The next day at lunch, I decided to eat out in the courtyard. I smiled as I pushed the doors open that led outside. Look at me! Eating outside? It was like I was a whole new woman. I guess I owed a part of that to EXO. Even though they'd only been in my life for a short while, a lot happened. I knew it myself that things were changing, and that they would continue to.

The grin escaped my lips as I stared down into my lap at the neatly wrapped chicken sandwich my mother packed for me. What would she think about all of this? Disappointment, for sure. Would she get angry? Would she yell? She always nagged, but I couldn't ever recall her really yelling at me. I picked at the sandwich, peeling off a morsel and plopping it in my mouth. Without a doubt, my involvement with the guys was exciting, but it was also extremely dangerous. A normal person would've reported them to the authorities by now, and I knew that.

But I was tired of being just normal. I was tired of going home everyday and doing what was expected of me. Maybe that's why I wanted to stick around EXO, because I admired their ability to rebel against the world. Maybe if I stuck around them long enough... I would be able to do that too.

"Yujin!" a feminine voice exclaimed, interrupting my ponderings. I took a break from my meal and looked up to see Heehyeon running towards me. "Oh, hey," I greeted, trying to flash a casual smile but realizing that the sandwich in my mouth was half chewed. I darted my head down in an attempt to cover my face, hoping that there weren't any bits of food stuck to my teeth.

Heehyeon sat down next to me without hesitation. "Wow, a rare sight seeing you outside!" she giggled, the crinkling of wrapping paper mixed in with her voice. "I mean, a rare sight seeing you at all. This is the first time I've ever seen you at school, and I was starting to wonder whether you really went here." It seemed that pausing to take a bite from her salad was the only thing that slowed down her stream of conversation. "Yeah, I could say the same thing about you," I replied, taking advantage of the moment. "Are we in the same year?" I asked. "I'm a first year student." Heehyeon shook her head as she finished her bite. "No, I'm actually one year older than you," she answered.

"Funny, I thought that you were younger, or at least my age," I said, mostly to myself.

"Well you seemed like a stick-in-the-mud student that was older, but I guess we're both wrong right?" she said, nudging me with her elbow.

I laughed at her comment without thinking, giving her a genuine smile. "Yeah I guess so." 

Did I just laugh so casually with someone else? And a girl, at that? I peeked behind my hair to steal a glance at her-- she was happily chewing away at her salad while her eyes, wide, stared up at the sky. Heehyeon glanced down at my lunch and her eyes sparkled once more. "Wow! What a cutely packed lunch. Did you pack it yourself?" she asked, leaning over.

I passed open a container of sliced strawberries to offer her one. "No, my mom's a chef so she packed it for me," I said as she took one and threw it into . "I can't cook very well, but I'm trying to learn."

"Same, but I'm more of a baker. That's so cool though! My mom is a professor at a university," she nodded in thought for a brief second. "I'd much rather prefer a chef."

We laughed again and chatted some more. I was nervous to respond at certain points, but I could already tell that Heehyeon wasn't a type of person to judge another harshly. Soon enough, the bell rang, indicating that lunch time was over.

Heehyeon brushed off her skirt as she stood up. "Do you always eat alone?" she said, turning around to face me. 

I shrugged. "Not always..." But after a knowing glance from her, I confessed, "Yes."

She smiled effortlessly. "Well, not anymore."

I stifled a yawn as I packed up my bag. It was the end of the school day and I was dying to get home. I was also partially upset with myself since I almost fell asleep during my literature class, but for some reason I couldn't fall asleep the previous night. It mostly had to do with what Tao said before, when I was pretending to sleep at the base. 

"So, he's not unexperienced," I muttered to myself, unable to picture Tao being affectionate with another girl-- or any girl, for that matter. Was it possible for someone as icy as himself to get a girlfriend? In my opinion, he was the opposite definition of good boyfriend material. He was rude, always grumpy, and insensitive. Not to mention secretive. I tried to picture him kissing someone, but I let out a chuckle instead.

I remembered what else he said, about me reminding him of 'her'. Also, the fact that whoever she was, was... dead. Helping out at the base was my own decision, but I didn't like the idea of being someone else's replacement, and I especially didn't like the fact that Tao had been secretly comparing us in his head. For sure, the mystery girl must've meant a lot to him if he was the only one reacting so strongly to my prescence. A part of me felt bad for him, but a part of me wanted to make it clear to him that I'm not 'her', whoever she is. Was.

But yeah, that means I'd have to admit that I was actually awake. "I think I'd rather die for real," I groaned, shaking my head some. "Ugh, wait. No I take that back."

A shudder went down my spine. I was just like her, right? What if I also ended up dead?

As I exited the building, I could see that a large crowd accumulated at the entrance to the school. I jogged across the courtyard, curious as to what all the commotion was about. The chattering of student's voices increased once I got closer. "No way, I can't believe he's a part of it." I craned my neck to try to see above the sea of heads, but my short stature deemed it futile. "Do you think he's a part of EXO?" My heart skipped a beat and I shoved my way through the bodies, determined to get to the front of the mass. 

When I got to the front of the crowd, a policeman stopped me. "Stay back, everybody back up," he repeated. To the left, there were a couple of cop cars parked, sirens off but the lights still flashing. I caught a glimpse of the young man they were arresting, right as they pushed his head inside the car and slammed the door shut. I didn't recognize him from EXO-M, but maybe he was from EXO-K? It was hard to see through the glass, but he had on our school uniform. Although he was smirking, his eyes were blank and empty.

"Excuse me miss," said a mocking deep voice, with a hand placed on my shoulder. I dropped my bag and briskly turned around, but let out a shaky breath of relief to see a grinning Heehyeon. "Wow, I think you're stalking me," I said swatting away her hand. She giggled and shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know, it seems like you're following me around," Heehyeon joked, picking up my bag of groceries and handing it to me. 

"I hope my eggs aren't cracked because of you," I half-teased, checking the goods to see if they were okay. I held open the door for her as we exited the supermarket and into dimly lit street. "Grocery shopping on the way home?" she asked, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. I nodded, "My mom asked me to on my way home from the library."

"You went to the library after school? Yujin, that's so lame. We don't even have tests or anything like that coming up."

I blushed red in embarrassment. I was lame, and I knew it. "Listen, it doesn't hurt to study a little bit extra!" Especially since hanging around EXO would hold me back if I didn't put in work. 

"I'd ask you to help me study, but I realized you probably wouldn't know any of my material," she said, head tilted back to glance up at the starry sky.

"Oh please," I said slyly. "I bet you I already do."

"Wow!" she said, giving me a playful shove. "Are you like the top student in your grade or something?"

"I try to be, but as of lately I think I'm slacking off."

Heehyeon nudged me again, "That's okay. We're young, and we deserve to make some mistakes."

We were quiet for a moment. I don't know what she was thinking about, but I took her words to heart. Maybe being young meant making mistakes sometimes.

"Woah," Heehyeon said, stopping me. "Do you hear that?"

Zoning back into our surroundings, I could see that we ended up in a more isolated area. There were alleyways that lead to several buildings, most of them factories and warehouses of some sort. Crap, were we near the base? But no, I didn't recognize this part of the city. "Heehyeon, where are we? I was following you," I whispered, inching closer to her just in case something was lurking in the shadows. She grabbed onto my arm and started pulling me in a different direction. "I don't know, I used to take a shortcut back to the train station but I think we took a wrong turn," Heehyeon said, frantically looking around. From an aerial perspective, we probably looked like lab rats in a maze. "Did I mention I moved here only recently?" she said, her smile now tinted with guilt and regret. 

I groaned. "It's fine, let's just find a way out of here." We followed whichever street seemed to be the brightest, avoiding alleyways at all costs. It was as if being in the light shielded us from the unknown of the the dark. After a couple of minutes, we began to hear voices. Heehyeon sighed. "Thank God, maybe they can give us some directions." We started walking a little faster, not realizing what was about to happen.

It turned out that the conversation between whoever these people were, wasn't friendly at all. In fact, they were arguing. Heehyeon and I crouched behind a dumpster and peered over the edge to see what was happening. 

"This isn't what we ing agreed on," said a hooded figure, with another guy by his side. Their backs were turned to us. The guy opposite of them was wearing a denim jacket with a purple dragon patch on his right arm. He was accompanied by two goonies, one to his left and one to his right. In between them were five duffel bags on the floor, some of them closed and some open. The hooded figure whispered something to his friend, and then nodded. "It's not a deal," he said, and the both started reaching for the duffels.

Denim jacket stopped them. "Hold on, I don't think that's a smart idea," he said. As if on some unspoken cue, his goonies pulled out pistols from their pockets. The click of the safety lock turning off echoed throughout the street. I felt my blood run cold at the sight of the gun. Heehyeon dug her nails into my forearm, where she was gripping me. "What the man?!" exclaimed the hooded guy. "That's bull. You're the one who didn't bring enough money!" 

"Shut up!" hushed his accomplice. 

"If you even try anything, you're gonna dig your own ing grave," the hooded guy snarled. 

It was quiet for a moment. My eyes were stuck on the scene. It was like a stand-still western showdown, but no cowboy costumes, no tumbleweed, no desert. Just a shady part of the city and some girls who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Suddenly, I realized that Heehyeon had began recording the entire thing. "What are you doing?!" I whispered, suddenly panicking. She shushed me, her eyes never leaving her screen. She zoomed in on all of their faces, each of them being captured on camera except for the men who had their backs to us. Then the moment broke, and the two men grabbed the duffels and tried to make a run for it.

Two gunshots popped, and soon enough my ears were ringing. I closed my eyes, not wanting to witness the events that had just unfolded before us. I was shaking. My heart was pumping so hard, it could've either lept out of my throat or just stopped altogether.

"Take the bags to the van. And clean up," said the denim donned leader. His subordinates obeyed, and began to drag the bodies back into the warehouse. Heehyeon tugged at my arm. "Lets go, now," she said, adjusting her clothes and her bookbag as if preparing for a race.

"We can't leave now, they're going to ing see us," I hissed. I was terrified. My eyes brimmed with tears as I looked at her. 

"Do you want to die?!" she whispered back, this time grabbing me and pulling me to my feet.

My bag hit the dumpster on my way up, emitting a soft bang that rang. A pause-- another standstill.

"Who's there?" called out a voice.

Heehyeon and I bolted in the opposite direction, our hands clasped so tightly that our knuckles were white. I never ran faster in my entire life than I did in that moment.