There wasn’t any time to understand what was happening, aside from the record scratch in Amira’s head and a narrative voice (her narrative voice?) going “you’re probably wondering how I got here” as the closet door was slammed shut, from the outside, to ensure absolute closure.

She swallowed, making eye contact with the mirror on the back of the door, before looking to the left of her reflection and making eye contact with Mingyu’s.

He leaned back on the wall behind him, cooly, blinked once, and then brought his wrist up to see how long it’d been.

“6 minutes and 50 seconds left. Well, now forty-seven, forty-six, forty-five, forty-four… But I’m guessing you know how time works,” he looked up. It's not that he was smiling, but there was a simultaneous calmness and alertness at once. Maybe the product of being used to this irritation of finding himself in closets with girls from school. Amira wasn't sure if he'd complain about that though.

Amira wasn’t so familiar with this experience of being in closets with anyone for that matter and if you’d told her 24 hours ago that this would happen, she would’ve laughed and then declared to definitely not be attending the open homecoming party of her fellow senior peer’s.

But the best friend, Eunha, had not been having it.

“This is the last year we can go to Mingyu’s annual homecoming party. Don’t you want to go out with a bang?!”

No, Amira didn’t. She didn’t even want to go out with a fizzle. She just wanted to keep her head low and graduate without having another infamous anxiety breakdown in front of the whole school, again. But then Eunha made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. If they went to this homecoming, they wouldn’t have to go to prom. And if they didn’t go to prom, Amira wouldn’t have to worry about a dress or shoes or a ride or no date or having to watch Joshua be crowned prom king and slow dance with one of the hundred prettiest girls at their stupid well-affluent school that’d made her feel like the strange misplaced offspring of a garbage man and cat lady or cat man and garbage lady. No offense to either of those careers or lifestyles, but Langston Academy’s alumni was mostly models for women and Amira could barely savage one selfie in a spree of taking 20 at once.

“I didn’t know people still wore those,” she said, without thinking. Referring to the watch that gleamed ever so slightly in the dusk level lighting.

“Yeah, I pretty much only wear it during these parties because of the stupid no cell phone rule.”

“Ahh,” Amira laughed nervously. “Yeah, that no cell phone rule is stupid.” She agreed, glad that they were passing the time with a little small talk and not ravishing each other’s faces like the point of this all was.

Her mind wandered back to 15 minutes ago like a “previously on” segment.

Eunha had dragged her up the stairs to go to the legendary “7 Minutes in Heaven” game room that was very strict on if you came, you had to stay, which was intimidating enough that even if people were totally crushing on someone, they were too afraid to go in and risk the lack of escaping policy.

Amira had not been paying attention. She was too busy her teeth and trying to detect if the punch had been spiked. She knew it was a cliche but was also too thirsty to turn away from the bright pink drink in its hypnotizing crystal bowl. Plus the light smell of weed circling around the room, already put her on edge. Not one for drugs, hard or otherwise. She didn’t need her anxiety in hyperdrive from inhaling that rank.

So she’d found herself in the 7 Minutes room with a lot of boys looking at her peculiarly, including Joshua, sitting on the window seat, crading the knee of a lifted up leg. His profile highlighted by the moonlight just out the window. He was beautiful in the nerve wrecking way that made her want to cry and wonder why something that should feel good, like liking someone, felt so impossibly crushing and like trying to go outer space with zero wings or astronautical experience.

“It was a joke,” Mingyu’s voice made it through the fog of her movie montage.

“Huh?”

His eyes narrowed, not one for repeating himself. Probably too used to girls hanging onto his every breath.

“It’s my party. I made the cell phone rule. Which isn’t actually stupid, quite purposeful. It’s supposed to keep us in the present, but something tells me you’re not good at that rules or not.”

“Um…” Amira tried to assess the situation. Did he just go full-on on her? Part-on? What was the closet rule again? Could she leave? No, any leaving during the 7 minutes constituted that an additional 7 be added but must be completed in the 7 Minute room, in full view of everyone. The last thing she wanted was an audience. It was bad enough that their reflections were witnessing this. Even if they were only standing.

“How much time's left?” she asked, but Mingyu cut her off before she could finish.

“Don’t worry. I’m just as disappointed. I should’ve gotten someone else and not the girl that’s holding onto her first kiss for a guy too good to let her down honestly.”

It was another freeze frame moment. Amira felt her stomach drop and heat rise to her face so fast, a hand grasped the side of the wall in instinct to steady her. She blinked a few times, blurring the outline of Mingyu’s jaw before finding her darkened focus again.

“What-what are you talking about?”

“We’ve been to the same school all our lives. You think people haven’t noticed your pining?”

Amira inhaled roughly through her nose and coughed when she forgot to exhale.

Was this her worst nightmare coming to life in real time? How long did they have? Would there be enough oxygen in this small room to last until then?

“Hey,” Mingyu’s voice softened. She could hear the small uncertainty in him as he remembered another thing everyone would know, aside from Amira’s huge obvious crush on Joshua Hong. Amira was prone to panic attacks.

In fact, her last big panic attack had been in front of Joshua nearly a year ago, during a fire drill, where she’d fell down in a clogged hallway. He’d helped her back up. It was embarrassing that that simple contact had triggered closing. That the person she admired more than anyone, was someone she couldn’t be around otherwise she turned into a completely different person. Or not a person but a bunch of weirdo symptoms. He’d been nice about it, but she went home and cried and didn’t show up for school for a week, only to return to rumors about going to a mental institution.

She felt Mingyu’s hand find hers on the wall and she snatched her fingers away.

“I-I’m not.” Amira said strongly, taking in a calculated breath. Sure, she’d never kissed anyone and, sure, she liked Joshua and yes, ideally just like anyone else, when you like someone, you think about kissing them so maybe she’d considered that Joshua could be her first kiss. But it’s not something she was actively saving for him!

“Okay.” Mingyu confirmed.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” she snapped, half-heartedly.

There was a beat of silence. Then another beat.

“Then why aren’t we kissing?” Mingyu asked, just when Amira had felt her stomach return. It was gone again.

“I don’t know,” Amira said because she didn’t know.

For some reason, since the moment they'd entered the closet, it’d felt like there’d been a silent understanding that they’d wait it out. But was that understanding just the inner-knowledge that they shared? That Amira should’ve been in there with Joshua and Mingyu should’ve been in there with some future model-alumni? That fate was taking an inconvenient bathroom break?

“Should we?” Amira asked, eyes shifting to the hanging clothes and then to the mirror, watching Mingyu’s face take a curious expression of interest. His head angling from one side to the other, matching the previous direction of her eyes.

He leaned down slowly, not to scare her since she did just nearly choke a minute ago.

It felt like the longest, briefest, ten seconds until his lips hovered above hers. She could feel his breath on her cheek and even the heat of his nose, though he wasn’t touching her.

“Or was I right? Are you really saving it?” he whispered.

And that was enough to trigger something that hadn’t been triggered before. Impulse.

Amira pushed herself forward, lips still open from intentional breathing and a force that caught them both off guard, Mingyu fell backward into the wall, hands raised up as if to prove his innocence. This was all her. He wasn’t taking it farther than she wanted. He was self-aware enough that he knew an unwanted hand could lead to an attack.

But Amira felt fine? She blinked her eyes open, confused, with still massaging his. Why did she feel fine? She turned her head, breaking away before pushing back into him. No… Still fine. She placed her hands around Mingyu’s neck, pulling the top of his lips with hers and collecting a moan. More than fine…

She grabbed Mingyu’s hands and tugged them behind her back to hold her and then pressed as deeply as she could into his chest, hearing the blood in her ears pump so loudly she could barely take in the sound of anything else. She was so used to this sound being from panic, it made no sense for it to feel so good, so right…

There was a succession of loud knocks on the door.

Amira pulled back, feeling wonderfully bruised and floaty as the door open, letting her see Mingyu’s face clearly since 7 minutes ago.

She didn’t know how she looked, but if it was anything how he looked… Roughened up, waking from a dream…

There were hoots and whoops and laughter in the background as Woozi asked loudly, “you two, alright?”

All Amira could say was “why did I like that?”