RO’S POV

Ro finds SooMin and Ara on their way to lunch. The girls chat in the lunch line, exchanging opinions and advice about the classes and teachers that one of the other girls might have later in the day. They stroll around the edges of the cafeteria, looking for familiar faces, and SooMin spots her younger brother, JR. As the girls pick their way over to the large round table, Ro smiles at JR, and at MinKi, who is sitting sullenly beside him. Must’ve been a hard morning for him.

But Ro’s smile drops and she stops walking as she views the other occupants.

“BaekHo!” Aron complains. “Are you eating my food?”

“Don’t look at me!”

“Why not? – You ALWAYS confiscate my food!”

MinHyun just shakes his head. His gaze passes over Ro. He looks surprised. SooMin, who’s already seen the boys at the table, sighs and clutches Ro’s uniform vest, tugging her along. Ro allows herself to be dragged. She plops down between JR and MinKi, not acknowledging the other three in any way.

“Noona, how are your classes so far?” MinKi asks her, straddling the bench that they’re sitting on. Ro sighs and shrugs. She tells him about the boa constrictor in the biology room, though, and that grabs his interest.

JR puts his arms around Ro’s neck in a brother-like hug. “Ro-Ro!” he laughs cheerfully, pulling her off balance. She grabs his knee to keep from tumbling. “Yah, J-Hyun!” she exclaims. But she grins at the younger boy’s enthusiasm to see her.

“Ro-Ro, we should ditch school together~.”

Ro laughs at him, amused. “And do what, J-Hyun?”

He thinks for a moment. “Molla, you can choose.” Ro just smiles and pinches JR’s cheek. Then she notices SooMin talking to Aron.

“Yah, SooMin,” she says loudly, drawing their attention. “Why are you talking with strangers?” SooMin frowns. “Are you still being mean to them, Ro?” The ‘mean’ girl is about to protest when MinHyun answers instead. “Yes, so mean,” he pouts, smiling in a cute way in Ro’s direction. She glowers at him fiercely.

“Shut up, pretty boy!”

JR puts his arm around Ro’s shoulders. “Whoa there, Noona,” he attempts to soothe. “You’ve met my friends?”

“Yah, I’ve met them,” she sneers. Then she pauses, seeming wary all of the sudden. “Wait . . . there your friends?” JR nods. He points to MinHyun. “Childhood friend before I moved here in Seoul. [A/N: This would be kind of impossible since MinHyunnie’s from Busan and JR Oppa’s from Kangwon-Do ^^;]. But I hear that Ro-Ro’s been mean?” Ro rolls her eyes.

BaekHo speaks up for the first time. “Nah, she wasn’t mean,” he says, flashing his eye-smile. “We helped her put a few punks back into their place and went away. That’s all.” Here, he winks at Ro. She looks away. He’s fairly cute – but incredibly annoying.

“Hey, Ms. Choi,” MinHyun pipes up.

“What,” she mumbles around her sandwich, not looking at him. Instead, she inspects her nails (courtesy of her brother~) and stubbornly argues with herself that she will only be civil to these boys solely for JR’s sake. MinHyun acts like Ro’s dying to hear his answer and replies, “May I tell Aron your name now?”

Ro suddenly gets up, shrugging JR’s arm off. “Oh, haha, so funny. I’m leaving.” With that, Ro picks up her tray and tosses it in the trash. Shouldering her bag, she’s almost out the door when MinHyun catches up to her. “Wait!” he pants. She stops. “I’m sorry; I seem to keep making you mad at me.” He bows a little in apology. He stands up and smiles down at her. “Can we start over?”

Ro stares at him.

Can we start over?

How she wishes that she can. And not just with this un-formed friendship with Hwang MinHyun. She wants to start the last five years over again. If she could’ve warned someone, gotten her mom out of the way, have the man arrested for coming to the conference with a gun before he shot her. She wants to erase those nights when MinKi would come into her room at night and curl up against her – seeming smaller than an infant and suddenly no longer foot taller than her – tears streaking his face, crying without movement or sound. She wants to rewind time so that she wouldn’t have to witness her father loosing it, going insane, never sleeping, and getting so thin that he was in the hospital for a week.

She wants to start over more than anything in the world.

Finally, in a quiet and shy voice, she replies, “You can try – but I’m not easy to handle.”

What an understatement.

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A/N: That's all for today -^ ^- I hoped you enjoyed it as much as I had writing it for you guys! (Totally cheesy thing to say, yes I'm aware xD)