“Are you hungry or anything?” Ellie asked attempting to break the awkward silence between them. She didn’t know why she had asked Chen to stay when he could have easily gone home and she could be complaining to Kris about her day, but somehow her vocal chords acted without her thinking and there she was, sitting next to Chen.

            “No, I’m fine,” Chen said shaking his head and giving Ellie a polite smile. He also didn’t know why he decided to stay when he could’ve made up an excuse of saying that he had something to do at home or his parents were waiting for him. Was that even a lie?

            “So, um…we don’t know much about each other, right,” Ellie said attempting to get a conversation started, at least a decent one that could keep going back and forth between her and Chen.

            “Considering I just transferred here, I take that as a yes,” Chen said. Somehow he always found himself harsher when it came to answering Ellie and he didn’t know why. There was just something about her that made him nervous. It wasn’t that he liked her, at that point he couldn’t determine because he had just met her for one day, barely even one day, but he figured that if anyone else asked him questions he would probably respond in the same manner.

            It wasn’t that Chen was necessarily rude; he just didn’t want to respond to people’s questions about his lifestyle. He saw no reason for people to be asking questions about things that they didn’t particularly need to know. At most, Chen would give out the most essential information and then that was it. He would never reveal everything about himself. Most things that people knew were the same things that everyone else knew about him. Everyone always told him that he had a mysterious vibe about him.

            “Well since you transferred here,” Ellie said continuing as she stared somewhere else other than Chen. “What school did you go to before?”

            “You don’t need to know that,” Chen said ignoring the question.

            “Um…okay,” Ellie said slightly shocked by Chen’s reaction to the question. She wasn’t attempting to insult him, if that what she had done unintentionally. She just wanted to get to know her seating partner a bit better than before.

            “What if I asked you that?” Chen asked looking at Ellie.

            “What do you mean?”

            “What if I asked you what school you went to before?”

            “Then I would tell you that I went to the three branches of this school, the elementary, middle, and high school,” Ellie responded casually. “I have nothing to hide except my dislike of the school.” With that statement out of , Ellie quickly put her hands to her lips. She didn’t know why she had said something like that. It was like she would become a completely different person around Chen. It was like he had the key to unlock her lips and let them say whatever they wanted without thinking first. It was completely unlike her personality.

            “You must be quite rich then,” Chen muttered, but Ellie still heard.

            “Everyone that goes to the school is rich, you must be, too,” she said.

            “Course, course,” Chen quickly said hoping to get off the topic quickly. Thankfully, Ellie didn’t notice the weird reaction to his behavior, something that she would’ve picked up on if it were a different person. There was something about Chen that just made her lose her train of thoughts all of the time.

            “You know, it’s strange for someone like you to be transferring into our school senior year,” Ellie said the more she thought about Chen’s situation.

            “Someone like me?”

            “Of course,” Ellie said finally looking at Chen. “I mean, senior year, most people are on the waiting list for years and then somehow you get in. Your parents must own the world.”

            “Not exactly,” Chen said with a light laugh.

            “They must do something extravagant then.”

            “Nothing really worth bothering,” Chen said hoping to get off of the conversation again. He figured that the best way to do that would be to just start asking questions himself. “So, that Kris guy, he lives here?”

            “What?” Ellie asked staring at Chen. No one really knew that Kris stayed there. Sure, Jiyeon knew about it, but even Kris’s friends back in high school knew nothing about Kris and Ellie living together.

            “I kind of figured when I saw how comfortable he is in this house,” Chen said giving an explanation since he knew that Ellie would probably ask for one. Chen already figured that she was the type that wanted to know how something was done or how a person knew something without being handed all of the clues yet.

            “You never know, he could just visit here frequently,” Ellie said attempting to put reason into Chen’s statement.

            “Then wouldn’t that mean that he has a crush on you? Not only does he find his way around the house comfortably, but you also leave him alone in your house without really minding what he does. If he were visiting, wouldn’t he be with you the whole time?”

            Chen had gotten Ellie there. She didn’t know what to say to him after that statement and that was a rare happening for Ellie. No one made her lose her train of thought or argument. Whenever her and Kris would argue about something, Ellie would always end up winning, even with Jiyeon, but then again, those weren’t very good candidates for an argument. Chen, however, seemed different. It seemed like he was able to defend for himself and prose difficult questions. Suddenly, it was an attribute that Ellie found herself admiring.

            “Okay, so Kris lives with me,” Ellie said finally giving in after she couldn’t take any more of Chen’s staring. “His family has technically worked with my family for years, so we grew up together and he’s lived here all of his life, too. My parents pay for his education as a repayment for being my good friend, they think I have none.”

            “Figured,” Chen said leaning back into the chair. “Are you an only child?”

            “Yeah,” Ellie said nodding her head. “My parents were probably too busy to even think about having another child. What about you, are you?”

            “Maybe,” Chen said shrugging his shoulders. He didn’t want to answer the question, he never wanted to answer anything.

            “Will you ever answer anything?” Ellie asked getting frustrated with Chen and throwing a pillow at him.

            “Fine, I’ll answer one thing for you,” Chen said figuring that a little compromise wouldn’t hurt anyone.

            “Okay then,” Ellie said thinking about her question long and hard. She knew that she couldn’t waste such a stupid thing on a stupid question. Sure she was curious about where Chen came from, but figured that he wouldn’t give it up so easily and even if the question was a chance for her to get to know, she felt like it was his privacy and didn’t want to invade it and get him upset at her. After all, they had to spend their whole senior year together. If they got on each other’s nerve on the first day, Ellie didn’t want to imagine what the rest of the year would be like. Finally, Ellie settled on her question.

            “Do you know your question yet?” Chen asked looking quizzically at Ellie. He was also curious as to what type of question Ellie would pick. He said he would answer anything.

            “Well,” Ellie slowly began, “Chen obviously can’t be your real name, so answer this for me, what’s your real name?”

            “You want to know my real name?” Chen asked in disbelief.

            “Yeah, I want to know your real name. You must have one.”

            “I do,” Chen said nodding his head. “I just didn’t think that you would want to know it. No asking your private investigators to look up information on me either.”

            “I won’t do that,” Ellie said sticking out her pinky to promise. She hadn’t even thought of that when she asked the question and she wasn’t even confident of knowing that Chen was a nickname, it could’ve been his real name for all she knew. She just took a shot in the dark and thankfully it was correct.

            “Okay,” Chen said sighing. “My real name is Kim Jongdae.”

            “Kim Jongdae?” Ellie asked repeating after him and Chen nodded his head. “That name is nice.”

            “Yeah, well you better not make fun of it, it’s my name.” As Ellie opened again, Chen cut her off. “And no, I’m not going to tell you how I got the nickname of Chen, you only got one question.”

            “Okay,” Ellie said crossing her arms and wondering how Chen was able to read her mind so easily.

            Ellie and Chen ended up talking the whole time and about anything but the project, but Chen kept the conversation off of him and managed to keep it on Ellie the whole time. If the conversation looked like it was going to start heading towards questions that he didn’t want to answer, Chen would ask Ellie a different question and get her successfully side tracked. During the whole conversation, Ellie didn’t pick up on what Chen was doing.

            “It’s getting late,” Chen said checking the black watch on his wrist as he placed his piece of pizza down onto the plate on the table.

            “I’ll have Kris give you a ride home,” Ellie offered with still full.

            “No thanks, I can just take a taxi. I wouldn’t want to burden him and I mean it,” Chen said as he stood up. “I can call one.”

            “Um…okay,” Ellie said. She had learned during the conversation that she shouldn’t question Chen on his actions because his actions were final, no matter what they were.

            “So, I guess I’ll be seeing you in school tomorrow, right?”

            “Yeah, I mean we are seating partners. Let me walk you out.”

            Chen and Ellie left the backroom and made their way towards the front door. “Are you leaving?” Kris asked. He was sitting in the living room and watching some television when he saw Chen and Ellie walk in.

            “Yeah, I’m going to take a cab, no need to drive me home, I’m alright.”

            “I could take you if you wanted,” Kris said.

            “No, you should stay here with Ellie, it’s not safe for a girl to be home alone at this hour,” Chen said.

            “I guess,” Kris said figuring that Chen was right in that aspect. Kris also figured that Chen looked like he would be able to take care of himself if he got himself into trouble.

            “Why don’t you call me when you get home,” Ellie offered. “Give me your cell phone, here’s mine.”

            “Okay, I’ll tell you when I get home,” Chen said. “I’ll get going now, see you tomorrow.”

            Ellie watched the door as Chen left and closed it once the taxi got out of view. “Did you have fun?” Kris asked while Ellie slumped onto the couch next to him.

            “Yeah, but we got no work done,” Ellie said. “We were only talking to one another.”

            “You know, I approve of that guy, just to let you know.”

            “Approve?” Ellie asked.

            “I approve. If you want to date him, I allow you.”

            “Date?” Ellie asked immediately standing up. “Who said something about dating him?”

            “I’m just bringing up a point,” Kris said laughing at Ellie’s reaction. Secretly he was relieved that Ellie didn’t view Chen that way.

            “Whatever, I’m going upstairs to do some homework and got to bed. See you tomorrow.”

            Minutes passed as Ellie did her homework and still she didn’t get a text or call from Chen. She began worrying about him but figured that he might be too tired to inform her, but Ellie figured that she would see him tomorrow and that she would tell him about his forgotten promise. Ellie figured that he was like every other rich guy, forgetting things that they had promised because something better came up. Who knows, he could’ve met up with some of his friends as he went home and forgot all about it. As even more time passed, Ellie went to her bed and finally went to sleep.

The next morning and the days after, Chen wasn’t at school, which worried Ellie greatly. She wondered where he would be since it was already Friday. “Are you worried about Chen?” Jiyeon asked while they were sitting at lunch.

            “He hasn’t been in school all week, do you think something happened?” Ellie asked her. It wasn’t intentional that she was worrying, it was a friendly worry.

            “I don’t know,” Jiyeon said shrugging her shoulders. “Maybe his parents dragged him somewhere with them.”

            “True,” she said thinking about all of the students that sometimes disappeared for a week at a time because of their parents. Just then, Ellie’s phone rang and she saw that it was from Chen, her heart immediately quickened its pace upon reading his name. Jiyeon ignored Ellie’s reaction to her phone. “Hello?” Ellie asked.

            “Hello, is this Ellie?” a strange voice on the other line said. Ellie didn’t know who it was.

            “This is she,” Ellie said giving strange looks to Jiyeon.

            “The owner of this phone is in the hospital,” the voice began.

            “Hospital?” Ellie asked unable to grasp the situation.

            “We were wondering if you would be able to come to the hospital yourself, you were the only contact in his phone that we were finally able to get a hold of. We’d like if you were able to come this afternoon.”

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What happened to Chen? Why is he in the hospital? Why does Chen always avoid the conversation when it's about him?

Here is Chapter 4. Hope you enjoyed :D

I have an awesome poster now thanks to  ❉ Bunny Confectioneries ❉ :)