I woke up the next morning dead beat. I had finished my homework in class, so that definitely was not the reason. Rather, I had spent all night stressing over Taemin’s engraving and my severed computer. I had talked to Hapz, late into the night as well, and she wasn’t at all the help I needed.

Instead of agreeing with me about staying the hell away from the well known kingka, she gave me the ‘Harpreet Kaur Singh” seal of approval. It was a very interesting conversation to say the least. But, it was difficult to tell her everything, but she knew.

She knew that something happened, but like any other best friend, she chose not to comment rather leaving me with a cryptic: “Tell me everything when you’re ready, love ya, sweet dreams.”

The alarm rang. Of course, I’d be awake an hour before my alarm would actually go off. I glared at the useless machine.

So much had happened yesterday. I put my phone onto vibrate, my gaze lingering on his ‘My Princess’.

After coming home, I immediately hacked into civil play’s video cameras with the help of Key, who was working the night shift. I went back a couple of hours and printed put facial images of any other person who used my computer, none of the faces stood out to me, but I searched and profiled them anyways to later talk to them. It wasn’t much, but It was the first step to see if any of them had seen or been the reason my computer had been burned.

At Civil Play, every regular had an assigned computer. Any newbie could use a regular’s computer, if the regular was away that day.

I crawled out of the bed and made my way to the bath, locking my room on the way out. I was beyond paranoid at this point. I put the chain with the keys back around my neck, where they were always stationed and washed my face.

Then stepping into the shower, I did quick work of my hair before standing beneath a hot spray of water.

Yesterday was beyond confusing, no one was supposed to notice me, yet bloody Lee Taemin does. It irked me that he could read me just as well as I read him. Who was he?

“I know something you don’t.”

He certainly wasn’t like all the other shallow, arrogant, conceited kingkas. Taemin…he almost wasn’t bad. And then there was his wittiness; not many could have a conversation like that. He did however, and he did so with skill.

I turned off the tap, covered myself in my fluffy white towel, grabbed my comb and locked the door to my washroom, using another key on my chain to unlock the door to my room. I stepped through my personal threshold and pulled out a pair of stressed black skinny jeans, a white full sleeved shirt, a maroon, full sleeved-long cardigan and a black fringed scarf. I quickly dressed and left my hair down, only bothering to run a comb through it.

I shoved all my homework, wallet and agenda into my grey messenger bag.

I pulled on socks and slid myself out the door grabbing my new phone and headphones; I locked my door and made my way to the kitchen.

Looking into the refrigerator, I realized I was in desperate need to go grocery shopping. I legit had nothing but two honey rolls…which was just enough.

Grabbing the sharpie from the counter, I wrote down a reminder on my arm, and grabbed the two rolls; one for breakfast, one for lunch.

Reaching for my shoes, there was a knock on the door.

I slipped into them and got to my feet and opened the door, only to have a new security guard to peer down at me.

“Hello Ari, nice to see you’re well,” He glanced down at what appeared to be my tenants’ sheet.

“Hi, how may I help you?” My eyes involuntarily narrowed as he gulped.

“Well, I was wondering if I could come in and have a look.”

I eyed him, as he grew increasingly nervous.

“Why?”

“There was apparently a problem in the building at 3 am and –” “Bull.”

He blinked. “Pardon me?”

I smiled sweetly, “I’m so sorry, but I have to be getting to school…” as I said this I grabbed my bag and phone. Thank god it was spring and warm enough to leave without a jacket.

“…so…,” I locked my door and turned back to face him, “…when the real security guard comes back, maybe I’ll let him in.”

He met my stare this time, and we were both flat out glaring at each other.

“Is there a problem here?”

I turned around to face Taemin standing calmly in a pair of grey converse high tops, black jeans, a white oxford and a grey cardigan.

Taemin walked behind me and put in hand on my waist, pinching my other hand when I squeaked.

“No sir, I just needed to step into this house, but this young lady wouldn’t –“

“Why do you need to step into my condo?” Taemin was smirking and I tried to keep my laughter down as the fake guard’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

I furtively glanced at the tenant’s sheet to realize it wasn’t a tenant’s sheet, it was just a picture of me, and my name, age, gender and living whereabouts. It looked like the sheets you get from school every year in case you need to fix your address or phone number.

Interesting.

“Pardon me sir, YOUR condo?”

Taemin coolly stared back. “Yes, my girlfriend was spending the night and I just went down to get the mail, which babe, by the way is empty,” he looked at me, his eyes excited, “and came upstairs to see if she was ready to go, only to find her standing defensively to you,” his eyes flashed as he turned to the guard, and even I was frightened by the anger behind his gaze.

“Now I ask again, why the hell do you need to get into my condo?”

The guy whimpered and very quietly murmured a “No reason, sorry sir.” Before hightailing his sorry to the stairs which was unbelievably stupid, seeing as the penthouse was on the 20^th floor.

The door of the stair well slammed shut with a sound of finality, and I went into a fit of giggles, while Taemin chuckled, his hand still resting firmly against my waist.

Stepping out of his almost embrace; I looked him in the eye, before smiling.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“Why are you here?”

“Oh, you know, wanted to see you off to school.”

“The same school that we both go to, which we could easily meet at the bus stop for?” I raised my brow as he looked away.

“Meh~ I was bored waiting at the bus stop, so I decided to walk over and see if you were ready to go to school.”

I nodded and fixed my bag on my shoulder.

“Hmmmm… and you found out where I live how?”

He chuckled, “That was the easy part, I asked some chick for an Ayuzawa and she took a second before answering PH, and then can you imagine my luck to find you standing right outside your condo,” he finished with a grin, satisfied with his explanation.

“Okay, let’s go then,” I walked towards the elevator.

My mind flashed back to my phone, but instead I asked: “Thought we were only going to be friends outside of school?”

“We can still do that, after all, we’ll silently walk to the bus stop and now that I have your phone number, I can easily text you from time to time.”

“Speaking of the phone, the err… the engraving…what…err…why?”

He looked away. “They gave 25% off for every engraving.”

I stared at him; that was probably legit but… “Why Jeonsoeul? Why My Princess?”

“It was the first thing I thought off.”

“Don’t lie to me; I know when you do so there’s no point.”

“I’ll tell you when I’m ready then.”

I turned away from him and walked into the elevator, before pressing Ground Floor.

“Don’t be mad.”

“Who said I’m mad? I don’t really care; I’ll just go to the mall today and buy a new phone.”

“Don’t. I already got you one. You said they were trivial, why waste your time on them?” His voice was hard as he turned me around to face him; the elevator was still continuing its descent down.

“And who’ll you go with anyways?”

“Nic-“

“Don’t say Nickhun.”

His eyes flashed and once again his anger was visible.

“I promise I’ll tell you. LOOK. AT ME –” I met his eyes. “I promise to tell you soon, just…wait till then. You will find out. Just wait for me, till then.”

I swiftly nodded, before the door opened and we stepped out. He let go of me and we kept a respectable distance as we walked to the bus stop.

Standing side by side on the bus stop, once again, quickly becoming a regular occurrence was still something I needed to get used to. The entire side of his body was pressed to mine and the crowded bus was not helping either as we held onto the same hang bar. (AN: Ja’an)

“Wait for me.”

“I promise.”

“Jeonsoeul.”

“My Princess.”

My mind was all over the place and I wasn’t paying attention as the bus driver slammed on the brakes and I lost my footing.

I wasn’t the only one as the domino effect began. I tried grabbing onto something stable as I began to tip over.

Someone gripped my waist and pulled me into their chest as I began to fall. As grateful as I am, they failed to take into account as to what would happen if someone bumped into me.

Falling to the floor, the person beneath me groaned.

“Oh – – I’m so sorry –”

“Calm down Ari,” I looked at his face, “seems like I’m saving you on countless occasions aren’t I?”

“Hmphhh.”

“What?” He smirked. I really wanted to wipe it off his face. “No thank you?”

I got off him and turned away. We were a block away.

“OW!” I stepped in his leg…purposely.

“Oops, my bad.”

He sat up and glared at me.

I smiled back sweetly and held my hand out.

He reached for it, and softly grabbed my fingers, my heart sped up, and I pulled him up. Looking around to see if anyone saw our exchange, I pushed him away and walked out of the bus.

“Ari!!!! Ari!!! “

I turned around to see Nick get off the same bus. Waiting for him to catch up, I fleeting thought about whether he saw me and Taemin before pushing it out of my mind.

“Hey,” he said as he reached me.

“Hi,” I smiled.

“You’re deaf, you know that?”

“Yup,” I nodded enthusiastically.

“I told you that would happen with the volume you keep your music on.”

“Yes, yes, thank you for caring mother.” I rolled my eyes, and we began making our way to our lockers.

On with the day…

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