Amber scrunched her eyebrows, not believing a single word the brown-haired girl had said. Her brain nerves were all tied up in knots about getting mistaken for a ert. I mean, I've only met her this morning. Her eyes fell on the girl's brown locks and then traveled lower down to her face where she found herself gazing into the eyes of the person who just had called her a ert out loud. Or did I?

    "I'm sorry, but I think you might have gotten me confused with someone else," Amber stated, still gazing into the girl's iris.

    Krystal herself scoffed after hearing that. "Sure, it was just another blonde idiot at the park last night."

    The park? Amber thought long and hard at the word, and then it crashed hard into her like a tsunami wave. Could it be?

    Breaking into what sounded like a laugh, Amber staggered back from where she was standing. She stared at the ground and then lifted her head up, looking Krystal straight in the eye. "You thought I was a , didn't you?"

    Amber laughed again, this time a little louder. "I knew it."

    Luna looked at Sulli and then at Key and Henry, hoping that they were understanding more than she was about what was going on but they too, had a puzzled look plastered over their faces. Krystal's glare at Amber had started to soften as she heard laughter erupting from the blonde. She was speechless, not knowing the right words to say to the laughing girl. 

    "Okay, okay. Obviously, there's some serious misunderstanding between the two of us," Amber explained when she finally found it in herself to stop annoying the rest with the sound of her laughter. She sat herself down on the bench and adjusted her position so could have a clear view of Krystal, and her eyes. "Last night," she paused, "last night I was just, trying to help."

    "Oh, come on, Ams. That's what they all say," Key said, earning him a side-way glance from his blonde-haired buddy.

    "Whose side are you on here, man?"

    "Whoever that is the victim and not a ert."

    A grunt escaped Amber's lips. "I told you, I am not a ert!"

    "It's true, Key. Hyung is definitely not a ert," Sulli interrupted, backing her poor friend up. She couldn't just let some new girl come in, not matter how pretty she was, and start throwing false accusations at one of her best friends since God-knows-when because unlike the rest of her friends who were doubting Amber's innocence right now, she knew for a fact that her blonde buddy was nothing less of an angel. She knew it and as a friend, she would like nothing more than to die trying to prove it.

    "Well, that wasn't how it looked like when he had his hands over mine," Krystal stated without any emotion.

    "What?" Amber asked.

    "Quit acting like you don't know what I'm talking about, ert."

    Now it was Amber's turn to turn completely speechless. How was it possible that her simple act of kindness and care led to one of the worse accusations of all times getting thrown at her? All she wanted was for the crying to girl to get up and go home because she didn't want to leave the park knowing that someone was so vulnerable to the worse things in life. All she wanted was for the girl to be alright, to be safe.

    Amber swallowed and looked into Krystal's eyes once again. Maybe she should try to explain herself?

    "Look, I was a little worried when I saw you alone at the park," Amber started, never taking her eyes of Krystal's, "After your convo on the phone, I saw you on the ground and you were, like, cr-"

    Her sentence hung in the air when she saw Krystal's face gave a slight twitch of emotion at the word she was about to say. Amber frowned, unsure whether she should carry on. She didn't want to be the bad guy here even though she was kind of being thought of as one right now, but that didn't matter because she still didn't want to be the reason behind people's sorrow. She didn't want anybody to ever feel bad about themselves because of her existence. That was her line, her limit. Something that could never and should never be crossed.

    She took a quick and inconspicuous glance at her friends before making the next move, praying to the God above that it was the right one.

    "Like I said, I was trying to help. If I had known that busybodies were usually branded as erts, I would've given it a second thought," Amber continued, resting her chin on her hand and feeling more relaxed now that she was satisfied with her explanation, or semi-explanation. Okay, maybe like a quarter explanation.

    "And it's not like I'm interested in girls or anything." She added, not knowing why she had to explain that part to her friends, but she did.

    Although not obvious, Amber could see Krystal give a double-take from the corner of her eye. The edge of her lips curled into her smile, knowing fully well that she had successfully proven her innocence and had finally put an end to this pointless argument. Reaching into her backpack, she took out her lunch box and started forking away all the tomatoes in her salad.

    "So, you're gay?"

    Henry choked on his sandwich, Sulli immediately burst into laughter, Luna mouthed WHAT at Key, then started laughing herself. Amber stabbed into one of the tomatoes.

    "Hell no. Don't be looking at me like that, girlfriend," Key wiggled his index finger and shook his head at Krystal, who was glancing from him to Amber, "Me and him are not exclusive. Firstly, I have standards. Secondly, he who is sitting there, is in fact a she that you have mistaken for a he but is actually a she."

    Key turned his head towards Amber and shivered. He couldn't imagine dating Amber. No, not even in a million years. Even if hell had frozen over and for some absurd reason, he found himself somehow attracted to Amber, he would haul himself over the Grand Canyon before those thoughts about Amber invaded his mind.

    Henry wiped the smudged mustard off his face and gave a slight flick at Key's head. "What Key is trying to say," he explained, "is that Amber here, is a girl."

    Frowning, Krystal looked over to Amber. She stared intently at her, letting her eyes roam around the latter's face and taking in all the details about her facial features. Then, she checked out her body. Amber was in blue-colored Vans hoodie that had its sleeves rolled up to her elbows, exposing her rather thin and feminine-looking lower arm. The skin on her hand looked soft and smooth, her fingers were long and slender. Amber was seated, with her legs underneath the round table, but Krystal could tell that her legs too were long and slim though they were probably well hidden underneath her loose jeans. 

    Krystal's eyes moved up to Amber's face. Without realizing it, she had both her eyes glued to the sight of the blonde's lips and they stayed there longer than needed. Dead giveaway right there.

    "Convinced yet?" Key asked out of nowhere and Krystal embarrassingly tore her gaze away from Amber's pair of lips.

    "Eyy, it's not a big deal. Amber gets mistaken for a guy a lot, so it's normal. I don't call him 'hyung' for nothing, right?" Sulli smiled at Krystal, "I'm Sulli, by the way." She waved enthusiastically at the brown-haired girl.

    Krystal bowed, "I'm Krystal. Nice to meet you."

    "And I'm Henry, this is Key. You know Luna and-" Henry winced in pain as he got slapped by Key on his arm.

    "We can introduce ourselves, you idiot." He beamed at Henry and then faced Krystal, "Hello there, I'm Key, the fashionable one of the group."

    "He is also Key, the gay as in not-in-a-happy-way-gay of the group," Henry added.

    "No shame, people, no shame," Key snapped his fingers.

    "Yeah, so this is pretty much everyone," Luna motioned to her friends, "You should sit and eat with us."

    Krystal bit her lip, "Thanks, but I actually-"

    "Oh, no you don't," Key shot up and pulled Krystal by the arm to his seat. With both his hands on her shoulder, he pushed her down and made her sit. "You're sitting with us today and hopefully for the rest of the school year." He then told Henry to scoot further to his side of the table so he could sit.

    Sulli leaned closer to Krystal and smiled, "You'll get used to him."

    "Yes, me and my fabulous ways."

    "Oh, put a sock in it Key. Nobody cares about you and your queer-" Henry yelled in pain again as Key pushed him off his seat. He groaned as he picked himself up from the floor.

    "Again, something you'll get used to," Sulli said.

    Krystal nodded. She let her head stay down as she didn't exactly feel comfortable around her new acquaintances. She hadn't plan to have so much conversation in a day, let alone befriend a group of loud, violent but extremely friendly people.

   The Henry and Key commotion died down and everyone got back to what they were doing before, but putting in extra effort to include the new girl in their conversation. They went from the usual high school gossip to Taylor Swift's latest boy toy to Krystal's behind-the-scenes story. Everyone was interested in the transfer student, curious about her old life back in the States. They kept shooting her questions, some random and some personal. ​Krystal didn't really talk much about it, having issues with her privacy and all. She responded to the ones she needed to and brushed off the rest that were getting on her nerves but she was careful not to offend any one of her newfound friends with her somewhat chilly attitude when it came to her little introduction about herself.

    The table was filled with eager voices of teenagers who were trying their best to find out what they can about the new girl. Everyone, but Amber.

    "Somebody's quiet today." Henry stated, raising one of his eyebrows.

    Everyone looked over to Amber who was stuck in a daze in her own little world, uncaring about anything outside the realms of her subconscious.

    "Yo, dude." Henry threw a napkin at Amber's way but she just carried on with her staring at God-knows-what.

    "What's up with her?" Key asked.

    "Who knows? Being rude isn't exactly her for forte, especially not with someone new around," Sulli shrugged.

    Luna nodded her head and then turned to Krystal, "Don't mind her, Soo-Jung. She's having one of her 'I-Want-To-Be-Alone' moments.

    The familiar sound of the name pulled Amber out of her own little world where she was busily occupied at staring at a certain brown-haired girl, but of course she had made sure that no one knew where her line of sight ended up at.

    "Soo-Jung?" she asked.

    "Ah, she speaks!" Key exclaimed, "Now you're interested in talking?"

    "What?"

    "What do you mean 'what'? What's up with you today?" Key beamed.

    Amber shrugged and propped her elbow on the table. She rested her head onto her palm, "First-day-of-school blues, I guess."

    "First-day-of-school blues," Henry mused, making a ghost face at Amber.

    "How mature," Amber chuckled.

    Sulli drummed her fingers on the table, squinting her eyes at Amber suspiciously. "Seriously though, you've been oddly quiet, hyung."

    "Well, I'm talking now, aren't I?" Amber smiled, then shifted her eyes to Krystal, "So, Soo-Jung?"

    Krystal was surprised that Amber had spoken up and talked to her; Amber who have been disturbingly quiet the whole time after Key sat her down on the table and demanded her to fill them in on her life's journey. Although a big part of her was relieved that the tomboy had stayed silent the whole time because she didn't think she'd have the patience and grace to deal with the ert who tried to get away with what she almost did to her the night before, but she'd be a lying bastard if she said that she wasn't a little disappointed at her failure to get everyone talking about her. Back home, Krystal was always the center of attention, the diamond of the group. All eyes were on her 24/7; boys would sell their soul to get her attention and girls would sell their shoes to hang out with her for a day. Who would've thought that an Asian would made it so big in an American high school, but Krystal was deemed exotic and everyone had wanted to get into her pants. Now, it seemed like she hadn't exactly lost her touch even with this group of Koreans, but this one blonde was an exception. Krystal was baffled at the thought of not being able to captivate everyone since she was so used to being worshipped. She wouldn't let this pass although she had promised herself to turn on a new leaf. Nobody should ever be immune to her Krystal-ness. Yes, she had to make things right.

    "That's my Korean name. Krystal's what everyone calls me and is what I liked to be called, so," she explained cooly, trying to send some chills up the tomboy's spine. 

    "Huh," Amber nodded, seemingly deep in thought. She sat back, brought her hand to her face and started drumming her fingers on it, ignoring everyone else once again.

    "There she goes again, back to her own mental world," Luna said as she popped a tiny cheese cube into , "I swear she has the weirdest mood swings."

    Krystal scoffed silently at that. If anyone had weird and totally off-the-charts mood swings, it would be her. She was the princess of mood swings; no, she was the queen of mood swings. Convinced that feelings shouldn't be held back, she just let her body and mind do what they want when they feel like it. When she was bored, she made sure that everyone knew she was bored. When she was angry, her face became a warning sign that everyone heeded and if they didn't, well, she wouldn't be held responsible to whatever happens to the person, especially in the self-esteem area. Krystal wasn't known to be nicest and most considerate person on earth.

    "That's weird because Amber usually has excellent control over her facial expressions, but look at her," Key laughed as he looked over to Amber's direction, "she looks even more like a llama now. Oh Amber, Amber."

    The table burst into laughter, seeing the blonde with slightly open and eyes blank as they stared into the space in front of her. 

    Wait, Amber?

    Krystal's face remained emotionless as she recalled back to the lost school schedule she had picked up this morning. Rolling her eyes, she shook her head at the thought of the idiotic and careless senior who had dropped her book. She glanced over at the person whom her friends had called a 'llama'.

    So, the ert's not only a ert but is also a moron with a face of a llama.

    Amber Josephine Liu, what kind of idiot are you?

A/N okay umm that was pretty bleh. I'm not even sure i know what i'm writing here. I'm sorry it's a little jumbled up and stuff, with their thoughts and all. And i'm sorry if i made Krystal sound like a total air-head but it's part of something bigger that will be revealed later on. Yep, just think of it as her unique shield of protection. Wow, writing this is pretty hard like, pretty-really-extremely hard, I don't know how some of you do it so well. Respect, yo. Okay i hope this doesn't get too boring for you guys. If it does or if you have any comments or opinions about the story so far, please leave a comment. I feel like i'm doing really ty at this haha okay peace.