It’s barely three hours into the school day when Krystal is reminded of exactly why she hates herself so much for falling for him.

Second period has just ended, and Krystal follows the flow of students into the hallway. When she rounds the corner, her gaze doesn’t immediately land on Jongin. But she does hear his all-too-familiar voice, and then it’s an automatic reflex, the way her eyes search for him.

He’s standing in front of his locker, taking out the books and notebooks he needs for his next class.

Then her eyes slide to the girl next to him. Krystal’s heart clenches. Her name is Jiyeon. She’s nice and tall and effortlessly beautiful, and she’s leaning against the locker next to his. Jongin is talking animatedly with her, his eyes bright and his smile nearly blinding.

Krystal wonders if Jongin can see the slight blush on Jiyeon’s face as she laughs at his words. She wonders if she looks like that when she talks to him, flustered and transparently infatuated.

She really hopes she doesn’t.

That’s the thing about Jongin. He makes Krystal feel special, even though she knows he doesn’t think she is. He makes her feel special, and then she sees how special he makes other girls feel, too.

It stings, but not as much as it once did. Krystal’s grown rather accustomed to it by now.

Even so, Krystal holds on to the image of the happiness on Jongin’s face. She places it close to her heart as a reminder of how easily he laughs with other girls, and then she lets her anger grow around it, because he has no right to make her feel so irrationally jealous.

She passes by silently, and neither of them notice her.

-----

“World History is already killing me,” Sulli sighs as they move forward in the lunch line together. “Mrs. Baek assigned us twenty pages to read tonight.”

Krystal grimaces; she has World History after lunch. “Really?”

Sulli nods sadly as she reaches forward for a slice of pizza, as if to say you have no idea. Krystal opts for the pasta dish. The two of them pay and make their way over to a table where Chen, Sehun, and Chanyeol have already taken a seat.

“Are you two rooming with Victoria again this year?” Chanyeol demands the moment they sit down.

Krystal and Sulli exchange bewildered glances.

“Yes,” answers Sulli cautiously.

He throws his hands up. “That is so unfair,” he complains. “I’ve been trying for three years to room with Chen and Jongin and the school just won’t let me.”

Krystal laughs at that. “It’s because you and Jongin always do dumb things when you’re together. You can’t exactly blame the system for wanting to keep you two apart.”

“Exactly,” agrees Chen, with a what-can-you-do shrug. He grins. “Who are you rooming with?”

“Some kid I don’t even know,” Chanyeol huffs.

Krystal swallows and blurts out, “Does Jongin have this lunch period?”

“Jongin?” Chanyeol looks at her with a slightly puzzled expression.

“I was just, you know, wondering,” she stammers, kicking herself mentally. “I had something to ask him.”

Chanyeol shakes his head. “No, he has the next one.”

She nods, nearly sighing in relief.

Then she makes the mistake of meeting Chen’s eyes. There’s a knowing glint in his gaze, and Krystal doesn’t like it one bit.

-----

Krystal manages to avoid Jongin for the remainder of the school day, but all of her hard work is wasted when she arrives at the library after her last class. Because there he is, sitting at a table, bent over his textbooks, shattering the quiet of the library with his irritatingly unignorable presence.

His school uniform blazer is slung over the back of his chair, and his gold-and-maroon striped tie is loose around his neck and hanging slightly off center. He’s rolled up the sleeves of his white button-up even though the air is chilly in the library. Krystal watches as he pushes his dark hair out of his eyes and leans closer to his paper, intent on his work.

She’s about to turn around and leave when Jongin suddenly looks up.

“Krystal,” he says, sounding surprised.

And to her complete and utter dismay, she blushes. Her cheeks are turning pinker by the second, he’s still looking at her, and then Krystal remembers the way Jiyeon blushed earlier and that only makes her face flush even more.

“What are you doing here?” Krystal asks, unable to keep the accusation out of her voice.

The library is supposed to be safe and Jongin-free. That’s the way it always has been. He’d come to the library for a total of four, maybe five times last year, and each time had been because he needed to borrow a specific book.

Jongin blinks. “Chen said he needed our room until dinner time for something.”

Chen. Krystal fumes silently. Of course it was Chen.

“Aren’t you going to come sit down?” Jongin asks. He rearranges his textbooks to create some space for her, and Krystal can’t say no, even though her mind is screaming at her to make up an excuse and leave.

She’s about to sit in the seat across from him, but then she remembers the effect eye contact with Jongin tends to have on her. So Krystal walks around the table to the seat next to him instead and sets down her backpack.

“I can’t believe you’re starting your homework before midnight,” she mutters.

Jongin laughs. “Well, there’s a lot more this year than there was last year.”

Krystal raises an eyebrow. “Let me guess – Chanyeol is sleeping, and that’s why you two aren’t off wreaking havoc in the hallways.”

“All right, I’ll admit that Chanyeol is taking a nap,” he concedes, rolling his eyes, “but can’t a teenage boy do his homework if he wants to?”

“Not if that teenage boy is you.”

“You wound me.” Jongin presses a hand to his heart theatrically. Then he looks at her. “Do you always come here after school? Is that why I never saw you until dinner last year?”

Krystal wants to lie. She wants to say, ‘Oh, no, I only came here today because Sulli and Victoria were being too loud.’ Because she’s afraid of what it could mean if Jongin suddenly starts showing up here day after day, and she’s even more afraid of what it could mean if he doesn’t.

She wants to kill Chen.

“Why, did you look for me?” she asks, just a simple question, but it comes out sounding rather coy and Krystal can’t help but cringe internally.

Jongin’s answering grin is crooked.

“When I wasn’t too busy ‘wreaking havoc’ with Chanyeol, yes.”

“Oh, so you admit it then?”

“Hey, we aren’t that bad. I always turned my homework in on time,” he says breezily. “Not to mention how I aced all of my tests.”

That little –

Krystal glares. He always knows just how to push her buttons.

“I can’t stand you,” she huffs, pulling out her history textbook. She s her pencil pouch, only to see the gold pen lying there, practically mocking her. Krystal pushes it aside and digs out a mechanical pencil.

Jongin nudges her with a laugh. “At least you can acknowledge how brilliant I am.”

“You know,” says Krystal slowly. She swats his elbow away from her side and rolls her eyes. “There’s a reason why I came to the library.”

“To keep me company?”

“To do homework, Jongin. Preferably in peace and quiet.”

“You’re the one who showed up at my table,” he points out. “It was plenty quiet before you got here.”

“I really can’t stand you,” Krystal tells him again, because he doesn’t seem to have gotten the message yet.

Jongin simply grins at her and shakes his head.

“Don’t lie to me,” he drawls, and then Krystal is caught between pulling her hair out and blushing once more.

-----

“So,” a voice filled with laughter says behind her, “how was the study date?”

Krystal whirls around from her spot at the foot of the staircase. She’d been waiting for the past ten minutes for Chen to finally come down for dinner, and now she glares up at his tall form as he makes his way closer to her.

“You’re the worst friend ever,” she snaps as he falls into step beside her.

“You can’t avoid him forever, you know.”

Krystal rolls her eyes. “That’s because you keep coming in between my attempts to.”

“I don’t get it,” Chen says. “Why is it so hard for you to admit that you care about him?”

“Chen!” she bursts out. “I don’t care about him!”

He simply looks at her doubtfully.

“There’s this thing called denial, Krystal, and I think you’re living in it.”

“Chen,” Krystal hisses, “I’m serious. If you do that one more time, I’ll – “

“What?” he challenges. “Stab me? Push me off a cliff?”

“I just might do both,” she mutters darkly, shooting him a death glare.

Chen laughs then, slinging his arm around her shoulders as they continue down the hallway.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers into her ear, “I’ll let go of you once we arrive at the dining hall. Wouldn’t want Jongin to get jealous.”

Krystal barely manages to resist the urge to sock him.