A cold drizzle permeated the city and a chilling breeze danced around the cars, buildings and people foolish enough to be out in it. Yes, Choi Gaein was one of those unfortunate, foolish people. So were a few other students who wound their way through the school gates that morning pulling up their collars against the wind and trying to take shelter under their umbrellas. Most of the students hadn’t attended school at all, preferring not to go out in such daft weather. But Gaein wasn’t a rich kid who could bribe her way out of attendance. It was mandatory so she really had no choice.

Gritting her teeth as an especially strong bout of wind whipped through her coat, making her hair fly into her face and sinking it’s penetrating cold into her bones, she hurried forward. What she wouldn’t give to be home. But class would still be warm, so she bee-lined it towards her building.

As she entered, she sighed in relief at the warmth that started to thaw her frozen fingers and poppy-flared cheeks. Milling in with the students she made her way up the stairs towards the by now, familiar doors of her classroom. She’d been lucky enough never to have gotten lost since that first day. As she entered the class, a good twenty minutes before it started, she breathed a sigh of relief that no one else was there. Today was the first official day of avoiding L and Zelo. She hadn’t wanted to run into L on campus so she’d come in extra early just so she wouldn’t have to talk to or see him. Hopefully if he started looking for her, he wouldn’t think to check her classroom. Who knew? Maybe the rain and cold had kept him home today too so she was probably just worrying about nothing. But with L, one could never be sure.

Wringing excess water from her hair onto the floor beside her, Gaein grimaced at the thought of how she must look. Probably like a drowned cat. She fished in her book bag and retrieved the reading assignment from yesterday. She had finished it late last night and was therefore, understandingly exhausted. She read over what she’d written checking last minute for any errors she may have missed due to fatigue the night before. She didn’t see anything so she set it aside ready to hand it in when class started.

With nothing else to do, she retrieved her headphones and some music. A popular new song that had just come out entitled: Back by an adored idol group (sidenote: Yeah, Infinite…couldn’t resist) filtered through the headset and she closed her eyes, resting her head on her arms. The chorus hadn’t even come on when she felt a hand patting her head and another one poking her in the shoulder.

“Eeeeeeeh? What is it?” she peeped through her arms and saw Woohyun and Sungjong smiling down at her.

“Oi sister-in-law, you know you drool when you doze off?” Sungjong grinned mischievously at her and waggled his eyebrows.

Gaein gasped, “I do not!” as she reached up to her chin to see if she actually had.

“Just kidding!” Sungjong laughed as though he’d said something really clever, “Yah, noona. You are so gullible!”

“What are you doing here so early?” Woohyun grinned as he pointedly glanced around at the rest of the empty classroom.

“Oh.” Gaein blushed as she confided, “I’m avoiding L right now.”

“By hiding in the classroom right across the hall from his? With no one else in the room to hide behind?” Woohyun raised an eyebrow.

“Wait, why are you avoiding L hyung?” Sungjong demanded his face scrunching up in confusion, “Did he push his boundaries? Wait…(his eyes widened) did he kiss you?”

“Sungjong-ah!” Gaein cried in exasperation.

“Well you never know,” Sungjong shot back defensively, “Sometimes girls react weirdly when guys kiss them. I should know. I watch when all my friends do it. Sungyeol has girls faint or slap him…but the slap only happened one time because he kissed her then told her he wasn’t interested. Oh, and Dongwoo kissed a girl once and then he acted weird because he didn’t like kissing her—she kind of forced it on him so now he doesn’t want to kiss anyone. I’ve been trying to get him to get over his phobia by getting him a girlfriend, but will he listen to me? Nooooo. And then there’s Woohyun…”

“Okay I think we get it.” Woohyun quickly jumped in, “and since when do you spy on people’s private moments?” he shot Sungjong a withering look that had Sungjong skipping to the other side of Gaein’s desk out of harm’s way just in case Woohyun tried to lunge at him or something.

“Well whatever the case, no, that’s not what happened.” Gaein responded stubbornly crossing her arms.

“Then why don’t you want to see him? Don’t you know that he’ll be really upset? You could make him cry! Or pout…or maybe beg…hmm but getting angry is most likely. He’ll probably grab your arm in a manly fashion and pull you from the room so that he can talk to you about how you shouldn’t be silly and avoid him so he can kiss you and that’ll actually give you a reason to avoid him rather than just because you decide to randomly.”

“Sungjong-ah!” Gaein cried again, “You know I can’t believe my mother wants to unofficially adopt you. Though you do act perfectly like an annoying little brother.”

“What?” A smile split Sungjong’s face and it looked like if he wasn’t careful he’d faint away in delight, “You’re umma wants to adopt me? Yes!! I’ve never been adopted before. That’ll be fun. Does that mean I get to hang out and sleep over and eat free food and annoy my noona about boys?” He got up in her face and smiled adorably. “Please take care of me noona!” he smiled revealing an intense aegyo that he only reserved for people he really liked or when he was trying to wheedle sweets from them. “Oh wait,” he paused, “That means I have to protect you from all the big bad guys that don’t meet my approval to date you. I have to practice the brother complex….let’s see.”

He cleared his throat and said in as stern a voice as he could muster, “Noona, he isn’t good enough for you. You deserve waaay better. Nope. I forbid you to date him.” His serious face broke into a playful laugh as he looked at her with a proud expression, “How was that? Now I can give L hyung real trouble! Hahaha!”

Woohyun just stared at the youngster with wide, horrified eyes. “Sungjong-ah?”

“Yes! That’s my name!” Sungjong mock saluted.

“Are you on medications or something? Sometimes I swear you escaped from an insane asylum.” Woohyun confided conspiratorially.

“Yah! What would my noona say if she heard you say that?” Sungjong pretended to clutch his heart in offense as he turned to Gaein. “Noona, quick, defend your dongsang, neh?”

“Look” Gaein interrupted, “I need your help to keep L away from me. I’m serious, ok? I really don’t want to see him.”

Sungjong’s humorous pretense dropped immediately, “But why noona?”

“Because he never listens to me!” Gaein exclaimed in frustration, “And he even went and fought Zelo the other day. If they were to get hurt, I’d kill them! They knew I didn’t want them to fight, but they did it anyway and that was the last straw. So now, I’m avoiding both of them until they can come to their senses and until I can figure out my own feelings.”

“Ahhh.” seemed to be all Woohyun was able to say, but he nodded in sympathy.

Sungjong, however, was not moved. “Noona, I think you’re misunderstanding something about L hyung.”, he told her bluntly.

“Really? And what is that?”

“First of all, ever since you’ve started coming to this school, he’s finally started to act like a human. Before you came, he was just a cold guy who was only close with us. He n