”Ji Eun”, I heard someone call my name. “Wake up!” 

What was going on? Who was asking me to wake up? Why did I feel so heavy? I could barely lift my arms and I felt something on my lips and lots of air coming in my mouth plus my chest was hurting a bit. It felt really weird. “Wake up!”

Who was yelling over and over again? I felt the air being shoved into my mouth again.

“Go ji Eun! You better wake up now or I swear I will k…” I sensed something coming out and started coughing. I coughed out a lot water while someone patted my back. My eyes slowly opened and I looked around me. A lot of people, not just the students from 3a and 3d and our teachers, but other people I didn’t know were surrounding me.

“Ji Eun?” I looked at the person who called my name. When recent events came back to me, I was so happy to have come out alive from the water that I gave him a tight hug. The poor guy fell on the sand due to my sudden jump at him, but surprisingly he didn’t push me away like I thought he would. However that didn’t mean he hugged me back.

“Kai”, I said with an unsteady voice. I had not sensed fear during the accident but it was coming to me now. I was scared to death but I let Kai go and just looked at him. He looked worried and it broke my heart. I had seen his worried face too many times already. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologising to me?” He helped me up on both my feet but I tripped, the pain, cramp or whatever it was hadn’t gone away. Tao came out of nowhere and caught me. He lifted me up.

“I’ll take care of her”, he sounded so cold and mean when he spoke to Kai which I disliked. 

Tao carried me away. When he put me down at our spot, his coldness disappeared and he literally hugged me so tight I had difficulties breathing. “Do you know how much you scared me?” He let me go and patted my hair as he looked at my body to see if I had any bruises. There was a big purple bruise on my left leg. “This doesn’t look good at all.”

The girls finally showed up and they started hugging me like crazy.

“I thought you were going to die”, Lime cried. “You almost gave me a heart attack when you ran like that.” I tried calming her down but she kept crying.

“I’m glad you’re okay”, Alice kissed my forehead. Se Hun wrapped a towel and then a blanket around me.

“Dude”, he looked a bit uncomfortable. That was because Se Hun was not the type to show emotion. “Don’t do that again.” He looked around avoiding my eyes. ”How are you feeling?”

”Good”, I lied. ”I’m sorry if I scared you.”

“Don’t say sorry”, Alice said. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“What do you mean there’s nothing to be sorry for?” Lime asked. “She should say sorry for making me lose my f****** mind.”

We all stared at her. Lime had just said a bad word.

“What?” She was angry and it made us forget about what had happened because we all started laughing.

“Ji Eun ah”, Lee Tuk called.       

“Where were you?” Se Hun asked. ”You’re the teacher; you’re supposed to look after us. Why did Kai take your place?”

“I was in the toilet”, Lee Tuk looked very sorry. “Are you alright? Do you want to go to the hospital?”

“It’s just a bruise”, I showed him my leg. “It’ll heal up by itself and please don’t call my dad or he’ll be anxious all week.” Lee Tuk nodded and left us. I looked at my friends and noted one of them was missing. “Where’s Lu? Is he okay?”

”I’m here”, he said behind me. The others left the two of us. Lu Han sat next to me.

“Thank god you’re okay”, I said. ”What were you thinking going into deep water when you can’t swim?”

“I’m sorry”, he looked down on his hands. “Thank you for saving me.”

“Anytime”, I replied.

It became quiet between us and it didn’t feel normal. Lu Han always had something to say around me but he had been so quiet after Min Ho’s accident that it worried me. “Did anything happen Lu? You’ve so quiet around me lately.”

“Nothing special”, he said, “Besides me and Alice making out which you already know. It’s just that I’ve been thinking a lot and I feel like I need to change.” He sighed. “I feel so stupid for almost costing you your life. If it wasn’t for Kai y…”

“It’s fine Lu”, I said. ”Don’t feel guilty. What matters is that we both made it out from that darned sea.”

“Can I borrow Ji Eun for a moment?” Lu Han and I looked at Kai who was holding a cup of tea. Lu Han got up.

“We’ll talk later Ji Eun”, Lu Han left us and I was in awe. The Lu Han I knew would have never gone without quarrelling with Kai at first. What was going on with him?

“Tea?” Kai asked. I accepted the cup and took a sip of the drink. It was lemon tea, my favourite. “How are you feeling?”

“I swear I will kill the next person who asks me that question again”, I said. Kai grined.

“I mean after what happened not physically”, he took the cup and drank some tea.

“I’m fine”, I lied.

“It’s impossible that you’re just fine after that so don’t lie to me”, Kai and I looked in each other’s eyes and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to lie to him. I just couldn’t.

“Honestly”, I answered. “I’m scared.” I took back the tea cup without interrupting our eye contact. “I can’t help but think what if Kai hadn’t come. What would my father do if I had died today?” The tears started streaming down my face against my will. Why was I even crying?

“That’s more like it”, Kai took the tea cup and put it down. He wiped my tears away. ”Don’t cry.” I tried not to but I couldn’t hold my tears back. “No one around you wants you to be afraid, so don’t be afraid either. It’s not going to happen again.”

“It’s easier said to not be afraid than done”, I looked away. I had to stop being so weak in front of him.

“Well you can try not to be for my sake right?” He said. I turned to him but he wasn’t looking at me at all. Why would he say something like that when he knew how I felt about him?

“Don’t”, I said.

”Don’t what?”

“Don’t say things like that if you don’t like me”, I answered. “It only hurts me.” I took the cup and continued drinking. I could tell Kai was looking at me but he finally turned towards his own cup.  Although the tea drinking stopped, we sat there in each other’s company with little conversation. It wasn’t until we were leaving that Kai finally went to his friends. 

The next day, Sunday, the crew went to a museum leaving me by myself in the hotel. I didn’t go due to the pain in my leg and fatigue. The same went for monday when everyone went to a city tour on a tourism buss while I was still stuck in bed. However tuesday, the last day of our trip I had joined in on the days activities.  We had even decided to go to an amusement park during the evening. By 8pm, many had already left. The girls and I went to the lobby when were done getting ready, hoping the guys were there, but they were running late.

“You’re going out tonight?” I recognised Kai’s voice behind me. When I saw him my heart started racing. He was dressed in black jeans, a white T-shirt. He was also wearing a checked shirt on top that matched perfectly to my shirt. I could even smell his perfume from afar and it seemed he had combed his hair. He looked perfect.

“Yes”, I answered and we just stood there looking at each other like we always did without saying much. For the time I had known Kai, if there was one thing I could call our thing even though we didn’t have a thing it would be this. We seemed to find a mutual ground, or a mutual understanding of each other when we would do this. 

Finally, the guys came down with a girl from 3a who hugged Kai for maybe too long.

She was beautiful, tall and had long bouncy hair that perfectly matched the colour of her skirt. I had seen her around Kai before. I also remembered her from the big test result announcement but couldn’t remember her name. She had made it to number 3 on the list. If there was someone that could represent the standard look and charisma of a 3a girl, it would definitely be her. I couldn’t help but feel ugly, stupid and less than by just standing next to her. She and Kai looked like a match made in heaven. They were equally good looking, smart and their height was perfectly balanced, with her being slightly shorter than him. It wasn’t like when him and I stood next to each other and I could barely reach his shoulder. Kai and her looked like a celebrity couple. 

“Shall we go?” Tao put his arms around my shoulder and pulled me towards him once he reached us. I knew he did this protectively but when I saw Kai’s eyes were on us, I wished Tao would have moved his arm. Of course he didn’t.

“Did you wait long?” The girl asked Kai. Something just broke in my heart when Kai shook his head and the girl put her arm in his before waving bye at us as they left together. I stood there baffled when I understood what had just happened. Kai was going on a date with someone. And that person wasn’t me.

“What a jerk”, Tao said to me. “Let’s just go.” I pulled away from him.

“You guys go ahead”, I said without looking at any of them. “I… eh… need to get something. Just go, I’ll catch up with you.” 

Before any of them could stop me, I half ran to the staircase instead of waiting for the elevator. I climbed the stairs until the eighth floor although my leg hurt and once inside my room I started crying. I knew I was crying for a stupid reason. Kai and I were never a thing and neither did we ever date, but it hurt so much I had to let it out.  I could only blame myself for falling for him knowing well I didn’t stand a chance with him. But a girl can still dream right? Yeah my dream just turned into harsh reality. 

The next day, I got up at 7 am to put on my motion sickness patch which Tao had bought for me during my stay at the hotel. I had spent all night crying and had only slept for a maximum of two hours. We were supposed to meet in the lobby at 8 for breakfast and go to the airport at 9. I woke the girls and put on a pair of sunnies to hide my swollen eyes before heading to the lobby with my suitcase ahead of them. Down in the lobby I reserved a table for the group and served myself breakfast before waiting for them. Slowly but eventually they all came down.

“Ji Eun?” Alice called. ”Is that you?”                      

“Who else would it be?” I asked with a sore voice. They sat down with each their plates.

“You ditched us yesterday”, Se Hun said.

“Yeah, why did you leave?”, Lu Han asked. ”It was really fun.”

“My leg was hurting”, I lied and avoided to look at any of them. Thankfully I was hiding behind my sunnies.  

We boarded the airplane a few hours later. Unfortunately we had different places this time. First I was seated with two guys from 3a, but then somehow they switched places with Kai and that girl he went on a date with and I felt like dying inside. Was god punishing me for something? The others were sitting a bit everywhere in the plane so I couldn’t join them. During the entire flight, I couldn’t help but notice see how the girl was clinging herself to Kai’s arm and it bugged me. It bugged me so much, my heart was aching. The two of them had been talking during the entire flight and the was giggling at everything Kai said so loudly I had to put my earphones on and raise the volume to the loudest. I thought it would make me feel better not to hear them but it only made it worse because now I didn’t know what they were talking about.

About two hours later, we were in Seoul and had quickly checked out from the airport. I saw Mrs. Kim waving at me near the entrance and said goodbye to my friends. She gave me a big hug.

”How I’ve missed you!” She said and hugged me again. I was glad to see her but this was short lived as I was too sad and angry about Kai to have the energy to be happy and positive. She hugged Kai. ”How was the trip?” I let Kai take care of the answering and put my luggage in the back of the car and was about to get in the car along with Mrs. Kim and Kai, when Tao called me. He was coming right towards me.

“Tae Ri is it okay if I talk to my friend quickly?” I asked since she was driving us home.

“Take your time sweety”, she smiled. I closed the car’s door and walked to Tao.

“You want to talk about it”, he said. That’s what I loved about Tao. I didn’t need to say what I was thinking or feeling, he just knew.

”I didn’t sleep”, I answered.

“Because of him?” Tao looked at Kai who was sitting in the car. I shook my shoulders. “I know something’s wrong with you.” He combed his fingers through my hair while holding the nape of my neck gently.                      

“I’m not saying I’m fine”, I my lips while looking down on the ground.

“Do you want to go out with me tonight?” He pulled my face up so we could look at each other. “I’ll pick you at around six, seven. We’ll visit my sister and then we can have dinner.”

“Can’t we just go to your place?” I asked. “After visiting your sister I mean. I don’t feel like going out.”

“Sure”, he smiled. “I’ll make my famous fried rice just for you.” Talking to Tao was making me so emotional I grabbed his clothes and pulled him towards me for a hug. Tao naturally put his arms around me and patted my back slowly. “It’s alright. I’m here.” We stood there for a while until he kissed my hair and I let him go because I knew Mrs. Kim was waiting otherwise I didn’t know how long I would have stayed there.

“See you later”, I entered the car and Mrs. Kim drove away.                        

“Who was that?” Mrs. Kim asked.

”Tao”, I answered. 

“Is everything okay, Ji Eun? You sound t-” She began.

”Everything’s great”, I interrupted her. I really didn’t feel like talking, especially when he was sitting right there in the front seat. When neither Kai or I spoke more, she put on some music.