It may have been taking careful a bit too far, but I avoided Sehun on Friday. Not like it was a hard thing to do anyway since he was like a ghost and rarely showed up. I just took minor precautions to not go outside and to avoid any places I saw Jongin or Tao. For the first time in a while, I spent lunch in the locker room.

It was lonely, to say the least. Peaceful, nonetheless. But avoiding Sehun was a success and I also managed to avoid Jongin the Pitbull too. I still questioned a lot, especially Jongin’s motives to speak with me the day before, but there was no way to get answers. I wasn’t brave enough to corner Sehun and demand answers and chances were that he was way too stubborn to give them anyway. And Jongin definitely wasn’t going to tell me anything. At least, not intentionally.

Monday was just as eventful. After a weekend of staying cooped up indoors like some widow, I came to school only to avoid contact with any person who even breathed in my direction. My initial anxiety involving school had lessened greatly but I still got uncomfortable if anyone looked at me the wrong way. Especially if it was someone of the male side of the student body. They didn’t even have to look threatening, I just felt uneasy when I seemed to be alone with someone, mostly guys. Ironically, a crowd didn’t exactly make me comfortable either.

It was after lunch when I heard someone called my name and then an arm was swung around my shoulders. I barely prevented the yelp in my throat before I looked up to see Taehyung.

“How are you?” he asked, walking with me towards my classroom. “How’s your hand?” He gestured to my still bandaged hand.

I shrugged, attempting to discreetly shrug his arm off while doing so.

“I’m fine.”

He smiled sweetly. “Have any special plans for summer break?”

I pretended to scratch my shoulder and he finally removed his arm.

“It’s still two weeks until summer break. Aren’t you getting a bit ahead of yourself?” I wondered.

“Nah. My parents and I are going to Japan for a couple of weeks before visiting some relatives in the Philippines for a few days.”

Humming in response, I nodded and narrowly avoided a pair of rough-housing boys in the hallway. In all honesty, I planned to wither away in my bedroom over summer break. My sister was taking summer classes and my dad would be working so there hadn’t really been any plans for vacation. Thinking about it, I guess it would’ve been nice to get away but I’d much rather not put myself out there in the world while the world seemed to have a thing for shooting me in the behind. My bed and my grandma’s house sounded better than a loud, hot, crowded beach.

“Oh, that sounds nice,” I replied. “I hope you have a nice time.”

If someone asked me, I wouldn’t be able to lie and say I didn’t harbor any ill feelings towards Kim Taehyung still. It wasn’t his fault that Namjoon has posed as him but I’d come to realize he was in fact a pushover and a coward. He had no backbone and he got stepped all over because of it. I couldn’t change him, no, but I also couldn’t hang around him either. I just wanted to forgive, forget, and move on from him.

“I’ll see you later,” I mumbled before scurrying into my classroom, feeling only a little less than guilty. I heard him give a quiet farewell as I closed the door behind me.

It seemed as if everyone had a fair amount of summer break plans. I just hadn’t noticed it until I was leaving school at the end of the day and I passed some girls coming out of the restroom. One of them was going to the Bahamas with her older cousin. She was super excited.

I was super excited, too. I’d discovered ten bucks in my blazer pocket and made a spontaneous decision to stop by a ramen house on my way home. It had been a while since I had eaten out or just eaten a nice warm bowl of ramen. A moment alone sounded nice.

The weather was fairly nice out despite a little bit of cloudiness, so I bypassed the bus stop and ended up walking towards the small row of shops not far from the school. If I was allowed to just skip out of the school during lunch, I would’ve definitely been walking around the streets instead of claustrophobic hallways of Wings high. I wasn’t too fond of warm weather but the vitamin D provided by the bright sun was definitely making my mood lift a little as I arrived at the ramen house.

As I sat down at one of the back tables, I was briefly reminded of the time I had eaten one of the ramen houses in Hongdae with Jaeeun and Sehun had shown up with Taeyeon. I remembered quite bitterly how that had started pretty much everything. If I had been bonding with my sister instead of eavesdropping, I might’ve just left the whole thing along with Sehun skipping class to do whatever with Taeyeon in the clubroom. Speaking of which, I now wondered what in fact they were doing since Luhan had made it out like Taeyeon wasn’t getting what she wanted from Sehun. Had I been totally delusional? I could have swornI’d seen Sehun’s shirt practically getting ripped off.

I shuddered and forced myself to think of something else quickly when the waiter showed up.

“Shin ramyun, please,” I told the older guy.

He nodded and began to walk off.

“Make that two,” Sehun said, appearing behind him. He nodded at the waiter as he walked off before sitting in the booth across from me, uniform blazer missing and top button undone.

There was a small pause as I blinked at him and he rested his entwined fingers on the table in front of us. He his bottom lip and stared back at me.

“I ran out of cigarettes,” he told me and pursed his lips.

I blinked a couple times more before raising my eyebrows. “I’m not buying you cigarettes.” I wasn’t planning on buying him ramen either, but didn’t voice that out.

“Did I ask you to?”

I shook my head. Unsure of why he was there, I sat back and continued to stare at him.

“I guess you’re going to tell me that a lady doth not need a companion whilst she eateth her ramen,” he guessed as the waiter passed by and placed two glasses of water on the table. Sehun gladly accepted the one cl