"Noona!" Hyori heard Chen calling her just as she finished giving the last bag of cookies to her ex-form teacher. She smiled and bowed as her teacher thanked her before meeting Chen. "Hey," she smiled at him.

"Hey." He looked breathless for some reason. He looked around, and his eyes were wild and panicky. "What's up?" Hyori frowned. "You looked like you just commited a crime or something."

"Even worse than that," he muttered absent-mindedly. "Yah, what did you do?" She grew suspicious.

"Nothing! And they made it look like I did something wrong!" He cried out, wringing his hands. Hyori shook his shoulders to bring him back to his senses. "Tell me what happened."

Hyori got her question answered soon enough. A large group of girls were running after a pretty-looking boy, whom Hyori recognised to be Luhan. He spotted Chen, who was waving frantically at him to go away, but he was too late. The girls spotted Chen too and screamed. "CHEN!" And they ran even faster.

Chen yelped and quickly hid behind Hyori. "Noona help me!" He wailed, his voice muffled against her back. Luhan followed suit and smashed headfirst into Hyori, hugging her waist tightly. "NOONA HELP!" He cried.

Hyori looked confused for a second, but she guessed what the situation was about. Trying to hide her grin, she put on a poker face as the girls halted in front of her.

"Who are you?" One of them asked rather rudely. Hyori smiled sweetly. "You might want to be more polite to your sunbae," she said lightly.

The girls exchanged shifty expressions. "We just wanted to talk to Luhan and Chen," another said timidly. Hyori still put on a light expression.

"You can talk to them another time, they're busy right now. As you can see, I'm taking them both out. Oh, and if you ever want to meet them, please don't run after them as if you want to go on war," she suggested. "Come on," she added to Chen and Luhan, prying them off her body and they turned their backs on the girls, who were frozen on their spots.

As both boys kept close to Hyori, she scanned around for Zico and Xiumin, having promised them that she'll hangout with them. Instead of finding them, someone else came up to her.

"Hyori?" It was Jihoon, and he looked stunned. Hyori was too distracted, so she glanced at him and said hi before resuming her search for the two guys. Chen had frozen when he saw Jihoon approaching Hyori and held on to her a little tighter.

"You've .. changed," he said slowly.

"Yeah I get that a lot," she said, still distracted. Finally, she spotted them looking in her direction and waved.

"Got to go," she said to Jihoon and dragged Chen and Luhan along with her, leaving Jihoon speechless.

*

"You should have seen Jihoon's face when you left him abruptly!" Zico chortled. Hyori looked amused. "I did that? I wasn't even aware of that." She took a glance at Xiumin, who was inhaling one bun after another. "Yah, slow down or you'll choke!" She chided. He nodded with his mouth full of food.

"How could you lose your chubby cheeks when you're still eating like a monster?" Hyori muttered, picking on her ddukbokki. It's been a while since she had that. Eating ddukbokki reminded her painfully of Jihoon, but Zico insisted on getting ddukbokki for the both of them (he's treating Hyori while Hyori treated Xiumin), so Hyori reluctantly agreed.

She also felt a surge of guilt when she couldn't meet up with Chen like what she promised him. Thankfully, he understood that she hadn't met up with her old friends for a long time, therefore he left with Luhan. Hyori planned to drop by his house later to find out what happened in school just now, to confirm her guess.

"So .." Zico began, "what's up with that?" He pointed to her outfit. Hyori knew what he was referring to. She was too lazy to detail out what happened so she summarised it as simply as she could.

When she was done, Zico stared at her. "Wow, the bully got bullied. Karma, huh?"

Hyori glared at him. "Yah."

"That's what you get for bullying me," he teased. Hyori had nothing to say to that, so she kept quiet and continued eating.

"Hey, I'm just kidding," Zico said softly, which was so unlike him. "You're strong for bearing all that crap. It stilll amazes me how you didn't lose your temper with them when you're so easily angry at me," he chuckled. Hyori looked up and gave a tiny smile. He noticed she had sauce on her lip. He leaned over and wiped it off with his thumb without thinking. Hyori froze. When he leaned in, she had seen the matching necklace on his neck. She looked at him.

"Relax," he laughed, realising that he had made the situation awkward without knowing.

"Don't you have a girlfriend?" Hyori asked.

Zico shook his head. "None of the girls in my school interest me," he yawned.

"They must be interested in you, right?" Hyori continued.

Zico looked at her. "So what if they are? Jealous?" He smirked.

"Please!" Hyori supressed the urge to kick him.

"And what about you?"

"Single," she shrugged. It wasn't a big deal for her anyway. Zico's spirits lifted. 

"Hyori," Xiumin tugged on her hand. While Zico and Hyori were talking, he was busy eating and ignored them. "More?" He pleaded. Hyori goggled at him.

"Dude, you're in an F&B school, you eat like a horse and you lost all your baby fat?! What is wrong with you!" She cried out in amazement.

Xiumin grinned weakly.

*

"We'll meet up more often, right?" Xiumin asked as they exchanged phone numbers with each other. Hyori nodded. "Here," she said, pulling out two bags of cookies, "one for you and one for you," she handed them to Xiumin and Zico.

Xiumin beamed. "Yay food!"

Zico however, looked wary. "It's safe to eat, right?" Seeing Hyori's look, he laughed. "I'm kidding!"

It was getting late, so Xiumin excused himself first, leaving Hyori and Zico.

"Well, I guess I should get going too," Hyori said. "I'll walk home with you," Zico offered.

"It's alright, it's a short distance, I can-" But Hyori faltered when Zico took her hand. "Come on, I haven't seen you like in forever."

Hyori felt uncomfortable, but she followed him. "If I let you walk me home, can you let go of my hand?"

Zico chuckled. "Sorry boss."

"Thanks," Hyori smiled as they reached her house. Zico kept his hands in his pocket all the way. "No problem," he shrugged. He looked at the house beside hers. "That kid lives there, right?"

"Chen? Yeah."

"I see." Zico scanned the windows and spotted Chen looking at the two of them. Glaring, in fact. Zico looked away.

"You know, I might visit him during his CCA one day," Zico mused. Hyori beamed. "Really? Did you know that his CCA will close down this year?"

Zico raised his eyebrows. "You're kidding."

She shook her head. "And they even got G-Dragon as his vocal tutor!"

Zico's jaw dropped. "You're definitely kidding."

"I'm not! You go ask him!"

"I sense a long story," he said, still unable to believe what Hyori just told him. He looked at his watch. "I'll get going now, take care."

"You too," Hyori waved. As Zico turned his back, he turned back again. "Can you hug me?"

"Huh?" Hyori asked, bewildered.

"You hugged Xiumin but you didn't hug me," he pouted.

Hyori rolled her eyes without bothering to suppress it. "You're such a kid."

Zico spread his arms wide open. "Please?"

Hyori sighed and went over to hug him. Zico looked up at the window again. 

And he smirked.

*

Omg Zico and Chen have a weird relationship! Like one moment they disliked each other and the next they're close brothers and the next they're enemies again! :O

I hope you guys don't know what to make of Zico cause that's the character I'm aiming for! I want to make him mysterious and unpredicatable and when you finally think you understood him I'll make you guys not understand him at all! :P But one thing that's for sure about Zico: He really likes Hyori!

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