conjure in humans.

B-rank demons are a little more useful than C-rank demons but not the epitome of evil that human legends talk about either. They encourage violence and negative defense mechanisms, but often need the cooperation of a higher-ranking demon to do actual damage in a human.

A-rank demons are demons like Taemin – s. They’re also demons who are able to encourage criminal behaviour in humans. Gwiboon likes to think that they, too, are useless without higher-ranking demons but she knows that they just need a certain set of personality traits to cause damage. She still strongly believes, though, that it’s only with the help of higher-ranking demon that Taemin is truly powerful. She doesn’t like him being stronger than her.

A⁺-rank demons are demons that don’t need the help of other demons to make huge damage in human societies. They spread their mindless hate in silence and sometimes lets it power through cities and countries. They’re the cause of some of human history’s biggest catastrophes and they walk the Earth like they own it. A⁺-rank demons spread racism, homophobia and bigotry, let it seep into their human companions and watch the world slowly burn.

But the demons with the powers to really wreck a human life are the O-rank demons, the highest-ranking demons of them all. They don’t need any other demon to spread misery in a human life. They walk the Earth silently, spreading their diseases and leave the humans unable to fend them off. They infect young children and elderly people and they ruin the lives of well-functioning adults. They spread mental disorders.

Where A⁺-ranks ruin people’s lives through others, O-rank demons ruin the life of a human from within. Humans like to think that the disorders of the mind are curable but there is no such thing as a cure to those who have been touched by an O-rank demon.

Gwiboon hates O-rank demons. She finds them arrogant and better than the rest of them. She’s also maybe slightly annoyed that they can singlehandedly wreck a human’s life when the best she can do is make them hum a bubble gum commercial for hours.

“Hey Gwi, are you sleeping?” Jonghyun asks and Gwiboon hums with her eyes closed, her sunglasses skewed on her nose bridge and her hair falling into her eyes as she still rests her head on Jonghyun’s shoulder.

“Boon, wake up,” Taemin says and slaps her shoulder with a book. Gwiboon opens her eyes and removes her sunglasses so she can glare at Taemin before she fixes her hair and puts the sunglasses back on. Jonghyun stands.

“Where are you going?” she asks and Jonghyun blinks a little, surprised.

“I’m going to meet a friend. We’re going to sing a duet for the spring concert, so we have to practice.”

He sends them a small wave before he grabs his bag and leaves the two behind. Gwiboon turns to look at Taemin.

“New friend?” she asks and raises an eyebrow. Taemin shrugs.

Gwiboon is fond of Jonghyun. Taemin would probably argue that she’s a little too fond of Jonghyun, but there is no such thing. She met him during her first year and the slightly older human has proved to be a great companion.

Jiwoo rests against the net and Gwiboon throws a tennis ball her way. The ball bounces away next to the taller girl and surprises her a little. Jiwoo turns around to glare at her and Gwiboon just shrugs a little before she sits down next to Jiwoo.

“Have you heard the rumours about a new demon on campus?” Jiwoo asks after 30 seconds of silence. Gwiboon turns to look at her.

“No? What kind?” she asks and Jiwoo shrugs a little.

“Woohyun says it’s an A⁺ but what does he knows?”

Gwiboon laughs a little and agrees with Jiwoo. Still, the rumour has her curious.

Taemin is talking to Woohyun the next morning when Gwiboon finds them outside her lecture room. She tilts her head slightly before she walks to join them. They’re talking in hushed voices and Gwiboon has to clear before they notice her.

“Oh hey Boonie,” Woohyun says before he continues his conversation with Taemin. Gwiboon crosses her arms and pouts. If they don’t want to talk to her, Gwiboon isn’t going to disturb them.

She finds Jonghyun in a practice room with a guitar in his lap. In front of him sits a girl with long, black hair. Her features are soft, her eyes a dark enchanting brown. Her smile is wide and her teeth straight. She has a beautiful voice as she sings into the room and Gwiboon bites her lower lip so she doesn’t start smiling as well. Then the girl notices her presence and cuts off in the middle of a sentence and that has Jonghyun turning around.

“Gwi!” he says. The girl turns around to put something in her bag. A small movement as she puts hair back over her shoulder reveals a birth mark on her shoulder and Gwiboon widens her eyes before she squints hard. “Meet Eunsook! Eunsook, this is my friend Gwiboon.”

The girl, Eunsook, smiles wide again and waves a little in greeting. Gwiboon continues her squinting.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Jonghyun,” Eunsook says and stands up. Before she leaves, she grabs Jonghyun’s shoulder in what looks like a reassuring squeeze and then the door closes behind her. Jonghyun starts packing his guitar into its bag.

“I don’t want you to see her,” Gwiboon says when she stops looking at the door where the girl has just disappeared and turns back to Jonghyun. Jonghyun sighs.

“You don’t get to decide who I hang out with, Gwi. We’ve talked about this before.”

Gwiboon nods a little.

“I know and I’m not trying to. Really. I just don’t like her. Don’t hang out with her, Jonghyun. Find another partner. Can’t Jieun sing with you for the spring concert?”

Jonghyun chuckles a little.

“I know Eunsook is pretty but she’s not my type, you don’t have to be jealous. You’ll still be my favorite,” he says and Gwiboon shakes her head.

“That’s not it, Jjong. Just … “

She doesn’t know how to tell him that it has nothing to do with Eunsook’s appearance but rather that the birth mark on her shoulder is too defined to be anything but a high-ranking demon. Gwiboon wants to protect Jonghyun from that. She knows she shouldn’t but Jonghyun is her human and she doesn’t want to share him with anyone and especially not someone with stronger powers than hers. Taemin doesn’t count because he knows that any influence on Jonghyun will result in one of Gwiboon’s high kicks. Jonghyun leaves her with a chipper “maybe you should get to know her” but that is one thing Gwiboon knows for sure she isn’t going to.

Gwiboon hovers around Jonghyun like a hawk the next couple of weeks. Not only does Taemin comment on it, so does Jiwoo, Minsoo and Woohyun and it’s not good. She hears the rumors of them being in a relationship but doesn’t care enough to put them down.

She watches him when her practices with Eunsook and even though Gwiboon isn’t very fond of the other girl just based on the birth mark on her shoulder, she has to admit that Eunsook is good-looking. She’s also frustratingly kind and Gwiboon can’t get her on one hand and that makes it impossible to ask her about her rank without outing the entire demon community to Jonghyun. So she tries to convince herself that she doesn’t need to know exactly what rank the other girl, she just needs her away from Jonghyun.

“It’s getting kind of creepy, Gwiboon,” Taemin says when he stops her from following Jonghyun into the bathroom. She sighs a little.

“I swear, that girl is going to harm him,” she says and Taemin sighs. He drags her with him until they end up in an empty lecture room.

“We’re demons, Gwiboon. We harm humanity. That’s what we do.”

He looks at her with a concerned gaze and Gwiboon sighs a little.

“I know but she’s real danger. She’s not me who will make him hiccup in an important meeting or stumble over his feet or hum Coca Cola’s commercial jingle 50 times. She’s going to destroy him, Taemin…”

Taemin hums a little in acknowledgment.

“Gwi, the highest ranking demon in this school is the new A⁺ , there’s no way that girl can destroy Jonghyun. You need to relax a little.”

He sends her a small smile and squeezes her shoulder and Gwiboon pulls away from him, convinced that she’s right about the strange girl that is suddenly hanging around Jonghyun. There’s a reason Gwiboon feels so vary of her and it’s not because she’s jealous. She leaves him in the empty classroom and goes to find Jonghyun again.

Jonghyun starts to get annoyed with Gwiboon pretty soon and instead isolates himself from her. Gwiboon watches her friend hang out with the strange longhaired girl instead and watches him slowly lose the glint of life in his eyes. There is nothing she can do other than watch because Taemin is keeping his claws in her, making sure she isn’t doing anything drastic to separate Jonghyun from his new friends.

Jiwoo slams the tennis ball over the court and Gwiboon misses it. The ball bounces off the net behind them. Jiwoo sends her a small smile and finds another ball from the basket and Gwiboon removes her hair from her eyes. It’s wet with sweat and her clothes are soaked. She knows a couple of guys are watching them playing and probably enjoying the sight of the two hard-working girls.

Gwiboon needs to figure out how to protect Jonghyun before he loses more of himself to the strange girl and the only way she can think of is confronting the girl. She doesn’t know how to do so without Taemin stopping her. Gwiboon locks her eyes on the tennis ball Jiwoo is sending her way and this time hits it with enough force to send it back over the net to Jiwoo. She will find a way.

Gwiboon spots Taemin the next morning in the hallway. He’s standing a few feet from the tall newcomer, a group of people standing around them in excited tension, waiting for someone to punch first. Gwiboon makes her way over and finds her best friend in a silent dominance battle with the other man. The other man is taller than Taemin and more muscular. He has dark brown hair and a slim face. He looks like he could own the world and still have money left. Gwiboon grabs Taemin’s hand and pulls it towards her to get his attention. She doesn’t get to say a word first, though.

“Minho, quit it,” a girl says and makes her way to the group in the middle. Gwiboon squints at the long-haired girl. “You promised me to be nice, that’s why I agreed to let you transfer here with me. Why are you picking fights again?”

The taller demon, Minho, turns around and looks at the smaller girl.

“I wasn’t picking fights, Sookie!” he says and frowns a little. The girl doesn’t soften her gaze.

“Go back to class,” she tells him but Minho crosses his arms over his chest.

“No,” he says. Taemin and Gwiboon look at each other in confusion. Gwiboon shrugs a little. Taemin can usually handle himself and if he couldn’t, she would have helped him fight the bastards. There’s no way Gwiboon would have ever stopped Taemin from a fight.

“What happened, though?” Gwiboon asks out loud and stops the other pair from bickering. Taemin snorts.

“The bastard picked a fight with me,” he says and Gwiboon tries hard to stop herself from giggling when she notices the look in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” the long-haired girl, Eunsook, butts in again and she bows kindly to Taemin and Gwiboon. That’s when Gwiboon gets a good idea. It’s brilliant. It’s her way to confront the other girl from doing anything to Jonghyun without having to deal with Taemin. It’s the best way to stop Eunsook from hanging around Jonghyun and maybe also the best way to prove to Jonghyun that she isn’t going bat crazy. It’s perfect.

“Hey, don’t you guys want to have lunch with us? We can eat at the noodle restaurant on campus? Fix this whole mess and maybe get to know each other better. I guess I owe you an apology too, so…” Gwiboon says and all three of them turn to look at her incredulously. Taemin catches on the quickest and nods a little.

“Yeah, okay,” Eunsook says. “Let’s eat lunch together.”

She sends them a wide smile that almost blinds Gwiboon and then drags Minho away with her. Taemin turns to look at Gwiboon with a raised eyebrow.

“No,” Gwiboon says to Taemin’s unasked question and then leaves him alone in the hallway.

They meet up in the hallway when the clock strikes 12, Eunsook and Minho waiting for Gwiboon and Taemin. Gwiboon is starting to regret a little. She doesn’t really want to eat lunch with the two newcomers but she needs to confront Eunsook and make her stay away from Jonghyun and this is really the best way. Taemin has tried to figure out what Gwiboon’s plans are but has not been successful thus far.

Eunsook smiles warmly and Gwiboon frowns a little, tries not to be affected by the smile because only now that she stands face to face and really look at Eunsook, does Gwiboon realize that her smile is enough to make even the strongest man weak. And while Gwiboon is no man, she is absolutely not immune to the smile. Taemin just eyes her suspiciously.

“Let’s go!” Minho says and grabs Eunsook’s bicep to drag her away. The smaller girl pries herself free and sighs a little.

“Lead the way,” she says to Gwiboon and Taemin and Gwiboon nods and starts walking towards the ramen place. The silence is tense. Being in the same company as Taemin and Minho is almost unbearable. The longer she spends in silence in their company, however, the more she realizes that the atmosphere between the two men is not tense because of their fight earlier this morning; it’s tense because they’re attracted to one another. The realization has Gwiboon snorting and all three of them turns to look at her.

When Gwiboon wiggles her eyebrows to Taemin, Taemin blushes slightly and stalks a few feet in front of them. Eunsook seems to have caught on and she giggles a little. Her giggling is cute. Gwiboon blinks rapidly a few times and shakes her head slightly. No. Eunsook is not cute and her giggles are not cute. Nothing is cute. They’re having lunch so she can confront her.

They get a table and order, Gwiboon and Taemin on one side and Eunsook and Minho on the other. Gwiboon wishes she wasn’t sitting directly across from Eunsook because confronting the other girl is getting increasingly hard when Eunsook laughs at something Taemin says. .

“I still don’t think what you did was okay,” Taemin suddenly says, addressing Minho. Minho frowns a little and swallows his noodles.

“I wasn’t doing anything,” he says in defence and Taemin raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah right,” Taemin says sarcastically. “So, you’re trying to tell me it wasn’t you that suddenly made Sooyoung homophobic in class?”

Eunsook sighs a little silently but Gwiboon notices the puff of air.

“I really didn’t,” Minho says. “We just transferred here a few months ago, why would I talk about gay people with the people in my class?”

Gwiboon notices Taemin tightening his grip on his chopsticks.

“Cut the crap, I know you’re an A⁺ so I know you could do it. I also know Sooyoung very well and she wasn’t homophobic before you arrived.”

Minho tightens his jaw.

“I promise you Taemin, I didn’t do it. I might have the powers to, but I’m not stupid enough to wreck chaos at my new university.”

Taemin doesn’t believe him. It’s obvious. But Gwiboon doesn’t want to hear them fight anymore so instead she stands up abruptly and turn the attention towards her.

“Eunsook, do you mind helping me with something?” she asks and Eunsook looks at her curiously.

“Sure,” she says and Gwiboon nods discreetly towards the bathroom. “Oh! Yes!”

Eunsook stands as well and Gwiboon feels her heart beat a little faster. This is it. This is now. This is where she asks Eunsook to stay away from Jonghyun.

When the door closes behind them, Gwiboon turns around so she faces Eunsook. Eunsook is standing a lot closer than Gwiboon had predicted and she takes a step back, only to be caught with her back against the sink. She takes a deep breath and then looks up, looks into Eunsook’s eyes.

“So…” she starts but she doesn’t get to finish before Eunsook talks.

“You’re beautiful, Gwiboon.”

The sentence baffles Gwiboon into silence and she almost forgets her purpose.

“What?” she asks and Eunsook takes a step forward.

“So cute.”

“What?”

“So…”

“Okay, stop!” Gwiboon interrupts and shakes her head slightly. “What the are you doing? What kind of demon even are you? Satan?”

Eunsook snorts and shakes her head a little.

“Not that bad, no. And really, I mean it, you’re beautiful and cute.”

Gwiboon lets her eyes run up and down Eunsook’s body. Eunsook has curves like a goddess, big s and an with a small waist. Her hourglass figure is practically what girls can only dream of. Her hair is long but so well-kept, not damaged from hair dye, not drying out either. Her face is soft and kind and it bothers Gwiboon because the best way to describe Eunsook’s face is angelic and the girl before her is anything but an angel.

“Okay, alright, good, I know,” Gwiboon says and Eunsook laughs. “Point is, you have to stop hanging around Jonghyun. I don’t know what kind of demon you are but I know you’re high-ranking because I saw your beauty mark and I don’t want Jonghyun to get hurt.”

Eunsook stays silent for a few seconds and Gwiboon gains confidence.

“I want you to leave my university. I hate that Taemin is stopping me from meeting one of my best friends because nobody understands just how dangerous you are.”

Gwiboon glowers with confidence and takes a step back so she stands even closer to the other girl. Eunsook doesn’t back away, however.

“I can’t, Gwiboon. I wish I could but I can’t. If I leave Jonghyun now, everything will go wrong.”

Gwiboon narrows her eyes.

“What do you mean ‘everything will go wrong’?” she asks and Eunsook sighs a little before she turns around and points to the zipper in her dress.

“ me,” she says and Gwiboon almost chokes on her own saliva.

“What?!” Gwiboon asks and Eunsook looks over her shoulder with a smirk.

“I’m not asking you to have with me, just the dress,” she says. Gwiboon slowly removes Eunsook’s hair and puts it over her shoulder. With slightly hesitating hands, she s the dress and Eunsook lets it slip over her shoulders and down to rest on her hips. She’s standing in her bra but with the hair over her shoulder, the birth mark on her shoulder becomes visible to Gwiboon. Not only is it two distinct horns, it’s a very intricate design of smoky brown swirls that capture the horns. It stands out clear on Eunsook’s paler skin but not only is it beautiful, it also tells her Eunsook’s rank.

“You’re an O…” Gwiboon says in a whisper and Eunsook turns around to face her again with a small smile. “I thought Minho was the highest ranking demon at …”

Gwiboon can’t even finish her sentence and Eunsook shrugs a little. Gwiboon wishes she could say the movement wasn’t flattering but it is and Gwiboon notices.

“I’m sorry, Gwiboon. But I can’t just stop now. Jonghyun will get better again,” she says. Gwiboon blinks.

“What did you do to him, you witch?” she asks in a whisper. Eunsook doesn’t answer.

“What did you do?!” Gwiboon repeats, this time in a shout. She grabs Eunsook’s shoulders and slams her against the bathroom door, growling.

“Gwiboon,” Eunsook says with a strong voice, but Gwiboon doesn’t back down.

“Make him normal again! Leave him! Leave us! You ing !”

“Gwiboon, stop it,” Eunsook says again and gently but firmly pushes Gwiboon away, towards the sink. She lets the dress slide up over her shoulders again, hiding her rank and then zips the dress as good as she can.

“I’m sorry,” Eunsook says before she slips out of the bathroom. Gwiboon leans back against the sink and stares at the door. She hates O-rank demons more than anything.

It’s 3 AM and Gwiboon can’t sleep. She has to read 100 pages in a book for tomorrow. She knows she should’ve started studying earlier but what Eunsook told her about Jonghyun has been on her mind as well, making it almost impossible to concentrate and it has resulted in her being awake right now. Being awake at night, however, isn’t any better because that reminds her of him and she would much rather forget him. She doesn’t have more notes left, the apology the last, but the memories are still lingering.

“Why?” she asks into the small room in a whisper, but then she regrets, shakes her head and closes the book. She’ll have to read the last 49 pages tomorrow during lunch.

Gwiboon is buried in her book; she still needs to read another 33 pages and her next lecture starts in 10 minutes. She is pretty sure she won’t succeed reading all of it but she’s going to try her damn best. It’s a body next to hers that makes her stop reading for a split second to look up, however.

“Jonghyun?!” she says in surprise when she notices him beside her and Jonghyun sends her a sheepish smile.

“I’m sorry,” he says and Gwiboon blinks a little.

“Oh God, no, don’t be! I was a !”

Gwiboon places the book on the dirty table and leans over to give the human beside her a hug. She clings to her friend, that seems to have finally forgiven her for her behaviour. Jonghyun chuckles a little.

“No, it’s… Eunsook explained to me that you were just really worried about anything happening to me, but I’m fine. Really. You shouldn’t stalk me, though.”

Gwiboon laughs, relieved.

“I promise.”

Things should go back to normal, but they don’t. Gwiboon notices Jonghyun withdrawing from her and Taemin and everybody else, trying hard to fend off any worry. She notices Taemin hanging around Minho more often, looking like he’s trying to find proof that Minho really is the he has made him out to be.

But worst of all, she notices Eunsook’s kind smile in the hallways and the way her body is flawlessly sculpted. It makes no sense for Gwiboon to notice. She might be a lesbian, but she’s not stupid enough to fall for an O-rank and she’s definitely not stupid enough to get attracted to the other girl.

Gwiboon also notices how Jonghyun withdraws from Eunsook, but it doesn’t really make her feel better. Because when Jonghyun was hanging around Eunsook, he was at least hanging around people – now he’s barely hanging around anyone.

The observation has Gwiboon finding Eunsook in the library one afternoon.

“I need to talk to you,” Gwiboon whispers and wraps her fingers around Eunsook’s wrist to prevent her from writing the last of her sentence. Eunsook looks up with a raised eyebrow.

“Okay,” she says and Gwiboon bites her lower lip before she sighs.

“Not here, elsewhere.”

The two girls look around for a few seconds before Eunsook pulls her wrist from Gwiboon’s fingers and starts packing her things.

They end up in the far end of the library, hidden behind History books.

“What is it?” Eunsook asks, her voice rich like honey but also slightly detached.

“Please return Jonghyun to normal. I don’t know what you’ve done but I can’t stand watching him like that,” Gwiboon says. Eunsook blinks a little.

“Be a friend then. That is what you are, right?”

Gwiboon frowns offended.

“ you.”

No matter what Gwiboon does, it doesn’t help. Jonghyun still isolates himself, tries to fake his happiness and joy with smiles that don’t reach his eyes but Gwiboon sees right through him. Taemin isn’t making it any easier, still watching out for her, both to prevent her from obsessively stalking Jonghyun again but also because February is around the corner and he knows what February does to her.

Gwiboon likes to think that this year nothing is going to happen, she can get through it without any thoughts of Kibum, get through it without any random breakdowns or without throwing tantrums.

Still, on the morning of February 1^st Gwiboon feels like she’s been hit with a truck of memories that has been buried repeatedly for the past 7 years. She texts Taemin to tell him she’s going to stay home buried in her blankets today. She doesn’t even read his reply but they both know there’s nothing he can do to change it.

The days get better and Gwiboon slowly gets more energy. On February 7^th, she’s even dressed and cleaning her room. Taemin comes by with lunch from the cafeteria and even Jonghyun stops by once or twice to get a cup of tea and make sure she’s okay – or at least getting better.

Taemin is the only one that knows why Gwiboon’s February is so miserable. She hasn’t been able to tell anyone else. Taemin is also the only one that knows that February 15^th is the worst day of them all and when he locks himself into her dorm room in the morning and finds her asleep under her blanket, he vows to stay beside her for the rest of the day.

Gwiboon is looking through a small box Taemin has brought. It always stands in his room, hidden away from her so she doesn’t end up destroying the sparse content in anger throughout the year. There are a few pictures of her and a young boy standing next to her. They wear almost identical smiles. Nobody has ever told her that she didn’t look like her brother, even if he was two years older than her.

Kibum had been her everything. He had been the strength she needed throughout school whenever someone called her a cusk or pushed her into the walls. He had been protecting her from rumours and lies and she hadn’t even known. Kibum had been everything to her, everything she had ever wanted to be was to be like him. But Gwiboon hadn’t been able to protect him the way he had protected her. She hadn’t even realized that his girlfriend had been dangerous until it had been too late. 

And then she had heard their mother scream into the phone and seen their father cry silent tears and when she had asked and been told, her mind had gone blank. Kibum had killed himself in the night, prey to voices and depression, seeking a way out from a terrible illness that his girlfriend had slowly let consume him, right in front of their eyes.

That’s why Gwiboon hates seeing Jonghyun so isolated. Taemin only knows that Gwiboon lost her older brother on February 15^th but he knows nothing about the reason why. He wouldn’t understand because Taemin’s family is all demons and the complexity of Gwiboon’s mixed family has always been hard for him to wrap his head around. Gwiboon doesn’t blame Taemin, though. She just holds back certain details.

And the more she looks at the pictures of two happy siblings, unaware of what’s going to happen in the future, the more she realizes that she keeps the details to herself for her own sake as well. She keeps them to herself to ensure that some day they will die with everything else she remembers and wishes to forget.