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GONG MINJI

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Part I

“Hello?”

Um…hi, Minji?

“Yes, Sooyoung. This is you, right?”

Yeah, it’s me.

“What’s up? Were you able to crack the passcode?”

Oh yeah. I was able to crack the passcode but…

“Oh, that’s great! Then I can pick up the phone tomorrow after classes are finished…”

Actually, I…I have some information that you may want to know about. Something about your co-president, Kim Jongin.

“Well yeah. That’s why I gave you his phone and asked you to hack the website to see if there was anything suspicious about him on it.”

But, you see it’s not what you think. It’s…I don’t want to tell you over the phone. Could I and a few others maybe meet with you in your dorm room tonight?

“Tonight? It’s a bit late.”

Trust me. You’re going to want to hear what we have to tell you.

* * 

That was the phone call I’d had with Sooyoung, one of the girls from ‘Girls Generation’, our academy’s self-proclaimed “most popular girls in school” about thirty minutes ago. The 8-membered group of girls was known for being pretty high-maintenance and stand-offish, and even a little snobbish, but still fabulous altogether. However, Choi Sooyoung, one of the nicer girls out of the bunch, was also a well-known hacker in our school which was why after I’d cleverly stolen Kai’s phone from him I’d gone to her with it to see if she could crack the phone for more information.

Actually, at first, I didn’t know what I was going to do with the phone and instead I just stared at it for a while like I was expecting the damn thing to start talking to me or something. That was when I decided to brainstorm so I could figure out just what it was that I wanted, what it was that I had, and how was I going to use what I had in order to help me get what I wanted.

What I wanted was justice...plus a little extra. I wanted Kris to be cleared of the unfair punishment he’d received for something he didn’t even do; I wanted the school, and the school board to know about what Kai had done; I wanted Kai to admit that he was the mastermind behind the pranks; I also wanted Kai to be impeached from his position so that I could be the one-and-only senior president.

Now, what I had was Kai’s phone with a little recording of Kai’s voice admitting that he was the one behind the pranks that happened two weeks ago. That was more than enough evidence to prove that Kai was an unfit president, right? I could tell the school board about how I confiscated his phone and recorded his voice on it for proof. But I also knew that Kai was smart, cunning and was terribly good at lying. I’m sure he could find some excuse to disprove every accusation I’d make. He could turn the tables on me and get me into trouble for stealing; he could say that I planned it all from the beginning and deny that it was his voice and say that I recorded someone else’s voice that sounded like his.

I also thought of maybe turning the phone into Mrs. Jung, but I knew that she would show the phone and recording to Mr. Kim, especially because it involved his son; therefore, she’d be sort of obligated to tell him. He seemed to be fond of me, but I wasn’t sure how Mr. Kim would feel about me after he found out about the evidence I had against Kai and what I was planning to do with it.

Although I could see that he was tough on Kai, Mr. Kim seemed like a father who was extremely prideful in his son and would probably all but declare war on anybody that ever tried to threaten Kai-- I really didn’t want to be one that he’d declare war against. I never wanted to be on Mr. Kim’s bad side, but I wondered: if only he knew about everything his son had done then I wonder what he would say…

The phone had continued to remain untouched for the next hour as I busied myself with some other work until the thing started buzzing indicating that it had just received a message. Curious, I had unlocked the phone through the little slider at the bottom of the screen and realized that the message was an email from one of Kai’s friends; it was from that freakishly pretty boy, Lu Han, to be specific.

Now, this is where things got interesting.

At first, I wasn’t going to open the email. I thought that it wasn’t any of my business to go snooping through Kai’s phone, really. I only had one purpose for stealing his phone and that was just to get the recording off it so that I could use it later to blackmail him, but then a little attachment from the email popped on the screen that read: “Senior Boys Prank Against The Girls” and that’s when my curiosity grew to suspicion.

This wasn’t just a phone with a recording on it anymore, now I was dealing with my co-president’s phone that just so happened to receive an email that had something to do with not only the senior guys but all of the girls as well—which also happened to include me. That meant I now kind of had a right to look into the message and find out more, or at least, that’s what I told myself in order to wash away any guilt that might have crept up on me for going through someone else’s belongings. 

But then again, I’d already stolen the phone, and was planning to use it to blackmail Kai so was there really any need for me to try and be polite anymore or for me to respect his property? I didn’t think so.

I tapped open the email and the first thing that was revealed was a link.

               http://www.webs.com/SeniorGuysPrankonGirls

Underneath was a little message from Lu Han that read:

Dude! Remember when I told you earlier today that I was going to send you the video Sehun and I were working on of Jiyeon farting? Well, this is it, but we also started on the website layout too and we posted the video to it so here’s the link. Check it out! Also, let us know if you have any ideas to add anything to it.

Oh! By the way, the website has a password that only we senior guys would know. Hint: It’s the name of the medicine we used for the prank! Ha Ha!

By the time I was finished reading the last word of the email my mind was swirling with numerous questions like:

This “prank” that Luhan talked about, what was it, exactly? Based off the email it sounded like they guys had already pulled it off, but if their targets were indeed all the girls on campus, how come I don’t remember ever being pranked? I mean, the email was titled “Senior Guys Prank Against the Girls.” Did that mean that the senior guys were all in on this so-called prank and that all of the girls on campus were the targets? Surely if the senior guys had planned a prank on the entire female student body then all of us girls would remember it. 

Also, did this mean that Luhan, or Sehun, or Kai had something to do with that video that was circling around campus of Jiyeon farting in class? And, what was this website Luhan had mentioned? Did it have anything to do with this “prank”? And even more importantly, what was the prank?

I kept staring at the link to the website wondering what exactly its contents contained. I had a feeling that the website would answer most of the questions that were swarming around in my head which were only driving me crazier by the second with curiosity. Finally, I clicked the link, but when the webpage popped up I frowned realizing that I had forgotten one very important part of the email.

I had stared at the black screen; the only thing on it being a little white task bar where a password was supposed to be inserted, and that was when the last thing that Luhan had written in the email floated across my mind. 

Oh! By the way, the website has a password that only we senior guys would know. Hint: It’s the name of the medicine we used for the prank!

Medicine? What medicine? And what prank?! Argh!!!!!!

I swear I was going to lose my mind wondering just what the heck it was that these boys were up to. I should’ve known. Ever since that very first day that the guys arrived on campus I had this gut feeling that they had some sort of ulterior motive I just didn’t know what it was.

But now I find out that they’re secretly planning something against all my fellow females; a prank to be specific. Like hell will I let that happen!

The guys must have forgotten that this school was ours before they came along. And why the heck did my co-president have to be so screwed up in the head? Why did everything always link back directly to him? Couldn’t he just chill out for a second? Was it really necessary that he always be up to something evil?

All I knew was that I now had two very important things to figure out: what was on this website that Lu Han had emailed to Kai and what exactly was this prank that the senior boys were being super mysterious about?

I thought it was about time for me to fish out my fancy Sherlock Holmes outfit from the depths of my closet as well as my pipe and glasses to complete the look because I was about to become the ultimate private detective.

But first thing was first, I needed to go to the smartest hacker on campus so she could help me crack the passcode to this website.

It was earlier this week that I had decided to call Sooyoung for her help. I told her about Kai’s phone, about the email, and the website. I had given the link to her and told her to do whatever she could to uncover the passcode. If she was successful, then I told her to report back to me and that I’d pay her.

Sooyoung told me that the passcode would be easier to crack if she had something of Kai’s with his private information so that’s when I gave her his phone. It was the only thing of his that I had and I was sure she could find something useful off of it to help her hack the website, and based from the phone call I’d just received from her some thirty minutes ago, I’m guessing she did just that.

Now I just had to wait until she-

Knock, knock, knock…

Oh, never mind. She’s here already.

Getting up from my bed, I made my way over to the door, opened it and found myself being greeted by three beautiful, but serious faces.

“Sooyoung, Yoona, Seohyun,” I greeted with a big, but uncomfortable smile. “What’s up girls?”

I wanted to fool the three of them by trying to sound as casual as possible but I knew the fluctuating pitch of my voice was betraying me. The word “nervous” couldn’t even begin to cover what I was feeling as the three girls entered my now empty dorm room. Bom wasn’t here since she had gone out with Dara to do who knows what, but before she left I do believe that she mentioned something about checking out the guys during the boys’ basketball tryouts.

I watched as the three girls spread out across my room: Sooyoung in the direction of my computer desk; she made herself comfortable in the chair. Yoona made her way over to my bed and made herself more than comfortable as she put up her feet. Seohyun quietly sat down on the very corner of Bom’s bed. I made my way to the center of the room, now standing in the middle of all three of them.

Expecting one of them to speak, I quietly waited for one of them to say something but it remained dead silent as Yoona looked at Seohyun, and Seohyun stared at Sooyoung and Sooyoung stared at me.

“Well…” I finally said, deciding to be the one to break the silence. “What is it? What did you find out?”  I wasn’t demanding when I spoke; it was a cautious gesture. After all, Sooyoung did sound like she had some pretty gripping news to share with me back when we were on the phone so if she did indeed, find some terrible info about Kai then I wanted to prepare myself for it.

It was silent for a minute longer as Yoona took one last look at Sooyoung before standing up from her previous spot on my bed.

“Minji-ah,” she casually called. Coming over to stand next to me in the center of the room, Yoona slung her arm around my shoulders like we were old buddies, which I guess, technically, we were. “Why don’t you take a seat first?”

“No, it’s alright,” I simply declined. “I’m good standing.”

“No seriously, sit down.” There was no mistaking Yoona’s demanding tone this time around; her facial expression was serious showing that she clearly meant what she said, but I ignored it--I didn’t budge, not even an inch. It’d been only five seconds since Yoona had entered my room and she was already trying to boss me around. This is why we never made it as roommates back during freshman year.

Yes, Yoona, the most popular and beautiful girl in the academy and I had once been roommates back when we’d both entered the Academy as little freshman. We had even become good friends…well, at first we had, but that all changed after living with one another for the first half of the school year.

It was like going through what newly wedded couples go through. First there was the “honeymoon phase” where everything was great and we couldn’t get enough of each other, and then after the first few months of living together had gone by, reality hit, hard, and we literally had to try not to bash the others’ head into the wall. 

We soon realized that we’d both be better off separated. In fact, that’s how we both found ourselves in different cliques; Yoona had went on to become the head of the most feared, but loved group of popular girls in school, while I’d went on to become the head of student council as president. We hadn’t really spoken much since freshman year, but now that she was running for Secretary, if she got voted into student council then I guess that would change. 

When I stayed standing, showing absolutely no signs of moving, I guess Yoona decided to prove that she was serious because she started pushing me backwards until the backs of my knees hit the edge of my bed. She then pressed down on my shoulders, literally forcing me to sit.

I rolled my eyes at the gesture, before scoffing in both amusement and slight annoyance. “Okay. So I’m sitting. Is everyone happy now?”

“Minji, we hope you will take this seriously because the information we have to share with you is no laughing matter,” Yoona told me, now sitting down next to me. Her arm draped around my shoulders, once again, and I found myself getting really annoyed at her presence.

I couldn’t stand this girl. I didn’t hate her, but she was the bossiest person I’d ever known and I didn’t take well at being told what to do. In fact, she was so bossy I’m surprised she’d never tried running for class president before. But I think even bossy Yoona knew her limits; just because you were bossy didn’t mean that you would make a good president.

I stared at her naturally pretty face for a minute in silence. She really hadn’t changed much besides maybe having grown a little taller since freshman year.

Oh, Im Yoona. I don’t know how you begin to explain Im Yoona. She was every guy’s dream girl, in every old ahjussi’s twisted fantasy, and the envy of many insecure girls. Yoona was well known for her porcelain, white skin, her long, dark glossy hair, her slim figure, and to top it all off, the most gorgeous pair of watery deer eyes you’d ever seen.

And Seo Juhyun, aka, Seohyun, the quiet, meek girl sitting across the room on Bom’s bed was basically Yoona’s sidekick. I referred to her as “Yoona 2.0” because she reminded me so much of Yoona, herself. Seohyun was an academic freak, a real nerd, but a pretty one, which was why she’d ran the academic affairs committee the first three years of high school. She wasn’t the academy’s valedictorian (that role had already been taken by Chaerin) but she was runner up as second out of the entire class. I was grateful for having got away from Yoona when I had or else that could’ve been me sitting there as Yoona’s sidekick friend, jumping at her every beck and call.

 “What are you two even doing here anyway?” I suddenly asked rather impolitely, referring to both Yoona and Seohyun. I didn’t mean for it to come off rude, but I really didn’t see the need for either of them to be in my room when I’d originally called for Sooyoung’s help, only.

“Hear them out, Minji,” Sooyoung coolly insisted, still leaning back casually in my desk chair. “They’re part of the reason I was able to hack into the website. They know a lot that you really need to hear.”

Remaining silent, I watched all three girls, my eyes darting from face to face.  I sighed, finally surrendering. “Okay, I’m listening.”

The next hour in my dorm room with these girls had sent my brain into a complete frenzy. I mean my goodness! It was a complete madhouse in my room. All three girls were basically trying to talk over one another as they all rushed to tell me what they knew. Even meek Seohyun had become uncharacteristically chatty.                                                                                                             

“Where do we even start?” Seohyun rhetorically asked, looking between both her friends.

“Okay Minji,” Yoona started, stepping up to the plate. “There’s no real easy way to say this but…your co-president is a huge fraud! He’s a liar, a ert, and possibly even a felon. He’s been playing you since day one- no wait; all of the senior boys have been playing us since day one. Since the very first day that they arrived on campus they have had it out for us senior girls.”

“What are y’all talking about?” I asked, feeling agitated as I rubbed my forehead. They’d just begun telling me what they knew, but I already felt restless. They all sounded crazy.

“Minji, do you recognize either of these two boys?”Seohyun now asked, holding up two photos of what looked like two young boys. I squinted to get a closer look even though I could see the photos just fine. I guess it was just force of habit.

The faces looked familiar; in fact, I recognized seeing the two boys before that one time outside the girls’ restroom.

“Yeah, I’ve seen them around. They’re two ninth grade kids who accidentally walked into the girls’ restroom once. I caught them. It was actually kind of cute; they looked so shocked.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” Yoona immediately responded.  

“Yeah, I already figured that out,” I said, not really seeing the point in them telling me about the boys. “Two freshman boys inside the girls’ restroom, I figured they were just being erts and were trying to cover it up by saying they accidentally walked in.”

“No, I mean they didn’t go into the girls’ bathroom on their own accord, they were told to go in,” she replied.

“Told?” I repeated.  

“You were lied to Minji, they just said that in order to set you up. To set us all up so they could pull off a prank,” Seohyun now said.  

“So there actually is a prank?” I questioned.  

The three girls looked at one another at the same time, looking like they were having a silent conversation.

Finally fed up by their stalling, I rolled my eyes, and sighed. “Oh for crying out loud, would you all stop beating around the bush and just-”

“The senior boys are the ones responsible for the day that the girls in our dorm got diarrhea!” Yoona exclaimed first.

My eyes suddenly popped open twice their normal size.

“And then they put cameras in the girls’ bathroom to film the results!” Seohyun cried second.

My mouth fell open from shock.

“And in order to complete the prank they’re going to post the footage they recorded of the girls to the front the school’s website page!” Sooyoung finished last.

My left eye twitched. “What?!”

“It’s true Minji,” Sooyoung said. “That’s what the website your co-president received in his email is for. It’s a template of the school’s website and the senior boys are working on it right now so that they can post it up by the end of the school year for everyone to see. And your co-president is the one who’s responsible for it all.”

“No,” I disagreed, shaking my head, refusing to hear any more of what they had to say. “I don’t believe you.”

“Minji-”

“Look, I know Kai is kind of crazy and evil but he isn’t psychotic!” Did I sound crazy for defending my co-president despite all the things I know he had done? It just seemed a little hard to believe that anyone could be that wicked. Like who in the hell would actually sit around and think up such a horrific prank? “No one could think of doing something so mean, not even him.” 

The sound of Yoona scoffing grabbed my attention and my eyes drew over to her just in time to see her roll her eyes at me. With her arms crossed over her chest, and her weight leaning on one leg more than the other, she glanced over at Seohyun who also had turned to look at Yoona at the very same time.

Simultaneously, they both nodded their heads at one another like they both shared some kind of internal message.

“Get the witnesses,” Yoona ordered Seohyun. Immediately, Seohyun left my room only to return a second later with what looked like two smaller persons behind her. At first I was slightly annoyed at the fact that they were bringing more people into my dorm room, but then I realized the two people that just walked into my room.

It was the two freshman boys that we were talking about only a few minutes ago; the two boys I’d run into that day in front of the girls’ restroom.  

Both boys walked further into my room; their faces were looking like they were in a state of complete wonder and astonishment as their big, innocent eyes danced around, gaping at the objects that made up my room.

I smirked remembering that these two boys were only ninth graders. I’m sure that both boys had never been in any girl’s dorm before let alone the senior girl’s dorm.

Yoona made her way to stand between the two boys. “Hello boys,” she greeted, placing either of her arms around both boy’s shoulders. “I’m glad you both decided to join us tonight.”

“We didn’t decide to join,” the brunette one refuted, suddenly. “You threatened us to-“

Yoona’s elbow suddenly came into contact boy’s stomach. The boy hunched over in pain.

“Ninth graders,” Yoona quickly interceded. “They’re such jokesters.”

“Alright boys,” Sooyoung said, now sitting back in my desk chair. “Tell Minji your names.”

“Uh…I’m Chansung,” the brunette boy grunted out through a sigh as he straightened himself up after Yoona had elbowed him.

“And I’m Joowon,” said the black-haired kid on the other side of Yoona.

“I know who you two are,” I simply told them. I didn’t need a reintroduction. “I remember.”   

“Good, then we can get straight to the important part,” Yoona said before nudging the two boys. Since both boys were just a little shorter than Yoona, she bent over so that her head was level with the both of them. When she spoke her voice was low as she warned them to tell me everything they knew. “I mean it. Tell her everything and remember I’ll know if you two are lying or if you leave anything out.”

She nudged them one last time which pushed them forward towards me. “Starting with the first night of school when you two learned about the prank. Tell her everything you know.”

The brunette boy, Chansung, gulped as he stared me with bewildered eyes, but his friend, Joowon, just stared with an expressionless face. Neither of them spoke at first, but just continued to stare at me. After a few seconds of complete silence, I rolled my eyes.

“Well?” I questioned impatiently.  I’d waited long enough for this moment and yet they still weren’t talking.

Chansung glanced at his friend beside him before taking in a long drag of air and finally speaking. “Since the very first day that the guys from our old academy arrived on campus, our upperclassmen, the seniors to be specific, have been planning a prank on all the girls of your senior class.”

My eyebrow raised in suspicion. “If it’s only the senior guys in on it how come you two know about it?”

“Because we snuck in on the meeting they had the first day we arrived. We listened to everything, well, until Lu Han sunbae kicked us out, that is.”

Hearing Lu Han’s name again just reminded me that it wasn’t only my co-president who was in on this prank. All of the senior boys must have taken their part in pranking us girls. That even meant Kris…     

“Okay,” I said finally having reached a revelation. “I want to know everything you guys know about the prank.”

And from then on, the flood gates opened. The two boys snitched on their sunbaes letting me in on everything.

They told me about the senior tradition of pranking the freshman the first week of school, but how this year they decided to prank girls instead because technically, we were the new “fresh meat” for them to target. I learned about the meeting the senior boys had and how they came up with the “diarrhea prank” the very first night we stayed on campus. I learned about how the boys turned our academy’s auditorium into their very own private meeting spot so they could do “guy stuff” but I guess that actually meant a place for them to come up with awful pranks to pull on us girls.

The boys also told me about how Kai would take advantage of them making them do his dirty work while promising to pay them only to turn around and not pay them at all. They told me about how the senior guys invited them to hang out only to manipulate them and made them put cameras in the girl’s restroom to spy on us after the prank. And they told me about how they were supposed to sneak back in to the girl’s restroom to retrieve the cameras so they could bring them back to their sunbaes only when they tried, they accidentally ran into Yoona and Seohyun in the bathroom, and that was when they got caught.

By the time the boys finished blabbing everything, the room was as dead silent as a graveyard. I couldn’t speak. I was too astonished by everything I’d just heard. I had questioned the validity of what Yoona, Sooyoung and Seohyun had told me earlier, but now that I was hearing the exact same story from these two boys, I knew that they couldn’t be lying.  

The girls even showed me the video on the camcorder they’d found which was apparently strategically hidden within the flowers of the glass vase in our restroom. I felt so violated when the girls showed me a clip of the video; it displayed everything girls do in the bathroom and even showed footage of girls literally bolting for the stalls after the whole diarrhea incident. It was a complete madhouse in the bathroom on that particular day.

As I continued to watch the video footage, I could feel my face growing hotter and hotter as fury fueled from within me. I felt betrayed by everyone, especially from my so-called “co-president” who was supposed to be my partner. Just how much crap had he been up to since the start of the school year? We weren’t even midway into the school year yet! I already knew I couldn’t trust him especially after I’d learned about the food fight he’d set up on the day the superintendent came to school, but this was just far beyond anything I could’ve ever imagined him to be a part of.

I felt so angry and conflicted on the inside that I didn’t even know what to do with myself. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell. But most importantly, what I really wanted was revenge.    

Kai had managed to take advantage of everyone even at the expense of his own friends! I mean, even Kris had to get into trouble so that Kai wouldn’t get caught. He’d taken advantage and manipulated these kids; he’d taken advantage, violated, and pranked all the senior girls, and he’d taken advantage of me! It was like he was willing to pull down everyone, no matter who it was, just so that he could be the one standing on top.

Yoona was right. Kai was all those horrible things she mentioned earlier. He was a fraud, a liar, a ert, a felon and so much more! Kai was a punk bastard and he was the one who needed to be taken down!

And I knew just how to do it…

“Tell me,” I said, looking back at the two boys in front of me, my lips stretching out into a sly grin as a plan to get the senior boys back started to form in my head. “Would you two boys still consider yourselves to be loyal to Kim Jongin?”

“Oh no!” Joowon, the black-haired boy, said shaking his head. He looked over at his friend Chansung who also shook his head. “We don’t believe anything he says anymore. In fact, we’ve been hiding from him and the rest of the senior guys ever since we couldn’t get the camera because they’d kill us and then bury us six-feet underground if they knew the truth.”  

“Plus, we’re tired of being Kim Jongin’s little puppets,” Chansung admitted. “He’s made promise after promise to us only never to follow through with them. Now we’re both broke because he never paid us like he said he would, and we don’t get our allowances until next month.”

“What if I told you that there was a way that we could get him and the rest of the senior boys back?” I asked them, hoping they would agree. They could be valuable assets to us girls in the future if we wanted to take revenge on the guys. “Would you be willing to help?”

Joowon crossed his arms across his chest as one of his brows shot up high, and he stared at me suspiciously. “Well that depends. What’s in it for us?”

I scoffed at his challenge. These little trolls! They’re the ones who agreed to put a camera in our restroom to spy on us, and they still want us to do them a favor? Men! No matter what age, they are all the same! Unbelievable!

Because they were being difficult, I chose the next best thing which automatically earned me their support. I threatened them by making them think I was going to tell the headmasters about them being accomplices to the prank and said that they would get expelled for being involved. It was true. If I had told, they most likely would get expelled, but I hadn’t actually planned on telling the headmasters.  

Oh I would probably tell the headmasters someday, but not until later because if I told them now, then I could never get my revenge. A very stubborn part of my soul still had a desire to see my co-president go down in flames!

The same way he’d played me and all my senior girls, I was going to play him and all his boys. From now on, no senior boy was safe!

If the boys wanted to play stupid pranks on us, then that was just fine, but the girls shouldn’t have been excluded from knowing anything about it. Now it’s our turn!

“Uh, Minji…” Sooyoung called me, which snapped me out of my thoughts, suddenly. When I looked over at her she was eyeing me worriedly, and I couldn’t figure out why until she asked, “Why are you grinning evilly like that?”

My grin instantly fell, and I cleared my throat as I suddenly realized that all that time being lost in my thoughts, I had been snickering to myself as I thought up evil pranks to get the boys back.

“Because, tonight is the night I’m declaring war on the guys,” I said, standing up from my bed for the first time since Yoona had forced me to sit down. She had been right about that too. There was no way I could’ve taken in all that information when I was standing. I looked over at the three girls. “Since you three and the rest of your friends from your clique are the most socially acquainted with every senior, I want you all to send a message to every senior girl to meet up in the girls’ gym tomorrow night. We’re going to get the boys back!”  

* * *

I both like this chapter and at the same time I hate it. I'm sure you were expecting to see if Kai got that golden ticket, but this chapter was necessary since it'd been a while since we'd seen what Minji had been up to. It was time she find out the truth.

Yeah, let the drama ensue next chappie!