The following Monday brings with it the return of school. She’s not sure whether it’s because she’s had to spend the last couple of days listening to her sister gush about how handsome and charming Jongup is or if there’s a vague possibility that she might run into Yongguk, but Tarian is not looking forward to going back.

She slouches at her desk in homeroom, eyes squeezed tightly shut, wishing she is anywhere but there at the moment.

She knows the second Jongup, Youngjae, and Daehyun come in even though her eyes are closed. One of the girls who sits near the front gasps and drops her pencil case, scattering pens and pencils everywhere. Everyone immediately stops talking, and then of course Tarian can hear their obnoxious and alarmingly familiar voices.

“Hiya bunny,” Jongup beams, taking his seat directly behind her. “Thanks for having us over to your house this weekend. We had a blast.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t invite me,” Youngjae pouts playfully. “I want to see where Tarian lives.”

“So you can go through her underwear?” Jongup cracks.

Daehyun seems to find the joke about as funny as Tarian does. “You’re disgusting,” he mutters, glaring moodily out the window.

Tarian doesn’t want to continue the conversation. Jongup had said he’d been to her house over the weekend, which means that in the next five to ten minutes, the entire school will know. Which means Yonghwa will know. She resists the urge to face palm. How can one person’s life be quite so complicated?

When she meets up with Yonghwa on break, however, he says nothing about the rumor that must be going around. He just greets her with a smile and a quick kiss on the cheek, asks how the rest of her summer vacation had gone, and offers to buy her a coffee from the vending machine.

“We didn’t get to see as much of each other as I would’ve liked over the break,” Yonghwa says as they sit side by side on a bench, enjoying the reprieve from their stuffy classrooms.

Tarian shrugs, sipping at her coffee rather indifferently. “Yeah, I was sort of busy. I was so tired after I came back from my trip home.”

She half expects him to bring up the rumors about her and the B.A.P. again, but he doesn’t. He just sort of hums thoughtfully and they sit there in silence for a while. There is nothing really to say, Tarian thinks.

She doesn’t like feeling this way. Yonghwa is her boyfriend and he’s a damn good one; she’s got plenty of previous boyfriends to compare him to and Yonghwa is definitely one of the better ones. He’s good-looking and intelligent and kind. He appreciates her hobbies and he never puts her down. She can’t ever imagine him kidnapping her from school and taking her to a drug deal.

But maybe that’s part of the problem, she thinks miserably. Things with Yonghwa are nice, sure; but they’re too predictable. She’s found herself getting…bored. And she doesn’t like being bored in a relationship.

But what can she do? It had taken her forever to even agree to date Yonghwa, and everyone approves of him. Even Daeho. It’s not like she can just break up with him. And even if she did break up with him, it’s not like she’s got somebody else she wants to date. But, she thinks to herself, maybe dating nobody is better than dating someone she doesn’t feel strongly for.

“Are you okay?” Yonghwa asks her, breaking into her thoughts.

Tarian shakes her head and forces a small smile. “Fine. Just lost in my thoughts. We should get back to class. The bell is about to ring.”

She tries to push her apathy towards her boyfriend to the back of her mind. She knows that she’s probably never going to do better than Yonghwa, so she tries to forget about the excitement she’d found with someone else and instead focus on how well Yonghwa treats her.

She’s sitting half-asleep at her desk during a break between classes on Wednesday when the door bangs open and Eunji comes prancing in, bringing with her the familiar floral scent of her perfume.

“Tarian!” she all but squeals, dancing over. She’s got a brightly-colored flyer in her hand. “Look what I just saw posted in the hallway!” She s the flier into her best friend’s face.

Tarian takes the slightly crumpled piece of paper and holds it back enough so she can read the big, bold font on the front. “A school dance?” she says, looking up at her friend skeptically. “Really?”

“Really really,” Eunji beams. “So we’re definitely going. School dances are the best.”

Tarian is about to argue with her friend – because, really, school dances are the epitome of lame – but Daehyun snatches the flier from her with a sneer and says, “School dances are . Only idiots and preps go to them.”

And, more to argue with Daehyun than out of any real desire to go, Tarian snatches the flier back and says, “ off, Daehyun. Nobody asked you.”

“So you’ll go, right?” Eunji asks Tarian eagerly, ignoring her step-brother’s bad attitude. “It’ll be great. We can double date. Ooh maybe Jungshin will bring his girlfriend and we can finally meet her!”

Jongup takes the flyer from Eunji and looks at it thoughtfully. “I wonder if it’ll be as lame as it sounds…”

Tarian glares at him. “You are not asking my sister to this dance, Moon Jongup. Don’t even ing think about it.”

He only grins at her in response.

So, since it’s such a big deal to Eunji, Tarian brings it up when she meets up with Yonghwa after school that day.

“Have you seen the fliers posted around school today?” she asks. She’s a little nervous. She’s never asked anyone to a dance before. She feels silly even thinking about it.

Yonghwa nods, slurping at his drink. “For the school dance? Yeah, I saw them.” He chuckles. “Hard to miss. They’re all neon.”

She shifts her weight uncomfortably. “Do you, I dunno, wanna go? I mean, it’s just that Eunji is making it a big deal, you know, so I thought maybe we could go together and-”

Yonghwa interrupts her with a chaste little kiss on the lips and a smile. “Sure. I’d love to go to the dance with you.”

Tarian smiles back. “It’s a date.”