From: red or blue

To: Blue.

From: day or night

To: Night.

From: dark or bright

To: Isn’t that pretty much the same as the last one? Dark.

From: lol ok hot or cold

To: Warm.

From: lol alright i guess that’s enough

I sighed a sigh of relief as Baro finally finished his stupid This or That game. I glanced at my bedroom clock and frowned. It was only minutes away from hitting midnight and I haven’t even had the chance to change out of my school uniform. Ever since the middle of the school day, Baro had me playing this stupid game of his.

To: So, What was the point of that game?

From: nothing. hey let me ask you sumthing

To: Sure.

From: whats it like being in an all boys school?

To: I don’t know. The same like any other school, just that everybody is male.

From: oh really?

To: It's almost the same as a co-ed school. Just with more gay people walking around.

From: so there are gay people?

To: Well, a majority of the people in my school has been in an all-boys school since birth. There’s bound to be a few gay people.

From: and they easily show their gayness?

I frowned at that text. "Gayness"? He makes it sound like it's some sort of disease.

To: It’s common to see gay people around here. It may be frown upon society, but it’s well accepted with the people in my school. There are straight people too, just to let you know.

From: can i ask which one ur r?

I blinked. I never actually thought about my uality before. It wasn’t anything I really needed to worry about before. Besides, it shouldn't be any of any Baro's concern either.

I mean, I wasn’t necessarily attracted to males, but females don’t spark my interest either. Sure, there are some girls I find pretty and such, but every now and then I stumble upon males who even I have to admit are handsome or even cute.

But other than those thoughts, I never actually considered what I was attractive the most to. But, does even matter? At the end, don’t you love whoever you love?

To: I don’t know. I never liked a person before.

From: lol i dont think u need to like someone so you can know what ur uality is

To: I suppose. But, still, I don’t know. I’ll figure that out until I actually do find someone I’m attractive to in that way.

From: you mean you never liked somebody before? not even a crush or anything

To: No.

From: thats weird usually somebody would have 1 crush or sumthing

To: I’m different than most.

From: lol i can tell. whatever it doesnt matter about ur uality, i was just wondering

To: Well, now you know. Now I have a question for you.

Baro never responded after that. I glanced over at the clock and frowned again. Of course; it was past midnight. I’ve happened to notice that what no matter what, once its past midnight, Baro will automatically stop texting.

I don’t know what his reason is for it, but I hate it when he automatically stops texting me like that. Here I am wasting my precious time for him and whatnot. The least he can do is properly say goodnight.

--

I quietly chewed on my cereal as I looked back and forth at my parents. Normally, I never eat breakfast, since I’m always running late to the school bus, but today I decided to get my lazy up for once and actually try to make it on time. I can't help it; I'm married to my bed.

But I absolutely regret it now.

The atmosphere right now is just so … intense.

My mother was quietly picking at her food (more like stabbing), while my father way glaring at his coffee cup.

Did they recently have a fight or something? I have been coming home late these past couple of days, due to cleaning duties at school, and I had to miss dinner so I could finish my homework. I haven't had time to spend any moments with either of my parents.

“So, honey,” my mother said as she looked over at me and obviously forced a smile, “How is everything at school?”

I swallowed my food and shrugged a shoulder. “School is school.”

“And how is your friend? The one that your cousin told me about? Baro, was it?”

I shrugged my shoulder again. “Fine.”

Honestly, how the hell should I know? It’s been over a month since I’ve last seen Baro face to face. Sure, we text every day, but that doesn't mean anything.

“That’s good,” my mother said with a smile, “You should invite him over one day. I would love to meet him.”

“That will never happen,” I muttered before standing up and grabbing ahold of my cereal bowl. “I’m off to school,” I mumbled before putting the bowl in the sink and walking out of the apartment before my mother continued asking questions about Baro.

--

I sat in the middle of Science class and frowned. I hated this class. But I suppose I can say that about every class I take.

Science is another class that I have to retake due to all my absences from last year. You know, if I was well aware about the absent limit, I would have never skipped class. Now I'm stuck in a class full of kids a year younger.

And they probably have to be the most annoying students. And here I am, stuck in a class with them. How annoying.

Well, not all of them are completely bad. There is this one who doesn’t entirely get on my nerves. His name is Gongchan, and the only time I make any contact with him is when we do group assignments in this class.

For some reason, he’s always choosing me as his partner although we’re free to choose to work with whoever we want. So I'm basically always forced to work with him, but I don't have much of a choice anyways. I'm not friends with anybody in this class. Or this school, as a matter of fact.

And so here I am, sitting right in front of Gongchan, as the two of us worked on the assignment.

“Junghwan,” Gongchan said with a bright smile, “Did you get the answer for number 4?”

“The pancreas,” I mumbled as I watched Gongchan quickly scribble down the answer. I glared at him for bit and sighed. My nickname still hasn't been accustomed at this school and it's a bit hard to get people to call me Sandeul, instead of that other stupid name. But I'm not surprised.

“And number 5?”

“Insulin and glucose.”

“How about 6, Junghwan?”

“Jesus, Gongchan, just do the work yourself,”I eventually snapped. "And I keep telling you to stop calling my by that name."

"Sorry, Sandeul." I didn’t even have to look up at Gongchan to know that he was pouting. That brat always pouts whenever somebody doesn’t give him what he wants. I only have one class with him, and I’ve only known him for a couple of weeks and I can tell he was spoiled when he was a child. Then again, everybody in this stupid school was spoiled.

The only reason I’m even in this rich all-boy school is because of my uncle. You remember the uncle I told you about, the one who gave my weird nickname? Well, seeing that I’m pretty much his last nephew, he decided to convince my mom to send me to the same school he went as a child. When the school district found out I was his nephew (apparently he was a really well like athlete or something) they gave me this weird stupid scholarship so I could continue my studies here. If it wasn't for that, we wouldn't have the money for me to even think to come here.

And the only reason I even agreed to do any of this was because this school is known to have the best classes for media arts, which includes singing classes and vocal lessons. But the only problem though, is that those classes don’t start until next semester. And I still have a long time until then.

But if it wasn’t for those classes, I’d probably still be in a co-ed school instead of being stuck in a school full of guys. I'd probably even be in the same school as Baro. Now thinking about it, I’m actually a little glad that I come here instead. Imagine going to the same school as Baro. It’d be horrible.

I sighed to myself as I finished up the last couple of questions on the worksheet.

“Hey, when do you have lunch?”

I glanced over at Gongchan before looking back at my sheet. “Next period.”

“Really? Me too! How come I never see you in the cafeteria?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe I’m in the library.”

“Ah,” Gongchan said before smiling brightly, “Maybe we should spend lunch time together.”

“Maybe,” I mumbled. Though, honestly, I don’t really think I want that. No, scratch that, I know I don’t want that. If I hardly want to spend this class period with him, why on Earth would I want to spend my free period with him as well? I'm not an idiot.

We fell into a silence as we continued working on the assignment. I let out a sigh of relief when I noticed I was already up to the last two questions but right before I was going to answer them, I felt my phone vibrate.

I rolled my eyes as I reached in my pocket to check it. Of course, it was going to be from the same person as always. Except, oddly, he responded quite late from my last text. Almost a whole class period late. Not that I care or anything.

From: im so sorry!! my teacher took my phone away last class cuz i got caught :(

To: Next time, try not to get caught.

“Oh, hey, did you hear?” Gongchan suddenly said right after I sent the message to Baro.

“Hear what?” Not that I was actually interested or anything. But I figured I might as well keep a conversation with this kid until class is over.

“We might get a new student!” Gongchan was the only one excited at this moment. He was smiling widely and it was beginning to creep me out.

“Oh.” I knew it was going to be nothing interesting. We get new kids in all the time. It’s not much of a surprise anymore.

“And I know who he is!” Gongchan cheered as though it was the best thing in this world (and it really wasn't), “He lives close by me. I hang out with him sometimes.”

“I see.” Baro texted back and I was in the middle of reading it. It was a bit difficult with Gongchan being annoying right next to me.

“He’s a funny kid. But he’s a year older than me. Hey, maybe you two will have a class together!”

“Maybe,” I mumbled, not an inch of emotion shown on my face.

“Hey, I noticed you’re always on that phone of yours. Are you talking someone important or something?”

I blinked as I looked up at Gongchan. “Not exactly.” Baro isn’t someone important to me. He's just that annoying kid I happen to text with everyday. Nobody important.

“Really? Because you’re always texting. And even when you’re not, you're always checking your phone. It's a little suspicious."

“How would you know?” I asked in annoyance. I tried to put my attention back on the assignment, but since I already finished it there was nothing really to put my attention on.

“It’s obvious. You’re always looking down at your phone. Even in the hallways you’re looking at it. And you're always letting out long sighs every now and then.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I mumbled while keeping my gaze away from. He was starting to piss me.

“Whatever,” Gongchan said as he also went back to his assignment, “But just make sure you don’t do that kind of stuff in front of the teacher or you'll get your phone taken away.”

I mentally rolled my eyes. As if that will ever happen. Teacher never notice me. I reached into my pocket to grab my phone when I suddenly froze. Wait, my phone didn’t even vibrate. So why was I going to check if Baro texted my yet?

I shook my head a bit before taking my hand out of my pocket and let out a long sigh.

--

“Let’s do something.”

“No.”

“Come on.”

“No.”

“I’m so bored.”

“I don't care.”

“Sandeul.”

“No.”

Shinwoo flared his arms in frustration and rolled around on my bed, letting out a long whine. “I’m so bored!” he whined while kicking his feet in the air. I'm always going to question how he's related to me.

I glanced up from my laptop and raised an eyebrow. “Nobody asked you to come over.”

“I thought Baro would be here or something. But no. It's just you and your stuip self."

“How charming,” I mumbled before closing my laptop. “Anyways, Baro doesn’t even know where I live so there was no point on coming over. You're just wasting your time.”

Shinwoo rolled his eyes and glanced over at my phone that was sitting by my night table. “Oh, so you still talk to him?”

“We text. That’s all.” It's been about two months since I've last seen Baro face-to-face and I'm absolutely glad about that. It wasn't in any rush into seeing Baro again anytime soon, despite all the requests my mom has for me to bring Baro over one day. Never will I allow Baro to come to my apartment.

“Hey,” Shinwoo said as he sat up on my bed and looked over at me, “Get me something to drink.”

I glared at my cousin and frown. “Why? If you want something to drink, then go get it yourself. You're used to this place already.”

“But I’m your guest.”

“I don’t care.”

“But that’s rude.”

“Like I said, I don’t care.”

“Come on. Get me something to drink. Stop being so lame.”

“If I do, will you shut up and not talk to me for the rest of the day.”

Shinwoo smirked, and I took it as a yes. I sighed as I stood up and walked down the hall to the kitchen. I quickly grabbed Shinwoo a glass of juice before walking back to my room and handing it to him. Shinwoo simply smirked before grabbing the glass and taking a sip from it.

"I love you, my little cousin." Shinwoo laughed as he grabbed my cheek with his free hand and pinched it for a bit.

"Gross."

Shinwoo spent the next couple of hours sitting on my bed and watching mindless television while I went back to putting my attention on my laptop. Like he promised, Shinwoo actually didn't talk for the whole time, except for the small comments me made about how bad the actors were or if he'd "bang" the main charactors or not. Eventually, after the fourth person he claimed was "hot enough to take to bed," I had enough.

“Are you just going to sit there the whole and say dumb stuff, or what? Don't you have your own place to watch TV at?” I muttered as I shut off my laptop.

Shinwoo just grunted as a response, but kept his attention on the screen.

I frowned as I looked over at my phone. I noticed that Baro hasn't sent me a text this whole time since Shinwoo been here, and that was a little odd because Baro always texts back. And I mean always.

I was about to reach over and grab my phone to check, when I stopped myself. Gongchan is right; I really do check my phone constantly.

I brought my arm back to my side and stood up from my desk. "I'm getting something to drink," I muttered to Shinwoo, even though I knew he didn't care.

I walked out the room and to the kitchen to grab myself a glass of ice tea. The doorbell suddenly rang while I was putting my glass back in the sink. I was expecting it to be my mother coming home from work, which was why I didn’t bother to check who it was when I opened the door.

But it wasn’t my mother.

Nope. It wasn’t her at all.

“Deullie!”