Amber POV

First, let me make something clear. I don’t have anger issues. However, when I saw that face, it took every ounce of self-control I had to not to just squish the rest of my banana into it and just go home. There was just something about that face that made my blood boil. Maybe it was his annoying smirk. Maybe it was the way he had every person in the school, student or teacher, wrapped around his fingers.

Maybe the real reason that Kibum Kim irritated me so much was that, since 4^th grade, my life decided it would be great to have him right around the corner all the time. Literally, we have been in the same class since 4^th grade. Even in our relatively small Junior High, for both years, I had five of the same classes out of six periods. Even this was only because of boys and girls’ P.E. classes, which were still at the same period. Sometimes we would even have a merged co-ed P.E. class if the gym was being used for a special event, so both classes had to play on the field.

That may not seem too bad, if you think about how each class has twenty to thirty kids in them. Going into 7^th grade last year, I also thought this. However, I didn’t take seating charts into consideration. Unfortunately for me, when you got out of elementary school, teachers apparently liked to set up seating charts, and usually they put us in alphabetical order according to last name. Alas, L and K happened to be right next to each other in the alphabet, so I pretty much sat by him for most of the day.

Again, you might think, Hey, isn’t that a good thing?

“Hellooo?” He was waving his hand in front of me. I guess I was busy thinking about how sad my luck was. “Does the monkey not talk English? Ooh-ooh? Ah-ah?”

I swallowed the bite of banana I took when he showed up. I had lost my appetite. I glared at him, and smacked his hand away from my face. Now, I knew the rule about how we weren’t supposed to feed the trolls, but I’m sorry. He made my blood boil. Normally, I would ignore anybody’s rude comments thrown at me, but this guy was not anybody. “I am not a monkey.” I turned to throw the rest of my banana into the garbage can by the door.

He just smirked at me. “Hmm… You’re right. I’m sorry.” I dropped my banana in and froze. Then I spun around to look at him. My face must have looked pretty stupid or something, because he just grinned and said, “Nope, definitely not a monkey. You look like a lizard.” He burst into laughter.

Whatever look I had on my face was quickly replaced with a scowl. I felt my face heat up from embarrassment. I fell for another one of his annoying jokes at my own expense. “If I’m a lizard, then you’re a mouse!” I retaliated. I knew it wasn’t the best comeback, but I had a choice of passively letting him make me look stupid while he laughed, although there wasn’t even anyone else around, or say something probably just as stupid as standing there that would hopefully at least make him stop laughing.

He did stop laughing. However, he only stopped long enough to respond. “Am I?” His voice was dripping with amusement. He was clearly enjoying my stupidity. I just stood there, not wanting to make the situation any worse for myself. He kept laughing.

No, he was not just anybody. This guy was Kibum, or Key, the one I hated most in life. The one I dealt with on a daily basis. Key was the single most irritating person I had ever met.

It felt like I stood there pondering my hate for Key while he laughed at me for forever. However, in actuality, it was about three or less minutes. We still had plenty of nice quality time to kill before the bell rang when he decided to stop laughing at me. Not wanting to talk to him, and probably make a fool out of myself again- not that I really cared what Key thought- I looked anywhere but at him. It was really awkward, because nobody else had shown up yet.

After not even a minute of awkwardly fidgeting in place and avoiding any form of communication with him, I decided to sneak a glance in his direction. I really did not expect to see him staring, quite fixedly, right at me. He didn’t even look away, when I met his gaze. Or when I flinched. Well, I didn’t really flinch, but I’m telling you, Key has a really intense and almost unnerving stare.

“What?” I demanded. I felt very awkward under his stare. I started to feel self-conscious, wondering what he was looking at. Because I still wasn’t directly looking at him, I made myself look him in the eye, because that’s what polite people do, in good company or not.

He stepped closer to me, and leaned closer to whisper in my ear. I thought this was weird because nobody else was around, and anything embarrassing he would usually just announce to the world anyway. “Amber,” he said and paused. The way he said my name sent chills down my spine. It made me think what he had to tell me was actually really important.

Instead, he said in a totally serious monotone, “Your sock’s untied.”

I looked down. “My what?” He started laughing his annoying laugh again.

“Wow,” he said. “I can’t believe you actually looked! How did you even fall for that?” I groaned, and mentally kicked myself over and over again for falling for one of his insidious jokes. Now, I’m really not a stupid person. You could never tell with Key. Sometimes he said things so bluntly and nonchalantly, you can’t even tell if he’s human.

That’s probably what irritated me the most about him. He didn’t care what other people thought about him. I guess I was a little jealous about that. In a way, I suppose his blunt words could be kind of inspiring.

“You must be kinda stupid, or something, huh?” He laughed.

But sometimes his blunt words could be absolutely infuriating. “Why don’t you just leave me alone?” I answered sharply. I noticed some of our classmates coming toward us. “Why don’t you go talk to someone else?”

He stopped laughing upon noticing the other kids, too. He glanced at them, and looked back at me. Mr. Hudson was coming with the rest of the crowd headed to the classroom. Key smiled at me and patted my head. Voice dripping with sarcasm, he said, “Now, now. What would be the fun in that?”

Mr. Hudson opened the door to the History classroom just as the first bell rang. The kids filed in and took their seats. As I made my way into the room, I felt somebody behind me step at the back of my heels. I whipped around to meet none other than Key. Who else would it have been? I glared at him.

“Oh. So sorry,” he said and winked as if just passing by to go to his seat. I tried my hardest not to explode and cause a ruckus. I hated it when people stepped on the back of my heels. It was a pet peeve of mine that, over the years, Key had figured out was a great way to provoke me. He made sure to step on my heels as often as possible. If a teacher were around, he would profusely apologize, so if I blew up at him, I would be the one to look bad.

I seethed as I followed him to my seat, right behind his. “Damn alphabetical seating charts,” I muttered under my breath. I sat in my desk behind him, waiting for the final bell to ring, staring daggers into the back of his head. He was too busy laughing and talking with everybody to notice.

The final bell rang, and we all stood up to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Afterwards, we sat back down, and Mr. Hudson read us the announcements. Today’s classes were cut short since today was the last day of school. We were getting our report cards with our final grades at 6^th period, the last class of the day. For me, that was math. Call me a nerd or whatever, but even though I already knew my grades, I was still pretty excited to see them on paper.

After the announcements, Mr. Hudson collected our textbooks. After he collected our books, he had us sit quietly while he lectured us on the choices we were going to have to make in the near future. It was really boring, especially since he had pretty much given us the same exact speech the last two days.

I tuned out Mr. Hudson’s voice, and started daydreaming about what I needed to pack for camp. It wasn’t until everyone was up and moving about the classroom that I realized the teacher was done with his spiel. I asked Mary Madrigal, who sat behind me, what was going on.

Mary rolled her eyes and said, “He said do whatever you want,” and she went back to talking with her friend.

Whatever I want? I looked around the room to see what everybody else was doing. Sure enough, all the other kids seemed to just be doing whatever they wanted to do.

It wasn’t every day that your teacher says do whatever we wanted in class.  Although there was only about fifteen minutes left in this period- classes were only forty-five minutes today- I decided to make the best of my free time. I pulled out my notebook, and I continued filling the pages with ridiculous doodles.

“Hey, Key,” I heard somebody giggle. “Will you sign our yearbooks?” Two somebodies. Girl somebodies. I glanced up from my doodling to see who was being so ridiculous and undignified.

“Sure,” Key agreed warmly. He was smiling amiably to, sure enough, two girls in our class, Tanya and Bethany. It kind of disgusted me the way they were acting. It was pretty obvious that they both liked Key- though I have no idea why anyone would- and they were just being… such girls about it. They didn’t have to be so undignified and honestly just dumb. Why degrade yourself like that for some guy? I really just didn’t understand some people.

“What is that supposed to be?”

I looked up again. Bethany was laughing about something in her yearbook, and Tanya was looking quizzically at my doodles. I must have been spacing out again, so I hadn’t really been paying attention to what I was drawing.

“Uh…” I looked down at my notebook full of scribbles and sketches. “Well…”

Bethany now had her attention directed towards me. Key even turned around to see what was going on and probably to relish in my embarrassment.

“It’s… a whale… with wings? And a taco?” I said hesitantly.

The awkward silence that followed my response seemed to last for ages.

Finally, as if he had been holding it in, Key burst into laughter. Normally, I would be annoyed that he would even be breathing, but I could feel my face heat up as Bethany began to join him, chuckling nervously.

Tanya, however, wasn’t as amused. She scoffed, and said, “Well it’s weird. Why would anyone draw something like that?”

I just shrugged, not really understanding why she should even care. I didn’t know what the big deal was.

Key stopped laughing. “Well I think it’s kinda cute.”

“You do?” Tanya and I said together in disbelief.

“Yeah, it kinda reminds me of the time I went whale watching with my uncle. The whales would leap out of the water was so beautiful, like they were flying! It was so cool because…”

I just shrank back into my seat, grateful that their attention was no longer on me. Sighing with relief, I saw that the bell would ring soon. I drew one last potato in my notebook before putting it away. As soon as the bell rang, I thanked Mr. Hudson one last time, and bounded out the door.

I must have forgotten what life I was living or something, because I probably looked truly dumbfounded when, not two steps from the door, somebody stepped on the back of my heels again for the second- and not likely the last- time today. I whipped around. Why was I even surprised? It was none other than Key.

He gave me a look of feign surprise, and gave me a brusque, “Sorry,” and he passed by as if he was just on his merry way. I might have believed him again if I didn’t see the corner of his mouth twitch up, like he was trying not to laugh at my dumbfounded expression.

I just glared at him, and started towards my next class. I stopped realizing my stupidity. I mentally cursed myself, and continued to awkwardly follow Key in the direction of our English class. During the year, I would usually wait awhile or take time gathering my things together to give Key like a head start so that during passing periods, this wouldn’t happen.

The walk from history to English felt like twenty miles instead of twenty yards. When Key got to our destination, he opened the door. To my surprise, rather than going inside like I thought he would, he turned holding the door open and motioned for me to enter. I looked at him suspiciously, but entered first anyway. “Thanks,” I said.

“No problem… stalker.”

I froze and turned to glare at him, probably with steam coming out of my ears. He just passed by me with an airy laugh as he made his way to his seat.

This was pretty much how most of the rest of the day went.

In English, the teacher, Mrs. Poloski, had us do a word search with partners. Unfortunately for me, she assigned partners, and lucky me got Key, since we already sat by each other.  Instead of working together, we had a silent battle to see who could find the most words before the end of the class period. I would find several words in a row, and I would get excited. Then I would glace over at Key and see him find twice as many, and I would get frustrated and search harder. We ended up tying with seventeen words each, which was about three times more than anybody else in the class. Ms. Poloski gave us both bookmarks as prizes. I remembered to thank her as I left her classroom for the last time.

As I was walking to my next class, I noticed Key walking by me out of the corner of my eye. I glanced at him, and he appeared to just be walking. It was as if he didn’t even notice me walking beside him. After about ten more steps of awkwardness, I turned my head towards him and said, “Stalker much?”

“What?” He said with a slight tone of exasperation. “I’m just walking to class. It’s not my problem you’re walking in the same direction.” I stopped. I couldn’t believe my ears. Is he forgetting we have the same class? I thought incredulously. Once again, I awkwardly walked a few feet after him. Once again, still to my surprise, he opened the door and motioned for me to pass first. In class, science, we watched some documentary on the biological science of the history of the chemicality of physics or something. I wasn’t really paying attention. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t anyway, because Key’s big head was right in my line of vision.

I didn’t have to worry about another awkward walk with Key because the next class I had, art, was the next room over. This class was one of my favorite classes. Not only was our teacher Ms. Murdock, or Connie as she preferred us to call her, super cool and probably crazy, but her class was also the only class I wasn’t seated by Key. Even better yet, we sat on opposite sides of the room. Unfortunately, with creativity came kind of like a price. The worktables were on opposite sides of the room, with the supplies table in the center, and we would sit facing the center, towards the other side of the room. I think you could guess who sat directly across the room from me.

Ms. Connie announced that we were allowed to do whatever we wanted, use whatever we wanted, and just as long we let the “creative juices” flow and we would clean up afterward. Instantly, almost half the class went for the modeling clay, me included. Key included. I just grabbed a handful of clay from her huge wheelbarrow full of the stuff and went back to my table. I wasn’t sure why, but ever since I met Key, we seemed to have some sort of unsaid rivalry between us. We didn’t even really talk besides the times he would make fun of me and I would get pissed off, but I always had the sense that the competitive urge was mutual.

“Why, Amber! That is one fabulous figurine you have formed!”

“Thanks, Ms. Connie.” Like I said, the teacher was crazy. For the past six minutes I had done nothing with the clay, besides squish, unsquish, and resquish it. I was too lost in thought, Maybe I should appreciate Key. I probably wouldn’t try so hard in school if I didn’t want to beat him so badly. And he may be kinda annoying a lot of the time, or actually most of the time, but really I don’t think he’s ever been too bad. And never really mean. Maybe, just maybe next year, we could like turn new leaves, and if we go to the same school we could be frien-

“Why, Key! That is one creative concept you have conjured up! But, may I ask, what is it?”

Okay, that’s right. That’s why I hate him.

On Key’s table in front of him, was a perfectly sculpted head of a T-rex. Maybe it wasn’t perfectly sculpted, but damn…  “Why, thank you, Ms. Connie,” he said smiling amiably. “It’s supposed to be a dinosaur. I was just trying to figure out the basic shape, but I guess it still needs more work, huh?” What was that about trying to beat him, again?

“Oh, well I think you’re off to a good start. A very dazzling dino you have designed, indeed.”

I just grumbled to myself as I continued to squish my blob, transforming it into a beach ball, reminding myself that today was the last day. I had a short moment of turmoil, when I had to restrain myself from hurling my “beach ball” across the room at a certain somebody.

When the bell rang for lunch, I stood up and tossed my clay beach ball right into Ms. Connie’s wheelbarrow. I did a self-congratulatory fist pump, and went to the sink to wash my hands. Then I grabbed my backpack, which only had my math book and the stuff from before inside it. For the last time, I gave my thanks to Ms. Connie, who told me to “Stay fresh!”, and headed out to lunch.

As I got closer to the lunch tables, I scanned the area with my eyes for either Krystal or Taemin. I was just about to take a step forward and search for them further when somebody behind me grabbed my backpack and rather violently yanked me back, screaming my name.

For the second time today, Krystal Jung was acting way too excited.

A/N: Gah... SO LONG. Don't expect such long chapters all the time... probably not... Not really sure...

Heheh... and sorry for not updating anything... school started, and I have just.... no. Somebody kill me before school does. Research. On school life. Yeah. That's it. ;)

Ugh, anyway, next chapter should come sooner than this. We got the last two classes and then the dance~ Then definitely by chapter 4 we should be getting to camp~ Key word in all those promises: should. "An oath to keep with a final breath." Ummm.... sorry, wrong fandom. XD

So yeah, thanks for reading! Hope I'm not boring you, lol. Sorry for the longish Author's Note, ehhhh... I tend to end up doing this a lot, be warned.

Oh yeah, and since I don't think I mentioned this before, if anyone even cares lol, I think this would be rated like PG-13 or T or whatever. Just cuz Amber's 13 in this story I guess. They say words like "damn" and "". I don't really think it's that big of a deal in today's society (which is a bit sad), but hey, you never know who you might offend on the internet.