"So, what do I do if she talks to me first?"

    "Well, has that ever happened?"

    "No, but you never know, you know?"

    "Right, okay. If she talks to you, you ignore her or just shrug her off."

    "How the hell am I supposed to do that?"

    "Turn away. Talk to other people. Fly a kite. Amber, it doesn't matter what you do as long as you don't do it with her."

    Amber blinked away the recent memory of the conversation between her and Key. She took a bite off her cheeseburger and starred off into space, which had become a daily habit of hers ever since she and her two friends came up with either the most brilliant or dumbest plan ever to hopefully win over Krystal's attention. As middle school as the whole thing sounded, it might just work. That is, according to all the romance novels and films Key had read and watched.

    "I've done my research. Trust me, this is going to work. Clichés never fail!"

    Krystal who sat next to Amber was silently eating from her bento box she brought to school. She chewed with her head low and was most likely to stay in that posture until someone talked to her, that someone usually being Amber. But not this time.

    Amber's mind drifted and she couldn't help but wonder if she was doing the right thing. Yes, she was having second thoughts. Who wouldn't? It felt like she was in a game of some sort, toying with Krystal's feelings, but she needed to do this. As Key had told her, this could be her only chance at getting Krystal to see her not just as a living matter, but a living matter that mattered. But Jesus, was it ever so hard to ignore someone like her. More than once, Amber had found herself unconsciously staring at the sophomore's direction. Even when she wasn't really staring, her head would just automatically find its way to Krystal's round-shaped face and brown, wavy locks. She didn't know when had her eyes become a piece of scrap metal and Krystal, a magnet with its electromagnetism turned up to its maximum power. She found it nearly impossible to not turn over and stare, or to look away when she realized what and whom she had been staring at. Luck was with her whenever she realized that she was in creeper-mode because then she'd snap out of whatever trance she was in and pretended to look like she hadn't been gazing at a certain dark-haired sophomore for a half hour or so to avoid rising any unwanted suspicions from her friends.

    "Amber." A harsh whisper from somewhere around the table was heard.

    "Amber." There it was again.

    The blonde slowly turned her head over to the right but her eyes remained unmoving from its previous target. "Hmm?" She hummed without looking at whoever the voice belonged to. I wonder how long does it take to wash her hair? It looks pretty lengthy so I'm guessing like, 10 minutes? But she might-

    "Hey, ow!" A slap on the arm gave Amber no other option but to turn her whole body over to the right and change the course of her undivided attention, or what's left of her undivided attention. "What?" She asked, half-annoyed, half-still-dazed from waking up from her Krystal-staring-slumber.

    "Have you forgotten about the thing we talked about?"

    "What thing?"

    "The Krystal thing."

    "What Krystal th​-" A hand squeezed both sides of Amber's cheeks, applying just enough pressure to bring her back from whichever planet she was on. The hand moved Amber's head towards its owner's direction.

    Key made sure he and Amber were on the same eye-level before he started glaring murderously into her eyes. "What's wrong with you?" Amber whispered as the two of them locked eyes.

    "What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you?" Key asked back quietly, with his hands still in contact with Amber's face. "You should be ignoring her right now, not drooling over her like she's Aphrodite," he continued, squeezing Amber's cheeks a little harder than before.

    Amber shifted and tried to get her face out of Key's grip, but to no avail. "What? I am ignoring her," she argued, attempting to look away from Key.

    "My friend, you and I have very different takes on the word 'ignore'," Key chuckled slightly, "But for our plan to succeed, you might want to cut down on the crazy-fan staring."

    "I wasn't staring, jeez," Amber pulled Key's sanitized hands off her face and went back to munching on her American lunch.

    With puckered lips, Key scoffed at her friend's stubbornness. Well, someone's in denial, he thought to himself as he stared at Amber trying to focus on everywhere else but Krystal. Amber wasn't talking to anyone. Krystal wasn't talking to anyone. They were both buried neck-deep in their lunch boxes. Noticing that Amber's posture and body language emitted an unnatural vibe, making it nothing less than obvious that she was trying very hard to ignore the dark-haired sophomore, he leaned nearer to her and whispered a few words of assistance to help her get out of her rather awkward situation. If the two of them kept up with their current situation, it wouldn't be long before Luna or Sulli come to a conclusion that something was off among their group of friends and start asking questions.

    "Don't just sit there and munch away. Talk," Key had said into Amber's ear. With that, Amber's head had almost automatically turned towards Krystal's way if it wasn't for Key's fast reflexes, who in lighting speed, gave the blonde's head a light smack. "To anyone else but her!"

    Grinning sheepishly for her almost-mistake, Amber slowly got up and made her way around the table to strike up a conversation with Luna and Sulli. She squeezed herself in between the duo and listened in to whatever they were talking about. She would occasionally find her eyes drawn towards a particular lonely figure eating quietly at the opposite side of the table, but would stop to laugh or voice out her opinions to Luna and Sulli when she realized what she was about to do.

    "So, Mr. Lee was like, 'I told you people to complete it and yet you still waltz into my class empty-handed and empty-minded, bunch of uneducated rodents,' and then the rest of the class went bezerk because he called us 'uneducated rodents'," Sulli said as she popped a strawberry into , "Vere gno angechucated woedens."

    "Swallow," Luna directed towards the cheerful senior who looked partially annoyed and amused at her teacher's insulting statement. Sulli chewed vigorously, swallowed then opened up to show that there was nothing left in there. With a satisfied smile on her face, Luna gave a nod, motioning for the younger of the three to continue.

    "We're not uneducated rodents," she said again, this time with a clear voice, "he's just old and grumpy 'cause he hasn't gotten a single lady friend to have fun with since the last world war."

    "You mean he hasn't gotten laid, " Henry voiced out from the other side of the table, which earned him an eye-rolling from Key.

    "Exactly! That's why he's so gloomy and man-y all the time!" Sulli replied, ing her hands into the air. She shook her head and reached for another strawberry from her lunch box.

    "Well, duh, Ssul. No one's gonna date him if he keeps smelling like that," Luna said and everyone nodded their head in agreement.

    "How does he smell like?" The voice was immediately recognized by Amber. She clenched her teeth tightly and a frown took its formation as she did everything she could to refrain herself from jumping in front of Krystal and describe to her in a hundred different ways how Mr. Lee stunk.

    "Our beloved and most respected Mr. Lee has a very reputable name in the school, you see," Key replied quickly after noticing Amber's slight change of expression though she tried to hide it, "By smelling like a mixture of garbage, oil and gasoline, he has rightfully earned himself the name 'Durian King'."

    "'Durian King'?" Amber heard Krystal ask.

    "Yes, you know what durians are, right?" Key asked. Amber assumed Krystal had shaken her head 'no' because Key went on to introduce the so-called 'King of Fruits'. "Durians, are a type of fruit with a particularly strong odor and taste. During one of our school trips to the Gamcheon Culture Village, we stumbled upon this large fruit and was given the opportunity to have a taste of it 'cause apparently, they weren't as popular here compared to other Asian countries, so everyone was passing it around and eating it. Although most of us were disgusted by the taste and smell of the fruit, none of us said anything 'cause it was sorta rude, you know? So, we ate what we were given and didn't say a word until we reached the bus and someone said, "I feel like I've just ingested Lee Hyun-Dae(Mr. Lee)" and the name stuck."

    The group erupted into laughter as they recalled back to the memory they shared a few years back. Poor Mr. Lee, he never did find out about the nickname his students gave him as he continued strutting down the halls all these years with his chin held high, proudly letting the school and its students bask in his puke-worthy fruity aroma.

    Somewhere during their laughing session, Sulli had kicked Amber off her seat and snuggled closer to Luna as they carried on making fun of their foul-smelling teacher. Amber after getting shipped back out into the open, reluctantly moved back to her previous seat at the table, right in between Key and Krystal. She sat down slowly and almost carefully, not wanting to bother Krystal or give her a reason to make up a conversation.

    Biting lightly into her still-unfinished cheeseburger, Amber was just about to turn towards Key to avoid herself from creating any Krystal-And-Amber scenarios when she heard a monotonous, yet sort of angelic voice from her left ask her, "So, you're not a Durian fan?"

    Other than suffering from a possible minor heart-attack, the rest of Amber's body parts seemed to have come to a sudden malfunction as well. The saliva she had swallowed nanoseconds before hearing Krystal talk felt like it was stuck halfway in her oesophagus and instead of making its rightful way downwards, Amber was trying really hard to keep it from coming back up along with that double cheeseburger. 

    In slow-motion, Amber turned her head towards Krystal's way as she tried her best not to blow her composure. If her face looked anything like how her heart would look like if it had a face right now, Key would most definitely have her head for supper. Gotta keep my cool, gotta keep my cool.

    Breathe. 

    In comes the oxygen, out goes the carbon dioxide.

    She could almost see Krystal's brown hair now and in a few more seconds, her face would be positioned right in front of Krystal's. Yes, this face would soon be staring into Krystal's face.

    "No," Amber said after what felt like a lifetime. Krystal's nose was now in her field of vision.

    Conceal, don't feel.

    "No, I'm not," she managed to croak out without sounding like an asthmatic child. She hadn't forgotten about Key's flaring nose and their plan, but manners weren't something to joke about because she hated rude people. When people ask you a question, you answer them. Then, you may run. 

    "I've never had--"

    With one strap of her backpack on her shoulder, Amber stood up, cutting Krystal off. "Well, would you look at the time. Chemistry's coming up and there are chemicals in the lab to be sorted, so ciao, people!"

    She quickly walked away from the table and headed straight towards the cafeteria exit without her usual goodbye-wave to her friends. She pushed open the metal doors with her palms, finally exiting the student-filled room to arrive in an empty, abandoned hallway with nothing but lockers and the occasional visits from the janitors as company.

    She continued her merry way down the hall until the cafeteria doors closed. Once she heard the loud 'clank' of the metal doors, she slumped herself towards the lockers to her right, putting all her body weight onto the steel compartment behind her back. What am I doing, she asked herself. There wasn't any need for her to leave the cafeteria just to ignore the brown-haired sophomore, no need at all, but why, oh why, did it feel so hard to turn away from a conversation with her?

    Amber took her sudden leave because she knew that if she had stayed in a room with Krystal talking to her, urging her to participate in a conversation with her any longer, her head would explode and her heart would end up on the dirty cafeteria floor after falling out of her thin chest. Key had made it sound so easy, "Oh, just ignore her. Brush her off. Look away", but to Amber it was as if she was on a mission to climb up the side of Burj Khalifa(tallest building in the world: 830m) in a pair of flip flops and nothing more. To say that ignoring Krystal was the hardest thing she had done in her life would be quite the understatement.

    But why is it so hard for me to ignore her? Why can't I just shove a glare down and then walk away like a badass?

    What the hell am I doing? What the hell is this?

    Amber reached up to ruffle her own hair in frustration, causing some of it to stick up at the weirdest angle but she couldn't have cared less about how she looked right now. This is crazy, she thought, I'm crazy for wasting my time with someone like her.

    SO, WHY AM I STILL HERE SULKING OVER THOUGHTS OF HER? WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY--

    One of the metal doors behind Amber opened and was soon followed by the sound of footsteps. Amber immediately jolted up and straighten her back. Crap, crap, crap. Can't let anyone see me looking like this. Hoping to hide away her frustrated appearance, she quickly turned around so her back would be facing whoever that walked into the hall. Without a second to lose, her legs started moving in the opposite direction of the cafeteria doors. She hoped that whoever it was, it wasn't somebody she knew because it would've been impossible for her to talk to anyone right now with a straight face, not when she was so preoccupied with wanting to beat the living daylights out of herself for not being able to figure out the simplest things, for not knowing what exactly was she feeling.

    "Hey! Where are you going?" The voice came from behind Amber and before long she heard the footsteps increase its pace and the presence of another human being nearing towards her. Lady, I'm in no mood to respond to you right now, so please leave. Not letting it distract her from wanting to leave the halls, she pretended to be oblivious and she continued walking. If I don't acknowledge her, maybe she'd go away.

    "Hey! I'm talking to you!" Or maybe not.

    Should I turn around?

    "Will you stop speed-walking? I'm trying to talk to you here."

    Nope, no, definitely should just stick to the original plan. I'm leaving, I'm leaving, I'm walking out of here, there will be no talking.

    "Hey!" An outstretched arm came and pulled Amber's hoodie from behind. In one short second, she was yanked backwards and suffered her second heart-attack of the day.

    Preparing to shock the bastard with one of her rarely-seen glares, she whirled her head towards the direction of the culprit. "What?" She semi-shouted out of annoyance now that her plan to escape was interrupted, but to her utter horror, staring back at her were the eyes of the person she was desperately trying to avoid the most.

    "Did you not hear me yelling after you or were you just being an ?" Krystal beamed at the wide-eyed blonde who, unbeknownst to her, had yet again suffer another cardiac arrest.

    Amber held on to her chest, where her heart was supposedly at as she continued staring at the figure in front of her with agape. It was truly a relief to feel her heart still doing its regular pumps but there was something odd about it. Why the heck is it beating so fast?

    She quickly covered with one of her hands and gasped silently. Oh my God, am I dying? Is this...is this the end?

    "Hello, earth to Amber?" Krystal called, snapping her fingers, "What are you up to?"

    Trying to get over the shock of her possibly dying on school grounds, she tilted her head up to look at Krystal, but almost immediately shifted her eyes away. Crap, it's actually her. Okay, she's talking to me. I should say something back, but wait, I can't do that 'cause I'm supposed to be giving her hell right now, like an icy version of hell. Oh god, what do I do?

    She glanced over at Krystal again and caught the sophomore staring daggers at her, probably getting impatient with her silent attitude. But she doesn't understand, I'm supposed to be silent.

     "You know," Krystal began to say without taking her eyes off her blonde senior.

    Oh no, she's talking again. Don't talk. Don't move your lips. Don't, argh, those lips.

    Wait.

    What?

    "What do you want?" Amber let the words slip from even though she knew Krystal probably had something else to say. She just couldn't handle being alone with her own thoughts right now.

    Krystal shifted back a little, surprised by the blonde's tone. Amber's reply came off sounding annoyed, angry even and this was new to Krystal because all this while she was the one dominating the tone whereas her blonde senior would play the lost puppy, always eager to engage in a conversation with her. Did she do something wrong?

    "Um," the brown-haired girl was searching for something to say, something that would help divert the mood of their conversation into something else, something less negative. "Um," she moved her arm a little, "oh, your bottle. You left it at the table just now." Krystal brought her hand up and there it was, Amber's blue-colored Nike sports bottle, in the delicate hand of the sophomore​.

    With an outstretched arm, she motioned for Amber to retrieve it. The blonde stared at the bottle with a face of masked expression that gave people the idea that she was ridiculously pissed. Little did Krystal know, it was all for show. Behind the curtains was Amber tugging at the strings to make her eyebrows form into the shape of a curve and turn up the level of intensity in her eyes.

    "Thanks," Amber muttered, trying to make her voice sound quieter than usual. Fearing that her voice would start to shake and crack up if she stayed and continued talking to Krystal, she spun her body around and readied herself to walk away.

    Taken aback by the fact that Amber was going to leave, Krystal quickly ped to say something, anything to get the blonde to stay. "Hey, is everything okay?" She asked, putting a rather shaky hand on Amber's shoulder.

    Well, crap. Why'd you do that for?

    Amber who was growing more and more aware of the hand that was just a layer of cloth away from coming in contact with her skin, struggled to ignore the rapid beating of her heart. She needed to keep this cold facade up and Krystal obviously, was not making this any easier.

    With the last remaining will in her, Amber shrugged Krystal's hand away and left her standing alone in the empty hallway after monotonously replying her two short words, "just fine." She trudged on without turning or looking back although she was practically dying to. She was worried about the way she had acted towards Krystal, if she was a little too harsh on the sophomore, but what's done is done. There were only two ways this thing can go from here.

    But Amber wasn't really sure how she wanted things to play out from then on because she realized now, she had another problem at hand. Another puzzle to be solved.

    She needed to know what was happening to her, why she felt like she needed a buttload of aspirins to survive the hours in the presence of the dark-haired sophomore.

    Why my heart just goes bat-crazy whenever you're around.

A/N oh man, the last part was so corny ahaha sorry for the grammatical and spelling errors. hope i didn't disappoint :]