HANDLE THE

"You look like ." 

That was how Luhan had greeted me the next morning. I mean, in all fairness, I really did look like . There was no point in denying that one. Plus I don't think that Luhan had ever said anything kind to me when we would first see each other. He was just keeping the tradition alive. 

"We can trade places," Chorong grumbled, pushing between Luhan and I so that she could get to the fridge. 

While I was about to go attend - what could've possibly been - the strangest funeral known to all of mankind, Chorong was getting ready to go to Minah's wedding. None of us looked very happy. Even Luhan. But I figured that he was probably just hungover and that was fine with me because Luhan having a hangover meant that he wouldn't spend the entire day being obnoxious. Instead, he would just complain and that really was all I did in my free time. 

"Chorong, you can't wear black to a wedding," I scolded her. 

She was wearing a tight black dress, which wasn't that shocking because Chorong generally did wear a lot of black. She wasn't goth or anything, she just liked black. And yeah, she did look good (as usual), but it was a wedding and I was pretty sure that you weren't supposed to do things like that. 

"You're the one wearing pink to a funeral," Chorong scoffed. The other good thing about Chorong was that Luhan never hit on her because Chorong was just as dangerous as he was. That was always reassuring. 

I looked down at my ensemble, it was a white chiffon blouse with a simple pink skirt. Because that's what it was. It wasn't special but it wasn't like I was wearing a black dress to a wedding. "What's wrong with my skirt?" I frowned. 

"You look like ," Luhan repeated.

"You look like you're twelve," Chorong said at the same time.
I have such a great support system. Look at how far they had gotten me. 

"I like my skirt," I said defensively. And I really did like that skirt. That was why I had purchased it. Yeah, it may have been from the teenage department, but that was okay. It fit. "And I'm going to wear it and be perfectly content at the same time. Meanwhile, Minah is going to you out for wearing black to her wedding." And I was positive about that one. 

"Minah is going to me out no matter what happens," Chorong shrugged, opening the fridge and pulling out a tiny cup of yougurt. "I might as well wear what I like." 

"Minah's the one that's getting married, right?" Luhan asked, confused. But he was confused about life because he was dumb. 

"She's a ," Chorong and I said in unison. 

Luhan shrugged. "Is she hot?" 

Chorong let out a groan. "You two have fun spreading out your grandfather's today while I sit and stare and wonder where I went wrong as to when I decided to become friends with such a shallow person." She stopped and looked at me. "I'll let you know how it all works out. Hopefully there'll be an explosion of sorts and we'll all be able to go home early." 

"Will you bring me some cake?" Luhan asked hopefully. 

" no." 

"It was worth a shot," my brother said with a shrug. "Alright, Aves. Let's go and get this over with now. We've gotta go stop by a church before we dump Gramps' on Seoul Tower." And it still sounds weird when you say it out loud. 

"Wait, Grandpa Hyun was Catholic?" I asked because that was shocking news to me. I wasn't even sure if Grandpa Hyun knew who God was, he was that horrible of a person. 

Luhan shrugged again. "No, but he once tried to get with this nun and this is his way of saying goodbye to her. It was written in the will." 

"There is something wrong with your family," Chorong shook her head in disbelief. 

"Yeah, tell me about it," I agreed, grabbing my shoulder bag and white cardigan so that Luhan and I could go pay our regards to our least­favorite relative. 

"You are not wearing a white cardigan with a pink skirt!" Chorong dove in front of me before I could reach the door. 

Oh my god, why was everyone all about my appearance that day? That really was the nicest that I had looked in a while. And my hair was finally doing normal looking things and everyone really should've been celebrating that because it was in full mullet/afro last night when I was bawling my internal organs out. 

"Why not?" I whined because I liked the way that I looked for a change. 

"You seriously look like you're in elementary school. Come on," she said, grabbing my arm and dragging me back to her room. "I'm sure that I have something for you to wear." 

Which was why, thirteen minutes later, I was wearing one of Chorong's white sundresses. More importantly, I didn't even know that Chorong owned anything white. She didn't even have white socks. 

"So you think that me wearing white to a funeral is going to make me stand out any less?" I demanded even though it was quite apparent that I looked a lot better in that dress than I had in my pink skirt. 

"White is the color of peace, it's not that unheard of," she shrugged. "Besides, at least now you look your age." She paused, giving me the once­over. "Or at least a really late eighteen." 

That was good enough for me. 

"Text me if anything exciting happens," I instructed my best friend. I had pretty much spent the last twelve hours blocking everything that I knew about Kyungsoo and Minah from my mind. That way I wouldn't be suffering from some sort of emotional breakdown during the funeral. I could cry after that. 

"It's a wedding. How interesting could it be?" Chorong gave me a strange look and a hug. "Have fun with the !" 

***

Grandpa Hyun had some weird friends. 

My parents were attending the ‘regular' funeral back at home while Luhan and I were at the Seoul one. Apparently Grandpa Hyun had spent his fair share of time in Korea because there was a decent sized crowd of people already waiting for us when Luhan and I showed up. Yes, most of them looked like es and drug dealers, but whatever. 

Luhan and I went and sat on the pew in the front row, seeing as we were technically the only family there. But yeah, we sat there because we weren't sure if there was some sort of proper Catholic protocol about funerals (neither of us were Catholic) and we legitimately didn't know anyone else there. 

Luckily (I think, I don't really know if this was lucky or not) other people came up to us to pay their respects. And by ‘paying their respects' I mean it was a back clap, apology, quick story about Hyun, and then asking if smoking was allowed inside. 

"Are you upset about missing your friend's funeral?" Luhan asked when we had some down time between people. When was the actual tossing going to take place? I didn't know that we were going to have to do all of that stuff that day. 

"It's a wedding," I corrected him with an eye roll. 

"Whatever. It essentially means the same thing." That was how Luhan thought. And it made sense coming from him. Nobody was ever going to accept his proposal. "Are you upset about missing your friend's wedding?" He sneered the last part because he was a jerk. 

"I'm trying not to think about it," I answered truthfully. Now that I had already told Kyungsoo that I loved him, there really was no reason for me to keep lying about things. I really had been trying not to think about the wedding, even though I totally was. I had thought of about fourteen different scenarios that could possibly take place at the wedding, a few of them involving me breaking it up while singing that Taylor Swift song that said something about belonging to me. 

Except we both - well, I don't really know what Luhan thought, I don't even know if he thinks - knew that wasn't going to happen because we were thirty minutes away from the chapel and I can't sing. 

That was why there were fourteen scenarios. 

"Why?" I'm pretty sure that Luhan was only asking me this out of boredom because normally he avoids any conversation about my feelings, which was a typical guy move. He had already said one inappropriate thing to everyone in there and had run out of sources for entertainment. Which, yeah, probably meant that he was just doing this so that he could make fun of me, but whatever. I was bored as well. 

Think about this, Avery. Did you really want to share your personal business with your idiotic brother? 

"I just ... I don't ..." Well were you going to say an actual sentence? Or did you just plan on spending your time stuttering? "She's just a ." There. And it's a fact. 

Luhan just shrugged. "That for the guy that she's marrying." 

"Yeah, I know," I agreed. Wow. That was odd. Luhan and I had agreed on something. "Kyungsoo is way too good for her." Kyungsoo was also too good for me. Really, I had never been on the same playing field as Minah before. And I probably never would be again. 

"You should probably tell him that. That's going to save him from a pretty nasty divorce three months from now." 

Squash. I had never thought about what would happen after Minah and Kyungsoo got married. They were totally going to get a divorce. That was the only logical thing that would happen. Clearly Kyungsoo would have to see how crazy Minah was after they got married. 

Hey. I could add that to my list of scenarios. 

Wait, Avery, don't space out now. You were still having a conversation with someone, even if it was with someone that you generally didn't care about. "I did tell him," I insisted because I really had told him that. And other things. But we don't have to bring that up. 

"And?" Luhan raised his eyebrow at me. He was having too much fun with this. I should've known that this was a trap. 

"And I don't know what happened. I mean, it's his decision. It's ultimately up to him on what he's going to do. And I'm guessing that his decision was to ignore me because he sees something in Minah that no one else does and now they're going to get married so it wasn't like my intervention even mattered!" I said in an angry huff. 

Luhan just looked at me as my phone buzzed once, signaling the arrival of a text message. Maybe it was Kyungsoo telling me that he loved me. "Your life ," Luhan deadpanned. Gee, thanks for reminding me. "Hey, did people ever call you for that phone thing? Chen's been asking about it." 

Let’s choose to ignore that. I, instead looked down at my phone. 

FROM: UNKNOWN

Avery, wanna see what else has seven bones? 

What the hell? Who even is ... Why the hell did Jongin even have my number? Well, no, that wasn’t really that much of a surprise. Having someone’s phone number is much less creepy than knowing where they live. But more importantly, why was he being so mean to me? 

TO: KID JONGIN

That's rude. 

Yeah, it was a weird response, but it wasn't like I knew how to respond to that. I thought that Jongin and I were now somewhat friends. I mean, I still thought that he looked like a twelve year old, but I thought that we had both accepted that and had moved on. 

"When is this thing going to start? I really wanna see some of Seoul before we have to go back home," Luhan moaned next to me. For some reason, I was okay with going back. At least then I would be able to hide out and no one could find me. Except through various social networking sites. 

FROM: KID JONGIN

Chill. I was only joking Avery. You don’t get the privilege of seeing what my seven bones look like.

Jongin must've not found the wedding very interesting either because he was super quick to respond to me. And I really needed to quit saying ‘super.' It wasn't cool. 

"Thank god this thing is finally starting!" Luhan cheered. 

The funeral was starting? About time. 

The ... priest? I think ... entered the room and those who were standing (everyone but Luhan and I) went to their seats and sat down. This had to have been the strangest funeral that I had ever been too. 

Luhan reached inside of his suit jacket and pulled out a tiny urn, waving it around in front of my face. Not to mention that the lid was loose and he could've easily spilled the remains of Grandpa Hyun all over the front of Chorong's white dress. No, now this was the strangest funeral that I had ever been in. 

"Do you wanna hold Grandpa?" he asked me with complete seriousness. 

"Stop, Oppa!" I shrieked, hopping down the pew so that I was farther away from him. "You're going to spill Grandpa's on me!" 

That successfully earned me a dirty look from everyone inside of the church. Great. Now they all thought that I was some sort of uous when in actuality I was just a kind­of . I mean, the whole me­kissing­Kyungsoo thing had kind of earned me a spot in that territory. 

Luhan, of course, found this to be absolutely hilarious. "What, Avery? You don't want a little on you?" he snickered. 

That was so not funny. "Oppa. We're in a church. Shut up," I snapped at him. We had to show some degree of respect. 

"Don't be so mean to me. I'm in a state of mourning. I'm channeling my inner Grandpa Hyun to make myself feel better," he explained loudly, this time getting a sympathetic grin from the priest. Ugh, why was Luhan the one that could tell a decent lie? That was so not fair. Although I guess that he had to have at least one useful trait. 

"Okay, well, we're still in a church. I don't want for God to smite us or something," I grumbled. On the brighter side, my hair did look decent that day. That was always a bonus. 

TO: KID JONGIN