ING

Squash.

Pumpkin. 

Cucumber. 

Lettuce. 

Spinach. 

I had already listed an entire family of vegetables and it wasn’t even noon. In fact, it wasn’t ten. And I was still in my bed. Forget classes; there was a crisis on my hands. 

I had developed feelings for Do Kyungsoo. 

Not like, ‘hey, let’s be friends’ feelings but ‘hey, let’s be a little more than friends’ feelings. Like, ‘hey, I’ll stop your wedding if I have to because I want you for myself’ feelings. 

Which was exactly why I could not leave my bed because the fact that I now liked Do Kyungsoo had basically tripled the likeliness of me running into him on campus. That was how things worked with me. And me running into Kyungsoo would lead into me saying something horrific which would lead into something getting out to Minah which would lead to her burning my live body in front of everyone on campus. And it would probably rain after that and my charred body would have a major case of the frizzies and that would be the last way that I would be remembered. 

There was no way in hell that I was ever leaving my room. Chorong had already left and Minah wasn’t holding any surprise meals so I was good to go. I had even requested the day off work because my mouth hurt from the stitches. I mean, it didn’t hurt that bad but I had Googled pictures of mouth herpes the night before (I don’t recommend doing that) and it did look a lot like the situation that was taking place on my face. And because some people still believed that I had done it with Kyungsoo and I really didn’t want any more rumours being spread around. 

And again, I was never leaving my room until I talked myself out of liking Kyungsoo, which was easier said than done. 

Really, I had looked up ‘ways to fall out of love’ online and none of them were working. 

Just as I was in the middle of chanting some sort of Chinese anti-love spell, I heard footsteps in the apartment. Footsteps and the fridge opening. What the hell? I thought that Chorong had gone to class and Joonmyeon was way too lazy to walk all the way to my apartment from his. 

I stayed in my bed for a few minutes before the thought of a stranger being in my house drove me insane and I kicked off the covers and got out of my comfy confinement. At least it was going to get my mind off of the whole Kyungsoo thing. Maybe it was an actual love doctor. My lord, I’m going to die alone. Either way, I grabbed the closest thing that I had to a weapon (an alarm clock) and creeped out of my room. 

Although if it was a real burglar I would have been screwed since there’s not a ferocious bone in my body. The only thing that I cared about was it not being Jongin. I could not bear to see that kid again. 

“STOP!” I screamed, jumping out from behind the corner. 

Luckily it was only Sehun. 

Wait a minute, Sehun? 

“Oh, hey Noona,” he smiled when he saw me, taking some cold bulgogi out of my fridge. Also he didn’t stop or look even the slightest bit intimidated. That would have if he was a real bad guy. “Is your face alright? Jongin told me what happened.” 

(Also, again, I sleep in normal pyjamas so it was not like Sehun was getting any sense of a show. He was also too busy finding chopsticks to pay that much attention to me.) 

Oh squash. Of course Jongin would have alerted the media the first chance he got. “Is Jongin here right now?” My eyes widened in fear. 

Sehun shook his head, setting down the meat on the counter. “No, he’s getting his suit fitted for Minah’s wedding.” 

It was way too early for this. “When’s the wedding?” Why wasn’t anyone telling me the important details? As the maid of honor, you would think that people would feel the need to tell me when this entire shindig was going down. Not that I was excited about it or anything. 

“Few weeks,” he shrugged. “I know, I thought that was really soon, too. But they said that they wanted to do it before all of their friends went their separate ways for the summer.” . “I’m supposed to go and meet them down there but I had morning class today. And then I was hungry.” That wasn’t a surprise. 

But HOW COULD YOU BE SO NONCHALANT ABOUT MINAH AND KYUNGSOO GETTING MARRIED IN A FEW WEEKS, SEHUN?

Well, it wasn’t like he was in love with Kyungsoo and he wasn’t best friends with the bride. He had every right not to care about what was going on. 

But still, you would have thought that someone (Minah) would have told me. Because that was the good thing to do. The other good thing to do was to not be in love with her fiancé. Oh, look, now I thought that I was in love with him. 

“How did you even get in here?” That was what I chose to ask first. Actually, I really did want to know how he got in there. The front door was locked and closed and Sehun didn’t have a key. It would really if the front door was broken. That was a set-up for something bad to happen. Although my apartment wasn’t that exciting. And our rooms had doors to them. 

“Oh, I used the spare key that you have above the door,” Sehun said before taking a mouthful of bulgogi. 

Huh? “There’s a spare key above the door?” How did I not know about this? And more importantly, how did Sehun know?

“Yeah,” he nodded. “You should really reconsider where you hide that thing. It’s a pretty obvious hiding spot. Not that there are a bunch of people trying to sneak in here in the first place.” 

I frowned. Not just because Sehun had told me that I was so lame (and poor) that no one was ever going to want to break into my house, but because it was so easy to get into my house in the first place. And the whole Minah and Kyungsoo were getting married in a month and for some reason, I had woken up and was completely obsessed with him. 

I let out a frustrated sigh and leaned against the small part of the counter that wasn’t completely covered in food. Today was . The further I moved away from my bed, the more it . Feeling something my foot, I looked down and saw a dog. A small, fluffy, white poodle that was wagging its tail like no other.

It was pretty cute, with its big, black, glassy eyes and pink leather collar. Wait a minute. I don't have a dog.

"I don't have a dog," I repeated out loud. "Either does Chorong. Oh my god, Sehun, did you go out and buy a dog?" I knew that Sehun did dumb stuff when he was bored but I never thought that he would turn to buying animals. "Is it yours?"

"What? Oh no, Bongie belongs to Minah," Sehun said through his mouth full of food. "Jongin said that he would watch her while she was in class."

Oh. I had forgotten about Minah's dog. Mainly because pets weren't allowed on campus so Bongie stayed with Minah’s parents during the school year. And since I didn't make frequent visits to Minah's house (or apartment, since she was a slob) I had no reason to come in contact with her dog.

And way to be involved in everything, Jongin.

"But Jongin had to go to the tux shop with Kyungsoo early and I was the only one around. So I kept Bongie in her cage in the bookstore while I went to class and now I'm bringing her here so that you can watch her while I go get my suit," Sehun had barely swallowed his food before he took another giant bite. “Noona, can you watch Bongie? You aren't doing anything, are you?" It sure was nice of him to ask.

Well, I was in my pajamas moping about my recent discovery while the rest of the world was out living their lives.

"I'll watch her," I agreed without a split second's hesitation. I had nothing against dogs and I really wasn't doing anything. At least now I had someone to talk to that wasn't going to judge me. Although it was an animal of Minah's so there had to be something psychotic about it. Oh god, that was horrible. See? Look at me? I was jealous. She had what I wanted and would never be able to have.

My life .

Sehun's life didn't , though, because he had food and was never unhappy when he was eating. "Thanks, Noona. Please make sure that you take Bongie for a walk in a few minutes. That's what Minah told Jongin who told me to do," he said, shoving the rest of the food in his mouth and grabbing his phone from the counter. "Thanks, Noona. You're the best!" he shouted before stomping out of my apartment.

I looked down at Bongie, who stared back at me.

She didn't look like she was judging me.

"Maybe this is just, like, a twenty­four hour thing," I said to her. "You know, like a virus? Like, maybe this time tomorrow I won't feel anything for Kyungsoo and everything will go back to normal."

Bongie didn't say anything and kept staring.

"Because it's not like you can just suddenly fall in love with someone. I mean, granted, I did find Kyungsoo attractive when we first met, but there are a lot of attractive people out there. In fact, there are a lot of people out there to begin with! Which means that there has to be someone for me, you know?" I continued.

Bongie didn't say anything and kept staring.

"Maybe this is because I bumped heads with Jongin yesterday. He hit me pretty hard. I wasn't in love with Kyungsoo before that. Or maybe I was; I don't know. Or maybe I really am in love with him."

Bongie didn't say anything and kept staring.

"Because it makes perfect sense now, why I was so angry at Minah. Yes, first it was because that she lied and said that I was sleeping with her boyfriend­slash­fiancé and you can't just say stuff like that, but then she apologized and we're best friends and I should have forgiven her. But then Kyungsoo told me that her and him were getting married and I wasn't happy! I should have been happy! Minah is the most romantic person in the world and this is possibly­ well, definitely ­ the best person that she's ever been with! I should have been ecstatic!" I was practically wailing now.

Bongie didn't say anything and kept staring.

"And I wasn't happy because I was really just jealous of her! I was so jealous that I couldn't be happy for my best friend! Because Minah is a and the entire world knows that she's a and I shouldn't have been surprised that she was mad at me because she's so damn overdramatic but I should have realized that! But I didn't realize that and now I'm in way over my head because I am completely and utterly attracted to the one man in the world that could never possibly love me if I even wanted a chance of making it out of this year alive!" I really was screaming now. "And now that I've realized this I can't get him out of my mind and nothing good is going to come out of this situation because he's getting married to her and I'm going to end up alone with my gay best friend, who at this point is probably going to be Jongin! What am I going to do?" I finished, panting.

Bongie didn't say anything and kept staring because she's a ing dog and dogs don't hold conversations with people or offer valid advice.

"Holy , I'm talking to a fuc