*

GONG MINJI

*

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!  

“Mmm,” I moan in my sleep, having only been mildly disturbed by the sound of some type of mysterious banging. It doesn’t even cause me to wake up, but just makes me roll over onto my side. I’m comfortably absorbed in the depths of unconsciousness right now and nothing, not even these loud bangs (though I do still hear them in my sleep), can disrupt my peaceful tranquil. 

There’s a brief pause of silence following the banging; however, a moment later, it starts again, and this time, the banging sounds go on for much longer.   

BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!

And yet, I still do not wake up. In fact, I just roll over onto my other side and continue on sleeping just as serenely as ever.

I continue to snooze for the second moment of brief silence, until there is one final bang, and it’s much louder than the others. 

BANG!!!

Third time’s a charm. 

Immediately, I jerk awake in my bed, following the sound of the extremely loud bang on my door. It might have been loud enough to wake the entire girl’s dorm house…maybe the entire school. 

Barely awake, I sit up, staring in drowsy confusion into the depths of my dark room.

Here I had been, all tucked away in my bed, knocked out in a deep sleep when all of a sudden this disturbance of incessant banging on my door, woke me at…

I looked over at the digital clock on my nightstand… 

10:40 PM

At ten-forty at night. 

I turned to look back out into the darkness of my room. It was silent now, and it remained so for a moment longer than I would’ve expected it to which caused me to wonder whether there was ever even really any banging in the first place, or if I had just dreamt of the sounds. 

But then, two more distinct “bangs” sounded from my door, and they were just as loud as the last one.   

BANG! BANG! 

I jolt in my bed, fully awake now. I then sighed as I realized that this was most likely Bom having forgotten her key for the umpteenth time, and now needed me to open the door for her in the middle of the night. 

Ugh. I really needed to make her that keychain, quick. The sooner I did, the sooner I would no longer have to worry about my precious sleep being disturbed anymore. 

As I sat there in thought, on the other side of the door, Bom must have gotten impatient because following the last two bangs suddenly came a stream of obnoxious, repeated bangs that wouldn’t stop.  

That’s when I finally decided to get up. Lifting my blankets off of me, I got out of bed and began lazily trudging over to the door. She was still banging, furiously as I did so.

“Alright, alright,” I half-yelled to her, in a groggy manner. “I’m coming. Geez.”

I didn’t bother to turn the light on, but just unlocked the door, and turned the knob for her. I also didn’t bother to check through the peephole to make sure it was her either, for I never imagined that anyone else would be banging on the door to our room in the middle of the night, but that had been my mistake because…

WOOOOSH! 

…immediately following me having turned the knob, the door suddenly pushed open with so much force it knocked me backward; however, with that force, a long body that felt way too heavy to be Bom’s tiny little frame, came lurching through it, tripping in the process, and crashing into me. The other person’s body, along with mine, collided, then tumbled onto the floor, a mix of intertwined limbs and chests pressed together. Then came the fall…

BAM! 

My eyes clamped shut from the impact of the fall, and I moaned in pain. Whoever this person was had all their weight on me, and they were really heavy. In that moment, I felt all the energy leave my body and suddenly, I was ready to fall back asleep, even with the person still on top of me. However, immediately after we had fallen, the person lifted their upper body off me, allowing my lungs some much-needed air.

But when the person’s deep voice reached my ears, all feelings of drowsiness disappeared.

“Minji?!” the voice called low and guttural, sounding almost angry, but still worried at the same time and although I had already figured from the weight of the person that they weren’t Bom, I knew the moment this person called me, that this person wasn’t even a girl like I assumed they would be.  

No. This was a guy hovering over me. 

My eyelids flew open and once my eyes came into contact with the person above me, they stared in shock at who I saw.   

Now, there were some things I never expected to see happen in my lifetime. 

An alien invasion was one of them. A certified cure for cancer was another. Neither did I ever expect to see flying hover cars in my lifetime. 

But I would’ve expected to have seen all those things before I died long before I ever expected to see my ex-co-president inside the girl’s dorm house, on my floor level, in the middle of the night, hovering over me, in my dorm room.

I felt like my brain went on pause and the only thing I could think was:

What the hell is he doing here? 

*

Earlier this morning...

“Good morning young pupils of Cheonan Academy,” Mr. Kim’s voice suddenly came through the classroom’s speakers, alerting all the students, myself included. I halted, momentarily in what I was doing to listen. It seemed it was time for morning announcements. 

Mr. Kim’s deep voice was stiff but formal (as always) as he continued to deliver today’s bulletin. 

“Since members of the senior student council have still yet to be chosen, I, your headmaster, will continue to deliver the morning announcements until otherwise.”

I rolled my eyes in annoyance after hearing that. 

So much for making a better student council without me, I thought scornfully.  

I was referring to the fact that I had been kicked out of student council all because the superintendent believed I was an irresponsible delinquent and that Jongin was the responsible one. Yet, under Jongin’s leadership, we, the senior class, were in the midst of the first semester, still without a senior student council to take care of senior year activities! 

Morning announcement was supposed to be done by members of student council. Usually the senior president would deliver morning announcements, or if they didn’t want to, the vice-president could, or anyone else on student council could as long as they had been chosen to be the one to deliver them, but since we still didn’t have a council because the members had yet to be chosen, Mr. Kim had been giving the announcements every morning.  

I let my eyes roll over to where Jongin sat on the opposite end of the classroom, still closest to the door. He was leaned back in his chair staring up at the ceiling above looking utterly bored while his friend Baekhyun, sat beside him, seemingly talking his ear off.  

I wondered just what the hell Jongin was doing these days. I remember that he had never wanted to do any actual work back when we were working together as co-presidents. He just kind of liked to “wing it.” But it seemed he wasn’t even doing that nowadays. Chaerin had been complaining about his lack of involvement in anything regarding student council for weeks. What did that mean he was doing with all his free time in the student council office? Just sitting around staring at the ceiling like he was now? Did he even care about student council at all? He had fought so hard to get me removed as president yet he wasn’t taking on the role of president, himself. If I was still president, student council would have been chosen already, and then we wouldn’t have to be hearing Mr. Kim’s uptight voice during announcements every damn morning.  

I sighed as I continued to listen to the announcements despite my growing detest for them.   

“I would like to start today’s announcements with today’s theme which is ‘positive attitude Monday,’” Mr. Kim said now, and once he did I grimaced. 

Positive attitude Monday? I repeated in my head. It sounded so corny.   

“Who the hell is positive on a Monday morning?” I voiced aloud to no one in particular. It was a global-known fact (at least, in first-world countries) that Monday was the most hated day of the week; however, it seemed my usually cheery friend that sat beside me did not agree. 

“I like Mondays,” Dara replied simply with a shrug of her shoulders. In response, I gave her a bored look, to which she just giggled at. 

Mr. Kim was still delivering the announcements to the school when I decided that I had enough of listening to him. 

“In the meantime, I would like to congratulate the junior class for blah, blah, blah…” I tuned out Mr. Kim’s voice as I focused my attention elsewhere, which was on some English notes from yesterday’s lecture, that is, until I heard Mr. Kim mention Mrs. Jung’s name, unexpectedly. 

“I also need to announce very important news regarding Mrs. Jung, your other headmaster,” he announced and my ears perked up, immediately at the mention. “Mrs. Jung has had to take an immediate leave of absence due to a sudden family emergency, and will not be back for an indefinite period of time…”

My eyes widened before glancing over at Dara who looked just as shocked as I was by the news. 

Mrs. Jung had left the school? 

“She hopes to be back soon,” Mr. Kim continued. “And she will update the school of her expected return time shortly after she gets situated with her family. However, there is no need to worry. I will continue to head this school even in Mrs. Jung’s absence and everything will continue as normal. I promise you won’t even notice that she’s gone.”  

After that, Mr. Kim quickly moved on with other morning news, which left me scratching the back of my head in confusion. I was still stuck on Mrs. Jung’s sudden departure from the academy. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen much of her since that day she had called me into her office and given me the bag of mysterious contents to use on Jongin. I knew she was a busy woman running an entire academy and all, but her presence on campus had become practically unnoticeable in comparison to Mr. Kim who seemed to be everywhere at once. 

You could always catch Mr. Kim around campus playing up his role as headmaster, either laughing it up with other teachers, presenting the school to important board members or rich investors. Sometimes, his wife, Mrs. Kim was with him, who, now that I thought about it, I was starting to see around campus even more than I saw Mrs. Jung these days. It was like they were always putting on a show in public that everyone was buying into. Meanwhile, Mrs. Jung…nothing. I wondered if the reason she wasn’t around so much had to do with what was apparently going on with her family. I never recalled her leaving so suddenly before.           

I turned to Dara to tell her of my musings. “I wonder what happened in Mrs. Jung’s family that she had to leave so quickly?” 

She shook her head looking as stumped as I felt. “I don’t know but I hope everything turns out okay for her, and that she’s not gone for too long. Mr. Kim said that she was going to be gone for an ‘indefinite amount of time.’ That means we’ll be under Mr. Kim’s orders for who knows how long.” 

She looked scared at the thought as she finished, and after what I had experienced with Mr. Kim and his son, I didn’t blame her, but there was still a way to refrain from ever having to deal with the headmaster. 

“I don’t think you’ll have much to worry about,” I dismissed her worries away with a shake of my head. “Take it from someone with experience. Mr. Kim won’t bother you unless you specifically do something to get in the way of his son.” 

“Tell me about it,” I heard Kris, who sat in front of me, suddenly interject, offhandedly, his voice low and sardonic causing me to quirk a brow in curiosity. He turned around to face both Dara and I. Seeming to notice the questioning look on my face, he answered, “I heard you guys talking, and you’re right. Mr. Kim will practically ignore you. The only time he ever truly notices another student is when they’re somehow related to Kai.”  

His eyes landed back on me as he finished. I puckered my lips as I stole a glance back at Jongin who was still leaned back in his chair, eyes focused on the ceiling. I guess that explains why I had become such a target… 

“Well, I rarely ever talked to him anyway, and after what he did to Minji, I definitely don’t plan to talk to him,” Dara retorted causing me to smirk. 

All my friends really hated Jongin ever since what he did. Their support for me and their hatred towards him was appreciated since my reputation around the school had been ruined all thanks to my lying, scheming ex-co-president. I don’t think I would’ve been able to bounce back like I had without their help. I still wasn’t one-hundred percent okay, but I was feeling a lot better these days, especially ever since Kris and I reconciled and we became friends again.  

That’s right. We were friends again.  

“I don’t blame you,” Kris said, supporting her declaration. “However, me being his vice-president and all, I still do have to tolerate him, unfortunately.” He then looked to me. “So, we still on for finishing up our project in your dorm after school?”   

I nodded. I had invited him over after an English project we were working on the library had been rudely interrupted by a couple of naughty freshmen. Whether it be Jongin or some freshman boys, I knew that as long as we tried to get work done in public we would have a hard time finishing void of any distractions so I decided we should just finish in my dorm. 

And this was a huge milestone in our friendship, to be honest. 

Things had taken a positive turn these days with our reestablished friendship. When our English teacher, Ms. Johnson had given us a project to work on with partners, a few weeks back, I had taken it as a chance to reconcile with Kris after a long period of rudely ignoring him back when I was upset. We’d both apologized to each other about our behaviors and soon, we were back to being buddies like before, which I couldn’t be happier about. He seemed the most decent guy out of his group of friends, or maybe out of the entire group of senior boys, and I couldn’t continue ignoring him when he remained nice to me even despite how I had acted towards him. 

In fact, he had even apologized to Chaerin, Dara, and Bom on behalf of all the senior guys for what they had done, and was even thinking of a way to talk his friends about the possibility of getting them to formally apologize to all us senior girls. I didn’t know if it would work. The senior guys hardly seemed remorseful about what they had done and I guess after the revenge prank us girls had pulled on them they probably didn’t want to buckle down and apologize, first.   

But I knew one day, one of us would have to give in… 

It was either that or we would just remain mad at each other all year, never really speaking to each other. Always doing activities and things on campus in separate circles—boys on this side, girls on that side. Every school dance would be awkward with either side refusing to approach the other. Well, that is if we ever even got the chance to have a dance. After all, planning school dances were supposed to be part of student council’s job, but since we seniors still didn’t have one all because someone had yet to do his job as president, then we didn’t even stand the chance to have a dance.            

Regardless, the good news was that Kris and I were friends again and that I could trust him enough to invite him back to my dorm to finish a project together.  

“Yeah we’re still on,” I said casually. “I just have to make sure my DA, Kahi, knows and then you can come over and we can finish.” 

Kris nodded in understanding.  

There were rules about girls and boys visiting each other’s dorm houses. Technically, all girls and boys could visit each other’s dorms and hang out in the lounge, but freshman and sophomore weren’t allowed in one another’s rooms. Ever. 

On the contrary, junior and senior girls and boys could go to each other’s room, but, there was a curfew. Juniors weren’t allowed to be in each other’s dorms no later than five o’ clock and for us seniors, it was no later than seven. 

There was also a general dorm house curfew. On weekdays, when school was in session, all freshman and sophomores had to be back at their own dorm house by eight o’ clock while for juniors and seniors, it was nine o’ clock…except on Fridays and Saturdays. On those days we dorm curfew wasn’t until eleven p.m. 

On top of that, there was also a “dorm room curfew” in which everyone had to be back in their own rooms by a certain hour. The DA’s of each dorm house, also known as the dorm advisor’s who aided the students in the dorm house, walked around and did a “dorm room check” at the end of each night. 

Therefore, it was fine inviting Kris over to the girl’s dorm house to finish the project in my dorm room, but I had to make sure to let my DA know first that way she could make sure he was gone by curfew. 

We wouldn’t need that long to finish our project. Most of it was done really, it just needed to actually be put together so that it was ready for a presentation.               

“Cool,” Kris said now leaning back, giving me a smirk. “I can’t wait to see what your room looks like.” He then directed his eyes to Dara, her now on the receiving end of his mischievous grin. “Maybe I can even sneak in and get a look into Chaerin and Dara’s shared room, too.” 

Dara’s brows furrowed together as she stared back and forth between Kris and me before finally landing on Kris. “You’re coming over to Minji’s dorm?”

“We didn’t get to finish our project yesterday, so we’re finishing it today after school,” I answered for Kris. “And yes, we’re finishing it in my dorm that way we won’t have any more unexpected distractions. It seems like every time we try to finish a project together something is always interrupting us.”

“More like someone,” I heard Kris mutter under his breath and I frowned in confusion, yet almost immediately, I found my eyes glancing back over to Jongin on the opposite end of the room; however, this time I was shocked to find him not staring up at the ceiling like before, but staring directly at me. 

I gasped and averted my eyes, quickly. I didn’t dare look back either. 

This was something I had yet to get used to despite how long it had been going on. That is, Jongin’s eyes always staring, watching like he wanted to tell me something but for whatever reason, just wouldn’t. It’s been weeks since the meeting with the superintendent but we hadn’t spoken a single word to each other since then. Since we had yet to speak since way back then, I guess it’s needless to say that I hadn’t yet come up with a plan on how to get him to take what Mrs. Jung had given me when she’d called me into her office that one afternoon. 

Nope. Weeks later and the contents of that brown bag were still sitting in my dorm room, stashed away underneath my bed. I had thought that maybe I could get Kris to help me in getting Jongin to talk to me, but it didn’t seem like Kris wanted much to do with Jongin these days, so I didn’t bother to ask. But I just knew I had to find some way to get him to take it with me…     

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dara shake her head now. “Well, anyways, you would never get into our room,” she told Kris. “Chaerin’s super OCD when it comes to our room and doesn’t like to have anyone else in it with the exception of Bom or Minji.”

“And even then, sometimes we aren’t allowed,” I commented, dryly. 

Kris smirked with all the mischievousness of a man intent to get his way. “Oh, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind letting me inside. I’ll have you know that I can be pretty convincing.” 

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You know, I can’t help but notice that you two are becoming considerably close these days…”

At this, Dara grinned knowingly. Chaerin didn’t like to admit to it these days, but Dara, Bom and I all knew she was smitten for Kris. It was more obvious than ever now that he hung out with us so often. The two liked to play-fight. A lot. It insinuated a certain level of ual frustration between the two. Plus, they were really flirty towards each other. I couldn’t blame her though. Kris was definitely a handsome one. I may not have been into him like that all due to me swearing off all guys since their prank on the girls, but I could still appreciate a handsome face.   

Kris quirked a thick, arched brow at me, his dark eyes were sizing me up. “What are you insinuating, Minji-ah?” His tone was taunting as he spoke my name. 

I shook my head. “No insinuation,” I said, innocently. “Just a mere observation, is all.”

The corner of Kris’ mouth turned up in a lopsided smile. “You wouldn’t happen to be jealous at all, would you?”

My mouth fell open at the accusation. 

“As if,” I scoffed back at him, but still amused by the thought. “Though I bet you would like that wouldn’t you? To have Chaerin and I fighting over you?” 

Kris leaned back in his chair and sighed as a huge grin plastered to his face. 

“Well, it’d be a lie if I said I’d never fantasized about it before…” he trailed with a far-off look in his eyes like he was actually imagining me and Chaerin fighting over him before continuing to inform Dara and me about his…um…fantasies. 

“Sometimes,” he admitted, dreamily. “I dream you two are in nothing but bikinis, wrestling in the mud, getting all dirty…” Still in “fantasy land,” he bit down on his bottom lip, whilst looking up deep in thought. 

I grabbed the eraser off my desk, and tossed it at him, disrupting his “fantasy.” 

“Only in your dreams ert!” 

“Yep,” he replied sadly, with a long sigh. “Only in my dreams, unfortunately.”

I rolled my eyes at his absurdity. “Just be sure to be at my dorm by this afternoon.” 

*    

“Hey, Kahi?” I called, as I approached the senior girl’s dorm advisor that afternoon. Classes had ended for the day, and I was back at the dorm house now. I was just on my way to my room when I saw the Kahi in the lounge, and that’s when I figured this was the best time to tell her about Kris. 

She turned to me in the midst of fixing herself a coffee drink. “Hi, Minji. Did you need something?” 

I nodded. “One of my classmates is coming over so that we can finish up our English project today,” I told her. “Is that okay?” 

She suddenly halted in making her coffee and looked at me. She seemed to have deciphered my vague description of my classmate because she asked, “Is this classmate of yours a male, by chance?” 

Following her inquiry, her lips puckered together, as they began to form into a little knowing smirk. 

I pressed my own lips together, feeling my cheeks heating up, slightly. 

“Yes. It’s Kris Wu,” I answered, stiffly, a little embarrassed. “You’ve seen him. We’re just going to be working on our English project together.”

I really tried to make the situation seem totally normal, which it actually kind of was. Kahi had actually seen Kris plenty of times before due to us hanging out more frequently. He had actually hung out in the girl’s dorm before, but just with Chaerin, Dara, Bom and I whenever we were chilling together downstairs in the lounge room. But he’d never been inside our rooms or anything. That’s why asking Kahi’s permission this time was necessary.   

“Right,” she said now, stretching the word out, sounding unconvinced. “‘Just working on an English project.’ That’s what they all say.” She then turned back to filling her coffee drink with sugar. “Well, you know the rules. Just be sure to have him out of here by seven. I don’t want any of you girls getting impregnated because you snuck a boy in past curfew hours and decided to get your freak on. Especially not while I’m in charge because I’m not trying to lose my job.”   

My cheeks flamed even hotter now. “Oh, o-of course not,” I stammered, flustered by what she had just insinuated about Kris and I. “I-I’ll just…go now…”

I skirted off to the elevator, quickly to head up to my floor. By the time I got to my room, Bom was already inside, getting changed out of her uniform. 

“Hey,” she greeted, immediately, upon me coming in.  

“Hey,” I mimicked as made my way over to my bed I plopped down on it. I didn’t even close the door. I just headed straight for my bed. I took off my shoes only to toss them on the floor then stretched out on my bed and sighed. I liked school but the daily eight-hour schedule, plus the studying and homework for each class was always kind of draining. 

“How was your classes today?” I asked as I closed my eyes with the intention of letting them rest for a minute.

“Oh my gosh,” I heard Bom gasp, exasperatedly, in response. “You would not believe what happened in my drama class today. My drama teacher actually made Lu Han and I act out the bedroom scene in Romeo and Juliet.”

My eyes popped open in shock once I heard that. Our girl’s school had always had drama class, but because we didn’t have guys, girls always played the male roles. I guess that was no longer a concern anymore with boys attending the school now. Still, making the high-schoolers act out a bedroom scene?

I propped up on my elbows as I looked at her, stunned. “Really?”

“Yeah!” She exclaimed. “Now, we didn’t actually have to like, do anything. Really, all we did was use the tables as a bed and laid down together while our classmates acted out the next scene, but still.”

“So, really all you had to do was lay down next to him?” I asked not getting why she was so bothered. “Was it that awful or something?”

“Who said anything about it being awful?” She asked, rhetorically. “It was great! While we laid there as the other’s were acting out their scenes, we talked the whole time. He kept making me laugh with naughty bedroom jokes, too.” 

I grinned. I guess Bom had really taken a liking to Lu Han these days, which wasn’t all that surprising to me. Bom wasn’t all that discreet when she really liked someone. If she did, she went for it. But I think Lu Han had kind of ruined his pretty boy charm when we all found out about the boy’s prank on us. That’s probably why Bom was still giving the boy a hard time these days at getting her attention. But whenever we were alone in our room, she never hesitated to go on and on about him. 

“You like him,” I in a sing-song voice and a big grin. 

She turned away, defiantly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

I giggled to myself finding her resistance to admit it quite adorable. 

“Well, anyways,” she said changing the subject. “What about you and Kris? You two still on for your hot date in our room?” 

She turned back around to smirk at me and I rolled my eyes and let my head fall back down on my bed. 

“Bom, you know it’s not like that. We’re just working on our project. In fact, don’t even joke like that. You know how much Chaerin likes him.” 

“Know how much I like who?” The very girl of the subject of our conversation suddenly asked as she appeared in our doorway, Dara following behind. 

“Good timing,” Bom said sarcastically to Chaerin before bluntly admitting, “We’re talking about you and your school-girl crush on Kris.” 

Chaerin’s mouth fell open as she looked horrified. “I do not have a school-girl crush on him! Please, I am so over that boy.” 

The room fell silent as each of us, Dara, Bom and I, all stared at Chaerin standing in the center of the room, each of us with unconvinced looks on our faces. She turned her head back-and-forth to look between Dara and Bom on one side of the room, and me on the other. 

“What?!” She exclaimed, defensively. “I don’t! Really!” 

The other girls giggled while I shook my head.

“Well, you should know that when Kris does come over to work on our project, he plans on sneaking into your room,” I told her. “He’s apparently really curious to see what it looks like.”

Chaerin’s face fell. “Yeah, I’ll bet he is,” she commented under her breath as she made her way to sit beside me on my bed. “Anyways, I know already. Dara warned me earlier, that way I had enough time to take down all my posters.” 

At this, I grinned, naughtily. “Oh, you mean you don’t want him to see all the Channing Tatum posters all over your side of the room?”

“He’s not !” She shouted, vehemently, causing me to chuckle. 

No, the Magic Mike actor actually wasn’t fully in the posters, but he might as well have been. In most of her posters, he was shirtless and one image had his pants hanging so low on his hips you could almost catch the slightest glimpse of his…   

“Besides,” Chaerin said now, piercing through my thoughts and I had to physically shake my head to get the inappropriate images of Channing Tatum out of my mind. “It’s bad enough that Kris already knows about my attraction to Channing Tatum. I don’t need him having further reasons to tease me, so yes, I took the posters down.”

“You should sneak into his room and see what he has on his walls,” Bom suggested from her closet, which she was currently changing clothes in. 

“My guess?” Dara inserted, suddenly, from her spot on Bom’s bed. She was tapping her index finger against her chin in mock-thought. “Probably images of girls in bikinis—mud-wrestling.” She directed a smirk straight at me and I knew she was referencing to earlier this morning when Kris admitted his y fantasies about me and Chaerin. 

Chaerin frowned looking totally clueless. “What?”

“Nothing,” I grunted and Dara giggled.     

“Alright, guys. I’m all ready,” Bom said coming out of her closet.  

“Where are you guys going?” I asked, curiously and in that moment, things got weird. 

Bom, Chaerin, and Dara all looked at each other like they didn’t know how to answer, then they each answered at the same time, each of them with different responses. 

“To watch movies.”

“Bowling.”

“To eat.” 

The three of them looked at one another with confused faces, but not nearly as confused as mine. I rose a brow, questioningly.  

“Actually,” Dara spoke up. “We’re going to eat, then bowl for a little bit, and then we’re going to finish the night by watching movies in our dorm.” She gestured between her and Chaerin. 

I raised both my brows now in suspicion. “Wow. All that on a Monday night? You guys are acting like it's the weekend.” 

“Yeah, well, you’re only young once,” Bom said, dismissively. “Besides, it was a spur the moment, last minute decision. We would’ve invited you too, but we know how you like to be a total goody-goody and go to sleep on time during school nights.”

Her voice had taken on a taunting, infantile tone as she made fun of me for my sleeping habits. 

I snapped my tongue in response. 

“As opposed to what?” I retorted with an attitude. “Staying up late like you do only to fall asleep in a puddle of my own drool in nearly all my classes and then freak out when I realize I’ve missed the teacher’s entire lecture.”

Bom’s tongue instantly shot out at me in response, but then she withdrew it as she remembered something. “Oh, by the way, that reminds me. I need to borrow your trigonometry notes later on because Mr. Yoo’s lecture on parametric equations was bo-ring.” I rolled my eyes. “But anyway, don’t wait up for me. We’re probably going to be watching movies for the rest of the night.”

With that, she, Chaerin and Dara began to leave the room. 

“Just make sure you have your key because if I’m knocked out I might not hear you banging on the door in the middle of the night,” I yelled as she was leaving. This was something she did quite often, much to my displeasure. I was thinking about making her a bracelet, or a necklace and attaching her key to it that way she would have it on at all times. 

“Yes, mom,” she joked just as she stopped at the door. “Now, we’re just going to get out of here so that you and Kris can have the room to yourselves. I know you don’t want any distractions.” She was about to leave, but then stopped to comment once more. “Ah. But no frisky business while I’m gone, okay Minji-ah.” 

I sneered at her, not amused. “Oh, just go already.” She shrugged her shoulders and fluttered out with the others. 

After they left, I closed the door but still left it ajar for when Kris came and proceeded to get changed out of my uniform and into something comfortable for the afternoon. I quickly threw on a pair of casual, comfy sweats before moving on to gathering the supplies for me and Kris’ project which I had underneath my bed. 

Lifting up the bed skirt, I started to pull out the large poster board when my eyes scanned the brown paper bag Mrs. Jung had given me and I halted, momentarily forgetting about the project. I stared at the bag in thought for a moment before finally deciding to take it out. 

Sitting in the middle of the floor with the bag, I began taking out the contents inside it. 

I had two soda cans. A piece of paper with instructions and a prayer physically written down on it. A long, thin white candle. And a small lighter. 

I brought one of the soda cans up to my face to examine it. The cans weren’t shaped anything like usual soda cans. Rather, they were pentagonal in shape with hard ridges and edges. I remember my initial reaction when I had first taken a look into the brown bag after Mrs. Jung had slid it over to me across her desk. I had scoffed. 

Soda? I had thought, incredulously. How the hell was soda supposed to solve anything between Jongin and me? Surely Mrs. Jung had to be playing some kind of joke on me. But she wasn’t. Later, when I had read the instructions on the paper with the prayer on it, I understood. This wasn’t soda. The cans were just a disguise for what was actually inside, which was a potion. 

Two cans, two potions. One for me to take and one for Jongin.

According to the instructions, the potion had to be taken by the two people involved, simultaneously, on the night of a full moon. Afterwards, on that same night, I was supposed to light the long, white candle and burn the paper over the candle as I repeated the prayer over and over until the entire paper was completely destroyed.

The instructions promised that the very next day, the wish would be granted, and take full effect, but it didn’t specify what wish would be granted or what would take effect. It all seemed so weird to me. Mrs. Jung had told me that she couldn’t tell me what the potion did for if she did then it would not work. Regardless, she had promised that it would make what I truly wished for in my relationship with Jongin to happen.  

Well, I wanted him to understand that what he did to me and anyone else he ever messed with, was wrong. I wanted him to know what it felt like to be lied to and cheated out of something important to him. And I wanted him to apologize, sincerely. I also wanted my spot back on student council and for him to acknowledge that I was the better president in front of the superintendent, as well as in front of the headmasters, and everyone else.

And, according to Mrs. Jung and the instructions, these two cans of mysterious potion was supposed to do all of that for me.  

But I just had one thing missing in order to make this whole thing work. 

That is, the young man, Kim Jongin, himself. 

After weeks of not speaking to each other, I was seriously thinking about just tossing the brown bag out. It didn’t seem like getting him to talk to me long enough where I could even convince him to take it with me was ever going to happen, so having the potions was becoming useless. They were just collecting dust underneath my bed. 

Plus, it’s not like I was suffering any longer, especially with the turn of events in my life, recently, due to my growing friendship with Kris, and having more free time to do things I liked. I had even signed up for dancing classes again at the studio just outside of town that I would be able to start soon on the weekends. I used to volunteer at the dance studio all the time, but it had kind of taken a backseat once I became president last year.

No. My life wasn’t perfect, and I still wanted my revenge on Jongin, but it wasn’t of dire importance as it had been to me back when I was miserable. Still, curiosity of just what the potions did had me itching to get him to take it with me. 

Still holding one of the strange, pentagonal-shaped soda cans in my hand, I popped the little aluminum cap open and listened as the drink fizzed very much like actual soda does. A slight sensation hit my nostrils from the opened can and I smelled something…fruity? The “soda,” or potion was fruity flavored it seemed. 

I sat in thought for a minute, staring at the opened can feeling a sudden urge due to my mouth watering at the fruity scent of the potion hitting my nostrils. 

If I’m never going to get the chance to use it on Jongin, I mused to myself. I might as well at least get a taste of it myself. Just to satisfy some of my curiosities about the potion.

Having convinced myself, I lifted the soda can to my lips, but I took a careful sip before withdrawing. And the verdict? I my lips. 

“It’s good,” I mused aloud. I found myself surprised by the taste. Whatever this stuff was, whatever this potion was made out of, was actually pretty good!

It tasted of something fruity, like a fruit punch, but it had more of a tang to it, with lots of extra fizz like an actual soda. I didn’t think anything would actually happen if I continued to drink the potion especially if no one was drinking the other one, so I went ahead and took another sip from the can, still in love with the taste.         

As I sipped casually from the can, I pulled out the instructions with the prayer on it and read them over. 

Damn. The prayer. It was in a language I didn’t even understand! I didn’t know how was I ever supposed to remember the whole thing as I was burning it at the same time. I guess I could copy the prayer on another piece of paper and read it as I burned the original copy. Not that that was ever going to happen, of course. After all, I didn’t have Jongin to take the damn potion with me! 

I then paused as realization suddenly struck me. 

Wait. Why was I even considering doing this in the first place? This was never going to work! I mean, what was this that Mrs. Jung had given me, really? Some sort of magic spell or something? Did I even believe in magic for something like this to work? I was a Christian for crying out loud! We don’t mess with sorcery! What was I even thin—             

“Hey, what’s that?” 

“AHHH!” 

So deep in my thoughts, I hadn’t even sensed anyone behind me. But I guess Kris had managed to sneak his way up behind me to lean above my head while I was lost in my inner musings and had surprised me so bad that I nearly jumped out of my own skin in response. 

“Kris!” I cried, because unfortunately, due to my knee-jerk reaction, it caused the can I was holding to tip out of my hand only to spill out onto my floor, drenching the bag, the paper with the spell on it, and the white candle. 

I quickly snatched up the can before any more of the potion in it could spill out onto my floor, but the damage had already been done. Now my once clean, taupe floor had a large liquid red stain seeping into it. 

“Kris!” I yelled again, this time, angrily. I him who looked utterly shocked as he stepped back as if to make some distance between the heated affects of my wrath and himself. “What the hell?!” 

“I’m sorry,” he apologized immediately, looking flustered. “I didn’t mean to scare you like that…” he then paused, momentarily as he thought about what he said, and rephrased. “Well, actually, I kind of did mean to scare you, but just not that badly.”

I sighed, as my breathing began to return back to an even pace. “You nearly gave me a heart attack, Kris.”

He looked down in embarrassment and muttered another “sorry” to me. Looking down at my red-stained floor, I moved to my closet to grab some carpet cleaner spray and a rag. After living in dorm rooms for my entire high school existence, drinking and eating in the dorms had taught me to always keep a bottle of carpet cleaner around. I placed the dripping wet contents of the brown bag in a plastic bag to take care of later and then proceeded to spray and clean the floor. With a little exertion, the stain came right out. Luckily, it hadn’t steeped in too bad, but there would always be a blotchy, patch of carpet that was slightly whiter than the rest because of the bleach in the cleaner.

Once I was done, I looked up at Kris who was taking a look around my room. He looked completely in awe, which caused me to smirk in amusement. I had to remember that after years of being in an all-boys school, this was his first time being invited inside a girl’s dorm.     

“So, did you sneak into Chaerin’s room, yet?” I asked him. 

He shook his head, still enthralled by his surroundings. “I don’t know which room is hers,” he replied, distractedly before a grin started to break out on his face. “So, this is what your room looks like…” 

“Yep, this is it,” I said as I stood up. His eyes then landed on something behind my head only to stay there, and that’s when I turned to see what he was looking at. 

“You’re a Michael Jackson fan?” He asked with a grin referring to the poster of Michael Jackson I had on the wall above my bed.   

“The biggest,” I admitted, gleefully, turning back to him. “When I was little I wanted to be him.” 

He chuckled at this reveal. “You sound like Kai.” 

I frowned after hearing this. Jongin was a fan of Michael Jackson, too? 

“I take it you like to dance, too?” Kris asked me now.  

I nodded, shyly. It wasn’t something I talked about too often with others outside of the studio I practiced at sometimes. My closest tight-knit group of friends knew that I danced, and there were a few other friends I knew that liked dance that I could sometimes talk to about it, but other than that, practically no one knew about my secret hobby. I thought it was better that way so that I could commit one-hundred percent to being a serious, head-strong president.

So much for that though, huh?    

“Yep,” Kris said now with a sigh. “Just like Kai.” 

Hearing Kris repeat his name suddenly reminded me of something that I had been curious about ever since I had heard about it earlier today. “Speaking of Jongin, I wanted to ask you something.” 

Kris’ eyes suddenly landed on me, a knowing look on his face. “You heard about the fight?” 

I nodded. Rumors around school said there was a fight between two seniors during second lunch, but I had chosen to eat my lunch in the classroom of my science teacher’s as I asked him for help with explaining an assignment, so I was nowhere near when it had broken out. Later, I had found out that those two seniors had been none other than Kris and Jongin and I was shocked when I had learned that. 

We had never had any serious fights back when the school was all-girls. There were some catfights, but if girls wanted to fight, it was mostly verbal. No real hitting or straight up socking the other out. But I guess that would change now with guys on campus.  

 “What happened?” I asked, concerned. “Everyone says Jongin just started swinging at you for no reason.” 

Kris sighed as he moved to sit down in the chair at the computer desk in me and Bom’s room. 

“Remember when I told you I was going to talk to the guys about making an official apology to you girls?” I nodded. I hadn’t thought it to be such a good idea, but Kris had still wanted to give it a try. 

“Yeah, well, it didn’t go over so well,” he finished, lamely.  

My eyes widened. “So, just because you asked them to apologize, he got mad and hit you for that?!”

Kris snorted. “No, it’s more complicated than that,” he said. “There’s some other things that was said, but that’s between me and him.” 

I nodded, respecting that it was obviously something for him and Jongin to work out. Still, I was really surprised when I had heard the news and I wondered what words could have been said between them to cause them to fight each other.   

“I didn’t know Jongin had a temper,” I mused aloud. “I’ve never seen him angry before.” 

I was used to seeing Jongin be lazy, uncaring, manipulative, immature, narcissistic and the like, but never angry…or violent.

Kris shrugged as he thought about it. “Yeah, it doesn’t come out often, but when it does…beware.” 

“But you’re both okay?” I asked, just to be reassured. “What about Jongin?” 

Kris’ face twisted. “Please, that is fine,” he quipped, before reaching to grab his backpack. “Anyways, want to get started?”

He started pulling out his drawings for the project.  

“Yeah,” I said, turning to get my own supplies that were underneath my bed still. “Let’s get this finished once and for all without distractions.” 

*

“So, what you got planned for tonight?” Kris asked me now as we were putting the supplies away. It had taken us a little over an hour to get finished, but the poster board looked amazing thanks to Kris’ drawings and our shared effort to design the poster together. I had finished translating and typing up the essay into English with Kris’ help (did I mention it was great having a friend who was fluent in English?), and so when Ms. Johnson called us to present, we’d be ready.     

I shook my head. “Nothing. It’s a school night.”

The corner of Kris’ mouth turned up, amusedly. “You really are a good girl.”  

I rolled my eyes. “I’m just gonna shower, eat, and fall asleep watching a movie or something.” 

“Good,” Kris said with a nod. “So…then you’re going to be here…all night?” 

I quirked a brow at him. Okay, that was a strange question. Didn’t I just imply that I would be?  

“Yes,” I said not sure where he was going. “Why?” 

“No reason,” he answered swiftly leaving me confused, but I shrugged it off as we continued to put our things away. Then suddenly, while doing so, the door to my room swung open.            

“Hey Minji-ah,” Chaerin appeared suddenly, upon opening the door. “Did you see my phone—oh.” Her entire mood changed upon seeing Kris in the room and she sneered at him while he smirked. “You’re still here?” 

“Nice to see you too, Chaerin,” he shot back, sarcastically and I looked up at the ceiling, shaking my head already knowing where this was going. This was what I had meant about them and play fighting.

“Isn’t it close to curfew?” Chaerin asked with a slight attitude but the grin playing on her lips implied that she was just giving Kris a hard time for her own purposes. “Shouldn’t you should be leaving soon? You wouldn’t want to get caught here after curfew hour.” 

“And leave without having seen your room yet?” Kris said with his signature smirk still plastered to his face. “No way! Besides, I still got an hour left.” 

“Well, seeing as you don’t even know which room is mine, you might as well get that idea out of your head cuz it’s never gonna happen,” Chaerin shot back, wagging a finger at him.  

“It’s room numero uno,” I answered for him and a genuine grin spread out on Kris’ face in response. “It’s the first door when you come up the stairs at the very end of the hall.” 

Chaerin gasped. “Minji! How could you?!” 

But Kris wasted no time. Immediately, he shot up and ran out the door, past Chaerin and down the hall.

“No, Kris—” Chaerin yelled after him but he was already gone. “Damnit!”

She then turned back to glare at me. “Traitor!”  

“Oh please, I just did you a favor,” I said without an ounce of remorse. “You know how much you dream about Kris coming to visit you in your room.” Preferably in the middle of the night with nothing but jeans hanging low off his hips, looking somewhat similar to her Channing Tatum posters. 

Chaerin groaned and stormed down the hall while I fell back on my bed and laughed. That’s when I felt something stick me in my back, and I reached behind me to feel for it. I ended up pulling out Chaerin’s iPhone. She must have forgotten it when she was sitting on my bed, earlier. Once I calmed, I finally got up to follow them. At the end of the hall, I could see the door to her room was open, but while I was getting closer to her room, I caught the end of a conversation that sounded very strange. 

“Forget that,” I heard Chaerin say sounding serious. “We need to talk about…tonight.” 

“No worries,” Kris replied sounding not so serious. “We’ll talk about it later. Preferably when we have some privacy—oh, hey Minji.” He spotted me in the doorway now, and Chaerin looked at me too. They both looked pretty suspicious standing so close to each other. He then turned back to Chaerin and added. “See what I mean?”

This caused me to feel slightly offended. I put my hands up in defense. “Oh. I see how it is. You don’t want me around. That’s fine. I can take a hint.” 

“Nah, that’s not it,” Kris said with a grin. “We just have our own little side project that we need to work together on.” 

I nodded, slowly. “Ah, I see.” I then held up Chaerin’s phone. “Found it.” 

She looked relieved as she reached for it. “Thank you!”   

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dara and Bom coming up the stairs and I gave them a head nod as they reached the top. 

“Hey Chaerin, did you find your phone?” Dara asked as she approached the door, but then stopped once she saw Kris and smirked. “Oh, Kris. I see you managed to sneak your way into our room.” 

“Success!” He threw his arms up in the air before falling backwards onto Chaerin’s bed. This caused the girl to stir. 

“Ah! Kris,” she shrieked. “Get your dirty shoes off my bed!” He ignored her and began to snuggle into her bed with her Rilakuma plushie. 

I shook my head. These two need to hurry up and get together already. 

“Alright Kris,” Bom said now entering the room like a queen even though it wasn’t even her room. But leave it to Bom to make an entrance whenever she enters a room. “Out of the room. It’s girl’s movie night and you’ve had your fun.” 

“Awe,” Kris pretended to whine. “You mean I’m not invited?” He then got up off Chaerin’s bed. “Fine. I’ll go.”

“Well, it is girls movie night so the only way you can stay is if you let us dress you up like a girl and put makeup on you,” Bom said with a mischievous grin.  

Kris instantly paled at the thought. “Okay, yeah, I’m definitely going now.” 

“But wait,” Chaerin stopped him. “What about…” she hesitated as she glanced over at me for a split second before her eyes landed back on Kris. She seemed like she wanted to say something but was afraid to say it in front of me.

“The project?” Kris finished for her, and Bom and Dara started to giggle like Kris had just said some inside joke that only they were in on, leaving me confused. “I told you it’s nothing to worry about. We’ll talk about it later.” 

Chaerin nodded, and Kris looked over at Bom and Dara. “Well, I guess it’s time for me to go and let you girls get to your all-night, movie marathon.” He then turned around to look at me and smirked before commenting sarcastically, “Well, except for you, of course. For you, I guess it’s bedtime.” 

The girls started to snicker and I sneered at him. Was I always going to be made fun of for my “good girl” habits?

Then, as he walked out of the room, he patted me on the head. “Have a good night sleep, Minji-ah.” 

I would’ve rolled my eyes thinking the comment to be just another jab at me for going to bed on time, but when I heard giggling from the other side of the room again, along with Bom muttering under her breath, “Like that’s gonna happen,” I frowned. Both Chaerin and Dara gave Bom looks like they were warning her not to reveal something and it was weird. 

Once Kris was walking down the hall, I turned to them. 

“Did I miss something?” I asked, curiously. “Like, is there some inside joke you guys are all in on that I missed?” 

“No,” Chaerin replied like it was an absurd thought. “Why?” 

“Well, it’s just…”      

“Oh, you worry too much, Minji-ah,” she said before I could finish, coming over to me to swing an arm around my shoulders. “Now, I want you to go get washed and ready for tonight. You’re going to watch at least one movie with us before you turn in for the night.” 

My friends were behaving stranger than usual. I knew something was off, I just didn’t know what, and clearly, it was something they were all in on. I wished I’d known what because then I could’ve prepared myself for what was about to happen that late that same night…

*

Back to present...

“Jongin?” I questioned, confusedly, as I looked up at him from my position on the floor. He had removed all of his weight off of me now, but was still hovering, staring down at me, or should I say glaring down at me, viciously. Very viciously.  

His thick, black brows were indented on his forehead, creating a little angry crease in the space between them. His usually dark browns were now a solid black, hot, and unwavering as they fixed me with a glare hot enough to rival boiling, molten lava. Straggly pieces of his dark bangs fell into his dark eyes, somehow adding to the utter hostile look of him. His jaw was hard and taut, clenching and unclenching like he had a lot to say, but couldn’t speak for he was too angry to even be able to put his emotions into words. I also noticed the dark cut on his lip, evidence from the fight he had had with Kris earlier during the school day.

The fact that the only light that even allowed me to see him was coming from the light in the hallway, seeping its way into my dark room, leaving his face shadowed in the darkness made him look all the more menacing in that moment. 

I gulped. 

His presence had me stunned into a unmovable, dazed state, so there we just laid, splayed out all over the floor, staring at one another in silence until I finally decided to voice my thoughts to him.   

“W-what are you doing in here?” I asked, breathily, completely confused. “H-How? Why—” 

“What am I doing?” His voice started eerily low, before raising drastically. “What are you doing?!” 

I winced at the sound of his loud voice. “What are you talking about?” 

“Oh don’t play dumb with me Minji!” He spat, ferociously. “I know everything! I can’t believe you and Kris, and what you guys planned to do tonight.”

I was speechless. Kris? What did he have to do with anything? 

“What?” 

Jongin’s black eyes flashed at me with a look so incredibly hostile, it sent a chill through me. He looked so incredibly wild and angry with his uncombed hair in his eyes, his face scowling, his eyes a solid black. 

Like an animal.   

“Minji, what the ?!” He roared. “With Kris?! How could you?! I know you’ve been upset since you had to resign as president but are you so desperate to get over it that you’d be willing to a guy you’ve only been close to for a few weeks just to do that?” 

My mouth fell open, and I sat up, completely. 

Whoa! Wait a minute! What?! “Huh?”

A mocking, derisive laugh full of contempt, released from him. 

“Great, she still wants to play stupid,” he said to himself.    

In that moment, I felt my own anger flare up, annoyed that he kept cursing at me and was now calling me stupid.

“Jongin, what the hell are you talking about?” I demanded. “I have no idea what you mean right now. Why do you keep mentioning Kris?” 

Jongin’s black irises landed back on me, cold and calculating. “You're seriously going to look me right in the eye and act like you don’t know when I just heard you and him on the phone like ten minutes ago?” I didn’t know how to answer when I was still clueless. Jongin shook his head. “You’re definitely not the girl I thought you were. I can’t believe you would invite him back to your dorm in the middle of the night when you both know it’s against school policy. You especially. You live by the student handbook.” 

He then paused before lastly, adding, coldly, “But I guess following school policy isn’t an issue anymore especially when you’re so for Kris’ ing .” 

I winced. That’s it. I was pissed off now. 

I stood up. 

“Don’t talk to me like that,” I demanded. “Ever.” And for a second, I saw the hostile glimmer leave Jongin’s eyes like his old-self had come back and he realized what he had just said. I was so angry and offended by his malicious comments that I could feel tears gathering in my eyes. I couldn’t believe I had to defend myself for something that I had no clue of. 

“I told you I have no idea what you are talking about,” I said, truthfully. “I am so confused.” 

“Well that’s alright,” Jongin said, standing up himself. “We can make things clear right now by telling the dorm advisors about what you and Kris were planning to do tonight. I’m sure they would love to know you two were going to break curfew rules.” With that, he began walking towards the door, but I stopped him, latching onto his arm. 

“Wait, wait, Jongin,” I said, hopping in front of him to block the door. I closed it hoping all the noise we had been making hadn’t disturbed any of the other girls on my floor. I already had a reputation for being a delinquent, so the last thing I needed was rumors floating around campus about me sneaking boys into my room late at night. 

We were engulfed in the darkness of my room now, so I switched the light on that was beside the wall, adjacent to the door before turning back around to face him. He still looked angry, but not nearly as threatening as he had when the light had been off. I didn’t know if that was because he had calmed down a bit since he had first come busting through my door, or if it was just the effects of the darkness that had made him seem that way. Regardless, I decided to proceed with caution. 

“Just hold on and back up a minute,” I said and took a breath. “You keep saying you know everything. What all do you know, exactly?” 

Jongin scoffed as he stepped back. “You’re still trying to pull the dumb act? Unbelievable.”

When I stayed staring at him he shook his head. 

“I heard you and Kris on the phone just a few minutes ago talking about h-how…” his voice cracked, and he looked lost for words as his cheeks inflamed. “…how you two were going to do…” he gulped, hard. “…unspeakable things to each other…” His eyes weren’t on me as he seemed to be lost in thought before they finally landed on me again and he seemed to find his voice again. 

“How you told him to lie to the guys and say that he was just coming over here to work on you guys’ project for English when really it was just an excuse to give you two the chance to each other all night. You guys have been lying to me—to everyone for weeks now. I can’t believe you two! And I knew it! I ing knew you two were secretly seeing each other!”

As I stood there in front of the door listening to all Jongin had to say, I tried to piece together the information he was giving me to figure out what had him so angry that he would go against school policy and come barging into my room in the middle of the night. 

Based on what he had said so far, it seemed like Jongin thought that I had invited Kris over here past curfew hour to have some sort of secret tryst with him. And this was all because of some phone call he had overheard that apparently took place just a few minutes ago. And that meant Jongin was now here to what? Stop me and Kris from doing it? 

Amused at the thought, I laughed suddenly, but I soon realized that this was a mistake because Jongin, seeming to have taken it the wrong way, paused in his tirade and I noticed the familiar vicious light return to his eyes as he glared down at me. It was then that I realized that it hadn’t just been the darkness of my room that had made him look so utterly hostile. I bit down on my bottom lip and looked at his chest to avoid his eyes.

Those eyes. When angry, they could kill. 

Now staring at his chest, I also realized for the first time how considerably close we were. Only now, his chest was getting…closer? Jongin’s broad chest moved forward, pressing me further into the door until it was nearly an inch away from my face, and I felt the rhythmic drumming of my heart beat speed up to that of a paradiddle. I felt my cheeks burn, hot, as he towered over my smaller frame. At this point, I was practically about to mold into the door!    

“You think this is funny?” He asked, glaring down at me, his voice threateningly low, and I closed my eyes as I felt his hot breath fan my bangs on my forehead. I knew he was especially angry now. Standing so close, I could feel the heat radiating off him. It was either that, or the temperature of my room had suddenly risen, inexplicably.  

It doesn’t come out often, but when it does… beware, Kris’ warning from earlier about Jongin’s anger suddenly came to mind.

“U-um…” I internally fought to get the words out of my throat. I had never once been in such close proximity with the opposite before. And Jongin…the heat of him, the closeness of him, the smell of him, the feel of him…I was so nervous my breath was staggering. I was all but sputtering as I tried to find my voice. “No-o. B-But I think-k you’ve been p-played…”  

“What?” Jongin asked, sounding annoyed. I didn’t know if it was because he barely understood what I had just said due to my sputtering or if he hadn’t understood what I meant and was asking me to clarify. 

 I opened my eyes, daring myself to look at him again, but I had to tilt my head up a little to do so considering how close he was.  

“I…I said I think you’ve been played,” I repeated, but barely above that of a whisper. Jongin’s eyes no longer looked hostile, but serious as the rest of his face as stared down at me.

“What does that mean?”      

What did it mean? Well, one thing was for sure, if he had heard someone on the phone with Kris it couldn’t have been me because I was knocked out up until a few minutes ago when he had come banging on my door.

“I don’t know who you heard on the phone with Kris," I told him, seeming to find my voice again now that he wasn’t in “threatening mode” anymore but seemed genuinely concerned about what I was trying to convey. "But whoever it was, wasn’t me.”

I then looked down at my choice of pajamas for the night. “I mean, look at me. Do I look like someone who’s ready for a night of hot, steamy with her secret lover?"

Jongin blinked a few times before his eyes followed mine as he looked down at my ensemble which consisted of a long, cotton nightgown (like one your old granny might wear). I had on colorful (but comfy) toe socks with smiley faces on each toe. I had a couple rollers at the ends of my hair which I usually put in at night to keep it wavy for the next day. And yet, he was yelling at me for apparently seducing his friend to come over here to get freaky with me. Looking like this? 

“I was knocked out, asleep before you came banging on my door like a madman,” I continued explaining to him. Bringing up his sudden appearance made other questions come to mind. “How’d you even get in the girl’s dorm? They lock the doors at night.” 

“The door was unlocked,” he answered, sternly before his eyes flashed again and his voice became accusing. “Just like I heard you tell Kris over the phone. You told him you were going to leave the door unlocked for him to sneak in.”

“That wasn’t me,” I refuted.  

“But I heard you!” He argued back. “He even said it was you! He even called you…” his face suddenly twisted up like he had just eaten something rancid. “Minji-baby…” 

Surprised, I leaned back with what little space I could considering I was still wedged between the door and Jongin’s chest, but I actually just ended up knocking my head against the door.

Thump.

“Ow.” 

My hand came up to rub the back of my head. A small, amused gleam flashed in Jongin’s eyes and he tried to hide the smile threatening to break his stern expression. He then glanced down at the space (or lack of space) between us before looking back up into my eyes. His expression turned serious again. 

I knew he could read my eyes, silently asking him to back up a little, but he was obviously ignoring it because he didn’t make a single effort to move. Seemed he really wasn’t interested in creating any distance despite the fact our bodies really were too close for comfort. Or, was I the only one who was uncomfortable in this situation? 

He stayed staring at me as I thought about what he had just said about hearing “me” and Kris on the phone. 

Minji-baby? I questioned, internally. Really Kris?  

Now things were starting to sound way too absurd. If Kris was on the phone with someone who wasn’t me, but was pretending it was me, and Jongin was able to hear it, then that meant Kris and someone else had to be in on some kind of joke against Jongin. 

You worry too much, Minji-ah. Chaerin’s voice from earlier suddenly popped in my head along with the side comments from both Kris and Bom. Kris telling me to “sleep well tonight” and Bom sarcastically muttering “like that’s gonna happen,” under her breath. I had reasoned it to just be the strange behavior of my friends, but with Jongin here now it was starting to make sense. That’s when I realized:

They were all in on this. 

“I think I know who you heard on the phone with Kris,” I said, deep in thought. 

“Who?” I heard him ask me. 

I smiled, wryly, and answered, “My idiot friends.” 

I turned away from Jongin with the intention of leaving and heading straight to Chaerin’s room. I was going to give her (as well as Dara and Bom because I knew they were in on this little prank) a piece of my mind. Then I would find out exactly what their intentions were for faking a phone call that would send Jongin to my room a raging fury in the middle of the night knowing that this was against school policy. 

Reaching for the doorknob, I twisted it but found myself mildly horrified when the knob didn’t budge. 

“What the…” I tried to twist it again, then jimmied with it, but it wouldn’t twist, so the door remained closed. I let go, my shoulders slumping. “The knob to the door is stuck.” 

“Huh?” Jongin queried from behind me. 

I turned back to him. “The door. It won’t open because the knob is stuck.” 

“What are you talking about, you just opened it a minute ago to let me in,” He said as he maneuvered an arm around me to try the knob himself.  

“I know but it won’t budge now,” I said, watching him get the same results as I had. 

He let go of the knob once he realized the attempt to open it was futile. “What is this?” 

Immediately after he said that, I heard my phone start buzzing on my nightstand beside my bed, and I glanced at Jongin before walking over to it to pick it up. I was receiving a call, and it was from none other than…

“Chaerin,” I read aloud. I answered the call, putting it on speakerphone for Jongin to hear, thinking he should probably know what’s going on considering he was apparently apart of whatever my friends were planning, but before I could even begin giving her a piece of my mind, Chaerin’s voice stopped me, but only for a second. 

“Minji-ah,” she cooed, sounding overly sweet on the phone. 

“Chaerin!” I growled back into the speakerphone. “What the hell are you doing?!” 

“Sorry Minji-ah,” I heard Bom’s voice suddenly come through the phone.

“Bom?” I questioned, confused.   

“We’re all doing this for your own good,” Bom continued. She then paused before adding, “Well, actually we’re all doing this for both you and Kai’s goods’ and for the good of the rest of the senior class, too…but mostly for our good.”

I felt Jongin move closer to me as we both listened to my friends on the other end of the line. 

“We all want you and Kai to finally make up, and stop ignoring each other,” Dara’s voice came through the phone next. “Everybody’s been suffering since you two decided to stop working together and instead, started fighting each other.”

“So we all decided to lock you two together in your room all night until you guys finally make up and decide to start working as a team again,” Chaerin finished. 

“We?” I repeated. “You, Bom and Dara all pulled this plan together?” 

“And me, as well,” Kris’ voice suddenly inserted.                          

“Kris?” Jongin growled suddenly, from beside me. “Is that you?”

“Hey man!” Kris exclaimed, purposely ignoring Jongin’s anger. “See? Eavesdropping really is a bad habit, dude. It gets you into all kinds of trouble. Luckily for me, because I now know your secret, I knew you would be listening, so I decided to have Chaerin call me and pretend to be Minji over the phone in hopes to rile you up and get you angry enough to come to her dorm. And guess what? It worked!”

Immediately following, there was laughter in the background from my friends, and I grimaced.   

Jongin fumed beside me before surprising me by grabbing my arm to lift my phone up to his mouth. 

“Kris,” he raged through the speaker. “When I get out of this room I’m going to kick your a—”  

“Look,” Kris cut him off. “We don’t mean any harm. We just want to have a good senior year, like you guys promised we would at the beginning of the year during the senior rally. Remember when you guys promised the senior class that we would have the ‘best senior year ever?’ Well, so far, it’s only .”

Jongin scoffed and rolled his eyes, letting go of my arm. 

“You two owe us, all,” Chaerin said now. “And the only way to get you two working together is by locking you two up and forcing you to settle your differences, so you both are going to be in that room until you make up.” 

I shook my head not liking the sound of that. “What if we have to go to the bathroom or something?” 

“There’s a bucket in my closet you can use,” Bom said, causing the others to laugh. 

“Damnit Kris!” Jongin cursed. “Open the door!” 

“No,” was Kris’ simple reply. Jongin cursed again and strode away seeming fed up. I looked back to my phone.  

“You guys need to make up, first, and agree to start working with each other instead of against each other, then we’ll open it for you,” Kris said. “But if not…” he paused before continuing. “Then me and Chaerin decided we will go on with our own plan to impeach you, Jongin.” 

“WHAT?!” He bellowed from across the room, and I winced at the harsh sound. He marched back up to me to grab my phone again, but this time he snatched it away. “You can’t do that? My father will never have it.” 

“No, he won’t,” Kris agreed. “But if we get the entire senior class to agree to it through a petition, then he can’t ignore it.” 

“The entire senior class?” Jongin repeated in disbelief. “You guys really think you can turn the entire senior class against me?”

“Yes,” Kris answered matter-of-factly. “You’ve practically done half the work all by yourself. All the senior girls hate you already thanks to what you did to Minji.” 

Hearing this, Jongin stole a quick glance at me but looked away just as quickly. 

Kris continued. “That only leaves convincing the guys who I know aren’t any happier about how the school year is going due to the lack of senior activities thus far. Wait until they find out that your putting off of your responsibilities as the senior president made you forget to call the superintendent and now we may miss the chance for our senior trip to Jeju Island at the end of the year.”

“What?!” I yelled, staring at Jongin in shock. “You mean to tell me you haven’t taken care of that?!” 

Our senior trip? He hadn’t even began to take care of that? Really?! But senior trip had to be approved in advance so that the board could call and make arrangements with people at the resort, and flyers had to be mailed to each student’s parents, and the list goes on! But he hadn’t even at least told the superintendent, yet?    

Jongin looked away, embarrassed, and muttered, “I’m going to take care of it.” 

I scoffed in response. Take care of it when exactly?    

“You guys we’re being serious now,” Chaerin’s voice came through again. “I know us locking you two up seems unfair but just imagine how unfair the year has been to the rest of us. This is our first year together as a co-ed class, and our last year together before we all head out into the real world. We want to be able to look back on this year with good memories, and not a crappy year of endless fighting between the es.”

I sighed after she said that as I realized she was right. They were all right. Our senior year was going to . But a huge part of that was because of the young man standing next to me now. He had screwed over so many people, me getting the worst end of it. He had made it so that I never wanted to work with him ever again, not even if it was a measly little class assignment. But our friends wanted us to work together. Somehow, they thought we made a good team if only we would work together instead of against each other. And we did owe it to them to at least try. It was either that or be stuck in this room together for who knows how long and while in theory, it seemed like a pretty good excuse to miss classes, I’m pretty sure our teachers wouldn’t think so if we told them we couldn’t make it because our friends decided to lock us up in a room together until we could settle our differences.    

“Will you guys just agree to talk things out like we all know you both want to?” Chaerin asked. “Everyone knows how badly you two want to talk but just are too stubborn to do it. Hence, the reason we had to forcefully lock you two up together…” 

She trailed then added, lastly, “If you guys come to an agreement, call us and we’ll open the door for you tomorrow.”

“So you two better get cozy,” Bom said. “Because you two are going to be in that room for a loooong time.”

“Hwaiting!” Dara cheered. “We know you guys can do it."

"Good luck," Kris said. 

“Bye!” The four on the other end of the line all chorused together before hanging up. 

Afterwards, it stayed silent in the room for a minute, Jongin and I just staring at my phone, which he was still holding. 

I looked up to him. “Well, now you have your answer as to who was on the phone with Kris. I told you it wasn’t me.”

Jongin shook his head. “I can’t believe he played me like that.” He then looked back at me. “So, you’re really not ing him?” 

I looked at him like he was stupid. “NO!” 

Jongin seemed to consider my response then asked, “And you never had a secret relationship with him?” 

I shook my head. 

“Well, do you like him at all?” He asked, tentatively. 

This was getting weird. Why was any of this important? Didn’t he just hear anything our friends had just said over the phone? Wasn’t he concerned about his place a president, or the senior field trip or anything? But here he was asking me about my relationship with Kris.  

“Where is this going?” I asked, annoyed. “Didn't you just hear anything they said over the phone a second ago?” 

“Do you?” He repeated, seriously, ignoring my questions. 

I sighed, and answered, truthfully just to appease him. “I like him in a sense that we’re good friends, yes. He’s someone that I can trust. But, I don’t like him, like him.” 

Jongin blinked as he seemed to be deciphering what I had just said and once he did he looked relieved. Maybe even a little…elated? 

“Oh,” he said simply and handed back my phone. 

This made the gears in my head start turning. 

“Would it bother you if I did?” I blurted as I tried piecing together in my head what this all meant and in response, Jongin looked up at me like a deer caught in the headlights. 

“What?” 

“Kris said that you had a secret,” I explained. “He seemed to know it would make you mad if you thought he and I were involved and that’s why he was able to pull this prank on you. But what secret do you have that would make him think that way? Would it make you mad if I did like Kris?”

“No,” Jongin replied, abruptly, almost sounding offended.   

“Then why would he think that?” I asked, confused. “It doesn’t make any sense. What would make him think you would give a damn about who I get involved with. I mean, you hate me so why would you care?”

Jongin shot me a look that made me stir. “T-that’s not…true.” 

I looked at him incredulously. “Isn’t it? Every action of yours since I found out about the prank you and the guys pulled, which you were the mastermind behind, has proven it.”

“I don’t hate you,” he repeated. 

I brought my hands in a questioning gesture before letting them fall back down to my sides. 

“Well, then why? Why do all the things you’ve done to me because I don’t get it, Jongin. I don’t get you.”

On Bom’s side of the room, Jongin stood there, blank-faced. He looked down. 

“It’s not me that hates you,” he vaguely answered, muttering under his breath. 

I frowned in confusion. “What does that mean? Someone else does? Is there someone who’s making you—” 

“No,” he shook his head, turning away. “I can’t…tell you that.”

My face fell and I felt my insides flare as heat rushed my chest. I was getting angry now. Angry enough to kick his out of my room if only the damned door would open. 

“You know what? You’re impossible to deal with!” I yelled fed up. I was sick of his bull and I was about to let him have it. “You want nothing to do with me, right?”

He’d turned back around with his mouth opened to answer, but it was a rhetorical question so I didn’t let him as I continued to rant. I had to get out what’s been on my mind since I was forced to resign from presidency because of him. I held my hand up signaling him to not even bother. 

“You made that perfectly clear when you did everything you could to push me out of student government and from being your co-president,” I said, angrily. “But now you won't leave me alone!”

He looked away from me, but I continued to give him a piece of my mind. 

“I’ve been trying to forget everything that’s happened in hopes that I could get even a small portion of my normal life back, but you’ve been making that impossible for me because you’ve been following Kris and I around for weeks, watching us like a hawk. Now you have the nerve to show up at my dorm, yelling at me for being involved with your friend, when really it wouldn’t be any of your business if we were together. Now I try to get some answers from you and yet you still won’t talk to me or explain anything to me, but you think you can show up here and tell me what to do even after all the things you did to me? I would really like to know just what the hell it is you are trying to do?!”

Jongin didn’t look like he had any clue on how to handle a girl being genuinely angry at him. He looked completely distraught. All he could do was stare into blank space.

“I don’t know,” he finally murmured, listlessly, after a minute of just staring into nothingness.  

I wanted to scream! This boy was so confusing! I seriously believed that even he didn’t know what his own intentions were. He was just that confusing that he confused even his own damn self! And this was the guy we had as our senior president. No wonder senior year was going to . 

I had to do something. Kris and my girls were right. This year has been terrible so far and it wasn’t going to get any better with this poor excuse for a leader in charge of senior activities. But there was only one way we were getting out of this room, and there was only one way to fix whatever was wrong with Jongin and I’s relationship. 

That’s when I thought about the potion still stashed away underneath my bed. 

“Jongin,” I called softly and he looked up at me. “Look, I don’t want to fight with you anymore.  And I don’t want there to be anymore weirdness between us. I just want to make things right again. For us, for our class, for our friends. Don’t you want that?”

He thought about it for a moment, then sighed and nodded in agreement. 

I felt a sudden rush within me rise. “Then make a deal with me.” 

Jongin frowned. “A deal?” 

“Yes,” I answered. “I know after the meeting with the superintendent that I’m not allowed to be in student government anymore, but that ruling can be overridden if you’ll allow it.” I looked him in the eye as I spoke. I had to make him believe that I was on his side. Make him believe that he was still the one in charge of the situation when really I was plotting against him. Little did he know that I had a trick up my sleeve. 

“If you’ll do that then I can help you with some things,” I told him. “But in return, I want your word that I’m not a target anymore. I want your word that I can finish out my senior year in peace without having to worry that whatever I try to get involved in might be ruined by you or the guys, or whoever this person is that doesn’t like me, apparently, that you won’t tell me about. Can you promise me that?” 

Jongin waited, but I already knew that he had taken the bait. He was already considering it. Finally, he nodded. “Yeah.”

I smiled, toothily. “Let’s make it official.”

I then turned around and crouched down to reach for the plastic bag under my bed. Of course, the contents in it were still wet from when I had spilled the potion from one of the cans on it. I glanced over at that now half-empty can which I had placed on my nightstand earlier. I could still drink what was left of it, while I gave Jongin the unopened can. I’m sure it would still work. 

But the prayer…it had been ruined when I’d spilled the potion on it. It didn’t help that the instructions and the prayer had been written down on the paper, and in marker, no less because the potion had completely blurred their appearance. Now it was hard to make anything out. Crap.    

Turning back to Jongin, I mustered up the friendliest fake smile I could and handed over one of the soda cans to him. I figured it was still worth a shot even without the prayer. Maybe if I still burned the paper (even despite it being drenched) over the candle but just thought really hard about what I wanted it would still work. Besides, it was the potion that was supposed to do the most important work, right? The instructions had said so. 

But it seemed Jongin would take some convincing. He frowned immediately, looking at the soda can I was trying to hand over to him with a guarded expression. 

“What is that?” He asked, untrusting.  

My fake smile fell. “Stop staring at it I’m handing you poison or something. It’s just soda.”

“I’ve never seen soda that looked like this,” he commented, now taking the pentagonal can, inspecting it like a detective might inspect evidence at a crime scene. He held it up to his eyes. “It doesn’t even have a name. It’s just a grey can and it’s shaped weird. This is the worst marketing ever.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not a brand we have here in South Korea. It’s from South America, actually. My parents and I went there once, and while there I fell in love with this brand of soda so I order it in bulk online sometimes since that’s the only way I can’t get any.” 

Of course, I was lying right through my teeth, but Jongin didn’t have to know that. “And now I’m sharing it with you to make our deal official.” I then jutted out my own half-filled can to Jongin. 

“Cheers?” 

He looked down at the can again, but finally conceded. With a shrug, he clicked his can against mine and in that moment I couldn’t have felt more excited for what was to come of this. 

“Cheers,” he said. Then we both began to chug back our drinks, simultaneously, and the only sounds that could be heard was our gulping, but I watched out of the corner of my eye as Jongin chugged his drink down. 

Yes! I chanted in my head. Yes, yes, yes!

He really seemed to be enjoying it which I couldn’t blame him. After all, whatever this stuff was tasted pretty damn good.

“Wow!” Jongin exclaimed as he paused in downing his “soda.” “I see why you like this soda so much. It tastes amazing!” 

“Told you,” I said as I watched him go back to guzzling down the rest of the can until it was all gone. I did the same. 

“Got any more?” He asked when finished.  

“Uh…no, that’s the last can,” I said, evasively, as I turned away to grab the plastic bag with the contents for the spell in it off my bed. Now I needed to find a way to light that candle and burn the paper, but how was I supposed to accomplish that with him in the room with me? The instructions said that it all had to be done within the same night, specifically during a full moon. 

In thought, I glanced up at the full moon shining outside my window pitched up in the cloudy, dark night sky. 

Maybe I could just go into my walk-in closet and do the spell really quick but tell Jongin that I was just going to be changing clothes for a minute. Or maybe I could text Chaerin that Jongin and I had actually ended up making up much quicker than any of us would’ve thought and she’d open the door allowing Jongin to leave and me some alone time to finish out the rest of the spell. And if that didn’t work I could always move on to plan C: 

Knock him out with a blunt object and finish the spell while he was sleep. I smirked at the thought. 

I was so deep in my thoughts that when Jongin spoke again, what he said completely floored me.   

“Minji, would it help any if I said I was sorry?” 

I turned around, looking at him in surprise as he looked back at me with a somber expression. I held his gaze in silence before glancing back down at the empty soda can. 

Wow. I thought in awe. Was the potion already taking effect? I thought it took a full day to work. 

“I know it’s long overdue,” Jongin continued. “Way past long overdue. But I am sorry…about everything.” 

I stared at him blankly not knowing how to react after having wanted to hear those words from him for so long. Yet, why was hearing them not as satisfying as I thought it would be? 

Because you want him to beg, the prideful side of my mind suddenly answered for me. It’s not enough for him to be sorry. You want payback! You want him groveling on his knees admitting that you are the best president ever. You want him to admit it in front of the entire school and the board! Then you want him to admit all the things he did before finally resigning in public just like he had made you do. Only then will you’ll be satisfied.  

I bit my lip, stumped and a little worried by my own thoughts. Was that it? Was I still trying to seek revenge? Jongin had hurt me so bad for so long that I wanted him to feel what I had felt. I didn’t just want him to be sorry, I wanted him to know…to understand…utter humiliation.

Funny. When the girls had come to me with the plan to make the videos we had recorded of the guys go viral by posting them up online, I had originally turned the idea down. They didn’t just want to prank the guys, they wanted to humiliate them just as they had done to us. Just as they had done to poor little Jiyeon when they had posted up that video of her online. But I wouldn’t do it because I thought that we had made our point through our prank. I thought I was being the “bigger man” (or woman) by not totally sinking to the guys’ level and doing what they had originally planned to do to us. Then Jongin had gone and told on me like he and the rest of the guys hadn’t been the ones to start it all and I felt betrayed. 

Now I didn’t care about taking the high road. I wanted him to be miserable just like I had been.     

“Minji,” Jongin’s voice suddenly cut through my musings and I looked up at him who was now inching closer to me, but carefully. I watched him as his face looked conflicted like he was fighting with himself to say something. Like he had something he wanted to get off his chest but was trying to find the words to say it. I waited as he started slowly, finding the words. “You should know that…” 

Buzz…buzz…

My head jerked to where my phone was at on my nightstand, vibrating. I heard Jongin sigh as I picked it up. 

Chaerin was calling again. I answered. 

“You guys made up yet?” She asked, immediately in a teasing tone. 

I smirked looking up at Jongin before commenting sarcastically, “Oh, we’ve more than made up. In fact, we’ve actually decided to get married.” 

At this, amused, Jongin tried to hold back a grin by biting his lip, while laughter erupted over the other end of the line. 

“Well damn," Chaerin said. "That escalated quickly.”

I sighed being serious now. “Yes, we've made up. Now, will you guys open the door for us?” 

“Sorry,” Bom’s voice answered. “Not until tomorrow. We just wanted to check up on you guys to make sure you hadn’t killed each other or anything.” She then spoke to Jongin. “Kai, are you still alive?”

He smirked and with a roll of his eyes, he answered, “I’m still alive.”

“Oh good!” She exclaimed. “Then we don’t have to call the cops or anything. Well, see you two tomorrow!” With that the line went dead again and the room was silent. 

I put the phone down.

“Jongin?” I called and he looked up at me, hopeful, but what he was hoping for, I wasn’t sure. “I’m going to go change in the closet for a minute, okay?” 

His eyes dimmed a bit, but he nodded, stepping back. I took the plastic bag with me that still had the contents for the spell in it and made my way over to the walk-in closet. Taking one last look at Jongin, I shut the door.

I pulled on the dangling string that the light in the closet and sat down on the floor. Hopefully, he wouldn’t smell the paper burning.

I tried to straighten out the damp sheet of paper, all red and ruined from the potion. I also pulled out the white candle which was now more red and white thanks to the faint stains the potion had left on it after splattering and drying on it. I grabbed the lighter and lit the candle before me. A single orange and red flame erupted over the little stick. I watched the flame as I carefully set the candle down on the floor. Afterwards, I took the paper and held it over the open flame of the candle. 

I had no prayer to say since it had been ruined, but I could still concentrate on what I wanted. For a split second, it suddenly occurred to me that I was actually going through with this. But I was desperate.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on what I wanted. 

“Make Jongin know what it’s like to be me," I began to pray. "Make him understand that what he did was wrong. Make him understand my betrayal, my hurt, and my humiliation. Make him see things through my eyes. To stand in my shoes.” 

I was going to end it after that, but then a sudden thought came to mind to finish the prayer out. Something I didn’t even know I wanted until now. I breathed as I said the last bit of what I wanted.

“And…let me reap the benefits of being in his.”

Jongin always got what he wanted all thanks to his father. Maybe I wanted some of that for a change. To be like him and have things always go my way. 

Yeah, I thought in revelation. That’s it. I wanted Jongin to stand in my shoes, and I wanted to know what it was like to stand in his.                 

Knowing what I truly wanted, I opened my eyes and repeated the prayer as I watched the paper burn over the flame, a continuing gray puff of smoke releasing from the burning paper. The burning smell was strong, but it also smelled faintly of the fruity scented potion the paper had been drenched in. By the time the paper was almost completely destroyed, I was just finishing saying the last repetition of the little prayer I had made up. 

“And let me reap the benefits of being in his…”

Immediately, after I had spoken the last words, and the last of the paper had turned to black ash, the candle blew out all on its own, shocking me, but what shocked me more was the sound of a loud thump like a body hitting the floor, suddenly come from my bedroom.

THUMP!

I jumped at the sound and stood, all in one motion, but I found myself slightly dizzy when I did so. I grabbed ahold of my head to stop from spinning before turning the knob and coming out of the closet only to find myself horrified when I saw Jongin’s body crashed out on the floor. 

I stumbled over to him, in all my dizziness, and landed near his head. I brought my hands out to pick his head up, but he was completely out. I stared not knowing what to do. 

OH, CRAP. 

What was this? Was this supposed to happen? Was this part of the spell?  

I began to shake him a little. “Jongin?” I called. No movement. I tried again, this time a little more forceful. “Jongin? Jongin, please…” He still wouldn’t wake. When shaking him seemed to be futile, in desperation, I tried something even more forceful. I slapped him. 

And this time, he stirred. 

“Oh,” he grunted as he started to wake. “What happened?” 

“I don’t know,” I answered, looking at him worriedly. “For some reason you just fell out.”

He groaned like he was in pain and clutched his stomach. “I don’t feel so good.” 

I nodded, but that proved to be a bad idea since it seemed my surroundings were already moving thanks to my lightheadedness. 

“Okay,” I gulped, as I tried to steady myself. “Maybe I can text Chaerin and she’ll open the door for us.” 

He shook his head. “They won’t believe us,” he said, standing up, still clutching his stomach in pain. “They’ll think…ugh…we’re just trying to make up an excuse…to get out of the room early.” 

He began to stagger towards my window. “I really don’t feel good. It might’ve been that drink. I think I need to go back to my dorm.” 

I realized he intended to go out my window. 

“Jongin, we’re on the third floor,” I pointed out, trying to make out the true him out of the three or four versions of him I was currently seeing. 

He nodded. “I’ll just use the emergency ladder to get down.” He was referring to the ladders on the sides of the building in case of emergencies like a fire. 

“Are you sure?” I asked, still sitting on the floor. I couldn’t get up when I was so off balance. “You don’t look so good.” 

He glanced back at me. 

“Neither do you,” he commented. “Go to sleep. I’ll be fine.” He turned back to the window and lifted it up, but before he left, he paused. 

“Hey, Minji?” He called and I lifted my heavy eyes to look at him. I counted three half-smiles as he looked at me. “I’m really glad we’re okay again.”

I didn’t say anything. Were we, really? 

With that, he began to climb out the window and from my position on the floor, I dizzily watched multiples of him leave. 

But I don’t know what happened after that because the second he went out that window, everything around me went black as I finally passed out… 

*

Woot! New Subbies: ^_^ shawtyknowsme, LunaFrost, alcyonne, and applegirlxo!

Damn yall. This was over 30 pages long in Pages on my Mac!

But it’s been a long time since we had Minji’s POV, so…

So, it seems I gained a few subscribers while at the same time I lost a few subscribers. I also gained a vote and lost a vote all at the same time. It’s all good though. Regardless, I appreciate any support especially since I know this story tends to piss readers off sometimes. 

This chapter took much longer than I’d originally intended. I’m sure this is the longest chapter I’ve written yet. I’m really trying to move this story along though cuz it’s been in the works for a long time and I feel like Kai and Minzy have been fighting 4EVER. I’m sure even you guys are getting tired of all their nonsense. 

Well, I’m trying to tie things up, but also trying to do it without rushing to the end because I hate a rushed ending. 

 Anyway, I've done my job, now I hope in return you guys will do yours. Comments? Let me know how you feel about the reveals of this lengthy chapter.