My relationship with Chanyeol began in our junior year, after a football game. We ended up hooking up in my car and both of us were satisfied with it, so we agreed we would do it again sometime. And we did. Multiple times. He never pushed me too hard, never tried to pressure me into doing more than I was comfortable with.

So, my relationship with Chanyeol was great. Except that, by Taeyeon’s rule, none of us cheerleaders could hook up with him or we’d be in big trouble. That wasn’t going to stop me from seeing Chanyeol, but it would definitely make meeting up with him difficult. When I finally told him that our relationship was meant to be a secret because Taeyeon disliked him, Chanyeol didn’t understand why.

“I’ve never even spoken to her. Is this new?” he asked, obviously confused. He had fooled around with some of the other girls before and had never heard about it, and he didn’t have to work hard to sneak around with them.

I was afraid to tell him before because I didn’t believe he would think keeping up our relationship would be worth it. Chanyeol has always been clear with the girls he hooks up with, including me, and that meant there would be no real feelings involved. So, when he didn’t just give up, I believed I had a chance. Wrong.

And then summer started and I didn’t see Chanyeol at all. He never contacted me or made any effort to meet up. I assumed we were over. But our senior year began and he was suddenly interested again. Not as much as before, but that changed when Taeyeon took his best friend, Byun Baekhyun.

Taeyeon forced Baekhyun to ask her out, forced him to sit with us at lunch, made him spend time with her. It was obvious that he disliked the arrangement, but he couldn’t really do anything about it because she is Kim Taeyeon, queen bee, ruler of Evergreen High School.

Everyone thought it was kind of strange she’d chosen him, of all the football players. There was Oh Sehun, tall with broad shoulders and the newest addition to the team. More popular than Sehun, there was Kai, player on and off the football field, with an ego almost big enough to rival Taeyeon’s own. Tiffany even offered up her own ‘favorite’ (even though we all knew her favorite was actually Suho, but no one could argue against the fact that she and Chen hooked up weekly), but Taeyeon was set on Baekhyun, possibly the prettiest, most feminine boy on the football team. I remember finding her choice strange at first, just like everyone else, because Baekhyun wasn’t her usual type. She liked masculine, cocky boys that she could put in their place, nice, manly arm candy. Everything Byun Baekhyun was not; he had pretty, doe-like eyes, a smooth jawline, he was one of the shorter players,

Once Baekhyun was forced to sit at our table at lunch, I started noticing changes in Chanyeol. He was obviously a lot lonelier because Taeyeon was taking so much of his best friend’s attention away. He called, scheduled dates, texted me more often than before. At first, I assumed he was just feeling the loss of Baekhyun to Taeyeon. That’s when I figured out Taeyeon chose Baekhyun because he was Chanyeol’s best friend. It was her way to get back at Chanyeol for whatever he’d done to make her mad.

Confusingly enough, Chanyeol was lying to me about how much Baekhyun was actually with Taeyeon. He was complaining about not getting to see his friend as much as he’d like, but he was partly the cause of the lost time. This made me think he only wanted my sympathy, but, again, I wasn’t right. I wouldn’t know until much later, until it was too late for my emotions, but he wanted Baekhyun to miss him. This is all so clear to me now, how concerned they were with each other. Chanyeol only had eyes for Baekhyun, not for me. I was only a tool Chanyeol used to make Baekhyun jealous. While he was hooking up with me, making me think we might get somewhere, he was pushing Baekhyun closer to the edge.

After Baekhyun’s relationship with Hwasa failed, he was down about it, but not because he really felt something for her; he was disappointed about how he ended up feeling about her, about their relationship. He didn’t feel anything for Hwasa because she was a girl, because he already had feelings for someone else, someone who was also a boy. Over the summer, between junior year and senior year when Chanyeol never contacted me, they began an arrangement of their own in which they would help each other get off, but only as friends. Both swore up and down that they didn’t see something more in the other. But Chanyeol had liked Baekhyun since freshman year, and Baekhyun started falling for Chanyeol in eighth grade. This arrangement continued into senior year and was stopped shortly after Taeyeon forced Baekhyun to start dating her. That was the beginning of the end of my relationship with Chanyeol.

The distance growing between them sped up Chanyeol’s confession, made Baekhyun miss him even more. Chanyeol cut things off with me the day before the last football game of the season. After that game, Baekhyun wouldn’t go home with Taeyeon, breaking up with her in order to talk to Chanyeol. And the next Monday, they were walking around school holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes like they had been dating for years.

Their relationship was a shock to everyone, including me. To think that Park Chanyeol, one of the biggest playboys Evergreen had, was completely smitten with Byun Baekhyun, his best friend since elementary school – it was completely unforeseen. I was hurt, able to sympathize with Taeyeon much more than anyone else, but I wasn’t able to tell her how similarly I felt, how I was going through the same thing she was. That is, until I hit rock bottom and made the riskiest move I’d ever made before.

“Hey, Taeyeon, can we talk?” I asked, walking up to her in the parking lot after school. Tiffany was with her, as well as Yoona and Hyoyeon. They eyed me with interest while Taeyeon just looked at me, obviously amused even behind her sunglasses. “In private?”

“Yeah, sure.” she agreed, climbing into the driver’s seat of Tiffany’s car. “Get in.” She nodded toward the passenger side and I scurried to get in. I shot the other three girls gathered around a look that warned them not to eavesdrop, and they turned around with a collective huff. Once I was inside the car, the door closed behind me, Taeyeon looked at me through her sunglasses (which she’d been wearing all day) and, not unkindly, asked, “What?”

“I wanted to ask you why you banned us from ever associating with Park Chanyeol.” I knew bringing him up, the guy who took her boyfriend (whom she’d actually started to like) away, could make her angry, but I was hoping she was too dejected for such emotion.

“Why are you wondering about that?” she asked, not angry but not pleased. When I didn’t answer right away, she just sighed and said, “It’s actually really stupid, to be honest. If I didn’t hold grudges over the dumbest things, I wouldn’t be feeling this way right now.” I just listened, afraid of saying the wrong thing. “During junior year, at one of the football games, it was muddy outside. Remember?”

“Yeah, I don’t know why they didn’t cancel it.” I recalled the gray skies and soggy ground and how unhappy Taeyeon was to be performing under such nasty conditions. Back then, she wasn’t even the head of the cheerleading squad, that was Park Jiyoung, also known around school as Kahi. Yet, Taeyeon always seemed to feel entitled in some way, even if she was only the most popular junior girl and not the queen like Kahi was.

“Well, we were standing off to the sidelines during a play and the players ran past us and he was one of them.” Taeyeon continued, looking down at her lap in what could only be regret or guilt of some sort. She knew her dislike for Chanyeol wasn’t really supported by real reasons. “He kicked up some mud on me and didn’t even bother to apologize. Even after the game, he never spoke to me about it. It’s like he didn’t care that he’d done it and I was offended.”

“How do you even know he was aware of doing that?”

“I don’t. I just supposed. I mean, I know now that believing he knew was stupid, he was playing a freaking game, not paying attention to me. But I wanted his attention. And after that I just convinced myself he was rude, so I stopped liking him.”

“You had a crush on Park Chanyeol?” I asked, astounded. My confession was not going to be any easier.

“Embarrassingly enough, yes. He never knew, still doesn’t know.” Taeyeon balled up her fists slightly and groaned. “Initially, I dated Baekhyun to get back at Chanyeol. Then I started liking him. And then Chanyeol took him away from me.” This last sentence was said with a sort of pout, but I knew it affected her more than she was letting on. She wasn’t allowing herself to be painted the victim, which was surprising because I had been sure she would want everyone turning against Chanyeol and Baekhyun.

“Taeyeon, I just wanted to tell you that you can talk to me if you want. I know you have Tiffany, but I think I could help you, or at least sympathize with you, if you’ll let me.” I blurted, my face heating up with anticipation.

“How would you sympathize with me? It’s not like your boyfriend just left you for another guy. Baekhyun left me for Chanyeol.” she whined, looking me dead in the eyes.

“Well Chanyeol left me for Baekhyun.” I said, a bit petulantly, disliking that she was telling me I couldn’t possibly know how it feels, because I very much do.

Her face immediately took on a look of shock, her eyes rounding and dropping open. “You were dating Chanyeol?” she asked, her voice quiet, which was either a sign she felt bad for what she’d said or that she was about to explode.

“Not quite ‘dating,’ but we were seeing each other. I had no idea he liked Baekhyun until I saw them together this morning.” I admitted, not as scared anymore. If she disowned me, I couldn’t do anything about it. Anyway, she seemed to be over her grudge against Chanyeol for what he’d done in the past. Now she just disliked him because he was dating her ex.

“How long?” she asked, her voice even, so I couldn’t tell how she was feeling about my secret.

“It started during football season of junior year.” I said, deciding telling her the truth was the best course of action, even if at that time she had also liked Chanyeol. “Since then, we’ve seen each other a lot. Last summer, I didn’t hear a peep from him and he was suddenly interested in me again when this year began. I just kind of started putting things together.”

“He and Baekhyun have been fooling around since last summer. That’s why he never contacted you.” she informed me, something I already suspected. “So did you two ever…?”

“We never really did it, but we did other stuff. I didn’t know why he never asked, but I guess now I do.” I took in a deep breath, and asked the question I wanted the answer to. “Are you angry?”

“Ten minutes ago, I would have definitely been angry. But I’ve just kind of realized my old grudge against Chanyeol is nothing compared to the one I have now. And you probably feel the same way about Baekhyun. We’re both victims, if that’s even possible in this situation.” she said, sounding wise and level-headed.

“We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” I mumbled, thinking about how close the two have always been. Somehow, this was bound to happen, this was fate.

“I may be miffed at Chanyeol for stealing Baekhyun away from me, but I know I didn’t really have him in the first place. And he had him way before I did, anyway…” A knock at the window, probably from Tiffany, and our time was up. When she spoke next, her voice regained the tone I usually heard from her, rather than the soft one she’d been speaking in during our conversation. “If you don’t tell anyone about Chanyeol, I won’t tell anyone about Chanyeol, not even Tiff. Maybe I’ll text you later or something.” she said, before unlocking the door and climbing out of the car.

---

Taeyeon did text me later, and we talked, though not just about the boys. I’ve been “friends” with Taeyeon since middle school, when she recruited me into her little squad of mean girls in sixth grade, and we’ve never communicated as directly as that the entire time. I knew this connection wouldn’t last any longer than the time it would take for her to get over Baekhyun, and when she left me, I would still have Sooyoung. I’ll always have Sooyoung. But I enjoyed getting to know her better, finding out why she was the way she was.

I think the time I understood her the most was one day during lunch. We’d all just gotten seated, in our usual spots of course. No one knew that Taeyeon was confiding in me, and vice versa, because then they would need a reason. So, when the football team, including Chanyeol and Baekhyun, walked into the cafeteria, I didn’t look at her, gauging a reaction. I just tried to act natural, which I believed I was pretty good at since I’d been keeping my relationship with Chanyeol a secret for so long. I knew Taeyeon would only get angry with me if I made eye contact with her, making it obvious that there was something going on between us.

But everyone at our table looked at Taeyeon, just checking to make sure she was okay. Her ex-boyfriend just walked in with his new boyfriend, after all. So, I looked, too, only after everyone else did. She was already looking at me, her eyes wide and face kind of red from the scrutiny of the rest of the girls.

“I’m fine. Stop staring.” she snapped, turning back to her lunch.

Luckily for her, she was on the side of the table facing away from the football team’s own table. I, on the other hand, had a perfect view of them. For all of lunch, I watched them, unable to look away.

---

“You know, Seohyun, I came so close to telling her multiple times. Lucky for you, you did it for me. Has she kicked you to the curb?” Jaebum asked, walking up to me and leaning against the wall to my left.

I crossed my arms over my chest indignantly. “No, she’s fine with me. We talked about it and she’s over it.” I snapped, exaggerating a little bit. “Anyway, it’s not like I’m still seeing him. He’s kind of in a relationship already.”

“I heard. Who’d have known?” He shook his head, incredulous. “Now your boy toy likes .”

“Jae, stop it.” I sighed, used to his straightforward douchiness.

For a while, I’d forgotten about my issue with Jaebum. When I started hooking up with Chanyeol in my junior year, the first night I’d ever been with him, Jaebum saw us. He loved having a secret to hold over my head, loved trying to make me do things I didn’t want to do. He told me that if I didn’t cooperate, he’d tell Taeyeon about my relationship with Chanyeol. The reason for his hatred of me? I beat him in the annual spelling bee back in middle school.

I was in eighth grade, about to graduate and head on to high school. Back then, spelling bees were right up my alley. I was excited for the chance to show off my amazing vocabulary. In middle school, just like elementary school, I was known as a nerd of sorts. I was smart. I was a shoo-in to win the science fair, the spelling bee, the essay contest. I guess I still consider myself a bright person, but now that I’m in with the cheerleaders, I can’t let that show nearly as much. I’m in honors classes, not AP, though I could definitely handle the higher level classes.

Anyway, I spelled my last word correct while a boy in seventh grade misspelled tessellate. The disappointment on his face was obvious, but so was the hurt and shame. Even though I was smart, I was still pretty, and Taeyeon had already recruited me. Losing to one of the popular girls, a girl in general, was embarrassing for Jaebum. His pride was hurt, his ego damaged. He lost to me then, but he’d made a vow not to lose to me again. That’s why my secret relationship with Chanyeol was something he held over my head so much. Any other guy wouldn’t much care, but Jaebum wants to ruin my reputation, get me thrown out of the group just like Jessica. Being some of Taeyeon’s used goods isn’t easy when she’s still around to make sure you’re shamed.

Thinking back to that night, the night when I first hooked up with Chanyeol, even if I’d known Jaebum had witnessed it all, knowing things wouldn’t work out, I’d still do it again. Before Chanyeol, I’d been with a lot of guys, guys who took advantage of the fact that I was someone defined as ‘loose’. That was expected of them, of course. I didn’t resent them for it because that was my problem and I went around parading my ‘openness’ at school all the time. Meaning Chanyeol knew of the kind of girl I have been, yet he still didn’t use that against me.

Before I told Taeyeon, she and everyone else believed I had been with Sooyoung that night, as always. At first, I wouldn’t tell her where I’d been, but she’d willingly kept my secret.

“Of course I’ll cover for you… but where were you, Seohyun?” She smiled, closing her locker quietly before we walked toward the English hallway.

“All you need to know is that I was at your house, with you.” I maintained, knowing I could trust her but also thinking the secret was too important to tell anyone. It’d also be easier on her if she just didn’t know.

We’d reached our classes, across the hall from each other with her heading into CP English. She said, “Seohyun, I just hope you know what you’re doing. If you can’t tell me, your bestest friend, then it must be pretty bad.”

I had to make sure she knew I trusted her. “It’s not that I don’t think you’ll keep my secret, Soo. I just want to be really careful. If anyone finds out, I’ll be dead within the hour.”

She shuddered, smiling a little. “Well, if anyone does find out, I didn’t know anything. Got it?” At this point, she’d figured out my secret was a secret I was keeping from Miss Queen Bee, Taeyeon.

I laughed all the same, even though the butterflies in my stomach were threatening to break my façade. “I’ll leave you out of it. I promise.”

Ever since that conversation, Sooyoung didn’t press me for more information. After my conversation with Chanyeol a lunch a few days later, I contemplated telling her.

As I walked toward the back of the building, heading in the direction of the abandoned gardener’s shed, I couldn’t keep myself from thinking about that night, back in junior year.

---

The time on the clock ran out right after Siwon kicked the ball through the field goal. I stood up immediately, as did the rest of the cheerleaders. We cheered and ran over to where the football team was huddled, lifting Siwon over their heads and chanting his name.

Once we’d all cleared off of the field, the cheer squad headed back to the girls’ locker room and the team entered their own locker room. Fifteen minutes later, I was dressed and ready to go home. I was going to catch a ride with Sooyoung back to our neighborhood, so I started walking toward her car. There were still a few stragglers in the lot, but not that many people.

“Hey, Seohyun! You ready to go?” Sooyoung asked, coming up behind me with a smile on her face.

“Totally.” I replied, hopping into the passenger seat. I felt around in my purse for my phone so I could call my parents to let them know I was heading home. “I can’t find my phone.”

“Oh, was that your phone in the locker room? I didn’t recognize the case so I didn’t get it. I’ll wait here, if you want.” she said, leaning back in the driver’s seat and listening to the radio. I nodded and got out of the car.

After getting my phone out of the locker room, I slowly started walking back to Sooyoung’s car. At night, the school always seemed so sad and empty. The halls were too quiet, something that never happened during the day. At least, it was quiet before a door slammed shut behind me. I jumped, dropping my bag and letting the contents scatter over the floor.

Looking down the hallway, I saw a figure coming toward me, saying, “, I’m sorry, Seohyun.” his deep voice reverberating off the walls.

My eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “It’s okay, I guess. You didn’t mean to.” I said, dropping to my knees and beginning to gather everything up to dump into my bag. I squinted into the semi-darkness and the person was standing right over me, quickly squatting to help me gather my things. His face finally came into view in the moonlight pouring in from the window next to us. Chanyeol…

“Why are you still here?” he asked, smiling at me as we both stood.

“I forgot my phone in the locker room… had to go back and get it.” I breathed, realizing his close proximity. A voice in the back of my head kept saying that I should leave, but a bigger part of me wanted to stay and push the limits.

“Ah.” He nodded, looking down at me with those piercing eyes of his. He must wear contacts because no one’s irises could actually be that strange of a color.

I fluttered my own eyes at him, looking at his lips before meeting his eyes again. He stepped closer and started leaning down toward me, one of his hands reaching up to trace my jawline while the other pulled my lower half closer to him. Our mouths were centimeters, millimeters apart –

Ding! Ding! Ding!

I screamed, jumping away from him as he did the same, distancing himself from me. My phone was lighting up inside my bag, Sooyoung’s face filling the screen. She’d sent me three texts, wondering why I was taking so long.

I looked up at Chanyeol, who just stood there staring at me with wide eyes. He’d obviously gotten frightened, but he looked so adorable. I smiled. “Can you drive me home? My ride just bailed on me.”

He looked slightly taken aback, but he nodded quickly. I told Sooyoung that she could go ahead and head home, that I had found another ride that I really needed to talk to about a biology project. I wasn’t even in biology, but I was hoping she didn’t remember that. She just replied with an affirmative and I dropped the phone back into my bag.

I wasn’t sure how to jump back into what was happening before, but he did. It wasn’t a graceful transition, but it still got us back on track. He just leaned down toward me again, not hesitating to connect our lips this time, probably for fear of more interruptions. We continued like this for a few minutes, finally adding hands and tongues to the mix.

He broke away first, the only sounds being our ragged breathing. He smirked at me, walking a bit closer. “Would you like to continue?”

I smirked right back at him. “Maybe, if we weren’t in the middle of the hall.” In the distance, I heard something else, but I was too caught up in Chanyeol to care.

Five minutes later, we’d basically run to his car, laughing. He just tugged on my arm and I focused on not tripping over my own two feet. He unlocked the doors and we both scooted into the back seat, waiting until the lights were off before making any moves.