“Ms. Park, come here.”

Mr. Lee approaches me as I exit the bathroom with Juri. “Yes, sir?”  “Meet up with the class presidents of each class and tell them to come to my office.”  I bow and express my understanding of the task, what I don’t understand is that why does it have to be me to round them up?

I approach Sanghyuk’s classroom and my line of sight instantly gets dragged to the group of guys huddled up at the south end of the room.

Boisterous and loud males all crowd up with him at the center of it. Some of them even smiling and giggling like their female counterparts.“Sanghyuk.” I approach them, all of their backs turned to me and Sanghyuk’s face hidden from view.

“Oh! Hi!” He perks up, not moving an inch.

“Where’s your class president?” he points to a guy in his group and huddles back with the rest of them.

“Hi. Mr. Baek wanted to see you, if you could just…” I notice him leaning on me with each word I say. I resist the urge to step back and attempt to alert Sanghyuk but he is too busy to see. “See to it that you see him today, do you understand?” he nods, looking almost in a daze.

 I leave quickly and pass each room ending with our class president. From the corner of my eye I take a mental note of Juri’s shifty gaze and her constant fidgeting.

“Hey hey Danbi.”

“Hi.” I chewed on my lip, thinking about all the school work that’s been dumped on us for this day only. Not to mention exams for next week.  Juri surely looks relaxed.

“Wanna go to the mall?”

“No.”

“Oh, cmon. It’ll be fun.” She turns to me, holding my shoulders with both hands and musters up the most sympathetic look she can summon on her face.

When I didn’t respond she begs even more, trying to fake cry and even kneeling down. “I’ll treat you melon milk.”

“Melon milk? That sounds awful.”  School work’s still nagging me at the back of my head but looking at Juri’s desperate attempts to take me to the mall makes me think that too much of a good thing could turn out to be bad so I let her drag me to the mall.

Juri practically took me to all the kiosks and shops in the mall. I found a lot of interesting things, like shiny material for thin books. I might not call them books because all they contained were pictures. The footwear looked so bizarre and uncomfortable, using extremely weird material. Not to mention all those infernal contraptions displayed for public viewing.

As we walked, to our final destination which Juri promised to be the last one we’ll visit, someone approached me, handing me a long stem, red rose.

Juri inches away from me as males come and go after they give me a rose. I remain standing on my place, with Juri slowly increasing the distance between us.  I can just imagine what puzzled expression I was wearing on my face.

I was about to catch up with Juri and leave the scene when it started raining rose petals and a banner unfolds, reading: Will you be my girlfriend?

By now, some people have gathered and Sanghyuk pops up from the 2nd storey, his arms wide and wearing an even wider grin.

“Say yes!” Juri mouths to me, leaving me standing alone for people to stare at.

I don’t necessarily feel embarrassed or elated but a warm gush of feeling starts from the pit of my stomach and climbs up to heat and color my face. I’ve thought about coaxing out my silver aura again, but I was feeling numb and it was all too much—the slowly growing crowd, the rose petals and even the huge banner.

“Sanghyuk…” I mumble.

This isn’t supposed to happen. Not another one…

He rushes to my side. Holding a human sized stuffed animal that’s made to look like a gentle bear, for which I know bears are not gentle especially if you plan on taking their fur, and another rose.

“Princess, can I be your boyfriend?” He gives me an intense look as he offers the things in his hands.

He never looks at me like that, not that I know of. My throat felt parched and instantly my gaze falls on his face. I could almost hear Zoe squealing with delight and swaying her body like she’s in love. It’s bound to happen. She often reminds me.

“Are you serious?” My eyes search for Juri in the crowd but there were too much people, I couldn’t find a single familiar face, only the one in front of me and the expression on his face makes me feel like he is a stranger.

“Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”

I search the crowd again, this time searching for an answer. But I know deep down what the answer is, I just couldn’t be the bearer of bad news.

“No, Hyuk.” I bit my lip thinking of all the nice things he’s done for me and of course the way he looks at me now. He parts his lips to say something but he chokes and just presses his lips in a tight line.

“Why not?” His eyebrows furrows and he blows his cheeks up. Juri emerges from the crowd and grabs the flowers and s