From time to time, Sooyeon will hang around the university cafeteria, if her sixth period teacher will dismiss them earlier then she’ll run to the university building and wait for Kyuhyun in the cafeteria. She’s not the high school kind of girl who’s afraid to the university students of the school because other than she knows Kyuhyun will not let anything happen to her (something Kyuhyun promised to her parents when he’s too young to know what he promises), she’s really a popular girl in school. So there are boys here and there, asking for her phone number (that she never gives) and asking her to go out (that she never accepts). So anyway, no one’s going to hurt her there.

It’s quite the opposite because Sooyeon can be all this sweet girl to Kyuhyun and those who likes her, but she absolutely hates it when someone takes the spotlight from her. She absolutely despises it. Not that she’s all evil or something similar as devilish like that but she’s your ordinary school queen bee who doesn’t want any royalty higher than her.

That’s why it surprises her one morning that Joohyun and Sooyoung are getting lunches from the university cafeteria and not in the high school cafeteria. Normally, because Joohyun and Sooyoung aren’t really welcomed in interacting with other people other than Jongwoon, they’d bring their own lunches but that day, they weren’t able to prepare their lunches. And when they arrived at the botanical garden, they saw Jongwoon sleeping peacefully. They didn’t want to wake Jongwoon up to ask him to buy lunch for them like usual because seriously, no one would have the heart to wake Jongwoon up. He’s sleeping, like an angel, so peaceful and calm and doesn’t deserved to be waken up or disturbed.

Normally, when Joohyun or Sooyoung or both of them have no time to prepare for their own lunch, Jongwoon will be the one to buy for them, along with his own lunch in the cafeteria. Jongwoon doesn’t like them to be caught in the sea of narrow minded people when he knows that anytime, someone might throw something at them. It doesn’t matter that that’s exactly Jongwoon’s case, too. Like he’s always saying, it’s like happening all his life, so he’s used to it now. But Joohyun and Sooyoung, he doesn’t want them to get used to it. They’re like his own younger sisters and like any other older brother, he wants to protect them, at all cost.

So anyway, Sooyeon catches sight of them first when they’re entering the university cafeteria. It’s really effortless to see them because it’s pretty obvious, they’re wearing high school uniforms like Sooyeon’s among the university students who aren’t wearing uniforms. The high school students are bound to wear uniforms while university students of course aren’t.

Sooyoung strides along the crowd and falls in line while Joohyun follows after her, looking at the ground even though nobody’s really paying any attention to a bunch of high school students buying their lunch at the university cafeteria.

It’s all fine, Sooyeon thinks even though why does she really have to bother thinking about them, right? Don’t they deserve to buy lunch at the university cafeteria like Sooyeon?

That’s what Sooyeon’s been thinking until Donghae notices them and asks her, “Hey Sooyeon, are those two you’re classmates? The taller one’s really pretty.”

Hyukjae, Sungmin and Kyuhyun look up to where Donghae is looking and see two tall girls (although the other one is a little bit taller), one with slightly messy short hair and the other one with long, straight hair, wearing the same uniform as Sooyeon’s. Well, they see Sooyoung and Joohyun going along as the line moves.

“Really?” Kyuhyun says, like it’s really nothing much of a business but something critical, like they’re just analyzing who’s pretty or who’s prettier. He’s about to say who’s not but he realizes both girls are really pretty, in an objective point of view. Not that he’ll date them. He already has Yesung. “I think the shorter one is prettier.”

Now, Sooyeon would have let it go with Donghae’s question and pretend that she didn’t hear them or tell them that she doesn’t know them but hearing Kyuhyun’s statement, now Sooyeon’s gone all berserk inside while she’s still smiling on the outside. How dare her steal Kyuhyun-oppa’s heart from me?, she thinks angrily even though, why the hell is Kyuhyun’s heart hers, right?

“No, the taller one is prettier,” Donghae argues, now pointing his chopsticks to both girls.

“The shorter, hyung,” Kyuhyun still also says, still managing to anger Sooyeon more egven without being aware of it.

“The taller.”

“The shorter.”

“Who the hell is the taller and the shorter?” Hyukjae asks, frustrated. “They’re the same height.”

“They’re not,” Sungmin, who hasn’t been saying anything before, says. “The one with short hair is a little taller than the one with long hair.”

Hyukjae looks closely and finally says, “I’d go for the one with long hair.”

Kyuhyun nods successfully, like they’re playing a bet or something, before Sungmin, after looking the second time, says, “I’d say the one with short hair is prettier.”

This time, Donghae grins and says, “So it’s two-two.”

“Are you going to ask for her number or am I?” Donghae asks Sungmin.

Sungmin shrugs because he only says the one with short hair is prettier. Not that he wants to date her or something. She’s a freakin’ high school student and Sungmin really wants to put his studies first before committing himself into a serious relationship.

“Are they your classmates, Sooyeon?” Donghae asks Sooyeon again like remembering that Sooyeon’s beside Kyuhyun and is eating with them only after wanting to know how he can get the taller one’s phone number.

Sooyeon doesn’t answer because she’s seriously burning inside until all of them, including Kyuhyun, turns to her and probably wonder what’s wrong with her. Usually, when she eats with them, none of them has the chance to say anything anymore except nod because Sooyeon’s talking like a machine gun.

“No,” Sooyeon lied even though she knows Sooyoung’s at the last row because she’s really tall and Joohyun’s at the first row because even though she’s tall, she has really bad eyesight.

“Oh,” Donghae mutters, disappointed and Sooyeon wants to strangle him so that he would shut up. “Then, I guess I’ll ask for her number then.” He grins and is about to stand up when he notices that they’re walking their way, finally after buying their lunch.

“Don’t you want to be friends with her first, hyung?” Kyuhyun asks Donghae and to Sooyeon, he sounds like he’s really interested as well, probably with Joohyun, Sooyeon thinks.

“Well, I’ll be friends with her if I get her number first,” Donghae answers confidently, sitting back and waiting for them to reach their table so that he can talk to them.

The university cafeteria is pretty packed, mostly because lunch time is the same for all students. Although they’re free to eat lunch on their vacant periods, lunch time is pretty much the default period where everybody is free and can meet up, to talk about projects or group works or simply to hang out with their friends who have different schedules. So it takes a while for Joohyun and Sooyoung to get through it.

Meanwhile, Jongwoon wakes up and finds Joohyun and Sooyoung nowhere in the botanical garden where the three of them eat lunch together everyday. He feels a Post-it note on his forehead and it reads:

Jongwoon-oppa,

Sooyoungie and I didn’t pack our own lunches today…

We’ll buy at the university cafeteria…

We’ll buy you your lunch, too…

We didn’t want to wake you up…

Sleep well first, you’re probably tired, oppa~

- Seo Joohyun ^^

Jongwoon smiles when he reads the note but at the same time, worries about Joohyun and Sooyoung. After about twenty minutes and Joohyun and Sooyoung haven’t come back, yet, Jongwoon leaves the botanical garden and walks to the university cafeteria, looking for his friends.

He doesn’t really know if it’s really destiny bringing him and Kyuhyun together or if it’s the same destiny separating them because as soon as he swings the university cafeteria’s door open, he sees Joohyun and Sooyoung walking by Kyuhyun’s table with his friends. Then, he sees Jung Sooyeon tripping Joohyun, making Joohyun fall face flat on the floor, her lunch all over her.

Before anybody, Jongwoon or Kyuhyun or anybody near can react, Sooyoung who let Joohyun walk before her as she follows after and clearly sees Sooyeon tripped Joohyun literally dives at Sooyeon and exclaims, really loud, because even if Sooyoung can’t really hurt an ant, she can, too, if it’s about her friends.

“Hey, why did you trip her?!”

Sooyeon acts innocently, like that will be the most ridiculous thing she’ll ever do.

“What? I don’t understand what you’re saying,” the says, looking between Sooyoung and Kyuhyun and the people around her and the people around them, like that will be impossible because she’s Jung Sooyeon and there’s no way she’ll do that.

“You tripped Joohyun, Sooyeon,” Sooyoung angrily says, glaring at her, putting down her and Jongwoon’s lunch at the table and standing in front of Sooyeon.

“What are you saying? I didn’t do anything,” Sooyeon defends, acting all sweet and soft and everything nice and looking like she’s the victim here while Joohyun’s still trying to get the chili sauce off her skirt and the sticky rice on her hair.

“Yes you did!” Now, Sooyoung’s really pissed off. Why did they have to do that to them? What did they ever do wrong to them? Aren’t they lying low already, for something they haven’t done in truth and for nothing they have done wrong? So why did they have to go through this when there’s really nothing they should be paying for?

Sooyeon takes offense because nobody shouts at her. “I didn’t!” she exclaims.

It’s pretty weird for students to get into fights inside the university cafeteria because that’s really a weird place to get into fights, right? Fights should be outside schools, at abandoned buildings somewhere, at fields or behind the school’s buildings. But it’s even weirder for two high school students to get into a fight in the university cafeteria while one high student is on the floor, trying to get her lunch that’s all over her. So everybody’s pretty psyched when they notice that somebody’s fighting with somebody and now, the entire peoplehood in the cafeteria’s looking at both of them.

“Yes you did! You tripped her! She didn’t do anything wrong to you. Why would you go that far, Sooyeon?” Sooyoung still says. “Apologize to Joohyun,” she says seriously, but authoritatively and if Sooyeon’s on her right mind, she would have dropped on the floor, apologized to Joohyun and asked Joohyun to spill lunch on her as well. An eye for an eye. But really, who’s thinking that Sooyeon’s on her right mind has gone mad because clearly, Sooyeon isn’t.

“What?” Sooyeon says, rolling her eyes at Sooyoung.

Joohyun stands up and says to Sooyoung, looking utterly pathetic because not only she smells like bibimbap but she looks like a bibimbap in human form, carrots and cucumbers on her hair, chili sauce has changed her shirt’s color into a reddish disgusting looking color and she’s basically covered with sticky rice because they’re pretty hard to remove, especially with the chili sauce keeping them glued on to her.

“Sooyoungie, let’s go,” Joohyun says to Sooyoung.

They hear several snickers from the people around them, merely and stupidly only watching them. Joohyun is aware that she looks (and probably smells) funnily but hearing the laughs, she can’t help wonder what could she have done wrong in her past life to deserve all this? Her eyes began to water and she says again to Sooyoung, “Sooyoungie, let’s go,” tugging her blazer.

But Sooyoung has had enough. She grabs Sooyeon’s arm and is about to lunge her on the floor as well, in the mess of Joohyun’s lunch but before she could, Kyuhyun steps in between her and Sooyeon and says, low and steady, “No, you don’t.”

Sooyoung is about to back off but she has had enough.

“I’m done with all your bulls, goddamnit!” Sooyoung shouts and with all her force, she pushes Sooyeon on the floor despite Kyuhyun holding her hand on Sooyeon’s arm.

Sooyeon falls on the floor and still posing like a maiden in distress begins crying. Surely, that must have gotten the sympathy of the entire planet but not Sooyoung. She can’t care about anything anymore when she finally decides to fight. It’s not like she’s fighting to be the superior one or for people to look up at her. She’s merely fighting to survive. And surviving, Sooyoung thinks, isn’t about having you do all your bulls to us and letting you get away with it. No, not anymore.

“Oppa~ Kyuhyun-oppa…” Sooyeon cries on the floor, her hand on her face because she’s really not good in crying fake tears. Despite her premium, top-class, optimum attitude, that’s the ability she’s yet to master.

Joohyun gasps and takes a step backward because Kyuhyun looks like he’s going to kill Sooyoung and her after killing Sooyoung. It all happens so fast because as Kyuhyun raises her hand to slap Sooyoung instinctively for hurting Sooyeon, before his palm could touch Sooyoung’s face, Sooyoung closes her eyes. She’s not going to run. No, not anymore. Jongwoon appears in front of Kyuhyun, blocking Sooyoung from Kyuhyun’s slap and stopping the younger man’s slap with Jongwoon’s hand firmly holding Kyuhyun’s arm.

Jongwoon and Kyuhyun’s eyes meet.

A/N: Hey guys, two chapters update! I was about to update this morning for the first chapter update but I have no internet connection so I wasn’t able to. Anyway, here’s two chapters update!

This chapter’s pretty long, right? I wasn’t supposed to end this here but I must because I need to study still. Haha, damn Applied Statistics (my Finals exam for tomorrow)!

As always, thank you for reading and I really appreciate all the comments you leave! Is it too much to ask to leave comments about what you think/reactions (violent, constructive or not) about how the story goes? Because I’d really love to know your opinions as the story progresses. ^^

And oh, I’m going to reply to all comments. I’m sorry if I haven’t yet but I will, I usually do :)) I'll do it once Hell Week’s over. Thank you guys!

- Elle Kim