I can’t go to my friends looking like this. So I wipe my tears off my face with my sleeves and make a run to the washroom.   I have to pass by the biology lab if I want to go to the closest washroom, so I’d rather go to the one at the other building; the far end of the school’s building.

I never liked walking alone. Period. It makes me feel lonely. It’s okay! I can do it! It’s just in school.

I step into the washroom with shivers running through my spine. This place gives off a creepy vibe. Whatever, let’s just ignore it, shall we?

The air in here is so damp and stuffy. The walls, a part of it has turned black. I walk to the sink and turn on the tap. The water’s so cold that I flinch a little upon the first contact. I cup my hands allowing the water to fill them and I splash the water to my face. Aaaah, refreshing.

But something’s off. The hair on the back of my neck is standing, I feel goosebumps all over. I feel something behind me, something dark and cold. I look up to the mirror and to my horror, I see…

My arch nemesis, Kaylie.

Bitsh. Why is she here?

“Hi Haemi! Fancy meeting you here.” She says with that annoying fake high pitched voice of hers and I know it’s sarcasm. What’s so ‘fancy’ about meeting someone in a washroom?

“Put a sock in it Gila.”  I say giving her the attitude. She deserves it.

This Kaylie bitsh right here, should I introduce her to you? Well, let’s see. She’s half Korean, half American. I know, it sounds cliché but that’s how it is. Her real name is Hwang Gila but she always puts a stress on people to call her Kaylie. Her dad’s American. She thinks she’s so damn fabulous cuz she’s got that American touch. Puhlease. She can’t even pass English class and she calls herself an American. I score better than her in English. And let me tell you, she’s never even set foot on the US of A that she’s so proud of.

Well, that’s pretty much it. I’m sorry but I can’t find a single nice thing about her to say. Oh, one more thing. She’s Chen’s girlfriend.

“Wow, someone woke up at the wrong side of the bed this morning.” She gives me a look as she fixes her wig hair.

“Well, at least I woke up in the morning unlike some people.” Kaylie has a record for always coming late to school, for your information.

She lets out a small chuckle. “I miss you, you know?” Then she looks at me through the mirror with, as a matter of fact, a genuine smile.

“What’s there to miss? Aren’t your new friends the perfect group of people to be around with?” I finally turn to her.

“You know what? Forget it. There’s no use of talking about this anymore. You’re right. My new friends are perfect. They’re better than you guys in every way I could think of. So just… Ugh whatever.” And she storms out of the washroom leaving me alone again.

Yeah. By now, you would probably know our history. We used to be best friends, all nine of us – me, Hanbyeol, her, Ika, Mia, Shira, Haewon, Chaehwa and Nabi. Who’s Nabi? I’ll get back to you later on that.

So yeah, we were really close. Really, really close. But two years ago, Gila got separated from us because we got into different classes. She’s the only one who got into the other class while the eight of us were in the same class.

We tried spending as much time together, trying to hold on tight to our bond. We spent lunch time together, we walked back home together and we still had occasional sleepovers. But then one day, Gila just grew apart. She no longer spent lunch time with us, instead, with the kids from her class; the cool kids.

She forgot us and our promise to be best friends forever.

We had this friendship bracelet that we made together from scratch. We made them when we were at Shira’s. It was her turn for the sleepover. We were just talking in the middle of the night when Hanbyeol suddenly got an idea of having something as a symbol of our friendship. I suggested rings but Nabi said rings don’t have that charm, you know, that warmth of friendship. “Rings are made from metal, they’re cold. What’s so friendship-y about wearing a piece of metal around your finger?” I still remember her saying that.

So we thought for quite a long time. Everyone shared their piece of minds, such as

“How about key chains?” That came from Chaehwa.

“Key chains are expensive.” I retort. 

“Plushies?” Mia suggested.

“They’re too… I don’t know, fluffy? Plus, we can’t carry them around. Buying them for nine people isn’t gonna be a cheap task, too.” Ika opposed.

Yeah, we’re teenagers. We don’t have ka-ching. We could just ask for it from our parents but what fun would that be? They’re supposed to be friendship symbols and my dad’s name shouldn’t be written all over it.

Brainstorming wasn’t easy when you had nothing to fuel you. So Hanbyeol asked Shira if we could have some midnight snacks, “for the sake of our friendship” she said.

Shira being the nice and kind human being that she is light-heartedly went to the kitchen. But of course, being also the timid human being that she is, she asked Mia to go along with her even if it was her own kitchen.  We heard loud steps coming from outside of the room not long after they went out.

The door was opened aggressively and came in panting Shira and Mia. Apparently, Shira was so scared in the dark that she dragged Mia to run to the room. Fortunately, they came back with a tub of Baskin-Robbins’.

But with only one spoon.

So we spent the night sharing a tub of ice-cream with using a single spoon. Now that I think of it, it was a pretty sweet moment. We sat in a circle and passed the ice-cream around. I even clearly remember feeding Hanbyeol. She’s the maknae, after all. Sometimes I’m so jealous of her. Everyone sans Chaehwa and Ika treats her so nice. She can be a brat and the girls would still love her. She’s always pampered, except by again, Chaehwa and Ika. I can’t understand why, though. Hng, I pamper her a lot too. Chaehwa and Ika treat her fairly normal like they treat the rest of us. Haewon, our mom, especially has a soft spot for Hanbyeol.

Everyone had their fair share of ice-cream, except Hanbyeol of course. She’s a pretty big eater and we let it slide.

After the snack, we continued with our discussion. Everyone was quiet; we were running out of ideas when suddenly

“BING!” Hanbyeol snapped her fingers beside her head and I swear I saw a light bulb light up above her head. “Bracelets!”

“Again. They’re expensiveeee.” Haewon whined.

“No! We can do it on our own. We can just use whatever things that we can wrap around our wrists and decorate it with anything we want; glitters..” she raised her brows at Shira “…beads, anything!”  she explained like she had an idea that could improve the lives of  human kind.

Letting her eat up a larger share of the ice-cream wasn’t a regret.

Everyone seemed to agree. So we started our mission right that night. We rummaged in any drawer and cabinets in Shira’s room, living room, kitchen, anywhere for anything that we could use to make bracelets. We finally found some colored strings, glitter glue and colorful beads.

We spent the night/morning chattering while our hands were busy working on our bracelets. They looked decent but when you see them you know they’re handmade. We exchanged the bracelets randomly and I got Gila’s and she got mine.

We’d wear it every time, everyday. We can’t be separated from it. That night, we swore, whoever takes the bracelet off for any other purposes than in truly desperate conditions such as being in a situation when taking off the bracelet is needed to cut off a hand of a bad guy (the strings are pretty harmful if you know how to make it that way) to save your life. Bottom line, no taking off our friendship bracelet or we’re not friends anymore.

And one sunny day was supposed to be a great day to spend at school with friends, but it turned out to be the worst for us. Nabi announced that she had to move. Her dad got promoted to a higher rank and the whole family’s going.  What’s even worse is that Gila wasn’t even there with us. She spent her lunch time with her new friends. And later after that, all of us saw her, with a friendship bracelet-less wrist.

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A/N: Hi guys! Before you start throwing tomatoes and rotten eggs at me for the lack of Kris in this chapter, let me explain myself. Heck, I have no explanation. KILL ME! I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. I just, I don't know, I wrote whatever my fingertips lead me to type. I'm sorry really for you Kris lovers out there. I know you wouldn't enjoy this chapter but I personally do. And I'm sorry. 

So, if you hated it, just tell me. But please, I beg of you, put it in the nicest way as possible. But don't lie. How about something like "it was nice but it could use a more bit of KRIS!". and if you liked it, tell me too. As usual, opinions are much needed, constructive criticisms are more than welcomed and praises (as if I deserve them) flatter me. So please, just tell me what you think.

Thank you for making it all the way down here, so as a thank you gift. I present to you, 

So??? how was it? I hope you liked it. The pictures aren't mine I took them from here and there's a lot more where that came from. So, yeah.

I love you all.

Thanks for making it here. <3<3<3

plus, don't stare at Sehun for too long or Ima cut cha!