"! Mirae, I literally forgot to do the History essay!" Eyes wide in shock, Yumi was screaming on our way to the breakfast table.

I rolled my eyes at her. This is becoming a routine now. Her forgetting her homework and then me helping her with it at the last moment. I sighed facing her.

"Our class is at 2:00. You can still go to the library and gather some stuff, you know." I smiled reminding her of the fact that she was already aware of.

"Why do I need to go to the library when my own best friend is a walking dictionary!!" She cheekily grinned at me. Of course, I knew it was coming. 

"Please, Mirae, please! I begging you!" She clasped her hands together, closed her eyes, and pouted.

"Oh come on, you should have thought of that when you were hanging out with your boyfriend."

"But I forget everything when I'm with him!" She whined. I gave her a weird questioning look. "Don't worry, you'll understand when you get one yourself." She assured me.

"Yeah right." I rolled my eyes, ruffling my bag to get my essay, and handed it to her.

"Don't make it too obvious that you've copied me."

"Sure, thanks, I love you!" She kissed me on the cheek and hugged me. Oh god. this girl is such a drama. But my favorite drama.

We entered the hall and made our way towards the breakfast table. Yumi picked up the newspaper and read the headline loudly which made me frown:

'Kim Young Min arrested for harassment with an office secretary." Continue reading at pg.13

"Wow! This guy is insane!" Yumi exclaimed. The trio who were sitting just beside us stopped talking and became silent. Yumi's cry gathered the attention of our classmates around us.

"Literally, such people should immediately be placed behind the bars!" Eunmi, our roommate declared.

"First that accident when he was drunk, then drug dealing and now harassment!??" Her twin cried out.

"It's a relief he's finally arrested," Andrew said.

This guy wasn't someone ordinary person committing crimes. He was a wealthy man and I had seen his face in the newspapers previously too, inaugurating some library or investing in Art galleries and noble stuff like that. But, he was misusing his money.

I stole a glance at the trio who was strangely quiet. Usually, they always had an opinion on such matters. But Chanyeol and Baekhyun were suspiciously looking at each other as if having a silent conversation and Junmyun...he was clenching his fist, staring at his untouched plate with a grim expression. I lightly touched his shoulder and flinched as if he just woke up.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"Nothing. I think I forgot something in the common room. I'll go get it." With that, he rushed from the table still avoiding my eyes. I turned to his friends for an explanation and they just shrugged. What's wrong with them?

-

Our first lesson after recess was Practical Chemistry. I've always loved the smell of this lab, though it's just a load of chemicals it feels so... high-end to be inhaling the scents of acids and bases. Everyone was gathered in the spacious laboratory. Everyone except Junmyun.

"Since this experiment is a particularly difficult one, so I suggest that you form pairs."

I rolled my eyes and instantly moved towards Yumi but Madame Jung spoke up: "Miss Jung Yumi and Mr. Warren." Yumi grinned at her boyfriend in delight. "Miss Mirae' and 'Mr. Chanyeol" Wow, Is she out of her mind? This is some cruel joke, right? This is literally calling for disaster. She kept on calling names and students started to stand in pairs, choosing their practical stations.

"Have fun." Yumi winked at me, skipping off to her boyfriend. Why does she get to work with her boyfriend and I'm stuck with my least favorite person in the room? And judging Chanyeol's face, he didn't look very pleased too.

"Hey there," He said curtly. I nodded and started preparing the ingredients when I suddenly thought of something.

"Where is Junmyun? I haven't seen him anywhere since breakfast." 

"Oh, he had to go home due to some emergency." He replied with a bored expression.

"What emergency?"

"His mother got sick."

"Oh..." I hope she gets better, I thought.

"So you wanna prepare the ingredients and I'll begin the experiment?" Chanyeol asked me.

Wow, he's really trying to cooperate with me?  I nodded in return.

He just shrugged and after a few moments of silence he continued again, "Look, I know you prefer to work alone-"

"How do you know that?"

"You roll your eyes every time our teachers want us to form pairs." He answered simply.

"Do you have a habit of watching me in your every class?" I quickly grimaced after I said that. What an idiot, Mirae.

"We've shared the same classes for 3 years. I think everyone must have noticed it."

I opened my mouth to say something when something caught my attention: 'I know you prefer to work alone'......Alone! At the end of last year, I told him to leave me alone. Is that why he has been acting so strangely?

"Are you trying to leave me alone?" , this sounds so foolish. Only after blurting it, I realized what kind of clingy creep I must have sounded like. I seriously want to gulp down this whole bottle of sulphuric acid right now.

"I- uh, what?" He asked, confused.

I stammered. "Nothing I mean...I think I just figured out why you are acting so...so not like you, and-"

"You're not making any sense." He chuckled.

"I mean you're dating Yoori now and... What I mean is that all the time you used to flirt and ask me out and finally you've stopped and ..."

He just arrogantly rolled his eyes at me and said, "Don't flatter yourself, miss. Not everything I do revolves around you."

"So what if I had said yes? Are you telling me that you wouldn't have actually dated me? That it was all for your amusement." I asked him.

 I knew this conversation was going nowhere and this was nonsense and desperate of me to ask. But I needed to clear a few things.

"You were just easy to annoy, that's all." He replied with a shrug.

"Oh, that's great. So all this time, you had been using me for entertainment." I stated, glaring at him.

"Because I knew you'd never say yes." He replied quietly. 

That hit me and I realized that I had nothing to say back. We worked in silence for the rest of the class.

-----------

"No way! That's just bull. Anyone would be blind not to notice that he actually liked you!" Yumi exclaimed when I told her about my interaction with Chanyeol.

"I don't know...that's what he said" I responded with a frown. "Just let it go, he's right though. I wouldn't have ever said yes." 

Our teachers were starting to burden us more and more with piles of homework and quizzes. It was especially difficult for me because I had to do rounds with Junmyun at night too. He had returned the next day and was really quiet these days so it got more boring.

As we entered the Hall for dinner, we were surprised to see a large orange banner hung 5 feet from the ground hung tightly to the wall. The banner said:

"Here's a little color to brighten up your day!"

"So nice of them," Yumi commented while I frowned at the latest prank pulled off by the trio. The orange cloth was bright and sparkly and did add color to the boring beige room. It seemed quite innocent until Madame Yewon came to have a few, kind words with me. 

"Miss Mirae, You have, no doubt noticed the...message on the walls, and although it is not harmful we cannot let it stay there. It's also blocking the wall clock. Therefore I have to request the Head girl and Head Boy along with all the prefects to clear up the mess."

My jaw dropped. We have to do that? "Yes ma'am. But shouldn't this be the responsibility of the people who actually did it?" I asked, tilting my head towards the three boys.

"Yes, I understand. But we have no proof that they are behind it. I can't punish them without a witness." That was true. Those three never left a single clue that could give them away.

"Yes, Ma'am," I said politely, but I was fuming inside.

After dinner ended all the prefects joined cursing the tricksters behind it while Junmyun just looked around sheepishly because he was also a part of the prank.

"You already knew that you were gonna clear all this up later, right?" I asked him. He nodded. "And you still agreed to it."

He sighed. "I was overruled. Who listens to me, anyway?" He said lightly with a smile.

My heart instantly softened for him and I said, "Well, you shouldn't-"

"Sorry about this." Chanyeol's voice interrupted mine. I was shocked to death. Am I hearing it right? Is he really apologizing to me for a prank? I turned around and saw him clapping Junmyun's shoulder. Oh. He wasn't talking to me. He was talking to his friend.

"Being friends with the biggest pranksters of history can be burdensome, sometimes." The taller guy said with mock sympathy.

Junmyun grinned, throwing his backpack at Chanyeol but he dodged it leaving the hall, laughing at us. 

"You know, sometimes I really hate him," I muttered, while looking at the mess there was to clean up. It's unfair how he gets away with it every time.

"Is there any time when you don't?" Junmyun asked me, surprised.

I looked at him and thought for a while. "Yes, I think so," I said slowly.

-----------------

As unbelievable as it may be, but I had recently discovered someone who annoyed me more than the trio: Yoori, Chanyeol's girlfriend. This girl was seriously so smitten by him.  She would be standing outside our class every time it finished. I wonder how she survived without him during classes because we didn't have any common ones. In my opinion, wearing short skirts and caking up your face wasn't beautiful and couldn't attract someone who's sincere and doesn't want to get into your pants, at least. But I guess my ideas are really out-dated these days, people would laugh if I got out giving such lectures. Even more unbearable was watching those two in the common room. They would be extremely loud which made work really difficult for me.

Just like this evening. I noticed that I wasn't the only person who was irritated by her. There was Byun Baekhyun. Poor boy, he couldn't bear sharing his best friend with anyone else. For the first time in my life, I felt sorry for him. He absolutely loathed her. I looked at him, glaring at Chanyeol as his best friend was talking animatedly with Yoori while she listened with an adorable smile.

I was thinking about them sitting in the library with a pile of books opened in front of me when I was suddenly reminded of my own estranged ex-friend who was probably hanging out with those dangerous friends of his. Sometimes my heart just wants me to forget everything and resume our friendship but that's not how it works. I have some self-respect too. I need a clear reason as to why he spread all the stupid rumors about me. As I took a look back at all the drama that took place that day, I realized that maybe, I was too harsh on Chanyeol. Though I was pretty emotionally unstable that day, having lost my best friend, maybe I shouldn't have put all the blame on him just because I was hurt. He was, after all, defending me in front of Sehun. And he was right about respecting me, no matter how his little tricks and pranks pissed me off. I felt a little guilty but decided to wait and let the feeling wash away.

Apparently, it didn't.

I tried completing my homework for an hour but the uneasy guilt kept bugging me and I figured out that I had to do something. I found my fingers fidgeting on my own. I got up from my chair, left my books and backpack, and ran out of the library to talk to Chanyeol and luckily found him alone standing just outside the common room two floors below.

"Hey, Chanyeol?" His head whipped in my direction and looked at me questioningly. Since I had come running all the way from the library, I was breathing heavily. How the hell do I start? Do I sorry or something? That would be too pitiable.

"I- uh. I wanted to-uh.. talk.... about-" I was leaning, hands on my knees. Maybe I shouldn't have raced here from the top floor.

"Just be quick, for heaven's sake." He said curtly. My head snapped at him to find a very annoyed and distant version of him staring me down.

"I just wanted to apo-" Suddenly the door of the common room opened and Yoori walked out, all dressed up. I glanced at Chanyeol and noted that he was wearing black slacks and a light blue shirt topping it off with leather footwear. His hair was swept up stylishly. They were probably going on a date. She looked at me suspiciously and turned to Chanyeol with a charming smile.

"Let's go, Oppa."

I opened my mouth to repeat myself and let him know of my existence, that I was standing in front of him and trying to say something.

"As I was saying, I just-"

"I'm busy. Later." 

And with that, he took his girlfriend's hand, gave her one of his dazzling smiles, and walked away. And I was left there, alone, eyes wide in disbelief. Seriously? Am I going to be that neglected now? He could easily have asked her to give us a few minutes. Just last year, he would have been dying to hear what I had to say, he even would have canceled all football practices just to listen to me.  Here I was, trying to be the nice guy and accepting my mistakes but...never mind. I can live with the guilt, I decided sullenly.

"It is pretty shocking, isn't it?"

I turned behind to find Baekhyun leaning on the wall, hands in pocket. I'm guessing probably saw it all. 

"What is?"

"You, very well know, what I am talking about. It's Chanyeol." He rolled his eyes at my supposed innocence. 

"Junmyun, he and I were supposed to hang out tonight and have a guys night. It was planned weeks before. But his dear, little girlfriend had to jump in and cancel all our plans, just because she had sudden desperation to be with him. Like she doesn't already spend every single ing minute of her life with him. An evil little devil, that girl is." He clearly seemed to be in a very bad mood although I don't understand why he is sharing all that with me. I looked at him battling in my own mind if I should console him or just tell him to return to the common room as I should because curfew time is nearing. But thankfully, he saved me from doing both.

"You don't have to say anything. I know it's weird sharing all that with you. But Junmyun is tangled in his own problems and anybody else I know or Yumi wouldn't understand because she is in a relationship herself. You're the only single person I could find and also someone whom I don't think is going to be in one soon".

"Wow, so sweet of you to remind me that I am going to end up alone. Thanks." I shot with sarcasm dripping from my tone.

"Lol, don't worry. I'll make sure that doesn't happen." He promised with an instant change of mood. "There still are few people on Earth that I know, who aren't fed up with you." He winked and I rolled my eyes at his stupidity and walked away to do rounds, thinking on my way about what he told me. I guess it's just not me who has noticed a change in Chanyeol's behavior. I have to admit that it did surprise me a little when he said that he asked me out all those times just to have fun. I never considered him but, at least, I had thought he was honest. 

Did he really take the 'Leave me alone' so seriously?

----------------------------

Thanks for Reading! I know I've updated late and it's because there were some issues with my laptop but it's good as new now and I hope to update faster! Don't forget to vote and comment... that's the only source of my motivation   :)