"I'm late. I'm so late."

It's not my fault, really. I left the house on time, and I got off at my stop earlier than usual...so why am I almost running to class?

Turn right at the staircase, open the door, head straight, make a right, and there's my class—just a few more extra steps.

As the girl turns the corner, she spots her friends and fellow classmates crowding around the classroom door.

Is the teacher late? Please be late. Or like don't come to class at all. Call out, I don't care. 

A young man wearing a beanie with his AirPods situated in his ears, spots her slowing down her powerwalk strut as she nears the crowd of students. "Hey, I texted you that he wasn't here yet. You didn't have to rush, ya know." 

She stops walking and turns to face him. Trying to catch her breath, she says, "Vernon...my phone is—is in my backpack, and it's probably on slient...anyways." Slowly regaining her composure as she rests by his side leaning upon the wall. "Morning, Yeri! Are you okay?" Another familiar face with black hair and bangs split down the middle joins the conversation. "Hi Hendery, I'm fine. Just catching my breath is all."

"Yo! WASSUP WASSUP!" a taller fella wraps his arm over Hendery's shoulder. 

"Morning, Lucas! You're late." The boy greets him as he tries to get used to Lucas's grip over his shoulder. Vernon nods at him, acknowledging his immediate presence and then goes back to looking at his phone. "I know! But I'm here. Hey...did you run over here?" Lucas spots Yeri heavily breathing on the side of the wall as she takes a sip from her water bottle. "no! I walked!" She snaps back at him, causing Vernon to chuckle and glance at her amusingly. "She didn't get my message in time," he explains to the group. Yeri rolls her eyes as the boys continue to converse. A few minutes later, the teacher appears walking down the aisle, "sorry, I'm late everyone, let's get seated and start class."

The door opens, and the students pour in one by one and head to the empty desks. Vernon walks inside and sits down on the window-sided desk of the room, while Yeri takes the vacant seat next to him. Hendery and Lucas follow in and sit down at the desk behind theirs. It takes a few minutes for the teacher to get situated in the scheme of the classroom as he turns on the computer and projector screen. Yeri takes out her laptop, cursing the teacher for showing up in the first place. Vernon and Hendery do just about the same with their electronics. Lucas takes out a simple notebook to scribble down on. "So did you guys hear about Johnny's party this Friday? I heard from a reliable source that most of the girls that were invited were all s and that the theme of the party is to deflower them."

Hearing Lucas saying such vulgar things angered Yeri enough to glance back at him, throwing her deadly stare. "What? I'm not making it up, it's true." Vernon knowing very well that Lucas's clueless reaction to her death stare would incite more anger in her, so he decided to get involved. "It's not that, but that way you said it, dude. It was a very derogative thing to say." 

"He's right, Lu. You need to be more mindful of the things you say about women," Hendery adds. "Okay, I'm sorry," Lucas says, seemingly without showing any remorse. 

Vernon glances back over at Yeri since she's turned her attention back onto her iPad Pro. "Hey, you okay?" He lays his hand on Yeri's shoulder, "yeah, peachy. Shush, class is starting." She turned her visible attention to the board, but what Lucas has said earlier had honestly irked her. It irritated her so much that she began playing it on a loop in the back of her mind. 

Since her college career began two years ago, Yeri's only groups of friends have been these three boys and some of their guy friends. Their class schedules were similar because they attended the same college department, music.

Most of her classes included Vernon as her classmate because they were both aspiring songwriters. Vernon was half American and more understanding of American culture, which accepted gender equality. He would always play the mediator and never forget Yeri's presence in the group, being the only girl. Being a year older than the whole group, he was more mature than Hendery and Lucas.

Yeri would always be thankful for Hendery being around, because he was the sweetest and smartest of the three, and he was sensitive towards her feelings.

Lucas, on the other hand, had his moments. Yeri was sure he had been diagnosed with a narcissistic personality disorder, and he didn't know it yet. Lucas was overconfident and always viewed women as the inferior gender. That didn't mean he didn't like them. Lucas liked girls a lot, and never dated one girl at a time. Even with Yeri around, he would comment on girls' body parts and score them on a judging scale, as if he had any right to judge. 
 

Not to mention, all three of them were incredibly good looking. 
Hendery was know as the Chinese Prince on campus. He resembled every Asian girl's version of their Prince Charming. His milky white complexion was breathtaking to all who laid eyes on him. Yeri was even jealous of him at times, because her acne still broke out on her face whenever her time of the month came.
Vernon's facial features were out of this world, everyone nicknamed him DiCaprio's clone. This was partly due to his mom's European ancestry; he was half Asian and half European. He never agreed with them because he personally didn't see the resemblance as worthy enough as being called DiCaprio's clone. Yeri remembers the first time she saw him walking across the campus's quad area, and was stunned by his appearance. She thought she was dreaming when she saw a younger version of Leonardo DiCaprio walking by. The same day she rewatched Titanic two times, out of nostalgia.
Lucas was handsome too, he resembled Kpop idol SHINee's Minho. He was of mixed ethnicity, being half Thai and half Chinese. He was also super tall and had a sensational muscular body. His abs made even Yeri's go gaga for him at times whenever he was shirtless.

Many of the girls in college were openly jealous of Yeri just because she was close to them. They assumed she had to be dating one of them.
She was forced to start her classes without any of her female friends because they all split up and attended different colleges. Of course, girls gossip about boys when they're hanging out with other girls around. Still, since she didn't have any close female friends at her new school, she had to get accustomed to hearing boys talk about girls.

Although all the girls were envious of her, Yeri promised herself she would never date any of them, because dating could leading to breaking up, which could then cause the group to break up or worse, leave her without any friends. Any other guy was fair play, as long as it wasn't Hendery, Lucas or Vernon. Those were her terms.

Two hours later, the teacher ended the class. He had apologized for the second time about being late. He thanked everyone for waiting outside instead of ditching under the mythical 'fifteen-minute rule.'

The four friends had packed up their belongings and made their way to the door. Lucas was talking off Vernon's ear on the way out. "Do you all have time to grab lunch together?" Hendery asked. Lucas was the first to answer, "yup, I'm starving." Yeri and Vernon simultaneously agreed. "What sort of cuisine did you have in mind?" Yeri asked as the group made their way out the building into the quad area.

"Let's get hamburgers! I've been craving them since last night," Vernon chimed in. 

"Since last night?" Hendery questioned. 

"Yeah, my dad asked my lil sis and me what we both wanted for dinner, I said hamburgers, she said chicken. We had chicken for dinner." 

"bro, I feel ya, you can't win against little siblings." Lucas started walking ahead of the group, "it's decided, let's get this dude his hamburgers! unless you two want to eat something else?" He had turned the attention on Yeri and Hendery. "I hope this you being considerate and not a jackass." Yeri threw back at him. Lucas walks over towards Yeri to face her with a devilish smile plastered on his handsome face. "Yeri, I'm apalled at your insinuation. Of course, it's me being considerate," he then throws his arm over her shoulder, bringing her in for a side-hug. "Yeah, okay." She agrees sarcastically. This much skinship with Lucas was reasonable, he was always an overly-touchy-feely kind-of-guy. "Hey, now. She agreed, now let go of her." Hendery being overprotective pulls Yeri to his side. "Bro, don't be jealous."

"I'm not jealous. I'm protecting her from catching whatever ually transmitted disease you might be carrying." Hendery protested, earning a hurt look from Lucas, and a chuckle from Yeri."

"Burn!" Vernon spouted as he kept walking in the front of the group. "Aside from that awesome burn, that place I was telling you about is this way." 

The group continued to walk outside of the school, leaving the campus altogether. Vernon was showing them the way, while Lucas was attached to his side, as usual. Hendery and Yeri were following them from behind and making casual chit-chat. "Did you hear? Super Junior is going on tour again. Let's go see them!" He grabs Yeri's arm and starts swinging it back and forth, trying to being cute.

"Again? Hendery, they're always on tour. Give me a year they weren't on tour."

"Uhh...okay, well, I can't give you a year, because they're always on tour. I admit. But let's do something!" 

"like what?" 

"I don't know, like go clubbing or get drunk. You haven't had any fun in ages." 

"I have too. I have enough fun, okay? Plus, there's nowhere new in town that's not sketchy."

"Ooo...I know! We can tag along with them," He says, eyeing out Vernon and Lucas, "and go to the party this Friday!"

"What? no!" She begins to walk slower as they tries to reject any of his plans.

"Don't say no. You need to get out more often, and you need to find a boyfriend soon. You're beginning to worry me. I have enough stress with myself. I don't need to add you to my list of worries."

"Please, I go outside with you guys. Isn't that enough?"

Hendery stops walking, ultimately preventing Yeri from going any further since their arms were locked in together. He pulls her arm to face him as he looks at her with his are-you-kidding-with-me-right-now face. "WHAT?" She asks. 

"Yeri, friends are nice and all, but a girl your age needs more stimulation." At this moment, Yeri's face began turning red. "Stimu-wh-what?" 

"Oh-You know exactly what I mean. You need to be more assertive WITH BOYS, and ones that don't see you in a platonic way because it just doesn't work that way." 

Is he seriously suggesting I should get laid? WTF.

"I worry about you, and if you keep hanging with us, especially with Mister boy, no guy will think you're available." Frustrated with how this conversation was going, he begins scratching the lower back of his head. After a few seconds, he looks up at me, "Look, I know you want a real love and someone you can trust to give your gift to, but at this rate, YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY DIE A !" 

"a little louder, please." I don't suppose the old man walking his dog six feet away from us heard properly. 

Hendery takes a deep breath in and exhales. 

"YOU NEED TO-"

          "What are you guys-"

"-HAVE !"

         "-doing...?" 

A voice catches them bickering off guard from behind. Yeri scans Hendery's reaction, and then reluctantly turns around ever so slowly. 

It's Vernon and Lucas. With their mouths are open in shock, unsure of what to do.

The thing is Hendery is the only one of my friends that knew I was still a . I'm 21 years old.

"...we were wondering where you guys were...when we looked back, we didn't see you," Lucas claims, staring only at me.

Vernon still staring at me, only this time, I feel like his eyes are about to pop out of his eye sockets and land on the floor. 

No one says a thing for a long ten seconds. I glance at Hendery to say something, but even he doesn't know how to react.

"I'm hungry, where's this place anyways?" Yeri walks towards Vernon and Lucas, passing them. "it's around the corner," Lucas replies, and eventually follows her. Hendery walks over to Vernon, "Hey." 

"Hey..."

"Let's go eat, okay?" Hendery pats his back and grabs Vernon by his shoulders.

"Yeah, o-okay." Vernon, still in shock facing the same direction, gets pulled by Hendery to accompany the other two.