The weekend between the first and second week of AP exams is a great time to disappear. If you don't call your friends, they don't notice. They're too busy studying. If you don't text your best friend, he'll think you've got your nose in a book. If you're ignoring your mother and hiding in your room contemplating becoming a hermit, she believes you're cramming for the calc exam on Monday. If you stumble down the stairs on Monday morning, looking pale everyhwere except the black circles under your eyes, and your mom says, "What happened to you?" And you say, "Got my AP calc test today," she'll imagine you're a good student. But who in their right mind would study for fourty-eight hours straight if they weren't going to graduate?

I just hope Principal Baek will let me take the exam. It's in the afternoon time slot. The disciplinary committee meets this morning, so I'll learn the status of my fate at lunch. Then, if I'm lucky, I'll be allowed to take the test. Please, please, please, I whisper to the clouds as I walk in from the student parking lot.

          "Got your calculator?" Kyungsoo asks, landing a playful punch on my shoulder.

          I nearly jump out of my skin. He doesn't know I'm avoiding him. "Yeah," I say. "You?"

          "Got it." He pats his backpack. "You have a goood weekend?"

          "Studied a lot."

          "So you weren't grounded-slash-babysitting?"

          I frown, wonder what he heard.

          "Principal's office? Friday?" He hints.

          "Yeah," I admit. "For, um, well..." I choke.

          His eyebrows wrinkle with concern.

          I stop walking and he does too. I just look at him. Looking into his eyes and absorb every ounce of chocolate-cake softness before I say anything--because Kyungsoo is smarter than I am, and he'll be able to add things up. If I mention the magazine and how I put Seulgi's comic in without permission, he will add that to my announcement in government and calculate the truth.

I. Am. Gay. And I've never told him. He'll deduce that I don't trust him. He'll have proof that I am the world's worst best friend. And that I am in love with him.      

          I get the urge to wrap him in a bear hug and hold him. Hold on to him. So he can't leave me.

          "Jongin?" he asks.

          I shake my head. I can't say it.

          "Dude," he says sympathetically.

          And I think I might lsoe it. Right there in the quad in front of everyone.

          I'm about to make a break for the privacy of the restroom when Jin catches up to us in a blur of rain-bow tie-dye. "Got any more magazines?" he asks, out of breath.

          Jin + Kyungsoo = Jongin is screwed.

          I gulp back the lump in my throat, swear, then ask, "But you bought four magazines on Thursday?"

          "Yeah. And they're the hottest thing since One Direction or whatever over at South," Jin sort of explains.

          Kyungsoo stifles a laugh as we walk inside.

          "Like South Junior High?" I clarify, the school next door.

          "Yeah. Next year's sophomore class is so gay!" he says, following me down the hall.

            And I think he means literally.

           "So, well, I unloaded my copies and need more." He flashes me a dimpled smile complete with a skinny-shouldered shrug. It's adorable.