It had been seconds as he stared at the photo in his right hand with the same unrelenting furrowed expression. However, as if shock had slowly begun to slip out of his system, his serious expression started taking over his façade. He placed his left inside his pant pocket, his eyes never breaking away from the photo.  

"So it was you then."

"For your information, that's a property of the TWT publication and it's still kind of confidential, so kindly hand it back," I made my way towards him. I extended my right forearm out and laid my palm open towards him, waiting for him to give it back. 

"Why would I? “ Joonmyeon smirked at the picture. Smirked. What the heck is he smirking about? No, let me rephrase that. Why is he smirking? When did he learn to smirk like that? He lifted up his vision from the photo, eyeing me with that cocky smug on his face. He tilted his head slightly to the right as if out of mockery. ”I'm not dumb to let something and someone ruin my crystal-clear clean reputation."

I didn't know what had gotten into him. Right in front of me was the complete opposite of the Kim Joonmyeon that we knew. His choice of words. His facial expression. That smirk. Everything about him was not the gentle, angelic, smileyface Kim Joonmyeon that we knew, and it scared me. Was he having some kind of a ridiculous personality disorder?

"I always knew that something about you seemed off." I eyed him from head to toe, half-taunting, also half-disgusted of him. I held my planner down to my side with my right hand. "You're way too nice."

"But…” Joonmyeon turned around, walking towards the far left of the room. He made his way around the head of the table where he would usually sit. He was headed towards the shredder. His stern expression grew more prominent as he craned his head to his right to look at me. “…people like it.”

I warned as I stepped closer, my free left fist balling up. "Don't you dare." It was just for effect. It wasn’t like the photo was the only one of its kind. I had it in my laptop and camera.

"Say you publish the story,” His narrative voice began resounding, pure insult and teasing emanating from it. “But without this photo…" He gave me a final stern look. He pressed a button on the shredder and completely shoved the photo down in it. The grinding sound was wrecking my heart…NOT. "…no one's gonna believe you." 

I eyed him with furrowed eyebrows as I maintained my position on the ground. If he were smart, he should not be acting as confident like that after destroying the evidence that he might have presumed to be the only of its kind; I was calm, he should be realizing that with my gesture at the moment, this wouldn’t be the last time and that wouldn’t be the last photo of its content that could ruin him.

With a final glare, I secured my backpack on my back, still clutching onto the planner with my right hand.

I began walking towards the door. Before I completely got out, I turned around, facing his stern, unmoved figure by the shredder. He glanced at me in an unyielding manner. 

"Oh by the way, is being smart included in your pretentious  facade as well?" I asked him in a taunting tone. I just couldn’t hold back the question anymore. For all we knew, he could have been pretending to be smart all along, which was quite impossible. I mean, his well-known, impressive performance during examinations is the sole product of his own doing.

He angled his head to the right with his firm expression, as if scrutinizing my question, his eyebrows knitted together.

"Just in case you haven't realized, I have a copy of it. Right in my very own camera. So see ya," I sarcastically smiled at him as I waved goodbye with my left hand. I darted back to the publication room, running, hoping he wouldn't catch me. 

The TWT meeting ended at almost seven in the evening. Each member presented potential stories for the upcoming quarterly publication. Some good, some better. However, at the back of my mind, I kept telling myself that nothing would be better than the Kim Joonmyeon story. I knew that it would cause quite a ruckus in the school. 

As we reached the school gates, my team and I dispersed into different directions to head to our respective dorms. I, Chanyeol and Baekhyun would usually head back to the dorms together, but since it was Monday, they  probably went ahead without me, probably after feeling worn out due to their soccer practice. 

The street in front of the school was tranquil except for the occasional sound of passing vehicles. The sky was already dark but the sidewalk was well-lit by the equally distanced postlamps. This was my usual route back to the dorm, and so far, nothing weird had ever happened to me while walking alone. Hence, I was not scared at the slightest.

But this time, something definitely felt odd.

I could feel like I was being followed, evidently heard from the emerging light footsteps at my far back. I was not also hearing one, but two sets of footsteps. To know whether these people were following me, I stopped walking without turning my head.

 The footsteps also stopped. 

Okay. 

I casually took about five steps forward. I stopped. 

The sound also did the same.

Now this was just getting creepier. I turned my head to see who these stalkers were.

Except for the wooden bench at the sidewalk, I found no one. 

I clutched onto my backpack and began taking longer and quicker strides. I gathered my pace up. The footsteps could be heard again, also seemed like they were catching up to me as they matched up to the pace I was exuding. I didn't know what I was feeling. Maybe scared. Maybe annoyed. However, I was pretty sure that I was dominantly annoyed. I stopped in my track, clutched onto the straps of my backpack.

I quickly faced the stupid stalkers. "WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?!" My voice came out louder than what I intended it to be.

My eyes slightly widened as I realized who my 'stalkers' were. I pursed my lips tighter. Seriously? My head tilted to the side as I glanced at the ‘stalkers’ in a disbelieving manner, my gaze turning intensely half-lidded.

In front of me stood Chanyeol dressed in his black track pants and blue pull-down hoodie. He was sporting his black specs and a plain black snap-back cap on. Baekhyun was in his plain white V-neck shirt and track pants. Both of them were wearing their black outdoor slippers, ones that displayed their big toes and unflattering vein-y feet. (They were the ‘grandpa’ slippers as what I call them. They might have been influenced by their captain for all we know.). They would be deemed as ones of the coolest guys on campus, but they were just as normal as their derpiness, as well as those well-manicured toe nails of Baekhyun - I am not really sure if they’re naturally like that or he just frequently visits a foot-and-nail spa or something.

Chanyeol was holding a huge, black plastic bag of groceries, probably from the nearby convenient store. I looked at his expression. He seemed startled with his mouth forming a small ‘o’ because of my outburst. The same went for Baekhyun.

"Woah, woah. Calm down, Myunjae. Geez.” Baekhyun defended, his syllables being exaggerated once again.

I sighed big in relief after seeing that they weren't some creepy guys attempting to harass me. 

“We were just trying to catch up with you."

"Seriously, I almost had a heart attack.” I attempted to calm my heart down with one hand, releasing it after a couple of seconds. They reached up to my walking pace. We continued walking side by side. “Don't you ever dare sneak up onto me like that. Understood?”

"But why are you so jumpy today? You're normally not like that," Chanyeol asked.

"Me? Jumpy? Then why don't you try walking in the middle of a deserted street at night while being followed by some unknown maniacs. Let's see if you don't get jumpy," I retorted, my neck feeling like it was gonna break because of Goliath’s height on my right.

"But we won't. We're guys," Baekhyun spoke lightly with an innocent tone, shrugging his shoulders once.

"No...I was actually pointing out..." Nevermind, but he was right. The case was different for guys and these two wouldn't probably even understand. They had their own derpy opinions.

We reached the condominium building and went to our respective rooms. After taking a shower and changing into my pajamas, I lied down on my bed. Why did I feel jumpy today? Because of Kim Joonmyeon. I thought of different possible ways that he would do to retrieve that picture from me now that I knew what kind of person he really was. Maybe he would hire someone to kidnap me, torture me, rob me? I hit my head mentally. Why was I thinking such thoughts? He was just a student after all. He couldn't afford to do those kinds of things. If he would, especially to me, his name would be printed on the front cover of the publication faster than he could say his last name. Come to think of it, I had the upperhand in this situation. 

I had nothing to worry about. 

The next morning, I came a little earlier to school than my normal usual time, thirty minutes before seven. I decided to bring my precious SLR camera with me since I was more convinced to publish the said story, with the deadline sinking in my mind. I still hadn’t completely decided to send the photo to the TWTers via email due to its control value. I also could have brought my laptop, however, I was sure that Chanyeol and Baekhyun would be filching it from me to download some annoying cartoon s