Jae leaned in, a few centimetres across your face. Studying your face while sweats formed on your temples. Trying to steady your own breath, you moved back slightly so there was a safer distance between you and him. What are they doing? This place was indeed suffocating, you wanted to leave. You saw Jae's forefinger lifted up from his knee and moved upwards towards the direction of your forehead, drawing circles.

"Is it painful? MEH AHH RII-ssi?" Jae asked as his eyes averted to your name tag, spelling your name, emphasizing every letter that it curled up so beautifully when he used his tongue pronouncing your name clearly. You swallowed hard, bobbed your head and then shook your head. You were not really paying attention when there were too many people around you. Your sore forehead was not that painful but he looked worried as he knitted his eyebrows. He straightened his back and turned his torso slightly towards Yuta.

"This is your fault. You should apologise to her, Yuta" Jae said as he cocked his head to one side, facing Yuta, urging him to apologise. You clasped your hands together, sweats dripping onto the sides of your face. You became more and more nervous, you needed to leave right now. As anxiety kicking in, you gulped, almost shaking.

"Jeogiyo, can I leave now?" you pressed your lips together and your eyes fixated solely on Jae that now it became watery, almost pleading him and his gang to leave you alone. You desperately needed some space. It was too crowded that you hated the attention that they were giving you. Their faces turned into worried ones when they heard your soft voice, pleading them ever so genuinely.

"Hey, I'm sorry Meari-ssi" Yuta said, earning a nod from you. When you were about to leave, that Johnny boy shook your shoulder once again that brought you back to your senses. 

"Hey are you a junior here?" Johnny asked as he tilted his head slightly to reach your level. I might be even older than you... 

"Yah, Meari is my classmate" Yuta mentioned and they were all bewildered. Just because you are short, it does not mean you are young. 

"Are you for real?" Johnny shook your shoulder once more that you shot him a glare to stop the hell he was doing.

"You are scaring her" another boy commented to stop Johnny's action.

"By the way... I wanted to ask you something. I want to-" Jae honeyed voice filled your ears as his eyes bored into you. You couldn't read his expression or what he was trying to convey but you were definite that your cheeks turned redder than usual. He leaned in closer as if he wanted to whisper but when someone called out your name, you were brought back to reality. In response, your eyes were widened and searched for the sound instantly. Jae couldn't finish his sentence as you pried away from the little circle the basketball team had formed and ran towards the man waiting at the entrance gate of the school. The man spreaded his arms wide just for you to wrap your shorter ones around his torso.

"Baby, let's go" the man suggested and then he continued, while eyeing the group of men watching you, "Before that, who are they?" the man asked out of curiosity when he stared at the team from afar while hugging his baby girl. The basketball boys had been watching how weird your behaviour was from a stiff and jumpy person to a sweet yet cheerful one. It was as if you had a spilt personality or that was what they thought.

"Oppa, I don't know them. Let's go" you clung to his arms and followed him to his car.

As your figure disappeared from sight, automatically those boys continued their game. Feeling unsettled, Jae sighed.

"I could've asked what webtoon she was reading, Johnny"

"Blame this person here. He hurted her and we couldn't get to know what webtoon was that" Johnny replied while pointing his finger at Yuta. Yuta on the other side, clicked his tongue.

"Hey I was just playing around. I didn't know she would end up he