Hana POV

 "Okay, I'll call you later, okay?"

Chansik stood from the table he, Hyeri and I were studying at in the library and gathered his things. Stuffing them in his bag, he waved us goodbye as he departed for his physics lab.

It was only Hyeri and I left at the table, but it wasn't really awkward. At least, I didn't think it was. We studied in silence, asking each other questions when the other didn't understand.

About half an hour after Chansik left, Hyeri's phone rang. Hey eyes widened when she saw it was that was ringing her, but picked up nonetheless and avoided the curious look I have her. She seemed to be acting very...suspiciously, trying to lower her voice so I couldn't hear, but it was no use because we werein a library.

I could hear the conversation faintly from the other end of the line. The caller seemed to be asking, no, yelling, at Hyeri, demanding why the newspaper had not published her article yet. This meant nothing to me, yet Hyeri shot me a frightened look. She replied in a hush voice that she didn't know, and that she was in a library, so they should speak softly.

The other person got the message and calmed down. I plugged in my earphones to drown out her voice and continued to solve the questions in front of me, effectively cancelling out all noise from around me. Judging by the looks Hyerimwas giving me, she wanted privacy, so I obliged.

Ten minutes later, Hyeri got off the phone and began to pack her things. I stopped worked and looked at her.

"I'm going to meet my cousin," she explained, standing up. "Good luck on those questions." She grinned, waved and hurried off.

I turned back to the table, all by myself, and stretched my legs out on the chair opposite me where Hyeri had been sitting before, only to find them pushing at a soft lump of material.

I reached over to grab it, and saw that it was Hyeri's jacket. I dropped my pen, grabbed my phone and tore down the steps, hoping to catch her before she disappeared onto campus. It was getting late, and the winter breeze was slightly chilly.

Luckily, or perhaps not, I was fast enough to catch her only at the entrance of the library. I stopped her as soon as I turned the corner to exit, and I was about to shout her name, only to be stopped dead in my tracks. She was with Minji. What on earth..?

I closed my mouth at the last minute to stop myself calling her name. Why was she meeting with Minji? As far as I knew, the only common link between them was Woohyun, but apparently I was wrong - Minji was her cousin. What was going on? I was seriously confused, and I had a gut feeling that whatever was happening was bad. Very bad.

I slid behind the pillar and pressed my back against it. If I strained my ears, I could hear tidbits of their conversation. It seemed to continue from where I first heard it.

"I've waited a week, Hyeri. Why hasn't the newspaper published that article?" Minji asked scathingly.

"I-I'm not sure," Hyeri replied in a small voice. "Do you want me to ask them?"

"You'd better," Minji spat. "If you even want to be considered for a role in the cheerleading team next semester."

I heard Hyeri kick a rock aimlessly. She replied in a dejected voice. "Fine. I'll go ask right now."

"That's a good girl," Minji cooed. "You know that I can't be seen around the newspaper office too much, or questions will be asked. But you, you're nobody, so it's fine."

I was pretty sure Minji had done one of one y girl things - insulting someone while making it sound like a compliment at the same time.

Minji her heel and walked off. I waited approximately ten seconds before spinning out from behind the pillar and confronting Hyeri, who, luckily, was still rooted to the spot in shock.

I out her scarf. "You left this," I said, not even pretending that I wasn't eavesdropping on their conversation. We both knew. "How do you know Minji?"

At the sight of me, Hyeri's face lost all colour and turned a shad of sickly grey. She swallowed deeply.

"Hana, I can explain, please -" she began, stuttering. "I- she, she forced me to."

"To what?" I replied, fighting to keep my voice civil. Fear was rising in me, and I struggled to keep it under the wraps. I pressed my forefinger and my thumb together to try to calm myself. I felt like crying.

Hyeri pulled my wrist and lead me to a bench nearby and sat me down. She made me promise to not interrupt as she explained everything to me. She explained how Minji was always aware of Woohyun and me; how she had asked Hyeri to keep an eye on me because it wouldn't be too suspicious, because Hyeri had a crush on Chansik, who was a close friend to me. When Minji and Woohyun broke up, Minji had ordered Hyeri to break up with Chansik also, and try to get closer to Woohyun to try and win his heart. It was only luck that we, Chansik and I and Woohyun and Hyeri, had seen each other in the ice cream parlour. She asked Hyeri to keep an eye on you and Woohyun. She also explained that Minji had hacked into Woohyun's computer and stolen our conversations from last year, and given it to the newspaper to publish. It would ruin Woohyun's image completely.

"Hana, I'm so, so, sorry," she blubbered, on the verge of tears. "Please forgive me, and give me a chance to make it right. I know I made the wrong decision by following her orders, even if she is my older cousin."

I didn't know what to say. Hyeri had grasped my hand, but I pulled it away gently, not knowing what to think. It was too much to absorb in less than ten minutes. I shook my head at her and got up to walk back into the library. I didn't know what to think, more or less do.

At the same time that I felt shocked, I felt relieved too. So much had been explained by Hyeri in those ten minutes. I felt full with knowledge, but also full of anger. Woohyun and I had both been played by Choi Minji.

Hyeri caught up to me and grabbed my wrist this time, but gently.

"I get why you're upset. I can't even apologise even enough, but please, please let me make this right. You have to know, I can stand up to Minji, too."

I shook my head. "I think I need to settle this between us, once and for all. I'm really tired of the drama...it's been really unnecessary." I paused and looked at Hyeri. She just looked broken. There was no other way to describe it. I could tell it was really killing her because she was torn between her love for Chansik and her loyalty to her cousin. And also the nagging voice of her conscience and morality.

I squeezed her hand. "Thank you for telling me the truth. It's always better late, than never. Don't worry," I whispered. "I won't tell anyone."

Hyeri breathed a sigh of relief and rushed in to give me a hug. I hugged her back and bid goodbye as I went to retrieve me belongings from the our study table.

I texted Minji on my way up.

We need to talk, I wrote. When are you free?

She replied immediately. I'm free now, I'm at the cafeteria in the sports college.

Be there in twenty, I texted back.

I gathered my things and began the trek to the sports college next to our campus. It was funny, because I had never been there, but Woohyun would often visit me on our campus, and the only reason I was going was not a good one.

I was acting on impulse, much like Hyeri did, and thus, many of the things that would have occurred to me normally, rationally, did not.

Things like what I would say, if I should reveal that Hyeri was the one who told me, if Woohyun knew all along, why she did it and if I was crazy did not even cross my mind u til much after the confrontation.

I was never one to initiate a conversation nor a confrontation, yet here I was, doing both in less than a month. First, by calling Woohyun, and now, by confronting Minji.

My feet led me toward the main oval. I didn't know where the cafeteria was, but only that it was next to the main oval, so that was what I searched for.

I turned a corner and saw the large gates that gave entrance to the oval, and next to it, was a small but brightly lit cafe.

As I approached, I squinted my eyes and saw there was three people already sitting in there - Minji, Woohyun and another guy I presumed was on the football team.

My brain was screaming at me to abort mission and turn around to leave, but I was too determined and filled with anger and adrenalin to even listen.

As I entered the cafe, the three of them stared. Woohyun's face broke out into a wide smile, just for me, but I tried to ignore it, talking directly to Minji.

I guess I had forgotten that lame attempt she made at being my friend - I thought she was just the prettier, more successful version of me, sharing all of my interests that in turn I shared with Woohyun, but that was a lie. She had hacked into our messages from last year and used them to mock me. This made my blood boil, because as lame as those conversations were, they meant everything to me.

Everything.

“Hana,” Woohyun smiled again. If I wasn’t in a state of semi-madness, I would have turned to jelly. “What are you doing here?”

I chose to ignore him. “I need to talk to Minji. I need to ask her something. Why is she so insecure, bitter and jealous?”

“Huh?” Woohyun made a funny noise. It was half between a snort and a laugh. “Hana…” He dropped his voice lower so that only I could hear. Minji and the other guy were just staring at me. “Can we talk about this later? Not now?”

“No, Woohyun,” I cut him off. “I gotta talk about it now.”

I turned my back to him and faced Minji. I ignored the other guy, who just looked extremely dazed and confused.

“I know everything you did,” I stated, eyeing her.

“Oh, really?” She laughed icily. “And how did you find out?”

“Hyeri.” I said, looking straight at her in the eye. I saw a flicker of fear in her face but she quickly regained her composure, putting on an expressionless face once more.

“So?” Minji spat. “So what she told you? That doesn’t change anything.”

“Really?” I pondered. “This changes everything.”

Minji stood up and confronted me. Her face was less than five centimeters than mine. My heart thumped loudly in my chest as we stood there, just glaring at each other, for over two minutes.

I breathed deeply. “I know you did all these things to try and keep Woohyun and I apart. And, well, whatever. Some of it may have worked. But some things you just can’t mess around with – and that’s what we shared last year.”

Woohyun laid a hand on my forearm but I ignored it. “You can’t come into my life, after everything you have done and mock what Woohyun and I shared last year. I cannot believe that you hacked into his computer and took those conversations, and then pretended you wanted to be my friend because we shared a lot in common. You wanted to make fun of what we shared.”

When Woohyun heard this, his hand tightened its grip on my hand. He stood up. The other guy, I guess, felt left out by being the only one sitting down. So he stood up too.

“Minji,” he breathed, looking at her with a newfound disgust. “Is all of this true?”

She crossed her arms with a smirk.

“Didn’t you know?” She spat. “I knew from the very first day we started going out that all of your heart wasn’t mine.”

Woohyun winced, as did I. Did he really keeping loving me, even after we broke up?

“Minji, shut up,” he muttered, shooting an unmistakable glance in my direction. “She doesn’t know anything.”

“Can you two stop giving each other those sickening, loving looks?” Minji screeched when Woohyun gave me an apologetic look.

We broke our eye contact.

“Have you ever thought how unfair this was on me?” Minji had tears in her eyes and fought back a sob. “You were never really my boyfriend. You always had your heart somewhere else, from day one.”

“Minji,” Woohyun spoke in a low voice. “Don’t say that. I was never unfaithful, and you knew, Minji. You knew. You knew that it was a legacy of our college that we had to date. I’m sorry, but I knew that it was too forced for anything to happen between us.”

“I told you everything,” she whispered, wiping her nose and glaring at him. “We did everything together.”

Woohyun laughed humorlessly. “Oh, really? Did you really tell me everything?” He stared at her while she nodded.

“What about your history? The restraining order your ex-boyfriend filed against you?”

Minji gasped, looking at the other guy in the café that was standing up awkwardly, head swivelling between Minji, Woohyun and I as we hurled insults at each other.

“Woohyun, don’t,” she pleaded. “No one else knows.”

“Well, they do now,” Woohyun said, gathering his things to get up and leave. “Stay away from me, Minji. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

He grabbed my arm and steered me out of the café. But I had one last thing to say.

“Don’t you even think of publishing that newspaper article about Woohyun, Minji. Or I will see to it that you are destroyed of everything.” I said in my meanest voice.

“What article?” Woohyun asked with a fiery red glare. “About me?”

I opened my mouth to explain, but it seemed that Woohyun had figured it out already.

“I knew there was a reason you hacked into my computer. I just knew it,” he muttered as we started walking out. “Crazy .”