For a change I wasn’t as exhausted as I usually was. English was my first class. And for once, I actually paid attention to what Ms.Kim said. Not beacuase I thought it was interesting, but because of the first thing she said.

“Listen up. This project is significant towards you final mark.”

Same with her other assignments, they weren’t going to teach us anything in life. Half of the time, she would just be raging about not using relative pronouns in your writing. But this time, her words caught my attention.

“To different people, different words have different meanings.”

She picked up a glass bowl of pieces of paper in it. A lot of pieces.

“For this project, you will all pick 2 words and define them”

She started walking around the class as people grabbed from the bowl.

“Not just any ordinary definition. I want a definition that doesn’t come from the dictionary. It has to be your opinion and your words. 1 page for every definition. So it would be 2 pages since you all have 2 words.”

She stepped in front of me and gave me a plastered smile as she handed the bowl closer to me. My fingers dug into the bowl and I could feel the bottom of it. I thought I grabbed 2 words, but instead I grabbed 3.

“Oh! HyeMi, since I enjoyed your writing so much, you can do 3. I would surely enjoy reading your expressive thoughts” And she moved onto the person beside me.

I laid the words on my desk and sat there, clueless. Family, love and home. Great. The words I picked were the ones I knew the least about. I mean, I knew what they were. Anyone could easily find the out-of-the-dictionary-definitions, but when Ms.Kim stated it had to be the definition I had to create, I was stuck. I could just read ask other people for help- those who experienced this before. Or I could just list situations from novels that spoke of a home, family and love.

“This is due a week before graduation. Surely, everyone will have enough time to complete this assignment. I’m expecting this to be great” Ms.Kim finished off and went back to her desk.

“Now, chat with your neighbours to see their perspective of your chosen words. Help each other out!”

I didn’t know who sat beside, behind or in front of me. I knew Luhan who was about 2 rows away from me surrounded by a circle of girls with stupid plastered smiles. I didn’t like them, not any of them. Before I thought more negatively of them, someone tapped my shoulder from behind.

“Hi” Her voice was a cherry tone.

It was unnecessary for me to say ‘hi’ back so I just waved back.

“What words did you get?” High pitched and happy.

“Family, home and love” And she showed me her’s too.

She got smart and kind. Like hell did I know what those words meant either.

“Wow, you got easy ones. You could finish this in minutes” I wished for that.

“Really? Does it seem like that? I raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I mean, your family loves you, Luhan is your loving boyfriend and you have…. Everything” She looked at me with her innocent eyes.

“Luhan’s not m-“ I tried to protest because I wouldn’t want any rumours.

“Trust me, I’ll keep your secret”

I gave up. Okay Whatever. I won’t even bother. So I just flashed her a smile. A real fake one.

“Okay thanks Minnie” I just guessed her name and turned back around.

She widened her eyes and said “umm… I’m not Minnie. I’m Voila”

“My bad” I whispered just loud enough for her to hear.

Dating huh? I stared at the boy who I knew for years. He was close to me, but he was so far. Three rows. I don’t even know. My feelings were all a mess. He smiles to every other person like the way he smiles to me, so why should I be considered special. He helps everyone else like he helps me. I haven’t thought of him as a friend. Actually, he was important to me, but I’ve never really took much notice to him. He didn’t have those plastered smiles or fake words. I think he didn’t. My intense gaze continued and I think I noticed as he stared at me with questioning in his eyes. Sparkly, shimmering black eyes. It felt like for 2 minutes, the whole world stopped. My eyes were just focused on him. It was a good feeling. Maybe today would be a good day.

For lunch I went back to the house. Not my house, but the house.

“Do I look weird today?” His eyes approached mine. I never took notice of how much taller than me he was.

“What words did you get?” Trying to completely ignore his question.

“Happy, and successful. You?”

“Family, love and home” The look on my face might’ve changed but something caused Luhan to pat my head. His next action shocked me. He placed his chin on top of my head and embraced me.

“We’ll teach you oaky?”

I don’t know why he asked me that, but I thought the dictionary was enough. I sat at the table with 2 dictionaries, a thesaurus and my laptop with the Google homepage ready.

Family- a group of people living under one roof; two or more people who share goals and values, have long-term commitments to one another, and reside usually in the same dwelling place.

I wasn’t getting anywhere. Family was a group of people living together and they had to love each other and care about each other right? Not always because my family was an exception to that definition.  Suho interrupted my concentration with a chocolate chip muffin.

“English?”

“Yup” And I showed him my words.

“They might seem like simple words, but their meanings are really…. Let’s just say there’s a lot of possibilities to them. Like I mean, there isn’t an exact right answer.” He looked like a professor with his glasses on.

The how was I supposed to do this. Do I just pick 1 out of the 1000000 different meanings there are?

“What did you get?”

“Disappointment and lonely” I could probably define his words better than mine.

“I got the 1 I really didn’t like” Chanyeol came out of nowhere. “Sad and friendship” And he made the occasional pouting face with his lip folded out. It did look like a puppy. Shock that word really clung onto me. What was the meaning of shock?

I learned within 5 minutes the meaning of shock. Well, the bad part of it. It wasn’t a good surprise. I got a call from Lay’s mother. I thought it would be those ‘Lay is having an amazing time in Paris and wants to come home’ or something tacky like that. But it wasn’t. I rather hoped it was one of those calls.

“Hello?”

“HyeMi… Please HyeMi…” Lay’s mother was sobbing that I could barely make out her words.

“Yes? Is something wrong?” The answer to that was more obvious than ever.

“Lay…. He got in a car crash… We don’t know if we’re going to lose him or not…. HyeMi.. I don’t know what to do…” The shock literally hit me. I felt it stab me in the chest.

Lay’s mother hung up and I dropped my phone. And the muffin I was eating. There was a clang when my phone interacted with the marble floor.

“HyeMi! What’s wrong?” Kai rushed down the stairs.

“Everything” It was a hushed whisper. Everything happened too fast. Lay wouldn’t have been so reckless.

“HyeMi? Are you okay?” Luhan stared at me with those eyes again. I didn’t even know what was happening to me. A rush of mixed up feelings just took over me. I didn’t know what to do. My heart was loud and I heard even time it beat. Thump, thump, thump. It was loud and almost blocked me from hearing anything else. I hoped this was a bad dream.