Maybe a week or so after our little squirmish, I find Hyerin wandering the halls instead of being holed up in a classroom or on the roof.  Even after I call her name a few times, she doesn’t respond to me. I jog up to her and catch her shoulder. “Hyerin-”

She turns around, a little startled.  “Oh, hey,” she greets me, a bit disoriented.  Before I can ask anything, she quickly responds, “Sorry, I need to go meet someone.  I’ll see you after school, same place.” She gives me a quick peck on the cheek before scampering off.

And in that moment, as she leaves me standing there confused, the pieces come together.  She wasn’t just wandering the halls, that’s not something Hyerin does. She doesn’t just “meet” people.  And then I remember that her face, right before she turned around and I startled her, was that face.  That face she made when I spotted her walking up to Kris Wu before she blackmailed him.  The face that was so deathly calm that you could only see the full fury in her eyes and nothing else.

She’s about to strike.

And not only is she about to kick someone’s , she lied to me about it.

The anger built up inside of me for the rest of the day.  When I sit next to her in our classes, I would be more silent than usual.  I don’t even know if she realized it, she was acting as she normally does. It made me even angrier because she doesn’t care about lying to me, and if I hadn’t seen it she would’ve went on hiding it from me.

After school, when we usually walk to the library together, I find Hyerin waiting for me outside the main doors, sitting on the steps.  She sees me approaching and gets up. “Hey-”

“We need to talk,” I state firmly.

She raises an eyebrow.  “Okay? About-?” I don’t let her finish before grabbing her wrist and pulling her downstairs to the lawn.  I hear her yelps of pain behind me before she finally manages to wiggle free from my grip. “What the hell was that for?”  She rubs the wrist I just pulled on.

I soften a bit, knowing that I hurt her.  “Sorry.” She throws me a hostile look, but says nothing.  “But we really need to talk.” I’m not gonna let this go, not this time.

“About what?”

“Where were you during lunch today?”

She crosses her arms over her chest.  “I had to meet someone.”

“You aren’t the type of person who just ‘meets’ someone, you know that.  What were you doing?” I press her a little harsher this time.

“You don’t have to know,” she snaps back at me, rolling her eyes.

“You’re my girlfriend, your business is my business too!”  My fists clench at my side.

“That doesn’t mean I have to tell you everything!”  She stares at the tree next to her, refusing to look at me.

“What happened to ‘no walls of communication’?”  My patience is starting to wear thin from all our arguments where I let her win.

“That only matters for necessary things,” her voice lowers.

“This is necessary, we’re fighting about this,” I say desperately.  I place my hands on her shoulders. “Hyerin, I know you don’t want to tell me about today-”

“Then why are you asking if you know already?” she fires back, slapping my hands and turning her body away.

My heart sinks, and she still won’t look at me.  “Because I want you to tell me, there’s no reason for you to lie.”

“Yes, there is!” she yells, anger fully unsheathed as she finally meets my eyes.  “Because, if I told you that I was going to go beat up one of the boys on the Junior team today, you would’ve lectured to me that I shouldn’t do it!”

“But I would rather you tell me than hide it, I don’t understand why you had to lie about it!” I yell back at her.

“No, you don’t understand,” she turns to point a finger at me, “I still do exactly what I did before, except less of it.  I still feel the need to protect people from being bullied in this school, even if that means I need to punch someone in the gut to get my point across.  The only difference now is that you claim to have some sort of ownership over me just because you’re my boyfriend now.”  She slowly steps toward me. “You knew that this is who I am and this is what I wanted to do, and now you’re trying to control me.  I didn't get into this relationship so you can make me sit still and not do anything. You promised that you would support me, Suho, not become an obstacle!”

“I am supporting you!  Why do you think I’ve let you get away with everything up until now?”

She grits her teeth.  “You’re ‘letting’ me?!”

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