“WHO THE HE.LL DID THAT?!!” a boy’s deep voice and a girl’s high-pitched voice yelled in unison, their voices echoing in the, now quiet, auditorium.

They were SeungHyun and YeJin. 

My vision was blurry from all the tears but I could still see SeungHyun and Micky standing up abruptly. They were probably looking around for the culprit.

DaeSung suddenly stood in front of me, probably to shield me from another attack of rotten eggs. YeJin came running beside me, hands on her hips while she glared at the audience.

Amidst all of these, an evil laughter was heard through the speaker. Everybody turned to look at HyeYeon who was holding the microphone.

“Oops, sorry. It wasn’t funny. I shouldn’t have laughed,” HyeYeon didn’t sound apologetic at all.  SeungRi narrowed his eyes at her. HyeYeon flashed me an evil, cunning smile. As bad as I had wanted to believe that it was her who threw the eggs, I knew that it wasn’t her. She was just enjoying the humiliation that I had to go through.

So does this mean that I have another hater?
This sudden realization made the tears flowed even heavier.

MinHo came and wrapped me in a huge towel that he probably took from the changing room. “Hang in there, ChaeRin,” he said to me while YeJin wiped the gooey thing off my face with the edge of the towel.

“Choi SeungHyun! SIT YOUR DOWN!” Mrs. Choi barked as the other judges looked at her in surprise. They probably didn’t know that she was yelling at her own son. 

“But Umma-aa-aa…” SeungHyun started to whine like a little boy but it was cut short by Mrs. Choi’s infamous death glare; the same kind of deadly angry glare that was given to me and YeJin on a daily basis.

“I HATE YOU LEE CHAERIN!!” a girl yelled from the audience, “YOU DESERVE THE ROTTEN EGGS!!”

All of a sudden I heard Mrs. Choi gasping loudly. “It was… YOU??” her voice was quivering, her eyes were opened wide and her index finger was trembling as she pointed to the culprit.

SeungHyun immediately turned around to look at the direction to where she was pointing and yelled angrily, “YOU!!!”

“It was.. HER??” DaeSung, YeJin and MinHo scoffed in unison, "I can't believe it."

I looked at the culprit, half-expecting her to be one of HyeYeon’s b1tchy crew but certainly didn’t expect to see who it was.

It was like the whole sea of audience had parted to reveal her: the Failed-In-Law, the number one student in my class, the teacher’s pet, the girl who seemed like she only cared about studying; the girl who was in love with Choi SeungHyun.

Jang ChaeKyoung.

Never in a million years had I thought that she would do this to me. I didn’t even expect to see her at the talent show since she was a nerd and all.

She had stood up, with eggs in both of her hands, looking at me with her eyes full of hatred. Her hands were trembling like she was controlling herself not to throw another egg to my face.

I was shocked at the hatred in her eyes. It made me wonder why she had hated me so much. I didn’t even talk to her for months even though we were in the same class.

The people around her were looking at her, whispering among themselves.

Mrs. Choi slumped back down in her seat, muttering under her breath while massaging her forehead. I think Mrs. Choi was on the verge of a breakdown. She would be the one who was most appalled by ChaeKyoung’s behavior since ChaeKyoung had always been her favourite student, the one whom she had secretly hoped to be her daughter-in-law in the future.

“YAH!!” SeungHyun yelled as he rushed his way up towards ChaeKyoung. He took the eggs from her hands and threw it to the ground.

“Oppaa~~” ChaeKyoung wailed as she fell to her knees. She put her face in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Why is she calling him Oppa?” I heard MinHo asked YeJin.
“Seriously? You’re only curious about that?” YeJin groaned. "You're so anticlimactic".

“Are you okay, ChaeRin?” DaeSung asked as he turned his head to look at me. He was still standing in front of me, shielding my body from harm.
“I’m okay,” I said, trying to smile at him through the tears.
DaeSung gave me a long lingering gaze which seemed to say a thousand words, though I did not know what they were. “I really hate to see you cry,” he said quietly after some time before he turned to look at the front.

I did not say anything to that. It was as though I understood what he meant; DaeSung was hating himself more for not being able to stop me from crying.

“JANG CHAEKYOUNG, LEE CHAERIN and CHOI SEUNGHYUN!! Meet me backstage NOW!” Mrs. Choi roared like a tiger and dashed in fury towards the back of the stage as the other judges just looked after her in confusion.

I think it was lucky that the principal did not attend this event or else, she might die of a heart attack. Our principal is a kind, old lady with a history of two heart attacks in the past 10 years. I’m sure her frail heart couldn’t accept this kind of commotion.

What now? I thought to myself. 

Mrs. Choi might lecture us to death. 

SeungHyun began to drag the crying ChaeKyoung by the arm towards the backstage.

“Omo, omo,” YeJin said, wiping the eggs from my hair with the towel, scrunching her nose, “You smell like sh1t, ChaeRin-ah. You should stand close to Mrs. Choi so that she’ll faint and let you go home faster,” she smiled sweetly as she gently wiped my face clean.

I smiled in spite of myself and the tears had stopped miraculously.

Suddenly, out of nowhere…

SPLAT~

A tomato came flying towards DaeSung’s chest. As the result, his white shirt was stained with splashes of red from the tomato.
“Am I bleeding?” DaeSung asked, his voice trembling.
“No silly, it’s just the tomato,” YeJin said. She picked up the bits of tomato off his shirt and shook her head.

DaeSung sighed of relief and I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

“YAH!” Micky yelled at JiYong who was holding a plastic bag of tomatoes, “Why did you that?!”
“I just hate that shirt on him,” JiYong said innocently, “He needs more colour.”
"Not cool, man," Micky said,  shaking his head disapprovingly.
"Fine, I'll apologize," JiYong whined, “Sorry!” he said loudly to DaeSung, giving him a half salute.

The familiar laughter blared through the speaker again. It seems like HyeYeon had forgotten that she was still holding a microphone. “Sorry, sorry,” she apologized insincerely again, “but that was just funny.”

“Aish,” SeungRi muttered and took her microphone away. “Sorry everyone, have a good night. Thanks for coming to the show. Please go back safely,” SeungRi said into the microphone and the audience began to scatter to leave, whispering among themselves. They were probably discussing about the events that occurred that night.

I bet this night's events would be the main topic of conversation in school for a whole month starting tomorrow.

MinHo who had run off to the back of the stage emerged later with another piece of towel and threw it to DaeSung. DaeSung caught it perfectly with his hand and began to wipe off the tomato stain from his shirt.

“Hey, isn’t that…??” TaeYang and HeeChul said in unison, pointing towards the stage. Micky turned to look and his face suddenly changed at something that he saw. 

Out of curiosity, I turned to look at the things around me but there was nothing suspicious there. DaeSung, YeJin, MinHo and I were the only people left on the stage. Suddenly, I noticed that MinHo’s face had darkened when he saw the guys.

Does he know them?

“Come on, guys. Let’s wait for TOP outside,” Micky said, averting his eyes from MinHo’s intense stares. TaeYang, JiYong and HeeChul continued to fix their eyes on MinHo as they followed Micky to leave the auditorium, looking back once in a while while they were walking.

“ChaeRin,” MinHo said quietly.
“Hmm..?” I asked.
“Mrs. Choi is waiting for you,” he said.

Oh sh1t!
I had forgotten that