[Sunni]

As we were just about finishing up our lunch, the restaurant owner, an old friend, came over to us and whispered, “I think a group of your teachers just arrived.”

Zelo looked over and muttered, “Oh …”

We had snuck out for lunch to our usual restaurant. Teachers usually never came to this cozy little place. If we got caught… all that detention and crap would be such a hassle.

“You guys can sneak out the back door,” the owner winked.

“Thanks ajumma, you’re a life saver,” Kai grinned at her as we quietly headed for the back kitchen.

We reached the back side of our school campus with about ten minutes to spare.

“C’mon, up, up and over Sunni,” Zelo said, linking his hands together for me to step onto. “Why do you have to be so short…”

I grabbed onto Kai’s shoulder for balance then stepped onto Zelo’s hands, hauling myself over the stonewall with the help of the two.

“I’m not even that short…” I grumbled as I brushed my skirt off.

The two easily made their ways over the wall.

“Hey you three!” a voice shouted.

I groaned.

“What did I say about sneaking out to lunch?” our dean scolded us.

Zelo mumbled something incomprehensible.

“What Junhong?”

“Nothing…” he muttered.

The dean turned to Kai, “And Jongin, it’s only been a semester since you transferred here! Can't you try to follow the rules a little better?”

“There’re too many rules,” Kai said, leaning back in his chair. “What’s wrong with going out to lunch.”

“We’ve already gone over this multiple times,” he snapped. He turned to me this time, “And Sunni, you should know better than this. What happened to the Sunni three years ago? You were such a good kid back then; perfect grades, perfect attendance.”

“Hey man, I don’t know why you’re complaining,” Zelo butted in. “She still has the best grades and test scores at this school. So what if she has a little fun.”

“It’s all because of you,” our dean glowered on Zelo. “Ever since she started hanging around you, she hasn’t been out of trouble.”

“Didn’t know the dean was in charge of friendships too,” Kai mused.

“That’s enough,” he barked. “Two day suspension for all of you. Have your parents pick you up from the main office.”

“My parents are in the states,” Kai said.

“My parents are busy. They can't come,” Zelo said, giving the dean a cold, hard stare. Zelo’s dad’s a famous movie producer and his mom’s a star actress.

“My parents can’t come either,” I said, knowing that the dean knew my parents were dead.

The dean knew about all of our parents, actually. And he probably realized he shouldn’t have said “have your parents pick you up”.

But our dean’s a stubborn little man and he had the office look up all of our secondary guardians. For me, that meant N…

I was the first one to be picked up. N arrived wearing a suit, glasses, and a pissed off expression.

“What did you do this time,” he hissed at me. His eyes fell on Zelo and Kai and his expression became deathly angry.

“I’m sorry, but could you explain to me what Sunni did to receive this two day suspension?” N asked the dean.

“She was caught sneaking off campus during lunch with those two,” the dean answered.

N’s expression changed from angry to confused to annoyed.

“That’s it?” he asked curtly.

The dean looked taken aback. “Yes.”

N shook his head, “Me having to come all the way here just because of Sunni eating lunch off campus…”

N threw one last glare towards Zelo and Kai, then dragged me out of the room.

“Sorry you had to leave work because of me,” I said quietly, slightly afraid. N started working as a magazine editor recently and his manager seemed to give him a lot of crap for pretty much everything.

“Get in,” he said, unlocking his car, a sleek black Mercedes.

The first five minutes of the car ride were silent. I could literally feel angry heat rolling off of N. Even though I’ve known and lived with him for many years, he still scares me a little when he gets this angry.

“When did Kai transfer to your school again?” N asked, gripping the steering wheel hard.

“Last semester,” I answered quietly, too afraid to not answer.

“From?”

“The states.”

“With his family?”

“No, just him.”

The questions stopped and I peeked at N. His jaw was clenched hard and his eyes were cold.

The rest of the car ride was filled with silence, but I could tell N was gradually easing up. Near our home, he stopped in front of a café.

“C’mon, I’ll go buy you ice cream,” N said, smiling slightly at me. “Gotta celebrate your first suspension.”

[N]

I carried the sleeping Sunni from my car to her room. We ended up staying out late and she had fallen asleep on the way home.

I gently lay her in her bed and gently swept her hair away from her face.

Already four years had gone by. I could feel my frozen body slowly thawing as I spent each day with Sunni. As I slowly began to age again, I could feel my heart, once hard and cold, warming up.

In the beginning, I had planned to not intertwine paths with Sunni again. But it turned out that this contract bound me to my master in more ways than I thought. I realized soon after our sealing kiss that it was too difficult to stay too far away from Sunni; physically and mentally difficult. It was taxing on my body, but also on my mind. I was constantly worried for her welfare. In the beginning, it was for selfish reasons. If something happened to Sunni and the doll fell into someone else’s hands, things would get complicated. But as time went by, I started to want to protect her simply to keep her happy.

I softly brushed my hand against her head. Who would’ve thought I would become like this, my whole life dominated by a little girl. 

celebrating tomorrow's snowday by writing!!!! heh.. this chapter is kinda all over the place in mood and tone lawl. hope you guys can keep up with the super bipolarness of my stories :D thanks for the support and love <3