“How did you know that?” I said, avoiding her gaze.

“It doesn’t matter.” she said, “Just tell me why. I thought you said you like him?”

“I do.” I said, feeling more bemused. “It’s just—I just don’t need a distraction right now. And you know that.”

Min Jee looked at me and then she sighed heavily. “Yeah, I know that.” she said halfheartedly. She ran her fingers through her hair in frustration. “I guess everything we’ve worked and plan for didn’t paid off.”

“What?” I said, furrowing my brows inquisitively. “Wait, are you saying you knew Jongin likes me?”

For a moment, she hesitated to talk. “I just found out the past couple of days.” Min Jee groaned. “Baekhyun, Yixing and Sehun told me what they’ve been noticing about him lately. So we’ve come up with…a plan.” she started walking away.

I arched one of my brows. “A plan?” I echoed, after hurrying after her. “What plan?”

“To make Jongin confess to you already!” she hissed at me. “I know that you will not confess to him and it was so obvious that he likes you, too, so we figured we should make a plan on how to make him confess to you.”

“Wait, does Baekhyun and others know about me liking Jongin?”

“No, they don’t.” Min Jee said, shaking her head in my relief. “So we come up with something that will make Jongin finally confess to you because I’m so tired watching him stare at you like a puppy whenever we hang out. Actually, his best friends had been pushing him into confessing to you before other guys beat him to it but Jongin kept saying he likes you just as a friend. But of course, we all know he’s lying. I mean, I’ve seen the way he looks at you and it’s definitely in a more than friend kind of way look. And you,” she looked at me a little sternly, “You’re so blind you didn’t even notice that?”

I noticed, all right? I wanted to tell her but, instead, I averted my gaze from her. I’ve noticed it too many times before but I don’t want to assume anything so I brushed it off.

Min Jee forced out a sigh and continued. “Anyway, moving on, when the boys and I figured that Jongin will not make his move anytime soon, we finally decided to make Sehun pretend he likes you.”

My jaw nearly dropped. “So Sehun was just pretending he likes me.” I said, feeling somehow relieved because I don’t want to be awkward with him either.

“Well, not entirely.” Min Jee said, shrugging a little. “Sehun actually likes you but not as much as Jongin does. So, we used that to annoy Jongin. We made Sehun act around Jongin and confide to him that he’s starting to develop feelings towards you. And then yesterday—”

“Sehun pretended he’s going to confess to me to push Jongin on the egde.” I finished for her, not really sure how I should react about this. Min Jee nodded her head in agreement.

“And it worked. You didn’t went to the lobby at all.” Min Jee said, giggling. “What happened, anyway?”

“Jongin stalled me.” I said, smiling a little at the memory of Jongin tricking me about the pizza. “We went to the corridor that led to the parking lot, instead. And then we went to the pizza café and to the fountain park where he…declared himself.”

“And then you turned him down.” Min Jee pouted.

“Did he tell you that?” I asked hesitantly.

“Just to his best friends because it was pretty obvious he’s glum today.” Min Jee said, “Baekhyun is the one who told me.”

“He hates me, you know.” I told her dismally as we rounded a corner and marched along the corridor.

“No, he doesn’t.” Min Jee assured me, nudging my side gently.

“He’s avoiding me the whole day.” I reasoned out to her. “He didn’t utter a word to me and he’s not even looking at me.” I sighed bleakly. “He hates me.”

“Just give him some time.” Min Jee said, “Besides, he likes you and you turned him down, surely he felt a bit upset somehow.” she looked at me impishly now, “Unless, you change your mind, of course.” she added rather playfully and then the bell for the next period rang.

--------

The next few days rolled away. I worked at the book shop the whole day on weekends. I also decided to work on the following week even though Aunt Sora, according to her doctor, had been doing well at last. But he insisted for my Aunt to stay for a little while at the hospital.

At school, Jongin was still distant towards me. He would just acknowledge me by nodding his head and smiling a little at me, but most of the time, he’s just totally avoiding me and it just .

Sehun also spoke to me and apologized for cooking up the ‘plan’ along with Min Jee and the others. I told him it’s all right and then I asked him about what Min Hee just said about him liking me a little. He didn’t even trie