The long awaited summer break came but quickly flew by. For some it was a productive month but for others it was day after day of doing nothing but lounging on the couch, either watching T.V. or roaming the net. Strangely enough, Minsun and Choa hadn’t seen Gummi all break and it was mostly because Gummi was working full time. The other reason why, that the twins didn’t know about, was that Gummi found herself to be swimming in guilt and regret.

Within the moment you can feel like you did the right thing, but a while after making a decision people tend to feel regretful about; like they overreacted and did a horrible sin. That’s exactly how Gummi was feeling about what she did to Ellin. Due to this guilt that was eating her up, she decided to get a full time job instead of a part time one in order to consume all of her time and take her mind off of things. It didn’t work too well though since some nights Gummi couldn’t even sleep. Coincidentally, the same thing was happening to Choa, except for her it was Soyul whom she was feeling guilty about.

“you guys are so cruel”

“you don’t even know anything”

Those words kept repeating in her head and Choa was beginning to think that she was too quick to judge the situation. The worst outcome of all of this was when Choa realized something, like a light bulb going off in her head. Her stomach knotted in guilt when she had this thought and she desperately tried to erase it. “What if Soyul had no choice but to ditch us? What if she was threatened to? What if she was protecting us?” But there was nothing Choa could do now, and she knew that so she decided to drown her guilt in ice cream and meaningless T.V. dramas.

As for the boys, Gongchan made it his mission to get Shinwoo and Jinyoung to be friends again. Gongchan didn’t know why he was going through all this effort, since quite frankly he didn’t like Jinyoung himself, but he remained naïve about how the five of them have to be on good terms since they went through high school together. After about 50 tries of forcing them to be in the same room together, they finally decided to make up, but it was the fakest reconciliation one could even imagine. Gongchan knew they still hated each other’s guts, but he thought that it could only get better from there.

And what about Ellin? She was nowhere to be found. Gummi went by her house once in secret, as well as the twins, but never did anyone answer. They all assumed she was out of the country to study abroad. At that point they decided they had to put all the stuff that happened in senior year behind them, in their minds that was the only way to move forward. But what they didn’t predict was that they would all be attending the same university, and therefore the hell ride still wasn’t over.

“Well…?” the vice principal asked, impatiently waiting for an answer. All he was met with were distracted, spaced out faces, not a single word or sound coming out of any of their mouths. The room was dead silent except for the tapping of the principles shoes that could be heard. “Wake up!” he yelled, slamming a textbook on his desk which brought the students’ minds back to reality.

“Holy that scared the crap out of me” Gummi cursed, putting her hand over her chest in fright. “You really have no shame,” the principle said, shaking his head at the mindless curses Gummi produced.

“I’m leaving, you can relay my punishment to my father” Jinyoung said irritated, his sudden trip to memory lane left him in an extremely bad mood. He stood up from his seat but was met with disapproval “Sit the hell down” the principle replied angrily, raising his eyebrows at Jinyoung as said student continued to just stand in front of his seat, pondering on whether or not he should listen to this figure of authority. Ellin also let out a short laugh.

“Are you not going to sit down? You think I care about who your father is?” the principle said impatiently. Jinyoung’s eyes shifted from side to side before he let out a sigh of defeat and sat back down in his seat.

“All ten of you will be punished, but not in the typical community service way. You see, that would be too easy and you’d all learn nothing from it. Plus, you ten doing community service individually wouldn’t solve anything” the ten of them all scrunched their faces in confusion and annoyance. They were all growing impatient and wanted the principle to just spit out what their real punishment was. “All ten of you are going to be punished together, in a way that’s going to force you to interact with each other in a civil manner” the principle continued, and at that point all ten of them began to moan in disgust.

“Are you kidding me? You might as well make me eat the dried up gum at the bottom of desks” Minsun said in misery.

The principle rolled his eyes at her comment and then continued to state what the punishment was “The Semi-formal dance committee is in desperate need of members. Students here are too busy studying to enroll themselves into extra curricular activities that aren’t tied with their major, which is something we’re trying to change. Do you see where this is going?” the students blankly stared at him, the sides of their mouths wrinkling in dissatisfaction while others bluntly let out a sigh. “You’re all going to join the committee as loyal helpers and by the end of the semester, I expect all ten of you to be present at the formal that you all so kindly helped organize” the vice principle smiled at the students while their faces only got more and more dissatisfied.

“This- this is way too much! All we did was yell at each other!” Jinyoung said in frustration. “I agree with this for once, this is absolutely impossible, especially since I hate dances, how can you expect me to organize one?” Choa complained, putting her hand on her forehead in frustration.

The principle shook his head, not budging even slightly “just yelling at each other? Miss Choa here was punched in the head and if I hadn’t interfered who knows whom else would have gotten hurt. Not only that, but do you know how many high ups are roaming the campus? This University is the most prestigious university in South Korea, you think I’m going to let you ten ruin that? It’s my job to keep things in order here,” he yelled, putting his foot down.

“I think it’s a good idea” someone suddenly said, all nine of them turned their heads to see who uttered such words.

Gongchan smiled as all of them stared at him “are you feeling alright” Baro asked, putting his hand on Gongchan’s forehead. “No seriously, I’m so sick of all of this fighting. I thought it was over but seeing as we’re all going to the same university? I cannot bear for a rehash of senior year for the next 4 years of my life!” Gongchan voiced. “Come on Gongchan, the university is huge, as if we’d run into them every day” Sandeul reasoned. “Really Sandeul? You think Jinyoung and Shinwoo are going to just simply attend their classes and then obediently go back to their dorms without bothering either Ellin or Choa, or even each other? The problem is with us five guys too you know!” Gongchan said, his voice raising the more he vented out his feelings.

The vice principal just sat and watched them fight since at least some progress was being made. “Gongchan-ah, I understand what you’re saying and I agree but, organizing a dance isn’t going to fix or heal anything” Ellin reasoned. Gongchan let out a deep sigh “I know that, and you’re probably right, but some things could heal. If even you 5 girls go back to being friends I’d be happy. What the heck happened to all of you? You were all unbreakable; don’t you want to go back to that? Have any of you even talked to Soyul to hear her out?” Gongchan retorted, making all of the girls look down, some in regret, others in mere avoidance. In Soyul’s case, she didn’t want the others to realize how watery her eyes had gotten.

“Fine, we’ll do this stupid dance committee thing” Gummi said, finally giving in.

The principle grinned, “as if you all had a choice. The committee meets two times a week. If any of you miss any of the meet-up days without a documented reason, the punishment will only get worse. Don’t underestimate me,” the vice principal warned.

“This ajussi must seriously has so much free time,” Minsun mumbled under her breath. “You’re all dismissed” he then said, signaling them all to get out of his office. They all let out a sigh relief at the sound of those words. They were all cramped in his office and the summer heat did not make it any better.

“I’m going to need to take a ing shower when I just took one 2 hours ago” Minsun grumbled. “I ing know right?” Gummi agreed.

“These girls still spit out swear words like it’s nothing” Sandeul commented, shaking his head at them. “Shh, before they hear you and beat you up” Baro joked.

Choa smiled as she watched Gummi and Minsun bicker again, she had undeniably missed it greatly. She didn’t even know how she survived such a lonely a summer without Gummi. Missing Ellin, on the other hand, was still something she was in denial about and the three of them consciously continued to ignore her. They knew that they wanted to just be close with her again, but it seemed too awkward and difficult to reconcile now. At that thought, Choa’s heart began to hurt again. Choa then looked up as Gummi called her name, but while doing so she met eyes with Shinwoo who was standing behind Gummi. Choa quickly and unnaturally shifted her eyes away. For some reason that one glance made her heart drop and she didn’t know why, she couldn’t say if she liked the feeling or not either. "He...he needs to fix his staring problems."

“Huh Choa?” Gummi repeated. “Wait, what?” Choa asked, lost. “Do you want to go get something to eat? Why are you so out of it?” Gummi laughed, lightly punching her friend’s shoulder. “I’m just…kind of dizzy from being cramped in that room for so long” Choa made up.

As Choa and her friends walked away, Shinwoo could tell something was off with her. Choa may have thought Shinwoo knew nothing about her, but he could easily sense something when they locked eyes. Or that’s at least what he convinced himself to believe “snap out of it, she hates you.”