"Do you live alone here?" I asked as we digged in the hot spicy ramen.

        "Yes." He nodded. "Unless you want to live with me."

        "No, thanks." I told him, rolling me eyes.

        "Isn't it obvious, Krystal? School has already started. It's obvious that dormitories are already fully occupied." He testified.

        I sighed deeply, taking in the spicy soup and gulping it fast. "If there's a will, there's a way."

        "But you reject the way that has been opened for you." He said in a serious tone. "I heard your conversation with somebody by the lockers this morning. To tell you honestly, there's no such thing as 'the cheapest dorm' around here. If there is, they'd be pieces of crappy bedsheets."

        "So?" 

        "Move in." He said. "Here."

        I dropped my chopsticks, making a clinging sound and stared at him with an open mouth. Shocked as I was, he just looked at me blankly.

         Desperate. Maybe that's the most appropriate word for me. I did not know what kind of drug that ramen had, but I gave in. After much delirium inside my brain, I realized I was nothing but a desperate girl who wants to finish college without making his mother worry. The next thing I knew, I already agreed to move in to Lay's place. After just a day, my things were already on his cabinet. I still went firm on sleeping at the sofa, though. That was the last piece of pride I held on to. Everyday, I cook for him, clean the whole place, do the laundry and go "home" with him. Everything went by so mysteriously that I did not realize it has already been two weeks of staying with him.

        Through the two weeks, I have been closer with Lay. I shared to him my deepest thoughts and confided my worries. He was, however, a very silent guy. He barely talks about himself, his family or his interests. He just shrugged my questions about him.

        Staying with Lay paved the way for dirty stares from people in school. They look at me as if was some piece of crappy who messed up with a perfectly-formed god. 

        "Don't mind them." Lay always told me. "They're people who got a brain of a peanut."

        Lay has his way of making me feel better. He brings to me a feeling of comfort and ease - one that my friendship with Kang Jiyoung once gave me. 

        "I don't know what got into your mind, Krystal, but I did not expect you to end up that way." Jiyoung confronted me. "Everyone is talking about you and Zhang Yixing. Are you dating him?" I shook my head. "Then why do you live with him? People say you're a dirty woman, and..."

        "And you believe them?" I cut her off and asked her with teary eyes. Of all people, she should be the one who knows me well. Wasn't she supposed to be the one telling those nut-brained people that I am not what they think I am? She's not supposedly the one believing in those malicious rumors.

        "No." She said. "But you... I don't know, Krystal. I don't know." 

        That hurts. I guess friendship was really over for us.

        "Why the sad face, Krystal?" Lay asked as he sat next to me on the sofa.

        "Nothing." I replied. "Just stressed with school."

        "With school? Or with people in school?" 

         "Both." I honestly replied. "But it's more of the latter."

         "I guessed right." He snapped. He placed her arms around my shoulder, making me rest my head on his. I don't know when Lay and I started getting some sort of physical intimacy, as what books call, but I feel some sense of comfort with him close to me. "Your fangirls hate me."

         "I told you not to mind those nut-brains." He scoffed.

        "I can't blame them though." I said in a low soft voice.

        "Don't you dare think of leaving, Krystal. I won't permit." He said in his serious and scary kind of tone.

        "I still haven't saved much to repay you, so I won't." I replied.

        "If you're talking about money, just forget it. But if that is what makes you stay, then keep that in mind."

        "I'm not talking about money since you told me I can repay you in another way." I paused for a while to face him and look at him straight in the eye. 

        "Yes, and I meant it." he told me.

        "And to be honest, I'm still not repaying you full. I might be calling you Lay, but I still haven't forgotten about Yixing."

        "Change topic." There went his short replies again. As usual, they were scary.

        "Okay, I won't insist. I just thought we're friends." I said, attempting to make him guilty and eventually blurt his secret out. I was wrong, though.

        He sighed deeply, as if getting enough air for his lungs. "I thought we're more than that."

       His tone was serious, but I assumed he was teasing me again. I laughed it off, but my mind was in chaos. Somehow, butterlies seemed to be fluttering inside my stomach, while electric shocks run through my very veins. "What are we, then? Super mega ultra best friends?"

        "No." Lay replied, still serious. "I don't like labels. We're unlabeled."

  author's note .

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