Hana:

5.30AM in January may as well be midnight. It's so freaking dark out that it should be illegal for anyone to be up, let alone working.

It's freezingly, frigidly, bitingly cold.

By the time I'd walked up the hill to the school, my nostrils were frozen together.

But as I knocked on the door, I was actually trembling more from excitement than the cold. Excited for detention. What was wrong with me?

A rotund man with red hair and a matching moustache opened the door for me. He was wearing clean, pressed coveralls. Color: paper bag brown.

"Morning! So. You must be Hana!" He said brightly.

"Yep."

"I'm Shindong." he said, offering a meaty hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Thanks. You too."

We stepped just inside the door. He said there for a prolonged moment and just smiled at me. Luhan was clearly not here yet.

"Should we wait for your friend then?" he asked. "Or would you like to just get started?"

"Uh, I guess we should---"

There was a bang on the door. One loud bang.

My heart skipped a nervous bear. I hadn't seen Luhan since the morning our punishment had been handed down. 

My mouth went dry as Shindong leaned by me to open the door.

"Xi Luhan?" he asked.

"Yeah."

His voice sent a shiver down my spine.

This was very not good. In a deliciously forbidden way.

Luhan slipped inside, hands in his jacket pockets. He'd gotten a hair cut.

He gave me a quick sideways glance and I started to smile, but he quickly averted his eyes.

Ouch. What was that about? Was I wrong when I thought he'd be looking forward to this too?

Shindong went into a closet to grab something, while Luhan and I waited on either side of the door, facing each other but not talking to each other.

I had no idea what was going on, but I was not going to be the first one to speak.

"Here you go!" Shindong reemerged and handed us each a putty knife and plastic bucket. They looked as if they'd seen better days.

"What're these for?" Luhan asked.

"Scraping!" He announced happily, walking past us.

Scraping. Why did I not like the sound of this? He led us down the main hallway, and into the cafeteria.

The lights were ablaze, and every single table in the place was turned upside down.

The tables' undersides were all pimpled with a disgustingly colorful array of gum wads.

Shindong whipped out two pairs of plastic gloves and handed them to me. "Enjoy!"

The cafeteria door let out a loud squeal as he shut us in together. Luhan and I looked at each other.

It was almost like he was seeing me for the first time and he didn't like what he saw.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, unable to take the silence any longer.

"No. What could be wrong?" he asked, dropping to the floor next to the first table. His vibe was so cold I was turning into a popsicle.

"I dont' know, you tell me." I saw down next to him, my bucket clunking against the floor. "You mad at me? Because it's not like it's my fault we're here."

"I know that." He said through his teeth. 

"Then what?"

Luhan looked at me. He did sort of a double take and rubbed his forehead with his hand. "Nothing. Sorry. I just...I guess I'm not a morning person."

I snorted a laugh, relaxing a little. "Maybe tomorrow I'll bring coffee."

"Yeah. Good idea."

There was a long moment of silence. I fiddled with my putty knife and bit my lip.

"Listen, I'm sorry about all this," I said finally. I handed him a pair of gloves. "I should've figured they were setting me up. You were just trying to help."

He looked down at his gloves and blushed.

"So really I should be thanking you," I rambled on. "For you know, swooping in and trying to save me."

Luhan smiled for the first time.

"I thought you didn't need a knight in shining armor."

I was pulling on a glove as he said this, and it snapped against my wrist. Ow. But I couldn't believe he'd actually remembered something I said back in September.

"Yeah...well I guess sometimes.. I do," I said, tugging on the other glove. "But next time try saving me before the cops show."

Luhan's laugh filled the cafeteria and melted my insides. He had this cute, uninhibited laugh. I could listen to it all day.

Luhan:

It turned out I didn't care.

That was the thing. I didn't care that Baekhyun and Hana hooked up. I thought that everytime I looked at her I was going to see him, but I didn't.

All I saw was her.

And I couldn't stop staring.

"What? Do I have something on my face?" Hana lifted her gloved hands towards her nose.

Snagged. "No. Sorry. I just zoned out."

It was our third morning of detention, and we were still scraping gum. I never knew the people at my school chewed this much gum.

"So, Xi Luhan. Tell me about yourself."

"What do you wanna know?"

"Don't know, like what'd you do for Christmas." She tossed her ponytail over her shoulder and she bent over the table.

"Visited grandparents in Japan. It's the only time all year I get to see my cousins."

"How many cousin do you have?"

"23,"

Her jaw dropped. "Shut up!"

"Why? How many do you have?" I asked, sitting up straight.

"Um, five. Can you like, name them all?"

I recited the list from oldest to youngest. Told her all the ty and funny stories I have about me and my cousins. I told her about Bora who had sent in applications to be on Mnet Scandal for five years in a row and had finally made the cut, so she refused to consume anything other than celery and water.

When I told the story of how the toddlers had tried to use my ahjussi's old water bed as a trampoline she laughed so hard that coffee came out her nose.

"Oh my god!" She said, lifting a paper towel to her face. "I'm so gross!"

That was it. She didn't squeal or scream, run for the bathroom, or leave the school and never return. She sniffled and got back to work, telling me all about her chill Christmas and how her mom had loved her present.

This girl was effing awesome. 

As I listened to her relate the details of the Christmas tree and the dinner and the presents, I realized I wasn't bored.

"Is it weird your mom's dating?"

"Everything's weird." she replied, sitting back as well.

She dropped her knife and leaned back on her hands. "Don't know, it's like I'm back but I'm not back. I'm home...but nothing's the same. My friends are here but they're not my friends. My house is here but it's not my house."

I looked down at my hands, feeling responsible somehow. I would've given her her room back if I could.

I wish my friends were here to listen to this. They'd never be able to blame her for all the crap her dad did if they knew what it was doing to her.

"You know that box score in my room?" she said suddenly. "The one from the JV Championship?"

"Yeah."

"That was the night we left. I wrote that in there while my dad was yelling at me to get in the car. I had this like need to record it there before we left. Like it would somehow meant something if it was there. It should have been the best night of my life, but instead it was the worst."

She continued.

"I never got to go to the celebratory banquet and get my championship ring. I never even got to go over the play by play with Seul Mi and Baekhyun like we always did. Instead it was all just over."

"Sorry."

"No it's ok. Let's change the subject."

She quickly reached for her putty knife, but it slipped out of her hand. We both grabbed for it and my gloved fingers closed over hers. We froze. I stared down at our plastic hands, my heart pounding.

"Well," Hana said. "That's romantic."

And we laughed.

Suddenly my palms were sweating under my gloves.

I slid my hand away and we got back to work, but I felt as if my whole body was on high alert.

There was no getting around it anymore.

I was falling for this girl. Big time.