Hyeri spent the rest of her day with a deep frown, showing the wrinkles on the nose of her bridge as she glared aimlessly at random objects. Her friends took notice of her odd behavior, but no one dared to say a word, worried that something terrible might happen if they stirred the grumpy doll. The group soon devised a plan to leave Hyeri alone with Suzy, who was known to be closest to Hyeri since childhood. They knew that Hyeri would probably snap at one of them, but she was less likely to exile Suzy from the circle.

During lunch, while the girls went outside to eat, Suzy grabbed Hyeri's wrist, preventing her from following the rest. Hyeri turned around and frowned even more, but Suzy didn't sway.

"Let's talk," Suzy said.

"About what?"

"About what's been bothering you," Suzy said.

"Nothing is bothering me," Hyeri murmured.

"Hyeri, don't lie to me. You've been frowning all day, and that's bad for your skin," Suzy said.

Hyeri reached her forehead to smoothen out the frown, then managed a small smile. "Sorry. Have I been looking angry?"

"Very."

Hyeri faked a smile. "Sorry for worrying you. There really isn't anything wrong. I've been thinking about something, and now I feel like I'm overthinking it. You don't have to worry about me. Really, you don't."

Suzy paused for a few minutes. "Are you really not going to tell me? I'm your best friend. Do you not trust me?"

"It's not that I don't trust you," Hyeri said, "it's just that it's not really important. I don't want to make you worry about something so little."

"Your frown says otherwise."

Hyeri forced a chuckle. "You should've told me that I was frowning earlier, though! Geez, everyone else was probably super worried, right?"

"Well, yeah—"

"Ah, I should probably clear up the situation to them," Hyeri said quickly.

"But—"

"Let's go eat, Suzy! I'm hungry!" Hyeri said quickly. She held Suzy's hand, causing the girl to stare at her in confusion. Without waiting for another pause, Hyeri dragged Suzy out of the classroom, blabbering about something else in order to suppress Suzy's voice.

As the two girls walked out to meet with the other girls, Hyeri—with he corner of her eyes—saw a familiar figure walking in the crowded halls. For a brief moment, her eyes widened. Her sneakers squeaked against the floor as she whirled her head, looking at the direction where the figure what disappeared off to. Hyeri bit her bottom lip, then looked at Suzy with an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, I have something to do real quick," Hyeri said. She gave Suzy a gentle push away from her. "You go eat without me, okay?"

Hyeri didn't even bother to wait for Suzy to say anything. She dashed off, trying to blend in with the other students while searching for Seulgi.

Suzy blankly stared at the direction  Hyeri had ran off to, completely dumbfounded with what to do. She took a step forward, about to follow her friend, but stopped when someone called her name. With her heart skipping a beat and her cheeks turning bright pink, Suzy turned around, following the voice while forgetting about Hyeri's odd behavior.

/ / / / /

Where did she go? Hyeri wondered, desperately looking around the corridors. Where is she? I haven't seen her all day until now, and now she suddenly disappears? There is absolutely no way I can let this happen.

Hyeri wandered around a bit more before she stopped. She slowly looked around and noticed that the area was empty. She saw a student walk by occasionally, but for the most part, there was no one else walking in the halls. A chill crawled up her spine, causing her to shiver due to the suspicious vibe she was getting in the area.

I swear I saw Seulgi go this way. By the way, where am I? Why is it so empty? 

At one point, she stopped and stepped closer to the walls to look out the window. Out the window, she saw Taehyun standing alone, leaning against the trunk of the tree like had nothing better to do. Despite being alone, he had a smile on his face, as if he had some kind of invisible figure accompanying him.

She hated it.

She hated the way he looked so pleased with himself; she despised the way he looked so content with being alone. No person should be alone. No person deserved to be alone. Being alone was scary—it gave fear and unnecessary stress to a person. If a person was alone, then they shouldn't be happy like Taehyun. They should be dreaded, scared, depressed like—

There was a rattle nearby. Hyeri turned around and noticed Seulgi stepped out of a random classroom. Their eyes met for a brief second before Seulgi diverted her eyes away, looking back at the classroom with a frightened look. Hyeri scowled and marched up to Seulgi, who closed the door behind her. For the first few seconds, Hyeri gave her a suspicious glare, while Seulgi tried to smile.

"Hyeri! What's up?" Seulgi asked innocently.

Oh, Hyeri hated that, too.

A fake tone for a fake girl, Hyeri thought. How perfect.

"What're you hiding?" Hyeri asked.

"What?"

"Behind you. You suddenly closed the door. What are you hiding?" Hyeri questioned her.

"Nothing!" Seulgi exclaimed. "Why would I hate something from you, Hyeri? If anything, you should be the person I trust the most compared to anyone else in this school, right?"

Hyeri paused. "What are you planning?"

"Excuse me?"

"You act strange, Seulgi. You don't act like how normal people act."

Seulgi stared at her, baffled. "W-What?"

"You're changing everything, and I don't like it. I don't like how you're making people act like someone else. Why are you doing this?" A short pause. "Do you hate me?"

"What?"

"Is this it? Are you trying to ruin my life?" The popular girl scoffed. "Actually, that makes more sense. You hate me, don't you? That's why you were trying to ruin my image, right? Why? Why don't you like me? What did I ever do to you?"

This time, Seulgi stared to scowl at her. "I don't know what's up with you today, but you're being extremely rude."

"Me? I'm rude? How can I be rude? You're the one who's ruining everything for me."

"What? Should I baby you and coddle you just because you're the most popular girl in this school?"

"Aha! So you do hate me!" Hyeri exclaimed.

"Yeah, I hate you. I hate that you can't handle the fact that there are people who can be on your level. You can't accept changes because you're so narrow-minded. Why can't you accept the fact that changes happen?"

"Because it happens so suddenly," she said while gritting her teeth. "I would accept it if there was a smooth transition over it, but this is so sudden. We are in our last year of high school, and suddenly certain people changing behavior. How the hell does that make sense?"

"People. ing. Change," Seulgi stated.

"Not like this," Hyeri snapped back. "What's going now is a forced change, and I'm not comfortable with it."

"Well, too bad."

As Hyeri growled, Seulgi only forced a smile. Hyeri's eyes landed back on the door, noticing that Seulgi was still guarding it.

"Move," Hyeri demanded, lifted her hard brown orbs. 

"Hm?" Seulgi mumbled, pretending as if she couldn't hear her.

"I said moving."

"Why—"

"Move!" Hyeri demanded. She pushed Seulgi to the side, causing the girl to gasp and crash to the ground. Hyeri grabbed the door and swung it wide open.

The bob-haired girl stood still as she noticed that the classroom was empty and dark, with no hint of use whatsoever. It was clearly an abandoned classroom—a classroom that someone hasn't used in ears. However, the room was well-kept and clean, showing almost no signs of dust and dirt. Hyeri stepped inside, absorbing herself in her own trail of thoughts as she stood in the middle of the room, looking around. 

Seulgi finally got up and followed Hyeri into the room, but she froze when she noticed something odd. Nonetheless, she pretended as if everything was normal in order to prevent Hyeri from coming into the classroom again. She cleared and let out a small sigh while standing next to Hyeri.

"You see?" Seulgi said. "There's nothing going on here."

"Why…would you be here?" Hyeri inquired her.

"Just a, um, place for me to clear my thoughts," Seulgi lied.

"Here? In this room?" Hyeri looked around, then shuddered. "But it feels so…"

"Haunted? Yeah, I, um, dig those stuff."

"No, it feels so…" She pursed her lips. "Never mind." Hyeri studied the room once more before looking back at Seulgi. "I swear, if you do anything again, I'm not going to stand and watch. I don't like what you're doing, Seulgi. I really don't, and I hope you can respect that."

"It's not my fault that people are capable of change," Seulgi said, shrugging her shoulders. "I didn't ask them to change. They changed because they wanted to."

Hyeri frowned, but sighed loudly in order to relieve some stress. Then, forcing a small smile, she nodded and acted like everything was okay.

"Fine, but please don't directly bother my life, okay?" Hyeri asked her politely.

Seulgi opened to say something, but the words didn't come out. Rather, she was only able to smile naturally and nod her head. Hyeri gave her one last look and then left the classroom.

A good five minutes passed. When Seulgi felt comfortable enough to know that Hyeri wasn't going to come back anymore, she collapsed onto the floor and let out a huge sigh of relief.

Soojung, who had been hiding behind the teacher's podium, finally crawled out of the hollow space. She grunted, while Seulgi stared at her in completely shock.

"Soojung! That's where you went!" Seulgi cried out.

"If she caught me, then I'd be dead," Soojung murmured. "That was way too close." She looked at Seulgi. "Did she follow you?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. I don't remember encountering her when I was on the way here," Seulgi said.

"It looks like she's taking notice of you. I've been noticing that she was acting strange, but I didn't know that it had to do anything with you," Soojung explained. "Make sure you're aware of Hyeri, okay? When you're in public, don't talk to her like how you talked to her just now. She's going to keep up her 'good-girl' image, too. Keep up with her flow, but don't get caught in it. Do you understand?"

Seulgi made a face. "No. How am I supposed to do that?"

"Easy. I told you, I already have a plan," Soojung said. She dug into her pockets and pulled out her notebook. "I was going to save this until later, but it looks like we need to start as soon as possible." She flipped a few pages before landing on a particular page. "Here." She turned around the notebook and showed Seulgi a good observation of a familiar girl. "Recognize her?"

"Of course! She's Seunghwan, one of Hyeri's friend!" Seulgi cried out loud. "She's one of the newer members, so she's not very popular."

"Right. Do you remember how she got into the group?"

"Through Taehyun, right?"

"Exactly."

"You want me to talk to her?" Seulgi asked. "How?"

"She's very good at being…deceptive," Soojung mumbled.

"What do you mean?"

"She knows how to catch up with the flow of things, but doesn't get caught in it like most people," Soojung tried to explain. "In other words, her social skills on image-making is just as good as Hyeri's. She knows how to up and when to not up."

"How do I get to her? Do I just talk to her? I'm not very close to her."

"Through Taehyun, silly. You're Taehyun's 'best friend' now, remember?"

Seulgi groaned. "Ugh, please don't."

"Use Taehyun a little longer. Get him to introduce you to Seunghwan."

"Then what happens?"

"Get close to Seunghwan and learn from her."

"And then?"

A deceptive smirk appeared on Soojung's lip as she closed her notebook and hid it deep in her pocket. "Well, that's for me to plan out and for you to know later." 

/ / / / /

Sehun was walking around behind the schools, trying to find Jongin. The moment the bell for lunch rang, Jongin had dashed out of the room without uttering a word to Sehun. He had tried to follow him, but eventually lost him when he made a sharp turn somewhere along the corridors. 

Where did he run off to? Sehun wondered. As he continued his search, he later encountered Hyeri, who had a look of displeasure on her face.

The two made eye contact, and exchanged quick smiles. Just when Sehun was about to pass by her, she turned and grabbed onto his sleeves, stopping him from proceeding.

"Hm?" Sehun raised his eyebrows and continued to smile as he casually slipped his hands in his pocket.

"Where's Jongin?" Hyeri asked him, also making a smile.

"I don't know," he replied. "Why?"

"What do you mean why? Of course I'll be looking for the love of my life," she said.

"Maybe he's busy," Sehun said, unsure of what else to say.

Hyeri paused before changing the subject. "Do you think Jongin disappeared to find Seulgi?"

Sehun kept quiet before forcing a brighter smile. "Wha—at? I don't know. That has to do with Jongin and Seulgi, right?"

"…Do you think Jongin likes Seulgi?" Hyeri inquired him.

Why is she so curious about Seulgi? he wondered. "What happened to 'avoid Seulgi at all cost'?"

"Just answer the stupid question."

"I don't really see the point in answering 'stupid' questions—"

"Answer it."

Sehun paused. "Why are you so curious all of the sudden? This isn't like you, Hyeri."

"We made a small…truce, I guess," Hyeri murmured, surprising Sehun. "Even though we're good for now, I still have a feeling that she's out to ruin me."

Well, wouldn't that be an interesting little sight? he thought, smirking. "I doubt it. I—"

"Hey," Hyeri said, interrupting him. She finally looked deep into his eyes before asking her serious question: "Do you think Seulgi is planning something?"

The corner of Sehun's lips twitched—slightly. "What do you mean?"

"Doesn't this just feel strange to you? It's like this is some kind of game," Hyeri said. She kept quiet before giving him a second look. "By any chance, are you part of this, too?"

Sehun refused to look into Hyeri's threatening eyes. He pondered on her question for a bit, trying to figure out what to say or how to deny that he was playing along. He wasn't expecting Hyeri to be so sharp at all. In his mind, she was always a dull-minded girl who had a huge crush on Jongin.

She's strangely observant today, Sehun realized. He narrowed his eyes a little. It's possible that if she gets too deep into this mess, then she might be an unexpected factor that might get into my plan. This little game only requires two players. I don't need a third party to get involved.

After a moment of planning, he slowly lifted his hands away from his pockets and rested them on Hyeri's thin shoulders. Hyeri, with her doe-like eyes, stared at him, confused and wary of what he was doing. He smiled at her just like always, but the popular girl could sense that something was wrong.

"Hyeri…" Hyeri gasped a little as Sehun gripped his fingers tighter around her shoulders. He leaned close, then whispered, "Please don't get involved with Seulgi anymore. I think it's messing with your mind…" He stopped smiling and stared at her. "Don't you think?"

Any normal girl would shiver in fright. However, Hyeri was obviously different from the norm. She looked into Sehun's serious and cold gaze before managing a small giggle.

"Sehun, were you trying to intimidate me?" she asked him. She smiled at him. "I haven't seen you so serious in years. Looks like you were hiding something from me. How disappointing. I thought I could trust you." She stopped smiling and glared at him back. "I'm not going to back down. I'm getting to the bottom of this. Watch me. I'm going to put everything back to normal by the end of my high school year. I won't let things change. I won't."

With that, she pried off Sehun's fingers away from her shoulders and walked away, unaware that this little "game" wasn't just a simple game at all.