Author's Note: Kai and Minzy alternate p.o.v's in this chapter...

*

KIM JONGIN . GONG MINJI

*

These damn bastards! I thought bitterly, grimacing at the sight before me. They seriously need to back the hell off of Minji.

I was about two seconds away from bolting over to that damned kissing booth and knocking the hell out of every guy that dared to ask her to kiss them. It didn’t even concern me that I was thinking these awful things about the very same people I called friends and classmates. As far as I was concerned, every guy at that booth was now my arch nemesis.

For the past thirty minutes or so I’d watched dozens of guys line up to receive a kiss from Minji: either on the cheek, or on the neck, or on the forehead, or anywhere else they requested. Every kiss she gave out, every time I had to watch those cherry lips of hers come into contact with yet another guy, my stomach twisted into knots and my mouth which was held in a permanent scowl sunk a little lower than the last time. 

My teeth suddenly started grinding together as I clenched my jaw tightly because I was now watching Minji smooch what seemed like the millionth guy to come up to her; this time it was a sweet little peck on the nose.

! I cursed in my head, aggravated. I was pretty sure my scowl had sunken even lower and now probably looked more like snarl.

I wanted to sock that guys’ nose into his face until it caved in like a sinkhole! I’d like to see him try to ask Minji to kiss him on the nose then!

If I had to watch her kiss one more guy…

I was trying to ignore it, but in the very back of my mind I could hear my little inner voice telling me that I wished she was kissing me like that, only. But I literally shoved that thought away. I just hoped that Chanyeol was able to—huh? A golden ticket?

My thoughts had been unexpectedly interrupted by the sight of a golden ticket being held right in front of my eyes. On the ticket, the black bolded number “42” was staring right back at me. My eyes widened.

Minji’s golden ticket!

 I swear just the sight of that number and I was almost ready to squeal like one of those fan-girls whenever they caught a glimpse of their favorite boy band up close.

But I caught myself…

I remembered who I was, and where I was at.

The hand outstretched around my head that held the ticket teasingly dangled it in front of me but when I reached out to swipe the ticket, the hand immediately snatched it away.  

“Dude!” I exclaimed, spinning around at the same time to come face-to-face with Chanyeol. “You actually got it? You actually swiped Minji’s ticket from Kris?”  

“Yeah, I did,” he replied looking rather disappointed. His mouth was twisted into a frown, which confused me. “I feel really guilty for having done it.”

“Guilty?” I repeated, in disbelief.  “What do you have to feel guilty for?”

Chanyeol stared at me with an expression like he thought I was the dumbest guy on earth. His eyebrow was quirked upward, and I could practically hear him calling me an idiot in his head. “Uh…hello? Kris is one of our best friends, remember? And we both just plotted against him for our own selfish purposes.”

“Selfish?” I repeated once again, shaking my head. “What you and I both did wasn’t a selfish act. If anything, I was only protecting Minji!”

“Protecting her from what, exactly?” Chanyeol immediately shot back, looking completely flabbergasted. “Kris’ lips?! Cause there’s a whole lot of danger there!”

“Well yeah!” I fired back just as quickly. “I’m protecting her from him and the rest of these guys out here!”  

Chanyeol exaggeratedly rolled his eyes before leaning his head back and sighing. “Oh Kai, would you please just hurry up and admit that you like Minji already so that we can all stop being dragged into your mess and the rest of us can move on with our lives? You know, this little crush of yours is affecting everyone.”

“A crush?” I copied him for the third time, completely astonished by what I just heard him call my feelings for Minji. “You think I have a crush on her?!”

“Dude, everyone knows!” Chanyeol suddenly exploded on me and I jumped because of how unexpected it was. We’d caught the attention of a few bystanders but they quickly went back to minding their own business once I shot them all a glare.

“Well, everyone knows except you and Minji, of course,” Chanyeol continued once we were in the clear again. “I swear you two are two of the most clueless people I’ve ever known.”

Now, that little comment made me wince. I was not clueless!

Chanyeol then jutted his hand out at me, his palm face up, as if silently demanding that I give him something. “Now I’ve held up my part of the bargain. I want Dara’s golden ticket.”

Oh right.

I fished for the ticket out of my pocket and handed it over to him at the same time that he handed over Minji’s ticket to me. Afterwards, we both stared at our tickets in awe, probably with big goofy smiles on our faces.

Now Chanyeol had Dara’s ticket and I had Minji’s.

“I know you may feel guilty for having to steal from Kris,” I told Chanyeol while still staring at the “42” written on the ticket. “But trust me. It’ll all be worth it.”

Honk!

The sudden sound of a bullhorn blowing its way around the campsite stole both me and Chanyeol’s attention away from our tickets.

Following the sound of the horn, I found Yoona standing atop a table with the bullhorn she had just blown; thus, grabbing the attention of everyone who was within a mile distance of her kissing stand. On top of that table, above everyone on ground, she stood very much like a captain confidently standing atop of his very own ship above all his crewman.  

“Alright boys and girls, your future secretary has an announcement to make,” she announced through her bullhorn. Everyone had stopped what they were doing to look up at her. Even passing teachers and other staff members had her undivided attention. Yoona continued to address her crowd like she was on a stage heading her very own concert or something. “What you all have been waiting for is about to begin! Now, there are twelve lucky boys out there with tickets that belong to one of us twelve beautiful girls inside the kissing booth. Could you be one of those lucky boys?”

“I guess they’re about to start,” Chanyeol said to me. “We should get back over to the rest of the guys before they think we ditched them.”

Nodding in agreement, I followed him as he took off but my mind was elsewhere.

The golden ticket in my clenched fist crunched as I crumpled it, absentmindedly forming into a little paper ball. I couldn’t wait until the number “42” was called. Just the thought of the number had me smirking to myself as I thought about what the call of that number would mean.

In any moment now, I was going to be kissing Minji!     

***

Oh no.

I think I’m going to throw up.

No really, I can already feel the bile making its way up my throat and into my mouth. Repeatedly I’d tried swallowing it back down, but the taste was so awful that each time I did my stomach just got more upset and the bile would start to come back up again, making me feel sicker than before.

Right now, I am currently hunched over, gripping onto my stomach for dear life as I watch the girls go up one after another to get kissed by the guys who were lucky enough to snag their winning tickets. Despite my detest for the guys of our senior class, I’d still been kind of excited to see how the kissing would play out; however, now the sight just made me nauseous.

I don’t know why my stomach decided to start acting up now. I’d been fine all day long, but then somehow over the course of the last hour, my stomach had gotten really upset. It had started rumbling like there was a lot of gas rushing through my intestines, then it started hurting like someone was twisting my stomach with their fist, and then the upchuck started to rise up my esophagus.

I wonder if this had anything to do with what I…ate…Oh crap.     

Suddenly, I had a flashback of me gobbling down dozens of laxative-laced chocolate bars. Then I recalled the chili cheese fries I’d eaten right after when my friends and I had all snuck out of the kissing booth for a short moment. 

“Minji-ah, are you alright?” I heard Bom’s voice ask me. She came up to my side, looking concerned and sympathetically placed a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t look too good.”

“Yeah, you look a little green actually,” Chaerin now added bending over to be level with me in my hunched over position.

I couldn’t even answer; I didn’t have the strength to so I just shook my head. I felt that bad.

“Omo!” Dara squeaked. “This is all because of the chocolates you ate earlier, huh?”

“What chocolates?” Chaerin asked, glancing back and forth between Dara and I. She then turned around to look at something and when she turned back to me her eyes were widened in shock. “You mean you ate those chocolates? The ones we made for the prank?”

“It was an accident,” Dara answered for me.

“How can you make that kind of a mistake?” Chaerin wondered aloud.  

I was upset! I shouted in my head. It was all stupid Kai’s fault for distracting me!

“Uh-oh, you don’t feel like you’re going to have the runs do you, hun?” Bom asked worriedly.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “But I think I’m going to be sick.”

“This isn’t good,” she said. “You can’t kiss anyone while you feel like this.” She then turned to Dara and Chaerin. “We better tell Yoona. She said she was going to start calling out our ticket numbers in about five minutes.”

Dara and Bom took off together to go talk to Yoona while Chaerin stayed with me. She gave me a chilled bottle of water to drink and guided me to take deep breaths in order to help keep me from throwing up.  

One by one, Yoona had previously been calling out the numbers that were on the back of our jackets and the guys with the matching tickets would come up to kiss the girl he got. First, she would ask him a few flirtatious questions about his ideal type or something else related to girls and then afterward, he’d plant a kiss right on whichever one of us girls he’d got the ticket for. So far, only Yuri, Sooyoung, and Sunny had been called up to give out kisses. But now that Yoona was coming over to check up on me, she couldn’t lead her booth anymore; however, that didn’t stop the show from going on. From the looks of it, she just had one of her friends take over her previous position on top of the table so they could call out our numbers. Now Seohyun was standing up on the platform waiting to be kissed.

But now I was watching a very furious looking Yoona march right along with Bom and Dara towards me. I gulped.

Oh geez, I thought worriedly. I knew I was in trouble.

“You ate the chocolate?” Yoona inquired through gritted teeth as she marched up to me, but it was clearly a rhetorical question because she started yelling at me before I even got the chance to answer. “Minji, how could you be so stupid?!”

Well, it was pretty simple, actually, I said to myself in my head. All I had to do was get angry at watching you and the rest of your friends flirt with Kai and before I knew it, I was shoving chocolates down my throat. 

 “I’m sorry,” I apologized pathetically, my head still down and my hand now rubbing my tummy as a means to try and ease its aching.

“Alright,” Yoona relented, probably because now she could see just how miserable I looked. “Do you think you’ll still be able to go up on the podium and give a guy a kiss?” 

I pursed my lips and thought about it.

One boy out there had a ticket with my number on it and was expecting a kiss. I didn’t want to flake out and be the only girl who ditched out on the prank and left a guy hanging in the dust. Plus, I didn’t think a guy who paid so much for a box of chocolate would be too happy if he didn’t get his kiss in the end. All in support of the prank, I decided I could stick it out.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “It’s only one quick kiss, right?” If it was kept short and quick, I was sure I could do it and get it over with.

“Great!” Yoona said gleefully, cheering up again. “Then I’ll just go back to calling a few more numbers and you stay here and relax until I call you up.”

Simple enough, I thought…or so it seemed, at first. After guzzling down most of my water, I had actually started to feel a little better…well, that is until Yoona called the number “01” and Chaerin’s head shot up.

“That’s me,” she said, her eyes looking bewildered as they expanded. She then let her eyes dance from Dara to Bom then to me before repeating, “That’s me!”

“Well, go on up to the podium then,” Bom told her. She leaned in to Chaerin and cheekily whispered, “Give that boy the kiss of his dreams!”

The apples of Chaerin’s cheeks began to redden as she smiled and nodded. She then took in a large breath of air and stalked off to make her way to the platform which stood front and center of the crowd gathered around it; thus, giving everyone the perfect view of each and every kiss that happened up there.

As Chaerin stood up on the little stage, all the girls in the booth, myself included, started clapping, while the crowd started whooping and hollering. There were plenty of girls in the crowd as well—mainly senior girls. After all, it was all of us senior girls that planned this whole thing out and they would want to see everything too, but they were sort of drowned out by the overzealous boys behaving more like they were at some strip club joint. But then again, when Yoona had us all wearing these skimpy cheerleading outfits, what boy wouldn’t lose his mind?  

“Representing number one, here we have our y Valedictorian, Lee Chaerin!” Yoona announced through the bullhorn, which then caused another round of whooping and hollering. “Are you all ready to see which boy out there has this fine lady’s number?”

More whooping and hollering.

I rolled my eyes. This was starting to get silly.

“Okay then, will the lucky boy with the number zero, one come on down to kiss this lovely girl, please?”  

***

“Honestly, I wasn’t even sure you were going to be able to pull it off,” I told Chanyeol as we walked back over to the rest of the guys. “But I hoped you would, plus I knew you’d be further motivated to get it done once you found out that I had Dara’s ticket.”

“,” Chanyeol muttered before giving me a hard shove. Chanyeol had shoved me with so much force I ended up tripping over my two feet as the top half of my body jerked too quickly for my legs to catch up.  I almost could’ve fallen, but I planted a hand in the grass which kept me steady.

Once I straightened myself back up, I glared at Chanyeol who was sniggering at me, clearly both amused and satisfied by what he’d just done. The thing was I knew I couldn’t even get mad.

“Alright, so I deserved that,” I said annoyed while straightening out my clothes.

“You deserve a lot more than that from Kris,” Chanyeol shot back as we sat back down at the table we were previously at. He then shook his head as he clicked his tongue. “If only he knew…”         

“How had you managed to take Minji’s ticket from him, anyway?”

“Oh, I uh…I told him I ate all my chocolate and then begged him repeatedly for some of his chocolate until he finally gave in and gave me his chocolate box. When he wasn’t paying attention, I took Minji’s ticket out of his box and swapped it with my own ticket.”

My head immediately shot up and I glowered at him. “You had a ticket, too?” I asked, shocked. This was news to me. “You didn’t tell me that.”

Chanyeol shrugged uncaringly. “You didn’t ask.”

“So then, if I now have the ticket that Kris originally had which was Minji’s,” I said, thinking out loud, figuring out what this new piece of information meant. “And you have the ticket I originally had which was Dara’s, and now Kris currently holds the ticket you originally had, whose ticket is it?”

“Awe, come on, don’t be shy?” I heard Yoona’s voice again when no one stepped out to claim Chaerin. Apparently it was Chaerin’s turn to give a guy a kiss, so Yoona had asked for the guy with the ticket to come forward, but no one had yet leaving Chaerin still standing up alone on that platform. “Who’s the lucky guy with ticket number zero, one?”

Right then, Chanyeol leaned over enclosing the space between us until his mouth was right up against my ear; he whispered the name of which girl’s ticket he originally had.

I immediately smirked and glanced back up at the podium where Chaerin was patiently waiting for her mysterious guy to come up. “NO WAY!”  

Immediately, I shot up and took off in the direction of the tree that Kris was still posted up against.

“Psst…Kris!” I yelled through a whisper from the other side of the tree. Kris, apparently startled, jumped at the sound of my harsh whisper. He half-turned around, but the second he realized it was me he immediately spun back around, returning to his previous position and ignored me. I sighed and tried again. “Kris!”

“What?!” he whispered back just as harshly, still refusing to look at me.

“Dude, I have something to tell you!”

“Well, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Alright fine, if you don’t want to know that you are the guy with Chaerin’s ticket number…”

Now that got him to turn around and look at me…or more glare at me.

“Wait what?!” Kris asked, now using his outside voice, which earned us a few stares from our friends around us. I could feel their eyes on both Kris and I probably curious as to what we were talking about, but we both ignored their stares. “What are you talking about me having Chaerin’s ticket? I have Minji’s.”

I shook my head. “No you don’t. Check your ticket number again.”

Kris’ thick brows further indented into his forehead as he continued to glare at me for a few more seconds through scrutinizing eyes. He looked like he was trying to figure out what my motives were but I just nodded at him, gesturing him to go on and do what I told him. Finally, Kris fished for his ticket from his jacket pocket and when he opened it up to look at the number on it, his eyes grew twice their normal size.

“W-what?” he looked totally puzzled as he struggled to put his thoughts into words. “H-how? I mean…huh?”

“It has the numbers zero, one on it, right?” I asked knowingly, trying to peek over his hands so that I could see the ticket.

Then, all of a sudden, Kris’ whole demeanor changed from confused to murderous within the span of one second. Before I knew it, he had me by the collar, and was gripping it with a death hold. There was very little breathing room between both our faces as a result from him yanking me to him so that we were eye-to-eye and since Kris was a good half-a-head taller than I was, his hold left me on the tips of my toes.

“What did you do?” he seethed through heavy breaths. I could practically see the smoke coming out of his ears.

“Okay,” I held my hands up defensively. “Now you could pummel me but then you would miss out on the chance to kiss a very pretty girl who I’m pretty sure is still currently waiting for the guy with her ticket to come up to that podium.”

A look of realization flashed in Kris’ eyes and he glanced up, most likely at Chaerin still standing in front of that large crowd. He immediately let go of my collar as his breathing began to go back to normal. He scratched the back of his head as he glanced back up at the podium, but now he looked unsure.

Neither of us missed the sound of Yoona’s voice beckoning the guy with Chaerin’s number to come up again.

I nudged him forward. “Dude, she’s waiting for you. Are you going to go up there or leave her hanging?”

Yoona spoke into the bullhorn again, and this time she called the guy with Chaerin’s ticket a “shy boy,” which unknown to her, was an insult to Kris. He finally headed for the podium.            

***

Oh no.

My stomach was upset again, but this time it was because I was worried for Chaerin. She was still standing up on that platform waiting for whichever guy who had her number but no one was making a move. Well, actually that’s not true. Since the guy who had her ticket seemed to be refusing to come up, plenty of guys in the crowd below her had raised their hands, obnoxiously volunteering to be his replacement, but Yoona shushed them all. She said only the guy with the ticket could claim Chaerin’s lips and if he chose not to, no one else could.

I could tell Chaerin was starting to get nervous because she kept running her fingers through her jet black hair. She tried to stop by placing her hands behind her back, but then her shoulders would start swishing back and forth and she’d pivot on her feet. She just couldn’t stay still.

After about ten more excruciatingly long seconds passed, Yoona told Chaerin she could come on down from the platform.

“Well, it looks like whoever that boy is with Chaerin’s number is just too shy,” she told the crowd. “I’ll bet the poor shy boy has probably never even kissed a girl before.”

“I’m not shy!” a bold voice suddenly pierced through the crowd. I couldn’t immediately see who it was since I was still inside the kissing booth and I was too short to be able to see over the large crowd of students. I could only see who the voice belonged to once he finally began making his way up to the podium.

And once I recognized him, I stared, my eyes following after him in complete shock.

The familiar tall, long-limbed body glided its way across the platform until he was standing right in front of Chaerin who was still next to the podium now looking up at him with hung open.

But for the record, everybody’s mouth was hung open.

No one would’ve ever thought that the “Krisus” would be the one to have Chaerin’s ticket.

After the initial shock was over, Yoona continued to lead the show on. It seemed she was stalling, or was trying to hold off their kiss a little bit longer because she asked Kris more questions then she’d asked the other guys, and then she proceeded to ask Chaerin questions about her ideal guy.

But finally, Yoona stepped back and told Kris to go ahead and plant a “big wet one” on Chaerin. The crowd then chanted “kiss her, kiss her!” over and over while the two of them looked totally awkward trying to figure out how they were going to execute the kiss.

There was some awkward fidgeting, but Kris finally took Chaerin’s chin in his hand and pecked her ever so sweetly on the lips before pulling back. It was short, but it was enough to make Chaerin swoon, and the crowd went ballistic.

The girls in the kissing booth with me all squealed like piglets and they squealed even more once Chaerin finally made it back inside the booth looking totally drunk in love.

If I had to choose one word to describe how I felt after watching Chaerin and Kris kiss it would be bittersweet. I wasn’t jealous—at least, I don’t think I was…

I mean, it was just weird for me, especially since at the moment, I still had many conflicted feelings about him. Prior, before I knew anything about the prank, I had really liked Kris’ personality. I considered him the nicest, and the most trustworthy out of all the guys I’d either befriended or acquainted with since the start of the school year. I never thought he’d be a part of Kai’s little prank, but then again, they were best friends, and the age-old saying goes “you are who your friends are.”

Regardless of my inner confliction, I put on a smile and congratulated my very giddy friend for being able to share a moment with Kris that I was sure she’d probably dreamt about many times before.

“Oh, it was perfect!” she gushed, her smile so big that all her white teeth were showing. “I’ve never felt lips so soft before!”

The rest of the girls in the booth all laughed, and I smiled at seeing her act like such a…well…a girl. Normally, I’d describe Chaerin as “headstrong” or “determined” which made her seem more mature than others her age, but she was still a girl, which meant she still had the feelings of one, as well. She wasn’t even boy crazy like both Bom and Dara were, but apparently Kris had the ability to change that.  

Who thought that all it would take for her inner girlish charm to come out was a kiss.

***

I feel like a proud daddy, I told myself in my head.

I couldn’t control the large grin on my face, happy at having seen Kris handle his business like a man for the first time in weeks. Yoona had stalled by asking Kris a zillion mindless questions, but after she was done, she stepped aside and let Kris go in for the kill.

He looked awkward at first because he struggled with whether to place his hands on Chaerin’s body or to leave them at his sides. Chaerin also seemed shy too as she just stood there grinning ear-to-ear, but she finally nodded to Kris like she was telling him she was okay with what he wanted to do.

After that, Kris took Chaerin by the chin and tipped her head up to align with his…and the rest was history!

The crowd went absolutely wild! Guys were catcalling, girls were swooning, and some of the little fangirls (all underclassmen) that Kris had managed to attract over the course of the year started crying.

Chaerin looked so dazed once she and Kris separated that I had to laugh. I was even more pleased when Kris coolly walked away without turning back around to look at her, but left her in her daze.

Once he’d come back over to the guys and I, all of us still in the same spot near the “senior tree,” they literally jumped on him, cheering him on for being so suave, but I didn’t stick around. I wasn’t sure if Kris would still be mad at me and I wasn’t trying to find out either, plus I knew he’d still have questions about what I’d done with Minji’s ticket.

If he found out that I’d stolen it, he’d probably get the rest of the guys to gang up on me to take the ticket back. And I wasn’t letting anyone take Minji’s ticket from me, so I hightailed it out of there as quick as I could while the guys were still pestering Kris.

But apparently I wasn’t quick enough because suddenly…

“I know it was you,” a voice from behind me stated. Having not expected anyone to be following me, the sound of the voice shocked me so greatly I nearly jumped out of my skin.

Whipping around, I came face-to-face with-

“Lu Han?” I questioned, confused. He just smirked at me with his arms crossed over his chest.

“I know it was you,” he repeated. “I know you’re the reason why Kris ended up kissing Chaerin and not Minji.

Damn that Chanyeol! I inwardly cursed my friend. He must have blabbed to Lu Han about the deal he and I made. I’ll kill him!

“I don’t know how you did it, but I know you’re the reason why he ended up losing Minji’s ticket. I saw your eyes practically flame red when you found out Kris had Minji’s ticket. Plus, you’re way too much of the jealous type to let the girl you like kiss another guy. So, it had to be you.”

Oh, so maybe Chanyeol hadn’t told him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said evasively, shaking my head.    

“Yeah, whatever,” Lu Han said, clearly not convinced. “Pretend all you want but I know it was you.”

I sneered, feeling annoyed with Lu Han now. I was going to rudely brush him off and tell him to mind his own damn business, but then the call of a very familiar number stole all my attention away.

“Number 42,” Yoona’s voice blared through the bullhorn. “Would you please make your way up to the podium so that we can find the lucky guy with your ticket?”

I swear my heart almost jumped out of my chest just from the sight of Minji making her way up the podium. She stood there in her cute cheerleading outfit, flowing red ponytail and all.

Man I wanted to just march straight up there and claim her lips so badly!

“Gee, I wonder who has Minji’s ticket?” Lu Han questioned beside me, but he’d said it teasingly like he already knew the answer. His eyes then landed on me, staring at me knowingly, with a smirk that said I wasn’t fooling him.

 I ignored him as I kept my eyes focused on the red-head girl anxiously waiting to finally be called up, but after a minute had passed, Lu Han was still right beside me, staring me down; in fact, he’d even inched his face closer to mine so that he was right up in my face.  

“Dude, stop staring at me like that,” I told him annoyed. I attempted to shove his face away, but he quickly dodged my hands.

“No, not until you admit that you took Kris’ ticket,” he shot back.

I sighed already tired of Lu Han’s overly persistent personality. “I won’t say that I did, and I won’t say that I didn’t.”

“So you did steal it?” Lu Han now looked more excited like he just discovered the cure for cancer.

I shrugged nonchalantly, thinking that if I continued to remain elusive then he’d give up; however, my acting just seemed to have the opposite effect on him.

“KRIS!” Lu Han yelled at the top of his lungs before taking off at the speed of light.

I knew he was about to snitch on me.

So I shot after him. I caught up to him. Then I tackled him.

Lu Han and I both tumbled down on the ground with a loud thump! We were a mess of sprawled limbs but since he was on the bottom, he broke my fall; therefore, the fall didn’t hurt me as much as it did him.

Beneath me, he groaned in pain.

“You can’t say anything!” I forbid him earnestly. “If you tell on me, I’ll tell Park Bom about the hidden camera you put in that little stuff animal you gave her as a gift.”

“What?!” Lu Han croaked out looking absolutely shocked, obviously surprised to find out that I knew one of his dirty little secrets. He had opened his mouth to speak again, but he immediately started coughing and I figured it was probably because I was still straddling him, thus, cutting of his air flow. He spoke between coughs, “How did you even know about that?”

“You thought I didn’t know?” I shot back, my tone coming out mischievous and my lips breaking out in a devilish grin. “I’m the president, I know everything.”

“But you aren’t even in the same class as us-”

“Who cares how I know!” I shouted, cutting him off. “Just promise you won’t say anything to anyone, especially Kris or else I’ll snitch to Bom!”

“Fine, I won’t! Now will you please remove your knee from my spleen?!”

Smiling triumphantly, I got off him, and dusted myself off. “Good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe I have a girl to kiss.”

“Actually, I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Lu Han said as he stood up, his eyes were focused elsewhere. He pointed off into the distance. “Looks like Yoona chose someone else to take your place.”  

Horrified by even the thought, I spun around to see where Lu Han was pointing and noticed a guy walking up the stage and over to Minji. The crowd was cheering and Yoona was saying something about “choosing another guy.”

Oh hell no! I’d been so distracted with Lu Han making sure he didn’t snitch on me that I must’ve missed them calling for the guy with Minji’s ticket… which was me! Now they were choosing someone else to kiss her?

Not on my watch, I thought darkly as I began marching my way up to that stage, my eyes solely focused on the target.

I’d worked too hard to get her ticket; I’d had to watch her kiss way too many guys in that booth; I’d had to wait too long for this moment; I wasn’t about to let any guy just take my spot.

All the guys already had their chance, but only I had the ticket. This kiss was mine.   

***

The number of girls inside the booth continued to diminish as Yoona proceeded to call each girl out one-by-one to go up and smooch a boy on the lips. Number 35, which was Bom, ended up getting a really handsome guy named Choi Siwon, while Dara, who was number 21, ended up kissing Chanyeol who I swear was ten times giddier than even Chaerin was when she kissed Kris.

All the while that was happening, I had waited on the sidelines and made a mental list of all the numbers that had been called, mentally crossing each number.

So far, eight girls had already been called up so I mentally scratched off each of their numbers and counted who was left. If my calculations were correct (which they were), only four of remained, which included: Yoona, who was lucky number 7, Tiffany, number 0, Taeyeon, number 9 and me, number…

“Number 42!”

My head shot up at the sound of my number being called. I was a bit shocked, not having expected to be called so suddenly. But it occurred to me:

Yoona was calling my number. It was my turn to go up on the podium. This was it! Oh crap!

Yoona continued to announce into the bullhorn, “Number 42, would you please make your way up to the podium so that we can find out which lucky guy has your ticket?”

I didn’t move. Why wasn’t I moving?! I stayed still standing in my spot like I was glued to the ground until I felt someone coming up behind me.

“Minji-ah, that’s you!” I heard Bom’s voice say. “Go!” Then I felt her hands press into my back and they pushed me forward.

I stumbled over my feet, but straightened myself up and continued to slowly make my way up to the podium. The girls cheered me on, but in response I could only return a fake smile because I was trying to cover up what I was truly feeling at the moment. 

I don’t know why, but I was suddenly starting to feel pretty nervous about this whole situation. Maybe it was because I knew I was about to make-out with a boy that I barely even knew in front of all of my fellow schoolmates. But that wasn’t the real issue because even despite being nervous, I could still kiss the boy and get it over with.

The real issue was that it was only about thirty minutes ago that I was hunched over, clutching my stomach for dear life, while trying to keep myself from vomiting up the lax-chocolate and chili fries I’d eaten earlier today. Although my stomach had settled a bit while I had been waiting for my number to be called, I wasn’t completely healed of my upset stomach, and now that my nerves were acting up, they all seemed to go straight to my gut, making me feel sick again.

With every step that I made up the platform and over to the podium, my stomach bubbled, gurgled, and rumbled. Still, I put on my best fake smile and pretended like I was feeling good. If I took deep cleansing breaths, I could get through this without getting sick.

Yoona, please make this quick!

 “That’s right boys and girls, Gong Minji, our female senior class president is the next lady to give out a kiss to one very lucky boy,” Yoona spoke to the crowd below us.

I’m pretty sure I must have looked like a statue up on that platform because I surely felt as stiff as one. The crowd was clapping for me, the guys were whistling, and I was trying to gain some control of my nerves. In my head I started chanting:

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

But my stomach was still bubbling. There wasn’t a chant in the world I could say to myself that would help with what my stomach was feeling. And when exactly did these knots and lumps start forming? They were only making me feel sicker!

In fact, I could feel the lumps beginning to make their way up my throat. Oh no.

My mouth was swimming with excess saliva, so I swallowed hard to get the lumps down and I swear that alone almost had me dry heaving.

“Okay, whichever boy out there that has Minji’s golden ticket can come on up and claim his kiss!”

I began rocking back and forth on my feet impatiently. This was taking forever! Okay, so technically I’d only been up on the platform for about a minute, but it felt like an hour!

I needed to get this kiss over with before I blew chunks all over everyone in the crowd! Unfortunately, it seemed that the guy who had my ticket didn’t want to come up because Yoona had called for him three times and yet, not a single soul bothered to come up.

After a few minutes of stalling, a very panicked Yoona was ready to call a different boy from the crowd to come up and kiss me.

“Alright,” she said peeking out into the crowd, her hand placed above her eyes as she scanned for a boy. “Since the guy with Minji’s ticket doesn’t want to come forward, I’m going to choose another guy from the crowd to come up.”

Hands all throughout the crowd shot up immediately, waving wildly as if that would make Yoona want to pick them. Guys eagerly chanted the words “pick me” repeatedly while Yoona scanned the crowd. I stood there not knowing what to do with my stomach bubbling with each and every breath I took.

I didn’t recall Yoona ever saying that she’d call up another guy if the person with our tickets refused to come up to kiss any of us. When Chaerin was up here, she specifically had said that only the guy with her ticket could kiss her, so why was she changing the rules now? I could be off this platform by now and nursing my sick stomach already, but instead she was keeping me up here.

“You!” Yoona pointed to a boy in the crowd. “I choose you. Come on up.”

The boy jumped up, punching his fist into the air excitedly before moving through the crowd to come up. I stood by waiting silently as Yoona gestured the boy forward once he made it up to our little stage in front of the crowd.

He stopped in front of me and grinned with a smile so big it looked like it hurt. I’d seen this boy around; I knew he was friends with Bang Yongguk (the same guy that was running for vice president against Kris) but I wasn’t sure of his name.  He wasn’t very tall, but he was still a few good inches taller than I was. He was; however, very well-built, his muscle shirt showing the definition in his arms whenever he flexed them. On top of that he was pretty handsome. As far as picks go, he wasn’t a bad choice at all. I still wanted to hurry up and get the kiss over with, but Yoona wouldn’t quit talking to the boy.

“So, what your name?” she asked.

“Moon Jongup,” he answered into the microphone Yoona held below his mouth. He grinned again as the crowd cheered for him.

Somewhere within the crowd, some dudes started cheering Jongup’s name, who I assumed were his buddies because he waved back to them. They yelled obscenities like “Yeah Jongup, get some!” to which I just rolled my eyes.

“And what made you raise your hand?” Yoona now asked him. “What do you like about Miss President?”

“Well, she’s hot,” Jongup answered matter-of-factly.

That’s it, I inwardly scoffed, disappointed with his answer. That’s the only reason why he wants to kiss me? If it’s at all possible, I hate these boys even more than before.

Yoona got in a few more questions before the crowd started to get impatient, and quite frankly, so was I.

“Alright then, you can kiss her now,” Yoona said suddenly, stepping aside.  

Jongup now turned towards me with that grin still plastered to his face. I could tell he was extremely excited about getting to kiss me and had it not been for my queasy stomach (as well as the wrath I currently harbored for all the senior guys) then I would’ve been just as excited as he. However, at the moment, it was more my nauseous stomach that was keeping me from being able to enjoy kissing this boy rather than the anger I felt about being wronged by the guys.

My stomach completely had a mind of its own and the deep cleansing breaths weren’t helping to make the uneasiness subside. It was bubbling and gurgling so loudly that I just knew Jongup had to be able to hear it; but even if he could, he showed no signs of being able to.

In just a few steps, Jongup was already closing the distance between our bodies; he got so close that I had to tilt my head up to look him in the eye.

“Hi,” he said simply and smiled sweetly.

The lumps were stuck in my throat. I swallowed hard. Whether I was angry at the guys or not, he was still pretty handsome up close and his looks certainly had an effect on me.  I was all choked up that I couldn’t even manage a say simple “hi” back to him, so I just bit my lip and nodded. He really needed to hurry this up before the lumps came back because I didn’t know if I could survive swallowing them down a third time without upchucking.

Little space was left between our faces, and I could see Jongup was getting ready to eliminate the rest of that space as he started leaning forward.

Ready for our kiss, I closed my eyes and waited…and waited…and waited…and, huh?

Suddenly, I heard noise—the sound of people chattering, gossiping—around me and I realized that it was coming from the crowd below.

But once I heard Yoona’s voice say into her microphone the very name I abhorred the most at this moment, my eyes popped open and I spun around.

“Mr. President?” Yoona said looking completely flabbergasted by his random appearance as he walked up on stage. “What are you…”

“I have the ticket,” Kai cut her off and held up the golden piece of paper for everyone to see. “I have Minji’s ticket, and this kiss is mine.” His eyes landed on Jongup with a menacing glare as he said the word “mine.”

“We’d called for you three times and you never showed up,” Yoona replied looking uncertain. “So we had to choose someone else to take your spot.”

“I was a little tied up,” Kai answered. “But I’m here now.”

“Yeah well you’re too late,” Jongup butted in, glaring right back at Kai with just as much hatred and malice. “You had your chance to kiss her and you blew it, so you can just turn around and walk right back off stage so Minji and I finish our kiss.”      

“If you try to put even one of your crusty lips on her, I’ll break ‘em off!” Kai threatened.  

“Boys, boys, calm down,” Yoona stopped the two raging males from going after one another by standing in front of them and placing both her hands on either of their shoulders like it would help to calm them down. “There’s no need to fight. There are enough kisses to go around. Minji can just kiss the both of you and then afterwards, you both can vote me for Secretary!”

“No!” Jongup argued stubbornly, before ripping his shoulder out of Yoona’s grasp. He marched over to me, grabbed one of my hands and pulled me close to him. “Only Minji and I are going to kiss.” He pulled me closer to him like he was going to smooch me down, but I felt another hand tugging on my other arm.

“The only thing you’re going to be kissing is my fist when I bash your face in!” Kai snarled back.

“You’re just jealous because she’s going to kiss me!” Jongup accused.

“Please, I’m not jealous of you,” Kai fought back. “You’re the one that’s been jealous of me ever since I beat you in that dance battle we had during freshman year.”

“You only won because everyone up to you since you are the headmasters’ son and voted for you!”

“Or maybe you just can’t accept losing to me!”     

With both boys on either side of me, Jongup and Kai decided to play a game of tug-o-war using my arms! They were both pulling to the point that I felt like they were going to rip right off if they tugged any harder. And to think, we had an audience—our very own classmates—watching us like we were on some variety show. 

“Would you idiots let go!” I yelled trying to tug my arms back. “I already don’t feel good and you two are just making it worse!”

Instantly, Kai’s grip on my hand loosened and he stepped closer towards me. “Wait, you don’t feel well?”

“Oh don’t try and up to her just so you can kiss her,” Jongup growled before pulling on my arm again, and this time since Kai didn’t have a firm hold on my other hand anymore, I went flying into Jongup’s body. And just like that, the lumps were back in my throat again, threatening to come up.

I tried hard to swallow them down, but they weren’t going budging.

“Dude, do you want to die?” Kai threatened Jongup before grabbing my other hand again. “You’re not going to kiss her!”

“You know what? Fine! You can have her!” Jongup then pushed me into Kai’s arms and my limp body just flew right along with the momentum like I was a rag doll. My stomach felt like it summersaulted; it jumped up and then plummeted back down once I landed in Kai’s arms.

Oh geez…I groaned in my head, now feeling the lumps make their way into my mouth. I think I’m gonna…

 “Well, then,” Yoona said clasping her hands together excitedly. Or maybe she was just anxious to get everything over with after what just happened. “Since that’s all over, Kai and Minji, you two can kiss-”

Bleeeegh…!        

Everyone gasped. Kai cursed. And I just let my head hang low as I watched the contents from my stomach—chocolate laxatives, chili fries and all—empty out all over Kai’s nice basketball shoes. 

Oops.

***

Honestly, this tug-o-war fight should’ve been between Kris and Kai, but I had already planned to make Kris fall for Chaerin since Minji wasn’t going to be interested in him anymore. Hope you enjoyed it anyways...