Immediately I felt anger bubble up within me, “I’m what?”

Jongin pushed his already styled hair up, “You’re using me as a connection to get INB more viewers.”

“Bull!” I nearly screamed, fully pushing Jongin away from me, “I’m doing nothing of the sort!”

“Then tell me why you’re here a month after you move out from my house, just to do an interview!” He shot back at me.

I let out a frustrated groan, “What, did you expect me to visit SM because I miss you?”

Jongin stayed silent at my words, his hands leaving my wrists and handing lowly by the side of his body.

“Listen,” I said with a softer voice, “I came here for business and nothing more. I don’t need your connection to be able to make my job successful, I can handle it myself and you’re the one who knows that the best.”

Without another word, I turned my heel towards the exit and walked away from Jongin who had stayed silent the entire time.

Dahye’s POV:

My fingers tapped impatiently on my desk as the English teacher explained the use of personal pronouns in an essay. School felt like such a drag knowing that I’m capable of doing so much more than sitting in a desk all day and listening to adults talk. I wonder how Sehun oppa’s doing…Come to think of it, he hasn’t texted me in forever. I pull out my phone stealthily and open up my messages, scrolling down to oppa’s name which was situated near the bottom of my texts. He hasn’t texted me since I last saw him at the showcase…My heart felt heavy at the thought of Sehun forgetting about me already.

“Miss Kim, is that a phone I see?”

I froze in my spot, .

“Detention.”

“Detention again Dahye? Really?” Jongin groaned over the phone, and even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew he was giving me a disappointed look.

I sighed, pushing my bangs out of my face, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll try harder next time to keep my phone between my textbook so the teacher can’t see it.”

“That’s not the point Dahye!”

“I don’t get why you’re so mad at me oppa, it’s not the first time that I’m receiving detention…” I said genuinely confused. Usually oppa wouldn’t care whether I got a detention or not, but these days he has been stricter on me.

His breathing became heavier, “you’ve been getting in trouble a lot nowadays Dahye, and I’m worried about you.”

“You know I can handle it myself-“

“I know. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to enforce rules on you when its needed,” my brother sighed.

“How’s Jay unnie?” I changed the subject quickly to focus his attention on other problems. Jongin oppa became quiet and for a moment or two, all I could hear was the patterned breathing over the receiver. “Hello? Are you even listening-“

“She moved out.”

I stopped walking and stood frozen at the spot, “she did what?”

“She moved out a couple weeks ago, did she not tell you?” Jongin’s voice deepened and he sounded uncomfortable with the topic.

I blinked my eyes, trying to recall whether or not she mentioned it to me but no such memories came to my mind. “No…I had no idea,” I said slowly, still confused about her actions. “What did you do to her?”

Jongin oppa sounded baffled, “Me? I did nothing! I don’t know why she would move out in the first place, it’s not like I was making her life miserable or something-“

“I’m coming up to Seoul in an hour, bye.”

“Wait, Dahye you can’t-“

I clicked the end call button on my phone and rushed to my locker to get my bus pass to catch the bus to Seoul. There was no way that Jay unnie moved out of the house without a reason, and I had a feeling that the reason was my brother.

“So is there anything you want to tell me?” I asked impatiently. Seated on the bus travelling from Gwangju to Seoul, I decided to give a quick call to Jay unnie and ask her to meet up.

“No? Not that I know of…?” Jay sounded confused and by the looks of it, she wasn’t planning on telling me the truth anytime soon.

I let out a sigh, “You moved out without telling me!”

Now it was her turn to stay silent before she said weakly, “I was going to tell you the next time you visited but your parents told me that you wouldn’t be visiting for a while…”

I groaned, “That’s because my parents’ way of grounding me is keeping me at Gwangju until I learn my lesson.”

“Wait, what did you do? Kim Dahye, I told you to stay out of trouble,” Jay warned, suddenly finding more courage in her voice.

“Just got a couple detentions, no big deal,” I said meekly, hoping that Jay would be more accepting than my brother.

“Dahye!”

I winced at her voice, “I’m sorry! I just haven’t been able to focus on studying these days…”

Jay sighed, “Is it Sehun?” I didn’t answer her but she already knew what I would have said. “Dahye, I know that Sehun seems like a priority right now, but you have to take your education seriously too,” she reasoned.

“But he hasn’t texted me or called me ever since I saw him at the showcase!”

“He’s a celebrity and Exo has been gaining a lot of popularity these days, so he’s bound to be a little busier than usu-“

“Do you think he forgot about me?” I felt scared to know Jay’s answer to my question but that’s the one thing that was on my mind for the past month.

Jay took a deep breath, “No, he surely did not forget about you Dahye. Now I assume you have a detention to go to so we’ll talk about this another time.”

I let out a small laugh in guilt, “How about we talk about it say….now?”

“What? You’re in Gwangju…”

“Not anymore…”

“Dahye!”

Jaein’s POV:

That girl will be the death of