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With two large black circles surrounding her eyes, Arang dragged her lifeless body around the store in search of something productive to do. Her energy was at an all-time low due to the fact that she had only gotten three hours of rest the night before. Just like her younger sister, Arang had an arduous time sleeping when there was something gnawing incessantly at her brain.

She wasn’t dense or oblivious.

She knew that there could only be one logical explanation for her peculiar behavior.

Despite the fact that she had a general idea of what might be happening to her, Arang chose to be stubborn and refused to believe it. It was beyond ludicrous! There was no way she had developed romantic feelings towards that… creature. Kim Taehyung was annoying, narcissistic, rude, inconsiderate, and the list could go on forever! So of course she found it completely unfathomable! How in the world could she, out of all people, end up liking someone whose thoughts were centered on nobody else but himself?

That’s right; she couldn’t have done such a distasteful thing. Besides, this wasn’t one of those cliché dramas Saeyoung and her mother were always drawling on and on about. This was reality. So Arang wasn’t the type of girl who’d fall for that kind of guy.

Since there wasn’t much for her to do, Arang continued to meditate on the matter even though she should have stopped. If she had occupied her mind with something else, she wouldn’t have realized that Taehyung wasn’t that sort of guy, at least not anymore. Their first few encounters were rough, there’s no doubt about that.

She hated him. He hated her. Their relationship was one filled with spite. She thought that it was unsalvageable. But somewhere amongst all of their bickering and bantering, she must have unknowingly started to grow fond of him.

To precisely recall the moment she began seeing Taehyung in a different light was a tough task to achieve. Was it when he swooped in and saved her from the angry mob of fans? Maybe it was day they had taken her sisters out to the zoo? Or could it have been the night he catered to her wrist injury which had been caused by the drunkard on the bus? “What’s wrong with me?” She mumbled, raking her fingers through her hair.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Byunghyun popped up beside her and surprisingly enough his sudden appearance startled the girl. She jumped up and clutched onto her chest.

“Don’t do that!” She hissed as she regained her composure. “Where did you even come from? Are you a ghost or something? I didn’t even hear your footsteps.”

“Hold on,” Byunghyun slapped himself and winced. “This is real?” He balked. “Did I actually scare you for once in my life?” A triumphant grin sprawled out on his face and he pumped his fist into the air. “Sweet! I can finally cross that off my bucket list!”

“What?” Arang quirked a brow. “You have scaring me on your bucket list? Could you be any lamer?”

“Of course not,” he chimed before he threw an arm around her shoulders. “I’m still friends with you, aren’t I? I couldn’t get any lamer than that.”

“Wow, nice comeback. How long did it take you to come up with that one?” She complimented sarcastically. As she was shrugging him off, a yawn slipped past her lips.

“I’ve had that one up my sleeve for a long time now. I was just waiting for the perfect chance to use it and thanks to you my chance to shine finally arrived.” Byunghyun cheesed, still very proud of himself for the insult.

“Yeah, yeah. Now you have something you can boast to your parents about. Not that they’d be impressed or anything.” She snickered.

“Hey, I’m their pride and joy.” Byunghyun huffed. “Do you not see this handsome face? All of their friends are trying to set me up on blind dates with their daughters! If that’s not impressive then I don’t know what is.”

“Like I’d ever believe that.” Arang snorted as she rolled her eyes.

“Forget it. I’m not going to waste my time arguing with you.” The boy scowled. “How are you feeling? I heard about the accident. You should have requested the week off.”

“I’m fine. It wasn’t serious.” She didn’t want another person worrying about her.

“That’s good. As long as you’re alright. So, what’s with the spacing out? When I got here, you looked like you were concentrating really hard on something. Care to share?”

His observation caught her off guard. “Spacing out? When was I spacing out?” She coughed. Was she that obvious?

Byunghyun proceeded to furrow his eyebrows. “Just now.” He answered. “Your face was like this.” He quickly plastered on a (somewhat) blank expression, which also included hanging his mouth wide open, to demonstrate what he had witnessed. Although there was a slight exaggeration on his part.  “What were you thinking about?” He questioned.

“Nothing,” she blurted a little too fast for his liking.

If she wanted to convince him, she’d have to do a lot better than a simple nothing. Who was she trying to fool? Even a gullible ghost wouldn’t believe what she was saying. Skepticism was evident in Byunghyun’s countenance as he eyed her. “Why do I feel like you’re not being honest with me? Are you keeping secrets from me now, Arang?” He gasped as he placed a hand on his chest, feigning hurt and distraught. “I thought we were friends.”

“I’m not keeping anything from you.” She assured with an awkward laugh. She didn’t like how overdramatic he could get. It always caused a ruckus. She couldn’t afford irritating the old bat she called her boss again. It was necessary for Arang to put a cap on the situation as soon as possible before it got worse. “I’m just tired because I couldn’t sleep last night since there was a lot on my mind.” After she registered what had come out of , she clamped her eyes shut, bit on the bottom of her lip and mentally screamed at herself. She had given herself away! 

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