It must have been just after Halloween when Jaehwan wrote Shinhye a note on the back of a history quiz he'd gotten a C on. The note read: "If you want to go to the Fall Ball we can go together. - JAEHWAN." The corners where he'd folded it were grimy, as if he'd been carrying it at the bottom of a bag.

Shinhye scrawled "Ok, sure," corrected all Jaehwan's wrong answers, and passed the quiz back.

"You're going to the dance?" I asked. Back when it was announced, we'd decided we thought the whole Fall Ball concept was lame. And then: "You're going with Jaehwan?"

Shinhye shrugged.

"Do you remember that your last boyfriend was the kind of guy who took you to a fancy restaurants where he'd ask to speak with the sommelier?"

Shinhye shrugged again.

In the weeks leading up to the dance, Jaehwan and Shinhye spent a lot of time together, but always with Jin and me. We went to the movies, hung out at a deserted playground, rode the carousel at the mall, played foosball at parties, and ran outside in the first snowfall in hooded sweatshirts and jeans, sticking out our tongues.

During this time, Jin's headaches were increasing. He got fidgety. He picked stupid fights with Jaehwan. He stopped conversations abruptly.

One time, we were in the library, and I had looked up from some notes I was taking, thinking about the evidence coming together for an argument, when Jin reached across the table and took my arm.

"Where were you just now?" he asked. "It was like you weren't here."

"I was thinking about Desert Storm and coal miners," I explained.

"Okay . . ." he said in that voice he got when something made him feel dumb. He laughed.

"They're connected!" I insisted. "Look." And I explained what I was learning about global warning. That we burn too much gas. That we're running out of cheap energy sources. That the oil we burn now comes from Russia and the Middle East. "You know those guys last spring, how there was that van with a bomb in the parking garage of the Twin Towers?"

Jin winced as if in pain. Chewing on the end of a pen he was using to doodle, he shrugged and shook his head. "Why would you want to even think about that stuff?" he asked, like he was angry. "Why can't you just enjoy the here and now?"

I stared at him. He closed his notebook in a rush and shoved it into his backpack. I half expected him to get up and leave me there, but he didn't; he just looked at me. "I'm sick of being in the library all the time," he said. "Can we go?" He laughed, but I didn't know what was funny. There was something he wasn't saying. I knew it was there, but I ignored it. I willed it to go away.

"It's kind of amazing," Jin said another time, at a dance party, where he'd dragged me away from the guys throwing marshallows at one other.. "To think these guys will grow up, most of them, to have families and houses and jobs."

I laughed. "Who are you, Father Time?" And then he did an imitation of Father Time, if Father Time was a zombie who stalked you with raised arms and then grabbed you and threw you down onto the grass while you screamed and laughed.

"Me. Father. Time," he growled. "Me see back and forward in time. Me know the ending to all stories. Me eat pretty girls."

I look back and wonder how, given what Jin had told me about dreams and memories, this kind of thing didn't set off alarm bells for me. I guess I was happy. and blind. I didn't want to see. I wanted everything to stay just as it was.

˭̡̞(◞⁎˃ᆺ˂)◞*✰

It was Shinhye and Jaehwan who made our plans for the Fall Ball, deciding that we'd meet at a restaurant Jaehwan had picked, deciding we'd go in separate cars.

Up until the very minute Jin picked me up, I'd continued to think the Fall Ball was an exercise in stupidity led by Jung Hoseok and the student council, kids with nothing better to do than try to make us all feel like we were experiencing high school the way it was in movies.

But then there Jin was - his hair still damp from a shower, his tie too long, a coat as dark as the night, and I found myself thinking, This is a moment I never want to forget.

Suddenly I wished I'd gone shopping for something special to wear, spent hours at the mall fantasizing about how great it was going to be, like someone who'd been waiting for this to happen all her life.

Jin's hands shook as he handed me a clear plastic box containing three roses, a fern frond, and some baby's breath. He was watching me intently, as if he was worried I wouldn't like it.

Was he nervous? About a corsage?

Then, on a second look, I started to wonder if the intense expression in his eyes went beyond "Will she like the corsage?" to something more serious. On the phone that morning, he'd mentioned that he'd gotten another headache playing hoops with Seokie and Jinnie. He'd also woken up at five for practice, so he could've been tired, but he'd had a headache the night before, and the day before that as well.

I lost track of my concern when he took my hand. "That's a nice dress," he whispered. "You look really pretty." As he slid the corsage onto my wrist, I could smell the damp wool of his jacket mixed with shampoo, toothpaste, and his own scent.

"Thanks," I said, feeling myself blush. I liked the roughness of his sleeve against my bare arm, the pressure of his palm on my lower back while we posed for eomma's camera.

It was drizzling and just dark when we got into the car. He leaned over to kiss me once the doors were closed, and the damp of air mixed with the damp of his jacket, the softness of his lips - I wanted to stay there forever, just kissing him, and I guess he was feeling the same way. He pulled me closer. It was getting to the point where all Jin had to do was look at me and I could feel my breath straining against my rib cage. Just the sound of his voice could make me feel like something was delicious - something magical - was happening to me.

"Eomma's watching," I said against his lips.

"It's dark," he answered. "She can't see in the windows."

"She's waiting for the car to start moving."

"We never have enough time," he said. "I never get enough of you."

I wanted to say that I never got enough of him either, but I didn't. I was aware of eomma, waiting under the porch light. I pulled back. Jin gripped the wheel to stop his hands from shaking and took a breath before he turned the key.

"Sorry," he said, without saying what he was apologizing for. There was an edge to his voice. Was he . . . angry? At me? Why were his hands still shaking? Why did his eyes seem to bulge?

"Are you okay?"

"Pass me the ibuprofen, will you?" was all he said in reply.

˭̡̞(◞⁎˃ᆺ˂)◞*✰

We met with Shinhye and Jaehwan at the Hope's World. It was a funky restaurant; there were neon light signs in the windows.

Shinhye grabbed my arm just above the elbow as we got the table, faux-whispering. "Look! Crayons on the table!" Then mock-complimenting, "Jae, you really did think of everything!"

She was wearing a navy-blue sheath minidress that showed off her shoulders and long legs. Her only jewerly was the necklace from Taejoon. The thin gold chain sparkled against her skin. The diamond nestled in the hollow of .

Jaehwan was wearing chinos that were too big for him, a necktie, and a shirt that could have used some time under an iron. He jiggled a foot under the table, like a little kid who has to go to the restroom.

We made fun of stuff as we sat there. We made fun of the oversized menus, the oversized sodas. Jin pretended the oversized napkin was a blanket and pulled it to his chin like he was snuggling up to go to sleep. I remember laughing a lot. But I also remember that Jin was laughing more than the rest of us. And that he drank four Sprites. And that at one point he was laughing so hard he started to tear up.

"Sorry," he said, collecting himself.

Jaehwan held the fifth Sprite Jin had ordered up to the light. "What's in here, buddy?" At that, we were all laughing again.

I remember the potato skins were good.

Then the dance: I have to say, the gym looked amazing. It was decorated with hay bales and cornstalks and disco lights - a weird combination, but it worked. A kid from senior class was DJ'ing, and all we heard for the first hour was loud, undanceable punk music. Which shouldn't have come as much of s surprise, considering his T-shirt said DROP DEAD IF YOU DON'T LIKE PUNK.

Finally, Jung Hoseok begged him to change the music, at which point he put on "Happy," and to be sure his gesture of disdain registered properly, he proceed to replay it every three songs, standing behind his turnables with his arms crossed over his chest.

It didn't matter. Each time "Happy" came on, there'd be all this cheering, which was out school's ironic form of booing. It was awesome.

The dance team must have a stash of alcohol somewhere, because they kept leaving, and when they came back, they danced like they were insane, lifting their girlfriends high into the air and spinning them around. Jin stayed close to me, but Jaehwan took off with the team a few times, dragging Shinhye along with him. Jin asked me if I wanted to dance.

There's no other way for me to say this: Jin was a terrrible dancer. I was of the sway-side-to-side school, but Jin - well, Jin looked like he had entered his own universe. He would nod and play air guitar and then do this thing with his feet that was a little spastic, like he was dancing to futuristic music no one else could hear.

Then he'd look up from his private hyperdancing movement, take my hand, and stare at me in way that was sad and scary at the same time. I didn't know whether to kiss him, smile at him, or ask him if I should call 911.

Jin took both of my hands in his and moved moved in time with the beat. He lifted my left arm and spun me under it, then wrapped his hand around my back like we were swing dancing. He pushed me out again jitterbug-style, holding my hands, our two different approaches to dancing - his mania, my respectful swaying - united in a movement that felt kind of okay.

By the end of the song, Jaehwan and Shinhye were out on the dance floor with us again. Jaehwan threw a heavy arm over Jin's shoulder and looked at me. "You ever been up on the roof of the gym?" he asked, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

And at that one simple question, everything changed.

"What are you talking about?" Jin shouted over the music. he'd stopped dancing. "What the hell are you trying to pull?"

"The roof, Jin, you've got to check it out," Jaehwan said, laughing.

And out of nowhere, Jin pushed him. Hard.

Jaehwan stared. For a second, the two of them looked like they were about to get into a fight. A real fight, not the play punching and shoving I was used to. Jin half raised an arm. Jaehwan's shoulder twitched.

Then Jin seemed to shake off the mood. She shuddered, as if he had just remembered something, and took my hand. "I -" he started to say.

He had all our attention. He looked from Jaehwan to me and ended up with his eyes on Shinhye. "Sorry," he said, although she wasn't the one he needed to apologize to. "Turns out I'm not a big fan of roofs." And then, as if a decision had just been made, he nodded to himself and pulled me away from Shinhye and Jaehwan. "Come on," he said, impatiently.

Maybe he didn't hear me ask, "Where are we going?" He certainly didn't reply. As I followed him toward the door, I turned to see Jaehwan staring after us, his mouth hanging open. Shinhye half waved, a "What the heck?" in her gaze.

"We need to talk," he said tersely.

"About what?" I tried. Again, Jin acted like he hadn't heard.

He pulled me through the trophy room, out of the building, and a little ways down the asphalt path that led to the main school building.

It was still raining lightly. I was hot from dancing, so the moisture on my bare arms felt good. I noticed a mist gathering the top of Jin's hair, creating a halo effect around his face.

He took a step closer to me - a group of freshmen was gathered nearby. "Here's the thing," he said. He wasn't looking at me. He was looking at a point in space about three inches above my head. "We can't be together anymore."

He spoke matter-of-factly, as if he were answering a question we'd been discussing, as if what he was about to say weren't going to take me by surprise. Weren't, in fact, going to destroy me. "I think it would be best for us to try to just be friends."

I made a noise like I'd ben punched in the gut hard enough to force up air.

Jin his heel and began to walk away