No one's POV

Suho walks quickly down the halls with his stuff. He's keeping his eyes peeled for Sara and In-Su. Suho catches sight of red hair, and he makes a beeline for it.

Suho felt very guilty about what he said to Sara. Or rather, didn't say. Sara was very good looking! Every male student/teacher new it! And if it weren't for Tao, one of them would've asked Sara out by now!

Tao and Sara's relationship was a long one. It started back when Sara had to pick a penpal for the second grade. She chose Tao at random, who was a fifth grader at the time. Tao was not pleased to have a little girl writing to him once every two weeks. But he wrote back just the same, acting like he was interested, when in reality, he couldn't be bothered about Sara's newest Barbie doll, or how Sara's friend moved away.

So this continued for a year. It was third grade for Sara, and she was taking a photography class outside of school. As part of her class, Sara had to take several self portraits. She took plenty, and mailed them to Tao for review.

Tao was now in sixth grade. He had no idea what Sara looked like, and nor did he care, as he told himself. But when Sara sent him the pictures, he was floored.

Tao immediatly replied with a few pictures of his own.

From there, their friendship truely began.

When Tao graduated from middle school, he requested that he become a foreign exhange studen in Korea, just for the chance of meeting Sara. And his wish was granted. Suho remembers with grim regret an incident that almost ruined the friendship.

One day, over summer vacation, before Sara became an eigth grader, her, Tao, and his friends, all ten of them, were in the woods near a park. The boys were swinging from branch to branch, doing all sorts of gymnasty stuff. In other words, they were showing off. Sara was trying to focus on her summer break homework.

"Guys, come on, seriously?!" She called, not looking up from the complicated math problem, afraid she'd lose her focus. "I need to get this done before school starts! In four weeks!!" The boys quieted somewhat, and Sara smiled. Finally, there was quiet!

So Sara continues working on her arithmatic, eventually solving that one problem that was giving her trouble. She moved onto the next problem, but eventually, she realized that it was too quiet. She looked up, expecting to see Tao or Chen right in front of her, making a silly face, or trying to scare her somehow. Instead, she saw nothing. Absolutely nothing.

"Guys, come on! I know you're there now, so you can't scare me!" Sara shouts, going back to her work. There was no response. Sara sighed, and resigned herself to working on her math on edge, waiting for her friends to jump out at her. Ten minutes passed, and Sara was getting tired of waiting. Sara gathered her things, and put them in her backpack, still not sure if she was walking into one of Tao's clever traps or not.

Sara slung the bag over her shoulder, and started walking, calling for her friends. Sara walked aimlessly, getting more and more annoyed with each passing second. Eventually, she stumbled upon a river. Well, more of a stream. Sara thought absently as she looked for a place to cross.

Meanwhile, Tao and his friends were in a lonely cottage. Abandoned. They had found it in the beginning of summer. The goup of boys had treked to the cottage on that day because of something none of them wanted to believe.

Tao had gotten a text from a 'very good friend' telling him to meet up at the cottage. A debate followed.

"We can't just leave Sara here!" Lay exclaimed.

"Yeah, but my friend, Luhan, he really needs my help! It's an emergency!" Tao counters. All the boys were up in the trees after Sara had shushed them.

"But we don't know this guy!" D.O. snapped.

"Yeah!" Kai dropped down, glaring up at Tao. "You can go, but I, for one, am staying here!"

"What's the emergency, anyway?" Chen asks, joining Kai on the ground.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you!" Tao hedged.

"Then it must not be to bad!" Chen responds, walking back to where Sara was.

"Wait!" Tao whisper shouted, dropping down as well. He explained what was going on to the group in short bursts of whispered word, just barely loud enough to hear.

In the end, Tao only convinced four of his friends. The remaining five were just about ready to drop Tao, but Tao promised that he had something at the cottage that would convince them. So they all went.

Suho winced as he followed the red hair up the stairs, probably to Guidance. He hated this part of the memory, but he could not stop himself from almost re-living it each time.

Sara found a spot on the stream where it was shallow enough for her to wade across. She threw her bag across the stream, hoping and praying it would land safely, which it did. Sara took a calming breath. She hated getting wet! She counted down from ten in her head, and when she reached zero, she slid into ice cold water.

Sara squealed as the water hit her skin, soaking her clothes. Sara was immediatly consumed with fear as she calculated her odds of drowning should her water-heavy clothes pull her under. She floundered across the stream.

That wasn't too bad! Sara thought as she hauled herself out of the stream at the other side.

Sara picked up her bag, holding it as far from her wet body as possible, not wanting her work to get wet. She resumed wandering through the woods. Now she was just hoping to run into Tao, because hurt from all the calling she'd been doing, and there was no way in hell Sara was going back across that stream, or finding a way out of the woods on her own.

Sara had long since stopped looking at her watch, since she was pretty sure it was too water logged to be working. She knew it was getting later and later though, since with each step, it seemed like it was getting darker and darker.

Not long after, it became too dark for Sara to see clearly, so she pulled out her phone, and tried to see by that. It helped a little, but not enough to provide more than five minutes of hazy sight. By then, Sara was bawling her eyes out. She just sat down, on the cold, hard ground, in her wet, uncomfortable clothes, and wailed loudly. Sara couldn't fall asleep for a long, long, time.

Tao and his friends were walking back from the cottage. All were silent, lost in their own thoughts. The five that hadn't been convinced earlier now believed what Tao had told them like it was their religion, like they had believed it all their lives. Tao's other friend, Luhan, was back at the cottage, sleeping. Tao said he would be ok, and the rest had no reason to doubt him. Suho had suspected that this had happened before with him, since Tao was the least freaked out about it.

It had just been getting dark out when the boys emerged from the cottage, so they assumed that it had only been a few hours.

Kai started up conversation, trying to ease the tension. "How dead do you suppose we are?"

"You're assuming Sara actually took her nose out of her book!" Xiumin pointed out. "A better question would be, what is the likelyhood of Sara even noticing we were gone?"

Chen snorted. "Yeah, I can just imagine: WW III is being waged over her head, and all Sara hears is BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!" Chen pretends to be an airplane, and crashes into Baekhyun. Sehun and Suho, who were closest to Baekhyun, made the sound effects for the collision and explosion.

The group burst into outrageous laughter as they trek back to where they think Sara is. But they found her a lot sooner than they thought.

"What's she doing out here?" Lay asks, scratching his head.

"And why is she asleep?" Tao adds. He bends over, and shakes her awake. "Sara?"

Sara's reactions surprise every boy.

First, she squealed with glee, jumping up and giving Tao a ginormous bear hug. "Tao! You're not dead!" Then, she slapped him. "Tao, you bastard! How dare you leave me alone like that?! You were gone all night! All ing night!!" That was the first time the boys had heard her swear, and the last time they heard it since. And finally,  she just started sobbing. "I thought you had just left me! I thought you didn't want to be friends anymore! Why'd you go?"

Tao hugged Sora awkwardly as she cried, looking at Kai, the self-proclaimed ladies man, for assistance. Kai just checked his watch. Almost a full twenty four hours had passed since they had left for the cottage! Kai mutely showed Tao his watch, then the rest of the gang. Sara's reactions suddenly made sense. Tao just her back, trying to calm her.

"I don't know..." He answered.

Suho, back in the hallway of the school, heaved a shuddering breath. He started walking again, not realizing he had even stopped. He walked up the stairs, taking them two at a time until he reached the top. He spared a few seconds to briefly summarize what happened after they found Sara.

Tao brought Sara home to her hysterical family, who wouldn't let her out of their sight for months after, except for school. And at school, Sara avoided Tao and co. like the plague. I wasn't until that Christmas that Sara would say more than a simple "hi" to any of them. It wasn't til June she fully forgave them.

Suho blinked, and found himself at Guidance. He wondered how long it would take for Sara to forgive them this time.

He opened the door to the Guidance office, welcoming the cool air on his face. In the welcome room was the secratery behind the desk, typing away furiously, and In-Su, who stood and glared at Suho when he came in.

"What are you doing here?!!" In-Su growled.

"I wanted to make sure that Sara made it here alright." Suho gave a reasonable answer for the sake of the secratary, but in reality, he came to make sure Sara wasn't ---  Suho couldn't make himself think the rest of the sentence.

"She's fine!" In-Su snapped quietly, trying not to draw the attention of the secretary unless he wanted to. Suho doesn't want to believe him, but he does want to settle this. So he jerks his head to the door, a challenge in his eyes. He grabs the free pass, you can get off scott free Guidance passes, and walks out the door. In-Su does the same. The pair walk to their seperate classes after setting up a time, place, and date. They both agreed it was better to end this sooner rather than later. Suho spread the word to his friends, as he knew In-Su would be doing as well. But Suho was sure that he had In-Su beat.

In-Su's POV

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Silly humans! This fight will be a piece of cake! They have no idea what they're up against!

.....

YAYAYAYAY!! I actually managed to update! Christmas break starts tomorrow!! So hopefully, I will be updating more often! I love you all, and happy holidays!!!