Dara's POV

== The next morning ==

After getting ready for the day I walked out to see Bom sitting on the sofa eyeing CL who was busy making toast in the kitchen as if nothing had happened the night before. I sat down at the kitchen table and like Bom observed CL's movements.

"Ssantoki, you want some toast?" CL asked, sensing that I had entered.

"No thanks," I replied, as I pursed my lips.

"Then could you please stop staring at me? You too Bommie," CL said before turning around and making her way to sit opposite me at the table a plate of toast in hand.

"What happened last night CL?" I asked, getting straight to the point as Bom sat down beside me, the both of us staring CL down.

"Nothing happened last night," she said nonchalantly as she bit into her piece of toast whilst reading something on her phone.

"Yaah! Give that back!" CL exclaimed when I grabbed her phone from her hand.

"Not until you tell us what's going on," Bom said folding her arms, "Dara said she found you sleeping by the door. Why were you sleeping there?"

CL sighed heavily as she place her piece of toast down before pushing her plate away from her, "I-I don't know."

I squinted at her, observing her movements, "You're lying Chaerin."

CL looked down trying to avoid our eye contact, "I... I don't want to talk about."

My eyes softened as I reached out to grab her hand, "Chaerin, we're bestfriends. Practically sisters. You know you can tell me anything right? You don't have to keep everything to yourself, you can lean on us when you need to."

"I know unnies... I just... I don't want to talk about. Maybe another time," she whispered as she looked at Bom and I, her eyes pleadng with us to drop the subject.

I looked over at Bom before sighing heavily, "Arasso, but if there is anything, and I mean anything that ever bothers you, I want you to tell me okay?"

CL nodded, giving us a small smile before munching on her toast again, "Can I have my phone back now? Jeremy Scott is releasing a new line of clothes, and you're making me late on the news!"

I rolled my eyes before handing her phone back, "and she's back..."

== At the university ==

"How's CL?" Jiyong asked when I took my seat beside him.

"She's fine now... but she's not telling us anything," I muttered, a frown emerging on my face.

"I'm sure she'll tell you when she feels ready," Jiyong reassured.

"Mmm..." I hummed absentmindedly.

"Hey, don't worry too much about her she's a strong girl," Jiyong said as he grabbed my chin turning my face to look at him.

"Yeah..."

Soon after Jiyong dragged me to the rooftop again and we spent the rest of the morning racking our brains for ideas for the fair but repeatedly came up blank, no good ideas came to mind at all.

"Lets just go to lunch, if worse comes to worst we'll just sell jewellery or something," I muttered after hearing the bell for lunch, getting up from the cold floor on the rooftop.

"I thought you said that was a stupid idea?" Jiyong teased as we made our way towards the cafeteria.

"It is a stupid idea, but a stupid idea is better than no idea at all!"

"What are you two arguing about now?" Daesung asked as we took our seats.

"Nothing much, Dara just can't admit that I'm a genius... although she did last night," Jiyong said with amusement as he sent me a wink, earning him a slap on the shoulder.

"Er... i'm not even going to ask," Daesung replied as he eyed us.

"Oh Dara! You left your bag yesterday, that guy from your class... what's his name again? The dude that came to the movies with us... Ju.. Jo.. Jae.. Jaejoong was it? He said he found your bag here. Sorry, I didn't notice you'd left it, otherwise I would've taken for you," Youngbae said sheepishly as he passed me my bag.

"Oh thats fine, there's nothing important in there anyway. Thanks Bae," I smiled at him as I made a move to place my bag down.

"What are you doing?" I asked Jiyong in curiosity when he grabbed my bag from me and began rummaging through it.

He didn't answer, instead he continued to search my bag before pulling out my phone and unlocking it. He began to scroll through it when his eyes narrowed into a glare.

"What? Why are you glaring at my phone? What has it ever done to you?!" I asked as I tried to grab my phone back.

"Tch! The nerve of this guy! Doesn't he know it's rude to go into people's bags and then go on their phones without permission?!" Jiyong muttered darkly.

"What are you on about?" I asked as my brow creased in confusion.

"Oppa?! He even put Oppa?! You haven't even called him Oppa! Right? You don't even call me Oppa!" Jiyong continued, shooting my an accusatory look before waving my phone in front of my face.

My frown deepend as I reached out to hold his hand preventing him from waving my phone around so I could get a proper look at what he was whining about. There, on my contacts lists was a new contact under the name 'Jaejoong Oppa'.

"What? All he did was put his phone number in, stop making such a big deal about it," I shrugged but inside I couldn't help but understand where Jiyong was coming from. In order to get to my phone Jaejoong would've had to go through my bag. Luckily there was nothing private in there, but what if there was? I quickly shook my head, feeling guilty. Jaejoong wasn't a bad guy, he was my friend. I'm sure he didn't have any bad intentions, after all all he did was put his phone number in right? Wasn't I going to give him my number anyway, so does it really matter?

"Yah! You shouldn't be so nonchalant about things like this! You can't just shrug your shoulders, who knows what else he may have done!" Jiyong exclaimed as he glared at my phone in contempt.

"I'm sure he didn't--"

"You know what? When the day ends we're going to go and change your apartment lock and keys," Jiyong said, nodding to himself.

"WAAAHT?! Why?!" I cried out in shock.

"He had your bag Dara, which had yours keys. He didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with going onto your phone, so I won't put it past him to copy your keys too!" Jiyong explained as he pulled my keys out of my bag, dangling them in front of my face.

"Don't be ridiculous Ji! Jae isn't that kind of person! You're making him out to be some evil ert or something!" I argued, trying to defend Jaejoong.

"You may trust him but I certainly don't. We're going to change your lock and keys and that's final." Jiyong said with finality, leaving no room for arguements as he glared down at me.

"Hmph!" I crossed my arms and began to sulk knowing Jiyong wouldn't backed down. Changing locks and keys were just so much efforrt! I could be spending my time doing something more productive!

"Aish... Look at you two!" Daesung said in disgust as he gagged, pretending to be sick.

"Protective much Ji?" Youngbae said as he wriggled his eyebrows up and down suggestively.

"Is it wrong to want to look out for my close friends? You know Bom noona and CL live there too," Jiyong pointed out.

I couldn't help but feel saddened at his words. So he wasn't doing it just because of me, but because of Bommie and CL too. He was doing it for all of us. I unconsciously pouted at the thought. 'What's wrong with you Dara? You should be happy that he's so caring towards his friends.'

"Aigoo, look at you pouting. It's not going to take that long!" Jiyong said as he pinched my cheek.

"Ergh, would you guys stop being so sweet. I don't think I can stomach it," TOP's deep voice spoke as he sat down.

I immediately turned towards TOP with an apologetic look, "Seunghyun Oppa, I just wanted to say i'm really sorr--"

"Don't mention it Dara. I'm not angry at you, lets just leave it okay? It never happened." Seunghyun replied cutting me off before I could apologise for my crappy behaviour yesterday.

"O-okay..." I stuttered, unsure if he was still angry at me.

"Seriously Dara, I'm not angry at you." Seunghyun said with amusement as he sent me a rare smile.

"Oppa, can you move up please," CL had just entered the cafeteria and was now standing next to Youngbae waiting for him to move.

I frowned as I watched Bae move over, CL sitting in his seat instead of her usual seat next to Seungri. I looked over to where she normally sat, suddenly noticing that Seungri had been here the whole time. How did I not notice? He was normally so loud and bubbly.. what's up with him?

"Panda, are you okay?" I asked worriedly. There was definitely something up with him... I mean we could've put yesterday down to fatigue, but not today.

"Huh? Yeah. I'm fine," Seungri said before glancing back down at the table. It looked like he was thinking about something really hard.

Before I could ask him anymore questions Bom walked into the Cafeteria with a bounce in her step as she confidently walked over to the seat beside Seunghyun, plopping herself down.

"Hey guys!" she said cheerily.

TOP abruptly stood up before muttering, "I'm going to go get some food."

"Me too!" Bom said as she got up and eagerly followed TOP.

"I guessed she decided to go for the rebuilding of the relationship over starting from scratch," I said as Jiyong stood up, pulling me up with him before we went to get some food for ourselves.

We all returned soon after and began to dig in. I couldn't help but notice how awkwardly silent the table was. All you could hear was the sound of chewing and swallowing and the occasional scraping of cutlery. Seungri was usually the one to provide entertainment for the table, with him constantly bugging and annoying CL and ensuring there was a good atmosphere but today he was clearly out of it. CL wasn't much help either as she ate her food in silence. Daesung and Youngbae seemed to notice the subtle tension and opted against trying to start any conversations.

Since it was silent anyway I decided to take this time to observe TOP and Bom. Like everyday at lunch TOP was keeping to himself, eating his food in silence not even glancing up once. I couldn't help but think that it was partly due to the fact that Bom was sat next to him munching happily on her food whilst practically burning a whole through his face from her staring. I mean seriously... could she be any more obvious?

"Hey Dara... Try this, it's really good," I heard Jiyong break the silence. I automatically opened my mouth for Jiyong to feed me, my eyes still trained on Seunghyun and Bom to see if there were any developments.

When I felt the chocolatey goodness melt on my tongue I tore my eyes away to look at Jiyong, "That tastes sooo good!" I said approvingly.

Jiyong faked a sigh, rolling his eyes "I guess I could share it with."

I rolled my eyes back at him before eagerly opening my mouth to receive some more of the chocolate cake. Ugh.. it tastes just as good as last time.

Bom's POV

I broke my staring of Seunghyun when I heard Dara moan. I glanced over to see Jiyong alternating between feeding himself and Dara some chocolate cake. I pouted enviously as I watched them, sighing as I looked down at my food. My eyes brightened as I spooned up some meat holding up towards Seunghyun.

"Seunghyun-ah, try some of this. It tastes really good!" I suggested, placing my fork near his mouth.

I watched him look down at the fork with emotionless eyes before looking away and pushing his un-finished main meal away before reaching for his cake and leaning back in his seat, completely ignoring me. My shoulders deflated as I retreated my arm, placing the fork down and pushing my plate away too having lost my appetite.

"That looks tasty," I tried to start a conversation as I watched him munch on the cake. Again he just ignored me his eyes trained on his cake.

"I saw this advert for this film yesterday... I was wondering if you wanted to go with me?" I asked nervously biting my lip, knowing full well the answer would be no, but I couldn't help but feel a little bit hopeful.

Instead of answering Seunghyun stood up, throwing his cake wrapper on the table and walked off. I sighed heavily as I reached out to pick up the wrapper playing with it in my hands.

"Don't be sad Bommie, you knew it was going to be hard. You just have to be persistent," I heard Dara encourage me. 'Pffft, it's okay for you to say! Seunghyun won't even talk to me whilst Jiyong is feeding you!' I thought to myself enviously.

"Yeah..." I murmured, keeping my jealous thoughts to myself.

"Is there anything that Seunghyun really likes? Maybe you could figure out what to do if you know what he likes?" Jiyong piped in helpfully.

"Hmmm..." I hummed as I thought, my fingers continuing to play with the cake wrapper. I smiled brightly as I looked up, "Actually... I think I have an idea.." I said as I held up the cake wrapper in my hand.

"You're going to... give him a cake wrapper?" Dara asked slowly, looking at me as if i'd gone crazy.

I rolled my eyes at her stupidity, "No you idiot. I'm going to bake him a cake!"

"Hahahaha! Very funny Bommie!" Dara laughed, almost falling off of the chair in laughter if it wasn't for Jiyong holding her up.

She finally calmed down as she wiped away her tears of laughter before looking at me again, "Okay so seriously, what's your idea?"

"I'm going to bake him a cake." I repeated as I watched her jaw drop.

"Y-Y-You're serious?!" Dara shouted in shock before turning to Jiyong tugging on his shirt, "Jiyong! She's being serious!!"

"Why are you making such a big deal about it? I'm just going to make him a cake!" I said as I glared at her, daring her to say what I knew she'd say.

"Yahh, Bommie. You're trying to get Seunghyun to like you again, not kill him." Dara replied seriously as Jiyong laughed to himself.

"YAH! I'm not going to kill him! I can bake!" I said defensively as I glared at her.

"Bom you're my cousin and I love you, but you can't cook to save your life. If you call burning down your kitchen trying to make muffins baking... then sure.. you can bake," Dara replied sarcastically.

"I'm not that bad..." I trailed off as I thought back to the time I tried to bake some muffins when I was eight and ended up burning down the whole kitchen. To say my parents were furious was an understatement.

"Noona, I have to side with Dara here. You can't even cook ramyeon and that's so simple," Jiyong chuckled. Tch! You're just siding with Dara because it's Dara!

"You guys said that you'd support me with whatever I was going to do!" I whined, giving up on trying to convince them I could cook when I knew myself that I was a disaster waiting to happen when placed within close proximity of a kitchen.

"Yes we did. That did not include attempted murder," Dara answered seriously before breaking into laughter with Jiyong, the both of them leaning on each other as they giggled at my expense.

"Yah! You guys are so mean..." I whined as I pouted looking down at the table.

"Sorry bommie..." Dara apologised when she'd finally calmed down, "If you really want to do it then we'll help you."

"Reall--"

"I mean I couldn't risk you burning down our kitchen," Dara continued before breaking out into giggles again.

I glared at her throwing the wrapper at her face, "Stop laughing!"

"Arasso. Why do you want to bake a cake anyway? Wouldn't it be less life threatening to just buy one?" Dara asked.

My glare hardened as I heard her last comment but ignored it, "I want to make up for all the birthdays I missed. E-especially the one where I..." I trailed off, not wanting to remember the day I left him on his birthday, "Besides, baking a cake has much more meaning than just buying one."

"I think that's a really good idea noona," Jiyong said, flashing me an encouraging smile.

Dara's POV

"HEY! Ji!" I shouted as I hit his arm.

"OW! Dara, I'm right next to you! No need to scream in my ear and hit me!" Jiyong whined as he rubbed his arm.

I rolled my eyes at him, "Stop being a baby, it didn't hurt that much! Anyway, since we're going to help Bommie with her idea... I was thinking... maybe we could bake cakes for our stall?!" I said excitedly.

"Hmm.. not bad... but wouldn't there be loads of other people doing cake stalls?" he replied as he his chin in thought.

"I guess.. but i'd rather do that then your stupid jewellery idea," I paused as Jiyong glared at me, "Besides! We can make them really unique! We can do cupcakes, muffins all sorts.. and the best bit is.. they'll be hand made by us!"

"Arasso, if you really want," Jiyong relented as he pinched my cheek.

I turned to Bom clapping my hands in excitement like a seal, "Bommie! You're a genius!"

"I know," she replied jokingly as she flicked her hair behind her shoulder and fluttered her eyelashes.

== At Class ==

"Hey Jae, thanks for grabbing my bag for me," I thanked him out of politeness when Jiyong and I arrived at our Economics lesson.

"Oh no problem. I hope you don't mind... I took the liberty to put my phone number in since it seemed like it was never going to happen..." Jaejoong said sheepishly a tint of a blush colouring his cheeks.

"No it's not okay.." I heard Jiyong mutter before sending me an innocent smile.

"Erm, yeah it's fine," I replied reluctantly, not wanting to tell him that I wasn't okay with it at all. Besides, I could just imagine what Jiyong would say if I admitted he was right.

"Kwon Jiyong. Nice of you to join class today," I heard Mrs Kim say sarcastically as she stood in front of the room, her arms crossed over her chest as she glared at Jiyong.

I looked over at Jiyong to see him shrug, an uncaring look on his face. Why didn't he just tell her he was taking me home? Come to think of it.. why wasn't she shouting at me too? I wasn't here yesterday either.

"Sorry miss, I didn't attend class yesterday either," I said looking down as I waited for the onslaught of shouting.

"Oh, that's okay Dara. I'm sure you wouldn't have missed class if it wasn't for Mr Kwons influence," Mrs Kim replied kindly. I snapped my head up in surprise before looking at her in confusion as she smiled back at me. 'The ? Why is she treating Jiyong and I so differently?'

"It wasn't Jiyong's fault, I wasn't feeling well yesterday so he took me home," I said, feeling the need to defend Jiyong since he wasn't making attempts to defend himself.

"Dara, there's no need to make excuses up for him," Mrs Kim spoke, her voice had an edge to it, she didn't sound as kind as before.

"I'm not making up excuses! It's the truth!" I refuted, my eyes widening in shock as the class went quiet at my outburst. I never and I mean never spoke back to a teacher before.

"Dara just leave it," I heard Jiyong whisper beside me.

"*cough* Right, well lets begin class shall we?" Mrs Kim said, breaking the tension as she gave me a tight smile. I quickly nodded my head as I looked down, ''.

== 2 hours later ==

"Mr Kwon I would like to have a word with you," Mrs Kim called out to Jiyong as we were about to make our way out of the room.

Jiyong rolled his eyes, "You wait outside, I'll be back in a second," he said as he pushed me towards the door.

I ignored his words and followed behind him, standing next to him as he waited for Mrs Kim to finish packing up.

Mrs Kim straightened up and glanced at me, surprise showing in her eyes when she noticed me standing beside Jiyong before she regained her composure, "Mr Kwon, it is unacceptable for you to be missing lessons. I do not tolerate truancy, therefore as punishment I want you to shred these papers," she said icily as she pointed to a small stack of paper, "The shredder is in the back of the room over there, and there are some more papers in there too. It shouldn't take too long."

Without another word she grabbed her bag and stalked out of the room leaving Jiyong and I alone.

"Stupid ," Jiyong muttered under his breath. Normally I would've smacked him over the head for calling a teacher and someone older than him a , but I couldn't help but think it was a very fitting word. What did she have against Jiyong? There was an obvious difference in how she treated us.

"You go home first Dara, i'll come over when i'm done with her . Then we'll go get your lock sorted," he said as he walked over to the door at the back of the room that housed the shredder.

Instead of walking away I grabbed half of the papers, as Jiyong looked at me quizzically, "I missed class too, so I should be punished too right? Besides, you wouldn't have skipped class if it wasn't for me. Thanks Ji." I thanked him as I gave him a smile.

Jiyong's eyes softened as he smiled back at me before he opened the door at the back of the room. He flicked the switch and the both of our jaws dropping as we saw what was inside. There waiting for us beside the tiniest shredder known to man, were ten huge stacks of paper, all of them coming up to my waist

"You've got to be kidding me!" I said as I placed my half of the papers on one of the stacks as I ripped off the sticky note to read it.

'Make sure all this lot is shredded too.'