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GONG MINJI

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Part II

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the sound of Chaerin’s overdramatic voice suddenly flowed across my uncomfortably silent dorm room. The tone of her voice was actually barely above a whisper, but for the past thirty minutes, the room had been so painfully silent that now even the teeniest bit of noise made had about the same impact as that of an explosion.

I turned around to get a good look at her only to find her staring at her own reflection in my full length mirror that hung on my closet door. She had apparently caught the attention of both Bom and Dara as well because both girls’ heads shot up at the same time that mine did. We all silently stared at Chaerin but she just kept her eyes focused on the mirror. Chaerin shook her head before adding a disappointed, “I can’t believe this.”

“What?” I questioned hesitantly, trying to ignore the tense atmosphere of the room. “I think you look hot.”

I was only joking—well, sort of—I mean she did look hot, but my real goal was actually to help ease the tension that currently enveloped me and my friends; however, the comment instead only earned me a glare so cold that it could’ve put even Kris’ icy scowl to shame.

“Thank you, Minji,” Chaerin replied through a painfully stiff smile before going back to emotionlessly staring at her own reflection. “I feel so much better now.”

Another cold front suddenly swept across the room; my joints began to shiver despite me trying to maintain my front so that I wouldn’t look as anxious as I felt.     

I cast a glance over at Bom and Dara on the other side of the room, who were already staring at me, but the second I caught both their gazes the both of them looked away and silently went back to minding their own business as well.   

Feeling fed up, I released a dejected sigh for the umpteenth time that day, before groaning out, “How long are you all going to give me the silent treatment?!”

I was hoping that if I sounded desperate enough that they would stop ignoring me, but no; my plea might as well have fallen on deaf ears. The room stayed silent enough to hear a needle drop as everyone just kept busy with their own distractions.     

I sighed once more before letting my body flop lazily onto my bed. It was my own fault that my friends didn’t want to speak to me at the moment. After all, I was the one that signed them all up to be a part of this stupid booth thing anyway.  

See, it all started after the senior girls’ meeting we had in the gym.

It hadn’t taken long for Yoona and the rest of her friends to spread the word around via text message about the “emergency meeting” for all senior girls to attend. They made sure to keep discreet about spreading the message, of course. After all, we didn’t want any of the guys getting suspicious only to end up finding out about the meeting on accident.      

After midnight, all the girls, myself included, snuck into the girls’ locker room—I’d had to slip the janitor 20 bucks in order to get us inside—and we held our little meeting. The message stressed the importance of each girl making it to the meeting on time. “Midnight sharp” had been typed in bold to make sure the girls understood. I’d wanted to make sure that the girls knew that this was a serious meeting, so anyone that was even a minute late was locked out.

Luckily, every senior girl was on time.

Yoona and I being the spokespersons for the meeting had decided to team up to tell all the girls everything that we’d learned about the senior boys, as well as their stupid pranks and what they were planning. Between the both of us, we’d had to have spoken for at least 30 minutes straight without taking a single breath or pause. 

The initial response we were met with from the girls was nothing but dead silence. It was like every girl in that gym had suddenly turned mute for a second, but then; the uproar that followed was so great that you would’ve sworn it was the sound of 1000 rhinos trampling the ground rather than just the sound of a couple hundred senior girls complaining.  

The girls were so enraged it seemed that they were about to start a “Wrestle Mania” right there in the gym; honestly, they should’ve been taking that anger out on the guys. Having had to watch the girls fight I was afraid that we may have never been able to get everyone on the same page and that my hopes to get the boys back would be shot down.

But after we were finally able to get the girls to settle down, Yoona and I took a vote, and that’s when I knew every girl was on the same page as I was. Every girl’s hand immediately shot high in the air in favor of revenge on the guys when we had asked whether we should “forgive and forget” or retaliate. And I’m sure no other girl in the room was as thrilled as I was by the outcome. 

Oh revenge was going to be so sweet!

However, if getting the girls on the same page for retaliation was easy, then deciding and agreeing on an actual revenge prank was not! Every girl had her own idea on how we should prank back the guys.

“I say we chop their off!” One girl had shouted causing everyone else to break into roars of laughter.

I had rolled my eyes at the ridiculous suggestion. “Realistically, how are we supposed to pull off something like that?” 

“Um…” she had trailed, looking unsure. “We can do it while they’re asleep?”

“Ooh! I know how we can,” another girl had piped up. It was Suzy, a well-known science nerd in our grade. She had stood up in the packed bleachers so that she could be visible to everyone. “As you know, my father is a famous scientist…”

I nodded at the too familiar news. Suzy’s father was a well-known scientist who’d found a cure for “athletes feet.” She mentioned his name just about every chance she got. She was always running amuck, doing experiments (sometimes illegal ones, even) with the tools her dad supplied her with, and unfortunately for anyone that ever became her roommate, they generally ended up becoming her “guinea pig” for her to test her experiments on. 

“And he has this stuff that’s basically a sleeping gas,” she continued, excitedly. “It puts anyone who inhales it straight into a coma-like sleep. I have some and if we release the gas into the vents on the boy’s wing then it will knock them out into an unconscious state. Then we can sneak into their dorms and remove their es!”

“I don’t think so,” I’d had to cut in before any of the other girls got too crazy with their prank suggestions. “We are not going to perform phallic surgery on any of the guys! Does anyone else have any other prank ideas?”

“How about we super glue their cheeks together!” Another girl had yelled which had caused another round of boisterous laughter. The only thing I could do was roll my eyes before trying to get the girls back on track.

After passing ideas around for while we finally were able to come to an agreement on a suitable prank to play on the guys.    

The girls decided that the best way to get the boys back was to pull off the very prank that they were planning to pull on us; only we’d make our prank ten times better! And the best thing was that the guys wouldn’t even see it coming. But anyways, we decided that giving the guys diarrhea just like they had done to us was the best way to get the guys back; that way they could get a taste of their own medicine.

However, there was another problem to figure out. We were going to need a plan that would allow us to successfully give all the senior guys diarrhea at once without making it totally obvious. The voting for student council was going to start soon and that was when the girls decided would be the best time to carry out the prank since everyone was going to be there which meant all the guys would be there as well.

No student on campus ever willingly chose to forgo “Election Day” because if they did they would generally end up missing out on some of the greatest bribes and prizes ever offered. Whenever Election Day came around at our academy, the school turned into a complete circus! The academy looked more like a carnival or a parade rather than just a voting poll stop. But that’s only because Election Day was really just a day for the academy’s richest students to show off. If there’s anything rich people love doing it’s comparing themselves to other rich people and claiming superiority over those who are less rich. Election Day allowed the richest students to put “mommy and daddy’s” money to use in order to bribe other students to vote for them.

I remember the first time I had ran for president back during sophomore year; I’d bribed the students with free food. Seriously, people will do anything for free food! I’d called my mother, who is a renowned chef, and told her about how I was running for president. In order to help me with my campaign she’d sent out a team of her finest chefs—and when I say “finest” I’m not just referring to their cooking skills, my mom had sent over some of the hottest guys to come cook on campus—and they proceeded to fillet, chop, broil, and grill their way into everyone’s hearts so that they’d vote for me. It’s just too bad I ended up losing that year; I had been so close to winning too.

It’s just that the girl I was running up against that year, Kim Jihyun, had a better bribe than I did. Her parents were owners of one of the top jewelry companies in Korea, and so when she came to school the next morning, she’d brought diamonds! Since this was back when the school was still all-girls and they say that “diamonds are a girls’ best friend” I just knew that I didn’t stand a chance. I didn’t lose by a land-slide—actually the voting results ended up being really close—but I’d still lost in the end. But that was okay because little did I know back then that I’d one day become the best president the academy had ever had by my junior year.

So, if diamonds were a girl’s best friend, then food was definitely a man’s best friend. Well, actually the saying goes “dogs are a man’s best friend” but I’m pretty sure food is right up there next to dogs, and for this reason the girls had decided that whichever way we chose to do the prank, it one, had to be carried out on Election Day and two, had to involve food.

Somehow amidst all the planning for the prank, Yoona ended up coming up with this insane idea that she thought was the perfect way to prank the guys.

“A kissing booth?” I had reiterated unsurely while we still stood in the center of the packed locker room along with the rest of the girls.   

Yoona’s head had excitedly bobbed up and down as she stared at me with shining, animated eyes and her winning smile.

“You see, it’s all a part of my campaign,” she had started to explain as she wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I noticed this to be a habit of hers whenever she was talking to me. “My friends and I came up with the idea about a week ago. What better way to get the guys to vote for you than by setting up a kissing booth? See, genius right?”

I only answered with an unsure half-shrug. I guess it was a good campaigning ploy. After all, every other student running for student council would be coming up with all kinds of nifty ways to bribe their peers of their votes. So with that in mind, why not a kissing booth? But there was still one thing left that didn’t make sense.

“How is that supposed to help us pull off the prank?” I questioned not getting the resemblance at all. How was her kissing booth campaign supposed to help us prank the guys and give them diarrhea?

“Easy!” she exclaimed, before turning around to face the rest of the crowded locker room so she could explain not only to me but to all the girls. “See, during election day, I’m going to be setting up a kissing booth that I know all the guys are going to flock to, especially the senior guys.” She turned to me and wiggled her eyebrows for a quick second, before turning back to the crowd.

“But you see, my kissing booth is going to have a bit of a twist,” she continued. “Not every boy is going to get a kiss on the lips. Only those who buy chocolates from us will have the chance to receive a kiss on the lips. Originally, my friends and I were just going to hand out Hershey Kisses to the boys who wanted kisses, but I was thinking, what if we made our own homemade chocolates, and we could make them out of those laxative chocolates they sell at the store.”

After her explaining, I had suddenly understood where she was coming from.

Understanding of Yoona’s prank idea seemed to dawn on the rest of the girls as well as they had all started nodding their heads, agreeing with her while muttering things like “ooh” and “ah, I get it now”.

After Yoona had told her idea, plenty of other girls that were also running for student council were inspired to add laxatives to their food bribes as well. Kim Hyuna, another girl in my grade, decided to add laxative powder to her “famous” blue berry muffins she was going to be handing out while running for Treasurer. Joy Park, Hyuna’s rival for the same position, was going to make her own triple chocolate muffins with laxatives being the special ingredient.

If we kept this up, then all the guys were going to be flying to get to the bathrooms the day after voting was over.

“There’s just one more thing,” Yoona had announced, grabbing every girl’s attention again. “Considering how many senior boys there are on campus, my friends and I are going to need some more help with the kissing booth because there’s no way that just the eight of us can fend off all those dudes. So if anybody wants to help and doesn’t mind kissing a few hundred guys, then I’m going to stick up this sign-up sheet and you can sign your name. Then me and my friends will see if you qualify. Okay?”

After the meeting was finally over, Yoona had come up to me, placing an arm around my shoulder once again. I had automatically got the feeling that she wanted something and had stared at her suspiciously.

“Minzy, you’ll be helping me with my kissing booth, right?” she had asked me; however, even though she was asking, she had stated it in a way that more implied that I would do it, like she was telling me I was going to do it.

I had just responded with a shrug. “Why would you need me? Didn’t you just ask every girl that was in here only a second ago to sign up if they wanted to help?”

She had rolled her eyes, before giving me a slight pout.

“Oh Minzy,” she sighed. “I only asked them so that they wouldn’t feel left out, but I’m not actually going to use any of the girls that sign up. I’m actually going to recruit the girls that I want instead, and right now, I’m recruiting you.” She followed that by playfully poking me in the chest and smiled at me like she was doing me the biggest favor or something. 

“I need popular girls to help me run the kissing booth on Election Day,” she continued. “The reason being because besides just pranking the guys, I also really want to win the vote for Secretary.”

“And I’m one of the popular girls?” I questioned slightly amused. It all just sounded so…high school. But then again we were in high school… 

“Of course you are!” she cheered. “You’re our president so that makes you popular by default. The guys aren’t going to kiss just any girl. She needs to be pretty and popular. You have your fair share of fanboys…maybe not as much as me, but you’re still popular.” She flipped some of her glossy hair before staring back at me, questioningly. “So, you’ll do it right?”

I had bit my lip, frowning because of the way she was pushing me. She was doing it again: asking me without actually asking, but telling me.

Yoon and her bossy ways never changed.

I wasn’t a pushover. I would’ve had just declined the invitation to be a part of her little group, but she had been looking at me with her watery eyes, and I just caved. This was also another reason why I’d had to get a new roommate a few years ago.

So I went ahead and ended up signing my name to Yoona’s sign-up sheet to be a part of her kissing booth. I was only doing it in good spirit of the prank, I had thought, or so I told myself. However, after I’d finished writing down my name, something compelled me to keep filling in the other lines as well, and before I knew it, I’d added not only my own name, but Chaerin’s, Dara’s and Bom’s as well.

I knew they were going to kill me once they found out, but I didn’t want to do the booth by myself. I mean, what are friends for if they won’t help you out in a kissing booth? Yoona obviously believed this; she had all her friends helping her.

But the difference was that Yoona’s friends actually agreed to help her; mine, on the other hand, had sort of been thrown into it without any warning because of my jittery fingers, and awesome penmanship that printed each of their names clearly on that sign-up sheet.

They nearly bonked the hell out of me once I finally got around to admitting to them what I’d done, which I’d only managed to mutter out the day before the actual Election Day.

But now it actually was Election Day, and we had to get ready for our shifts for the kissing booth. Earlier today, Yoona had brought over our outfits; the same outfits she wanted all the girls to wear which were so revealing they would be considered illegal to wear in some countries.

After that, we’d all gotten dressed in silence. We’d all sat around the room in silence. And we’d all sulked in silence—I sulked because my friends were ignoring me; Chaerin sulked because she was horrified at the tight cheerleading outfit currently wrapped around her body like a second skin; and Bom and Dara sulked because their entire free Saturday had been taken away all because of me.

Every second that ticked by was just really awkwardly silent. And now, this was the reason why we all currently sat scattered around in me and Bom’s shared dorm room, not speaking to one another.

In fact, it wasn’t until after we left the girls’ dormitory, strolled across campus, and finally made it over to Yoona’s setup for her kissing booth that any one of us spoke up again.

“Whoa, are those guys desperate for a kiss or what?” Chaerin voiced her thoughts aloud as she pointed over to a flurry of commotion happening across campus by Yoona’s setup. The four of us were headed over in that direction so that we could help Yoona with whatever she needed for her booth. However, from the looks of it, a number of guys were already swarming around it, even though it looked like the booth wasn’t even fully put together yet.

“I don’t think they’re waiting around for the kissing booth to open,” I replied, now focusing on the same commotion around Yoona’s kissing booth. From what I could see, the guys surrounding the scene looked more like they were helping Yoona and her friends set up the booth rather than just pathetically lurking around it, waiting to be smooched. “It looks like they’re helping them build it.”  

Some guys were hammering at what looked like a white picket-fence deep into the field. Others were placing Yoona’s banner up high, while Yoona herself, stood on the sidelines, mouthing and gesturing to the guys like she was telling them exactly how to place it. Plenty of other guys helped Yoona’s friends with whatever they were setting up for the booth as well.

“It looks like your boyfriend is helping too, Minji-ah,” Dara suddenly snickered. I immediately frowned at the words Dara just used; even though she hadn’t said his name, I already knew who she was referring to.    

“My boyfriend?” I echoed, dryly.

Dara nodded. “Uh-huh, isn’t that Kris over there?” Her index finger shot up and pointed across the field towards Yoona’s booth setup where a towering, lanky figure looked like he was helping pitch up one of the banners. Yep, that was Kris all right. 

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Anachay's Note: This including the next chapter took 15 pages to write in Word Document! That's why I split it into two chapters, so just continue on to the next as if its all one chapter.