It was now December. And everyone knew what that meant. Winter!! Right? Wrong. You know what came before Winter break? Finals.

Every student trudged around the school, dreading the days to come. Packets among packets of review, stress levels higher than ever, studying for hours, and last minute cramming of lessons. That was the inevitable present for the students.

“Hey!!” Jackson greeted everyone, still seeming to be in a rather good mood. He wrapped his arms around Soori and Jinyoung, who just groaned in response. Jackson frowned, “Oh come on guys! You’re all going to let these finals get in the way of having a good time? Come on! It’s winter!!”

“Finals are just a pain in the , Jackson,” Soori whined as she opened up her locker, grabbing a few of her packets that she needed to review.

“Are you serious? Soori you will pass all of those finals without breaking a sweat!” Serah groaned as she walked up to everyone, her boyfriend trailing alongside her.

“Really? Will you let me copy your answers for some classes??” Jinyoung asked.

Soori gave him a look, “Yeah right, you wish.”

She shut her locker and leaned against it, slowly sliding down until she was sitting down. Soori started to look through her packets while everyone stayed standing up just looking at Soori with raised eyebrows. “Hey, don’t judge. I’m trying to study here.”

“Babe get off the floor it’s dirty,” Mark chuckled as he walked up to the group. He offered his hand to the said girl, but she declined, saying she didn’t care if the floor was dirty.

“Guys!!!” Naomi exclaimed, running over to the group of friends. “Have you seen Soori???” she asked desperately.

“Down here!” Soori raised her hand.

“I NEED HELP WITH MATH!” Naomi whined while taking a seat next to Soori. The two girls immediately started going over their math packets.

“Soori!! I need help with English!!” Hana and Mina yelled when they finally spotted the group.

“See! Soori you’ll pass without a problem! Everyone’s going to you for help! By the way, I need help with biology, please help me!” Serah begged. Soori sighed as she tried to help all her friends out.

“Hey!” Jackson suddenly spoke up as a light bulb went off in his head. “Let’s have a study party this weekend! My parents are going out of town; you can all come to my house! And my house is like three minutes away from the café.”

“You sure you’d rather have the study party than go off and be in bed with another girl?” Soori asked sarcastically.

“Hey!” Jackson said in English, “I will choose you guys over – sometimes. I think you should worry about the boy who dyed his hair one time too many.”

“Bambam? He’s sleeping with other girls?”

“No! I meant Dimsum over there!” Jackson pointed at Mark.

“Oh yeah, him too.”

“Hey! I am not sleeping around as much these days!” Mark spoke up.

“Really? What’s wrong? Already slept with all the girls in the school? Are you getting bored?” Soori chuckled.

“No… I’m just… Trying to change.”

“Oh really? How’s that working out for you?”

“Pretty well, actually. I haven’t slept with a girl in two weeks.”

Everyone’s eyebrows were up to their hairlines. Even the friends who were joining the conversation just at that moment had their eyebrows up. They all stared at Mark curiously.

“Mark? Mark Tuan? Are you alive?” Jackson started to grab Mark’s face and stare closely into his eyes before yelling into his ear, “WHOEVER IS IN THERE I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE MARK TUAN BACK!”

Mark groaned and pushed Jackson away, the whole group laughing as Mark held onto his ear. “Jesus, Jackson. It’s still me!”

“Oh good,” Jackson grinned and ruffled Mark’s hair before getting back to the original topic. “So, study party at my house this weekend?”

“Yes!” everyone agreed.

~

Surprisingly enough, the study party was rather successful. Everyone arrived at 5. Jackson had prepared a snack bowl and had a few cartons of juice and bottles of soda as well. Despite the fact that they were all gathered together in the living room, they managed to remain quiet for the majority of the time. The only time anyone spoke up was to ask for help on a certain problem or to ask for a certain snack or drink to be passed over.

Finally, as it was reaching 8 pm, everyone put their work aside and stretched out their arms. They reached a decision of ordering two boxes of pizza and decided to chat while waiting for the pizza. Everyone put their textbooks and work to the side and started chatting amongst each other.

“Finals are going to kill me,” Jackson yelled while falling back so he was laying on the floor.

“Die quickly! We’ll join you up there in 50 years!” Jinyoung joked.

Jackson sat up and glared at the other male, “Yah! You’re in my house how could you say such things?”

Jinyoung just laughed him off.

“I swear if I spend another minute with my nose buried in those textbooks I might go mentally insane,” Soori groaned while resting her head on Jinhee’s shoulder.

“Why do finals exist???” Serah pouted as Bambam wrapped his arm around her waist. She snuggled closer to him and whined more.

The other gagged at the sight of the two. “Ew get a room please,” Yugyeom laughed.

“Oh, okay. Jackson do you have a room for us?” Bambam asked cheekily.

“As if I’m letting you guys go off to have in another room while we’re all still here!” Jackson whacked Bambam’s head.

“As if I’d let him take my ity! We’ve only been dating a few months!”

“I’ve taken ities of girls I’ve known a few seconds,” Mark brought up.

“You’re different,” Serah glared at him. “Also that fact is not helping your situation.”

“What situation?”

“That you’re in love with a girl who wouldn’t even think about kissing your cheek in a friendly way.”

Mark immediately turned bright pink, “I-I’m not in love with her!”

“Tell that to your dreams,” Soori smirked smugly.

“Yah, Joey was lying about that!”

“Really? Because he has videos that he showed me.”

“What?!?!” Mark exclaimed, “When did he even show those to you???”

“Those weeks I went over to your house for the project… Joey and I became like best friends.”

“Care to fill us in on what’s going on?” Jinhee asked as she ruffled Soori’s hair.

“Oh, so Mark’s little brother showed me a video of Mark in his sleep where he’s basically confessing his undying love for me,” Soori explained.

All the boys let out a collective ‘ooh!’ and went over to tackle Mark. They yelled about how it was time he realized how much he was in love with Soori.

The girls all made their way towards Soori. “You still don’t like him, do you?” Serah asked in a hushed whisper.

“Am I supposed to?” Soori chuckled.

“Jeez, you’re a tough nut to crack,” Mina laughed.

“Says the one who’s been ignoring Youngjae’s constant attempts to flirt with you,” Jinhee giggled.

“He’s not trying to flirt with me!” Mina said while turning bright red.

“Sure he’s not,” the other girls snickered quietly as Mina slowly turned more and more red.

“Aaawwww, look at the cute tomato,” Youngjae said as he walked to the girls. He reached over and playfully pinched at Mina’s cheeks. The action caused her cheeks to grow even redder and she turned away from him, too embarrassed to say anything.

“Yah, don’t be making my twin this embarrassed!” Hana exclaimed, playfully punching Youngjae’s shoulder.

Their fun of teasing each other was cut short when the doorbell rang. Jackson immediately jumped up, “PIZZA!” he exclaimed while running off to open the door.

Everyone shouted in happiness when they finally saw the pizza. Needless to say, they were all starving despite all the snacks they had set up for them.

Within ten minutes, everyone had devoured the two boxes of pizza and was now lazing around on the couch or on the floor. No one really felt like moving.

“I vote we have a sleepover!” Serah suddenly yelled out.

“I’m down!” Jackson agreed.

Everyone except for Soori, Mina, Hana, and Naomi were able to agree to the sleepover. Soori said her mom wouldn’t be too fond of it. Mina and Hana’s parents were already on their way to pick them up. And Naomi had to be home so she could babysit her little brother.

“Soori, I will call your mom and find a way to convince her that it’s just me, you, and Jinhee,” Serah spoke up.

“You know I don’t like lying to my mom!” Soori whined.

“I’ll talk to her,” Moonhyun offered. “She does love me the most, after all.”

“What. I have the most respect for Ms. Jang. Which means I’m obviously her favorite. I’ll talk to her!” Woobin offered.

“We’ll all talk to her. Soori, phone.”

~

Ten minutes later, Mina, Hana, and Naomi had already gone home. Now they were trying to convince Soori’s mother to let her have a sleepover with them. Serah and Jinhee promised that they three would share a room and each of them would have a knife in case any of the boys tried to go in their room. Moonhyun then promised to take the room next to theirs so he could listen if one of the guys tried to get in their room.

It took a little convincing, but they were finally able to convince Soori’s mom to let the girl sleepover with them.

“Let’s play truth or dare!” Jaebum immediately suggested once Soori hung up the phone with her mom.

“Yes!” everyone agreed. They immediately found an empty beer bottle somewhere in the kitchen and gathered in a circle.

“I’ll go first,” Jackson said and took the bottle. He spun it and everyone watched with anticipation as the bottle turned round and round. Finally, it landed on Moonhyun. “Truth or dare?” Jackson asked with a slight wiggle in his eyebrows.

“Dare. Hit me with your best shot Jackson!”

“I dare you to call Hana and tell you love her and then hang up without even hearing her response,” Jackson said with a straight face. Everyone immediately burst into a chorus of ‘ooh’s followed by a loud laugh.

Moonhyun’s face showed absolute horror for a second before he nervously took out his phone and dialed the girl’s number.

“Hey,” he said with a straight face, the rest of the group trying to stifle their laughter. “I just uh… Wanted to say… I love you okay bye.” Moonhyun immediately hung up afterwards and stood up. Everyone else burst into laughter.

“Aw, that was cute. You guys better end up together on Monday,” Jinhee giggled.

“Yeah yeah moving on…” Moonhyun took the bottle and spun it. The bottle spun around three times before slowing down and landing on Serah.

“Dare me ,” she immediately said.

“Alright. I dare you and Bambam to go off and have a good ol’ seven minutes in heaven. Into Jackson’s room you go,” Moonhyun smirked.

“I DON’T WANT THEM HAVING ON MY BED!” Jackson called out.

“A dare is a dare. See y’all in seven minutes!” Serah laughed and tugged Bambam into Jackson’s room.

“They won’t have , don’t worry. Should we continue without them?” Jinhee asked.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Jinhee spun the bottle for Serah, watching it turn until it landed on Mark. “Truth or dare?” Jinhee asked with a smirk.

“Dare,” Mark replied without hesitation.

“I dare you to run around the house shirtless three times! A little fanservice for Soori,” Jinhee said with a wink.

Soori raised an eyebrow and looked at Jinhee, “How is that fanservice for me?”

“Look at him,” Jinhee whispered to her. Soori turned and looked at Mark as he took his shirt off. As much as she hated him, she had to admit she really liked the view of him shirtless.

I wouldn’t mind waking up to that in the morning… Wait what.

Soori quickly shook herself out of her trance and narrowed her eyes at Jinhee, “I’ve seen better.”

“If I get frostbite it’s on you, Jinhee,” Mark warned before stepping out. Immediately he shouted because of how cold it was. The teenagers gathered at the windows and watched as Mark ran around the house three times. They were all dying of laughter when Mark walked back in, shivering yet sweaty.

“You are cruel, cruel people,” he frowned as everyone went back to their spots. He slipped his shirt back on and without another word, the boy spun the bottle and watched as it landed on Jaebum.

“Truth. The last time you dared me to do something I had food poisoning for a week,” Jaebum grimaced.

“Fine. How do you truly feel about Jinhee?” Mark asked with a smirk. A smirk that showed he knew all too well how Jaebum felt towards Jinhee. Everyone else frowned at the question.

“Mark that’s-”

“I truly have feelings for her now,” Jaebum cut Jinhee off. He stared at her, “But it’s silly so I’m going to do what I do best and play with other girls’ hearts.”

Everyone was silent until Bambam and Serah got back from Jackson’s room. It looked like the most they had done was one another’s faces off. “What’d we miss out on?” Bambam asked as the couple sat back down.

“Jaebum really has feelings for Jinhee,” Soori whispered to Serah.

“Cool, what else?” Serah asked, completely brushing away Jaebum’s feelings.

“Well Mark ran around outside without a shirt on,” Jinyoung changed the topic to get the two caught up.

“What?! Man I missed out on that… Does he have a nice body?” Serah asked Soori. At that question, Bambam instinctively wrapped his arms tighter around Serah’s waist.

“I’ve seen better bodies,” Soori rolled her eyes, trying to ignore the fact that her cheeks were indeed getting hotter.

“You’re blushing,” Serah giggled while nudging the other girl.

“Jaebum, spin the bottle,” Soori quickly changed the topic.

Heh. So she liked the view of me shirtless… Interesting.

The teenagers continued playing truth or dare. The bottle never once landed on Soori, while it landed on everyone else at least twice. They were about to call it a night, but Jackson whined that he wanted the bottle to land on Soori at least once. Everyone agreed to spinning the bottle a couple times more, but if the bottle still didn’t land on her within ten minutes they were just going to sleep.

Luckily for them, the bottle landed on her at their first try. Unluckily for her, Mark was the one who spun the bottle. She knew a dare from him would be too scary, so she went with truth.

“WAIT MARK LET’S USE THIS TRUTH SMARTLY!” Jackson exclaimed.

Mark narrowed his eyes at his best friend, “What do you mean by that?”

“Let’s ask a really good question…”

“No I have a question I really want to ask,” Mark whispered the question to Jackson to gain his approval. Jackson frowned a little since he wanted something juicier, but he let Mark ask the question.

“What is your favorite thing about me?”

“Your personality when we go out on dates, or when it’s just me and you. It’s nothing like the personality you had when we first met, it’s not cocky like the personality you have around all of us. It’s… Comfortable. For lack of a better word,” Soori answered without much hesitation.

~

When everyone was finally situated in their bedrooms, Soori found it hard to fall asleep. Of course, it was never easy for her to fall asleep in a stranger’s house. She lay awake until next thing she knew, it was 1 in the morning. Knowing she wouldn’t fall asleep anytime soon, she got up to get a glass of water.

Surprisingly, when she had gotten down to the kitchen, she was greeted by another male.

“Hey,” Mark greeted, as if this were a casual thing.

“Hey,” Soori replied, “You can’t sleep either?”

Mark just shook his head, “You getting some water?”

“Yeah…”

He smiled and nodded, going over to a cupboard to pull out a glass for her, going to the fridge and filling the glass with water before handing it Soori. “Here you go, beautiful.”

“Thanks…” Soori said with a soft voice, taking a sip of the water, leaning against the counter.

There was an awkward silence between the two. As if some sort of tension was lingering in the air.

“I can’t change,” he suddenly spoke up, “It’s hard.”

“Change?” Soori raised an eyebrow.

“What I said the other day about trying to change. I haven’t slept with a girl in two weeks… But I’ve been making out with other girls. Flirting with them and whatnot.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Just… You’re the easiest person to talk to. If I talked about this with any of the guys, they would have said something like ‘If it’s hard just go a girl, stop being hard on yourself’ or something of the like. You… You’ll just listen. If something I say sounds wrong, you’ll get pissed off and yell at me and I’ll realize I should change. Otherwise, you’ll just listen.”

Soori had no reply for that. She glanced up at him and found that he was staring intently at her, waiting patiently for a response. With a soft sigh, the girl just took another sip of her water and remained silent. Mark was slightly disappointed that his words didn’t arise anything from her, but it was better if she stayed silent instead of saying something that would cause his heart to explode. However, as silence filled the room, a sort of tension rose up as well. As if the silence was saying all the words neither Soori nor Mark had the courage to say.

“So,” he spoke up in hopes to break the uneasy air, “What’s keeping you awake?”

“Just uncomfortable,” she spoke with a slight shrug, “I normally don’t sleep well in other people’s houses.”

Mark raised an eyebrow, “You slept well in my house.”

“It was past midnight and we were up since like nine in the morning doing this and that.”

“If you say so,” Mark snickered. She just rolled her eyes and finished her water, walking over to the sink so she could wash her glass. Mark watched her every movement. Biting down on his lower lip, he walked over and gave her a backhug while she dried off her glass.

She looked back at him with a raised eyebrow, “What are you doing?”

He rested his chin on her shoulder and tightened his hold on her, “I just feel right hugging you like this.”

Soori rolled her eyes before pulling out of his grasp, putting the glass back into its proper spot before walking to the exit of the kitchen. “We should get some sleep.”

“Do I get a goodnight kiss? I’ll sleep better if I do,” Mark said cheekily while walking next to her.

“No,” she immediately responded as the two walked up to their rooms. Mark decided to walk her to her shared bedroom with the other girls. “Now, goodnight Mark.”

“Goodnight, princess,” Mark said and quickly kissed her cheek. She turned to him with wide eyes and he just chuckled, winking at her as he walked backwards to his room. She had to admit, he looked cool and suave when he did that. But at the same time he looked like an utter douchebag. She just rolled her eyes at him before entering her room.

What the .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fun fact. I wrote this a while ago but originally planned to write a little more after that last line but then I went brain dead and could never think of what to write afterwards.

Another fun fact. I'm working on chapter 21 right now when I should probably be reading my book lol whoops~

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DerpMia0413 - Wow~! Thank you for the support! It really means a lot <3

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epikdark - Haha yeah I planned for all the families to get along really well~ I don't need any family drama (yet)

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rindes - Their basketball date might not happen for a while, honestly~ I'm sorry to say that. Sorry for a late update!