Dongwoon snuck up to the roof and sat there, watching Jinhee’s angry back leaving the gates as the teachers all turned away, pretending they saw nothing.

“It’s not me who left you.” He sighed, resting his head in his hands. “I just stopped holding you back.”

“Is that really what you believe?” Junhyung asked.

Dongwoon wasn’t surprised to hear him follow him to the roof.

“Do you think it’s not true?”

“If that were the case, I'd think she want to pull you forward with her forever.” He shrugged. “I know there were other circumstances that made you let her go, but she and I would agree that you weren’t holding her back.”

“She’s smart. She didn’t study for the entrance exam at all. She left me alone for a week because I desperately needed to study. You needed to study hard for the exam too. All she did was muck around playing with her bugs, because she’s too smart to need to study for a school like this. We were with her growing up. She made us study with her tutors after school with her. She picked everything up like that. What took her five minutes, took us an entire night. She was learning business management at the same time! Fighting wasn’t much different! So there she is; pretty, polite, smart, and with money for generations. She’s walking miles ahead of me, while I was always running trying to catch up. Of course she’d stand there and wait for me, because she’s nice, but should I really make her do that? For what? We’re just childhood friends. She’s amazing, she’ll make new friends. I can offer her nothing.”

“But she wanted you to be there.” Junhyung said simply. “She would have fought the world to be with you if you just asked her to.”

“Who am I to ask her that? Hm?”

“You’re the guy who is still in love with her. A love starting from the moment you met her when we were three years old. I think that’s pretty worthwhile.”

“As if it would ever go anywhere. She would never feel the same for me. And her family hated me from the start.”

“They hate anyone that can’t afford solid gold toilets.” He scoffed. “They’re old money. That’s what they do. Hate people. She was different. She would have left that behind for her best friend. She even stopped playing with bugs if you were around. You know that’s huge for her.”

“You know she’s on the path to ruling Asia’s economy the moment she graduates from some world class university.”

“I don’t know why you’re so stuck on her leaving you behind, when all she ever does and look back at you, waiting for you to take her hand.” Junhyung sighed and left his cousin on the roof alone.

-Jinhee-

‘I really shouldn’t have yelled at him.’ She thought to herself, not even paying attention to all the bugs around her.

“Prez!” She turned around and saw the club members behind her.

Jiwon grinned. “We heard you were going to this exhibit today. We wanted to join you.”

Jinhee turned to Jin Gyo. “You’re a third year. You really have time to do this?”

“I’ll be fine.” He smiled. “I heard you got crazy pissed this morning from Hyunseung.”

“Yeah…” She sighed and turned back to the exhibit.

They didn’t know what to do. Their beloved Bug Princess was usually calm, patient, and very caring. She didn’t get angry often, and she rarely got depressed. This was a side to her they didn’t know how to respond to.

“Unni! Look! They have some beetles over here!” Haneul tried to distract the older girl.

“Yes… Very pretty.” She looked, but didn’t really look.

Now they really didn’t know what to do. Bugs were her life’s passion. No matter what, bugs made Jinhee’s eyes light up. Hyunseung told them everything, but they really didn’t take their Bug Princess for someone that was affected by that.

“Are you hungry? Should we go eat?” Ki Bum asked.

“Not really.”

Now that was really strange. Jinhee was not a fatty, nor did she eat a lot, but she never turned down an offer to go eat with her club members, who were as close to her as friends could be.

“Do you want to go home?”

“Maybe. I think I’ll go swimming. Would you guys like to come over? I’m still going to hold the tutoring session today anyway.”

“Are you sure you want to? If you’re not feeling up to it, I’m sure they’ll understand.”

“I’m fine.” She said in a hollow voice and walked on ahead.

“Have you ever seen her so down?” So Eun asked her boyfriend.

“Never.” He shook his head.

-At her home-

“You’re home early Young Mistress.” The maids were surprised when she entered.

“I wasn’t feeling well.” She sighed and handed over her things to the maid robotically.

The maid looked at the other maids and the students, surprised and confused.

“She got into a fight.” Haneul sighed. “There’s more to it, but even we’re not sure what exactly is happening.”

The maids nodded and accepted the items from the other students to put away for them.

“Have their swim trunks been cleaned since last time?” Jinhee asked with an uncharacteristically blank expression.

“Yes! I’ll bring it to them, Young Mistress!” They hurried off, unsure of how to handle the girl in this condition.

Jinhee changed into a dark blue one piece and wore some t-shirt over it that was many sizes too large and covered her as much as a dress would. She was the first to make it to the pool. She put her cellphone down next to a drink a maid delivered to her, and jumped head first into the pool. She submerged herself for a while and came up when she ran out of air.

The others joined her by then and were either in the shade, or playing in the pool too. She swam back and forth from one end to the other until she was too tired to continue, which was at about forty laps.

“Are you going to tell us what’s wrong?” So Eun asked.

“I got my feelings hurt two years ago, and apparently I held onto it and lashed out at the poor guy today.” She sighed and rested her cheek on the edge of the pool.

“What did Dongwoon do?” Jin Gyo asked.

“We used to be best friends ever since we were three I think. We didn’t go to the same schools at that time, but we hung out every day after school. In middle school I managed to convince my parents to let me go to their school. For high school, we had to make a compromise. My parents didn’t want me to be in an unranked school, so those two worked hard to make it into a ranked school, and I had to fight my parents to let me go to this school, even though they had a private school picked out for me already. Dongwoon and Junhyung studied for over a week without sleep. I did my best to help them with flash cards and other study materials, but they asked me to leave them alone to study by themselves. We met on the day of the test and encouraged each other to do well. Unluckily, I was put in a separate room from them for the test. They were in the same room as Yoseob, KiKwang, Doojoon, and Hyunseung, which was when they became friends.

“Dongwoon, Junhyung, their parents, and I went out to eat to celebrate the end of the studying, but after that, I had to fly with my dad to New York to watch him do business. When I came back was the day we got notice if we passed or not. A maid told me I passed that morning when I was in the plane coming back. I expected to see him that night. He didn’t respond to my texts or calls. Junhyung had to tell me they passed.

“School comes around, and I was so happy to see I was in the same class as Dongwoon. It had been weeks since I last saw him at that point. But he ignored me completely. He was surrounded by too many people, so I couldn’t even get near him. I don’t think he wanted me to anyway. So he was popular, and I was not. He outgrew me and left me behind.”

“Is that really what happened?”

“Do you think I would exaggerate this already depressing story?” She glared up at Ki Bum, who raised his hands up in surrender. “Maybe it’s because I’m rich, but this is one of the worst things that ever happened to me. My best friend dropped me. We knew each other since we were three, and he drops me when we get to high school, even though we’re in the same class. I wasn’t cool enough for him anymore, so I was left behind as he walks forward in life. He’s growing up, while it’s like I’m stuck as some 6 year old who likes to roll around in the dirt.”

“Maybe he wanted to let you grow on your own?”

“Maybe he hates me because I like bugs?” Jinhee retorted. “Give it up, he hates me. Especially since I was yelling at him this morning.”

“So you yelled at him this morning because your feelings were hurt when he stopped talking to you?” Haneul asked and was pleased when Jinhee nodded solemnly.

“Do you like Son Dong Woon?” So Eun asked skeptically.

Jinhee sunk down in the pool until only her eyes were visible and nodded slowly.

“You like him as in more than friends?” Jiwon asked to be positively sure. “Like ‘boy and girl’ like?”

Jinhee sunk even lower and nodded.

“Does he know?”

She shook her head.

“How long have you liked him?” Haneul asked.

Jinhee let go of the edge of the pool and raised six fingers into the air.

“Six months or six years?”

“Since we were six… Even though he hates bugs, he caught and held a beetle and waited for me to find him because he was too terrified to move. It was probably for five minutes that he held it, but for him, it must have felt like days. I started liking him that day.”

“That’s odd…” Haneul smiled.

“What?”

“You don’t get attached to people. You’re fond of some, but otherwise, you don’t care.”

“It’s because I’m rich.”

“Huh?”

“What do you mean?” Jiwon asked, pulling Jinhee out of the pool so they could all talk better.

Since the talk was getting into the category of girl talk and feelings, the two guys went to the far end of the pool to give them privacy.

“She means that she was born with a spoon covered in diamonds in . She’s learned that people are disposable, and because she has money, people who genuinely like her will be few and far between. People will always want something from her, usually her money. She doesn’t grow attachments, because she knows she can’t. She’s going to run one of the biggest conglomerates in the world when she’s older; she can’t be an overly emotional girl who sticks to people who might not be her friends, if she’s going to do that. And she especially cannot form attachments in a school like ours where no one is a child of a CEO or come from any sort of money. This school is miles lower than where she should be.” Haneul smiled humorlessly. “Our Bug Princess is way above us. And she knows it.”

“Do you think you’re better than us?” So Eun asked, not meaning for it to be rude.

“It’s not that. I know that according to society, we’re different. But I think we’re similar enough; I like hanging out with you guys. You don’t care if I have money. I’m just your Bug Princess who runs the club and likes to sit in a bush to stare at an ant hill sometimes.”

“Okay, then that’s fine. Even if we stop talking to each other when we graduate high school and you go to some awesome university, I’ll think of our memories in this club fondly.” So Eun grinned. “The club led by the girl who spent a day tracking the origins of spiders in the gymnasium.”

Author's Note

Okay, so now we KINDA know what happened to them. Clearly, there's a lot more to it than what Jinhee has gathered, but that will be revealed in due time.

And I like how her club members are her friends, and she cares about them like close friends, and talks to them like close friends, but to her, this is just the club members being club members. They're a lot closer than she realizes.

But I swear, only Dongwoon could make her that angry and that sad in the same day without trying to.

Random Question Time:

Favorite Beast Song?

Mine is Virus. But the song that inspired this one was Lightless and Back to You -- which are all kind of depressing actually...

Thanks for reading and please comment!

And, (4/14/13) I heard that Beast coming back in May, do you believe it, and are you excited? hehe