After two hours of French struggling, and the pain of twisting my mouth in every way possible to get two words straight, I walked out of the class in direction to the girls’ restroom, when I got stopped by Kai in the hallway.

“Hey” he greeted, a concerned smile itching on his face.

“Hey,” I started, “About yesterday, it—”

“—No need to explain, Sehun … told me everything” he said with caution. Surely, I didn’t expect Sehun to tell anyone, but Kai wasn’t someone I didn’t trust; I was going to tell him anyway.

“So, how do you feel?”

“Remorseful” I replied as we walked to the canteen, me wrapping my arms around some copybooks.

“Remorseful? Because you hit Minah?”

“I don’t know if it’s because of hitting Minah, or my father’s reaction to it … honestly, I’m just so grateful she didn’t die, but I don’t know what she’ll do about it…”

“Don’t stress about it,” he assured, “I’m sure your father won’t let anything happen to you, right?”

I nodded with a smile, heading to the table our ‘gang’ had always occupied during lunch time. It was funny how the name ‘gang’ made us seem like a bunch of thugs. Before we could get there, the tanned guy stopped me

“I was wondering if you’d like to go grab a drink later” he said coolly, but his appearance said otherwise, for he was shuffling on his feet with a little bit of red tainting his ears.

“Oh man…” I whimpered desperately, “I’m sorry I can’t. Dad put me on curfew for three weeks; I should be home by seven”

The glint of disappointment in his eyes didn’t go unnoticed, though it disappeared as soon as it showed. He flashed a smile “Oh … well I guess I’ll have to wait until the chastisement is over”  

The squad was already seated, and we joined them after we picked our food trays. The moment I placed my on the chair, Chanyeol bombarded me with questions. I would’ve lied to them, told them some believable tale of why I was missing from school the whole day, except that I disappeared in their presence, so I pretty much had no choice than to tell them the entire story, with causes and known and unknown consequences. Even Kyungsoo was more curious than I had ever seen him, and surely the whole ordeal was actually thirst-quenching for both Namji and Chanyeol, although the former was quite affected. Sehun glanced at me few times while I was telling them the tale without many details.

“Well, I guess we all learnt today that Yuri is not to be missed with” Chanyeol concluded with a confirmative nod of the head.

“Yeol, I don’t think that’s the kind of encouragement she wants to hear” Namji warned with a darkening gaze, almost causing the tall guy to shrink back. Kai nodded in agreement and for a moment there I saw a faint blush coloring her cheeks before quickly turning to me.

“Since you’re on restriction, can I come by? We can have a girls’ night in; I’m sure Mr. Kim wouldn’t mind” she gushed, “We can pretend that we’re studying for the finals”

It was way better than staying home alone with a cracked phone and ty internet connection.

“Speaking of the finals,” Kyungsoo started “Where are you going after graduation?”

Well, that was quite the question. I hadn’t thought about the finals for god’s sake, let alone post-graduation decisions.

“I want to be a doctor” Namji said with an ambitious face, earning a sneer from Kai, a thing that made her frown. “What’s funny about it?”

“There you said it: there’s no fun in being a doctor. You’re going to study more than sleep, become a generalist doctor when you reach your twenty-five-years-old crisis, and you’d want to do more studies, and life is going to be meaningless because you’ll spend it in saving people from illnesses that you’ll forget to heal yourself eventually” he reasoned, “You only live once, so let’s make a deal: I become a famous dancer, and you can be my manager. How does that sound?”

That managed to make the most silent guy react. Sehun sniggered at his friend’s high confidence.

“Hey, don’t mock, you of all people know that I can dance, I can dance well” he pushed his chair back and dragged his iPhone out as he stood up. In a moment, music was played and Kai started free-styling to it, and damn the boy had moves, like, if he chased his dream he could really be someone. People, including myself, looked at him in total admiration as he danced.

I was soon distracted by something that hit my foot, and when I looked under the table, red Vans were repeating the gesture. It appeared that the pair of shoes belonged to Sehun who broke into a grin when I glared at him, and for some unknown reasons, I found myself mirroring his board smile and lightly hitting his foot back. Well the reason wasn’t so unknown anymore, for I was sure that I had a thing for Sehun’s smile and playful side. Okay, maybe not just a thing.

He hooked his foot behind my heel and pulled it, making my leg swing under the table, a fit that dragged Kyungsoo’s attention for he raised a brow “someone’s playing footsie under the table”

Chanyeol was the first to stick his head under the wooden cafeteria table, but fortunately I stilled my foot just a moment before. The taller guy kneaded his brows in confusion and Sehun and I shared secret smiles.

“Do you think I’ll be able to make it to MPC?” Namji asked as she threw herself on my bed, looking somehow lost in thoughts.

“Yes, why not?” I sat at the end of the bed with a pillow between my arms, “don’t listen to Kai, he was just trying to turn off your passion for medicine and your ambition to become a doctor”

“I think he was just kidding” she spoke, voice confident, and it occurred to me that perhaps she was defending him.

“Why would you say that, if I may ask?”

“Well, because it’s true; the boys and I are friends since middle schoo