Chapter Nine.

Of High School Cliches and Boiled Eggs

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After buying ice cream for everyone at a nearby convenience store, Saeyeon decided it was time to part ways. It was enough socializing for today. Everyone, excluding Junior (but really him anyways), had insisted on walking her home, but Saeyeon wouldn’t have it. They were treating her as if she needed to be taken care of, and need she point it out again, they just met today. Was Saeyeon the only one who thought they were being overly friendly?

Then again, she didn’t have much experience with friendly people in general, so what the hell did she know?

Still, she refused to move a single inch if the five of them were anywhere in her sight. The only exception was JB, simply because he lived next door, but the others? They had no reason to be sighted. Eventually (and fortunately), everyone went their separate ways, and before she knew it, the two of them were walking home.

There were no forced conversations, just super light talk that Saeyeon actually didn’t mind. Most of the walk consisted of silence, but whether it was comfortable or uncomfortable was hard to say.

“I still can’t believe you live next door,” she commented once they reached their neighborhood. It was something she felt she had to say, because to be honest, she really couldn’t believe it. Her brother’s rival literally lived next door, and seeing how they were in each other’s presence earlier, Saeyeon thought it was a surprise that nothing has happened on home turf. At the thought of having Jennie live next door to her, Saeyeon internally shuddered.

“Small world, I guess.” JB replied, pulling her back from her thoughts.

“So did you know I was moving back?”

It was a simple question; she doubted he knew.

But JB lightly nodded which slightly shocked her. “More or less. I overheard your mom talking about it with my step-mom about a week ago.”

“Step-mom, huh?”

“Yeah, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

The two of them entered through the gates of Saeyeon’s house and slowly skidded to a stop.

“So why’d you leave in the first place?” JB asked as if it was the most casual thing for him to ask.

Saeyeon knew that question would’ve came up sooner or later, but the girl preferred the latter, just to avoid getting into the past and having to explain why she left. But the inevitable was just that, inevitable. She almost snorted at the bold question but refrained from doing so, because who was he to even ask? Next-door-neighbor? Family friend? None of those cut it out for her. JB, no matter how ridiculously good looking he was and how close he claimed to be with her family, was nonetheless a stranger to her, and strangers were not deserving of her past.

So she simply smiled, tired. “I think that’s a story for another day, pretty boy.”

“Next time?”

He was persistent, but not in a pushy way. It was almost a patient kind of persistence, and it was starting to irritate her.

“Maybe.”

But probably not.

The sun was setting, and Saeyeon figured it was time to go inside. She was about to enter her front door when she was momentarily stopped. JB had called for her.

“Hey.”

Turning back, she quirked a brow. “What now?”

He shrugged, looking straight up at her. “Do you think if we had met earlier, before you moved away, things would’ve been different? Would you have stayed?”

“Wow. That’s a really weird question to ask.”  

Saeyeon stared at him. Did she need to point it out again (again) that they had just met today???

A slight smile appeared on his lips. “Just answer the question.”

Irritated, she crossed her arms. “I don’t know. I tend to not dwell on the what-ifs and would’ve-beens, because it keeps me distracted from the now, and that’s where I’m putting all my focus, the present.”  Saeyeon bluntly answered. “Satisfied?”

JB simply smiled which irritated her even more so.

“Now get off my front yard.”

She didn’t throw JB a second glance as she shut the door behind her and walked on in.

What a strange guy, asking her weird stuff like that. How annoying. She was thankful for what he had done earlier, and she even went as far as letting him know that she was thankful. But the guy was starting to push it.

Saeyeon internally groaned, because if she was going to use him and his friends to bring down Hanbin, then she was going to have to put up with his weird antics (especially his curiosity). How bothersome.

She let out a loud sigh.

The house was cold, sterile, and quiet. It had been this way (and stayed this way) ever since she moved back. Her parents were rarely home, the two of them always busy tending to business matter, while Hanbin, in general, just stayed out of her sight and kept to himself. But Saeyeon didn’t complain; she too preferred to not see him around the house unless it was absolutely necessary. As for her parents? It was the same. As much as she missed her parents (her mother more than her father but nonetheless the both of them), she knew that the more she saw them, the more they would get involved in her life (more than they already were), and she didn’t need any of that right now.

As she silently walked up the marble staircase, Saeyeon stopped and scanned the living room. The furniture was different from back then. Five years ago, the rearrangement was different as well. Everything now was sleek and modern, from the coffee table to the couch to even the meaningless paintings that decorated the room, instead of the old-fashioned wood furniture that she was used to.

My, have times changed.

It wasn’t always like this (cold, sterile, and quiet); Saeyeon couldn’t remember when exactly things had changed, but she remembered, for sure, that it wasn’t always like this. The house used to be warm, a complete mess, and loud. Oh, how things got so loud. She remembered warm Christmas mornings, spontaneous family-bonding trips, and laughter, lots and lots of laughter. The house used to be alive. It used to be… home.

And then she grew up, and Hanbin grew bitter.

--

The next few days at school were uneventful.

But Saeyeon had a feeling it was just the calm before the storm.

Naturally, Saeyeon continued to hang out with JB and his friends; they were annoying but being with them was starting to become a thing, and people were taking notice. Word went around that Hanbin’s rival and Jennie’s were teaming up together, and Saeyeon was merely irritated that someone like Kim Jennie was being deem suitable to be rival her. As if.

The more she spent time with JB and his friends, whom she recently learned were called GOT7, the more she realized how ing weird yet strangely genuine they were. She questioned their group name at first (it was childish to have a group name in the first place), but in the end, Saeyeon could see that their group name meant something to them. You see, GOT7 wasn’t like saying ‘Got Milk’; it stood for the fact that although JB, Junior, Jackson, Youngjae, BamBam, and Yugyeom had nothing but themselves back then, now they got each other.

Thus, GOT7.

It was cheesy, and it didn’t make sense since there were only six of them, but Saeyeon eventually learned that there used to be another member in their weird group of friends.

Apparently he moved, just like she did.

She never got his name.

There was a lot of chitter chatter and playful banter between GOT7, but it was all in good-nature, which only revealed how sincere their friendship was. If she was being completely honest, Saeyeon was quite envious of what they had, but she didn’t let it bother her too much. She had an agenda after all.

It was finally Friday, and today must have been the day of the storm, because the moment she stepped foot onto campus, Saeyeon was immediately surrounded by a group of students, randoms she called them.

“Care to tell me why I’m being approached so early in the morning?”

“You think you’re so tough, don’t you, new girl?” One girl spoke.

Saeyeon crossed her arms, unamused. “Well that certainly doesn’t answer my question,” she narrowed her ey