NO MORE Y TIME 

As pathetic as is sounded, crying actually felt bizarrely good. Like, I knew that me bawling my eyes out really wasn't going to make anything better and was probably just going to piss Chorong off to the point of her throwing things at me, but I didn't care. I literally just spent the rest of the day (and most of the next, honestly) lying in bed, sobbing. 

"Avery, you need to get up," Chorong instructed me the next evening. 

"Mmeyohawnah," I mumbled, which was supposed to translate into ‘but I don't wanna.' Because I really didn't want to leave my cocoon of blankets, pillows, and tissues. 

"Too ing bad, Avery. It wasn't an option," she grumbled, flipping on the light switch in the room. "We have to go." 

"I don't have to go. I don't even think that I'm invited anymore," I fired back, lifting my head up so that my voice wasn't completely drowned out by the stuffing I was buried under. And that was true; I was pretty sure that Minah had uninvited me after that whole scene that I had caused at her bachelorette party. 

"But you aren't going to the wedding. I think that you at least owe it to Kyungsoo to show up and explain to him why you aren't there," Chorong pointed out, jumping into the bed and kicking me with her feet. People were all about getting into my bed while I was still in there. 

And Kyungsoo never had called me back. I mean, I knew that he was busy and all and I wasn't expecting for him to just show up at Chorong's apartment to have one big long speech with me. 

"Jongin will tell him." I had gone back to grumbling out my statements because it melded with my (read: miserable) mood better. And I was sure that Jongin really would've told Kyungsoo all about me. 

"You aren't letting ing Jongin finish things for you," Chorong plopped down so that she was sitting on top of my chest. Which was ultimately going to lead to my suffocation, but whatever. There was already so much stuff surrounding me that I would probably die of that first. "If you're even finishing things, that is." 

At least Chorong was smart enough to not bother asking me about what my nonexistent plan was. Because I didn't have a plan and was sick of trying of think of ways to make them up. And it was also nice of her to offer the glimmer of hope that Kyungsoo was still going to choose me. 

And I really didn't want for Jongin to have the last word. I don't trust him. "I don't want to do this," I let out a frustrated sigh.

"I don't think that anyone wants to do this," Chorong responded, poking my cocoon. "You're not helping."
"Neither are you." 

Squash. She was right about that one. 

"Okay, fine." I really didn't have any other option but to wriggle out of my fort. I looked awful, by the way. I seriously hadn't left my bed since Jongin had come over the day before. My mullet had transformed into an afro that probably had bits of food stuck in it. "I'll do it. Just because I don't want for Jongin to tarnish my name." 

"And because you're in love with Kyungsoo," Chorong added on with a smirky grin on her face. Well, she did have a point there.

"Something like that." 

***

"Oh, god, I don't want to do this." 

"I don't want to do this either," Joonmyun, my biggest ally yet, grumbled his agreement. 

"Neither do I," Chorong said because Chorong wasn't one of those people that would lie to you just so that you would do something. She'd just torture you until you did want she wanted. 

"Then why are we here?" Joonmyun whined. He was normally the one that complained first, which was good because he was a lot better at arguing than I was. Although that really wasn't a surprise because there are a lot of people that are better that are arguing than I am. Even Bongie and she's a dog. 

"Because our friend is getting married," Chorong said in a monotone voice, pulling into a parking spot as we arrived at the hotel before twisting the keys in the ignition, turning the car off. That had been her same answer each time that either Joonmyun or I had asked that question. And believe me, it had been asked about every other minute. 

"She's not my friend," Joonmyun reminded us. 

"And she's not really mine, either," I added on. Because, really, we weren't friends. I don't even know why I was there. Other than the fact that Chorong literally held a (plastic) knife to my blanket­wrapped throat until I actually got out of my bed. 

"For the love of god, you two. You know that it's bloody awful when I'm the one that's defending Minah," Chorong swore, turning around so that she could look at me. I was in the back. Which I'm not complaining about because at least I could sit back there and cry without anyone noticing me. Not that I was doing that. Because that would've been weird. "All we have to do is get through this wedding and I swear to god that I don't care if any of us ever speak to Minah again, okay?" 

"That works for me," Joonmyun said, not even taking a moment to think it over. 

"Avery?" Chorong looked at me expectantly. 

Well, squash. There was no way in hell that I was about to engage in battle with Chorong. "It sounds good to me, too," I said, running my hands through my braid. Braiding it was pretty much the only thing that could've been done with my hair within a reasonable amount of time. It was either attempt a braid or rock the mullet/afro and I really didn't want to walk around in front of everyone looking like that.

"Then good. Now we're all going to go inside, put on a happy face, and get this dumb dinner with over it, alright?" she asked both of us. 

Alright. Joonmyun and I both nodded our agreements woefully. 

"Good. Now let's do this." 

We all begrudgingly got out of the car because none of us were really all that thrilled to be there. The rehearsal dinner was being held at this hotel in Cheongdam because it was Minah and she had to make everything extravagant. Everyone there was poshly dressed and I was definitely the only one with a braid. Wow. Super. 

At least I hadn't seen Minah yet. I mean, I knew that she had to be there because it was her rehearsal dinner and all, but there had been no trace of her. But I also hadn't seen Kyungsoo and I kind of needed to speak to him. Wait, no, scratch that. I really needed to speak to him. 

Instead I was greeted by one worse: Krystal. 

Did she know how big of a I was? She had to have known. Most of the free world had to have heard by then. Minah couldn't keep a secret to save her life. She was probably talking to Kyungsoo right now. Oh, , she was talking to Kyungsoo, wasn't she? Squash squash squash, what the hell was I supposed to do? Oh, right. First, avoid Krystal. 

"Avery!" Crap, she spotted me. It was the frizzy braid, wasn't it? It had to have been the frizzy braid. "Avery, have you seen Jongin anywhere? I know that he's around here!" 

Oh. Should I be happy with the fact that Krystal generally wanted nothing to do with me because she was so focused on Jongin? Because I kind of was. 

"No, I haven't seen him anywhere!" At least I was telling the truth for once. Not to mention that Chorong and Joonmyun had used this as their opportunity to sacrifice me so that they could go run off and avoid running into Minah. Or it was Chorong's subtle way of telling me to go talk to Kyungsoo. Or she just didn't like Krystal. Yeah, that sounds about right. 

Krystal made a disappointed face. "Ugh. Damn it. Well, if you see him, you'll let me know, right?" 

Uh. Okay. "Yeah, I will definitely make sure to do that!" I exclaimed a little too brightly. At least I wasn't lying. As horrible as it sounded, I kinda liked seeing Jongin uncomfortable. I just wanted for someone else to be as miserable as I was. And then, before Krystal could jump into a conversation about how Jongin never called her, I went and jumped behind the first open door that I could find. 

And it was the kitchen. 

Okay. I could handle this. No one in the kitchen even seemed to notice the girl with the frizzy braid that was standing awkwardly in the corner because they were too busy working. And by working, I mean that they were trying to make sure that Sehun didn't eat all of the food. 

Wait, Sehun was in there? 

And another wait, because why was I surprised? It was Sehun and it was food. That was probably the only thing about that day that had made any sense. 

"Noona!" Sehun cheered when he saw me. I guess it was good to know that at least one person wasn't pissed to see my face. And squash, that was negative of me. It wasn't like the entire world was out to get me. It was mainly just Minah's friends. Which roughly translated into about half of Seoul, but that was fine. I was going home soon anyways. "What are you doing here?" 

Did he mean in the kitchen or at the rehearsal dinner in general? Not to mention how I really didn't have an answer for anything anymore. "Um, what do you mean?" I asked because there was no way for me to answer a question without stuttering first. 

He swallowed whatever it was he was eating before answering me. "I thought that you and Minah weren't friends anymore." He was also sitting on the counter but I didn't care because I had no intention of eating while I was there. 

But yeah, Minah and I were always going back and forth with this friendship thing. "Um," I said because now apparently I didn't know any other words. "We aren't, I guess." You guess, Avery? Really? That was probably the only fact that you could confirm. "Wait, how do you know that?" That was also a dumb question. Minah had probably alerted KBS about how I was a wannabe boyfriend stealing homewrecking tramp. 

"Jongin told me," Sehun said with a shrug, reaching over and grabbing some food item off of a tray that a waiter was holding. 

Only Sehun would ignore social media and get his information from Jongin, who may be the most illegitimate source that I have ever met. And I wasn't even going to ask how Jongin knew, just like how I wasn't going to ask about how the hell Jongin knew where I was living. Some things are just better off being unknown. Things like that. 

"Um. Well. What do you think about that?" Was I really trying to conduct a feelings talk with Sehun? My life was just getting more and more pathetic. 

"Dunno. I haven't thought about it." 

That also shouldn't have been surprising to me. It wasn't like Sehun really needed to spend his free time thinking about the wedding. Maybe he was one of the one percent that actually thought about finals that year because no one else seemed to manic study like how I did. 

"So what are you going to do?" Sehun carried on to ask what was basically the question of my life. "I mean while you're here. There really isn't that much going on. I've already tried everything on the menu." 

I let out a sigh of relief. "Um. I guess that I was just going to hang out in the kitchen while everyone else was out mingling with Minah and Kyungsoo," I thought off of the top of my mind. Actually, no. I had been thinking about it the entire time that we had been in the car. 

"Why?" 

Hadn't we already had this part of our conversation? "Because Minah doesn't like me and there's a large chance that Kyungsoo doesn't anymore either?" 

Sehun shoved some other random sandwich roll into his mouth. "I already know that," he rolled his eyes at me. "I guess that I should've said something about that being a bad idea. Because Kyungsoo and Minah aren't even out there." 

Well this was a possibly unwelcome turn of events. 

"What?" I asked frantically. 

"I don't even think that Kyungsoo has gotten here yet. Did you know that he was in Goyang-si? I didn't. Until someone told me. Jongin said that he was visiting his family," Sehun rambled on. "And then Minah's not out there. I don't know where she is, but she's not here." 

Wait. Was Minah standing up her own rehearsal dinner? 

"Do you know where she could possibly be?" I asked, nervously twisting the end of my frizzy braid. Also, I had asked a dumb question because Sehun had just told me that he had no idea where Minah was. I was losing it. Or I had already lost it. 

"I don't know. I guess that you could go ask Chanyeol," Sehun said thoughtfully. 

Chanyeol! He was the mystery child that everyone was always talking about and that I had never met! He was kind of like Yixing before I could identify him. Those were the days. Things were so much more simple back then. 

"What does Chanyeol look like?" I asked because that could actually come in some degree of help. 

"Like ... like that!" Sehun exclaimed, flinging his hands towards the entrance to the kitchen where a really tall guy and a girl with blue dip-dyed hair had just walked in. Wait, really, was the kitchen really open to just anyone? Because before today I had always thought that there was some sort of kitchen door security guard. Or maybe it was because kitchens had knives and you really don't want to bring knives into trespassing. 

Yes, the door. Where two people had just entered. One of them being Chanyeol. The Chanyeol. The guy that I was supposed to go on a blind date with and that was supposedly best friends with Minah. And, according to Chorong, was a . 

"Chanyeol! Xui Ying noona!" Sehun laughed. I wasn't sure what was so funny about this, but Sehun really did laugh at nothing. 

Oh, hold on. Was that the Xui Ying that was dating Yixing, the guy that Minah had also tried to set me up with? You know what ? How she was trying to set me up with literally everyone that she knew and I was still single. Maybe it was me that was the problem. Focus, Avery. That was Xui Ying. The Xui Ying. 

"Have you seen Minah anywhere? I really need to speak to her," the girl, Xui Ying, said urgently. Well, that was the other question of the hour. 

"Yeah, I do too!" Chanyeol agreed. He was really ... tall. And had an amazingly deep voice. And he had nice teeth. So I guess that it made sense that he and Minah were friends. He was pretty. So was Xui Ying. And even though we had just met, she seemed really nice. I didn't know why Minah hated her. But Minah did hate everyone (except Kyungsoo,