They are all a bit off-kilter, like at any moment any one of them can snap and wreak havoc..

The school calls them the wolf pack.   I call them avoid-at-all-costs.

But the worst of the worst in that group.. is that Xiumin.  Supposedly, he is the eldest but just one look at his eyes and I can tell he is anything but mature.

And me?  I'm just a normal girl, going through the motions of high school and avoiding all the craziness.  Nice and normal, just how I like it.

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"I always thought they were just fools trying to get themselves killed. But truthfully.. they were just living, and I wasn't.."

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Enjoy this excerpt:

I hear the click of a lighter. Out of the corner of my eye, Xiumin cups his mouth with a slightly trembling hand, an extremely slim cigarette dangling from his lips.

I scoff in disbelief, slapping the cigarette out of his mouth.  His eyes follow the cigarette as it falls through the bleacher seats.

"That's extremely insensitive of you!  After I just told you about my dad dying from lung cancer, is this all a joke to you?  Am I a joke to you?"  I shout, standing with my fists clenched at my sides.  

The wind whips my hair around, strands getting caught in my mouth.  I blow out the strands, frustrated.

For a few moments, he merely gapes at me, his other hand still gripping his lighter.  

Understanding flickers in his eyes before he breaks out into uncontrollable guffaws, alternately clapping his hands and slapping the bleachers.

I glare at him in disbelief, feeling my initial anger ebb away into confusion.

Still laughing, he holds up an opened box of pocky.  

My cheeks flush in embarassment.

"But-but why the lighter? You're not even smoking.. Are you a k-kid or something?" I stutter.

He sets down the pocky, before scooting closer to me.

He holds up the lighter dangerously close to my face and clicks it on, a tiny flame radiating little heat onto my face.

He grins.

"I like to go through the motions.  It gives me something to do..."  

"You're a weird person."  I mumble, sitting back down.

"You like that part of me, don't you?"  He asks me, a teasing lilt to his voice.  

I roll my eyes, my fingers continuously fidgeting with the hem of my skirt.

He laughs heartily, his eyes scrunching up at the corners, softening his usually sharp features.

I feel my lips tug at the corners.

He chuckles, his fingers drumming on the cold metal of the bleachers, an almost trance-like feel to every thump and roll of his fingers and the merging beats of my fluttering heart.

He looks over at me with a lopsided grin, running his tongue over the corner of his mouth.

I gulp slowly, my eyes unwillingly drawn to his mouth.  

His lips move but I don't hear a sound.

My head feels disconnected from my body, floating off into a place that is all Xiumin.

His scent engulfs me and leaves me struggling to breathe through a suffocating blanket of cologne and pocky.

My eyes are blurred by a kaleidoscope of tears and foggy images of his face.

At last, I hear some semblance of talk.

"I saaaid" his voice slurrs "I think we should kiss."

I feel my head that is no longer mine nod on its own.

I watch, horrified, when our fingers wrap around each other and suddenly there is no such thing as space and no such thing as normal because Xiumin is entirely something more wonderful than normal.

His lips are engraving themselves onto mine, his tongue softly exploring my mouth in ways I had not known were possible.

His fingers move agonizingly slow up my arms, every touch leaving a trail of fire.  

My mind is going into a frenzy, red alarms going off and telling me that no, xiumin and I like this is not right.  But those wails in my head are drowned out by an ever-growing bright hope that maybe, just maybe, xiumin might be the one to change my mundane life.

What are you doing to me Xiumin.