Maybe it was because of everything that had happened at school or maybe it was because Jonghyun haunted the backs of my eyelids, but I had a hard time sleeping that night. As a result, I woke up late the following morning.

“Aren’t you going to be late, noona?” Zelo demanded. He’d spent the night, as his mother had been on another binge last night, and now sat at the tiny little table in my kitchen, chowing down on a bowl of stale cereal with no milk. He pointedly checked the time. “You should’ve left five minutes ago to catch your bus.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I snarled at him, shrugging into my uniform jacket and simultaneously pulling on my knee-high socks. “A fat lot of help you are!”

Zelo only snorted and tossed back the rest of his cereal. “You’re not very nice when you’re late.”

I responded with a significant hand gesture – to which I’m sure he responded similarly – and I was out the door, struggling into the straps of my backpack as I went.

I was late. I was super late. I was pretty sure that the bus that would take me to the nicer part of town had already gone – I’d missed it by a good two minutes at this point, I was sure – and there wouldn’t be another bus for half an hour. I was going to be late for school, and that would certainly go against me in my scholarship record.

I was so busy worrying about being late to school that I almost didn’t notice the ostentatious car parked directly in front of my run-down apartment building. In fact, if it wasn’t for the group of gawkers standing around in the chill morning, I might not have noticed it at all.

And after I noticed the car, I noticed the person leaning against the driver’s side door, arms crossed smugly over a uniform jacket identical to mine.

Groaning, I stomped up to him. “What are you doing here, Jonghyun?” I demanded, annoyed at the way other people were gaping.

His smirk never wavered. “I came to give you a lift.”

I sighed. “I already told you that we wouldn’t work out. Please quit asking.”

He quirked an eyebrow in feigned surprise. “Did I ask you? All I remember doing was offering you a ride to school.” He checked his watch. “If I’m not mistaken, you missed your bus. How else are you going to get to school on time?”

I only gave in because he was right. I was going to be late if I waited for the next bus, so in the end I sighed and climbed into the front passenger seat. I pretended not to see Jonghyun’s exuberant grin as he slid behind the wheel.

The drive to school seemed to take an excessively long time. Because of the intimate things we had talked about the night before – not to mention the intimate things we did – I didn’t know what to say. Jonghyun either didn’t notice the awkwardness or he didn’t care. In any case, he hummed along to the pop songs playing on the radio, drumming his fingers along the steering wheel. It was a very long drive.

Things got even worse when we finally arrived at school. Even though there was only a handful of other students milling about when Jonghyun parked his car in the crowded car park, by the time we made it through the front doors of the main building, everyone seemed to know that Jonghyun and I had come to school together. By the time lunchtime hit, there was so many rumors flying around that even I had a hard time keeping the facts separate from reality.

“Is it true that you and Jonghyun have secretly eloped and you’re carrying his baby?” Sunyoung asked eagerly the second I sat down at the lunch table with Amber.

I had to blink several times just to make sense of her words. “Are you insane?” I finally demanded. “I don’t even think that question merits an answer.”

Sunyoung blushed and laughed, but I could tell that she was still very curious. Everyone, even the quiet Qian, seemed interested in what I could possibly say to explain away the many rumors that were currently circulating Seol Chong Academy.

I sighed, hoping to squash the gossip before it went any further. “I missed my bus this morning and Jonghyun gave me a ride. That’s all. We’re not dating. I didn’t spend the night at his house. And I’m certainly not pregnant, with his or anyone else’s baby. For the love of god, don’t believe such useless trash.”

“What’s useless trash?” Jonghyun asked, walking up with Key and slipping into the open seat beside me.

I glared at him, wrinkling my nose. “You.”

“That’s not very nice,” Jinri muttered under her breath.

“Yeah, that’s not very nice,” Jonghyun agreed, but he was still smiling. “And just why am I useless trash?”

“Are you deaf?” I demanded, gesturing around at the many students who were openly craning their necks to get a better look at our table and, more specifically, me. “Do you have any idea the things people are saying about why we came to school together this morning?”

Jonghyun shrugged like it wasn’t important. “You missed your bus and so I gave you a lift. What’s so scandalous about that? You shouldn’t let what people say bother you so much.” He gave me a meaningful look that I chose to ignore.

“A lot of the students here have too much time on their hand,” Amber said, unwrapping her sandwich and taking a big bite. “They like to think of school as a soap opera. When there’s not enough drama for their liking, they make stuff up. It’ll die down after a while.”

Only the gossip didn’t die down. If anything, it only gained more momentum. The rumors became more and more outrageous. One said that I was the mistress of Mr. Kim, Jonghyun’s father, and that Jonghyun was only nice to me on the grounds that I might one day be his future stepmother. Another claimed that I was blackmailing him in order to get myself out of poverty. Yet another had me as the daughter of a corporate business mogul who had lost everything and so Jonghyun pitied me.

“You really should just ignore them,” Jonghyun told me Thursday afternoon. We were in his car, pulling away from the car park at school to head to his house to work on our assignment. Despite me saying, very loudly and in front of very many people, that we were going to work on our project, I knew a million more rumors would start before tomorrow.

“That’s easy for you to say,” I grumbled, crossing my arms and sinking lower into the passenger seat. “You’re so popular already that nobody cares what you do. I, on the other hand, am already on the lowest rung of the social ladder.”

He chuckled, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. I had to remind myself that his good looks didn’t outweigh the drama it would cause if we actually started dating. “I didn’t think you cared about being popular.”

“Don’t be an idiot.” I rolled my eyes. “I could care less about where I stand on the popularity scale. What I care about is attracting more attention. More attention – and more hatred – means I get picked on even more.”

He reached over and pressed his fingers against the scar on my side through my shirt, making me jump. “I’m pretty sure you could take them,” he said with a sly smile.

I jerked away, not wanting to admit just how his touch had made my heart skitter. “Of course I could. It’s not a question of being able to,” I retaliated. “But if I start fighting in the hallway or cafeteria, I would get kicked out pretty fast, don’t you think? And I don’t have a rich daddy ready to pay my way out of sticky situations.”

“I think you’re too judgmental of everyone,” Jonghyun pointed out, turning onto his street. The Italian palace in which he lived loomed up.

I snorted. “Me? Too judgmental? Weren’t you the one who refused to have anything to do with me because of my social status?”

“That’s different,” Jonghyun muttered, rolling down his window so he could enter the security code in the panel at the gate. “That was before I got to know you. When I found out how cool you are, I didn’t let our social differences bother me anymore.”

I wrinkled my nose but didn’t say anything. He did have a point there.

“And what about everyone else? Amber and Jinki and Minho and everyone?” Jonghyun pressed. “They’ve gone out of their way to make you feel welcome, and they never picked on you or anything. Amber even stood up for you.”

“And what about Jessica and Taeyeon and everyone else?” I retorted. “They certainly haven’t accepted me.”

“They’re nothing more than nuisances,” Jonghyun assured me, pulling up the long gravel drive to the house. “In a couple of years, you won’t even remember them. But you’ll definitely remember me.”

I couldn’t help but ask. “And why will I remember you?”

He grinned at me cheekily before climbing out of the car. “Because we’ll either be dating or married!”

I groaned and followed him out of the car. “God, you’re so cheesy! Do you hear yourself? Do you even think before you speak?” But I had to admit that hearing him say it so candidly was a bit refreshing and sent a shiver down my spine.

The shiver escalated when he tried to insist on driving me home after we finished working on our project a few hours later. He’d tried to convince me to stick around and watch a movie, and when I refused he insisted that I stay for dinner. When I’d again refused, he brought up taking me home and refused to take no for an answer.

“If my friends see you with me they’ll beat you up,” I threatened as he drove back towards the shady part of town and my apartment building.

He gave me a cocky sort of grin, barely visible in the darkness punctuated only occasionally by streetlights. “It’s okay. Some things are worth getting beaten up for.”

I pretended to gag.

Finally we stopped in front of my apartment building. I muttered my thanks to Jonghyun, despite him insisting on driving me, but, much to my chagrin, he got out of the car as well.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, voice tightening anxiously. I quickly glanced around to see if Yongguk or Zelo or anyone was around, but the coast seemed clear. “I didn’t invite you in. You can’t come in.”

“I wasn’t going to,” he answered calmly. “I just wanted to say goodbye.” And then his lips were over mine, soft and sweet with just a hint of longing that made me kiss him longer than I should have.

I finally pulled back and I wrinkled my nose at him as if to say that he hadn’t had permission to do that.

He only grinned in that infuriating manner that he had, pecked me again on the cheek, and said, “Goodnight, Kitten. See you in the morning.”

I groaned and let myself into my dark apartment. 

Sorry for the shortness and filler-y-ness of this chapter. I wanted to get something out after work, but I'm heading out with friends in a little bit so I had to hurry OTL