Amber POV- ((I think all chapters will be))

I never meant to be the Most Hated Person in the school. I mean the talent just came to me naturally?

As I sat down for my last Junior high school math class, I couldn't be upset feeling at least five glares shot at me. After all, it was my own fault.

Two seats down, Key plops down in his chair. I tried sneaking a glance at him through the corner of my eye to see if he would start making angry faces at me, too, but he just took out a small notebook and began writing something, almost sullenly.

His expression, like mine, only darkened as an elated Taemin sat down in between us. Casually, he said, "Great game, guys, huh?" The smug little bastard.

"Yah. Lee Taemin." Key proceeded to say what seemed to be angry things to Taemin in Korean. However the little punk was just giggling, and he seemed to be enjoying himself.

That was another thing that kind of bothered me. I suppose it was something akin to childish jealousy, but I really hated having so many Korean friends that would go all buddy-buddy with Key and have secret Korean conversations openly. I would never admit it, but I was actually a little bit paranoid and very put off whenever this happened, because how did I know Key wasn’t making fun of me or something, and my friends weren’t just laughing it off with him. I didn’t mean to be such a distrustful friend, and I did feel bad for being kind of paranoid.

I just made another mental note that it was probably time I start to learn Korean… again. Krystal and Taemin, and even Key, weren’t the first friends I’ve had who spoke Korean regularly with their families. In fact, one of my best friends tried to teach me the Korean alphabet. Unfortunately she moved away when we went into middle school, and we didn’t really stay in touch.

Taemin’s gross laughter shook me out of my short reminiscence. If there was ever a time I did not appreciate the fact that Taemin was the barrier between Key and me in this class, it would definitely be right then. "You’re laughing now, but Krystal was so pissed that we lost that game. You won't be gloating when she comes and murders you." I said, recalling her rage when we got back to the locker room.

He stopped laughing, eyebrows shooting up. "Hey, what did I even do? I didn't even see what happened!"

I sighed. I was going to get a migraine having all these painful flashbacks. At the apex of the dodgeball game, no, the Most Important Dodgeball Game of the Year, I let my team lose.

“We got this, you guys!” Krystal called to rally our team.

Our fourth and final round, it was all or nothing. Even the careless girls on our team made a visible effort in this final battle. However, so did the other team. Everybody played to win. We dodged, we caught; soldiers fell, and came back home. Eventually, the numbers dwindled down to just a few players on each team.

On my team only Krystal, Key, and I were left standing.

On Taemin’s team, although their leader had fallen, Annabeth surprisingly made it this long, along with a guy named Percy, who unfortunately had been a baseball player for as long as anybody knew him.

Balls just bounced across the line dividing our teams’ sides for a while. There was a lot of dodging, but not much catching. The balls kept bouncing before any of us could catch them to bring back members of our team who were waiting on the sidelines.

Percy shot a ball my way that soared over my head. I turned to retrieve it. Just as I was turning back around and plot my own attack, someone yelled, “Look out!”

I flinched at the second ball soaring right toward my head, and I braced myself for impact. Only, it never came. About two or three yards ahead of me, Key’s arm had stretched out, intercepting the assailing red ball. He probably meant to catch it, but it merely rebounded off his fingertips before he had a good grip on it. He was out.

Now while the gesture was actually rather civil, the war wasn’t real, and the balls were pretty squishy, so it was not like it would have hurt badly getting hit. After all, that was the point of the game. That was also why, instead of thanking him graciously, (the bastard probably wanted that, wanted me indebted to him, but well guess what this isn’t the middle ages,) I kind of blurted, “What the hell? Why did you do that? You didn’t need to sacrifice yourself for me, and besides, a headshot could have brought two more in.”

At my small competitive outburst, Key raised an eyebrow. “Sorry for protecting you then.”

Confused by all the commotion, regretfully made by me, Krystal turned from her station near the boundary to see what was going on. The next few events seemed to happen in slow motion. Krystal took a step our way, and the enemy took its chance. Annabeth (it’s always the quiet ones, I’m telling you) seized the moment, and hurled a ball with all of her little might toward Krystal. The ball just barely grazed her elbow. Krystal Jung was out.

With everything still in slow motion, I took the opportunity to attack my adversaries while they high-fived over what seemed to be a near victory. Their mistake. Comically shoving past Key and nimbly side-stepping Krystal, both of whom were headed to the rest of our fallen team, I heaved the ball I had been going after when Key got out as hard as I could. I think this may have been the “fight or flight” mechanism at work. There was no way I was going to give up just because it was just me against two seemingly conniving classmates of mine. Even though I threw the ball as I could, the accuracy was way off, and it went way off to the side of Annabeth.

However, I had a little bit of luck on my side, because despite the distance of my projection, Percy still tried to catch it, probably in hopes of returning some of his team. Unfortunately for him, at the same time, Annabeth also tried to dodge it. While they were practically tripping over each other, the world continued in slow motion as Percy reached out past Annabeth, and… almost caught it. However he did not catch the ball, and when it bounced off his wrist much like Key, he was out as well.

Now the rule had it that since my team, I, was the last to strike the other team’s penultimate player, the final player on the other team, Annabeth, had a free shot at me, and I was to stand still. I could duck and dodge or even catch the ball to return my whole team, but I could not move my feet to avoid being hit. Technically this free shot was supposed to go to me, since my team had hit one player first, but I wasted that chance with my blind, yet successful, heroics.

The game itself definitely couldn’t have been longer than ten minutes, but this moment alone felt like hours. I was alone on the battlefield, with one opponent to face. I feel like you never really know a person until you go one-on-one with a person with everything at stake. Annabeth had always seemed nice enough. Quiet, but nice.

Looking at her across the borderline with my feet firmly frozen in place, I saw something pretty scary in her eyes. It was something akin to this time Taemin challenged Krystal to best of seven rounds of any videogame of her choice, claiming girls weren’t gamer material, and hoping that she would pick something wimpy like Mario Cart. The exact same look Krystal had when she pulled out her bag and slammed down a copy of Slender Man (I’m still not even sure where she got it), was the same look Annabeth was giving me. Confident, yet not smug. Innocent, yet definitely arrogant. Like they knew what would happen and perhaps planned it from the start.

Suddenly the time that had been moving in slow motion sped like my life was flashing before my eyes.

Annabeth lobbed the ball straight up. It bounced off the lights, causing them to swing back and forth, but not break. It headed straight back down at me with lightning speed. I leaned back so that I would have a chance at catching the ball instead of letting it smash down on my face like a giant piece of red rubbery hail. At the last second, the swinging light blinded me as I looked up to catch the ball. That damn ball bounced off my chest, while my arms remained dumbly stretched out, my head frozen toward the ceiling.

The war was over, and we had lost.

For a moment the only sound was the ball bouncing off to the side, as well as Krystal Jung’s jaw hitting the floor. Then, all at once the gym exploded. Boys and girls, seventh and eighth graders alike were cheering, groaning, some of them coming over to me to give me mock pats and thanks. In the corner of my eye I saw both Key and Krystal fall into [OTL] positions. I joined them shortly. Taemin pointed at us and laughed like an idiot.

I rubbed at my temples. Perhaps I should have let the ball just come straight down on my head, because surely a concussion would have been less painful than briefly going back to that memory of our shameful loss last period. Before I could answer, our teacher stood up from her desk, and asked for the class's attention.

Mrs. Nightingale was one of the nicest people I have had as a teacher. She was definitely strict, but she really cared about the well-being of her students, and not just what their grades said about her teaching. However, she was probably the only teacher teaching us a lesson in the last period of the last day of school, even after finals, and the printed report cards were even in a neat stack at the corner of her desk.

She assured us that we did not have to take notes, not that anyone would, I thought, but I took out my notebook anyway. I doodled a little more on the page with my whale and taco, occasionally jotting something new on the next page. Beside me, I think Taemin was sleeping. On the other side of him, Key was fervently writing something in his own notebook. I couldn’t tell if he was actually writing notes or not. I suppressed a snort, what a workaholic; I bet he is taking notes.

With barely five minute of Junior high school left, Mrs. Nightingale wrapped up her lesson and passed out our report cards. Taemin lifted his head from the desk as if he had not been napping the whole class.

When Mrs. Nightingale brought me the little envelope with my report card sealed inside, she smiled and congratulated me on a year well done. I smiled back and thanked her. We both knew I meant more than just for the report card and for math. Last year, when things were a lot more, shall I say complicated, with the transition into middle school from elementary school, she really helped me out.

Moving on to Taemin, Mrs. Nightingale handed him his report card with a curt, almost stern, “I look forward to having you back in here next year, Mr. Lee.” There was an implied, “And hopefully your smarty pants math brain will actually pay attention and stay awake, too.”

I looked to the clock. It was kind of dramatic, but as Mrs. Nightingale passed out the last of the report cards and wished us a good summer, I couldn’t help but count down the seconds until I was done with Junior high.

10… 9…

It’s not like everything was going to change as soon as I was out, but I could feel it.

8… 7… 6…

This transition was going to be like a breath of fresh air, or the warm spring after the death of fall and the harsh winter storms.

5… 4…

Better yet, this was summer. It was kind of childish, but in the last few seconds I made a silent wish.

3… 2…

I closed my eyes.

1…

“I wish this summer will be an adventure I will never forget.”

As I opened my eyes, the bell rang, and I was free.

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The awkward moment when it has been so long that I forgot how to log in and upload and stuff. :O 2k of I don't even know. In other news, I'M DUMB AND SHOULD HAVE WAITED UNTIL THIS YEAR TO NAME THE STORY SUMMER LOVER INSTEAD OF HSX BUT OH WELL.

Anyway, I'm really sorry for not updating in sososooo long. Life is just ugh, you get me? I can't/won't promise quick updates, but i promise i'm trying. From here, I think the story might get easier to write, especially once I get to the parts I had planned out all that time ago. I also do have some good news, i actually have the actual ending written out. O//A//O As of now, I kind of have an idea for a sequel as well as several spin-offs from the sequel, but I really shouldn't even think of things so dangerous, since we haven't even gotten to CAMP.

Next up, DANCE~ And perhaps camp, but let's be real, knowing me there will be another chapter or two before camp >A< i'm so sorry in advance lol