Day: 1

I woke up on Monday morning to the sound of my alarm clock, normally I would let the alarm clock snooze three times before waking up, but quite frankly throughout the past nights, I had trouble sleeping. One would assume that a preppy looking girl like me would be cheerful to start the day. Too bad that was not how I felt. It was raining outside, water drops falling against my window. I tossed off my fuzzy blankets and stood up to put my slippers on.

I put on a huge pout on my face as I walk into my bathroom like a living zombie. Frankly I was still half asleep. However, no matter how tired I was last night and how many times I forced myself to fall asleep I only manage to get three and a half hours of sleep. The truth was that my mind was already dreading today since I knew that from here and outwards my life would not be the same at least not until these thirty days were over. I wasn’t even able to get a peaceful night sleep this whole weekend, every time I closed my eyes shut, Oh Sehun would be on the back of my mind. It also didn’t help that I woke up with a slight cold on Saturday morning so I was pretty much feeling sick my whole Saturday and halfway Sunday.

Today, I decided to wear the first thing that actually came out of my fall/winter section of my closet. I was wearing a light lavender off the shoulder sweater top with a pair of fitted black skinny jeans, and of course my ankle-length black heel boots. My natural straight hair was styled in very soft curls and I had my usual natural makeup. But instead of having my go-to red lipstick I decided to try on a soft natural shade of a very light peach color lip gloss. Well, at least I manage not to look like a zombie, although I was still very much feeling like one.

Fighting back a groan after getting ready I made my way down to the kitchen. Of course my mother was already long gone- Seoul was definitely the city in South Korea, where people never stopped moving or stopped being busy. I opened the kitchen refrigerator still debating, what should I have for breakfast. I ended up settling for a plate of mix fruit with cottage cheese and a slice of whole wheat bread. Under any normal circumstances I would go with a glass of natural squeeze orange juice, but because I felt dead tired I ended up making myself a cup of black coffee.

As I look at the clock, I still had ten more minutes to spare before heading out to school. However, instead of wasting time I walked out of the condo, making my way towards my car. Better to be early than late and sorry. God ever forbid me from ever running late again. After the stunts I pulled out the last two Friday nights, I knew too well that I had to follow through the ground rules of my punishment for a bit of time if I ever wanted to have any freedom again.

I banged the top of my head as I walked into my car. Gosh, Jennie you just got out of a head concussion, you don’t need another one, my subconscious bickered at me. However, no matter how hard I try to ignore it my mind kept going back to wondering what am I possibly going to do these thirty days ahead? Heck, I’m already on day one. This felt way beyond weird talking about Oh Sehun, as if I didn’t know his deepest, darkest secret of him wanting to commit suicide in exactly thirty days from now. The conversation we had Friday night was still replaying inside my mind, as well as everything that GD or rather say Death had told me.

I could only hope that today was going to be a fine day, with no bumps along the way that could jeopardize my mission. Of course, this was pretty much a lot to ask for especially when you were dealing with a guy like Oh Sehun. Under any normal circumstances, I would have wandered off to how I hated not once being greeted in the mornings by either of my parents. I mean, although my parents were divorced and my dad didn’t live with us the least he could do is call any random day to greet me and ask me how I’m doing instead of waiting until my birthday or a random holiday to do so. But today, I had no motivation to indulge myself in how much life . It was just not the right moment to make this about me because quite frankly it wasn’t. I grabbed my large Chanel tote bag that had all my school supplies and my personal belongings, my gym bag that was now filled with clean practice clothes for the rest of the week. And of course, a gift bag that had Sehun’s sweatpants that were now clean, since I washed them personally last night. While the gift bag also had a gift inside to show my gratitude to him because he did not let me freeze out in the cold.  Who would have thought that a cold guy like Oh Sehun actually liked ice hockey as a sport?

FLASHBACK: Past Saturday, 2 days ago

I groaned as I get out of my bed it was Saturday morning exactly 7:10 AM. You might ask me why am I up so early on a Saturday, and that is exactly what I am asking myself too. After analyzing the events of last night, I came to the conclusion that I was indeed not dreaming. I mean waking up to the image of me still wearing Sehun’s joggers pretty much proved my hypothesis correct.

As soon as I had finished washing my face and teeth, I made my way down to the kitchen medicine cabinet. I was definitely not feeling great today.

“Hey, Jen Jen.” I heard my cousin Jin greet me as soon as I was entering the kitchen. He was already preparing coffee for him and my mother. And for a brief moment, I looked at him in confusion as to why was he in my house. But then I remembered that for the upcoming weekends, Jin would be my mother’s new paralegal. Who could have thought that my wild cousin was soon going to become a lawyer, I only wish him and his future clients the best.

“Hey” I replied as I made my way towards the medicine cabinet.

“Nice taste.” Jin said.

I looked at Jin with a totally blank expression. “Nice taste in what?”

“Your joggers, I approve on your taste of rooting for the Montreal Canadiens. They indeed are an excellent hockey team.”

So Oh Sehun likes hockey. Huh.

END OF FLASHBACK

By the time I had actually made it to my locker, someone was already impatiently waiting.

“What the hell did you do on Saturday night? That you totally forgot about the cheer team video group chat!” Jisoo blurted when she finally saw me.

“Got more grounded.” I replied. The truth was that being taken away my new laptop was no excuse when I still had my old MacBook Pro laptop and a Mac computer desktop. But hey Jisoo didn’t need to know the details about my punishment. This was just a perfect cover up to get out of certain unwanted obligations, not that I have done this before heck this was my first time in all three years that I missed out on anything that had to do with the cheerleading team. But with all that I had gone through the past few days, I needed a break from life in order to figure out what needed to be prioritized for the next thirty days. And since I was already sick Saturday morning it also added to my lack of energy to do anything.

“You got grounded again?” She asked in a, you are so unbelievable tone. “What did you do now? I would assume that after the car racing incident, you would have already learned your lesson.”

I snorted out a laugh, yep, there was no doubt that Kim Jisoo was my mother’s niece. You know that saying that goes like, like mother like daughter, in this case, it would be more like, like aunt like the niece. Geez, this girl was a replica of my own mother, which I sometimes found very irritating and quite scary.

“I stayed past curfew on Friday night and got into trouble. End of story.”

“What were you doing out late in the first place? We had no cheer game or practice.” She said as we made our way inside our homeroom.

Ah, so this is where I was going to run into trouble. How can I even explain the events that happened last Friday? One word about meeting Death, going into the future, oh and better yet making a deal to save Oh Sehun from killing himself. And wait did I even mentioned I only have thirty days to do this starting today? This explanation was only going to guarantee me a trip to go see a psychiatrist for a diagnosis or a priest in order to get an exorcism done. After my long- yet almost sleepless weekend, I have been too exhausted by the days. I was still in the state of shock and being frightened to even ponder about anything else but my needed sleep. So what was I going to even tell Jisoo? When it will soon become obvious that I would be ditching her for Oh Sehun. That very thought made me shiver, but it had to be done, didn’t it?

“I stayed after school to work out, shower in the school shower room. Then afterward I got ready and I stopped for hot tea before going to the library. And well, I sat down to review my notes for AP Calculus, however, before I knew it I accidentally had fallen asleep. If it weren’t for Oh Sehun, who woke me up because he worked there, I would probably be stuck in the library until Saturday morning. We then talked for a bit before I finally manage to go home.” I explained.

Most of these events were true, I wasn’t lying about exercising, going for tea, and then being woken up by Oh Sehun because I was deeply sleeping in the campus library. The only things I let out was about how I met Death in the parking lot, how he was the one to drag me to get hot tea, traveling into the future somehow, and making a deal to save Oh Sehun, and then being woken up in a totally different setting.

Sure enough, it took her a few moments to let everything I have just told her to sink in. I mean everything I told her was believable, I always go to the library, after cheer practice to study. And soon enough before I knew it Jisoo was freaking out on me.

“What? Oh Sehun? Why the hell would you even talk to Oh Sehun?” Jisoo demanded to know, practically forcing her self to say Sehun’s name each time.

I narrowed my eyes at her. I could already feel my foul mood worsening slightly by the second. “You don’t even know him Jisoo. He is not a bad guy.”

Okay, so maybe I was lying just a bit when I said that because it was perfectly clear to me that Oh Sehun was a jerk. It was going to be hard trying to convince myself that perhaps something really bad happened in Sehun’s past that shaped him into the person he is. I already knew he lived with his mom, younger brother and sister right? Well, maybe it was his job to take care of them or something. Really the possibilities were endless, but I didn’t have the energy to further analyze and dwell into them.

“He is more of a freak, you’re right about him not being bad.” Jisoo giggled after a moment of contemplation. But soon enough Jisoo became silent once she noticed that I was giving her a death glare. I resisted my urge of smacking her hard in the back of her head.

“You really disappoint me Kim Jisoo. Never thought you would actually become like the rest of them.” I said as I settled to sit down in my assigned seat, glaring at the person I have always considered my best friend. Jisoo instantly became silent, I could tell my words had an impact. And although Sehun wasn’t the nicest, he didn’t deserve to be treated the way he was in this school. He definitely did not deserve to be reminded every day that he didn’t fit in with most of the school population. Better yet, he didn’t deserve people making assumptions about him. Because if there was one thing I was becoming certain about was that underneath the exterior of the cold persona, he had so many layers underneath him that he didn’t let anybody else see or know. Maybe simply acting like a jerk, was Oh Sehun’s defense mechanism? But exactly against what I had no idea. So yes, I did not feel any remorse or pity for Kim Jisoo, quite frankly, I still believe she deserves that hard smack in the h