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“What do you mean you're friends with him? How come we’re only hearing about this now?” Soyoung gasped, shocked.

“Well, because you guys never asked if I knew him?” Jia replied.

“How did you even meet him?” Leena interrogated.

“Easy, I jumped down from the tree and he caught me,” the girl narrated shortly, shrugging her shoulders in the most nonchalant manner they’d ever seen.

“Wait,” Feilin paused and shook her head, her way of doing a double-take. “Did you just say you jumped down from a tree? Are you crazy? What if you got hurt?”

Jia giggled and playfully rolled her eyes. “That’s what he said too,” she pointed out as she recalled the event.

“And after you did that he decided to be friends with you. Just like that?” Wooji blinked stagnantly. “But Mark Tuan never befriends any girls here. He only flirts with them and that’s the end of it.”

“Flirts?” Jia repeated the word as though she had never heard it before. “I’ve never seen him do that. Are you guys sure that you aren’t confusing him with somebody else? From what I’ve seen, he doesn’t seem to match the descriptions you gave to him. He’s really nice and sweet. He even brings me strawberry milk and candy!”  

“This can only mean one thing,” Wooji proclaimed. Everyone had their eyes fixated on her, waiting for her to elaborate. “He wants to have with you!” She didn’t mean to shout out her theory so loudly, it just happened. Of course the people in the pizzeria looked at the five of them with judgmental and scrutinizing gazes and they all, with the exception of Jia, hung their head down low in embarrassment. It was already enough that their peers at school criticized them. They didn’t want any more of that coming from strangers.  

“Eh? No way. I told you he’s not that kind of person,” Jia defended. “We’re only friends.”

“But that’s just it,” Leena muttered. “Mark Tuan doesn’t become friends with just anyone, especially if you’re of the opposite . This has to mean something.”

“Didn’t I just say what it meant?” Wooji grumbled. “He has to have an ulterior motive for kissing up to Jia.”

“What if he actually likes her?” Soyoung suggested innocently. “Isn’t it possible?”

It was silent for a moment before Leena, Feilin and Wooji released their boisterous and uncontrollable laughter. “Are you kidding me?” Wooji snorted. “This is Mark Tuan we’re talking about here. He doesn’t like girls unless it involves something ually beneficial to him.”

“Even I have to say you sound ridiculous,” Feilin said, as soon as she managed to stop laughing. “We’ve been attending the same school as him for three whole years now and never, not even once, did we hear about him actually developing genuine feelings for a girl.”

“Yeah. What would make bubble-brain so different in his eyes? I admit that she’s cute and innocent but so are the majority of girls who has gone out with him,” Leena commented as she eyed Jia. “Do you think it’s because he knows you’re a already?”

“Do you guys not hear yourselves right now?” Soyoung scoffed. “People can change you know. We’re humans. It’s bound to happen one day or another. Ou, what if it’s like those plotlines we see in the dramas on television? You know, where the guy is a heartless player who devours women for breakfast, lunch and dinner but when he meets the cute and bubbly girl, he ends up falling in love with her and changes himself to become a better man just for her!”

“But that’s just it,” Wooji said. “He isn’t a human nor is this some cheesy fairytale. Things like that don’t actually happen in real life. Don’t you remember how he dumped that girl last year right after we returned from vacation? It was so bad that she ended up moving out of the country.”

Suddenly, Jia pushed her chair back and shot up from her seat. A bunch of customers had already left so they were the only ones left in the place with the exception of the staff who worked there. “You are all wrong.” She huffed protectively. “Mark isn’t like that. And so what if he was? He’s still my friend like the rest of you. I refuse to sit here and listen to you guys bash and scold him. If he’s so bad and scary, why did you guys even suggest him as the perfect candidate for me?”

“We didn’t think you were going to be friends with him,” Leena reasoned. “Wouldn’t it be weird for you to do it with someone you’re friends with? Don’t you think your friendship would become awkward and aloof afterwards?”

Jia didn’t utter a single word.

She moved her eyes to each girl before exhaling. “I’m going to go home. Bye.” She grabbed her things and then left. When she was outside, standing alone, she glanced into the shop and met eyes with her friends. They had mixed expressions on their faces and Jia could do nothing but make her way toward the bus-stop. As she stood there with a few other students, who also decided to hang around after school had ended, she stared at the cemented sidewalk sitting beneath her feet. “Besides,” she muttered to herself, “I promised him I would stay by his side no matter what. Isn’t that what friends do for each other?”

Lost in her own thoughts, Jia failed to notice the two boys skating down the sidewalk at a rather fast speed. “Whoa watch out!” The other students around dodged and saved their own skins but Jia had no time to react. Her feet were practically glued to the ground as she turned to see them heading right toward her. Instinctively, she clamped her eyes shut, expecting a collision to occur but instead, she felt nothing but a cool breeze ghosting over her body. Then she heard a sort of crashing noise and snapped her eyes opened.

The two boys were now on the ground. They sat up and began yelling at each other. “Yugyeom! Why did you run into me?”

“You were t