Chapter sixteen – the aftermath; a strange trust.

Even with my eyes closed, I could tell Mihi was mentally jumping for joy. I could feel Mihi’s glee. This was everything she wanted between me and him.

The kiss lasted for a long time. At least for me it was long. He even cupped my face in his hands to deepen the kiss. Instinctively, I had placed my hands on his hands.

The kiss was only broken when Ren kicked Minhyun’s long legs.

“Get a room, dude!” he said, grinning. Minhyun made a face at Ren. I laughed and tucked my hair behind my ear.

“O..oppa..” the two girls muttered. I recognized them. Third year student Kim Yoonmi and the same year Shin Kyungmi.

“Who?” Minhyun asked, pointing at himself then Ren.

Yoonmi had tears in her eyes. Kyungmi was biting her lower lip.

“How could you?!” they demanded together. It was almost as if they were programmed robots.

“I swear,” I said in a low voice so only Minhyun could hear me. “If the word about just now gets out from the six of us, you’ll be suffering an eternity in hell with Eunbi unnie.”

Minhyun shot me a look then turned to the girls.

“Was I not allowed?” he asked in a bored tone.

“Yes! You’re ours!” they both said.

“Last I checked, I own myself.” He said, same emotionless, same monotone. “But now, by her.” he said, motioning to me with his head.

The girls looked as if they’d start crying any minute.

“Yah!” I whispered.

“Look, just don’t tell anyone about us. That’s all I’m asking of you.” Minhyun sighed with a change in his tone. I knew, although, that he was mentally murdering me.

“Why shouldn’t we? Oppa deserted us for some !” Yoonmi said.

“Hey, the only person who can call her names is me!” Minhyun said, out of the blue. I kicked his shin at once. “And by that, cute ones. If you don’t have anything nice to say about her, then don’t talk about her.” He quickly covered up, probably mentally wincing in pain.

“Fine. We’ll do what oppa says.” Kyungmi said. Yoonmi looked at her, confused. “But in return, oppa must make sure no other NU’EST member dates! Other than you and Ren oppa!”

Ren turned in our direction to hold in his laughter.

“No promises but-”

“Deal.” Ren interrupted. “Aron hyung, JR and Baekho will not date anyone.”

Yoonmi and Kyungmi’s eyes shined for a moment.

“Well, be a happy couple! You’re our favorite couple!”

Talk about change in favoring. I had to force myself to stop from scoffing.

The two of them disappeared from our sight just like that. Minhyun and I stood there without moving for a moment. Then both of us began to gag. Mihi and Ren were laughing their asses off.

“Encore! Encore!” Mihi began shouting.

“Yah!” I called back to her with my face red. “Shut up!”

“Aish, peach flavored lip-gloss? You really aren’t like other girls..” Minhyun muttered.

“Oh! You tasted her lip-gloss too!” Ren teased.

“What your mouth, punk!” Minhyun threatened.

“I don’t wear lip-gloss to school, it’s lipbalm you idiot!” I glared at him. “And next time, warn me before doing something like that.”

“I had no choice! The girls appeared too fast.” Minhyun said.

All of a sudden, we heard footsteps again. Closing in, fast. With his swift hands, Minhyun put his arm around my waist and pulled me closer to him at once.

But it was a false alarm. No girls.

Just the remaining members of NU’EST.

…

The remaining members of NU’EST…

I quickly pushed Minhyun away from me and went to pick up my phone which had broken into pieces after it fell from my hand when Minhyun had surprise kissed me.

“What did I see just now?” Baekho asked.

“Hwang Minhyun..” JR’s voice was low and threatening.

“I’m sorry, okay? That was the first thing that came into my mind when I saw Minki feeding Mihi.” Minhyun explained.

“Yah, don’t use us as an excuse!” Ren said at once. “I’m not getting in trouble with the secret overprotective older brother.” His last words were barely audible but I managed to catch them.

From the glares he got from JR and Minhyun, I guessed it was probably something I wasn’t supposed to hear so I pretended not to hear it.

“Yah, you’re buying me a new phone, right?” I said, standing up and leaning against a table with the broken parts of the phone in my hand. “You did this, remember?”

Minhyun rolled his eyes, not caring.

“Yah! I actually played along with you for the kiss, you should at least do this much!” I said, forcefully.

“Wait, you also kissed her?!” JR demanded.

“Didn’t you forget? You owe me.” Minhyun said, narrowing his eyes at me. My face flushed at his words. Why did he have to bring that up in front of everyone?!

“And it’s not like you don’t have money, buy one for yourself.” He added,in  a bored tone.

I merely glared at him. There was not much I could do.

“I think we need some explanation here? Why does Yuri owe Minhyun? And what kiss?” Aron asked.

Minhyun and I exchanged a glance. When our eyes met, we refused to look at each other and turned away.

“And by that, some very good explanation.” JR said. “Or else someone will be suffering an eternity in hell with Eunbi noona.”

I smirked. Now where had I heard that before?

-

“So that’s basically everything that happened.” Minhyun shrugged, summarizing everything from the time we were at Inyong ahjussi’s store to that kiss that had just happened.

JR, who knew about the recital’s night’s happenings, was first uninterested in those parts but when he found out about what had happened in the store, he almost beat Minhyun up for ‘letting the guys get away with it’ as he phrased it.

“So…they think that there’ a MiRen couple and a MinRi couple?” Baekho asked.

“Dude, you never told me.” Ren said, nudging Minhyun.

“At least now you guys know why I was being so secretive all the time.” Minhyun shrugged. “All because of this girl.”

“That’s not a bad thing. I’d say Yuri could kick Hyein noona out of the picture.” Aron grinned.

Minhyun grabbed Aron’s collar at once. “What was that?”

“What are you doing?!” I demanded, grabbing Minhyun’s hair and pulling him backwards to make him fall onto the ground.

“Aish, this witch! You’re no better than Eunbi noona!” Minhyun growled.

I was about to fire something even more hateful at him but just at that moment, the bell rang, indicating that lunch was over.

“Get out, all of you.” Mihi said, at once, standing up on her two feet. “It’s not going to be nice if anyone finds out that you were here.”

“Think before you talk, woman. The hallways will be filled, how can we get out without being seen?” Ren asked, glaring at Mihi. Mihi only playfully stuck her tongue out at him I held back a chuckle. They’d make a cute couple.

When I turned around, I saw that Minhyun also had a smile on his face, looking at the two.

I bit my lip, thinking that he might also have been probably thinking about what I was. About Mihi and Ren making a cute couple.

“Then how are we going to get out?” Oblivious Aron asked.

At that moment, I saw Minhyun’s eyes dash towards the window. He smirked.

Getting up, he slowly made his way to the window. Oh god, he was planning on jumping again! Doesn’t that guy get hurt? Was he made out of metal or something?!

“See you down!” he called over before steeping on the window to jump.

“Oh, you’re on!” Ren smirked and went over to another window.

When they both jumped out, JR and Baekho followed. Aron squeezed himself between Baekho and the window and for a moment, they got stuck. JR was the first to jump out of three of them. From the position they were in when they fell I could have worn they would have gotten hurt.

When all five of them were out of the class, Mihi and I went to the window which Minhyun and JR had jumped from to look down. We saw Aron hanging on a tree while Minhyun, Ren and JR were trying to get him down. Baekho, on the other hand, had fled.

At first, I was worried for Aron but then realized that Minhyun was there, Aron wouldn’t be in any trouble.

That got me thinking. Why did I feel so safe with Minhyun? He was a gangster. He was dangerous. But just knowing that someone I felt worried for, even though he was strong, was with Minhyun made my heart ease at once.

It was so strange. Was it just because he saved me once or twice?

I blinked twice and continued staring as JR climbed the tree.

Sighing, I turned around to face Mihi.

“Are you really that disappointed?” she asked as I walked towards my seat.

I nodded. Why didn’t I feel the same with Myungsoo oppa? If I was with him and something like that happened, I’d have hurried to call Woohyun oppa. With Minhyun, on the other hand, two incidents like that happened. And I still haven’t mentioned a word about it to Woohyun oppa.

“Cheer up, it isn’t something that big.” Mihi said, patting my back. I sighed and smiled at her.

“After all, the first can’t always be as romantic as you want it to be.” She continued. This time, I frowned. What was she talking about?

“And it was Minhyun’s first kiss too! So you don’t have to worry about it being just your first kiss!”

I groaned and placed my head on the table. We were in two different worlds.

A/N: uh oh! busted! xD i'll be double updating! wait for it!