Yoori ran a hand on her skirt repeatedly, wanting no crease to appear on her ballet skirt, straightening it several times until it looked perfect in her eyes. She faced the full length mirror in the dressing room and eyed her costume for that night's performance. It was the first time she would play as one of the lead dancers and the thought of dancing in the front line made her nervous yet overwhelmed.

Looking at her own reflection, it came to her that it was a first for her  to wear something  colorful as a  costume since most of the time, she would only sport a plain tutu , a white one symbolizes that she was one of the backup dancers but now as she gazed at herself in the mirror she could not help but to be amazed on how did it happened that she was in that colorful cloth.
 

However, a hand obstructed her view a second later. Darkness filled her vision.

"Yah Yah Yah!" Her hands shot upwards, touching the hand that covered her eyes.
 

"You look good already, stop admiring yourself." That voice, the one she knew very well. Her other hand tightened on his, slowly peeling his hand off of her eyes. "Oppa!" a whine escaped her lips when she successfully pried his hands off of her vision and through the mirror she saw a teasing smile that grazed on his plump lips. His eyes were stretched into crescents, making his eyes looked even smaller.

“I thought we were friends” Luhan played it cool, talking in a friendly manner to Yoori who was seated right beside him, the exact position she was in, like the last time, eyes intently set outside the window, paying no heed to what he said -- to him entirely. But unlike the last time where Luhan half-heartedly pushed himself to go with her, this time,  surprisingly,  he volunteered to fetch her at the hospital, in a mission to know what was wrong with the sudden change in her attitude and the cold shoulder she has been giving him. “You know.. friends don’t ignore each other.” He added, glancing once at her direction.  

Silence lingered afterwards, until Yoori decided to break it off, realizing that she was spacing out for quite a while. It took her a couple of minutes to gather her thoughts and process what her the boy just blurted out.
 

“Quit being nice...” she started but trailed off momentarily. “If you don’t mean it.”  the iciness in her voice made the tensed atmosphere even worse.

“You think I don’t mean everything?” Luhan scoffed, almost slamming his palms against the steering wheel. He could not believe that she said that. He could not. Her lack of response and silence answered Luhan’s thought. “Guess.. you think I pity you?” he mocked.
 

Of course, Luhan pitied her situation, anyone normal would eventually feel the same. It was normal right? to pity someone who experienced the worst.  

“Maybe I do! But that’s normal...”
 

“Then stop.” Yoori raised her voice, cutting Luhan off. “Stop acting like you care because after this whole thing... you’ll be gone anyway and forget everything.”
 

The whole ride back home  became stuffy awkward and silent. Neither of them didn’t want to raise the white flag. Too much pride. It continued even when they arrived home and the worried Ms. Kang didn’t like the sudden change between them.

☆☆♛☆☆

Ms. Kang was beyond surprised upon seeing Luhan’s battered face, smeared with dirt and blood oozing out of the cuts on his flesh. The old woman rushed to the boy’s side in an instant, helping him up to get his limping body  inside the house. “What happened?” was