“So your parents just leave you home alone all of the time?” Luhan curiously asked Ellie.

            “No…” Ellie lied, “yes,” she softly said admitting to the truth. “I haven’t seen them in quite a long time. Sometimes I forget what they even looked like.”

            “That’s terrible,” Luhan said. He couldn’t imagine not seeing his parents for that long and forgetting what they even looked like. He didn’t know how he would be able to survive not knowing where his parents were, they were everything to him. Family was important in his life. Luhan couldn’t imagine what Ellie went through on a daily basis. “I don’t know what I’d ever do if my parents did that.”

            “Well, I’m used to it now,” she said sighing and leaning back onto the couch. “I mean, they call…sometimes and it’s not like I’m necessarily there alone. I have other people around me that I don’t particularly like, but that’s normal.”

            “Normal? You mean like butlers and maids and stuff?” Luhan asked. He knew about the lives of the rich from some of his friends that just so happened to be rich, but Luhan wasn’t really rich as some of those kids and he was sure that he wasn’t even as rich as Ellie. His family was the upper middle class, they were well off, but it wasn’t anywhere near where some of the other people were. He lived a comfortable life and that was good enough with him.

            “Yeah, those things,” Ellie said rolling her eyes. “I really don’t see why they’re necessary when barely anyone lives in the house. My parents probably even forgot their way around the house.”

            Ellie didn’t know why but Luhan seemed like someone that she could just confess everything to, like Kris and perhaps even Chen. There was just something about him that made it easy for her to open up to him and say what was on her mind. It was like he had some spell over her like Chen had. Kris, on the other hand, had naturally earned Ellie’s trust.

            “Well, my parents live here, but my mother is in the hospital, like you know,” Luhan said, “and it’s just my dad and me here. That’s probably why the house is a mess. I have an older brother, but he’s not around much anymore.”

            “Really, where is he?” Ellie asked. Somehow she found herself curious in everything involving Luhan, despite just meeting him. “I don’t have any siblings, I’m an only child.”

            “Really? Well I can be just like your older brother, call me oppa, how about that?” Luhan suggested.

            “Um…okay,” Ellie hesitantly said. She never really called anyone oppa beside Kris and that was sometimes, when she really wanted something. Normally she just called him by his name, but he was the only one. That word wasn’t used on her lips very often. “But what ever happened to your older brother?”

            “He just goes around,” Luhan said shrugging his shoulders. “It’s nothing important, he doesn’t live here anymore, he’s out forming his own life.”

            “Oh,” Ellie said nodding her head.

            Slowly time passed and Ellie noticed how late it was getting. “Do you have to get going?” Luhan asked after seeing Ellie’s concerned face after looking at the time on her phone.

            “I think I do,” she said sighing. “Thanks for inviting me over, though.”

            “No problem,” Luhan said getting up and seeing her to the door. “Here, I’ll give you this.” Luhan grabbed Ellie’s hand and opened it to place a key inside of it.

            “What’s that?” Ellie asked staring at the key strangely in her hand.

            “It’s a key to this house,” Luhan said. “It may be strange giving it to you, but if you ever need someone to talk to or someone to spend some company with if you’re alone, feel free to stop by. I’m normally always here.”

            “Oh,” Ellie said slightly taken aback by the gesture that Luhan did. “Um…thank you.”

            “No problem, do you want me to wait by the front or take you home or something?”

            “No thanks, I have a ride coming, but thanks again,” Ellie said waving to Luhan before she went down the stairs to the corner where Kris would be able to pick her up without knowing anything about Luhan. She didn’t know why, but for some reason she wanted to keep him a secret for now.

            Luhan watched Ellie walk down to the corner. He couldn’t stop staring at her and hoped that he wasn’t being obvious. Ever since his older brother had difficulties with their parents and ultimately had a falling out, Luhan didn’t think that there was anyone so caring and kind in the world anymore, which is why he strove to make himself a kind person to everyone no matter what. Meeting Ellie changed his opinion about the people of the world.

            “You’re really nice,” Luhan whispered as he watched Ellie get into a car. “Stay that way.”

A couple of days passed and Chen was released from the hospital and able to resume his studies. “Do you have my notes for me?” Chen asked holding out his hands waiting to receive the papers from Ellie.

            “Here you go,” Ellie said placing the papers onto Chen’s hands. “You better enjoy my notes.”

            “Yeah, yeah,” Chen said as he quickly began copying them now.

            Ever since Chen was released from the hospital, he and Ellie don’t speak about what happened in the hospital regarding his mother, even if Ellie wanted to. Ellie wanted to know why his mother kind of looked like that and wondered what type of person she was. She only got to see a brief glimpse of her but something was telling Ellie that there was something wrong with her, but she just didn’t know what.

            To any other person, Ellie would’ve brought up the conversation right away as soon as she saw them again, but with Chen it was different. Ellie saw that when his mother came in, Chen changed. She didn’t know what happened afterwards since she left and she was curious, but it might’ve been a sensitive topic to Chen and she didn’t want to change their friendship after they got it going on the right track.

            Upon his return back to the school, Chen didn’t want Ellie asking about his mother. It was the last person he would want to think of in the world at any given moment and thankfully, she didn’t ask any questions. Chen knew that she had a bunch of questions in her mind about his mysterious mother, but she wasn’t someone that he would waste his breath on.

            “You know, you didn’t really miss that much when you were gone,” Ellie said.

            “Of course I didn’t, then why do you have all of those notes?” Chen asked pointing to them with his head since he was furiously writing down everything that he could so he could give Ellie back her notes as quickly as possible.

            “Because I’m a very good note taker,” Ellie said crossing her arms.

            “Hey guys,” Jiyeon said coming over to them. It was their break period and they could do whatever they wanted. Jiyeon was off flirting with another guy before she decided that she was done and came over to speak to her best friend and her new friend.

            “Hey,” Ellie said with fake happiness in her voice and Chen immediately noticed it, but he knew better than to say something straight out with Jiyeon standing right in front of them. “What’s up?”

            “Just got back from talking with one of those guys from the next class,” she says as she twirls her hair on her finger.

            “How did it go?” Ellie asked pretending to be interested and she could hear Chen smirk. Underneath of the desk, Ellie hit his chair with her leg throwing a pencil mark across the top of his paper.

            “It went slightly good,” she said sighing. “Not that I was hoping for it to go well, you know that I will always have eyes on Kris-oppa.”

            “Of course, he’s like your only one, right?” Ellie asked as she attempted to keep herself from gagging at her own way of speaking.

            “I know, but if only he would accept my feelings. He says that I’m too annoying and I don’t know how. I think I’m perfectly fine. Every guy wants me but him,” she pouts. Copying the notes, Chen snickers at Jiyeon’s comment causing Ellie to hit his chair once again with her foot. “Anyway, I’m going to go over there and talk with someone else, I’ll leave you two alone. Remember lunch today.”

            “Of course,” Ellie said with a big smile as Jiyeon turned away. When Jiyeon was out of view, Ellie turned to look at Chen. “What was that for?” she yelled.

            “What?” he asked pretending to be innocent.

            “The whole snickering at her comments, you’re not making our friendship any better you know that, right?” she asked.

            “Hey, it wasn’t me who decided to have two personalities,” he said shrugging his shoulders. “And plus, I can laugh at what I want. I just thought it was funny, those things.”

            “Do you want to know what I think is funny?”

            “Not really.”

            “You know, you’re really irksome sometimes,” Ellie said crossing her arms over her chest and facing forward to ignore Chen the rest of the time, which just produced more laughs out of him.

            Finally, lunchtime approached. Chen and Ellie both got out their lunchboxes as they made their way towards their now usual spot under the tree outside. “Hey guys, I thought you were going to leave me here alone,” Jiyeon said throwing in some aegyo.

            “We wouldn’t leave you alone, someone just decided to be slow,” Chen said mimicking Ellie’s tone of voice from earlier as he stared at her.

            “Ellie’s so slow, isn’t she?” Jiyeon asked leaning forward to talk with Chen.

            “She is, sometimes she doesn’t know how to hurry it up. I think it’s because she’s a little bigger,” Chen said causing Ellie to step on his foot.

            “Hey, I’m perfectly a normal size for a five foot three girl,” Ellie said. “I’m the perfect weight, too.”

            “Of course,” Chen said leaning back as he opened his lunchbox for him to eat.

            Halfway through lunch, Jiyeon looked up at Ellie. “Hey Ellie, come speak with me.”

            “Why?” Ellie asked as she put more food into .

            “It’s really important, please?” Jiyeon begged.

            Ellie looked at Chen who was signaling for her to go with his eyes. “Fine, fine, give me a minute,” Ellie said getting herself out of the seat and going over to where Jiyeon was now standing. “What do you want to say? Is it something that Chen can’t know?”

            “He can’t know,” Jiyeon said making an x with her arms.

            Ellie figured that that meant only one thing, it involved him. “Okay, so tell me what you wanted to say.”

            “I think I like him,” Jiyeon bravely confessed.

            “Who? Chen?” Ellie asked making sure that she knew who it was this time around.

            “Yeah, I think I like him. He’s cute and his personality isn’t bad. Plus he’s smart and he’s rich, he’s just like Kris-oppa,” Jiyeon said as she began her wild imagination yet again.

            “Oh,” Ellie said. She didn’t know what it was inside of her, but something was telling her to stop Jiyeon from liking Chen, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t just tell her best friend not to like someone for no good reason; at least Ellie had no good reason as to why Jiyeon didn’t like him. Ellie knew that if she stopped Jiyeon from liking him, she would question her why and come to the conclusion that Ellie liked Chen, which totally wasn’t true. In reality, Ellie thought that she was starting to develop feelings for Luhan. They had met a couple of more times since their one meeting at Luhan’s house.

            “I don’t know what I should do, though. He’s different from all of the other guys,” Jiyeon said as she began thinking more about Chen. “Ellie, I was wondering if you’d be able to put in a good word for me.”

           “A good word?” Ellie asked. She’d done it a thousand times before with other guys, but doing it with Chen felt different.

            “You know the drill, alright? And trade places with me at lunch so I can sit next to him, please? Please?” Jiyeon begged.

            A thousand thoughts were sifting through Ellie’s mind, but she couldn’t say any of them because it would put her and Jiyeon’s friendship on the line. She was only able to mutter one sentence that might result in both of their downfalls. “Okay.”

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Will Ellie ever get a chance to ask Chen about his mother? Will Chen ever tell Ellie about his family? What will Ellie do for Jiyeon in her crush on Chen? What will happen between Luhan and Ellie? What about Kris and Ellie?

Here is Chapter 9. Hope you enjoyed the story :D