The first time I saw Park Sora, over three years ago, I fondly nicknamed her the “Psycho in the Class Next Door.” 

All my friends agreed with me. She was an oddball among vibrantly colored pigeons, sticking out like a sore thumb out of all the other high school girls with dyed hair and thick eyeliner. Now don’t get me wrong. She was the same as them.

So, no, this isn't the story of how I fell in love with the plain one. Of how her natural beauty caught me and I fell in love at first sight. She was all dolled up and as flashy as the rest of them; taking to the latest trends in hair and make-up with ease. But she was the one bird that walked with a limp.

All funny like.

Like she had something stuck up her that she couldn’t get out. 

Quite literally, the entire world seemed to bother her.

Take the first time I saw her, for example — the first time I ever gave a girl I wasn’t interested in in the least a nickname other than “so and so’s friend” or “such and such’s girlfriend.” 

She was arguing with herself in front of the school gate. 

Pacing back and forth, she attempted to walk over the threshold towards the entrance multiple times only to come to a full stop, back up, and continue pacing once more. All the while, she was mumbling things like “Seriously, I don’t have time for this” or “If I’m late again, Mr. Park will kill me. Do you want me to die, too?” She looked to be butting heads against a wall my friends and I couldn’t see. 

She’s got a screw or two loose, Minseok had commented.

The pretty ones are always crazy, Jongdae sighed.

“Psycho.” I mumbled before we walked right on by her, ignoring her invisible plight.

The next week, I spotted her at the vending machines behind the gym. Kicking it senseless, she was muttering all the curses beneath the sun. I even caught a few I still use to this day whenever I happen to stub my toe. ing Duck ! Suffice it to say, I’ve never looked at ducks or their ia the same way since.

“Is the vending machine ghost gypping you on your canned lemon juice?” Were my first words to her. 

And yes, I remember my first words to her. To the girl I never thought I’d know the name of, let alone be friends with, so who cared what my first words to her were? I sure as hell didn’t.

I didn’t care what she thought of me or if she even answered at all. I was mocking her and her strange ways of being irritated by seemingly nothing just because I could. Do you know what she said back? She, who could care less what her first words to me were?

She said, “Orange juice.”

I repeated, “Orange juice?”

“The ing ghost won’t let me have my orange juice,” she clarified with a foul-mouth I hated at the time. That would rub off on me over time.

“Maybe your abusive ways aren’t the best way to get through to it?” I shrugged, turning to leave. Because she was crazy. Because I’d gain nothing at all from talking to her. And one would think, I definitely thought, that that was the end of that. 

But, with a long, guttural groan, she caught me right before I turned. The second before I erased her from my life completely. The one instance in which she could have influenced me in any way, she successfully did.

“If I buy you pancakes, will you leave me alone?”

In hindsight, I misunderstood her.

What she meant was, “If I buy you pancakes, will you — invisible spirit this boy whose name I don’t know can’t see — leave me alone?”

What I thought she meant was, “You’re annoying me right now — boy whose name I don’t know — so if I buy you pancakes, will you stop questioning my psychotic disposition?”

I said yes. Pancakes were on the line, after all. Besides that, why turn down an offer for food in exchange for something I was going to do anyway? I said yes, because I had nothing to lose and a happy stomach to gain, and our afterschool date was set. 

Thus, I, Oh Sehun, quite notably the most sought after male in our year, sat down to pancakes at a small corner restaurant with Park Sora — the limping pigeon in the class next door.

It was then that she separated my food for the first time, mothering both me and the invisible entity that bothered her for days on end prior to then. Three plates on a table only two living people sat at. And she was the one giving me weird looks the entire time, from when she found me waiting outside her classroom for her until I waved goodbye after walking her home.

She swept me up in her pace, Sora did. 

And I couldn’t leave her alone, despite the bribe she’d given me. 

I started talking to her a bit more after that, free food and a waitress to pay for it always my motive. Minseok and Jongdae themselves misunderstood, always leaving me alone with her for what they called our “afterschool affairs.” Rumors that we were dating spread like wildfire, but she didn’t seem to notice. Sora never seemed to notice the reality before everyone else’s eyes; the reality before her own much more interesting. 

And, I don’t know, but at some point I started thinking it was too. Somewhere along the line, I started paying for our “dates.” I began to relish in the fact that I was her only friend. The only person able to put up with her strange ways. The single male who could sit down next to her on the couch of her grandparent’s home, sweat-panted legs intertwined, while a bowl of popcorn passed between our hands and a horror film flashed before our eyes. 

I’m the one who told her that if she wanted a boyfriend, she needed to stop following the trends and be a one-of-a-kind limping pigeon. I’m the one who watched her, jealously coating me green, go through guys like matches, not a single highschool flame lasting longer than a month. I’m the one who told her to stop cursing and be more ladylike when we graduated.

I’m the one sitting here like a lovesick fool as she paces back and forth in the kitchen, little-to-no makeup on, ordinary clothes not so flashy as to gain unwanted attention from anyone else, still talking to herself as always — though she kept a lot more of her foul words in her head than she used to. 

I admit it. 

I ing love this woman.

I love her so much I remember both my careless first words to her and her even more uncaring response. I love her so much I’m okay with being an unpopular guy with only three friends — herself, Minseok, and Jongdae — as long as, at the end of the day, I can just sit on her grandparent’s couch and banter with her as she babies me. I love her so much I can’t say a word when she confesses she likes someone else. 

I’m a hopeless fool even when I find out he’s not even alive. That their future would be nonexistent even if he reciprocates her feelings. I’m left speechless by how easy she makes it to love her when I’ve tried so hard to do anything but. 

I ing love her.

And I use that adverb because it’s powerful. It’s raw and succinctly gut-wrenching and irrevocably human. It’s all the things I never thought it could be when she first taught it to me. Yet, I believed her. I trusted her.

I still do, even after everything she taught me yesterday afternoon. Spirits. Spirit Planes. Demons. Pillars that hold it all together. Maybe I’m the crazy one for believing it all even after sleeping on it. Then again, I did sleep on her grandparent’s couch. It’s got some kind of magic, I tell ya.

Park Sora wields some crazy kind of magic, I tell ya. 

“Sehun!” She called after me, “We should try the park first. There's got to be some spirit that’s momentarily lost it’s way and is willing to lose it forever there.”

“Morbid.” I laugh as I approach her, watching as she listens to something I can’t hear.

“You don’t get to be picky about what kind of spirit you become, Luhan. If you end up the protector spirit of mall trashcans, then at the very least that blinding white light won’t threaten you anymore.” She lectured, finger waggling. 

“Even I’d rather pass on than protect trashcans for the rest of my afterlife.” I disagreed with her, just to see the look of disbelief she threw me. 

“I don’t care if he agrees with you!” She yelled, frustrated and ready to start her abusive ways once more. 

She’s got a screw or two loose, Minseok still comments sometimes as he texts her back; a smile on his face.

The pretty ones are always crazy, Jongdae still sighs as though giving a toast in her honor.

I speak to nothing along with her, “Be thankful Sora’s psychotic enough to deal with you.” 

And with me, too.

I'd never like to visit wherever I'd be without her.

“Ha!” She laughed, arm hooking through mine, pulling me to her side where I couldn’t ignore her even if I tried — and I wasn’t.

And for that next week the two of us, along with the invisible spirit I couldn't see, searched for a plausible solution to her new ghost problem. We split the bill on every meal we had. She separated my food as usual. I ignored all of Bang Yongguk’s calls. 

It’s the small victories I care the most about. 

A/N: That's right, folks! Not only do we have Sehun's confession, but we also discover something about Sora we didn't know before! Back in highschool, she was already talking to spirits! What? How? Is she really playing ignorant about it all then? Shows how much we can trust our narrator, doesn't it? But, anyway, Sehun focused chapter! Yay for more Sehun!