“Let’s go do something this weekend,” Amber whispered excitedly, eyes glittering in the semi-darkness of the classroom. “We could go shopping if you wanted.” It was the following afternoon during our sixth period social sciences class; Ms. Lee was showing an incredibly boring documentary that no one was paying attention to. Even Ms. Lee was reading a newspaper.

I shook my head at Amber’s offer at once. “No thanks,” I said quickly. “I don’t have any money, and I don’t really like shopping anyway.” That was the understatement of the century, but I didn’t feel the need to expound on my monetary problems to Amber.

She pouted in what I’m sure she meant to be a cute way. Aegyo was not a look that suited her tomboyish appearance well. “I don’t really like shopping either,” she admitted. “I just wanted to hang out.”

It was the third day of having Amber’s undivided attention and I was just as skeptical then as I was on day one. She seemed to think that we were the best of friends now even though everyone else in school still saw me as the dirt-poor scholarship student who needed to be constantly reminded that she wasn’t as good or important as the rich kids.

Amber seemed genuine as far as I could tell, though, so I sighed and shrugged. “I mean, I guess we can hang out if you really want to. No shopping though.”

“No shopping,” she beamed. “Great.”

Amber and her newfound “friendship” – if I could even call this friendship – was still at the forefront of my mind when I left school that afternoon. Even though I was supposed to go to Jonghyun’s house, I took my time and didn’t rush. I’d lied and told Jonghyun that I needed to pick up something along the way, so I stopped at a convenience store. A cold soda sounded good but I didn’t have any money to buy one. With my father’s voracious liquor appetite, we never really had any extra money lying around.

I sat in front of the convenience store and worked on homework until I deemed enough time had passed for me to visit Jonghyun. At exactly five o’clock I found myself in front of the massive front gate of the Kims’ mansion, ringing the call button.

The same rude, nasally-voiced person answered my call. “How can I help you?”

“I’m here to see Kim Jonghyun,” I replied.

He must have been expecting me because he didn’t give me any trouble this time. The mechanical gate swung open to admit me without any further conversation and I made the trek down the long gravel drive, my school bag feeling inordinately heavy. The same butler that I’d met before was waiting for me at the door, and he showed me to Jonghyun’s set of rooms without speaking.

He held down the call button when we reached the set of Oak doors. “Young Master,” he said respectfully. “Miss Song is here to see you.”

There was a brief pause and then Jonghyun appeared in the doorway. He had already changed out of his school uniform, making me feel even more out of place in mine. He glanced at me only very briefly. “Thanks, Kang,” he muttered, halfheartedly motioning for me to come in.

I took a seat on the same square-shaped couch as the last time I had visited and immediately pulled out my notebook. Jonghyun sighed heavily and did the same, though of course he was reluctant to do any work. This project was starting to feel like the bane of his existence, or perhaps it was me who had become that rather than the project.

I started the questions, as usual. I had come up with a whole slew of new questions to throw at him, though most of them were still fairly basic since it was only our second time meeting. “What are your hobbies? I asked.

He pursed his lips as he thought about it. “I like watching movies, I guess. And playing instruments.” He hesitated, then admitted, “I also like writing lyrics.”

I didn’t comment on the writing lyrics part, as it had probably taken a great deal of courage for him to tell someone like me about it and he seemed sort of embarrassed. So I scribbled it down in my notes and pretended like it wasn’t a big deal. The only person who was going to read my dossier after I wrote it was Ms. Lee and she would have so many to read through that I doubted she would pay much attention to all the tiny details.

“What about you?” he threw my own question back at me, the way he usually did. Rather than come up with his own questions, he would always just ask me the ones I asked him.

I tapped the end of my pencil against my pursed lips as I mused over the question. “Well, I really enjoy being outside, so I like basically anything I can do outdoors. I also really enjoy reading.”

“Bor-ring,” he sang, scribbling down my answer nonetheless. “How can you do anything fun when you don’t have any money?”

I felt my face burn, not with shame but with indigence. “You don’t have to be rich to have fun, you know. Not everything costs money.”

He snorted derisively. “Yeah, sure. What do you do? Collect rocks?” He snorted at his own pathetic joke.

“You’re an , Kim Jonghyun,” I snapped without thinking. Rather than finding it offensive, however, he seemed to find it amusing.

“I’ve been called worse,” he smirked.

“How about this then,” I decided suddenly. “This weekend I’ll show you how to have perfectly free fun. If you end up having a good time, then you have to stop teasing me for being poor.”

He seemed intrigued at the idea of a wager, as most wealthy men were. “And if I don’t have a good time?”

I hesitated. “If you don’t have fun, then I’ll…”

“Be my slave for an entire week at school,” he supplied when I came up empty handed.

My face turned even redder than before, if that was possible. The idea of being forced to be Jonghyun’s slave, carrying around his books and running pointless errands all day every day, was downright nauseating. But still, a wager wasn’t worth anything if you had nothing to lose. “Fine,” I finally gave in, holding out my hand resolvedly. “If you don’t have fun, I will be your slave for a week.”

He grinned at the idea, obviously already confident that he would win, and we shook on it. “Fine. Saturday we’ll-”

“It’ll have to be Sunday,” I interrupted him. “I already have plans Saturday.”

Jonghyun looked both incredulous and amused – more incredulous than amused – that I had plans on a weekend, like he didn’t think I was cool enough to have something to do. “What are you doing on Saturday?”

I looked down at my notebook, covered in little scribbles and doodles. “I’m hanging out with Amber.”

“Amber? Amber Liu? From school?” he repeated, brows knitting together in confusion. “Are you two friends or something?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. She invited me over to her place this weekend and she’s been sticking up for me when the Bimbo Brigade picks on me so-”

“The Bimbo Brigade?” he repeated, and I remembered that I was the only one who used that nickname for Jessica and her mindless friends.

I shrugged again. “Jessica Jung and her Barbie-doll clones. You know, Taeyeon and Sunny and the others.”

He laughed out loud then, surprising me. He had a loud, hearty laugh. “You call them the Bimbo Brigade? That’s the perfect name for them!”

I sat there awkwardly until he’d finished laughing. I wasn’t used to Kim Jonghyun – or anybody else at school, really – saying something nice about me, so I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. Eventually he stopped laughing, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “Fine, then. We’ll meet up on Sunday. Be here at ten o’clock in the morning. I expect to have a lot of fun.”

He tore of a corner of his notebook paper and scribbled down his phone number in that hardly-legible handwriting of his. “I guess you should have this if we’re going to hang out.”

I accepted the paper nervously. It was one thing to have Amber Liu’s number programmed in my mobile, but it was a completely different matter to have Kim Jonghyun’s. I folded the paper up and slipped it into the front of my school bag, not sure if I would ever have the need to take it out again.

When we finished for the day, Jonghyun personally walked me to the front door of his house. “See you later,” he muttered.

“Yeah, later,” I repeated indifferently. We both knew that even though we would see each other at school the following day, we would act like we didn’t know one another. We would be strangers again until Sunday. It was just the way things were.