AUTHOR'S P.O.V.



The unsettling sound of rustled sheets could be heard as she tossed her body from left to right or vice versa.



Beads of sweat were slowly forming on her furrowed head to the rest of her restless body.



"Mhmmmm . . . ."



She mumbled in grimace.



Her eyes were shut as tight as her clenched fists.



Something was flashing in her head over and over again.



















Then her eyes opened in an instant.



Her shirt was damp wet amidst the cold winter season.



She slowly sat herself upright.



"Arghhh! I want to go home! Being here is useless," Amber said as she lay back down on the bed with her forearm covering her eyes and shutting off the shining moonlight from her window.



*FLASHBACK



"Has her body mellowed down doctor?"



"Yes Mr. Liu. It seems the strongest sedative has worked."



The physician wiped his forehead as if he just went through a 24 hour surgery while answering the worried father.



"The change is painful but we do not know how to undo it. Our family is blessed with almost everything but at a price to pay with which our ancestors made a deal with."



"Even with the most advance research institute Mr. Liu, I doubt if there is any way to reverse this."



Mr. Liu gently smiled at the family doctor they had trusted their crucial secrets with.



The doctor and the Liu’s family went back as far as the beginning of this unimaginable ‘change’ occurred.



"It's alright doctor. Tracing it back to our forefathers, our family had this curse. A curse if others were to view it but for me I think it has become a unique trait in our genes, even a blessing perhaps.”



After a deep breath, Mr. Liu looked out the windows as the moon was in full shape with its glistening light for this late evening.



”Every generation in our family has been experiencing this ever since. Each of our children will go through an insurmountable change on their 13th birthday. My body could still remember the pain vividly as the blood feels like its boiling within me and my brain were sent with numerous rapid electrical charges as if you were electrocuted. Just imagine a week of the same pain."



“Honestly, I could never imagine that Mr. Liu.”



He chuckled at the doctor’s candid remark.



”But after a week’s agony, you will find that it would only result to us getting a phobia. For the males, they would be phobic towards females and then females would be phobic to the males. This all started because of our ancestor in China. He was heart broken and in self turmoil. His parents wanted to marry him off to an affluent family even if he was in love with another. They found out who his lover was.  She was just a so-so ordinary low class girl to them therefore his family killed her mercilessly. In order to overcome such gruesome truth and make himself get rid of the guilt he felt for being the cause to his lover's death he approached a deity. He asked to be cursed in atonement and make himself alone forever. The deity felt the profound love he still has for his lover, the immense loneliness, pain and was simply amazed. The deity refused at first but gave in eventually as he waited stubbornly each day even when the seasons changed. But it was a tricky curse. Instead of the expected bad curse to happen all he got was phobia.  A phobia as a curse is not bad. In exchange for a week of suffering when one turns 13, we will have that phobia from then on. The only cure to it would be finding that one person meant for us.  True love.  I even wondered whether Disney got this fairy tale from our family.”




The next day. . .



*CRASHHH!!!!



Amber, finally awake, was hiding behind her mother when the new maid in their house had just placed food in front of her.

 

Let the phobic curse commence!


*END OF FLASHBACK



He pinched his nose and massaged his temples.



”Mr. Liu, are you alright?”



Looking up, he saw the smiling face of his wife.



”Well, seeing you always makes me feel alright Mrs. Liu. How is Amber?”



The worried tone can never be unnoticeable with her so she reassuringly said, “She’s doing fine. This is one of the ways that could help our one and only daughter.”



It took him a few seconds to reply to that.



”I really thought that she would be, you know, phobic to, you know and not to – “



”I know, I know,” she flashed him a comforting smile.



”Maybe it’s my fault. It’s my genes.”



Shaking her head she rebutted, ”No, it’s not. Some things in life are planned even before we knew it, okay? Also, her cousins are undeniably attracting a lot of attention from the same so don’t be too guilty.”



”Yeah, I should blame your genes then,” Mr. Liu said to his wife with a smirk that earned him a slap.



Mr. Liu was suddenly solid stiff as he saw his wife expressionless and obviously mad.














Later on, both broke into laughter.



”Can I marry you again, Mrs. Liu?” He said while containing his laugh.



As they were both in a warm embrace, she said, ”Feeling better now?”



”With you around? How could I not be?” Mr. Liu answered.



”Good, so bear with Amber’s struggles. She must stay at the school and hopefully find herself someone to be with just like you and me.”



”Yes dear. *SIGH* At least, she was not that “delinquent type” as she used to be.”



”Come on now my dear husband, you know that she went into fights for a ‘reason’.”



”Yes, I know.”



RANDOM WEEKEND



Krystal was still in distraught about the new found informations on Amber.



Seeking help and guidance she turned to her unnies who then dragged her into a shopping spree.



On the other hand, the soshi squad was out buying the groceries bringing Amber along to cheer her up somehow.



They planned to go on a little road trip after doing that, anywhere as long as it could make their maknae cousin feeling better.



After their tour, they were exhausted and decided to go to a mall nearby to replenish their energy with food.



“Isn’t that girl familiar to you guys?”



Yuri was asking them as she thought hard to remember a vital information.



They spotted this girl striving her best to hide herself in the crowd but her baby fats gained since birth were not helping as she stood behind a one foot width column of the mall.



They looked at each other and tried to recall.







"Amber! Is that you?!? Is it really our Amber??"



Some random girl shouted out of nowhere.




"She has grown more handsome now! KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!"



Amber and her cousins had their eyes shot wide open as they see the all too familiar faces.



Other girls gathered in an instant and had squealed together with her.




The soshi squad were washed with terrified faces of what they think is about to come.




Like predators lusting for flesh, they are slowly walking towards the soshi squad specifically Amber.




"Stand back! I have a baguette and I am not afraid to use it!" Sooyoung shouted, swaying the long stiff bread she held in front of them like a sword.



But the enemies she has now does not care.



"Do not force me!" She shouted fiercely this time until it mellowed and is now like a crying tone, "Really, please do not force me to waste food."




“Bread? Hah! I can certainly LIVE with that,” one girl mockingly told Sooyoung while her lips in the most horrid way possible.




“Well, I can beat your bodies into a pulp or until you can no longer bear to speak our names ever again,” Taeyeon had threatened them.



”Oh please Taeyeon-sshi! Please do beat me up!”




Taeyeon’s reaction: ._.




”I have a whip at home if you want to!”



Taeyeon’s reaction: o.o



”No way! I want Taeyeon to punish me first!”



Taeyeon’s reaction: O_O!!!



Horrified by the unexpected replies, Taeyeon backed away and hid behind Yuri.



”That’s it! They are not girls! They are piranha-mutated-life-forms-with-limbs-attached-to-their-human-eating-body-with-IQ’s-lower-than-amoeba’s! Now I am getting delusional! I am even hearing Rebecca Black’s song and it’s not even Friday!!!”



Yuri had to slapped some senses into Taeyeon as she said, “Do not go there yet my brother! We have yet more to live! Think Pink! Breathe Pink! Be Pink!”



“Unnies you are all panicking,” Yoona calmly remarked as she backed step by step along with the other four per one forward move the crazed girls make towards them.



“We need to fall back. We need an escape route. But what?” Yuri was talking to herself loudly.



”Unnies, are those Jessica unnie and the others?” Amber asked sighting the five goddesses of their school.



”A silver lining! We should all go to church tomorrow and pray for thanks,” Sooyoung exclaimed.



Ignoring her cousin, Yuri called out her girlfriend, “Sica! SICA! HELP!”



Even with that, Jessica was not able to hear a single word.



”Fany! Fany-ah! Look here!” Taeyeon had tried to shout out too.



”You guys simply do not know how to do it,” Yoona shook her head in disbelief.



They were about to be trapped into a corner in a matter of few seconds until, “JESSICA SOME GIRL GAVE HER NUMBER TO YURI! TIFFANY, A GIRL FLIRTATIOUSLY SHOWED HER IN FRONT OF TAEYEON!”




Then the crowd could all sense an upcoming blizzard.



Not your typical white colored blizzard.



It’s in hot pink.




The crazed girls stopped as they could not ignore the presence of a strong formidable duo.




They turned around like some old grannies with arthritis having a hard time to twist their body.




”Who.dare.gave.their.number.to.MY.seobang?!!!!!?”




Jessica seemed to have her aura form into an ice dragon behind her as she asked.




While shaking their heads rapidly from right to left as if they were about to cut off from their necks and not stopping, Amber and her unnies stealthily escaped from them to go behind the goddesses.




”And who, in that name of all that is holy pink, dared to flirt with MY Tae-Tae?”



Tiffany flashed her signature eye smile with the evil vibes of a hidden killer assassin.



The crazed girls had doubled the speed of shaking their heads.



”Sica baby, I think it was that girl who gave me the number. I told her I already have you but she insisted on letting me call her,” Yuri poutingly whined to Jessica as she pointed at a random girl.



Jesscia quickly flashed that poor girl a death glare that made her comrades quickly distance themselves from her.



”I-I d-did n-not!!!! HONEST! I swear on my sacred broken heeled Jimmy Choo stilettos I did not dare to give her my number. I don’t even have a phone!” (I credit my sister for this line..kekeke. XD)



”Liar! Fany-ah, these girls were saying the new pink is black and that pink is a disgusting color which should have never existed.”



The goddesses all had their hands over their opened mouths and gasped.



“That’s it! I am calling the local police, NYPD, FBI, CIA, Interpol, CSI, Hawaiian Five-O, and even the PDA! You just went way below my Pink Gucci belt!”



She shouted in English with flared up nostrils.



“Pssst! Sunny Bunny, why include the PDA?”



Sooyoung asked low so as not to be heard by Tiffany.



”Heck! How would I know? Do I look like some pink patroller to you?”



She immediately shook her head and answered, ”Definitely not Sunny Bunny but they did tell us awhile ago that going out with you would be funny and a comic scene. They asked if I carried a stool around for whenever we go to dates!”



Sunny hung wide open.



”Hyunnie, they said Keroro will die in next week’s episode.”



Yoona whispered to the used-to-be-unfazed Seohyun.



”What the??? Sergeant Keroro will live longer than these girls who are trying to play hard to get when they are already hard to be wanted!”




What happened next was a catastrophic feat.



In tomorrow’s news, hundreds of girls were traumatized forever muttering words “pink is holy”, ”I don’t know Kwon Yuri”, “sergeant Keroro is the best”, “height does not matter”, etc.



But what really happened is that an army of private security guards ushered them outside the mall and away from the ten girls. Since the mall owner happened to be Tiffany's parents.



KRYSTAL'S P.O.V.



Confused?



Yes.



I don't know what to believe in anymore.



I could not even think right.



Mad?



A little.



Why?



Many reasons.



“You should go and talk to Amber.”



Is that my conscience speaking to me?



"Yes, it is I your conscience speaking Krystal Jung."















Oh hell nah!



I turned around to see who distracted me from my deep thoughts only for my mouth to utter two words,”Jessica unnie.”



“Neh, who else would have known you are troubled and what or who caused it.”



”Really?”



I was moved by how much my unnie -



”Actually, I just saw and read that folder containing details about Amber,” unnie said then stuck her tongue out.



“Arghhh! I should have known.”



This is frustrating!



I plopped myself on my bed, screamed as I buried myself on a pillow then punched and kicked like a brat.



”Oh come on, tell me. What’s wrong? Why are you so troubled?”



Jessica unnie asked worriedly as I felt the weight of her body on the far end of my bed.



“Unnie, aren’t you mad that they have betrayed us? That they are making a fool out of us? They are lying to us! They are posers in order to use us in the end!”



”What?!? I don’t understand a single thing you are ranting about Soojung.”



“You said you have read that file, yes?”



“I did,” she replied like nothing was wrong in it for her.



“So how come you are not mad at all unnie? They are just like those people who are kind on the surface!”



She sighed and asked, ”Why are you so hung up on the past my dear little sister?”



That question caught me off guard.



Why am I really in this state?



”I – I do-don’t know. Have you asked Yuri unnie? What did she say?”



“I did not. There will be a time when you will know whom to trust and not. I trust Yuri. She might be a dork and clumsy oaf but I do know enough that she will not hurt me as much as I had hurt her.”



”But what if it’s true? That they are out to use us?”



”If Yuri turns out to be poor, *whispers* which I pray to God will not happen, I will make sure that I am rich enough for the both of us. As simple as that,” she told me as she smiled at her answer.



“Won’t you get hurt unnie? There were people who befriended us because of the wealth and influence our family has.”



“What the heck Jung Soojung??? This is not the Oprah Winfrey show and nor am I like Dr. Phil. We make choices in our life. That’s why we have a brain. To help us choose although we can be dumb with it. We are only human so we make mistakes, okay?”



Though she yells at me like this, she still has a point or two on things.



“Thanks unnie.”



She stood up and patted my head as if I did a good job.



She stopped at the door then suggested, “Besides, don’t you think Amber deserves the chance to explain herself before you go accusing her and being mad at her?”



That hit me like an arrow to my heart.



I was at loss for words.



Literally.



"Tsk tsk tsk. . . You are too concerned with what was and what will be. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, that's why it's called the present. Remember that, okay?”



Wow, I never knew my sister could be so, wait a minute!



”YAH! That’s a quote from an animated movie!”



”I know right? It’s really useful. Kungfu panda. Hehe. I should ask my seobang that we will watch more movies.”



With that, Jessica unnie left with a smirk and evil plan revolving around her head.



AUTHOR’S P.O.V.



On the dorm's balcony, the night’s breeze was soft and tender.



If one were to go out, a jacket is definitely not enough but Krystal seemed to be too zoned out to care.



The discussion she just had with her sister was appalling and helped her clear her mind off unnecessary thoughts.



A recognizable scent went around the air.



Then comfort wrapped around her neck as her breath became visible in front of her.



This red scarf was not hers so she turned to her side.



A mug filled with hot chocolate was gently pushed towards her.



Seeing Amber taking advantage of her own cup's warmth, while looking beyond the balcony was a soothing sight to have.



“I’m *mumbled words*”



She was scratching the back of her head as Krystal stared at her with both eyebrows raised.



“I’ll. . . I’ll just go inside,” Amber awkwardly told her.



Before she could turn, Krystal said, “Wait, tell me again what you said Li Yu and do not use the gibberish language this time.”



Amber heaved out a deep sigh.



“I said I am sorry for making you angry and for all that I did. For hurting you, I really am sorry.”



”And that’s it?”



”What do you mean that’s it?”



“Nothing.”








Silence came in between them but suddenly Krystal decided to break the ice by saying, “You are my first kiss you know.”



”I was?!”



Amber asked in shock not knowing to believe it or not.



Krystal nodded with a coy smile.



”But we French kissed. Y-you -”



”Correction I asked but you did the act and French-ed kiss me. Obviously, ‘I was not in my right senses’ to have asked a womanizer such a question,” Krystal mocked with the sentence Amber had told her the other day.



“Wha?? Me?? Mwoh?? Seriously?? Okay, I'll admit something. Back when I was young, some girls asked me to kiss so I learned how to.”



”How the heck would they kiss you if you are phobic to girls?? Are you pretending to be phobic for a reason??”



She eyed Amber and the other felt as if she must tell the truth immediately.



Amber waved a hand in front of her in protest as she rebutted, “No! I really am phobic ever since. . . Just because! I cannot explain. It’s a long story. If I tell you, we might get into deep trouble.”



“HUH?!?! You are confusing me more each second Li Yu. What trouble do you mean?”



“Let’s just say it’s for your own safety that you must not know for now who I am.”



Krystal hung her head down low and half of her face was covered by the scarf.



”Ihateyou.”



“Sorry, what did you say?”



“I FRIGGIN HATE YOU AMBER LI YU!”



Krystal was about to stomp her way inside the dorm but not with Amber’s quick reflex to trap her in a hug from behind.



She struggled to break free however to no avail.



Again she tried yet got tired and gave up at the idea of getting away from her.



As a drop of snow went over their heads, they both stood there for some time.



Amber gradually placed her head lower.



Until it was resting on Krystal’s shoulder.






“Warm.”



She told Krystal as she released the tight hold she had on her.



Krystal faced her and asked, "Why are you being so secretive?"



"Just because. You are important and I don't want to lose you."



”If I am important to you then tell me who the friggin hell are you Amber Li Yu?!?!”



“Alright! Alright! Sheeesh! But I want something in exchange."



"What? You hurt me you know. Don't think I have forgiven you just yet."



Krystal chortled then grinned.



"Okay, I know that. But I still want something."



"Aishhhh. What is it?"





Amber stared deeply into her eyes and Krystal felt as if she was being stripped because of that.



It made her very vulnerable.




Then bit by bit Amber walked up to her.



First step, she looked away from her with a tint of blush on her cheeks.



Second step, she was swaying her body to and fro like a shy kid.



Third step, she finally looked at Krystal with a wide dorky smile.



One more step was all there is for them to make the gap in between them disappear.



Amber brushed away a strand of hair from her face and with that Krystal prepared herself for a kiss as she closed her eyes.



Only to blush red in happiness as Amber whispered her hot breathing to her ear saying,











"Can I have the right to love you?"