One of my earliest memories was of Jeon Jungkook putting gum in my hair.

I hadn’t known it at first. I thought he had only pulled the strands. I had taken a grim satisfaction in screaming loudly, the shrill sound piercing ears of teacher’s even three classes away. Before Ms. Kim could even react the new girl, Jinah, pushed Jungkook’s chair over in retaliation. While I had walked away with tears, Jungkook had to leave to get three stitches on the back of his head and a six-year-old me had taken a lot of satisfaction in that.

We held grudges against each other until the fifth grade. In third we even ended up in the same class again. Jinah, who now went by Nana, didn’t have the same teacher as me for the first time ever, which had been traumatizing for me as we had been attached to the hip since first grade. I had to handle Jeon Jungkook all by myself.

I wasn’t as good at revenge as her.

She always knew exactly what to do and say to get under his skin. Me? Not so much. I was a little gnat in his ear, while Nana was the Cheshire cat smirking from a tree limb too high to reach.

After fifth grade we sort of forgot each other’s existence. I was too busy to be bothered between AP classes, the farm, and a new baby sister; and he was too busy joking with his friends and joyriding his dad’s lawn mower to even remember me.

Then came Mr. Leonards’s English class in tenth grade.

I didn’t even recognize him at first, not even when the teacher called out his came and he raised his hand with a self-appreciative smirk. My memory was jogged only after I told Nana about the cute boy I had seen in English class. When I told her his name during lunch she spit school regulated two percent across the table into Kim Taehyung’s face, choking as she burst into laughter. I was offended at first, as was Taehyung understandably. I told her Choi Minki, her current beau who had lasted a lot longer than the others (six months), wasn’t that cute either.

It was a complete lie.

Minki, or as he liked to go by, Ren, was gorgeous even if his hair was a bit too long for my taste, but that was beside the point.

She jogged my memory of the boy by telling me he was the one that shoved me down the slide when I was in third grade. My knee had hit my nose on the way down and blood spurted all over my brand new crisp, white shirt my mother had bought me. It took me a moment to work these two very different people in my mind. Little Jeon Jungkook was a jerk that had made me angry just by seeing his disgusting face. This Jeon Jungkook made my face hot and thoughts race to things I didn’t even think I was interested in.

But there was no point lusting over him. I was miles off his radar. He didn’t even know of my existence, which may be for the best considering our history.

So I set my sights on someone more tangible: Hwang Minhyun. He was cute even if he had braces, and his eyes were beautiful. Nice and warm, it made you want to know him better. It made me forget that he even had braces to begin with.

A horrible feeling swept over me as I watched his expression. I had been working on getting Minhyun to view me as more than just his classmate for over a month now. Giggling at nearly every word he said, sneaking glances of him and making sure he caught me. He flirted with me too, giving me a ray of hope that perhaps this time everything would work out.

But now, he was grimacing. Literally, grimacing at me. It couldn’t be something my older brother did. He was barely ever home since he lived on campus. He only came down to visit for the weekend every so often. It couldn't be something my father said either. From what I worked out my dad liked to pretend I was something akin to aual, because as soon as I commented about some hot guy on the TV he would turn it off and awkwardly start up a conversation, as if the television had never been on in the first place. In my dad’s strange world boys my age did not seem to exist.

Jonghyun, my oldest and only brother, had always been great. He helped me when I began my new hobby of bee keeping. Even my dad wouldn’t help once I got actual bees in the hive. Jonghyun was always willing to sit down and listen to me rant about whatever injustice I was feeling that particular day too. This week it was on Mrs. Hwak and how she had given me a C on my history paper I handed in.

“It’s just, I don’t think we’ll work out,” he said, scratching the back of his head.

My nose twitched.

“What do you mean?” We hadn’t even began a relationship for him to judge that. Besides, everything had been fine until this morning. He hadn’t said hello, which was strange. He had avoiding me during anatomy, and I couldn’t even find him during lunch.

Minhyun stared out into the parking lot, watching as students headed home with their backpacks bouncing with each step. “Well, um, when I went to your house yesterday to study,” he trailed off, another grimace flashing across his face.

I clutched onto this sentence as if it were an offering, trying to figure out what it could have been. I managed to work it out all too quickly.

“Look,” I said, switching my weight from the left foot to the right. “My little sister is a jerk. Kaeun was basically created to end my peaceful existence in this world.” I had gone downstairs to get a few bottles of water for us and when I came back Kaeun had been sitting on my bed with an angelic expression on her face. As soon as I saw her I screeched for the little ingrate to get out, slamming the door closed behind her. My mom had yelled at me for it but at least it had gotten rid of Kaeun.

From the very day Kaeun was born we disliked each other. When she was little she always cried when I held her. Her second birthday was a picture of her puking pasty, pink cake all over my jeans clad legs and flip flops. Once I found a frog under my pillow when I went to bed, and I knew the only person who could have done that was Kaeun. According to my family Kaeun was an angel, but for some reason she always had it out for me.

Minhyun managed to strain out some form of a smile. It remined me of our horse Sugar Cube when our veterinarian had pulled her lips back to showcase the cavity growing in her incisor.

It was safe to say the look was not very attractive.

“I- look, your sister was very frank with me.” Oh god, what did she say. “She told me everything, so I think we should stop before this thing even begins.”

What the heck did that even mean?!

“You’ll have to be more specific,” I tried, attempting to not tap my foot impatiently. I wasn’t giving up on him yet. I had worked too hard on this.

He took a deep breath in. “She told me that you’re in love with Namjoon, but neither of you will admit it. She also said that it was only a matter of time before I was, erm, dropped, for him.”

I blinked rapidly, gritting my teeth. I think he got the message my anger radar was sending out as he took a few steps back. “Look, Namjoon and I are just friends.” I defended. “We’ve been friends since we were like two! Our moms went to high school with each other and they decided to shove us together right out of the womb. He’s like a brother, nothing more. Dating him would be weird.”

Minhyun shook his head anxiously. “I remember Namjoon, okay? Up until he moved away in sixth grade you guys always hung out. Everyone thought you would get together, and I’m not ge