I felt like my eyes and body were glued; stuck to that spot. Even when the rest of the class started to look at me, I couldn’t move. I faintly remember hearing the classroom’s back door slide open and shortly after, a hand grabbed my wrist and forcefully drug me out of the room. I barely registered that it was Jimin. My mind and senses felt blank as my feet somehow moved to keep up with him.

“What’s going on?” Ms. Jun said stopping us outside the classroom door.

“Someone wrote rude things about Aila all over the chalkboard,” Jimin said, looking furious, “They wrote on her desk and ruined her textbooks too.”

Ms. Jun looked surprised and worried. “You two stay out here, I’ll handle this.”

Jimin nodded to her. “Gwaenchanhayo (are you okay)?” he asked, standing in front of me.

I had been staring at the floor as it started to blur. When I looked up at him, my face was still blank, but the tears were rolling down my cheeks.

He froze for a minute. “It’s okay,” he said awkwardly. He put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. None of them know what really happened anyhow.”

I nodded, but I was still crying.

“Aila, gwaenchanhayo?” Hyosung said, suddenly coming out of the classroom. She looked at Jimin. “I’ll stay with her. You can go.”

He hesitated but finally just nodded and went back into the classroom.

“Let’s go wash your face, okay?” Hyosung said, putting her arm around my shoulders gently.

I just nodded. When I faced my reflection in the mirror, I saw that my eyes somehow weren’t puffy. I took the chance to take a deep breath and push the thoughts out of my head. I carefully wiped the tears off of my cheeks with a paper towel and I fixed the bow-tie on my uniform. “Alright,” I said finally, “let’s go back.”

Hyosung looked surprised, “Are you sure?”

I nodded.

When we came back into the classroom, everyone turned around and looked at me. I just ignored them and walked to my desk. Someone had already cleaned up the mess and switched my desk out with a different one.

Even though I tried my hardest, I couldn’t help but overhear the gossip going on around me.

“I hear she seduced Mr. Shin,” one girl said.

“Poor guy,” another girl replied, “he gets all the blame for a girl like her being so easy.” I recognized her as the girl before who had made fun of me. I found out her name was Sunny.

I tried my best to focus on Ms. Jun instead of them, but it wasn’t working. Suddenly Jimin slipped a note on my desk. I picked it up and read, Want to listen? I turned around and he was holding up a pair of earphones. I just nodded. He handed me them to me along with his ipod. I stuck the earbuds in and let his music drown out all the noise around me and in my head.

“How did anyone find out?” Taehyung said, crossing his arms.

“Besides us, who else knew?” Hoseok asked.

We had all met in the dance club room after school, but somehow we had only talked about what happened earlier. “Krystal, Elly, and Hyosung,” I said, “but none of them would have said anything.”

“I agree,” Jin said, “maybe someone else overheard a conversation about it?”

“Maybe,” I said, “there’s no point about talking about it anymore. Let’s start our club meeting.”

“Okay,” Jungkook said, “but if anyone bothers you again, noona, we’ll help you. So please tell us if something happens.”

I nodded and smiled faintly. “Arasseo (got it).”

“What should our song for the competition be about?” Jungkook asked, thankfully changing the subject.

“Geulsseyo (well)... it should be something that explains who we are,” Hoseok said.

“Ye,” I agreed, “but people don’t know you at all yet… we need to work at establishing a fan base.”

Jimin looked at the floor in thought for a minute and then he suddenly looked at me with childlike excitement. “You are right! And I know just how to do it!”

Notes:

Hey guys. I appolgize for how short this is...  I'm not having the greatest day :( But I really wanted to update for all of you since the last chapter ended on such a horrible note XP Hopefully I will be able to write more on the next chapter. It may take a bit longer though; I want to think a bit about where I want to go next. 

Thanks again for reading!

~ Serin ~