10. Partners In Crime 

Haera was sitting with another guy when the lovebirds reached the table. She was fiddling with her hands and looking down at her lap when Sandara pulled out the chair and the guy turned around to look at them. He wasn't somebody Dara hadn't seen before. She still remembered him as the one who got angry in that alley and the one who followed Haera out of the forest that night. What exactly was happening between the two?

“Dara?” Haera acknowledged with a nervous and relieved tone as she grabbed her friend’s arm and forced her to sit down on the chair next to her, opposite of the guy. He had browncoloured hair that reached his eyes and was smiling, so that both ladies could see the only dimple present on his face. 

Sandara gulped afraid upon remembering that she would have received a punch from him last time they had met- hadn’t it been for Jiyong stepping in and preventing him. Just what on earth was he doing and why was he acting so sweet as if nothing remarkable had happened between them that night?

“Taeyang?” questioned Jiyong as he settled himself beside the so-called “Taeyang”.

Ugh, complained Haera. Why were these two underground world’s bachelors taking interest in her and her roommate, aka best friend? Was this all planned beforehand or what? It could merely be a coincidence to take interest in the same pair of friends, right? 

Jiyong introduced his girlfriend to his best friend, or better said partner in crime. Sandara shot him one small, nervous smile before removing her eyes from his. He actually seemed very normal and not dangerous afterwards when the conversation between the two guys went on. Both mobsters chatted, and tried to include the girls in the conversation too, but the girls felt very awkward and couldn’t utter many wordings for contribution. Well, not until three more guys came along and settled themselves on their table.

One of them was recognizeable- Sandara remembered him being seated with Jiyong earlier that week.. He introduced himself as Choi Seung Hyun, and behaved like a nice and polite guy, but it was nerve-wrecking when Dara would catch him and Jiyong exchanging looks and sending smirks in her direction at the same time. She became anxious while trying to make out a conclusion on why they were doing that. Was there a secret joke going on?

Kwon Sebastian- who was another friend of theirs, had the brightest personality of them all. Dara blinked her eyes in confusion when he first told them his last name, since it was similar to Jiyong’s, so she made a mental note on asking her boyfriend about that later. Sebastian was cute with those round eyes of his and that giant gummy smile. The two girls found themselves giggling at his jokes, and the energy he was sending was very much positive and enjoyable. He seemed like just any other normal classmates of theirs: bright and cheerful, and nothing dark and mysterious like the two mobsters. Sebastian was friendly- compared to the third guy, who was the completely opposite.

Kang Dae Sung was the worst of all, Dara concluded in her mind. She didn’t get a good first impression of him, because he was quiet all the time and seemed scary and mysterious. The angry glares he was sending in her direction wasn’t helping the situation at all and only making it worse than it already was. Dara sunk her shoulders out of nervousness and wished that she was invisible when she noticed how his jaw was clenching in dissatisfaction. It was like she and Kang Dae Sung were having a silent cold war, which nobody else noticed, since they were busy conversing in all volumes.

“You two seem very quiet, why is that?” Said Sebastian after a while and hence interrupted the cold war. Sandara’s eyes wandered over the five faces, but none of them was giving out a supportive hand, so she proceeded with laughing nervously at the same time as cursing Haera for being so quiet, before coming up with a lame excuse. “Well, we don't really talk much.........” 

“Oh really?” Jiyong disagreed “You talk a lot at night, don’t you?” He remembered how she had questioned him and pressed him into talking the night of the incident. She totally wasn’t of the silent type.

Sebastian gasped, and shifted his gaze to Jiyong instantly.

"You spend the night together?" Questioned Seung Hyun, as if that was an unbelievable probability. He had believed that Sandara was not one of those girls who would give them away so easily and get trapped in his dongsaeng’s web. Wow, he must be a genius to be able to lure this totally innocent woman. 

Dara’s whole face turned red as she figured out what was going on in the brain of these five guys. They were thinking only one thing, but she didn't even dare putting words to their thoughts. Embarrassing, she yelled in her head and cursed Jiyong's big mouth. God, embarrassing!! Embarrassing! What to do, what to do?!What was Haera going to think about her now? How was she to explain this?

"No!" She yelled and got up on her shivering legs. "It's not like that!" 

Jiyong looked at her face as if he was enjoying the scene, while she was waiting for him to clear out the situation and tell his friends that they were thinking falsely. He did not bother to tell the truth, so she just decided to pick up her books- now that she was standing already, and burst out of the canteen after giving out the lame excuse of forgetting something in the library, while they started laughing their asses off. She heard teasing whistles, mocking roars and finger snappings on her way out and her blood was boiling so much she was afraid all of it would erupt from the top of her head.

“Park Chickandra!” Haera cursed out loudly upon being left alone with five glamorous, handsome, y yet scary men. How could her friend leave her in this awful situation?

“Chickandra?” questioned Sebastian, since he was that dumb. Wasn’t that chick's name Sandara? She never mentioned that name, he thought. 

“Ah, just a nickname……”  Haera explained shyly, and Taeyang could only chuckle quietly at her cuteness. The way she was looking at her lap the whole time and biting her lip, amused and entertained him in great levels. He liked those cute-type of girls, and she certainly was his type.

“Nickname?”

“Yeah…….you know, chicken and sandara-” Haera started to explain, but soon realized that they were only going to force her to talk more and more if she didn’t get herself out of this conversation right away. They were going to laugh in her face, she had to rescue herself before things got out of control and before they could start mocking her.

“But I -“ She stood up and gathered her belongings “I need to go now!”

And then she ran away like it was some kind of army of insects following her from behind.

“So cute” mumbled Taeyang, but his mumbling did still reach his friends’ ears.

“Which one? The first or the second?” inquired Sebastian- the youngest of them all.

“Hae - Ra” Her name lingered longer than necessary on his tongue and he smiled to nothing in particular.

“Good, because I kinda like Park Sandara,”

Jiyong reached out to the younger man and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. His eyes were gleaming with anger when he spoke through gritted teeth “She. Is. Off. Limits” He somehow felt threatened by Sebastian, because he felt like Sebastian and his girlfriend already had good chemistry inbetween, and could possibly have a high chance of going further together. Sebastian was good with his words, and he could easily impress women, while Jiyong was used to taking and controlling- not impressing and all of that time consuming bull.  

“But why Hyung!” Sebastian whined childishly, “You will only use her, she is so innocent.”

“Mind your own business, she is my girlfriend.” He warned- already able to feel the rage climbing upwards in his body. Each of them knew his temper and how bad he would turn out if he got provoked, so none dared to say anything, besides Dae Sung who had suddenly taken interest in the up – until - now boring conversation. 

“Girlfriend?” He asked curiously “Why would you have a girlfriend?” It’s not like you need a girlfriend, he continued in his head. Your concubines satisfy you beyond your needs, why would you need to engage in a relationship?

“Even I am curious about that Jiyong,” interfered Seung Hyun “Taeyang is the girlfriend type, but what’s with you?

“I am just bored,” He shrugged, but in reality, he himself didn’t know why he was taking such an interest in Park Sandara. Well, aside from her body being one reason.

“And Sandara is entertaining you?”

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