It was raining again. The pitter-patter was strangely soothing, as though it were attempting to orchestrate coherent melodies. Across the glass window trickled down hesitant raindrops, creating a surface of tiny water mounds and miniscule streams.

I sighed, tracing a loop on the dew-covered side of the glass window with my pinky.

Three answer sheets lay unattended on the library table. It had been four hours since training session started earlier at three but I hadn't done any progress.

Actually, it had been two months since.. well, you know what I meant.

Lichen and Yixing were in another table, parleying in hushed voices over the problems. From what I could see, they were already comparing and reviewing their answers.

I looked at my own set of papers. I had glossed over the items the previous evening, had secured pat methods of solving them in my head and had then retired the night without first jotting down my answers.

I didn't want to be the downer in the team, not really. And I made sure of that. Okay, Lichen often found me annoying, a drag during our training sessions. But then she'd deem me even more aggravating on weekend meetings with our trainer wherein I - after supposedly wasting study hours away - would come out landing the highest results in our evaluation tests.

I guessed she had stopped minding me altogether after three weeks.

Thankfully, Chanyeol had decided to hang out with us even more regularly now. He and Baekhyun were a tandem like no other; I swore they could turn a funeral into a mascot party. With the both of them around, it was easier to sink into the background and brood unnoticed over my own issues.

Jongdae, well, he.. he was still Jongdae. And for some reason, he and Jimin still found a way to mend their tarnished relationship.

I didn't dare question him about that night. Not after he had cordially spoken to me despite his one-day suspension that quite uncannily fell on the Seniors' Calculus and Physics diagnostic tests date. He had to take those tests on a higher level of difficulty and was told that his results were to bear a certain percentage in his Finals.

He was still friendly. And funky. And not that I was complaining but.. I guessed the friction I couldn't seem to dissipate had to do with Jimin.

She'd been relieved of her Prefect status for two full quarters. She would be reinstated on the third quarter but she had lost any chance of being appointed Head Prefect in her Senior year.

With that, she had completely eradicated my existence. If not for the fact that I was her superior - in age, in seniority, in authority rank and in every other sense of the word - I could bet she would have cursed me to my face. Verbally, I meant. Because after the incident, she looked as if she were eternally jinxing me.

I sighed again. The people around me were the least of my problems.

It was the person, whom I so badly wanted to be around but just wasn't, that had caused me so much distress. Heck, that damsel causing distress.

I adored that girl the way she was. Beguiling and endearing. But sometimes, I couldn't help wishing that for once, just once, she would simply be that typical damsel in distress. I wasn't a prince - heck, no - but I was manly enough to rescue her whatsoever from some fire-belching dragon of a situation. Sort of.

See? She had invaded my brain again, that brilliant and beautiful trespasser!

Shaking my head and shutting my eyes, I willed my system to focus on the task at hand. If Sojin wanted to dwell in my skull then so be it. But I had to remind myself that abandoning my priorities would only earn a frown of admonishing from her. So better yet, focus.

Focus. Wasn't that her Christmas wish? That I trot tirelessly like the deer, ever chasing after the dawn and be triumphant in life? Well, I held the power to grant that wish, didn't I?

My chest tightened at a recalled revelation. Sojin did research about my name. Lu Han. Deer of the dawn. How thoughtful of her to have gone through such lengths over a Kringler's given name. How very.. Sojin-like..

With renewed resolve, I turned to my papers. I really hadn't done anything! What's wrong with me!?

Quickly, I scribbled down my solutions, boxed final answers and hurried on to the next items. It was like having a race with the rain, which had transformed into an angry deluge.

Halfway through the last sheet, I raised my eyes to study my teammates. I realized, with fondness, that we were all Chinese. Sojin would've been the only thorn among the roses, the ugly duckling amidst duck-born chicks.

But she was no thorn and she was definitely not ugly. And we weren't plants nor animals either. Man, I never thought I was this bad at analogy.

I shook my head again and finished the rest of the problems, steering my thoughts away from the brain-trespasser and back to my teammates.

Zhang Yixing, my all-rounder friend. The dancing machine. That pure soul who wouldn't hurt a fly. And Li Chen, my hostile but honest friend. The school's most treasured orator. The one and only girlfriend of Sojin.

Sojin.

I banged my head on the table, groaning.

Why couldn't she just leave my head? Did she have any idea how many times she had illegally trespassed the quiet confines of my brain?

But she already lived there, didn't she? She couldn't be a trespasser if she was resident of a place, right?

Now even my brain's quarreling with itself