The next morning, after I was dressed in my uniform for school, I quickly made my way to the front door to meet up with Key. “I’m off to school,” I yelled back to my parents in the living room before taking my leave. I ran down the three steps in front of my house and barreled down the street, curious to ask Key what happened with his punishment. But, for some reason, he wasn’t there like he always was. “That’s odd…” I mumbled to myself. Key was always a stickler for being on time; even ahead of time. I looked up and down the street, but there was no sight of him. Not wanting to leave him behind, I pulled out my phone and dialed his number.

                It rang four times before he picked up. “Yeoboseyo?”

                “Kibum,” I spoke into the receiver. “Where are you? You’re never late…”

                “Are you pouting?” He teased.

                “I thought something was wrong,” I said. “How could you joke like this?”

                “You’re just like a kid who’s lost their mom.” He kept mocking.

                “BUM!!” I yelled into the phone.

                “Yah, yah, calm down.” He said, trying his best not to laugh, but I could still hear a few chuckles pass his lips.

                I groaned with impatience. “Key, where are you?”

                “You wanted me to take you to school every day?” He asked, sound genuine.

                “We’re gonna be late for school,” I said. “What street are you on? I’ll meet you halfway.” There was no answer. Thinking I hung up, I looked at the display screen, but it said the call was still in session. “Key,” I called hesitantly. “Key, are you okay?” When he didn’t answer, I looked at my phone again. I was about to hang up when someone grabbed me from behind. I yelled out in shock as I tried to wrestle out of their arms but their hold was too strong.

                Finally, they let their grip go, causing me to lose my balance and stumble forward. I didn’t even have to turn around to know that it was Key when I heard him double over in laughter. “KIM KIBUM!!” I screamed, turning around as my face turned red.

                He was laughing too hard to even speak.

                “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??” I continued. “You scared me to death!!”

                “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” He said, but his laughter was louder than his apology. “I can’t believe how loud you yelled…!”

                “I thought a ert was grabbing me…!” I argued. I fixed my jacket and skirt before raising a lip at him. “Looks like I wasn’t wrong about that.”

                His face suddenly turned serious. “Whoa, I’m not a ert.”

                Instead of answering back, I spun on my heel and started walking toward the bus stop.

                “Son Ha~” Key followed, trying to pull his best aegyo. “I’m sorry, huh? I was hoping for a good reaction, not to make you angry at me.”

                “Then you should’ve come up with a better way to approach me…” I crossed my arms, trying to walk ahead of him; but his long legs allowed him to walk comfortable next to me.

                “Son Ha,” He persisted. “Forgive me? Please? Son Ha—”

                “Oh my gosh, Key,” I sighed. “Forget it, you’ve done worse.”

                “I’ve done worse?” He tilted his head in question. “Like what?”

                We kept walking. I could see the bus stop up ahead. “Well…” I thought. “I don’t know, but I’m sure you have.”

                “Have I?” He asked. “Then this shouldn’t be so bad.”

                We stopped and waiting for the bus. “Yeah, well…”

                “Do you forgive me?” He asked, peering into my face.

                “Yeah…sure,” I mumbled, looking away.

                He recoiled back. “That doesn’t sound like you forgive me…” He hesitated a second, looking around for other people. “Will you forgive me if I tell you what happened yesterday?”

                My ears peaked with interest. “What happened?”

                He shook his head. “I can only tell you if I’m forgiven.”

                I gave a loud groan. “Fine, I forgive you.”

                “I don’t believe you do.”

                I bit my bottom lip, not wanting to do anything close to aegyo. “Key, I swear—”

                “What’s that?”

                “There’s no way—”

                “Huh?”

                He kept interrupting me. “I…” I sighed in defeat. Knowing there was no way to get out of it, I brought my hand to my face and forced a grin. “I’m sorry, Oppa, I was being silly. I forgive you.”

                He squealed with delight. “Aahhh, you’re so cute~” He reached forward and ruffled my hair.

                “Aish, Key,” I hit his hand away and fixed my hair. “You know how annoying it is to fix my hair every time you do that, right?”

                “I’m sorry, I can’t help it.” He grinned as the bus pulled up. We stepped on the vehicle with a few other students and made out way to the back.

                After we sat down, I poked Key in the arm. “You told me you’d tell me what happened.”

                “Did I?” He questioned, looking at me from the corner of his eye. When he saw me frown, he let out a laugh. “Sorry, I’ll tell you.”

                “Thank you,” I huffed.

                “After you left the nurse yesterday, and I got all patched up, I was brought down to the principal’s office. For obvious reasons, when I was waiting in the office, Jonghyun was being helped by the nurse. After all that happened, our mothers got called in.”

                “How’d that go?”

                “There was this huge argument between the two.” He explained.

                “What about your mom?”

                “She refused to believe I punched someone, even though the evidence was right in front of her.” He said. “But I guess I’m lucky because of her.”

                “How so?”

                “She was relentless with her argument; and so was Jonghyun’s mother.” He said. “I got a week of cleaning for my punishment.”

                “What about Jonghyun?” I questioned.

                He shrugged. “A slap on the wrist, I guess.”

                “What,” I exclaimed. “But you didn’t punch first!” My outcry caused a few heads to turn. I bowed my head, promising to lower my voice. “Why do you have to apologize?”

                “Like I said, I lost.”

                “Why did they side with his mother without any evidence?”

                “Because his mother is the head of the PTA,” Key explained. “That’s why.”

                “That’s stupid…”

                Key smiled softly. “Yeah, well, can’t really fix it.”

                “At least it’s only a week.”

                “It helps that I’m so charming,” He joked. “They don’t wanna work me so hard.”

                I scoffed. “Get over yourself.”

—

                The school day went by much quicker than expected and, before I knew it, Key, Taemin and I were already on our way home.

                “So, if I wanted to get coffee milk…” Taemin piped up. “What would be the best way to get ₩3,000 from my mom?”

                “Again with the milk?” I asked.

                “Hey,” He exclaimed. “Flavored milk is amazing. Melon milk and banana milk and strawberry milk and coffee milk; they’re all so amazing.”

                “You drink so much milk, but you’re still skinny.”

                “I’m skinny from dancing a lot.” He announces proudly.

                “Are you gonna follow that for a career?”

                “I’m not sure,” He said. “It does sound fun to dance for your job—”

                Right in the middle of our conversation, a snowball came flying in our direction and exploded in Taemin’s face. He took a staggering step back from the impact and frantically wiped the cold ice from his face. A loud, cackling laughter erupted from across the pathway.

                “YAH,” Taemin yelled at his assailant. “Hyung, how could you??” He was trying to warm up his face by rubbing his sleeves on his cheeks. “That’s too much.” He pouted.

                Key kept laughing, that is, until I hit him with a snowball. “YAH!!” He cried out.

                “It’s a snowball fight, isn’t it?” I asked, tossing a freshly made ball of ice in my hand tauntingly.

                “Are you declaring a war?” He grinned.

                “Bring it on!” I threw the snowball, but Key quickly dodged it, ducking behind a tree.

                Taemin and I ran behind the flowerless cherry blossom trees, claiming to be teammates in this battle.

                “No fair,” Key’s voice reached us. “Two against one?”

                “You brought this on yourself!” I laughed, gathering more snow for another snowball. Taemin did the same, preparing for a long fight.

—

                I couldn’t tell how long it’s been since we started, but it was already getting dark. I could see Key in the distance, preparing more snowballs in the orange light from the setting sun. It looked like he was losing energy while Taemin and I still ran strong.

                “Gonna give up, Hyung?” Taemin called.

                “No way!” The dark brunette yelled back. “I’ll go until tomorrow if I have to!”

                While Key was announcing his out-of-sight victory, I secretly made my way over to Taemin to whisper my plan. “I’m gonna sneak up and flank him. Then, I’ll unload all I got on him.” Taemin gave a thumbs up and I proceeded with my plan. Staying low to the ground, I sprinted in the shadows and made my way behind Key’s tree. However, when I got there, he was gone. “Where did he—”

                 A stick behind me snapped. I spun around, prepared to strike Key with balled-up snow, but before I could, he grabbed my wrist, halting my action. “I almost had you!” I protested.

                 “Almost isn’t good enough,” He replied, grinning.

                 I tried to pull away, but he didn’t let go. “Key…you win…” I took a step back. Feeling my feet slip on a patch of ice under me, I let out a yelp. I quickly fell backwards, pulling Key with me. We landed in the cold snow together in such an uncomfortable position. Although it wasn't out of place, I quickly moved my hands to my shirt and pulled at my collar. His hands held him up above me as we stared at each other in disbelief.  “U-uh,” I stammered, cheeks turning hot. I saw a hint of red on his as well.

“S-sorry,” He apologized, snapping out of his daze as he carefully got up and helped me out of the snow.

“Heeeeey,” We heard Taemin tease as he approached. “I didn’t know you two were that close. When’s the wedding?”

“It’s not like that!” We both yelled at the same time, full of embarrassment.

“Your words are the same…” The boy mumbled.

“It was an accident, Taemin,” Key explained, not meeting eye contact. “There was a patch of ice and we fell…”

“How did you end up like that?” Taemin asked, smirking.

Feeling like my cheeks were on fire, I rushed to gather my bag. “I-it was an accident!” I slung the bag over my shoulder. “I-I’ll be leaving first…See you tomorrow!” After bidding my quick goodbye, I sprinted down the path before either of them could object.

Taemin’s POV

                Watching Son Ha run away from her problems was always pretty amusing. ‘I know the situation wasn’t like that, but I couldn’t help but .’ I went over to grab Key and my school bags. Handing it to him, he spoke up.

“You know it wasn’t like that, right?”

He seemed pretty reserved right about now, and, although he tried to look away, I could see that his face still had a hint of red. “I know,” I answered honestly. “But there’s something that you need to be truthful with me about.”

“Uh-oh,” Key said. “Is this about money from lunch?”

“I think you know what it’s about.” I said. His features suddenly turned serious as he fidgeted in his spot. “You need to be honest with me, okay?”

Key nodded meekly.

 “Do you like Son Ha?” I asked, not looking away.

A painstaking moment passed before his face broke in to a smile. “Oh, I thought you were gonna ask something serious.” He chuckled, causing me to cringe. “Of course; Son Ha and I have been best friends for ten years. If I didn’t like her, why would we be friends?”

“Kibum,” I snapped. He knew that I was serious when I called him by his real name. “You know that’s not what I mean.” I took a deep breath to ask again. “Do you like Son Ha?”

—

Son Ha’s POV

I threw my bag aside and flopped down onto my bed. Placing a hand to my chest, I could still feel my pounding heart. I wasn’t sure if most of it was just from running, but it felt the event from earlier contributed a lot. “What’s wrong with me…” I mumbled to myself, staring up at the ceiling. “We’ve been friends for so long…so why do I feel like this now?” I asked to no one in particular.

I was so deep in thought that I didn’t even hear my little sister run up the stairs. “Unnie, Unnie!” She called, busting into my room.

I shot upright in bed. “Hana,” I yelled. “Didn’t I tell you to knock?”

“I would’ve, but then the person at the door might leave!” She squealed.

My eyes flicked over to the hallway. “Who?”

“It’s a boy!” She giggled. “He asked to see you!”

“Is it Key?”

She ran her fingers in front of her lips and did a locking motion at the corner of . With a sigh, I got up and headed for the stairs. ‘Could it be Key? Or Taemin?I don’t really feel like seeing either of them right now to be honest…’ I reached the bottom of the steps and turned to the entrance area—expecting to see one of the two boys—but the blond hair that caught my eyes left me frozen on the landing.

“Jonghyun?”

 

A/N:

I want'chu back back back back baaaaackkk. I just had the huge urge to write a chapter, so I did.
Anybody else waiting patiently for SHINee's comeback? I'm trying to...
In the meantime, I'm getting farther in this fic (I've written three chapters on paper so far yaaay)
They are so long...they're all ranging from 7-10 pages...I don't know why my chapters are getting longer the father in they go.
So, yes, thanks for commenting (if you like doing that) and thanks for subbing to my fics! 

I'll post the next chapter soon enough and I'll try and get back to the Jonghyun fic!
Thank you guys!! <3