And we're back to shorter chapters! Because this allows us to spread it out more and build up to another crazy long- for this coming... arc type thing.

The next day at school felt oddly surreal to you. Rather than the hateful glares you were expecting from people because of how you apparently humiliated Himchan at the dance, you were receiving lots of smiles and waves from random people, and even a few greetings and “How are you”s. The majority of the student body was still whispering whenever you walked by, but it didn’t seem malicious at all.

Krystal cleared up the matter for you in third period.

“I can’t believe how awesome you are,” she said with total admiration. “You manage to land a guy like Donghae for Homecoming, you totally diss Himchan in front of the entire school—you knocked him down just like you did CL!”

Once again, you felt strange at everyone’s insistence that you knocked a popular student down a few pegs, but it must’ve been true if they all said so.

“By the way,” Krystal interrupted your thoughts. “Is it true that your dating Himchan was all just a way to pay him back for ruining his jacket?”

You blinked at her. “Yeah,” you admitted. “He said the only way to pay him back would be to pretend to be his girlfriend to get CL off his back.” You put your face in your hands and sighed. “I guess it just got really out of hand,” you said. “I felt like I was living a double life. I was practically two people.”

Krystal rubbed your shoulders comfortingly. “You’re one of the strongest people I know, Mary Sue.”

You smiled.

Krystal sat with you at lunch, even though you had relocated to your original table with Key, Amber and Jonghyun. It was a little inconvenient for you, since you had planned to tell Key and Amber about the whole Chosen One, prophecy of destiny, vampire apocalypse thing, and you didn’t know how well you could trust Krystal with that sort of information. Key and Amber had been with you and Jonghyun through a lot of difficult situations, and they had proven you could trust them with anything. But with Krystal around, you couldn’t open your mouth for anything other than stuffing the banana from your lunch tray inside it.

“Ahem.” You heard the timid noise behind you and you glanced over your shoulder to see Sunny and Sungmin holding their lunch trays. “Mary Sue,” Sunny began, sharing a quick look with her boyfriend. “Can we sit with you?”

Your mouth fell open, revealing the banana inside. Then you regained your composure enough to finish eating the mouthful. “But, why would you want to?” you asked, dumbfounded. “This isn’t the popular table.”

Sunny smiled, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Are you kidding?” she retorted. “You’re the most popular girl in school now after the way you stood up to Himchan. You’re at the same level as Donghae now!”

You were astounded by this. Glancing over to Himchan’s table, you noticed there were decidedly less people sitting there with him than before. You also noticed CL a couple tables away with her posse 2NE1. She was looking generally peeved and kept sending glaring looks your way. Then you realized that Sunny and Sungmin were still standing there, looking increasingly more nervous. “Of course you can sit with us,” you said happily, and they both relaxed, ecstatic, and sat down.

“You really have changed the status quo, new girl,” Sungmin said, winking.

“Is she really at Donghae level now?” Jonghyun cut in, his eyes wide and staring straight at Sunny. Sunny faltered a bit beneath his gaze and simply nodded.

“Speaking of Donghae,” Krystal added, “why isn’t he sitting here? Aren’t he and Mary Sue together?”

You stopped yourself from taking another bite of banana to gape like a fish as you thought of a good way to answer.

“They’re not actually together,” Amber explained for you. “They both realized they don’t love each other and so they broke it off,” she said simply.

“That’s too bad,” Krystal mused.

“Not really. Jonghyun took it harder than either of us did,” you , grinning.

He looked back at you, his eyes still wide and expression still unchanged from awestruck. “Does it matter anymore?” he exclaimed. “You’re at Donghae level! I can achieve high school status just by being your twin!”

The rest of the table laughed, in a cheesy moment that caught the rest of the cafeteria’s attention and elevated your table’s status to exclusive popularity that everyone wished they could be a part of.

That day after school, you finally had the opportunity to talk about the whole vampire prophecy Chosen One thing. You had invited Key and Amber over to your house under the pretense of having something very important to tell them. But now, gathered in your room with their attention on you, you didn’t know where to begin.

You ended up just saying it all at once. “I’m the Chosen One in a prophecy to help the twelve Hunters against a clan of vampires who are trying to invoke a vampire apocalypse by somehow using me to stop the sun.”

Well, that could have been put more delicately. Key and Amber just blinked at you for a few seconds, and you suddenly regretted not easing them into it. Maybe you could have started with, “Vampires are real.” You mentally face-palmed for not thinking of that first.

Key broke the tension with a monosyllabic laugh. “I’m sorry, what?” he asked.

“It’s true,” Jonghyun said before you could explain further. “That’s why she never came back to Homecoming,” he elaborated, as if that explained everything.

Key gave another tense laugh. Amber, on the other hand, who seemed to come to terms with the information rather quickly, just nodded. “Alright,” she said.

Key stared at the other three bewildered. “You can’t be serious,” he said. “Vampires.”

You all stared earnestly back at him.

“Vampires?!” he yelled. “Seriously?!”

“I don’t know, Key,” Amber reasoned. “A lot of strange things have been happening. I mean, just yesterday, Donghae was a fish. I don’t know if we can just dismiss this as nothing.”

“Look,” Key argued. “I was really hung over yesterday. I can’t trust that it wasn’t just the vodka talking.”

“Well, Jonghyun and I were completely sober,” she countered.

“Well, maybe somebody put hallucinogens in the punch,” he rebutted. “We all drank that . Tell me that doesn’t explain Mary Sue’s Homecoming night adventure as well.”

“Um,” you muttered, suddenly gaining everybody’s attention again. “I can prove it to you.”

You found them all staring at you again, Amber interestedly, Key bewilderedly, and Jonghyun excitedly.

“If you’re interested, that is.”

“Mary Sue!” Chanyeol exclaimed. “Just can’t stay away, can…you…?”

You turned around to face him coming out of the hidden door in the chapel. His face fell from his characteristic wide-eyed smile and shifted between you and the other three people standing there.

“Chanyeol, I want you to meet my friends, Key and Amber, and my twin brother, Jonghyun.” You gestured to each of them, beaming.

The tall Hunter smiled uneasily at each of them before turning back to you.

“W-what are they doing here?” he stammered through nearly gritted teeth and a half-assed fake smile.

You shrugged. “I thought they might be able to help.”

“Help?” He cocked his head to punctuate the one-word question.

You just smiled at him. “I told them everything!” you explained.

His smile faltered, leaving his expression similar to that of a deer in headlights.

“What?!”