8:36 am 

"We are here." 

Your mom stated, pulling over the car by the entrance gate of your University and you your lips, nervously feeling your heartbeat rising up as you let out a deep exhale. "I'm so nervous, mom." 

"I know, you must be but you said that you want to tell him everything." She caressed your hair. "It's still okay if you don't want to, if you still want to take some time because it's a hard concern for you to talk about and I know Baekhyun would understand." 

"Now that I have decided, I can't back out now… I don't want to make him wait any longer." You bit your lip, clenching your hand. "And someone said to me that if I don't take a leap, I might lose the person because of my hesitation and I don't want that." 

"That's true." She took your clenched hand in hers gently to which you opened it as she patted your hand. "So, be brave, and go for it." 

Your lips curved upwards as you nodded, before hugging her tightly to which she your back gently before pulling away to which you got out of the car where she left. 

Entering inside, you strode ahead towards your department building before spotting Sarang as you instantly smiled. "Sarang!" 

Flinching, she turned around with wide eyes and her eyes softened as she smiled before you immediately stopped infront of her to engulf her in a hug tightly. "Tell me, I can do it." 

She was standing still, dumbfounded by your action as her arms were lifted midway either side of your torso. "Um… I don't think you're having your day today." 

"Hurry!" You whined. "Pat my back and say, I can do it." 

She stood there, baffled as you were always conscious of doing something like this openly, before her hands reached out to pat your back. "Ji-Ah, You can do it, so can you tell me what it is?" 

You took a deep breath. "I gotta make a confession." 

"Confession, I see, wait what?!" She exclaimed, against your ear and you instantly pulled away covering with a serious look to which she did an okay sign as you let go. 

"Is it the same confession as what I am thinking of?" She tilted her head, with an expectant expression and you bit your lip with heat rushing up to your face as you smiled, nodding. "Yep." 

"Oh my god!" She yelled, cupping again as you just sighed, shaking your head. "Yes, I am going to… tell him about my feelings and about that too." 

Her face twitched in a worried face. "That? Are you sure you'll be okay?" 

"I don't know…" You pressed your lips together. "But I want to, he should know why I was pushing him away and why I was so afraid to get close to him...but I don't know why I am having this uneasiness suddenly." 

"Hey, hey." She held your shoulders. "You just said a positive thing and now you're hesitating again, Ji-Ah, don't worry, you can do it." 

You nodded, as you both started walking ahead to your departments but you still couldn't push away the anxious feeling somehow. 

Walking over to the locker, you stuffed your things inside while your mind pondered at how you should start your conversation with him and in the moment, a figure leaned beside your locker startling you as you closed the door of your locker to greet Baekhyun's smile. 

"Morning Daisy." His arms crossed over his chest with his one shoulder leaning against the locker as he stared at you and your hand palmed your chest to feel the rapid heartbeat behind it. "I told you not to-" 

"Sneak up on you but I can't help it, your reaction is too amusing to miss it." He casually reached out to caress your hair and you stared at him silently. 

"Say it." 

"What?" You looked at him confusingly and he pointed towards you with his chin. "You want to say something, don't you?"

"Yeah." You mumbled, biting your lip. "We need to talk…. No, actually I do." 

"We do?" He stood straight, sensing your serious yet nervous tone as his frown deepened. "Are you sure?" 

He had noticed what it could be about as he saw your other hand clenching tightly which you do whenever you are nervous or scared while you nodded slowly. "Yes." 

"Okay." He took a hold of your other hand to which he opened to slip his palm as he held it firmly. "Let's have a talk." 

Feeling calm by his hand in yours warmly, you smiled. "Let's talk after the lunch break? We have a class to attend now." 

"I'll see you later then." 

"What do you mean? You are attending this class." You grab his arm as he was about to turn around to make him face you before taking him alongside with you while he kept whining about it. 

The time flew by with your uneasiness, anxiousness, nervousness flooded in your mind and noticed one unusual thing about Hana, presented in the class, whose eyes kept locking with yours where she'd just smirk before looking away, adding more uneasiness in your system. 

The clock read 11:48 as the class finished a little later than usual where you were collecting your stuff while other students were walking out but not before glancing at you with some unreadable gazes, and they felt familiar, too familiar to remind you of that day. 

"I'm just being paranoid by thinking about it too much." You mumbled, assuring yourself as if that really helped you before standing up but stopped when your phone buzzed with a message notification popping up. 

Ji-Ah's Sarang♡- Ji-Ah? Are you okay? 

Your frown deepened, at her message as you attempted to open it but another message popped up by an unknown number to which you accidentally opened it which had a link as you clicked it and your world turned upside down in an instant. 

Shocking news alert! 

Heard it from my source, that Kim Ji-Ah from the business department had used her best friend for attention and money and flirted with her crush too. 

I'm so shocked to hear that and see that she's doing the same with Baekhyun and his friends too. 

"No way! She doesn't seem like that kind of girl to me!" 

"You can't judge a book by its cover I guess." 

"I saw her once with that Josh Sunbae, I guess she was just trying her chanceㅋㅋㅋ" 

"Can't believe girls like these still exist." 

"No wonder she was suddenly found hanging out with them, must be her plotting." 

"Why are you even spouting whatever you people please, just mind your own business!" 

Your lips parted, as your throat went dry reading the post on the school's blog and the comments reminding you of that day as the flashbacks crossed your mind. 

"I hate you!" 

"She's lying!" 

"Why…?" You breathed out, clenching your phone tightly as you started to tremble with your knees giving up to which you stumbled back and flopped on the chair behind you. 

Your chest tightened, and it became hard to breathe as you felt suffocated enough to make your vision blurry and you felt dizzy. 

Everything was going well, then why did it turn out like this? 

You wanted to be out of here, it was getting hard to breathe, but you were feeling too weak to even stand up on your own, you bit your trembling lip to hold it in. 

I can't cry right now. I have to go. I can't. 

"Daisy!" 

And upon hearing the familiar voice, your head tilted up to see Baekhyun at the door of the classroom, panting hard as if he just ran without stopping and looking at him just brought a relief in your heart that you wanted to cry. 

Did he see it? What would he be thinking right now? 

This thought crossed your mind, making your chest even more tightened as a pang of pain pierced through it, making it hard for you to breathe. 

"Hey, Daisy, look at me!"

Before you knew it, his warm palms were pressed against your cheeks, bringing your chin up to look at his worried, and fearful face as if he was feeling your pain. 

"I-I.. Can't-" You closed your eyes, clutching onto the sleeve of his jacket. "I can't breathe." 

"Hey, Ji-Ah, look at me and follow me." He cooed, softly and calmly but inside, he was panicking to look at you like this and your eyes opened to lock into his soft ones as you followed his instructions to which your heavy breath became steady slowly. 

"Are we okay?" He peeked through your eyes to which you just nodded slowly. "I don't want to be here." 

"Let's go." He gave a soft smile, holding out his hand and you immediately slipped your palm through his to which he instantly helped you to stand up but your steps halted, thinking about the people outside. 

As if he read your mind, his grip tightened as he pulled you closer. "I'm here, don't worry." 

And with that, you both walked out where thankfully, there were less people in the hallway since it was lunch break which made it easy to leave the school. 

Your eyes kept staring outside the window of his car, blankly, where he rolled the window down bringing a cold breeze brushing your face to make you feel better and it did, a little for now. 

Baekhyun kept stealing worried glances at you as he had noticed you clenching your hands tightly and he knew you wanted to cry but you were holding it in before his hand tightened on the steering wheel at the thought of someone trying to hurt you and he was furious. 

However, you are his priority right now. 

His hand hovered over yours where you immediately grasped it firmly and closed your eyes feeling the warmth you needed right now. 

It was comforting, this was it, it was everything. 

On the other hand, four of the friends were angry as well as concerned about you and were discussing the person who posted the groundless post. 

"Whoever it is, they are connected to the person who has known Ji-Ah since her high school." 

Sarang mused, walking down the campus, since the minute she saw the post she was worried to death about you and since Baekhyun was on the way to meet you, she had called him to which he reached out to you quickly. 

"Who the hell is that person?! I really want to beat their asses!" Seulgi shouted, taking the attention of the passing students but she could care less about it. 

"The post was by an anonymous person without having any followers, so I guess it was made-up just to make this post." Kyungsoo stated, checking through the screen and Chanyeol nodded, his brows knitted. "I have a friend who's a CS student, maybe I can ask him to hack this account?" 

"Really? Can he do that right now? We gotta find this person and delete this post too." Sarang said and the three of them nodded as Chanyeol was about to text his friend but stopped by a voice behind. 

"I know who did it." 

Everyone's head turned behind to see Shin Jieun, giving them a timid look and Seulgi immediately rushed to her. "Are you sure? Who is it?" 

"Kang Hana." The name left her lips. "I heard her talking in the washroom with her friends." 

"Kang Hana, that lunatic." Sarang muttered, gritting her teeth as she had never got any good aura from her since the start and as her face flashed in her mind, her blood boiled. 

"Thanks, Jieun." Seulgi nodded toward her as the latter just nodded back, before the four of them walked in the business department building. 

Hana was strolling down the hallway with a smile on her lips before a yelp left her lips by a sudden pull on her arms, where looking both of her side to see Seulgi and Sarang glaring down at her. 

She gulped. "W-what? W-what are you doing?! Let go of me!" 

"You need to have a talk with us." Seulgi remarked, before dragging her into the nearby classroom as three of the girls got inside where Chanyeol and Kyungsoo stood outside, letting both girls do their work in their own way. 

"Delete the post." Sarang crossed her arms, glaring down at Hana and she gulped, looking away. "What p-post?" 

"Are you kidding me? I know you are the one who posted that groundless thing so delete it right now!" Seulgi slammed her hand on the wall beside her, making her flinch and Hana knew that she was caught so she just gave up pretending as she smirked. "Fine, it's me and shouldn't you be thankful that I exposed her true colors to you?" 

"Don't even get me started with that, Hana." Seulgi chuckled, sarcastically as her eyes went serious. "If you don't delete that post right now, you know that I know lots of secrets about you as well, want me to make a post about them as well?" 

Hana's eyes twitched in surprise then she panicked. "T-there's nothing about me! And that Ji-Ah, she's been using you and you still believe her!" 

"Shut it." Sarang deadpanned, glaring at her. "Delete the post right now, infront of us now or see the consequences." 

Their glaring eyes just scared Hana even more as she gulped, immediately nodding before deleting the post infront of them before getting out of the classroom with the girls behind her. 

Both of the boys looked at them questionly and Seulgi nodded. "We made her delete the post but lots of students must have seen it already." 

"I hope Ji-Ah is okay." Sarang mumbled, and Seulgi patted her back. "She'll be fine, Baekhyun is with her, he'll make sure of it." 

          _______________________

Flashback>

With a nervous pounding heart, you bit your lip as you stood infront of the door of your classroom and it was understandable being in a nervous state since it was your first day of your high school. 

As soon as you heard your name being called out from inside, your heartbeat accelerated even more before you took a deep breath and slid the door to stepp inside.

You gulped, feeling several gazes on you as you walked up to your homeroom teacher who gave you an assuring smile, gesturing you to introduce yourself and with a soft voice, you introduced yourself earning some smiles in return. 

Your homeroom teacher, Miss Kang, asked you to take a seat pointing towards the window where a girl, with sharp yet beautiful features and her brown hair tied up was sitting on the chair where she raised her hand for you, as you slowly approached her.

"Hey, I'm Mirae, Hong Mirae." She held out her hand for a shake with a bright smile where your palm met hers as you slightly shook it, reciprocating the smile back. "I'm Kim Ji-Ah." 

"Nice to meet you, Ji-Ah, and she's." She trailed off, averting her eyes to the front as infront of her was seated another girl with her hair down as she turned around with a smile. "Hey, I'm Song Yerin." 

You smiled back at her nodding and Mirae looked back at you. "Let's get along well, Ji-Ah." 

And that's how your friendship bloomed with them but you were unaware of how tragically it would end. 

You got along so well with them and your other classmates and that's when you also got to know that Mirae was dean's daughter and Yerin was also from a rich family. 

However, they also got to know about you being adopted but they didn't let it come between and that's what made you happy because in middle school you were an outcast after revealing it there. 

Somehow, half of the school came to know about you being adopted and some of them made remarks about you being friends with Mirae and Yerin for attention and popularity as they were already. It did hurt but you didn't take it to your heart because you being the naive one, made your friends your priority. 

You were into music like your dad as your dad, with being an interior designer, he was also passionate about music and seeing him enjoying it, you developed his passion too. 

As you joined the music club of the school, you met a guy, Cha Doyun, who was popular for his looks, grades and he was same grade as yours but from another class while his personality was down to earth and that's what made you admire him where Mirae also joined the club because she liked him. 

Days, weeks, months and years passed by faster and you were already in your last year with your graduation approaching in a few days where you also were going to receive the scholarship by your hard work and grades. You were happy by receiving all the happiness from your family and friends but unknown to you, that was going to change soon. 

Opening your locker, you shoved your things inside before something caught your eyes as you reached out to take the note and opened it with a confused face. 

Meet me at the rooftop during lunch time. D

"Who could be?" You pursed your lips, thinking about anyone but no one crossed your mind where you wanted Mirae to go with you but she had taken half a day off as she had to pick her mom from the airport with her dad. 

As planned, Mirae left school early, where you were contemplating whether to go to the rooftop or not but then you were called by your physics teacher, Lee Sangho. 

However, hearing upon his name made you shiver and your stomach do a churn in an anxious way because you have noticed how he would stare at you during class and you hated it where you couldn't even tell Mirae about it because he was her uncle and you weren't sure if she'd believe you or not. 

You wished you could've refused to meet him but you couldn't because he was your teacher and with a shivering heart, you went to his office where he gave you a smile which made you scared while talking to you about your scholarship and then he reached out, placing his hand on your shoulder making you flinch as you instantly backed away before excusing yourself out. 

The lunch break was yet to end where you were on the way to the rooftop walking cautiously while recalling the scene that happened in the office making your eyes tear up and totally forgot about the meet up. 

Opening the door, you walked further to see a guy standing by the railing with his back facing you which seemed too familiar and sensing you there he turned around where a shocking gasp left your lips seeing Cha Doyun. 

"Doyun...?" You frowned, gulping as a sudden anxious feeling rushed inside your body before he took a step toward you before handing out a red flower and you stared at him surprised. "What... are you doing?" 

He chuckled, rubbing his nap nervously as he immediately handed you the flower. "It's... It's for you, Ji-Ah. I know you are kind of surprised right now but I didn't have any option but to call you here like this since I wanted to confess something." 

You parted your lips to stop him as you got a hunch of where this was going but before you could, he already let his words out leaving you frozen. 

"I.. I like you, Ji-Ah, will you go out with me?" 

Your lips went dry as you stood there stunned before snapping out as you your lips taking a step back while looking down. "I... I appreciate your feelings but I'm sorry, I don't see you that way." 

You immediately placed the flower in his hand before turning around to run away as you couldn't stand being there since you felt like you were doing wrong with Mirae. 

Your whole day went with your down mood as Mirae wasn't there so you could tell her about this and the scene earlier because it didn't felt right to hide it from her and when you reached home, you called her but she wasn't picking up nor answering your texts, your mom wasn't home because she was busy with her boutique work these days since your dad passed away and you just slept off with these thoughts. 

Next morning, you hurriedly walked to your school where, entering the hallway you stopped for a moment by feeling the stares but didn't think of much as you have been getting it since you have been here and as much as you hated it, you couldn't do anything about it. However, their gazes were more like accusing, making you confused and uncomfortable.

"I can't believe she would go to that extent to do that." 

"Can't judge a person by their innocent face, you know." 

Your chest tightened, upon hearing those whispers before you took slow steps to your class as by sliding the door, you walked in taking everyone's attention and their stares turned slowly into glares. 

You bit your lip tightening the grip on your bag strap while your heart began to pound loudly against your chest with anxiety. Approaching your seat, you stood by the desk and looked at Mirae, sitting with her crossed arms while staring outside the window.

"Mirae?"

You called her out, confused as she's always the one greeting you from the door but she was being strange like the whole school. As she turned to you, her bloodshot eyes met your shook ones, piercing through your soul as she clenched her jaw.

"Wha-what happened to you?" You asked worryingly and she scoffed looking away before looking back at you as she stood up with tears rolling down her cheeks. "The audacity of you asking after doing everything."

Your breath hitched, taken aback by her cold tone before blinking. "What are you talking about?"

"See, I told you she'd be like this." Yerin slammed her hands on the desk, making you flinch as she stood up to face you. Students gathered over from the other classes hearing the sound, watching the scene happening through the door and windows.

Yerin fished out her phone before pushing it on your face and your eyes widened seeing the video of you giving the flower, Doyun. "You proposed to him? After knowing how much Mirae loves Doyun?" 

"What are you saying? It's nothing like that!" You spoke out, eyes averting to Mirae. "Mirae, it's not what it looks like! This is not even a complete video! Don't believe this!"

"Really?" Yerin spoke, raising her brows. "Then isn't it true that you both met at the rooftop during lunch break?"

You instantly looked at Mirae as she stared at you with glossy eyes. "Is it true?"

You your lips taking a deep breath."It's true that I met him but I didn't even know that until I saw him there and he was the one who confessed to me, and I didn't even accept!" 

"Then why didn't you tell me?" 

"I was going to and I even called you last night but you didn't pick up, so I was going to tell you today!" 

"I didn't get any calls from you yesterday." Mirae pushed her phone towards you and your eyes widened, seeing no trace of your calls and texts where Yerin interrupted again before she stared at you in disbelief. "I can't believe you Ji-Ah, I thought you were a nice girl and our friend but how could you? And you even used Mirae for popularity? Really? How could you stoop so low?" 

"Mirae, none of this is true! Believe me, I really wanted to be your friend and I never used you nor betrayed you, trust me!" You exclaimed with your voice cracking at the last as your holding in tears were rolling down your cheeks. 

"Bestfriend? Who uses her bestfriend for attention and lures her love." Yerin remarked and you bit your trembling lip as your hand fisted with the urge to punch her face right there. "Will you keep quiet? This is between me and her."

"No, Mirae is my friend too and as her friend, I am going to show her how two-faced you are! I can't believe you used your sweet innocent face to plot this against her!" Yerin raised her voice even more purposely gathering everyone and you felt suffocating with the accusing glares from everyone.

You stood still, because you knew you were innocent. "Alright, then call Doyun and ask him."

"Ask me what?"

Everyone's attention went towards the door to see Doyun himself standing there as he got there seeing the crowd. You felt relieved to see him as only he could tell the truth and prove you innocent. However, before you could, Yerin walked over to him by fastening her p