Chapter Three

That Didn't Happen

The next morning, I woke to the buzzing of my cellphone inside my pocket.  Looking at the caller ID, I rolled my head back and released an aggraviated sigh.

"What it is, babe?" a groggy Sehun slurred his words as he turned to face me,

"My mom..." Holding the phone to my ear, I accepted the call, "Yebeoseyo?"

"Finally!" My mother screamed into the phone, "I was calling you all night!  Where were you?  Why didn't you let me know where you were even going?  Do you know how worried I was!?!"

"Eoma," I groaned, "I was only at Xiumin's house..."

"Who's Xiumin?!?!!!"

"I mean Min Seok," I slightly chuckled, "But my other friends were here, so it doesn't matter."

"You? Alone!  With six guys!"

"Five, mom, five guys..."

"This is completely inapproriate!" She raged on, "You know I don't approve of them!"

"I don't give a crap about what you approve of!" I began to raise my voice, waking the other sleeping boys.

There was a deadline on the other end of the phone call.  Great, now she's ignoring me....  In my opinion, my mother doesn't have the right to be mad at me.  Maybe I'd be a better child if she hadn't raised me without discipline.  If she was a better mother; I would be a better daughter.

"Well, I have to go now..." I answered the others' unspoken questions as I pulled myself off of the sofa.

"See you tomorrow," Sehun pecked his lips against my cheeks, causing an abnormal flutter in my heart.  Shouldn't I be used to this by now?

After telling everyone goodbye, I dismissed myself from the house.  As I stepped off of Min Seok's front porch, I was overcome with a sudden curiousity.  I headed in the opposite direction of my house.  I headed toward North Star Academy.

Typically, its front gates would be locked on the weekends, only accessible to faculty members who knew the passcode, but today, the iron gate was left open ajar.  As I tred down the stone path in the courtyard, I was greeted with certain unexplainable feelings.

It was so odd seeing the benches, the flower beds, the ponds, the trees, and the court yard in its entirety not crowded by the students of North Star.  Same goes for the empty hallways.  The silence of the building seemed too open, too welcoming, for my liking.  It was too different from each school day.

It was as if I could still hear every rumour echoeing through the hallways.  As if all the lies and gossip were haunting the school.  Needless to say, people at North Star Academy didn't take too kindly to one another.  The emptiness of the school was too humble.

All my thoughts were silenced as I heard a shriek followed by a loud thud.  I looked through the glass doors of the library.  At the far end, by the book shelf along the wall, a boy lay underneathe the ladder used to reach full height of each towering book shelf.  Quietly, I entered the library.  I watched the boy from beside one of the many rows of shelves.

"Damn it," he moaned as he slid the ladder off of him, "Not again..."

Using the shelf to support him, he rose to his feet.  As he repositioned the ladder to its stance against the shelves, I caught a clear view of his face.

Park Chanyeol, I smirked, just the boy I was looking for.

I let out a breath that I didn't know I'd been holding.  With that, Chanyeol stiffened.  I ducked behind a book shelf, knowing that he had heard me and for some reason, not wanting him to know I was there.

"Hello?" he called out, "Is anybody there?"

I bit my bottom lip.  Suddenly, I was more nevous than I'd ever been.  I cautiously peered around the corner to find that Park Chanyeol was no longer there.

"Yeah!" I heard him shout.

I turned my head to see that Chanyeol was hastily approaching me from the opposite end of the aisle of books.  He stopped in his tracks a few feet away from me.  Another pang of guilt twisted my stomache.  His bruises and wounds were still seemingly fresh.  Especially, his swollen black eye, courtesy of Luhan...

"What are you doing here?" he scowled.

"I came to apologize," I smiled weakly.

"Why do you even care, Eun Mi?"  he said my name as if he'd known it his whole life. 

"How do you know my name?" I quickly changed the subject, succesfully avoiding his question, which I didn't even know for certain.

"You and your friends are the talk of school," he answered simply, "Lee Eun Mi, the girl with the blue hair.  It's not exactly hard to pick you out of the crowd."

"What do people say about us?"

"Some girls talk about how you and Sehun are a couple, not really positive things...but mostly they talk about what your little group of friends do over the weekend, drinking, partying," he flashed me a seemingly judgemental look.

"Well then, what do you do with your friends?" I retorted.

He grew quiet and began surveying the books on the shelf beside me.  To anybody else, his expression would seem blank, but I had a knack for seeing what lies deeper than the surface.  His eyes were greatly pained.

"Do you have friends?"  As soon as I said those words, I cringed, realising that I had accidently touched a sensitive topic.

"I used to..." he began, "but then came high shool."

"Do you mind if I ask what happened?"

"My father," he let free a heavy sigh, "He started pushing me deeper into my studies.  I no longer had time for friends.  Whenever we'd tried to hang out, my father would dismiss them.  Eventually, my so called friends just gave up on trying."

He half-heartedly laughed, "Why am I even telling you this.  It's not like you even care..."

I don't know what drove me to do it.  Perhaps it was pity, curiousity, or maybe I had gone insane, but at that moment, I gently gripped the sleeve of Chanyeol's cream couloured sweater.  And, craning my neck, I softly pressed my lips against his cheek.

The sensation it gave me I'd felt many times before.  With Sehun.  My heart quickened.  I was unsure if this was fear, or what I had feared itself.

What the hell am I doing?

Chanyeol stared back at me, his eyes wide and his bottom lip trembling.  My expression, I assume, must have been identical.  Without another word, I left him there.  I'd bet he was confused for so many reasons.  As was I...

As I left the school building, I sped up my steps until I was sprinting for my house.

I'm insane, I thought.

That wasn't supposed to happen.  I went to see him for-for, I don't even know!

I don't know what compelled me to go to the school.  I don't know why I felt I had to see him so badly.  I don't know.

"Alright, Eun Mi," I spoke to myself aloud when I stopped on my front lawn to catch my breath.  I let out a deep breath, shaking off my nerves, "calm down...  That didn't happen.  The best way to deal with this is to forget it ever happened."

As I entered my house, I repeated those words in attempt to reassure myself.  That didn't happen.  That didn't happen.  That didn't happen.  But the more I rethought the event, the more real it was.

The more I didn't want to forget....

My heart was throbbing.  My every thought was echoing in my brain at once.  Everything was too overwhelming.  I threw myself onto the sofa.  I lay staring at the ceiling in silence, alone with my mind.   My mom wouldn't be home from work until late, like usual.  I had hours to do what ever I please, but after all that had occured in a matter of two hours, I only wanted to rest.

After taking a much needed shower, I slipped into my pajamas, which was simply an old T-shirt of Sehun's and my underwear.  I curled into a ball on my bed; the whole world seemed to be spinning.  I closed my eyes and was comforted by the smell of Sehun's sweet scent that emanated from my shirt.  I drifted to sleep.

There was a knock at my door the following morning.  "Come in," I replied groggily as I sat up.

The door knob turned and in came Sehun.  "Good morning," he smiled, sitting beside me on my bed.

He ruffled the tousled blue hair on my head.  He wore his school uniform with the sleeves of his blazer rolled to his elbows.  His white dress shirt was untucked with the top two buttons undone, a style he always seemed to have, which just so happened to be against the school dress code.

"Get up and get ready," he nudged my arm, "The guys and I will be waiting outside for you."

He left the room, closing the door behind himself.  I dragged myself out of bed.  Pulling a uniform out of a drawer, I grimaced.  Despite the overly strict uniform policy, the skirts were ridiculously short.

Skirts aren't my style, anyways.

I tossed the uniform aside.  I decided upon wearing something of my own free choice.  I hopped into my black jeans and threw on an oversized sweater, the striped one with elbow-patches.  After combing through the tangled mess I call my hair, I positioned a grey, cat-eared beret atop my head.  Nodding once to my reflection in confirmation that I looked decent, I slung my backpack over my shoulder.

With Sehun's arm possesively hooked over my shoulder and our four friends trailing close behind, we strode through the entance of our school.  The large front room and hallways were mostly empty, due to the fact that we were a few minutes late.  Though, a few other students still lingered by their lockers, mostly groups of two or three girls.

And thanks to a bit of persuation from Sehun in the front office, this year, all six of us had been assigned the same home room, and we had most of our classes together, too.  But seeing as how some of us chose different enrichments, Luhan had honors English, and I, myself, took an advanced math class, our group of friends were not always joined at the hip.

As we passed down the hallway toward our first class, science, I over heard a pair of girls speaking to one another beside a row of lockers, both of which were glaring at me.

"I don't understand," one, who I recognised as JinSung, slammed her locker in a fit of rage, "Sehun Oppa can have any girl he wants, yet he chooses her!  She's not even pretty!"

Glancing to look at Sehun, I could see they were trying his patience based on the way he pursed his lips.  I, too, was enraged by their words, and I knew Sehun would never in his life hit a girl.  So I took it upon myself.

With a clang, I quickly slammed JinSung against her locker.  She let out fearful squeal.

"Yeah! Let her go!" JinSung's friend cried, but a simple threatening scowl was enough to silence her.

Turning my attention to the girl I had pinned against the lockers, I spoke sharply, "And who do you think would better suit your Precious Sehun Oppa?"

Her eyes widened, but she did not speak.  I pressed her shoulders harder into the lockers.  When I heard her whimper softly in pain, I released my hold on her.  She fell to her knees and looked at the ground, either too scared or too embarrassed to face me.  Her friend only stared at me with a mix of fear and shock.  Sehun held his hand out to me, but before we could continue forward, JinSung spoke.

"Oppa!" She shrieked, resulting in a unanimous scoff from the six of us, "What do you see in her?  Did you see what she just did to me?  She hurt me, Oppa!  She's nothing but a freak with blue hair!"

Sehun approached the hysterical girl slowly.  He crouched down infront of her, and, using his thumb, he tilted her chin upward so that she was facing him.

"The blue hair happened to be my idea," was all he said before gently slapping her cheek and returning to his place at my side.

I smirked as the six of us left.  It felt good to be feared.

"Eun Mi?" Min Seok asked at lunch, "Can you help me?"

"With what?"

"I need help with math," he groaned, "According to Mr. Kahn, I'm failing..."

"What ever," I chuckled, "Let's go to the library."

"No, no, no, no, no," I took the pencil from Min Seok's hand, "You have to multiply this by that, subtract the answer from both sides of the equation, and then add two."

"You're no help!" he barked in frustration.

"There's a reason I'm not a teacher!" I retorted.  Sliding the worksheet back over to him, I sighed, "try those other examples.  Aish~"

Min Seok hunched over the table and started on the first problem, but I could tell he was making no progress.  Afterall, there was a reason he failed a grade.  Suddenly, I felt my chest tighten.  I could feel a pair of eyes boaring into me.  I could feel that I was being watched.  I scanned the area.  My heart stopped when I saw Chanyeol, who had found sight of me, by an aisle of books.  When he had seen that I noticed him, he began to approach me.

...

"Hey," he stood at the edge of the table, catching Min Seok's attention.

"You and I have a lot to talk about," Chanyeol stammered.

"Is this about what my friends and I did while we were drunk?" Min Seok spoke, a hint of anger in his voice, "Just get over it, dude.  We were drunk, and Eun Mi had no part in it so leave her alone."

It was apparent that Chanyeol was taken aback by Min Seok's harsh words.  He choked on his words, "I, well, yes, but, uh, Eun Mi did somthing, and-I mean, so, I have to-"

"Stay the away from her," Min Seok glared at the taller boy.

"Min Seok," I shot, "Shut.  Up."

Giving me a confused look, he settled himself down.  Just then, the school bell rang, summoning all students to their next class.  Mine happened to be honors math.  Tucking my thumbs underneath the straps of my backpack, I hurried away, trying my best to avoid both Min Seok and Chanyeol.

"Wait up!" Chanyeol called after me, "We need to talk."

"There's nothing to talk about," I said, not bothering to look back at him.

"Come on," he scoffed, "Are you seriously just going to ignore it?"

"It never happened," I turned to the entrance of my class, "Well, I gotta go.  This is my math class, so, goodbye."

I flashed him an awkward smile and scurried to my usual desk at the front of the classroom. To my surprise, Chanyeol followed me in and claimed the desk beside mine.

Has Chanyeol been in my class this whole year?

And I didn't notice?

"Why did you kiss me?" he spoke quietly but boldly.

"It was more of a peck than a kiss..." I scratched my neck uncomfortabley.

"Why?" he repeated.

"Just forget it ever happened," I growled.

"But I don't want to forget."

author's note:

So guys, Chapter three.  Oharat~  And it's getting serious! (>///<)  Thanks to every one who has read this far...I noticed not many have, considering that there's 110 views and only five subscribers so far....*sighs*  Well...bye?