8 ~ Garden Gnomes

Mihi clasped her hands together worriedly, all the while feeling the guilt settle in. *Maybe I've gone too far this time…* she glumly thought. *I hope she's okay.*

Jongup noticed this and comfortingly patted her arm. "I'm sure noona's okay. Youngjae-hyung went after her."

Zelo nodded. "Hyung will bring Sujin-noona back safely."

She smiled gratefully at her two dongsaengs. *But what they don't know is that Sujin is like this because of Youngjae.*

From outside their little circle, Daehyun stared at the trio. He found it strange how Youngjae himself seemed clueless as to the reasons why as well. Daehyun knew well enough that Mihi's motives were innocent in that she only wanted the two to work things out between them, as much as he did too on Youngjae's behalf.

Zelo's eyes widened when he saw two familiar figures making their way towards them. "Eo? It's Youngjae-hyung. And Sujin-noona's with him!"

The rest of them turned their heads in that direction and saw that truly enough, it was them. As they got closer, the four noticed that they were actually holding hands.

Mihi smiled softly. *I guess perhaps things turned out for the better?*

Daehyun noticed her change in expression, and couldn't help but let a small smile grace his lips too as his eyes shifted between her and the two who were obviously on better terms than before. *Maybe your plan worked after all.*

Sujin slipped her hand out of Youngjae's when they got closer. "H-hey. I'm sorry for running off like that." She hung her head. "But I'm okay… Sorry for worrying you all."

The group shook their heads and gave words of reassurance to comfort her. Mihi looked at her a little sheepishly, eyes b with guilt. This didn't escape Sujin's eyes, who cheerfully bounced over to her and linked arms with her.

"So, who's up for the Viking ride?"

With that, Mihi knew she was forgiven.

~~~

As morning turned to afternoon, the six decided to go for an ice-cream break after their ride rampage. Mihi and Sujin went to the restroom to freshen up whilst the guys lined up for the ice-cream.

"So did you finally work things out with Youngjae?" Mihi curiously asked. Her eyebrows raised in surprise when Sujin responded with a shake of the head.

"Not really…" she began. "More like, I'll just stop avoiding him for now."

"Did you tell him why you've been avoiding him?"

"No. It's not the right time."

Mihi decided not to pry any further and sent her best friend a supportive smile. "Hopefully things will work out in the end."

Meanwhile, the guys had found a table and were digging into their ice cream cones.

"So, Youngjae-hyung. What's with you and Soojin-noona?" Zelo bluntly asked. Jongup nudged his side painfully, causing him to yelp and frown at him. "What?"

"Nothing much," Youngjae replied.

Daehyun eyed down his friend. "Or so you say."

He just smiled to himself. "At least she doesn't avoid me anymore, ever since I went after her."

Jongup frowned. "Noona was avoiding you?"

"Youngjae-hyung probably did something annoying to make her really angry," Zelo thought out loud. Jongup slapped his head this time, earning himself a glare. "Ow! Stop hitting me! I meant that Soojin-noona only avoids people if they annoy her somehow! Like that time when I accidentally called her favourite actor ugly! She ignored me for a whole week."

Youngjae shook his head. "I wish I knew, but even Mihi doesn't know. I guess Sujin doesn't want to talk about it.

"Well you should thank Mihi-ssi for inviting you, otherwise the two of you wouldn't even be on better terms now," Daehyun said. He received a raised eyebrow. "What?"

"You're still calling her that?" Youngjae laughed. "Mihi's the same age as us. Just call her by her name."

"No. It's too weird."

"No. You're too weird."

~~~

"Hey, wanna go on the Haunted Ghost Train?" Zelo suggested.

Sujin pulled a face. "But it's so boring, it's not even scary."

She pointed to the computer screen where pictures were taken of people on the ride. Most of them consisted of a very unamused-looking parent with their kid.

Jongup smiled up innocently at her. "But the ghoul costumes and decorations and lighting effects are pretty interesting."

She eventually caved into his puppy-dog eyes and found herself going on a carriage with a very pleased Youngjae. She was still sighing and looking away when the double doors opened and swallowed the two into the darkness of the haunted house.

Zelo and Jongup were next to go and they sat awkwardly together in their carriage.

"We should have asked more girls to come…" Zelo muttered gloomily. "It's too weird with two guys."

Jongup nodded forlornly in agreement before the two also disappeared behind the double doors.

"I've never been in a haunted house before," Daehyun admitted a little nervously as their carriage neared the entrance. "I don't like supernatural stuff."

Mihi laughed at this revelation of his. "Don’t worry, you big baby. It's not scary."

Daehyun flushed red in embarrassment and was about to open his mouth to protest, but was thrown into the dark silence, broken only by the rickety sounds the carriage was making as it moved on the tracks and the occasional distant screams of kids.

"Jongup was right," Mihi marvelled. "The decorations and lighting effects are pretty nice to look at."

Even when freaky looking figures popped out of nowhere, Mihi didn't even flinch and just commented on how it was 'interesting'.

"I thought you would've been scared of these things," Daehyun commented.

"My older brother used to watch stuff with ghosts and monsters and things, so I guess I got used to it."

"You have a brother?"

Mihi smiled fondly at the thought of him. "Yep! But he's working in America at the moment so I don't get to see him very much."

Daehyun nodded before continuing to glance around. "You guys are right, this isn't scary at all. The rickety sounds the tracks are making is scarier than all of this."

There was an eerie silence before a blinding light shone in their faces and rows of ghosts, ghouls, monsters and anything else you could think of appeared before them. Mihi's face paled as she noticed what the thing was that was swung near their carriage. It was the one certain thing she hated the most amongst all things, the one thing that scared the living daylights out of her.

Garden gnomes.

Cackling at her were rows and rows of freaky garden gnomes behind the one big one that was shoved in her face.

Mihi's mouth opened and a blood-curdling scream ripped out from as she stared at the gnome in complete and utter fear, before it snapped a picture of her in her petrified state. Daehyun watched her reaction in shock from his seat beside her.

Another set of double doors opened to spit out their carriage into the view of the onlooking line of people waiting for their turn. Without a word, Mihi jumped out of the carriage  and rushed off. Daehyun snapped out of his daze and did what he thought was suitable in this situation -- to go after her. The others who had come out a tad earlier were looking on in shock before noticing the picture with Mihi's petrified expression.

Sujin gasped as she realised what had happened. "Oh no… there were those in there, weren't there?"

After losing her in the crowds for a bit, he found her sitting alone behind the candy floss stalls with her head down.

"Hey," he called out gently. "Are you okay?"

She looked up timidly before noticing it was him. "Yeah…"

"What's wrong? I thought you weren't scared of those things?"

"I'm not. It's just… I don't like gnomes…" Mihi whispered the last part so Daehyun didn't quite catch it.

"You don't like what?"

Mihi took a deep breath. "Gnomes. They scare me."

There was a moment of silence as Daehyun took in this information. Suddenly, something 'cracked' within him and he found himself gasping for breath as he doubled-over in laughter.

"Bwahahaha!"

Mihi stared at the sight of the usually composed, serious young man who was laughing at her like there was no tomorrow.

"O-of all t-things y-you're s-scared of, you're s-scared of g-gnomes? T-the most harmless t-thing t-there is?"

Daehyun noticed the glare she sent him and dedicated a whole minute to trying to compose himself.

"Okay I'm sorry. It's just that it's kind of funny how you're not scared of all those other things but you… you're…" He stifled his laughter. "And you called me a big baby."

She looked at him in disbelief. "Hey! At least I'm not scared of haunted houses."

"I'm not scared of them," he replied rather blithely.

Mihi turned her head away a little sulkily.

"Alright then. Let's go find the others before they think you've been abducted by a gnome," Daehyun teased.

Mihi stared at his back unhappily as he continued chuckling at her as they walked. *I can't believe he's actually laughing at me like this… At least he's scared of rollercoasters.* The corners of her lips curved up in a hint of a smile. *I'll get back at him.*

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Updating on time is seriously not my forte... 

Hopefully this chapter turned out ok, keke ^^

Thank you new subbies! :D Until next time.