Chapter Four: Where Kaeun Has An Aliba

“And she threw glitter in my air ducts! Can you believe it?!”

I glared at Namjoon, daring him to go against me and say that Kaeun wouldn’t do such a thing. Kaeun had him wrapped around her little pinky. Whenever she wanted something he always tried to get it for her.

It was sickening.

At least Nana saw Kaeun for the mutant creature that she was.

“Perhaps she was just experimenting and didn’t think about what it would do,” he tried diplomatically.

I grumbled darkly under my breath and Namjoon’s throat bobbed. He rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly, avoiding eye contact.

“You look pretty today,” he said, trying to distract me.

“I’M COVERED IN GLITTER!” I burst, throwing my hands in the air and going back to the bathroom.

“I-um, yes,” he said, trying to recover. “You look, uh, really pretty. It only accents your beauty.”

I snorted, snaking my head under the faucet. After ranting to Namjoon on the phone I think he decided the best course of action would be to come over and do damage control.

He was too late. My temper was through the roof.

“I was the laughing stock at school today! Did you know Jungkook actually looked at me today?” I paused, disgruntled. “He laughed! He thought it was just, plain hilarious.”

“I, yes, I heard you say that the first five times,” he mumbled, messing with a porcelain trinket on my dresser. He tossed it in the air and it immediately made me begin to fret.

“Can you not play with that? You’re going to break it.”

“I won’t,” he denied. None-the-less he placed it back in its original spot.

I threw my hair up on a towel, throwing myself onto the bed with a belligerent sigh. “Today was horrible,” I whined, shoulders slumping with dejection.

He patted my back, nodding along sympathetically.

“Jungkook saw me,” I repeated, as if he hadn’t heard the first thirteen billion times.

His face twitched, becoming still before shaking his head. “No offence, but Jungkook was never the greatest guy.”

I sat up in a sitting position, glaring at him because how dare he say that about Jungkook? He hadn’t even seen him since moving away in middle school. 

“You were just complaining to me on the phone about him!” he defended. “You said he talked to you all condescending or some crap like that.”

“This isn’t crap!” I screeched, my voice breaking on every note. Namjoon winced, hands reaching up to cover his ears. He stopped before he did, trying to play it off like he was dusting something off his shirt with both hands. I rolled my eyes. Namjoon was never the smoothest of guys.

“You’re absolutely right,” he agreed, making me groan internally. I knew him well enough to understand that meant at this point he was done trying to reason with me and would just agree with whatever I said.

We had always been like that. I used to drag him around everywhere with me. If Ara was there Namjoon was sure to be nearby. I remember when I was really young I was practically a dictator about our relationship. Whatever I said goes, and Namjoon would do it no matter how reluctant he was.

It was how he broke his arm climbing the roof in second grade to the get ball I’d kicked up there. How we got detention in third and sixth, because he never fought me even when he knew he was right.

Around seventh-eight grade was when I realized how smart Namjoon actually was and began listening to him, but it was too late. He moved away to the town over for his father’s work. We still got to see each other, we were only about an hour away from each other, but we were no longer attached to the hip.

Namjoon knew everything about me, from the moment I got my first period to the time I’d had one of the most embarrassing moments in my life and fell down a flight of stairs attempting to wave at my crush. It had hurt nothing but my pride, as my mother liked to say.

A car door slammed from the drive way and with a growl I went