Oh, God!

I closed my eyes as I held the picture in my hand.
I opened one eye to take a peek.

The  little DaeSung was still smiling at me with his huge front teeth.

I groaned loudly.

“Hey, ChaeRin,” DaeSung called, “What’s up? What did you get from EunHyuk?”

I just blinked rapidly at him. What was I suppose to say? Nothing, oh by the way, your Halmoni sent me your picture?

DaeSung looked puzzled by my reaction. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked as he made his way towards me, “What does he do- Woah! Put down the picture!! Put it down! Put it down!!” DaeSung began to shout frantically and I immediately let go of it.

The picture went to the ground but unfortunately, it was facing us upwards.

“Don’t loooooooo~~kkkk!!!!” DaeSung yelped as he tried to put a hand on my eyes which I successfully managed to slap off. Seeing our suspicious behavior, YeJin and MinHo came closer to take a look at the picture.

“Yaaahhhh!!!”

DaeSung was doing some sort of a Superman stunt where he was flying through the air to land on the picture. I saw how his hand sneakily hid it inside his pocket.

“What the hell is going on, Dae? Why are you acting so crazy?” YeJin crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked at DaeSung in full curiosity.
“Whose picture was that? Is it EunHyuk’s?” MinHo asked.

DaeSung let out a nervous laugh. “Ha ha ha. What picture? Aigoo.. you must be dreaming. Just go back to sleep, MinHo-ah. Aigoo... This boy can’t even differentiate reality and dream now,” DaeSung pretended to laugh some more.

MinHo looked puzzled. “But I seriously saw ChaeRin taking out a picture from inside the envelope just now.”
“Ha ha ha. What envelope?” I said awkwardly.
“Err.. The one that you got with YeJin just now?” MinHo said.

Aish, how stupid of me!

I cringed at my own stupidity. “I mean, what picture. Not envelope. What picture? Ha ha ha,” I let out an awkward laugh.
“Yeah, what picture? Pftt.. Ha ha ha,” DaeSung joined in to laugh awkwardly.

YeJin rolled her eyes. “There’s seriously something fishy going on between these two retards,” she said to MinHo. MinHo just shrugged his shoulders and went to sit back under the tree; his most favorite spot. YeJin groaned and went back to sit at her place.

I let out a sigh of relief and helped DaeSung to get up on his feet.

“That was close,” I heard him muttered under his breath as he began to brush off the bits of grass that was stuck to his school uniform. “I’m going to kill Halmoni!”

I looked down at the piece of paper from Halmoni and was still puzzled as to why she gave me his baby picture.

I saw DaeSung pulling out his cellphone and he began to dial furiously. After a few seconds, he screamed into the phone, “HALMONI!!! Why did you do that?!!!”

YeJin and MinHo was startled by his sudden outburst and began to give him questioning looks. When DaeSung noticed how he had everyone’s attention on him, he went further from us to hide behind one of the trees at the field.

“What was that about?” YeJin asked me.

I shook my head. In times like these, it was best to stay quiet and pretend that I don’t know a single thing.

“I’m telling you, that EunHyuk guy is getting to Dae’s head. It’ll only be a matter of days before Dae turned crazy like him too,” she said.

I shrugged. I started to imagine DaeSung flirting endlessly with any female with his corny pickup lines and shuddered. I hope it would be long before I would hear something like “You're like a dictionary; you add meaning to my life” coming out of DaeSung’s mouth.

A few moments later, DaeSung reappered and sat quietly beside me. I could see his cheeks were flustered - like he was deeply embarrassed or very angry about something. Heck, if Hitler gave out my baby picture to DaeSung, I’d be angry and embarrassed too!

I didn’t even know what to say to him. He was looking down to the ground and kept kicking the grass. YeJin was eyeing us suspiciously but I pretended not to notice.

Suddenly, my cellphone was vibrating, indicating an incoming call. It was from an unknown number. “Hello?” I said.

“Lee ChaeRin?” It was a familiar boy’s voice.

“Err.. who is this?” I asked, half-expecting him to be EunHyuk.

“Hi, ChaeRin. It’s Micky here.”
“Eh? Why are you calling?”

I really didn’t expect a phone call coming from Micky. Usually at times like this, it’ll only be Choi SeungHyun who’d bother me. I heard some noises in the background.

“Don’t ask her, man! She’s weird!” I heard HeeChul vaguely saying in the background.
“Shut up!” SeungHyun said.

“Ehem,” Micky cleared his throat, “I, uh, I mean we are wondering whether you’d like to join us for a movie today?”
“Well, that depends,” I said.
“On what?”
“Will Choi SeungHyun be there?”
“Err.. of course he’ll be there.”
“Then, the answer is no.”

I heard some commotion from the other side of the line before someone yelled to the phone, “YAHHHH!!!”

Of course, it was Choi SeungHyun. No surprise there.

“You HAVE to come,” he demanded sternly.
“Well, I don’t want to watch a movie with you,” I said stubbornly.
“Oh yeah?” he asked.
“Yeah!” I said firmly.

Nothing would ever change my mind.
And I mean it.
Nothing.

“I’m going to beat up your Romeo and his boyfriend, how’s that?” he said.

Okay, maybe except that.

I mean, I couldn’t care less about that flirty country boy but DaeSung is different; DaeSung is my friend. He had done so much for me. I should never get him into this, right?

God, I need some time to think.

“In the old days, silence means agreeing,” was SeungHyun’s smart- comment.

I sighed deeply. “FINE FINE FINE!!” I yelled loudly to the phone.

“Yah! Are trying to get me deaf? You’re so de-..” Before he could finish his sentence, I hung up the phone. I didn’t think I need to hear him blabber nonsense into my ear. If I did, I think I would be depressed for the rest of the day.

There was another call from the same number and I quickly rejected it.

Suddenly, YeJin’s cellphone rang and she picked it up.

“Yes, YeSung, why?”
“Mwo? Why?”
“Are you serious?”
“You’re stupid and he’s stupider.”
“Okay. See you at home.”

YeJin put down her cellphone and looked at me. “ChaeRin, YeSung asked me to tell you that if you hang up on Baboon again, he’ll tell your dad that you love Lee SooJoong and wants to marry him.”

I groaned loudly. That stupid baboon was having too much fun annoying me. I really needed to come up with a back-up plan. There were roughly 2 more weeks before the supposed slave contract with him would end and I think he was using all the time left to torture me till I become insane.

DaeSung perked up after hearing what YeJin said. “Who’s Lee SooJoong?” he asked me.
“My cousin,” I said.
“Why does that lunatic say you’re in love with your own cousin?”
“It’s a long story but the bottom line is, that baboon is crazy! He’s basically forcing me to watch a movie with him and his friends after school today!” I said exasperatedly.
“Huh? He asked you to watch a movie with them? But why?” DaeSung asked with his brows furrowed. I could see that he was totally against the idea of me going to the movies with baboon and his friends.
“The day that I can figure out that crazy baboon is the day that I have become a famous singer,” I declared.
“But why don’t you just say no?!!” DaeSung shrieked.
“Aish, it’s complicated.”

DaeSung gaped at me with his mouth wide open, like he was about to say something but decided against it in the