“Alright class, today I’m going to assign you to a new project. You will be working in pairs and I’ve already decided who’s pairing with who based on your last pop quiz marks, so I don’t want to hear any complaints about your partner, understand?” Mrs Yoo, the biology teacher warned, causing the students to groan in dissatisfaction.

D.O was not paying attention to even a single word she said as he was too busy secretly watching Krystal from the corner of his eyes. She was too, lost in her own world, doodling on her notebook about God knows what. He turned his face slightly, hoping to get a better view of her face without her noticing.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” She whispered so that only the two of them could hear. Krystal chuckled when he abruptly turned away and pretended to be busy jotting down notes about what their teacher was saying.

“Kyungsoo-sshi, Krystal-sshi, are you listening?” The teacher asked with a scowl on her face.

“Y-yes, teacher.” Caught off guard, D.O answered awkwardly.

“Then would any of you two care to repeat what I just said?”

“Uh-uhh. You said somethingaboutbiologysomething.” D.O said incoherently and Krystal found herself smiling at his silly answer.

She was talking about a project we have to do in pairs. Krystal wrote on her notebook and secretly slid it towards the panicking boy.

“Uhh. What I meant to say was, you were assigning us to a new project and we have to work in pairs.” D.O sighed in relief as the teacher finally stopped glaring at him and continued her explanation on the project.

He ripped out a page from his notebook and wrote ‘Thanks. =)’ on it before passing it over to Krystal.  She turned to give him a slight nod before going back to her previous activity, doodling.

Some students cheered and some students groaned as the teacher announced their project partner. A girl named Shinyoung let out a high pitch squeal of excitement when the teacher paired her up with her ultimate crush, Chanyeol. Meanwhile, the poor boy was groaning after he found out he got paired up with one of his crazy fan girls. He gave the teacher a pleading look, as if trying to beg her to change her mind, but got ignored by the woman instead. Krystal and D.O each earned a glare from the annoyed Chanyeol after he heard them snickering at his misfortune.

“Do Kyungsoo will be paired up with Jung Krystal.” The boys who were hoping to be paired up with the princess sighed in disappointment as their chance flew out the window. D.O on the other hand, was breaking in cold sweat. He knew spending time alone with Krystal would eventually lead to their past being brought up to the surface and he was truly afraid to face the guilt.

He glanced towards her to see her reaction. To his surprise, she was smiling at him and seemed completely unaffected by their teacher’s decision. He was confused. Krystal was supposed to be more nervous than he was but instead, she acted as if being his partner did not bother her at all.

Chanyeol quickly grabbed Krystal’s and D.O’s hands and dragged them out of the classroom as soon as he heard the bell rang. He ignored the shrill voice of his new project partner calling him flirtatiously from her seat and proceeded to pull his snickering friends away.

“Ughh, that girl is so annoying!” He huffed loudly after confirming that his pursuer was no longer in sight.

 “Aww, come on. She doesn’t seem that bad and maybe you’ll even fall in love with her after spending some time alone together.” D.O joked. Unable to find the humour in his friend’s statement, Chanyeol gave him an annoyed glare.

“Easy for you to say! You got partnered up with Krystal-sshi while I’m stuck with an obsessed fan girl.” He grumbled. The boys ended up in a playful argument while Krystal shook her head at their antics. These boys could not go a day without drawing attention to themselves with their childish banters.

Krystal walked away cautiously, making sure she could slip away unnoticed by the bickering duo. She smiled victoriously when she managed to make her way to the school garden without the boys finding out. Chanyeol put his arm around D.O’s shoulder, “Come on, Kyungsoo, I’m starving.” he whined as he dragged the shorter boy along, both still unaware of their female friend’s absence.

“Hey, you guys.” Taemin greeted them as soon as they passed by the SHINee boys’ table.

“Oh, hey dudes.” Chanyeol gave each of them fist bumps while D.O simply waved.

“Where’s Soojung? I thought the three of you have biology together before lunch.” Minho asked, earning confused looks from the boys.

“What are you talking about? Krystal-shhi is right beh-.” Chanyeol let the sentence hang when he turned around and found no Krystal behind him. He scratched his head awkwardly before adding, “uhmm, she was with us a second ago.”

“I wonder where Soojung ran off to.” Jonghyun said, concerned about the missing girl.

“You guys should be able to get use to Soojung’s sudden disappearance by now. You know how popular she is. This morning she found a letter in her locker from a secret admirer. He asked her to meet him in the school’s garden during lunch. I’m guessing he’s going to confess and ask her out.” Sulli said calmly as she was already accustomed to her friend’s popularity.

Everyone at the table was shocked when D.O suddenly ran off in the direction of the school garden. Being the only one at the table who knew about their past, Sulli smiled at D.O’s reaction.

D.O ran as fast as he could and he did not stop until he reached the garden. He took a moment to lean against a tree to rest and catch his breath. He had never run so hard in his entire life and he did not even know why he did it. When he heard about Krystal’s admirer from Sulli, all he could think about was getting there in time to stop him from confessing to her. Now that he was here, he found himself wondering why it had bothered him so much that a guy would be asking Krystal out on a date and why his heart clenched painfully at the thought of her being with someone else. He was doing this for her sake, he convinced himself. Yes, that was it. He did it to protect her from getting hurt, he told himself although deep down, he already knew the real reason; he was afraid of losing her to someone else.

The garden was quite big so it took him a few minutes to find Krystal. His eyes widened when he saw what was happening. He believed he was too late to stop her from saying yes as he saw Krystal hugging a handsome boy. Suddenly, rage took over him and he found himself taking big strides towards them. He pulled the shocked girl by her arm and pushed the guy away. D.O stood between Krystal and her admirer, as if trying to protect her from the boy.

“Sunbae-nim, what do you think you’re doing?” Krystal yelled angrily when D.O grabbed the boy by the collar. She tried to pry his hands off the poor boy but to no avail as his grip was too strong.

 “I’m doing this to protect you from getting your heart broken. How could you easily say yes a guy you barely even know!” he raised his voice at her.

“What are you talking about?” She asked, confused by his sudden accusation.

“He is your secret admirer isn’t he? Sulli said that he asked you to come to the garden probably to confess his feelings for you.” His voice went back to its normal volume.

“Uhhm, I do admire her but I don’t have that kind of feelings for her. I already have a girlfriend. I asked her to meet me here to ask her for a favour.” The boy explained on Krystal’s behalf.

“B-but I saw you guys hugging.” D.O stammered, suddenly feeling embarrassed for jumping to conclusion.

“She was congratulating me for my upcoming third anniversary with my girlfriend.” D.O finally let go of the boy’s collar.

“Are you okay, Myungsoo-sunbae? I’m really sorry for the trouble.” Krystal did a 90 degrees bow.

“It’s okay, Krystal-shhi. It was just a small misunderstanding.  I better get going or else my girlfriend would find out about the surprise. Thanks again.” He smiled before leaving Krystal and D.O to talk things out with each other.

“Soojung-ah, I’m-”

“Krystal.” She cut him off. “I’m sorry but only my closest friends can call me by my real name, so please call me Krystal.” She demanded.

D.O was hurt by her words but he kept it hidden and remained calm. “Krystal-sshi, I’m sorry for the way acted. I know I shouldn’t have done that but I was just trying to protect you.”

“Yes, you’re right. You shouldn’t have done that because it was none of your business. I’m not a helpless little girl anymore, you know? I’ve grown up and I can take care of myself. I don’t need you to protect me.” She said sharply and crossed her arms on her chest, showing how annoyed she was at the moment.

“I know, but I was afraid that you would get your heart broken if you rushed into a relationship.”

She gave him a hollow laugh, suddenly finding humour in the irony of his words. “You don’t have to worry about that Sunbae-nim. My heart was already broken a long time ago by someone whom I thought was my best friend. Now there’s nothing left to break.”

D.O felt as if he was punched in the gut. He knew the person she meant was him. The doe eyed boy gathered up his courage to look at the girl in front of him in the eyes but immediately regretted it when he saw the hurt in them. It was all because of him. All the pain that she felt was caused by him. He could feel the guilt eating him up inside and he welcomed the feeling because he truly deserved it.

Krystal turned her back to him and started walking away when he said nothing, but was stopped on her tracks when he finally spoke with a trembling voice, “I’m sorry. I truly am sorry for hurting you and I know my apologies aren’t enough to make it up to you, but I want you to know that I’ve regretted what I did to you from the second you walked out of my life. I hope that we could be fr-”

“Stop. Please, just stop. I don’t need your sorry. I like things with the way are now and I beg you to please let go of the past and let me be happy.” She pleaded.

“But I can’t let go of you just like that. I know I’m being selfish, but I really want things to go back to how they were when we were young. Can’t you find it in your heart to forgive me and take me back as your friend?” he looked at her hopefully.

“I’m sorry but I can’t let you in anymore. I just can’t take the risk of reopening the old wounds in my heart that I tried so hard to heal.  I don’t want to go through all that pain again.” Her eyes became glassy with tears.

“Please, I promise I-” he tried to reason with her but she cut him off.

“Stop making promises that you can’t keep, Sunbae-nim. They will only hurt others.” She gave D.O a sad smile before leaving him alone to nurse his own broken heart.

A/N: Sorry for the late update guys. I had so many things going on these past few days. Hope you enjoyed this chapter.