Hyemi  was showered with attentions as soon as she arrived. Guys ogled at her beauty, wishing that she was theirs while the girls adored her, hoping that they were friends with the pretty Queenka. But of course, not all girls liked her. Some were always staring at her with eyes filled with jealousy. Well, all the haters could sat and stared. She didn’t give a bite.

Hyemi looked at the crowd boredly. She put her usual poker face on and heaved a small sigh. Sure, she was fine with the attentions at first. But things just got worse each day. Not even a single day had passed by without people crowding around her, worshipping her like she was some sort of a goddess. 

Boys will always be boys. With their confession, love letters, flowers and all.

While the girls, on the other hand……

"Kyaaa! Hyemi unnie!"

 "Unnie! You’re so pretty!"

"Hyemi Sunbae! I like your shoes!"

Need I say more?

Hyemi was the school pretty princess. A queenka. But being the ice princess she was, (or so they thought) she had never liked the attentions. Sure, she was loud at home, yelling and ordering people around. But at school, all she had ever wanted was just some time for herself. Peace-ness.

Hyemi reached her locker and yanked it open with one pull. Once the door opened, she quickly took a step aside. As expected, presents and love letters came tumbling down.

*Thought so.* She picked up the letters and presents and put it beside the trash, thinking that if people wanted it, they could have it. Of course, truly, she just wanted to dump all of the things in the trash. But whenever she wanted to do so, there was this tiny, little voices in her mind, telling her not to do it.

She returned to her locker, picked up her book and went to her class. Since she was late, homeroom had already started long ago. She knocked on the door twice and went inside without saying anything to the teacher.

The teacher in charged shot her a look. "Late again, Hyemi haksaeng?"

Hyemi stopped in her track and turned to look at the teacher. "I broke my alarm clock. Problems?" She raised her brow daringly.

The teacher cleared once. Teachers. They were all afraid of her since her father was the biggest donator of the school. "Just take your seat."

Hyemi shrugged it off and went to find her seat. She sat down and took her books out. The class which was once interrupted, began again as the teacher began to explain about some things in maths to the students.

Hyemi slowly tuned the teacher out of her world as she stared at the sky outside, thinking about a certain someone.

--------

It was finally break time. Hyemi went to the school’s garden to have her lunch together with her one and only best friend, Yoo Hye Jung. It was under the big apple tree in the middle of the garden. No one dared to go there because it was pretty isolated. People always thought that the place was scary, not knowing that their pretty, little queenka was always there, enjoying her free time.

She took out the lunch box that her maids had prepared earlier and waited for Hye Jung to come. She waited and waited. Just like that, the 30 minutes break was finally coming to an end. But still. there’s not even a single trace of her friend.

"That’s weird. Where’s that girl?" She tapped her chin and looked around in wonder. In the end, Hye Jung never came. "Oh well, I’ll just look for her later then." She stand up, dust her skirt and returned to her class.

---------

Class was over for that day.

Hyemi was humming to herself as she leisurely strolled down the stairs to find Hye Jung. She did thought of going to Hye Jung’s class but decided no to since Hye Jung would definitely scold her for the unwanted attentions.

That friend of hers had always hated the stares and gossiping because most of the times, people just keep on hating her because she was the Queenka’s friend. Hye Jung was pretty, but she preferred to wear her geeky glasses because she wanted to have a peaceful high school life.

Hyemi reached the end of the stairs. She was about to make a turn on her left to go to the library when she heard a loud noise. She stopped in her track and looked to her right.

*The girl’s changing room?* Right then, she automatically knew what was going on in there.

*Stupid rotten-hearted bastards. More and more bullying. Why did they even exist in the very first place?* She rolled her eyes and was about to turn away when she heard a familiar name being mentioned.

"Yah! Yoo Hye Jung! You, stupid geek! Don’t get so cocky just because you are ranked within  the top three in the whole school! Don’t you realized it? You’re just another eyesore! Nobody wants to be friend with you!" Lee Na, the self-claimed Queeka pushed her up against the locker while calling her names.

*Bisssh… Puh-lease. Like those girls behind you want to be your friends anyway.* Hye Jung glared at the girls, not feeling the slightest feel of fear at all. Yet, she chose not to say anything because she didn’t want any troubles. Apparently, she was smart enough not to anger four stupid monkeys because she might end up with another black eyes.

"Yah. You actually dared to glare at me!? You bit*h!" Lee Na raised her hand and was about to slap Hye Jung across the face when a hand suddenly grabbed hers, stopping her from doing so.

Hyemi blew a raspberry and stared boldly into Lee Na’s eyes. "What do you think you are doing?" She whispered. Her voice was dangerously slow.

Lee Na’s eyes widened, seemingly in recognition. She quickly retrieved her hands while gulping in fear. "Hy-Hyemi-shi. I-I was…. I was just…" Lee Na stuttered, unable to utter a full sentence clearly for Hyemi to understand. She looked back at her friends in a desperate attempt to ask them for help. However, her so-called friends pretended like they didn’t know her, completely treating her like a stranger.

Hyemi rolled her eyes. *I don't have time for this.* "Look here, little queenka. This so-called geek over here……" She wrapped one arm around Hye Jung’s shoulder, "………is actually my BEST FRIEND. If I caught you or any of you bullying her again………" She inched her face closer to Lee Na’s and pretended to slice her neck with her finger.

"You’re dead."

Lee Na nodded her head eagerly before dragging her friends out from the changing room. Once they were gone, Hyemi rolled her eyes scoffingly.

"Scaredy cat."

"Yah!" Hye Jung playfully hit her shoulder. "You just scared them! Poor girls…. I can handle them just fine, you know?" She hmph-ed and crossed her arms over her chest .

"Handle them?" Hyemi snorted. "Puh-lease. Remember the last time I left you to… ‘handle them’? You ended up with a black eye and got your money stolen. ‘Just fine’, eh? You can’t even hurt a fly!" She exclaimed. Hye Jung rolled her eyes and ignored her comments.

"Whatever… Let’s just get out of here first. This place stink!" She scrunched her nose and walked out, followed by Hyemi behind her.

On the way to the school’s library, Hye Jung told Hyemi that she had accidently fell asleep while waiting for the class to end. The moment she woke up, break time was already over so she decided to just wait until school was over to meet up with Hyemi.

"Ahahah! You’re so silly! To think that you’re always complaining when I was sleeping in class…. You’re funny, like seriously." Hyemi stifled her laughters when the librarian in charged shot her a look from being so noisy in the library. Hyemi slightly bowed her head as if to say ‘sorry’, her cheeks reddened a bit.

"And who’s fault do you think that is, for my lack of sleep? For god’s sake, stop calling me at 3 a.m in the morning just because you can’t sleep!" Hye Jung clucked her tongue irritatingly and rolled her eyes before turning away from Hyemi to focus on her homeworks. Hyemi just grinned stupidly at her best friend.

"Arraso… Arraso… Geez! You sound just like Madam Jung! Just hurry up and finish your homeworks. Call me if you need me, m’kay? I’ll help you if you have problems with that." She said before resuming to read her book.

Hye Jung shook her head amusedly.

*This silly friend of mine. How can others say that she is cold when she acts exactly like a child?*

-------

"Omg. She’s so going to kill me!" Hyemi yelled as she raced down the flight of stairs. She had originally planned to have her dinner with her cousin, CL. But, she was so caught up into reading that she lost the track of time.

She had originally decided to just walked there because the restaurant was just a stone’s throw away from the school but ended up running because she was already late. Soon after, she arrived at the restaurant.

From afar, she could see CL’s blonde hair, tied up in a simple pony tail. She slowly creep behind CL with her hands up and was about to surprise the girl when CL  suddenly turned her head. Hyemi’s hand froze in mid-air. She laughed dryly and awkwardly waved her hand.

"Ehehe. Hi, unnie. Did you waited long?"

CL narrowed her gaze at her before yelling in a loud voice. "Yah! You little brat! What the heck were you doing coming here so late!? You were not even picking up your phone!" CL pointed an accusing finger at her. People were staring at them weirdly because of CL’s loud voice.

"Shhhh! Unnie, Shhhhh!"

"Don’t you ‘Shhhh Shhh’ me! Now. EXPLAIN." Cl emphasized the last word with her arm crossed over her chest.

Hyemi rolled her eyes and dragged CL to sit down with her. So much for the dramas.

"Mianhe… I was just reading. Though I did told myself that I’m going to stop after the last paragraph! But things just got more and more interesting! So in the end… I… yeah." Hyemi rubbed her neck sheepishly.

Now, it was Cl’s turn to rolled her eyes. "Again? Gosh, you. You could at least send me a text. I was worried sick!"

Hyemi chuckled. Yeah, CL was loud at times. But deep inside, She knew that this baddest cousin of hers loved her the most. "Mianhe… Mianhe … The battery was dead. So I left it at home before going to school. How’s life unnie? Is Ji Yong oppa back from Hong Kong yet?" Hyemi nonchalantly said as she tried to change the subject before CL gave her another long, boring lectures.

At the mention of her fiance’s name, CL ‘s face turned dark and sour. "That cheesy jerk! I can't believe that he’s cheating on me again! And this is not even the first time anymore!" CL slammed her hand on the table, producing a loud ‘bang’. Hyemi turned to the other customers and gave them an apologetic look. She bowed her head once.

"Seriously, unnie? This again? Are you sure that this isn’t one of his plans to make you jealous again? I mean, come on. We all know that he loves you. Even you know that as well, right? After all, you love him a lot, unnie." True. Ji Yong did flirted with girls all the time, but everybody knew that he truly loved CL. It had always been her and her only.

CL’s cheeks flushed red a bit. She tried to cover half of her face with the menu, hoping that Hyemi didn’t see it. However, that didn’t go unnoticed by Hyemi’s hazel eyes.

Hyemi raised an eyebrow. *Heh... So, this cousin of mine can actually acts like a high school girl in love, huh?* "Feeling shy, unnie?" She wiggled her eyebrows teasingly at her cousin.

CL’s cheeks turn beet red. "Who loves that idiot!? I HATEEEEEEE him!" She grumbled. 

Hyemi softly laugh and shook her head in amusement.

"Whatever you say, unnie. Whatever…"

----------

Meanwhile, somewhere in Seoul, a certain boy had just arrived at the Incheon International Airport after a long flight from U.S to Korea.

L.joe walked in such a hurry to get off the plane. He heaved a deep sigh of relief as he took his first step off the plane. The long, 11 hours of flight made his body ache all over with stiffness. He rotated his neck a few times to get rid the stiffness in his muscle.

He walked out of the gate and a smile immediately lit his face when he saw five familiar faces waiting for him with a signboard that said, ‘L.joe! Welcome home!’

He couldn’t stopped the physical sensation of a fluttery feeling in his stomach, everytime he reminded himself that he was actually here, in Korea.

Breathing the same air as everybody else, he looked up at the same sky that connected him and his beloved.

"Home at last. To where the heart is."


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A/N: Eh~ Looks like I've lost the bet. Though! It's okay! :D It doesn't matter, really! Rather than for you, I actually write for myself. Yes, I'm talking about self satisfaction, people :)

Teentopsarang - Thanks for your comments! :D A very dedicated ANGEL i see! :D Hahah! Don't mind! I am one, too ~ :P