This is for my friend liliannnnn! She's an awesome and sweet girl! ^^ I hope you like this, lilan!

“I like you!”

And then he ran away.

The boys ran from classroom 3-B to the back of the school. Taeil was found, sitting against the wall, breathing into his hands. His trembling legs had made him collapse. He rocked back and forth, not wanting to believe that he did what he thought.

“Dude! You did it!” Yukwon shouted brightly.

Taeil whimpered and looked toward them. “I did? I thought that was a dream.”

Minhyuk grabbed Taeil by the shoulders, to steady him from rocking. “It’s not a dream, hyung.”

“I really did it?” He blinked up at his friends, all of them nodded with silly mischievousness. He groaned. “I did it. I finally did it. I finally confessed. AND NOW SHE’S GONNA HATE ME!” He shouted, burying his face into his hands. He knew it! He knew deep down in his stupid heart that confessing was a bad idea! Shouldn’t have done, Taeil.

“Hey, hyung. It’s okay!” Jihoon shouted optimistically. “I’m sure that she feels the same way.”

Kyung popped his head out from the back and smiled down at depressed Taeil. “For once I agree with Jihoon-ah! Just ask her about it.”

“I doubt it.” Taeil sighed, looking down at the pavement with a slight pout. “She pointed thinks I’m a creep and won’t talk to me ever again.”

“Don’t look too blue, hyung.” Jiho yelled. “Just talk to her and she’ll confess that she likes you too.”

The truth was Taeil didn’t want to talk to her again. I mean, Taeil just confessed to the only girl who was willing to talk to him. Makes him sound kind of desperate, doesn’t it? Besides she didn’t like him anyway; to pretend that they weren’t friends would be better than “working it out.” People say that you feel better after you confess, regardless if they return your feelings or not. But they lie. Taeil felt sick because he just told the girl of his dreams that he liked her.

When he went back to his room, she was waiting for him. But before she could see him, he hid behind the doorway. Way to go, Taeil. They had the same classroom, how in all the heavens and hell was he going to avoid her if he had to go to class? What was he going to do? So…Taeil stood outside the classroom and waited for the teacher to come in. By the time Taeil got to his seat, class had started. He stole a glance at her and it looked like she was about to say something, but he quickly turned back to the front of the class and pretended that he was listening to the teacher.

Finally the class ended and Taeil needed another excuse to steer clear of her. She came up to Taeil just as the teacher left. Crap! She’s coming and he didn’t have a plan! She was just about to speak, but he ran out of the classroom to “use the toilet.”

It was the end of the day and she tried to catch Taeil before he disappeared from his sight again, but she hardly got the chance to. Right as class was dismissed, Taeil was the first one out the door. His shaking legs, running for the exit. Seeing him leave, she felt sad that she had to wait another day.

“Are you okay, Jieun-eonni?” Her friend asked as she came into the classroom. She watched as Jieun slowly started to pack away her things, with her mind preoccupied with unclear and crazy thoughts.

She furrowed her eyebrows. “I think so. I hope Taeil’s okay.”

“Did you guys talk yet?” Her friend asked, who was there when she heard his alarming shout.

Jieun shook her head. “Not yet, Kangbae-yah.”

Why not? Why was Taeil avoiding her? She wanted to believe that he was just shy and that he didn’t want to talk about it yet. That was how Taeil always was. She had known Taeil for a while and she knew that something like that was not a joke; that he would never kid about something serious like that. But the tugging thought that it was all just a prank still did not subside. She made a silent wish, hoping that was not the case.

A couple days have passed and Taeil’s new routine consists of him being almost late for all of his classes for bathroom related problems and being the first out the door everyday. He was getting sick of everything he was doing, but the thought of talking about his confession made him feel queasy and sick again. After another jog from school to home, he lay on his bed and grumbled to himself.

“You know, hyung.” Jihoon started as Jaehyo and Jiho stuck their huge heads into Taeil’s doorway. “If you wanted to stop grumbling and complaining, you should just go and talk to Jieun-sunbae.”

“I can’t…” Taeil grunted through the pillow he fell on.

“Of course you can!” Jaehyo replied.

Jiho groaned at Taeil’s childish behavior. Serious, he was the only one who could act like that. “C’mon, hyung! You can’t keep doing this forever!” He shouted as he flailed his arms around as he approached his depressed hyung.

“Watch me…” Taeil whimpered, still lying on his face.

Jiho rolled his eyes. “But do you want to?”

At this, Taeil stayed quiet. Did he want to keep doing this? I mean, he could. He could just evade her for the rest of his life. But…why would he? Would it really be better if he never spoke to Jieun ever again? Could he really spend his life like that? Never talk to her again, see her again, hear her speak again? He really liked her, didn’t he? He did like her and that’s why he said he liked her, because he wanted to know if she liked him too. And that maybe if she did they would spend his entire life together. Or some nonsense like that. Avoiding her just contradicted what he wanted…. He was going to talk to her.

“I’m going to talk to her!” Taeil shouted as he shot up from his bed.

“I thought you said you were going to talk to her!” Minhyuk shouted.

Just before school was going to start, Taeil was going to say it. He was going to confront Jieun like a man. But before he even made it to school, his shaking legs came back, it became hard to breathe and all of the thoughts he thought the night before reversed and they were telling him that talking to her was a very bad idea.

“I know what I said okay!” Taeil shrieked.

What was he going to do? Just keep doing what he’s been doing for a couple days. He was already getting sick of it, though. Maybe he should just wait for her to just forget about it and they could have an awkward friendship for the rest of their lives and not bother fixing it…that sounded like a much better idea.

“Just do it, hyung!” Jihoon shouted. “Take a leap of faith.”

Taeil didn’t want to, but he mustered up all the strength he had left in his tiny body and made his way to school. Everyone watched as Taeil was practically shoved all the way to his homeroom and thrown into his desk. The six devils that had forced him there, watched from the door as Jieun walked up to Taeil.

“Taeil-oppa.” Jieun said with a stern sadness. “We have to talk.”

He began to rock back and forth again. He looked toward the demons that hid far away from him. They all gave him useless fighting poses and suddenly he began to shake again.

“Uh….”

Even though Taeil’s weak legs were quivering, they brought him out of his seat and past his friends. The students all watched as he quickly ran away. When Taeil was gone, the six boys looked over to Jieun, who sighed. She grew impatient with Taeil; sometimes he was such a pain. She had to use all of her strength to crack open the protective shell that Taeil had made for himself. Jieun walked back to her desk and kept an eye on the door, incase Taeil decided to come back.

At the nurse office, the young boy had told them that his stomach hurt and asked to stay in the office. What he said was true. His stomach did thousands of flops and knots did and undid themselves in there. But of course no medicine could make him feel better. The nurse told him to lay on one the beds until the pain went away. The pain was never going away. He was always going to feel like that until he talked to Jieun—and he was never going to do that.

The next day, Taeil told his roommates that he was sick and although none of them believed him, they left him to his own conflicting thoughts.

“Seriously, this is getting old.” Jiho complained on the way to school.

Minhyuk shrugged. “I know, but it’s not like we can make him do anything. Taeil’s pretty stubborn.”

All the other boys muttered agreements. But then an idea sparked in Jaehyo’s head.

“Wait, guys!” The ulzzang shouted with a wide smile. “We could! We could make Taeil talk to her!”

Jieun stared holes into the empty desk that was infront of her. That was Taeil’s seat. At that moment, she really hated Taeil. It was just Taeil’s way to run away from things and not deal with them. She knew that, but this thing was a whole different problem. It dealt with her feelings and Taeil just made her feel a giddy inside and when he started to avoid her, it was cute at first, but… it just wasn’t tolerable anymore.

Someone cleared their throat and only then did she realize she went into her thoughts, leaving the real world behind. She looked up and saw Lee Minhyuk from class 3-A beside her.

“Hello, Jieun-ssi.” He greeted with a bow. “Listen. My girlfriend and I are performing a song this Sunday at ‘Le Souhait’ for the open mic. I’m making Taeil go, so if you go, you’ll see him.”

Jieun nodded and smiled. “Thanks, Minhyuk-ssi. I think I will go. Are you sure you can make Taeil go?”

Minhyuk’s dimple was shown, but to his pleasant smile, a glint of trouble crossed his eyes. “He is definitely going.”

“I’m not going!” The elder whined through the door.

“YES, YOU ARE!” Jaehyo shouted back. “None of us can stand you complaining all the time and that girl really wants to know if you love her! Because if you really loved her then you wouldn’t be scared to be rejected in person! Get out of your room and be a man!”

No response.

“C’mon, Taeil!” Jaehyo grunted. “I’m not leaving until you come out.”

Nothing.

Jaehyo sighed. He knew that he was going to have to say it. “Taeil…you don’t think this is easy for you. But what about Jieun? Everyday, she has to think if your feelings were genuine. Everyday she has to live in constant worry that you weren’t being serious, that you were just pulling a prank. She’ll have to worry if your relationship could ever be the same again, because you messed it up.

“And one day, hyung, when you’re ready to face her, she’ll be over you. You’ll try to make her come back to you, but she’ll be gone and you’ll think a million times that you could’ve done something different. Just because you were an idiotic coward. You were too scared to face rejection and now she’s gone. Then you’ll wonder about all the things that could’ve happened. What if you did say something and she did return your feelings? Would you two have been happy together? Would you two have live your lives together? But now, you’ll never know, will you?”

Jaehyo closed his eyes and gave another low sigh.

“You’d live your life always guessing about that time, Taeil. Just because you couldn’t talk to her.”

Jaehyo turned behind him and saw in Minhyuk’s hand a phone on speaker.

“Did I say that right?” He asked.

On the other line, the woman shouted, “You did fine, sunbae!”

“Thanks, Juni-yah. I love you.” Minhyuk said. Just after he ended the call, they could hear rustling come from Taeil’s room.

“Fine.” Taeil answered.

All of sudden, it was Sunday evening and the tables at “Le Souhait” were filled with young adults, ready with their instruments and music sheets. Including Lee Minhyuk, who bounced over to a sullen Lee Taeil, he was fiddling with the bowtie that Yukwon and Jiho wrestled onto Taeil’s neck.

“Hey, stop playing with that.” Jiho commanded. “It took a long time to put that on you. Anyway, you can’t escape. Jihoon and Sena are covering the main doors.” He explained while motioning to Jihoon and a young girl whose table was right next to the exit. “Minhyuk and his girlfriend will watch you from the stage, Jaehyo is next to the bathroom entrance and Yukwon and Kyung are covering the back door behind the counter.”

Just as Jiho had described, Jaehyo had a chair set up right next to the bathroom sign and the other two were sitting at a table with a clear shot of the counter.

“But the best part of this plan is me.” Jiho stated as he plopped onto the chair across from Taeil. “Because I will sit with you until Jieun comes. And I will go to the bathroom with you when you decide you need to go. So you see, resistance is futile. The best way to get out of this alive is to bend to our will.”

Jiho’s smirk grew into a malicious and twisted smile and Taeil swore that Jiho would’ve started laughing manically with lighting bolts shooting out from the background had it not have been for Minhyuk.

“Done scaring the wits out of our prisoner, Jiho-yah?” The man asked with a plastic smile. Minhyuk turned to Taeil. “Hey, hyung. Juni and I worked really hard on this song, so you should listen to it anyway!” And with that, Minhyuk walked toward the stage to get ready.

“Oo~ Look at what I see~” Jiho teased when Minhyuk greeted a woman by the door. “It’s Jieun-sunbae~”

Minhyuk motioned toward the table that Taeil and Jiho were sitting and when Jieun made eye contact with Taeil, he froze. He didn’t realize that finally talking to her was going to be so tough. Taeil wanted to make some excuse to leave, but he knew—he always knew—that he had to talk to her. Jiho whispered a fighting and left. Leaving him alone with Jieun. When she sat down next to Taeil, she forced a smile to make the silence seem less discomfited.

Taeil sighed. “I’m sorry, Jieun-ah.”

“It’s okay…” Jieun smiled again.

When she smiled, Taeil always felt at ease, that everything was going to be okay, but at that moment, he felt guilty. Here was a beautiful and understanding woman whom he loved and he was about to drop her, everything about her, because he was being stupid.

“No, it’s not.” A strange seriousness came to Taeil’s voice. Jieun took notice of it and leaned in closer to Taeil. “It’s not alright that I put you in an awkward situation and not help you get out if it. It’s my fault…and I’m sorry.” He lowered his head, feeling to ashamed to look at her.

“Taeil-oppa?” She asked. When he looked up at her, a sincere fear filled her eyes. “Did you mean what you said to me?”

Right infront of them was a stage and many people talked all around them. But when the master of ceremonies announced the next act, they all faded away and sounded so distant. All he saw was Jieun facing him and all he heard was her voice.

“Yes.” Taeil managed to croak out of his dry mouth. “I meant every word, Jieun-ah.”

A wave of relief fell upon Jieun’s face. “You like me?”

“A lot, Jieun-ah.” All the silly fear Taeil had somehow melted after he said that. He was never more positive of something before.

 A bright smile slowly climbed its way up Jieun’s face and even a small giggle left . “Would it be weird if I said I liked you too, oppa?”

Taeil chuckled at her question. “Um… a little? It’ll take some getting use to.”

She laughed along with him and she replied. “Then, I like you too, oppa. I like you a lot.”

Taeil’s eyes widened when he finally understood what she said. “Wait—What? You like me, too?”

“Isn’t that what I said?” She asked with a laugh.

“Um…I guess…I wasn’t expecting that you would like me…wow…” The man truthfully stated dressed with embarrassment.

“To be honest, I didn’t think you would like me either.” Jieun confessed with a faint pink blush crossing her face.

Taeil shook his head. “Don’t be like that. You’re the most beautiful person in the world, Jieun-ah.” As she gave Taeil a grateful smile, he went over and grabbed her hand. He smoothed his thumb over her knuckles. “Um…Jieun-ah, would you like to be my girl?”

“Your girl?” She repeated. “Yes…I would like that very much, Taeil.”

Taeil’s lips curled into a shy smile. He did it. He finally did it. And the best part about it was that Jieun liked him back. He wouldn’t have known if he didn’t have the courage to face her. It really was worth it.