Krystal burped upon seeing her sister walk in. “Hey, sup.” She saw that Jessica still had Donghae’s jacket draped around her and suppressed a smile. “You still have his jacket, huh.”

Jessica put her things down and stretched a bit, letting herself slide into Donghae’s jacket properly. “It’s mine now. Forever.”

Then she went upstairs and Krystal turned off the television to follow suit.

“I’ll bet she’s going to wear his jacket to sleep for the night,” she mumbled.

“What did you say?”

“I said, I’ll bet the milk’s going to give me diarrhea for the night!”

=

That night, some cried, some feared and some basked in sweet joy.

=

Hyoyeon stuck her cellphone back into her pocket when she saw Hyukjae approach. “Hey, Hyuk.”

Hyukjae had on a groggy expression, clearly his Monday expression since he never really liked waking up early. “Hey, Hyo.”

Then they both recalled the night before and grimaced. “Um, Hyo, about last night…”

Hyoyeon shrugged. “It was just a game, Hyuk. I’m fine. Really.”

The genuineness in Hyoyeon’s voice struck Hyukjae and got his eyes wide open. “Are you sure you’re fine?”

“Yes. I mean, I’d kiss anyone of your friends if I had to for a game.”

“That’s… Really cool.”

“Yeah. So don’t you worry about me.”

They shared a smile.

“So who were you calling earlier on?” Hyukjae asked.

“Fany and Taeyeon. Both didn’t pick up. I’m kinda worried right now.”

“Oh, they’ll be fine. It was just a party. I mean, you saw how nuts Taeyeon got towards the end. I’ll bet she enjoyed it.”

“Hyuk, she laughed till she cried.”

“Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?”

“I know Taeyeon sports some mean laughs but come on, I’ve never seen a single drop of tear come out from those silly eyes before.”

“…oh.”

“Well, that girl can’t take truths well. I guess it came as a shock when she found out that Kyuhyun noticed Fany first. Which, if I may add, was a real shocker indeed.”

“Tell me about it! No one from our side knew about it, too. Besides, these days, he actually seemed like he was digging Taeyeon a lot.”

“Spoke a lot about her, huh?”

“A lot. Way too much.”

“Well Mister Smartypants is quite the shocker. Given how he barged in with a flawless but dramatic excuse to join the party…”

“That was really cool of him!”

“Really cool.”

=

Donghae woke up to find that he was running late. Again.

“Oh, crap…”

He threw on a few of his closest clothes and found that he had put on his Mickey Mouse shirt again. “Oh, god, I have no time to change.” He looked at the clock. Fifteen minutes to the bell. “Screw it!”

He skipped three steps at a time and almost tumbled down the stairs, but caught himself carefully a la Jessica from the day before, when Krystal shoved her out of the doorway. “Wow, I’m learning from her already.”

When he slipped out the front door, another figure was exiting the house next to his as well. He squinted and saw the faint silhouette of Jessica, and boy, did she look heavenly for a girl going to school on Monday.

His ogling was caught by Jessica, who waved at him. “Hey there,” she greeted.

Donghae waved back, and almost forgot about the shirt he was wearing. “Hi.” He did his best to cover up his clothes by turning his back to her and she giggled in response to that.

“You don’t have to hide it, I already saw it.”

“O—oh.”

“And I know I’m not a fan of Mickey Mouse shirts on dudes, but you make it look really good.”

After a few seconds they were right in front of each other, perhaps by a of fate again. “Really?” he asked.

“Really. You’re the only guy I’ll appreciate Disney clothes on, I guess.”

He grinned. “I guess I am.”

Then he recalled the time, and he used all that he had to retain the curse word inside his mouth. Jessica tilted her head. “Aren’t you going to be late soon?”

He nodded, a bit forcefully. She giggled in response again. “You should go. I have another half an hour left, so I’m going to take my time.”

He scratched his head. “I wanted to take you to school, actually.”

She poked him lightly in the nose. “There’ll be no need for that.” Then she leaned in and gave him a peck on the cheek, just as she did after the new year countdown party where they had their first interaction. “Now shoo, get going, run to school! I don’t want you to be late!”

He skipped and danced and waltzed his way to school.

=

It was enough proof that both Stephanie and Taeyeon didn’t have very nice nights, when they both came into school with swollen eyes.

=

Stephanie entered from the east wing, passing by Siwon who was at his locker. Siwon turned his back to her and stuffed his head into the locker as she passed. Kyuhyun just continued with his arrangement of books, but he wasn’t entirely clueless either.

“Why are you sticking your head into your locker like that?” Kyuhyun questioned, once Stephanie had passed both of them.

Siwon sighed and brought his head out from the locker. “I… Talked to Fany last night.”

Kyuhyun found himself gulping subconsciously, knowing that he already expected the worst. He didn’t want to probe anymore, already getting the sketchiest idea of what Siwon had talked to her about. “Listen, about last night…”

“You weren’t kidding.”

Siwon’s voice resonated with conviction and Kyuhyun knew that no amount of denying was going to work this time. He just kept quiet and looked at his books, hands frozen.

Siwon smiled a bit and closed his locker. “Then you probably already knew what I told Fany last night.”

Kyuhyun watched as Siwon walked away. He suddenly found himself at a loss of words.

The know-it-all, for once, didn’t know anything now.

=

Hyoyeon and Hyukjae were in class when Taeyeon walked in. It was the mathematics period, and they saw Taeyeon wearing a peculiar expression of exhaustion.

“She really isn’t a fan of math, huh,” Hyukjae remarked.

Taeyeon saw them staring at her and managed a small smile. Hyoyeon leaned in towards her when the teacher turned his back to the class. “You okay?”

Taeyeon nodded as she took out the necessities for class. “Yeah.”

The teacher announced that he was giving out the quiz results from last week. As each student went up to form a queue, Taeyeon allowed herself to be thrown to the back.

The teacher gave out the results with sighs and looks of disdain until he reached Taeyeon. Smiling, he handed the result slip to her. “Congratulations, Taeyeon. First in class again for the second year running with the full thirty marks.”

=

Yuri stepped into her first day of special science class. Her partner was Kyuhyun, whose partner had left a week ago. She waved enthusiastically to him. “Hi, Kyuhyun!”

The sight of Yuri brought back memories from the night before. He gave a cold greeting in response. “Hey.”

“So… I know you aren’t on good terms with my boyfriend, but I’m sure we can make this lab period work.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

Five minutes into the class, both Yuri and Kyuhyun were this close to nodding off, given that they both had amazing science grades and that the teacher was mind-numbingly boring. She found a distraction in watching Kyuhyun spin his pencil, then decided to start a conversation with him. “Hey, you.”

Kyuhyun put his pencil down and turned to her. “Yes?”

“You don’t seem like yourself. Is something bothering you? Except the Monday blues, I mean.”

Kyuhyun smiled weakly. “Is it that obvious?”

Yuri shrugged. “Kinda?”

“Well, yeah,” he admitted. “Something is bothering me. But I’ll get over it.”

She leaned in to look at him closer. “Whatever it is, you’re not going to get over it soon.”

He flinched. “Is it really obvious or are you really good at reading people’s minds?”

She grinned. “Both, I guess.”

=

At lunch, the boys found themselves around one table, with the exception of Kyuhyun. Donghae, Hyukjae, Siwon and Jungsoo sat around the same table.

“Did you guys see Kyuhyun?” Jungsoo asked, a rare guest to be joining them, but since he wasn’t with any girl at the moment, he guessed he could join them after all.

Donghae and Hyukjae shook their heads. Siwon hesitated a while, and then shook his head. “Nope.”

“Weird.”

“He must be skipping lunch to keep his body in shape,” Hyukjae joked.

Outside the cafeteria, Kyuhyun was standing by the door, peering in through the dirty glass window. He didn’t feel like joining them for some reason. He turned and bumped into another figure, and the bump felt all too familiar.

Oh, right, weird tortoise boy. Jongwoon jumped back a bit and then let his face come into focus. “Oh, it’s you.”

Kyuhyun wasn’t in the mood to pick a fight. “Sorry about that.” He took a few steps away.

Jongwoon called out. “Hey! Wait!”

Kyuhyun stopped. “Yes?”

“Yuri, uh, she told me that you seemed a little off just now. Is something… bothering you?”

“You actually care?”

Jongwoon frowned. “I usually wouldn’t, but since my girlfriend told me about it, I guess I have to do something, right?”

Kyuhyun smiled, this time a genuine one. “That’s nice of you. But I’m fine.”

“You don’t seem fine,” Jongwoon persisted.

“I am,” Kyuhyun insisted.

Jongwoon took a few steps closer to him and folded his arms, an unreadable expression on his face. “You’re going to skip lunch, aren’t you? Then let’s skip lunch together.”

=

Stephanie, Taeyeon, Hyoyeon and Yuri were around the same table at the other end of the cafeteria.

“Where’s your boyfriend?” Hyoyeon asked Yuri.

“He’s… off doing something,” Yuri replied. “How about yours?”

“He’s… off eating with his friends,” Hyoyeon replied, suddenly conscious of how paler her reply sounded in comparison to Yuri’s.

Yuri nodded. “I think it’s cool how you guys can be separated like that. You know, him with his friends, you with yours.”

Hyoyeon giggled. “It is kinda cool, isn’t it?”

Yuri and Hyoyeon continued for a bit.

Stephanie and Taeyeon just continued eating. Or poking at their food, actually.

They used to be the noisiest ones during lunch, but what happened?

Oh, yeah, they recalled. Last night happened.

=

Kyuhyun and Jongwoon were seated, cross-legged, in a small, narrow walkway behind the library that nobody used.

“So… You going to tell me what’s up?”

Kyuhyun shook his head.

“Look, I know we haven’t gotten off to the best start,” Jongwoon breached, “but it doesn’t mean you can’t tell me things like that. I have my boundaries, Kyuhyun. I don’t offer help under the pretext of mocking you.”

Kyuhyun looked at him. Something inside him prompted him to come clean, and so he did. “I made a mistake.” Then the words just continued coming. “I told someone about my feelings for her. And I wish I could take it back now.”

Jongwoon shifted his weight around until he found somewhere comfortable in the middle. “Ah.”

Kyuhyun didn’t think that Jongwoon’s response was useful in the least bit. “’Ah’ what?”

“I see.”

“What do you see?”

“I was in this situation before.”

Kyuhyun suddenly got interested. “You were?”

“Yeah, when you didn’t know if confessing was the best thing to do, but something just told you to go ahead, and you did. And now things aren’t working out the way you wanted them to, and your action has caused more misery than happiness.”

Kyuhyun was now sure that both Jongwoon and Yuri could read minds.

=

Stephanie put her fork down fifteen minutes into the boring lunch session. She looked at Taeyeon. “Tae, we need to talk.”

Taeyeon put her fork down, too. “About?”

Hyoyeon and Yuri looked between them. Stephanie shifted her lunch tray away. “We should go somewhere else for this.”

So the remaining two were left to watch as Stephanie and Taeyeon walked away, their lunch trays the only hints of them being here a while ago.

=

When Kyuhyun remained silent for another five minutes, Jongwoon frowned. “Hey, man, I know it’s a little scary that both Yuri and I can almost read minds, but don’t just keep quiet like that.”

Kyuhyun furrowed his brows. “How the hell do you guys even know what’s going on with me?”

He shrugged. “We just formed our own style of communication, I guess. How do you think we could last this long?”

Kyuhyun didn’t know how long his long was. Jongwoon put up five fingers, then lowered three. “Two years, man.”

“Oh.”

“We can communicate just by looking into each other’s eyes. I guess that’s the reason we’re still this cool.”

Kyuhyun didn’t know how he should react, so he just nodded. “Okay.”

“Anyway, the point is… You shouldn’t be this quick, to come to a verdict, just like that. I know I can’t predict the future, so I can’t tell you for sure that things will be okay, but you shouldn’t be this sure in how you think things will be. Do you know how Yuri and I got together?”

Kyuhyun shook his head, resisting the temptation to snap a ‘duh’ at him.

“I was this extremely awkward nerd who was considered the weirdo in school.”

Kyuhyun resisted the temptation to say ‘why am I not surprised’.

“And Yuri was an extremely popular girl in school. Let’s just say we’re really different people. And then… One day I decided to come clean… But I regretted it almost immediately after. And I ran away.”

“Literally? You ran away literally?”

“Yes. I confessed to her by the water cooler when I just so happened to be behind her. Then I ran away… Into the girls’ restroom.”

Kyuhyun grimaced. “That ain’t gonna be pretty.”

“Oh, trust me, it was very ugly, to say the least.”

“Then what happened?”

“She, um, she kind of followed me in…”

“Woah.”

“Yeah. And then she kissed me. Just like that. In the middle of the girls’ restroom.”

=

“What do we have to talk about?”

Stephanie inhaled. “Yesterday,” she breathed. “We have to talk about yesterday.”

Taeyeon looked straight at her. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Tae, you ran off just like that.”

“I was starting to get tired.”

“You cried, Taeyeon,” Stephanie whispered. Her voice was strong but gentle, because she wanted to make her point, but she didn’t want to hurt Taeyeon.

Taeyeon chuckled weakly. “Because I laughed too hard.”

“Tae—“

“I was laughing… At myself.”

Stephanie’s determination to clear the matter up with Taeyeon melted. She took a step closer, seeing Taeyeon’s defenses come down bit by bit. “I was laughing because I’d been led on stupidly. Because I should’ve seen it earlier. But then again he’s so smart, so I guess it’s not easy to see through him…”

Taeyeon trailed off when she felt Stephanie wrap her arms around her. She willingly let all her defenses down at that moment, letting all her walls break down, and letting her best friend become her pillar for that moment.

“Can we come a conclusion about something?”

She felt Stephanie nod against her hair. She smiled through the tears.

“Let’s not apologize. At all.”

“You have my word.”