When Amber got home she ran up the stairs, her boots banging loudly against the floor, and ignored her mum asking how her day was as she dived onto her bed and hid her face in the pillows. She kicked her legs and made a loud whimpering sound before quickly reaching for her phone and calling Krystal. She wanted to talk to the girl, she needed to before she exploded into a confusing mass of emotions. She hoped her friend wasn’t busy and could pick up.

She bounced lightly on the bed, squirming impatiently as she started to hear a phone ringing from the other end of the line. One ring, two rings “Pick up” Amber all but begged “pick up, pick up!”

Krystal picked up on the fifth ring and Amber was almost ready to impatiently scream down the phone by the time she heard her friend’s calm voice travel down the line. How could she sound so calm!? This was serious!

“Hey Amber” Krystal spoke happily, Amber could imagine the smile on her face “How was the date?”

“Krystaaaaal” Amber whined, dragging the name out. She still didn’t even know if it was a date or not but, the more she looked back on it the more she wished it was. She didn’t know what was wrong with her, she had never felt like this before.

“What?” Krystal instantly caught on that this wasn’t a time to joke around, the tomboy only whined like that when something was wrong “Did something go wrong?”

Amber shook her head. She didn’t know. On one hand she could say that a lot went wrong, that a friendly trip out seemed nothing but that in her mind and that now she was in a pit of overflowing confusion. But, on the other hand, nothing went wrong. She had fun, he was fun to be around as always. It went really right but oh so wrong at the same time and Amber felt like pulling her hair out in frustration.

“I don’t knooow” Amber continued to whine “Krystal, I don’t know what is wrong with me”

Krystal was quiet for a moment, a moment too long for Amber and she was about to ask her friend if she was still there. But, before she could, her friend spoke again with a completely serious tone “I’ll be right around, ten minutes at the most”

With that Krystal hung up and Amber nodded to herself, thankful that her friend could read her so well. Talking in person seemed like a much better idea. Amber looked at her phone as she moved to put it on her bedside table but stopped when she saw she had a text message from a number she didn’t recognize.

She opened the message curiously, hoping in the back of her mind that it was Onew, and smiled when the message opened and she saw it was from him, curling up onto her side on the bed as she read it.

I thought that I should text you so you have my number too :). I had fun today and I meant what I said, you looked really nice. Jinki x

She felt a blush creep up on her cheeks and, as soon as she realised, she chucked her phone onto her bedside table, without even closing the message, before curling up more and hiding herself under her bedcovers. She closed her eyes and willed the butterflies erupting in her stomach to subside, there was no reason for them to be there, it was just a text! She sighed and hid further under her bed covers, she was being stupid.

She stayed hidden like that, ignoring the text completely, until there was a knock at the door and Krystal poked her head in. Amber heard her friend sigh as she closed the tomboy’s bedroom door behind her and sat down on the bed, patting the lump which was the girl’s shoulder under the bed sheet.

“What happened Amber?” She asked quietly, obviously worried about her friend as she watched her pull the covers down and peek up at her.

Amber told her everything, from the way Onew acted and how it confused her along with how she was feeling before reaching over to her phone and showing Krystal the message she was sent. She started to hide back under her bedcovers, telling Krystal that she didn’t know what was going on but she felt like she should hide away. That, on one hand she wanted to see Onew again right now but, on the other hand, she never wanted to see him again because of the god damn butterflies that refused to leave. The feeling of them made her feel like she was doing to be sick, she couldn’t stand it.

Krystal was quiet for a moment, looking at the text Onew had sent her friend before bursting out into laughter. Amber sat up quickly and looked at her friend in disbelief; she couldn’t believe her friend was laughing at a time like this! Amber was in crisis and her friend looked like she was about to die laughing.

“Oh God, Amber, sometimes it’s hard to believe that you are older than me” Krystal spoke breathlessly, still letting out small giggles as she passed Amber’s phone back to her “you are crushing on him! Big time! Did you really not figure that out?”

Amber spluttered as she took her phone back “crush? What? Crush...no, no way”

She shook her head vigorously. There was no way she was crushing on the boy, she had only known him for a week! But he was so kind...and funny, polite, cute, charming, handsome, Amber shook her head again, trying to get the thoughts out, before she remember the feeling of his thumb on her lips and the feel of his skin under her fingers as she wrote her number on his hand. She blushed lightly at the memories and Krystal laughed again.

“Oh Amber, you have fallen and landed flat on your face” Krystal paused for a moment and reached for Amber’s phone again “Did you reply to that text he sent you?”

Amber hadn’t fallen anywhere. She was being stubborn about it but she refused to believe otherwise. If anything she had stumbled a little, but fallen? No way. She had never had a crush before, never liked a guy, so why would she have one now?

“No, I haven’t replied. I don’t know what to say” Krystal giggled at that and then started to type on Amber’s phone, making the tomboy panic and snatch it off of her before shouting “Yah! Leave my phone alone!”

“Reply to him then! Tell him how handsome you thought he looked without his glasses or something or just tell him you like him, that would work”

Amber made a small whining sound and held onto her phone tighter. She couldn’t do that, all it would result in is Onew giving a fumbling apology and saying that he didn’t like girls like her or that he saw her as a sister...she groaned internally, nothing would be worse than being told that. She eventually sighed softly and stared at her phone, choosing not to think and instead just type and let her heart decide what to say. She closed her eyes, feeling Krystal’s gaze burning into her as she slowly typed a message, much slower than she normally would, and she eventually opened them to see a short message standing out on the screen.

‘erm...thank you, I never normally put that much effort into an outfit really. But you put more effort in too, it was subtle but you looked different...handsome even’

Amber blushed lightly as she read the message, it sounded stupid to her and she was about to erase it but, before she could, Krystal reached over the tomboy’s shoulder and pressed the send button.

Amber squeaked loudly, almost close to a yelp and looked up at her friend with wide eyes “no, no, I didn’t want to send that! Krystal, what the hell!?”

Krystal shook her head and smiled softly, reassuringly, as she patted her friend’s shoulder “trust me, he’ll like it.