“How was your date yesterday?” Lay asked as I met them on the sidewalk.
 

“Stupid,” I muttered, walking right past them.
 

“What? Why?” Luhan asked, catching up with me.

“I don’t know. Baekhyun’s bipolar. I don’t want to deal with it.” I coldly said, picking up my pace again. I walked ahead of them for the rest of the way and thankfully they didn’t try to catch up and talk to me. It wasn’t fair of me to be mad at them when they didn’t even do anything, but I wasn’t in any mood to talk to anyone.

I spent the whole night thinking about what Kai said. I wanted to know who Baekhyun was, but I didn’t want to have to deal with the repercussions. It’s only been two days with him and I was already more attached than I should have been. But it was mostly his fault for attracting me to him in the first place.

 There were only two ways I could take things: I could either just continue on with whatever Baekhyun had planned and get my heart broken or completely forget about him entirely and move on with an unscathed heart. The latter was tempting, but scenarios were already made and I was in too deep to just turn around and forget it all.

He was so intriguing to me. He seemed to be so straightforward and open, yet he was so mysterious and enigmatic at the same time. It was a personality that belonged to someone who was quiet and reserved; not someone who was popular and outgoing.
 

“Are you alright?” Seungyeon asked as I sat down in homeroom. Out of all the girls in the school, she was the one I was closest to. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that were best friends. It just meant that I really didn’t talk to any other girls at school. If anything, she was just an acquaintance to me.  She was like all the other girls in the school. She strived to be in the entertainment industry. She wanted to sing. She could sing. Out of everyone in the school, she was probably going to be the only one that would actually make it in that field.
 

“Didn’t get much sleep is all,” I mumbled.
 

“Too much on your mind?” she asked, turning in her seat to face me. I nodded my head, hoping she would notice that I didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t. “Do you want to talk about it?” I was about to decline her offer, but the next thing she said stopped me. “I heard your friends talking in class yesterday about you and Baekhyun. It wouldn’t happen to be about that, would it?” Curiosity sparkled in her eyes as she awaited my answer.
 

I wanted to tell her no and dismiss the subject entirely, but the fact that she was a girl that probably had more knowledge about my situation than the guys ever would, panged my interest. “Um, yeah,” I quietly replied, feeling awkward about the subject. When I talked to her, it was always just about school or what we did over the holidays, never anything too serious.
 

Her face seemed to light up to my response. “I tried dating him before,” she said, propping her head onto her hand and looking up in reminiscence. “I really thought he liked me, but apparently it’s just in his character to be overly nice to people.” Overly nice? I don’t think that holding my hand and taking me out on a date is considered overly nice. “He would always touch my shoulders or hold my hand when we walked somewhere so I thought those were all signs of his interest in me. But when I confessed to him, he totally shut me down and told me that we were just friends.”
 

“How close were you to him?”
 

“Hm,” she said pondering over the question for a bit. “I guess not that close. But basically as close as all his other friends are to him. You know, even though they’ve been his friend for years, they still don’t know much about him at all. Baekhyun has gone to all of their houses and met their families, but none of them have been to his house or let alone met his family.” So no one has ever been to his house? The bell rang, signaling us to go to our next classes. Seungyeon stood up and smiled at me. “We can continue tomorrow,” she said before strutting out the door.
 

I slowly made my way to my next class, which happened to be assisting in the Attendance Office. Mrs. Kim had instructed me to alphabetize all of the students’ files. I had finished most of them during the previous days, so I only had the seniors’ files left to organize. I hovered over the pile of files on the desk and meticulously placed individual files into their corresponding tabs. I glanced down at the next file to see Baekhyun’s name written at the top. I was about to stick it into the file cabinet, but my curiosity got the best of me. I glanced up at Mrs. Kim to see her typing away on her computer, completely oblivious of the fact that I was going to look through private information.
 

I cautiously opened the manila folder and glimpsed through his documents. My eyes lingered on his address as I remembered that no one had actually been to his house. I glanced back up at Mrs. Kim and she was completely engrossed in her work on the computer. I looked back down at Baekhyun’s address as I slowly slipped my phone out of my pocket and stealthily took a picture of it. I didn’t exactly know what I was thinking. What was I going to do? Show up on his doorstep pretending to be some door-to-door seller? I couldn’t just tell him that I looked through his files and found out his address. That would be creepy. Even if my whole people observing habit was creepy in itself; that was just a new low. With a sigh, I closed the folder and shoved it into the ‘B’ tab.
 

A couple periods later, I walked into English class looking towards the back of the class to see Baekhyun’s seat empty. He was usually always there before I got into class. I sank into my seat wondering where he could have been.

I noticed Luhan staring at me tentatively in the corner of my eye. I turned to face him and said, “I’m not mad at you, so you don’t need to act like that.”

He sighed as concern showed on his face. “I know you’re not mad at me, or any of us, but I’m worried about you.”

I furrowed my brows at him. “What’s there to worry about?”

“I don’t want you to get your heart broken,” he quietly said as a frown formed on his lips.

“I can’t get my heart broken if I don’t like anyone, Lu.”

“Stop lying to yourself. It’s obvious that you’ve liked him for a while. You’re just barely realizing those feelings now.” I was put off by Luhan’s intense tone and remained silent. “Listen, I can’t stop you from liking him, but just know that we’re here when you need us.”

Why did it seem like he was so sure that I would get my heart broken? He didn’t know Baekhyun. Granted, I didn’t really know Baekhyun either, but then again, it seemed like no one did. Maybe it was why I was so scared to admit that I actually liked him. It was almost like getting hurt is inevitable with him. But I was willing to risk the pain.

At lunch time, the guys seemed to be enthralled by the fact that someone had confessed to Kris earlier in the day. It shouldn’t have been that surprising to them. He was tall and good looking. Someone was finally brave enough to approach his intimidating exterior.
 

“We’re going out to dinner this Friday,” Kris said with a dazed smile.

“I’m so jealous. I wish a girl would confess to me,” Xiumin said, puffing his cheeks.

“Don’t worry little steam bun,” Luhan said poking Xiumin’s cheek. “I’m sure you’ll get lucky one of these days.”

“Why do you guys wait for girls to confess to you?” I asked. “I mean, if you really want a girlfriend, all you have to is man up and do it yourself.”

“Not everyone is like your prince charming,” Chen said with a sour face. I kicked him in the shin. “Ow!”

“I’m being serious! It’s our last year of high school and none of you have dated anyone with the exception of pretty face Luhan.” The guys all glared at Luhan while he sheepishly smiled. “You guys can’t possibly be that awkward.”

“We all don’t need to get girlfriends just because you and Kris started dating,” Lay grumbled.

“Well, then have fun being single,” Kris said blatantly, causing laughter among the 7 of us.

* * *

I walked into Chemistry expecting to work alone on the lab, but much to my surprise, Baekhyun was sitting in our lab station setting everything up.
 

“I thought you didn’t come to school today,” I said as I sat next to him.
 

“I didn’t,” he said. “But you didn’t think I’d let you work on this by yourself, did you?” The smile on his face was enough to make me weak at the knees.
 

“It’s really not that hard of lab… I could have worked on it by myself,” I mumbled. “Why didn’t you come anyway?”
 

For a split second I could have sworn I saw panic in his eyes, but it quickly went away. “I had a doctor’s appointment. That’s all,” he said simply. He looked like he was telling the truth, but the way he quickly dismissed the subject seemed skeptical.
 

Before I could ask about it, he spoke again. “I need to tell you something,” he blurted out suddenly.
 

“Uh, what is it?” I asked, taken aback.
 

He brought his face awfully close to my own and I felt all of the saliva evaporate from my mouth.
 

"Don't fall in love with me," he said.
 

"Who said I was falling in love with you?" I said, swallowing hard.
 

"No one,” he said pulling away.  “Just wanted to give you a fair warning."