It's almost time to go home.

I've stuffed all my books in my backpack, and am ready to dash out the second Mr. Nam walks out the door.

Mr. Nam's our Math teacher, and he's really nice and dedicated. He wrote a whole bunch of numbers on the board, and drew some complicated diagrams with a whole bunch of arrows, of all lengths, pointing in all directions.

I don't have a clue what that was all about, to tell you the truth.

My head feels kind of fuzzy, like my brain's not in there.

It's all that Jaemin's fault, and all that drama that happened this morning.

Stop that, Kim Mina. Snap out of it. Focus. Focus. Do not, I repeat, do not think about that guy.

Eun Sol, seated on my right, is staring at me in alarm. I give her a sickly smile. She blanches, and looks away at once.

Junnie leans over from my left, and whispers, "Are you okay? You had this creepy snarl on your face a second ago." She shivers. "And you kept grinding your teeth, and jabbing at the air."

"I'm okay," I whisper back. A brainwave strikes me. "My period came, and I tend to get more - violent when it does...raging hormones, that kind of thing..." My voice trails off weakly.

Junnie stares at me for a second in silence, and then says, "O...kay..." Very quietly, she inches away from me, dragging her chair after her, putting as much distance as she can between me and her.

Mr. Nam collects his stuff, wishes us good day, and walks out the door.

Finally.

I turn, and slip on the straps of my backpack.

There's a loud collective gasp from the class.

I look up.

I blink.

It's him.

Jaemin.

He's walking in, backpack and all, cool as ice, and heading down my row.

More gasps.

He's walking to my desk.

He's stopped in front of me.

"Ready?" He plops his (very firm) behind on the edge of my desk.

"Huh?"

"We're walking home together. Remember?"

"I - I - I - ," I stutter.

Stares, noisy whispers and nudges ftom the rest of the class.

"Let's go," he says, and straightens nonchalantly.

He reaches out and grabs my wrist, and pulls me to my feet.

He saunters out of the class, me stumbling awkwardly behind him.

The door swings shut behind us, and a deafening babble of disembodied voices swells and follows me, echoing mockingly along the indifferent grey walls, all the way down the corridor. We pass a whole bunch of people, and their mouths drop open in shock. Su Lin is walking ahead with a group of girls, and one of them turns around, sees us, and nudges her. She swivels her head to stare at us - and promptly bursts into tears.

Jaemin ignores her, and everyone else, and heads for the swinging doors at the entrance. We step out into the bright afternoon sunshine - or rather, he steps out, and drags me behind him.

"Stop it!" I yell furiously. "What the heck are you playing at?"

"You're my girlfriend," he says mildly, and continues to walk on, his fingers around my wrist.

"What? Since when?"

We turn down an alley, and finally, he releases his grip.

"Since this morning. I told you. You really have a short-term memory, Kim Mina." He smiles faintly.

"You ignore me for years," I say, and I hear a little quaver in my voice. "You didn't look at me, or talk to me, or smile at me. You didn't even say hi or bye. You acted as though I was invisible." The rage starts to simmer in my heart, until I'm so, so angry, so mad with anger, and resentment, and hurt, that I'm spitting out my words, glaring at him, hating him for his indifference, his carelessness, his cruelty.

"And now, today, out of the blue, you talk to me, and - and flirt with me, and - and say I'm your girlfriend. I don't get it, I don't understand any of it - "

He cuts in, halting my tirade.

"I'm in love with you."

"I ignored you because I was confused about my feelings for you."

"I love you, and I want you to be my girlfriend." He says, looking at me very intently, very seriously.

What?

Oh, God.

This is surreal.

My heart is pounding so hard it's about to jump out of my chest.

He's confessing to me!

OMG OMG OMG

"That's what you want me to say to you, right?" That cool, contemptuous voice drags me back to reality with a painful jolt.

I stare at him.

"Huh?"

"That's what you want me to say." He narrows his eyes, and shifts just the slightest, so that his tall, lean frame is looming over me, in an alarming, dangerously exciting kind of way. 

I shrink back at once, nervously.

"Did you seriously believe all that crap I was spouting?" His eyes are mocking.

"What?"

" I just want you to pretend to be my girlfriend for a bit," he shrugs, "until that pest gets the message."

"That p- pest? Su Lin?"

"Yeah," he continues, in that casual, disinterested tone. "She's been hanging around me so much lately that it's getting on my nerves."

"Why can't you tell her that you're not interested in her?"

"That kind of girl is too arrogant to accept rejection in words," he says, and his lips curl a little in distaste. "That kind of girl needs to learn the hard way that she's been rejected, she needs to taste rejection, see it with her own eyes."

"She needs to be...," he pauses, and his face is hard, cruel, "...humiliated."

I shiver.

"So you expect me to play along with your little game?" I whisper. "You must think I'm an idiot."

"Why wouldn't you agree?" He says, looking at me, his eyes sardonic. "I would bring you out on dates, hold your hand, take you to fun places. We would do all the things girls adore, and absolutely can't live without..." And there's that hard, mocking note once more in his voice.

He takes two steps toward me, until we are standing so close that we are almost touching. His face is mere inches from mine. Why, if I stretch out my hand now, I could touch him, caress his face, brush those wispy locks off his forehead, smooth away that little twist of derision, so at odds with the silky softness, the sensitive curve of those tantalizing, mesmerizing lips...

"Why wouldn't you agree?" he says once more, softly, and his voice dips low to a husky whisper. "After all, you like me..." His eyes flit lightly over my face, and rest on my lips.

"You've always liked me..." He skims a finger, light as gossamer, over my lips. "You watch me...you watch me all the time..."

He cups my face between both of his palms.

"I've seen you watching me..." He lowers his head slowly, and whispers, "...all the time.."

He kisses me on the lips; a light brush, feathery-soft, fleeting, so sweet it's unbearable...

"Oh..." I sigh, and my lips fall half-open with surprise.

We look at each other, and he trails his thumb slowly over my lips.

"We'll have fun together," he says softly. "I promise... all you have to do is to pretend to be my girlfriend, and in return for your...efforts," he pauses, a tiny flicker of amusement in the depths of his eyes, "I'll protect you, I'll take care of you..."

"So, I'd be like your -  real girlfriend?"

"Yeah, you'd be like my real girlfriend."

"Except that it'd all be an act, a show..."

"Yeah, it'd all be an act, a show."

A fake girlfriend. To be with him, and have fun together, hold his hand, go for long walks, share a cuddle in the dark.

A fake girlfriend, whom he'd take care of, and protect, as if I were his real girlfriend.

I should say no. I should slap him in the face and say, you selfish jerk, you , who do you think you are? Get out of my face, and get out of my life.

But...

I can't.

You see, I've loved him for so long.

I never dreamed that I'd get a chance to be at his side, that he'd look at me, talk to me, smile at me...

If I say no, I would become like Su Lin; my love for him would never see the light of day, but would lie, grey and ashy and dusty, dank and cold, in the graveyard of broken hopes and buried dreams...

If I say yes, if I agree to play my part in this fake, crazy drama, I could have a shot at winning his heart, and maybe, just maybe, one day, one glorious day, ...

... he'd grow to love me, he'd be by my side for real...

I'm so pathetic, I know, but the thing is, when you're in love, you can't think straight anymore...

Because, you see, your heart has a mind of its own...

"How long would we have to pretend?" I'm surprised at how even, how steady my voice is. The little knot of anxiety in my stomach is gone, and a strange calm has descended on me.

I am floating, drifting.

I am weightless, bodiless.

"For as long as it takes." He steps closer to me. "I...will decide when the show ends."

I swallow.

"So, do you, Kim Mina," he says steadily, looking down upon my upturned face, "take me, Na Jaemin, to be your woefully fake boyfriend, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till the day our paths do part?"

"I do," I say.

He breaks into a smile so blinding that I catch my breath.

He stretches out a hand, and after a second of hesitation, I slip mine into his.

"Just in case anyone's watching," he says, a wicked little glint in his eyes.

"Just in case anyone's watching," I echo, like a well-trained parrot, my heart beating fast.

So we walk home together, side by side, hand in hand, my fake boyfriend and I, and along the way, a great burst of sunshine lights up the winding path leading to our street.

Once upon a time, a ten-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl had walked like this, side by side, hand in hand, down the same old, familiar path.

And the winds of memory and hope swell, deep within me, and swirl, and tug gently at my heart.