You walked into the classroom and plopped down into your desk, feeling tired as anything. Last night at work was a hard one -- who knew a tiny souvenirs shop like your parents' would get so much business in the off-season? You closed your eyes and laid your head in your folded arms. Sleep overtook you in a moment and you were grateful for coming to school early to catch some extra sleep.

As you were sleeping, someone entered the room. They paused when they spotted you napping on the desk, and walked over, peering at you curiously. They crouched in front of your desk, taking in the sight of your slightly frazzled hair, and your make-up free, but clear skin. Silently, they tucked a stray hair behind your ear, lingering a moment to feel the softness that a daily conditioner provided you.

“Yeppeuda,” they whispered, a smile forming. “Jeongmal yeppeuda.” A glance at your watch indicated that class would be starting soon and they would need to leave before you woke up, disoriented and confused as to why someone was staring at you as you slept. They gathered their things and slipped out the back door to the classroom, casting one last glance at your sleeping figure.

A few minutes later, the sounds of rambunctious students began to fill the halls and you slowly awoke from your nap. Stretching your arms over your head, you let out a big yawn. You felt somewhat refreshed, but still not perfect; oh, well, rest could wait until you got home.

“Hey, Kaemi!” Eun Chae said as she plopped into the desk next to yours. “Did you come early to sleep again? You certainly look like you did.” You gave her a light shove in the arm for her teasing.

“Yeah, we got a lot of customers at the shop last night,” you explained, pulling out your books and organizing them neatly on your corner of the table.

“Any cute guys?” Eun Chae asked. You rolled your eyes. She asked you this every single morning like clockwork. “You know I don’t pay attention to the customers like that. Most of them are foreigners anyways; it’s not like I could strike up a conversation with them and tell them about my best friend who’s single and wants to find a husband before she even graduates.”

“Your hot best friend,” Eun Chae corrected, also taking out her books. You just sighed, shaking your head with a small smile. This girl was incorrigible. “And you could strike up a conversation if you wanted to. You’re fluent in English. Let’s not forget that little detail.”

“Key word in that being ‘want’,” you said. She was right – you were fluent in English. Your mother, after the death of your father when she was still pregnant with you, remarried a Korean-American man. Despite there being no-blood relation, you two were very close, and you considered him to be your father, through and through. He taught you English and every summer your family travelled to the States for a few weeks to visit your grandparents.

“Technicalities, technicalities,” Eun Chae said, making dismissive motions with her hand. “In any case, you should start looking for a boyfriend too.”

“I don’t need a boyfriend, Eun Chae. I’m perfectly fine being single,” you said with a annoyed huff.

“Well with a face like yours you’d be better of with that mindset,” came a snide voice from behind. You didn’t even need to turn around to know who it was.

“I’m sorry, Song Hyerin, but I don’t believe you to be the rose amongst weeds, either,” You scoffed, not even bothering to give the girl a look. “Don’t you have anything better to do? Like trying to figure out how many calories are in a grain of rice? Oh wait, I forgot you can’t count that high.” Eun Chae sniggered besides you, while the others who had entered the classroom, and Hyerin just started at you in shock.

“What?” You grumbled. It was too early in the morning for Hyerin’s crap. You turned to see that she was still standing behind you, mouth agape.

“You might want to close that,” you said with a bored look. “Flies and all that.” You waved you hand noncommittally and flipped open a random textbook, pretending to be interested in it. With a huff and a short scream of annoyance, Hyerin stomped over to her seat and slammed herself into the chair, crossing her arms and pouting childishly.

“Someone’s not in a good mood this morning.” You nearly wanted to rip your hair out at the sound of his voice.

“What do you want Kim Jongin?” you asked through gritted teeth. How had your morning managed to deteriorate into being annoyed by everyone?

“Nothing much Doll Face,” he said, taking his seat in the desk in front of you. He sat backwards in his chair and leaned his arms against the back of the chair. “Morning Eun Chae.”

“Morning Kai,” she replied in a deadpan. She didn’t hate him quite as much as you did, but she still didn’t like him for picking on you. However, her upbringing was to be respectful and greet if greeted, so she did so, despite herself.

“Don’t call me Doll Face,” you snarled. You hated the nickname, especially since he was the one who had given it to you.

“What? You can call me by my given name so freely and I can’t call you by a nickname I so kindly thought up for you? That’s not fair,” he said, pouting. You looked up from your book and glared at him.

“Okay, Kai,” you said, with a fake smile. “Stop calling me Doll Face.”

“You didn’t say please~”

“UGH! This cocky piece of- You know what? Just forget it!” You slammed you book shut and buried your hands into folded arms. “Just go away.”

“Aww, you’re no fun,” Kai said, though his triumphant tone indicated that he had won this round.

A few painful minutes later, the teacher walked in and everyone stood to greet him. He motioned for you all to return to your seats and started the lesson quickly. You found yourself getting more and more awake as the lesson went on, despite Kai annoying you with his constant leaning back in his chair an resting his arms on the edge of your table. The first couple of times, you pushed him forward, but gave up halfway through the lesson, knowing it would piss him off that you'd stopped caring. When the lesson ended, you dashed out of the classroom, knowing he would be unbearably annoying because you neglected him.

When you made it to your next class, you found your seat quickly and began pulled out the tattered old notebook you used for writing down story ideas. You wanted to be a children's story writer, and so far, you had successfully written about half of a story. It was a slow process, writing, but you enjoyed it.

"You're ignoring me again." You didn't look up.

"Stop ignoring me~" Kai whined. It was strange, a high-pitched whine coming from a guy with such a deep voice.

"Then stop bothering me, then you won't have to worry about it," you replied in a bored tone. "Don't you have anything better to do?"

"No, I don't," he said, taking his seat, this time, behind yours.

"Isn't there anyone else you'd rather annoy?"

"No, there isn't. I like you," he said, with a smug grin. You rolled your eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, I like you too," you said sarcastically. "I like it best when you're not bothering me. In fact, It would be the biggest gift to the girl you like if you could just leave her alone until a few weeks after forever."

"Only a few weeks after? You promise?" He said, leaning forward with a smirk. He was very close to your ear, and you squashed the shudder that was starting to work its way through your system. "Won't you miss me?"

"Just shut up," you said, angrily scribbling your thoughts on the page.

"So is that a yes? You will miss me, won't you? Isn't that sweet," He cooed, taking a peek over your shoulder. "What are you writing? Can I read it?" Did this this guy have the attention span of a peanut or what? You covered the book with your arms and shouldered him backwards and into his seat.

"No, it's not sweet, none of your business and no," you snapped. "Seriously Kim Jongin, I worry about your mental health. No, scratch that. I worry about my mental health..." He didn't answer, surprisingly, so you turned around to find him leaning really close, and staring at you intensely.

"You worry about me?" he asked, his voice holding a curiosity that surprised you. You blinked at him. "Do you really worry about me?"

"Don't be so ridiculous," you scoffed and turned back around in your seat, willing the uneasiness in the pit of your stomach away. Kai frowned and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You haven't forgotten my promise, right?" he asked, his voice returning to the cocky, arrogant one you'd grown used to. The one that you preferred over the soft, curious, dangerously enticing one he'd used just a minute ago.

"What promise?" you asked, feigning ignorance. Though you couldn't see him, you could tell that he was grinding his teeth in annoyance. You knew very well what he was talking about, he never gave you rest over the stupid vow he'd made back in middle school.

"You know I'll win," he said with a huff. "You'll only want to look at me." You gave a short chuckle.

"I only want to look at you now," you said, pausing purposefully at the end. "I only want to look at you falling off a cliff and leaving me in peace." You could hear him starting to whine in protest, but the teacher walked in at the moment, and he didn't get the chance to. After the greeting, you sat back in your seat, only to feel something beneath you. You pulled out a folded piece of paper and opened it up.

Hey, Doll Face. What'd you bring for lunch today? Did Saerin-Noona make something delicious?

You rolled your eyes. He was referring to your older cousin, Saerin, who lived with you and your parents, and who was a chef at a local international restaurant. No matter how hard you tried, he always seemed to find and take some of your lunch. it was annoying, but it was part of the daily routine, and in some sort fo sick way, you had gotten used to it. You refolded the note and slipped it between the back pages of your textbook. A few minutes later, you feel a tug on the end of your hair and hand slide over your shoulder to drop another note in your lap.

Why aren't you answering my notes? You know that you want to ;P

You let out a quiet huff and just slipped it with the first one, readjusted yourself in your seat, and tried your hardest to pay attention to the literature lesson being conducted. Behind you, you could hear furious scribbling and a little smile let itself show. Finally, he was taking notes instead of bothering you. It was a while before you felt another hand snake over your shoulder and drop another note in your lap. So much for taking notes.

Don't ignore me, Shin Kaemi. I don't like it when you ignore me.

You frowned and surreptitiously placed that note with the other two. Truthfully, you did want to answer. You wanted to tell him to go annoy someone else with his incessant whining and cocky attitude, but you knew that it would have no effect. Ignoring him would shut him up for a while; you could deal with the onslaught of annoyance later. But for right now, you just wanted to make it through the lesson and then to lunch and then home to the shop. But as much as you wanted to tell him off, you couldn't, and just continued to focus forward as if nothing was happening at all.

By the time class ended, you were at your wits end. Kai had kept on with his barrage of notes, each one more banal and annoying than the one before it. It was all part of your mornings with Kai. You came to school and tried to be good; he annoyed the heck out of you until you snapped.

You angrily packed away your things, stuffing the thirty-four (yeah, he managed to write thirty-four notes to you in a fifty minute time period. Talk about perseverance…) notes into a side pocket and storming out of the class. You had made it halfway to the cafeteria when you bumped into someone.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you said, smoothing out your skirt. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.” And it was true. In your angry haste, you let your feet work on autopilot, not bothering to pay attention to your surroundings.

“Oh, no problem,” the person said calmly, a little laughter detectable in their tone. You looked up to find yourself staring into the eyes of a very handsome young man, one whom you had never seen before.

“Oh, no really. I’m sorry,” you rambled, looking down and trying to distract yourself from his attractive face. “I’ll be going now.” You hurried past him and into the cafeteria, not noticing your notebook drop out of your hastily packed bag and onto the floor. The stranger picked it up and examined its well-worn cover. He began to flip through it when someone grabbed it out of his hands and snapped it closed.

“It’s rude to look through other people’s things,” Kai said, giving the guy a nasty glare. He had seen you drop it and was going to let the guy return it to you when he saw him began to flip through it as if it were his own. If he didn’t get to see what was in that book, then no one else could either.

“She was so careless as to drop it. How else was I to find out who she was if I didn’t look through it?” the stranger said, not breaking his calm demeanor.

“Her name is one the front,” Kai said through gritted teeth. “She always puts her name on the front of her notebooks. See?” he pointed to the upper left-hand corner of the notebook, where sure enough, you had written your name in silver sharpie marker.

“You seem to know a lot,” the stranger said, staring Kai down with that same frustratingly calm gaze. “But you're the one who takes pleasure in annoying her, aren’t you? Kim Jongin, right?”

“Kai.” No one else was allowed to call him by his full name except for you.

“Okay, Kai. I’m Ko Huang. You seem to know a lot about Shin Kaemi,” the guy seemed unfazed by Kai’s correction, which only served to annoy him further.

“Yeah, and…?” Kai challenged. He did not like this Ko guy, especially because of the way you had looked at him. Ko gave him the creeps, and it stressed him to know that he might pursue you further.

“Oh, nothing. Just observing,” Ko said, continuing his walk towards the classrooms. “I like to observe.”

“Yeah, and I’d like to kick your ,” Kai mumbled, glaring at his retreating back. He placed your notebook gingerly in his bag and headed towards the cafeteria. He wanted to find you and give the notebook back, as well as tell you to stay away from that weird guy, but you were nowhere in sight. He began to turn around when he heard someone calling him from across the large room.

“Hyung! Over here! We’re sitting over here!” It was Sehun, sitting at a table with four other guys. They were his best friends. And now that they had spotted him, they wouldn’t give him the chance to go find you. They knew he liked to annoy you, and so they purposefully annoyed him by not letting him annoy you.

He sighed. Finding you would have to wait.

•••••••••••

5.5.2012: Updated! Hope you like it :3 Remember to subscribe and comment. Spread the word, too!

5.5.2012: My friend wanted to be in this story. He knows next to nothing about k-pop, but when he heard I was writing this, he wanted to be in it, so I made him as the character Ko. So, here's your shoutout Michael: Congrats on making it into the story!