Amber POV

“Amberrrr!” Krystal did not quite kill me with her attack, but she did begin to violently shake my arm off trying to get my attention. Something had made her way too excited, and she was just way too eager to tell me.

“Whaaaat?” I asked, my voice juddering with my arm.

She fervently let go of my arm smiling. I checked my arm for bruises. Krystal Jung had a strong grip. “Guess what Taemin just told me in Geography!”

 “Did he finally confess his love to you?” I with a smirk.

She hit my arm, a scowl sharply directed at me. “No! Of course he did not confess anything to me. Why the hell-? No, just shut up and listen. He told me that we’re only playing the best game in the world for P.E.today!”

“Basketball?!” I guessed, getting excited as well. Unfortunately, I must have guessed wrong. She smacked my arm again.

“No!” She said in exasperation, like I was the dumbest person on the planet. “Basketball is for peasants.” She sounded disgusted, and it was hilarious.

I rubbed my arm, mumbling, “Well excuse me, Princess.” I happened to like basketball…

Krystal pretended not to hear me and continued. “Taemin told me that he heard from Mike Diger, who overheard Leslie Noe and Melissa Taylor talking about how Aaron Sanchez was telling them that he heard from Tommy Gong that…” My head was starting to spin from all the names she was rattling off, and who said what to whom. “Amber, are you listening? Did you even hear me? Your eyes were like glazing over. I said today we’re playing dodgeball!”

My brain was completely fried. She was talking too fast for me to process anything she was saying. “Dodgeball?”

Krystal grabbed my arms again, and she began dancing around, making me dance with her. “Yes, dodgeball! And it gets better!” She stopped dancing around with me, and grasped my shoulders, grinning widely. “We get to play with the boys!”

Taemin apparently had some student council meeting to go to, so Krystal and I opted to eat lunch in the girls’ locker room. We both dug in and finished with plenty of time left before the next class began, which was P.E. anyway.

We both decided to dress in our uniforms while it was still peaceful in the locker room. Changing clothes was always the most awkward point of most days. Both of us often received rude and pretty offensive words thrown at us. I mean, it was understandable that because of my appearance, I would get some insults thrown in my direction, but I never really understood why the other girls would pick at Krystal’s appearance. I didn’t really know why they cared about our appearance at all, especially when we’re changing clothes… Creeps…

Krystal finished changing quickly, and she even folded her normal clothes neatly before placing them in her locker and hung her back on the hooks inside. I, on the other hand, had to rummage through old papers, candy wrappers, empty water bottles, and old wadded-up paper lunch sacks to get to my P.E. clothes.

“You should get rid of all that old crap you have in there,” she said while tying the shoelaces of her sneakers.

I turned and made a face at her. “In a minute.” She just rolled her eyes in response.

As I finished tying the laces of my own shoes, we began talking a little about our battle strategy.

“We are so going to dominate today.”

“Definitely.” I brought a trash can over and started dumping the stuff in my locker into it. “We better, at least.”

“We will!”

“Okay…”

“We’re gonna destroy the other team.” She sat on the bench, hugging her knees to her chest, as she watched me remove all the old junk from my locker. “I hope we get the good guys on our team, like Mark, Anthony, William, Key-“

I stopped and scowled at the sound of his name. “Oh please not him.”

“Why? He slaughtered half our team last time when we played against the boys.”

“He’s been extra annoying today.”

“I think he’s fine, plus, he could help us win.”

“You don’t have to spend the whole day around him.”

Krystal sighed in resignation. “Okay, whatever. Not Key then. It doesn’t even matter anyway, because he’ll probably get picked first for the good team, and we’ll be last and have to carry our whole team. But we’re still winning today.”

I just nodded in agreement as I finished cleaning out my locker. I went to put the garbage bin back where it belonged.

“Oh. So that reminds me, what are you wearing for the dance tonight?! I was thinking since it’s blacklight, we have to wear white. I have no idea what that’s white, though! It has to be casual and comfortable, but it is still a dance.”

“Krystal,” I said, closing my locker and leaning on it, “I wasn’t actually planning on going to that dance tonight.”

“What? Why not? Oh come on! Tonight will probably be the last time we can hang before I go on my family trip.” The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. We both knew that at any moment, the locker room would be filled with other girls.

“I don’t know, I just don’t really feel up to going.” Sure enough, I could hear the screeching and squealing of other girls entering the building.

“Bull. You are so up to going. I can see it in your eyes.” I didn’t really know what she was seeing, but I just decided I wouldn’t argue. “You have your phone on you?”

I laughed. “No. You actually think it would be charged even if I did?”

“Good point.” She got up from the bench and turned to open her own locker. Other girls came into our little alcove of lockers, chattering, and a few of them singing some song I never heard of. They were pretty awful.

“Why?” Krystal dug through her bag and pulled out her phone, and she began texting somebody with amazing speed. “Who are you-?”

“Jessica unni. I’m just telling her that we’re going to your place after school, and I’m helping you get ready for the dance.” She turned off her cellphone and said grinning, “You are going tonight, whether you want to or not.”

Once again, I just sighed in resignation and grinned back. “Whatever you say, Princess.” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

At that moment, our Physical Education teacher, Mrs. Harvin walked by our section of lockers. Not even looking up from her clipboard, she said, “Krystal Jung, could I see you for a moment.” She didn’t ask; it was an order. Even though Mrs. Harvin was definitely one of the coolest teachers in the school, it was not wise to ignore what she told you to do.

Having said that, Krystal exchanged quick glances with me, and followed Mrs. Harvin to her office. I wondered what Krystal did.

When Krystal left, I felt kind of awkward. I turned and reopened my locker, pretending to be busy with the remaining stuff I had inside. I could hear some of the other girls talking about Krystal.

“Ugh, she’s such a .”

“Ew, I know! You can’t just invite yourself to other people’s houses, even if it is just her house.”

“She’s acts all high just because she has money! She thinks she’s so pretty like her sister.”

“Please, not even. She just uses her sister’s popularity from the high school. She just wants to look cool.”

I never understand why people have to hate others so much. What was there in tearing Krystal to shreds behind her back? I didn’t even see how her family’s money and her sister were even relevant. Sure, the Jung family was pretty well off, considering that they apparently took trips every summer to visit their family all the way back in Korea, and I did hear that Jessica had been voted both Homecoming and Prom Queen this year at the high school. None of that even mattered, though. Krystal was a person, and those other girls couldn’t just hate her because that. I happened to know for a fact that those things didn’t affect the way Krystal acted. If anything, they were more of a burden to her. The fact that she did pretty much invite herself over to my place didn’t really bother me either.

Krystal was my friend, and I wasn’t going to let anybody slander her for no reason. I mean, that’s my job. I was just about to tell them off and probably get my face scratched off with a sixty-dollar manicure, when Mrs. Harvin popped her head out of her office and blew her whistle. She hollered, “We’re playing dodgeball in the gym! One lap! Go!” Everyone scurried out of the locker room and into the gym giggling and pushing each other out.

I shuffled out behind them and started my lap around the gym.

I made it about two yards from the door when somebody kicked me in the back of the knees, almost causing me to fall flat on my face. Luckily, I was able to catch myself before I fell. Of course, it was the princess herself that kicked me. She just ran ahead of me, and waved a peace sign at me. Jogging backwards, she called out to me, “C’mon slowpoke! Race ya!”

I grinned. “Tch. Challenge accepted.”

We raced around the gym, and despite the fact that we only had to run around once, Krystal and I still finished our lap before any of the other girls in our class.

The boys were in the middle of the gym. Their coach, Mr. Harvin, was making them do push-ups, sit-ups, and jumping-jacks. I thought it was a little hardcore for a quick warm-up before dodgeball.

Everybody finished their “warm-ups”, and Mr. and Mrs. Harvin had us all sit so that they could take role. Not surprisingly, about a quarter of the kids were missing. Most of us thought that since final had ended last week, this week was a major waste of time. It wasn’t even a whole week, and the days weren’t full-length. After they took attendance, they began explaining the rules of dodgeball. As if we didn’t know how to play it before, I thought.

As I took a seat by Krystal, I remembered to ask her, “So what did Harvin want in the locker room?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she whispered, and stuck out her tongue.

“Actually, I would.” I stuck out my tongue back at her.

She rolled her eyes at me. “You’ll see in a minute.”

As if right on cue, Mr. Harvin wrapped up his “brief” dodgeball seminar. Then Mrs. Harvin called up the two kids that would pick the teams. Although I should have seen it coming, the girls’ representative was none other than Krystal Jung. It turned out that when Krystal went into Mrs. Harvin’s office she was being offered the very important and esteemed position of team captain. However, to my surprise, the boys’ representative was none other than Taemin.

This is definitely going to be good, I thought gleefully. The gauntlet had definitely been thrown.

Both Krystal and Taemin had fire in their eyes. Neither of them was going to hold back. This was war.

They made their ways up to the front with ridiculously competitive airs. Coaches Harvin just looked at them like, You know the drill, and they went to the far side of the gym to “supervise” from a “safe distance.”

Taemin and Krystal did a quick round of “rock-paper-scissors”, and although Krystal always (and I literally mean always) picks rock, Taemin lost. When he suggested the best two out of three, the princess just threatened to “use rock again” on his head, and with that Krystal got to pick first.

Immediately, she looked right at me called, “Get over here, slave.” It was kind of relieving that I wasn’t going to be picked last, which I normally wasn’t because I was good at sports and games, but it was also embarrassing that she had to call me out like that. She stood smirking at Taemin and waited for him to pick, while smiling like she wasn’t taking the game too seriously already. Krystal was going to play to win.

Taemin hesitated for a second before choosing a quiet girl from my class, Annabeth, who would probably have been picked last. Taemin was just nice like that.

It wasn’t long at all until all the girls had been placed on either Taemin or Krystal’s team. It was time for them to pick out of the boys, and who they picked would actually matter, unlike the girls. Our team consisted mostly of girls, including some of the girls slamming Krystal in the locker room, who get afraid of and therefore just dodge the balls.

I stood by Krystal and started talking battle strategy. Half-way through me encouraging her to get some of the baseball players, she just looked at me and called out a name, “Key.”

I just stared at her, probably with my mouth agape.

“Woo! Let’s go go winning team!” He cheered with a few of the girls on our team, giving out high-fives like we already won.

“Krys, you gotta be kidding me.”

She just continued her stare down/glare down with Taemin and his team, and said, “Well, I had to get him before Taemin could.”

“Krys, you gotta be kid-“

Two arms crept up behind us and wrapped around our shoulders. The most annoying face appeared in between ours. “So, we got a battle plan or what?”

Krystal scoffed with false indignation, “Duh, I’m picking the best of the best, aren’t I?”

They both laughed and bumped fists. I wanted to fist bump them both in the face. Key for being there and Krystal for bringing him there. Traitor, I thought.

Taemin and Krystal soon finished picking teams, and the games began.

The first game was an easy win. Taemin, despite being the other team’s leader, was the first kid to go, courtesy of Krystal. However, Taemin and his team seemed to realize how easily we won, and stepped it up and won the next two games.

It was time for our fourth and final round. It was all or nothing.

Heheh…. Hello….. So….. sorry it’s been like…. 3? 5 months? >__________<

Literally every time somebody would ask me about an update, the following day/week my computer would crash. TTATT Not even kidding. It happened three or four times. |||OTL Then also I had a bit of writers’ block for some parts, and then school just adsfghjkl;’ and then SNSD and SHINee’s comebacks ASDFGHJKHGFDRUHJKLJGFCVBNKHT%^$TYHJK omg

So yeah, I am very very very sorry… Hopefully next chapter will come sooner, because I cut off a good 15-20ish% of this chapter so I could 1. Get it to you guys sooner/before my computer crashes again. 2. So I have ready content for the next chapter~ I make no promises, but definitely not quite this long a wait again… hopefully…

Next chapter: the dodgeball winner (muahaha), end of school, dance, and possibly finally getting to camp~~