“H-huh? What are you saying?!”

Ai snapped in a loud voice, hands rising to push against Kai’s chest as she urgently hurried to make some distance in between them. Panting to catch her breath, Ai covered with the back of her hand and glared up at the boy opposite of her who was now gazing at her with eyes filled with fear and shock. He looked down at his hands, face displaying disbelief at the thought his previous actions. Frowning, the girl scoffed and looked away,

“I have no idea what kind of joke that was supposed to be, but I’m certainly not up for playing along with it.” She paused for a moment, her eyes focused on a single spot on the floor. “Just don’t do that again, and I’ll forget about it.”

She muttered before trying to rush out of the classroom to escape from this whole ordeal, but Kai wasn’t having it. He grabbed the hold of girl’s wrist once again, now filled with state of utter panic. “W-wait!”

The girl froze, and her gulp reverberated around the room. Mustering his courage, Kai took a deep breath before speaking, “It was most definitely not a joke! A-and I don’t want you to forget about it!”

“Please let go of—“

“I meant it when I said I’m in love with you! Since that time… I’ve never even stopped. I love you, Ai!” Kai yelled out all the feelings that made him feel frustrated for a long time. He felt like he couldn’t stop once he had started.

In a swift motion, Ai her heels, her irises blown wide, and slapped her hand against Kai’s mouth to shut him up. Her face was just a centimetre away from his, staring in horror. “Don’t yell so much, idiot, what if someone hears?!” She scolded in a hushed, high-pitched voice.

Blushing at the contact, Kai raised his hand to remove her own and keep a hold on it securely afterwards. His eyes twinkled and heartbeat was immensely accelerated. “You… You knew.” He stated in a whisper.

Ai scowled at him in silence some more, before sighing and looking away from his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Swallowing the bile in his throat, Kai suddenly turned serious. “Oh yeah? Isn’t it because you knew about it that you’ve been avoiding me this whole time?” His tone was dripping with bitterness.

There was a silence. Ai gulped. “Avoiding you? Don’t be stupid.”

“But you were!” Kai exclaimed in frustration, “Since that time in middle school I never had a chance to speak to you. You always ended up running away from me. And recently it seemed like we were slowly starting to go back to how we were back then a-and...” His lips began trembling, “I don’t know, I thought that maybe...”

The girl scoffed. “Maybe what? I’ll magically reciprocate your feelings?” She looked at him in mocking disbelief, “I mean, what the , man? It’s been like, what, three years since then? I thought you had moved on…” She rubbed her face with her hands and let out a tired sigh.

Kai gritted his teeth, silently contemplating. Then he spoke up, addressing a different matter than him not being able to move on. “But you seem to have reciprocated Chanyeol-hyung’s feelings quite easily.”

“Huh?” Ai scowled at him, “Is this what this is all about? You’re ing jealous?”

Snorting, but not saying anything to deny the statement, Kai looked away with a sullen face. “Oh, for ’s sake...” Ai cursed with a disbelieving laugh, “I bet you don’t even like me any more, you just feel wronged that I chose him and not yo—“

“That’s not it!” Kai burst out all of a sudden, making the girl flinch away in surprise. “My feelings are real. It’s been real this whole time. I just thought that… If you did get a boyfriend one day it would be someone much better than me, but him? He’s my friend but he’s just a playboy and will hurt you just for fun—“

“Oh, and you’re such a saint yourself, aren’t you?” Ai interjected, causing Kai to pause mid-sentence with his mouth hanging open. Ai shook her head disapprovingly, “Don’t try to out him as the bad guy when you fall into the same category. Am I wrong?”

It certainly didn’t feel good for the boy to be reminded of his reputation in that way, and moreover, by the girl he had feelings for. “It’s… not like that for me.” his voice trembled, “I began doing things like that only after you had—“

“Oh, so it’s my fault then?” The girl glared at him, letting out a scoff of disbelief, “I broke your heart back then when I rejected you and you had no other choice but to sleep around with any girl who comes your way. Jeez, I don’t know Jongin, but if I were to be rejected by someone I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t offer my body to tons of guys like that.”

Now, that hit the mark. Kai felt as if all of the air was punched out of his lungs as he stood there gaping at the girl, feeling as if all of his world was crumbling down upon him. It hurt because everything she said was the truth. When he first joined Chanyeol’s gang and adapted to the same kind of lifestyle as him, he just foolishly sought consolation and something to mend his broken heart. He thought ‘trying out girls’, like Chanyeol used to call it, would be a good solution, but after some time he discovered it only made him feel even more miserable and empty. It did more harm than good.

It’s because he was aware of it and still continued doing it that he was now speechless, in no way able to respond to the girl’s harsh and biting words. Not taking note of the boy’s state, Ai continued talking, while now leaning back against one of the desks. “You know, you’ve been talking about that tall idiot for a while, but he is, in fact, better than you in some way. Unlike you, he’s true to himself. He has no stupid excuses for his filthy, erted behaviour, and he had been living that kind of way because he actually liked it. And when he stopped liking it, he just put a stop to all of it, as simple as that. And then we somehow got together and he’s in a normal relationship right now.”

She looked up at Kai who had been frozen the whole time. “What about you? Maybe you should follow his example and just live the way you want, huh?” She paused to steady the tremble in her voice and swallow. “I… I might not be able to return your feelings, but if you look around yourself closely… I’m sure there’s at least one person ready to give anything to be with you and to make you happy.”

She covered her eyes, body already shaking uncontrollably with all the suppressed feelings and unspoken words on the tip of her tongue, ready to burst out any moment. But she couldn’t allow it to happen. Not after she had kept the act up until now. The tears accumulated in her eyes as she gritted her teeth in annoyance. . He can’t see this. If he sees, he’ll realise that I’m…

“Hey, Ai!”

The familiar deep voice resonated in the classroom, and a few moments later the door opened only to reveal the naively grinning face of Park Chanyeol’s. His grin fell almost immediately when he took in the sight of Ai hiding her face with slouched shoulders and Kai standing just a few steps away from her. The boiling rage pumped into his veins, and he lunged forward, ready to teach that younger friend of his a few things and put him back into his place.

Ai jumped out to get in between the boys, her hands pushing against Chanyeol’s chest with force as she looked up at him with pleading eyes. “No, Chanyeol. Stop!” Frowning in confusion, the tall boy noticed her eyes glistening with nothing other than tears and he felt the anger rise again. “What the did he—“

“Nothing!” Ai yelled back, causing both of the boys to flinch. Kai looked both scared and concerned at the same time. He had never seen Chanyeol this enraged and it roused pure fear in his guts.

The girl gripped her fake boyfriend arms with urgency as she looked up at his frowning face. “Let’s just ditch the classes for today, okay? Just you and me. I don’t want to stay here any more.”

Chanyeol kept on staring at her wordlessly, the frown on his face not relaxing for a moment when the girl sighed and leaned her head against his chest. “Please...” she muttered with cracking voice, “Just do this for me. Just this once”

The tall boy’s face finally loosened up, but there was still a displeased expression on it. He sighed and looked around, before his eyes settled on Kai. The other boy tensed up, but relaxed right after he saw his hyung grabbing Ai’s hand and scurrying out of the classroom together. Kai stood there, completely alone, as he detected the fresh wound in his heart. This time it looked like it would take a while for it to heal.

It has passed almost five minutes since Chanyeol and Ai had entered Chanyeol’s car and were seated in the front in complete silence. Chanyeol didn’t want to be rude and interrupt the girl’ train of thoughts because she was obviously fussing over something inside her head, as she nibbled on her thumb nail with trembling hands.

, , … Why now? Ai mulled over. Seriously, why now? Is he completely out of his mind? So much time has passed, and I… I did my best to avoid him. Help him get over it, but he’s still... , that bloody idiot! He ruined all of my hard work. Everything I’ve sacrificed has gone to waste. Oh god… H-he… He hasn’t told anyone, hasn’t he?! Oh my god, what if people find out? What if…

Chanyeol observed the whole process of Ai’s tearful eyes drying out and her face turning into an angry grimace, looking as if she was ready to kill someone and then back to the worried and panicky state. He was afraid to speak up, in order not to get punched, but his own anger