“JAE!!!!!!!!!!” I pulled the receiver away from my ear. Key texted me asking to call him ASAP because it was an emergency and knowing Key, if it’s a real life threatening emergency, he’d call me first. However if he textes me asking to call him, he’s just trying to live up to the nickname of ‘Key-Va”. “You’ve been blogging nonstop, I get notifications every time you post something new. By the way, who is EastSeaNemo86? Your secret stalker?! Anyways, get some appropriate shopping clothes on, not those stupid nasty sweats you’re wearing” I looked down at my sweats and looked at myself in the mirror. I was wearing my three quarter length tshirt and my sweats, with my hair pulled up into a high pony tail, no makeup.

“What’s wrong with my sweats, and how did you know I’m wearing them?” I could basically see him shaking his head on the other side.

“Please, you are in the whole I’m-sad-no-one-asked-me-to-graduation-but-I’m-acting-like-it’s-not-bothering-me phase. Honey the pony tail and sweats say everything. And don’t even try to make an excuse about how I’m wrong. Please, when am I ever? And that one time about that bookstore in London doesn’t count! We’ll be there in ten, and don’t think I’ve forgotten about your blog stalker!” he cut me off before I could retort back anything. He did have a point though. Everyone was going to graduation with someone. Seohyun asked Kyuhyun, Sungmin asked Sunny, Leeteuk forced Taeyeon even though we all knew she wanted to go with him, Eunhyuk asked Hyoyeon, and Tiffany was bringing her friend Siwon from church. I hadn’t had anyone asked me nor did I have the courage to ask. After the whole Jessica incident, everyone moved around me cautiously and was strangely friendly. I knew half of them were faking and it bothered me a bit, but I had a good bunch of friends who were solid and unchanging.

I gave a sigh, and decided to get ready to go out, knowing I had no choice. I put on a band t-shirt and some skinny jeans, and kept my hair up. However, I did the world a favor and put some make up on. Heading down stairs, I saw my mom had been preparing sandwiches, so I walked into the kitchen and gave her a hug.

“Going out?” she didn’t stop what she was doing and neither did I.

“Yep, Key wants me to go shopping with him” my mom smiled knowing my tone, and started putting the finished sandwiches into containers.

“Well go into my purse, there’s a card in there for you”

“From who?” I let go of her heading to her purse on the kitchen table.

“Just open it” I fished out the long slim card and opened it. It was a thank you card, and inside was a visa card under my name.

“How? Who? I’m not even old enough!” my mom smiled wiping her hands on a dish cloth after washing them.

“It’s been a tough year for everyone and your father and I just wanted to thank you for that. We know you’re responsible enough to have one, but just in case, it’s under our names as primary account holders an we’ll fill it up. The max is five hundred, not much I know, but hopefully it’s enough for whatever you might need” I had a huge smile on my face and hugged my mom. Our hug was interrupted by the honking of a car horn. “Go have some fun shopping. Go out for dinner too! Your father and I will be fine for dinner!” I smiled and kissed her on the cheek, and running to the door. As I opened the front door, I saw Taeyeon in the driver’s seat smiling, Key in the passenger and Tiffany and Sunny in the back seat. I skipped off after locking the door, and jumped into the car heading to the mall. They told me that Seohyun had been in the café at the mall studying and that she’d meet us there. In the car we were all singing our heads off and giggling, the weather was so nice that we were actually going around with our windows down.

“So Jae, wanna give us the scoop with you and Donghae?” Tiffany winked at me.

“What scoop? And why does everyone think that there’s something going on between us?” I huffed and crossed my arms, knowing I was lying to myself.

“Jae you seriously need to grow some balls and face your emotions. You are absolutely captivated by Lee Donghae” Key’s nagging voice rang throughout the car and everyone giggled except me.

Key did have a point though. I had been trying to convince myself that I was not the girl who was falling in love with this guy. It was too cliché. After everything I had gone through, I was a strong believer that fairytales are only stories, and that it was a one in a billion chance that someone would end up with their own fairytale utopia. But every time I told myself that, a simple smile, or action would create butterflies in my stomach. He gave me the warm feelings, and made me feel not only like a princess but as a human being. There was none of the pity and sadness I saw in others when they looked at me. I didn’t see the judging stares, or even anything hostile. He saw me as Jaemi. No one else, and deep down, I needed someone who could truly see me and be okay with who I was.

“It’s official. She loves him.” Taeyeon announced in the car as she was driving.

“She had her whole inner monologue! She had the silence of love” Sunny teased

“Did you know she has an online stalker?” Key announced as I slapped him arm and we continued off to the mall, talking about boys, and girly stuff.

*

“No… that one kinda makes you look puffy. Sunny your s look way too big in that!” Key was sitting and critiquing everyone’s dresses. We were trying on a bunch of dresses that we liked, and so far none of them were looking like the perfect one. The theme of grad was ‘Freedom’, and it was supposed to be a masquerade for the dance portion of the night. The day starts off with everyone putting on their caps and gowns, followed by the graduation ceremony and the lunch right after. For the night, a grand ball was organized for the graduating students and their dates to celebrate a fun night with everyone. The teachers always tried to prevent alcohol or drugs, but students had gotten smarter and it wasn’t that hard to sneak around.

Key was lucky to find everything he needed in the first store, but secretly we thought he did that on purpose and had it all planned out. He nabbed a black suit jacket that he decorated the collar with studs as we were tried on dresses, and had bought a black bow tie with white Polk-a-dots. He was going to pair his black dress pants and combat boots along with a plain white dress shirt. It was very tamed for something Key would wear to the party, but he said that this party wasn’t ready for his style.

Sunny had come back out with a black dress, satin plain corset body, strapless and the length was mid-thigh covered in feathers and roses. It did look like a great dress but not on her, so we all gave her disapproving looks. Taeyeon, Tiffany, and Seohyun each had a dress made with jersey cotton, each a different color, and body. Taeyeon had a champagne/light peach one shoulder strap with a collage of diamonds and rhinestones cascading down, Tiffany had a pink/light pink strapless body with diamonds and rhinestones creating glittery pathways, and Seohyun had a red/salamon pink two strap that created a V neckline, also with diamonds and rhinestones cascading down to the middle. At the waist and hips of each dress, the jersey cotton was layered and ruffled to make a cascading, ruffled and layered look, both dress colors mixed and accented each other perfectly. Key shook his head saying they looked too much alike.

So two hours later and after going around the entire mall, they all found the dresses they wanted in the same shop. Sunny had picked out a satin black, strapless, sweet hear neckline, with jewels adorning her chest and cascading down towards the middle. The bottom half of the dress was poufy but classy and had a piece of the petty coat underneath peak through and was decorated with the same jewels on her neck line. Taeyeon had more of the intrecate dress. It was a metallic periwinkle blue, off the shoulders dress and the neckline was decorated with pearls and diamonds in a twisted and braided fashion. Her body was hugged with the satin fabric and the bottom had a pleated fitted above the knee skirt, but was covered with bunches of satin accented with braided satin fabric of the same color and chiffon bunches. Tiffany had more of a bold dress, with a light peach color of satin and diamonds decorating her whole body. The dress had a simple black belt for her waist line, and the bottom was short at the front and long at the back with peach and black ruffles at the ends. Seohyun had a simple black floor length dress of jersey cotton, with a satin bright pink fabric that crossed over her chest and had diamonds sewed into it.

“For once in your life Jae, can’t you shop for yourself?” Key was getting frustrated with me. The stress was starting to get to him.

I knew how nervous Key was. Everyone knew he was gay, but actually going to graduation with another guy was really making him nervous. Not so much for himself, but for Jonghyun. From what I heard, Jonghyun had been in the closet up until last year. His family had always known, but he never told anyone in the school, only his close friends Lee Jinki, Lee Taemin, and Choi Minho. Everyone had just assumed that Key and Jonghyun had become friends, and not two people flirting with each other.

 Jonghyun wasn’t openly gay, and Key was.

Jonghyun had never been insulted, and Key had.

It was super obvious that Key was falling for Jonghyun, because often my late nights were spent talking with Key, and having him confess everything that was on his mind. He told me he liked Jonghyun, but he didn’t see the point in starting a relationship when he was going to move back. I still pushed him to at least go to grad with him and maybe even letting Jonghyun know about his plans, in case they ever got serious. Key liked to put up a strong front, but inside he was just as scared, and innocent as any other person.

I knew a part of him felt guilty about not going with me, but I knew that Key couldn’t always be there for me and that he had his own life to live. He was always being the mother and worrying over me, but now with this whole stress with Jonghyun and how overly self-conscious I was when it came to shopping, was finally getting to him.

“Sorry… I haven’t seen anything I like” he put down the jacket he was working on.

“Because you haven’t been looking! Ugh, fine we’re doing this my way! Ladies, find something, anything, that’ll look good on her!” the next thing I knew, dresses were being piled in my arms and I was shoved into a change room. I started to put on a mini fashion show, at their request not mine, and showed them all the dresses. Some were way too tight, others too revealing. Some were too poufy, too gaudy, too sparkly, too big, too fancy, and none of them really seemed like me. I was getting frustrated when a hand popped into my changing room, with another dress. It was a white sheer dress, surprisingly from Disney’s Forever Enchanted line. It was a one shoulder strap, decorated with jewels and sequences, and around the waist were the same jewels and sequences patterned at a slant to give it an angled empress waist line. The dress cascaded to the floor, and a sash was connected to behind the shoulder strap, creating a flawless and mystical look to the dress. I loved it. I like how it looked on me, and how the dress looked itself. Simple and elegant, just the way I liked it. I walked out to show everyone, and to my surprise I saw Leeteuk sitting there with the rest of them. He smiled brightly and started cheering and clapping, causing me to blush.

“I knew that’d be a great dress” he winked.

“When did you get here?!” I asked still blushing.

“I messaged Tengue to tell me the color of her dress, and she said I had to see it to really get the color” he wrapped his arm loosely around her shoulders.

“well? Are you going to get it? We still need shoes!” I smiled at Tiffany and nodded, hurrying back to the change room to change. When I came out, there had seemed to be a heated discussion going on. Leeteuk looked like he was the target and everyone around was asking him questions.

“what’s going on?” they all snapped their heads at me.

“nothing important really. Leeteuk is just being an idiot” Taeyeon glared and he flinched. I shrugged my shoulders, I trusted them enough to let me know if something really was going on. We all bought our dresses and decided that jewelry should be chosen with shoes on another day. We all were really hungry, and had been shopping for hours. Leeteuk called up Donghae and Eunhyuk to come join us at the restaurant inside the mall, since it was Saturday and no one was working. Kyuhyun and Sungmin had come along too, to dine with us, so we were a huge table full of hungry and chatty teenagers.