The room fell silent.

    “Chen, what the heck?”

    “What, I’m trying to be the heroic person in the dramas!”

Sun-mi couldn’t breathe. She felt suffocated. With Chen wrapped around her and all the attention on her, she couldn’t think anymore. Her head was spinning and her heart was pounding and she needed to get away from there before--

“Sun-mi!”

The laughter in the room stopped immediately and sounds of chairs being pushed back filled the room when they saw Sun-mi suddenly collapsed in the arms of Chen. All the boys in the room rushed to where they were standing.

“Omo! What happened?!”

“What do we do?!”

“Sun-mi!”

“Do we call the cops?!”

“No, call the paramedics!”

“MY ARMS! SHE’S HEAVY!”

“Chen get it together!”

“EVERYBODY JUST CALM DOWN!” All the boys in the room looked around to see who was speaking but there was no one. They were all confused and scared.

“Suho hyung?” Chanyeol asked in a shaky voice.

“Dear god he became a ghost.”

“Suho hyung, I’m sorry for being so mean to you in the past years please don’t haunt me.”

“SUHOOOOOOOOO!”

“We’re dead. We’re all dead.”

“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD KRIS CAN YOU PLEASE STEP ASIDE!” Kris squinted his eyes, suspicious of the Suho Spirit’s request but in fear he stepped to the left and with that appeared an irritated Suho right behind him.

“HE LIVES!”

“JOONMYEON!” Chen ran towards his not dead friend, throwing an unconscious Sun-mi into Kai’s arms. “HYUNG I MISSED YOU!”

“Chen, get off me. Kai, let Sun-mi lay down but don’t let her head touch the ground. Chanyeol, go soak a towel in cold water and bring it back. Baekhyun, stop taking pictures of her while she’s unconscious, it’s rude. And Lay, don’t walk in circles like that, it’ll hurt your brain.”

Lay stop walking and scratched the back of his head.

“I lost my keys.” He said. Suho sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Lay, none of us have cars.”

“...Oh yeah…”

Kai laid Sun-mi’s head on his lap and Chanyeol came in the room holding a damp towel in his hand.

“Is it just me or is this deja vu right now?”

“Chanyeol, just give me the towel.”

“No! I wanna do it!” Chanyeol pouted and kneeled down so he was close to Sun-mi. He reached out the towel towards her forehead but before he could make any sort of skinship, a shadow suddenly loomed over Chanyeol.

“What the…” Baekhyun did a somersault in mid-air and grabbed the towel straight from Chanyeol’s hands. He spun once more and landed perfectly on his two feet. On the side, Xiumin pulled out a posterboard with the number 9 on it. Chen held up the number 10, Tao 10, Kris 9, and Sehun 7. Baekhyun gasped.

“WHAT?! A SEVEN?!” He shouted. Sehun shrugged.

“I’m a hard man to please.”

“OH I’LL SHOW YOU HARD TO PLEASE!” Baekhyun started chasing Sehun around the whole restaurant. Kyungsoo came out holding another towel.

“I knew this would happen.”

“Thanks Kyungsoo!” While Kyungsoo muttered “Don’t call me that.” ,Chanyeol took the towel from him and then turning around to put the towel on Sun-mi’s forehead. As his fingertips brushed against her temples, you can almost hear the loud beating of Chanyeol’s heart (and Baekhyun crying in the background).

After all the craziness settled down, the boys sat around, some on the floor and some sitting in the chairs of the cafe. They were all either silently watching Sun-mi, on their phone, eating, or sleeping (Lay).

“This is her second time, isn’t it?” Chanyeol asked frowning.

“I wonder why though…” Kai mumbled but the members heard it.

Sitting in the distance was Luhan who was on his phone but was listening regardless. His eyes looked up from his phone for a second then went back to scrolling. Second time? How careless is this potato? Tch.

“Maybe she has high blood pressure or something.” Kris suggested.

“Like Suho hyung! Haha! Right hyung?” Baekhyun laughed.

“Save me.” Suho laid sprawled out on the floor, tired from the chaos that happened paragraphs ago.

Sehun was sitting on the side drinking banana milk, watching his friends try to solve the mystery behind Sun-mi’s fall. He started thinking to himself. Did that have to do with her problem…? Chen was getting a little close there...  Sehun turned his head to look over at Chen.

“I’m so fancy~ You already know~” Chen sang. Sehun sighed because he knew that his hyungs would never be able to find out the real reason behind this. There was no hope on depending on them to figure it out. It was all up to Sehun.

“I know why.” He said. Everybody in the room stopped what they were doing. Chen stopped singing and Lay (who choked on his snore) woke up and looked at Sehun with a surprised face.

"Why?" Chanyeol asked.

Sehun leaned closer towards his friends.

“Do you really want to know?” He asked in a quiet tone.

“Um, yeah. That’s why we asked in the first place.” Kai said. Sehun leaned back into his seat and put his hands behind his head.

“It’s pretty simple to be honest with you.” All the boys looked at Sehun with a confused face.

“You see, the first time she fainted was in this very room. The second time? This room as well. Now, if I am correct, when Sun-mi first entered the cafe, Kai approached her, right?”

“Yeah, because she was a customer.” Kai said, intrigued by where Sehun was going.

“And if I’m still correct, she fainted right after you welcomed her in, right?” While Sehun was asking, he started opening another bottle of banana milk.

“Yeah, didn’t she faint because Kai was so good looking she couldn’t handle it?” Chen asked.

“Wasn’t she the third person that passed out that day?” Xiumin added.

“No and yes. Now, think of today. What happened right before Sun-mi fainted?” Sehun continued.

“OH! OH! I KNOW! Luhan called her a potato!” Lay said. Sehun frowned.

“No, after that.”

“Sun-mi fainted!” Kris shouted from across the room.

“No…”

“I spilled my hot chocolate!”

“I got up to Level 6 on Flappy Birds!”

“Suho checked his blood pressure!”

“Baekhyun took a secret picture of Chanyeol!” Tao said. Everyone in the room got quiet. Chanyeol looked at Baekhyun with a confused (and slightly scared) face.

“What?”

“TAO, YOU IDIOT! STOP EXPOSING ME!” Baekhyun was about to lunge forward at Tao when Suho and Kyungsoo forced Baekhyun to stay seated. Sehun squinted at his hyungs.

“Anyways…all those things may have happened, but that’s not the important part. Chen hugged Sun-mi, remember?” Throughout the room Sehun heard a bunch of “oh”s and “i knew that”s. Sehun sighed.

“Okay, but what does that have to do with the first encounter?” Chanyeol asked.

“You guys don’t get it, do you?” Everybody in the room shook their heads. “She obviously has a problem with Kai talking to her and Chen hugging her.”

“And that problem is?...” Suho said. Sehun motioned for them to come closer, no closer! As most of them got as close as they can to Sehun, he whispered,

“She’s afraid of boys.”

Multiple gasps were heard around the room and Sehun nodded his head.

“Whoah, whoah, whoah! Let’s not get carried away. I don’t think she’s afraid of us! Maybe’s she’s just shy! Plus, how do we know that we can trust Sehun?” Suho spoke. Sehun shrugged.

“Fine, don’t trust me. But all the signs point to her having an irrational fear of males.” He said.

“Does that mean she didn’t faint because I was handsome?” Kai asked quietly while looking at the out girl in his lap.

“So she’s only been quiet because she’s scared of me?” Chanyeol cried on the shoulder of the person next to him, who happened to be Baekhyun.

“There, there. Don’t cry.” Baekhyun rubbed Chanyeol’s back while silently celebrating that Sun-mi is basically anti-Chanyeol.

“I don’t know, I’m not buying it.” Xiumin said uncertainly. Lay and Kris looked at each other, silently agreeing that, they too, didn’t believe it.

“Then why don’t we test it out then?” Kyungsoo said after making himself a cup of coffee.

“YEAH! KYUNGSOO’S RIGHT!” Chen said before Kyungsoo slapped the back of his head telling him to be quiet while Sun-mi is there.

“We hug Sun-mi and she scared?” Tao asked with broken grammar.

“I’m afraid so…” Kai responded, pushing some of Sun-mi’s hair out of her face. He wondered, Did walking her home make her feel uncomfortable? Would she rather prefer a female friend?

“Okay so when Sun-mi wakes up, maybe we can ask her about it and see if she’s okay with us.” Kris said. He remembered talking to Sun-mi at the grocery store and at the vending machine. She seemed fine to me. But just like everyone else in the room, Kris was also curious if her fear of men was true.

“I have a better idea!” Baekhyun blurted. After explaining his plan to everyone, some of them were willing to do it, but the others were still uncertain.

Ouch. My head. The first thing that came to Sun-mi’s mind was how much her brain was throbbing. ...and my neck! It took Sun-mi a while because her body felt weak all over, but when Sun-mi peeled her eyes open, they met with a familiar pair of brown eyes.

“Hello!” Kai said, smiling widely at the awakening girl. Sun-mi gasped and sat up quickly. She looked around and saw that all the boys were looking at her. Sun-mi felt uncomfortable but mostly scared and confused.

Is this….Is this a dream?... She noticed that most of them were in the same positions as they were when Sun-mi first came here, except there were more boy and no customers.

Deja vu?!?!

Suddenly a person appeared in front of Su-mi but under what seemed to be a white table sheet. Sun-mi stared at the two holes that were cut out for the eyes. She guessed it was suppose to be a “ghost”.

“Ooooo~ I am the ghost of Christmas past! Ooooo~”

“Chen, it’s November.” The “ghost” stopped moving for a second before continuing.

“Ooooo~ I am the ghost of Chuseok past! Ooooo~ Beware of men!” Sun-mi just blinked at Chen.

What is he talking about?

Chen realized that his technique was not working and ripped off the table sheet then proceeded to his seat where he sat down and pouted.

“The only time I actually come up with something productive and it doesn’t work!” Xiumin patted his friend’s shoulder.

“It’s okay. They never work anyway.”

“Hey!”

Sun-mi realized she was still on the floor when Chanyeol held out his hand to help her get up. She stared at his hand and to his disappointment, she used her hands to dust herself off and stood up on her own. Baekhyun and coughed loudly while saying, “One.” Kai stood up and cleared his throat.

“Are you hungry? We’re about to go eat and you can come along.” Kai smiled at her. Sun-mi took another look at the 12 boys that filled the room. Just thinking about how crowded it could get with just them made Sun-mi scared.

“No...I have food at home.” She said quietly. Sun-mi felt bad for declining his polite offer but she just wasn’t ready to hang out with this many people.

Baekhyun coughed again, “Two.” Without Sun-mi knowing, Baekhyun was counting how many times she was avoiding them. Continuing on with his plan, Baekhyun asked Sun-mi if she wanted all of them to walk her home. Baekhyun knew what her answer was going to be and when she immediately shook her head, he patted himself on the back.

Sun-mi felt even more bad for shaking her head. I would be okay with one or two, but ALL of them?! That’s too much…

The pressure started building up on Sun-mi and she felt herself getting red and it was getting harder to breathe. Lay stood up from his seat after noticing Sun-mi’s scared expression.

“Sun-mi are you okay? Do you want some water?” Lay offered Sun-mi an unopened water bottle and she reached for it but when Lay’s fingertips brushed against Sun-mi’s, she let go of the water bottle making it drop on the floor.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” Sun-mi’s eyes started watering as she bent down to retrieve the bottled water.  It takes an idiot to not notice Sun-mi crying as she quickly stood up with the water bottle. Sun-mi shoved the bottle into Lay’s chest.

“I’m so sorry! I-I have to go now.” Sun-mi grabbed her backpack and ran out of the building, making sure that none of them saw her face.

They all stared at the door for a while, not really believing what just happened.

“...Three?...” Baekhyun wasn’t sure if it was the right time or not but he finished his counting. The room fell silent. Chanyeol squatted down to the ground and then ruffled his hair, frustrated. Kai walked towards the glass window and only caught a glimpse of Sun-mi’s backpack as she quickly turned a corner.

“Then I guess that proves it. She hates all of us.” Luhan stated with no sympathy. He watched as everything unfolded before his very eyes. He kept quiet but with this new information, he’s interested to see how his friends are reacting.

“But…” she smiled. Lay thought. He remember when he first met her, she didn’t seem afraid. She laughed. He remembered earlier that day by the vending machine. She smiled. Lay only stared at the dented water bottle in his hands.

“I can’t believe it…” Chanyeol whispered. He felt bad for Sun-mi. Now he knew why she was so quiet. Now he knew why she ran away when they first met. Chanyeol could only remember Sun-mi’s crying face as she ran out of the cafe. Chanyeol wondered if she ever felt forced to talk to him just because he was friendly. He wondered.

Kris was confused, no doubt. There’s no way Sun-mi could be afraid of them if she went as far as introducing herself. But then again, what he just witnessed was anything but normal.

Sehun sat on the side, quite surprised at how everything turned out. On one hand, his hyungs totally believed the lie Sehun told and on the other hand, Sehun didn’t expect Sun-mi to react like that. He expected quietness and maybe some blushing but watching Sun-mi run away like the place was on fire was a new scene for Sehun. Sehun stared at his hyungs, watching them getting worried and confused. Sehun turned to look out the window. He smiled.

Secrets are meant to be kept anyways.

GUESS WHO'S BACK?!?! ME! HAHAHHHAHHA, guys I'm sorry for the months of delay and thank you to all of those who didn't unsubscribe just cause I died for a while but I'M ALIVE! At least I wasn't gone for a year haha that would've been bad. Anyways, happy birthday, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year, Happy Lunar Year, and every other holiday you went without this update! Shoutout to iluvberrytart for guessing that it was Sehun. I was going to make it Sehun but then it was a little too predictable so I just made crazy Chen be in the spotlight.

Alright! So don't forget to subscribe if you haven't and comment your beautiful thoughts because I love knowing what you all think of this mess of a story and if you have no life, go ahead and hit that upvote button!