Mir’s POV

We were all bent over at the calendar, marking out our schedules for Daniel-sshi to give him some idea of how our hectic schedule was when we heard the screen door opened. We looked up to see Yuri and Woo Chul coming back in.

Both their faces were glum.

I furrowed my eyebrows, wondering what they talked about. I’ll get it out of Yuri later. She would never keep things like this from me. That’s the beauty of our relationship — honesty.

Joon looked back down at the calendar and back up again to his sister. “Ah, Yuri-yah, did you know that your new school year starts on Monday?” he asked her. “As in just the next Monday?”

“Bwoh?!” Yuri’s jaw dropped open in astonishment, answering his question. Nope, obviously, she did not know. She ran to her room to check her calendar before we heard a loud shriek coming from inside. “You’ve got to be joking! No! Where’s the justice?! This is not the reality that I want!”

Cheon Doong turned to Joon. “What day is it today again?” he wanted to know.

Joon grinned, chuckiling evilly. “Friday night already,” he replied with glee. “She only got the weekends to enjoy her holiday before she’s back in that classroom.”

My stomach dropped. Another year of school for her . . . but I won’t be there.

Yuri stormed back out of her room, looking positively outraged at the fact that she got so little time left of her holiday. “Where did the holidays go?” she grumbled.

“Behind time,” G.O replied, earning a glower from her direction. He shrugged. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

She flopped down on the sofa next to him. “Well, no wonder all my friends are back from whatever they were doing. Joon, I hate you for being a buzz kill,” she muttered sullenly.

Luckily he did not hear her.

Seungho turned back to Daniel-sshi and Woo Chul, who had looks of amusement on their faces. “Well, I guess we’ll see you tomorrow at J.Tune Camp, Daniel-sshi,” he said. “It was nice meeting you. I hope we can all be friends soon.” Seungho may not have looked at me, but I had a feeling his last sentence was directed at me with Woo Chul.

Daniel-sshi and Woo Chul stood up, walking to the front door, with Seungho behind them. But then Woo Chul had the nerve to turn back and smiled sadly at my Yuri.

“Good night, Annie, my little butterfly,” he said softly. He turned back around and left with his father in a second.

Yuri flinched while the rest of us all turned to her.

“Little butterfly?” I repeated, feeling . . . I don’t know what I felt.

She looked down, her face flushing tomato red, as we heard the front door closing. “Don’t ask. Just — don’t,” she mumbled, not meeting my eyes. She stood up and walked back to her room. I stood up as well to follow her, shrugging off Cheon Doong’s hand.

She turned around to close her door and let out a startled gasp when she saw me behind her. I quickly took a step inside her room before she had a chance to lock me out. I closed the door behind me, turned back around to see her backing up. Her legs crashed into her bed and she stumbled over, numbed.

I folded my arms across my chest, waiting for her to give me an explanation of what he meant by ‘my little butterfly’ and also to tell me what they talked about outside.

I’d forgotten she could be stubborn if she wanted to be and right now, she was being stubborn. She looked down, refusing to let open to utter even a single sound, let alone a single word or the explanation.

“Yuri-yah . . .” I decided to take the softer approach. “Is everything all right between you and . . . Woo Chul?” I forced myself to say his name as much as I hated to.

She nodded once.

I sat down next to her on her bed. “I won’t scold,” I promised.

“You’re jealous.” She flinched when I took her hand.

I didn’t pull back. I grasped her chin with my free hand and tilted her head to look at me. I leaned down and kissed her gently on the lips. “You know I’ll never force you to choose,” I whispered. “If you want to be with him . . .”

She pulled away, anger flashing in her eyes. She jumped to her feet. “Is that what you think? That I’m dumping you for him? That’s not what this is, okay! He . . .” She hesitated. “Well, it turned out that my friend lied. Woo Chul didn’t find a new girl a week after I left.”

I shrugged. “Who’s to say Woo Chul isn’t the one who lied?”

“Ah . . .” She sat back down. “Good point.” Yuri was looking so confused, like she didn’t know what to do and was about to cry any moment soon.

I hugged her. “Either way.”

She looked at me weirdly. “This is the first time you are being so calmed about this.” She pressed her palm to my forehead. “Are you sure you’re not burning up or something? Normally you’d be screaming and acting all childishly with jealousy.”

I frowned, pulling her hands away. “No, silly. It’s just that I’m tired. Screaming and acting childishly doesn’t get me anywhere, anyways. So I decided to try for once to be matured.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I think you’re deranged. This is so unlike you.”

I tickled her and she giggled, collapsing on my lap and I hugged her tightly. She buried her head in my neck, giggling. I smiled. There you go, that cute smile of hers was back. I hugged and she closed her eyes. I kissed her forehead and she snuggled up to me.

“Mir? No matter what happens, know that you are always going to be the one I choose,” she murmured, tracing circles on my palm.

I kissed her gently. “I know that now,” I replied back softly. She’ll choose me over him anytime!

That must mean something, doesn’t it?

Yuri’s POV

School is starting. Groan.

I’d spent the weekends — the last of my holidays — buying school supplies with my friends. I did everything I could to avoid going to J.Tune Camp — where Woo Chul and Mir would be. Somehow, I didn’t think the three of us being in the same room was a very bright idea.

On Sunday, L.Joe was with me as we shopped for our supplies. The others had gotten their shopping done the previous day but I was still not done so L.Joe decided to accompany me.

He noticed my sullen mood but did not broach the topic until we were eating at lunch. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You seemed . . . off your game today. Well, you weren’t your usual self yesterday either.”

I sighed, stirring the spoon in my cup of coffee. “Did I tell you about my ex, Woo Chul?” I started to say.

He shot me a wary glance when he decided he had a feeling he knew where the conversation was going to go. “He didn’t find out about you now, did he? Did he call you?”

I sighed again. “Found out about me, he did. But no, he didn’t call me.”

He frowned. “Then how does he know — oh, your friend Tony told him.” He shook his head. “Wait, then how do you know he knows?” He looked confused.

I laughed. He looked really cute for a moment when he gave me his puzzled face. “Well, for starters, MBLAQ got a new manager.”

It dawned unto him and his face lit up recognition. “Ohhh . . .”

I nodded, slumping in my seat.

“How’s Mir taking it?” he asked me, figuring that Mir must probably be going out of his mind with this whole thing.

I shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

Our food came. “Well, look what we have here.”

We looked up to see Key grinning down on us. We smiled back at him. “Hi,” we said as he set our plates in front of us.

“What’s up?” he asked. He turned to me. “You sure your boyfriend won’t mind you’re out with a guy who is not him?”

I blushed, remembering the other day. I looked up. “Sorry about that,” I said.

He shrugged. “Hey, you don’t have to apologize for his behalf.”

“What happened?” L.Joe asked curiously since he had no idea what the two of us were talking about.

“Mir got jealous when he found out I asked Yuri to hang out with me the other day, just me and her,” Key replied, a hard edge creeping into his voice.

I winced slightly. “Key, I’m really —”

He smiled warmly and sincerely at me. “Hey, really, it’s not your fault. I just hope he didn’t give you that much of a hard time, especially when I hugged you. He must have known that was deliberate.”

I nodded. “He knew, and he did give me a hard time. But luckily we were interrupted when —” I caught myself, remembering that they didn’t know about my mother’s condition.

Unfortunately, they knew I was about to slip up.

“When what?” L.Joe asked.

Key looked left and right before sitting down on an empty seat next to me. “When what?” he mimicked L.Joe’s words.

I hesitated, wondering if I should tell them. “Well, it’s just that —”

“And don’t say Joon interrupted you because I know it’s a lie,” Key cut in.

 “But he really did interrupt us!” I blurted out.

“Why?”

Damn.

I looked down and told them my mother’s condition. I tried my best not to get emotional, not to get choked up, but I failed. I ended up crying and Key wrapped his arms around me while L.Joe reached for across the table to take my hand, squeezing it gently with as much sincerity and support he could muster into that one, light squeeze.

Key had to return back to his job, letting L.Joe and I to eat. L.Joe was tactful enough not to bring up the topic of my mother. Instead, he focused on the one thing I dreaded: school.

I shuddered. “Ugh, I can’t believe school starts the very next day,” I was saying. “Seriously, where did the holidays go?”

“Behind time.”

I rolled my eyes. “Did you and G.O Oppa band up together or something? He said the exact same thing to me when I asked that question!”

He shrugged. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

I threw my clean napkin at him.

“Yah!” he protested, his eyes going wide. “What did I do?”

“Everything,” I shot back archly and we went back to the comfortable conversation about school.

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Hurrrr. A normal, NORMAL chapter. (: keke~

School's starting again and Mir won't be there. Noooo D: 

I might post a second update. We'll see.