• DARA POV •

 

Dear Lord, what had I done? It was bad enough that I'd almost kissed chaerin - that alone could have kept me up at night for months. But then I'd gone and admitted it to her. I'd held her hands, not once but twice. I'd broken the boundary between teacher and student by talking to her about my personal life. And I'd told her to call me "Dara ."

 

I felt ashamed, and guilty, and painfully afraid that someone would find out.

 

Of course, my tremendous guilt cloud had its silver lining: she'd told me she liked me too. At least, that's what I thought she'd said. She'd only said she wanted to kiss me, but wasn't that the same thing? Not just in that one moment, she'd said, but "since the very first day." And, she was hurt when I didn't talk to her in school. And she busted her water bottle open with rage when she saw me stunting with another girl. Maybe I was being vain, but in my mind, that had to mean she had feelings for me. Not that it mattered. I didn't -- No, I couldn't have feelings for her. Because at the very center of a mess getting messier, was taeyeon .

 

_______

 

The following day passed slowly, and while I was expecting it to be awkward between me and chaerin , it wasn't. I had her to thank for that. She acted as if nothing had changed. We talked, and joked around; she answered questions in class; she ran my attendance sheet to the office. I'd told her that yes, I had feelings for her, but that I couldn't start anything with her, and she'd accepted it so fully. I didn't want to change our relationship, and so that's exactly what happened. At first, I didn't know how she'd feel, but now I realized that she was determined to respect what I wanted. So that's what it feels like to have someone respect what you want, I thought to myself. Practice hadn't officially started yet, but we were all in the gym by 2:30 anyhow. Some girls were still changing, doing their hair, putting their stuff together. I was grading an essay I'd never finished. chaerin was on the phone, having a dramatic exchange with someone named jiyeon .

 

"I didn't, jiyeon ! I can't do this. Okay, look, be mad at me, but I still need a ride home. You can't just leave me, I live five miles south of here! Am I supposed to walk? Okay, you know what? Bye. I'd rather walk."

 

She was reminding me of the affair I'd had with taeyeon the previous morning. If hers was anything like ours, it'd blow over in half an hour and she probably wouldn't have to worry about a ride, but I made a mental note to make sure she was okay before I left.

 

Later on, we were working on jumps and everything was going well, except the girls' toe touches. There were legs going everywhere, bent knees and flexed toes, and as normal, the only one doing it right, was chaerin . I hated to do this, but I had to. It truly ha