“Come on,” Luhan murmured after a while, stretching out a hand to help me.

All I could do was sit there shaking. Had that really just happened? Had Sehun really said those things to me? From the look of my tearstained dress, the answer was unwelcoming yes.

“Mira, come on,” Luhan repeated softly, this time bending down in front of me. “You’ll catch a cold if you stay here.”

I sniffed loudly, trying to put words together in my head. “Go away,” I snivelled out finally.

Luhan sighed and stretched for my hand, pulling me gently to my feet despite my resistance. His jacket had slipped off me at some point so he stooped to pick it up, again trying to place it onto my trembling shoulders.

“Don’t!” I snapped, flinching away from the material. "How could you do that to me?"

Looking a little confused, Luhan draped the jacket over his arm instead. “I know this has been hard for you, but you should be happy. All this is over now and you can come back to where you belong.”

I shook my head profusely. Luhan didn’t understand; of course he didn’t. After all, it’s not like he had even been aware of any of this until today anyway, and the true nature of the relationship between Sehun and I was unknown to almost all.

He let another little sigh. “You’re just tired,” he muttered almost soothingly as he placed a hand to my back, guiding me down the alleyway.

The only redeeming thing Luhan did that day was not force me to return to my father's house with him. Instead, he called my father and pleaded with him to allow me to stay at the apartment for one more night. The close relationship between Luhan and my father was something that had always existed, but when I saw how easily Luhan convinced him, I couldn't help but wonder what I had been doing wrong this entire time.

I didn’t sleep very well that night, even after finally getting Luhan to leave. Although I was very angry at him now, I knew it wouldn't last seeing as it had been me that lied to everybody first. I could push and prod the blame around, but it would always boomerang back to me with guilt attached to it firmly.

The bed was so uncomfortable that night. At no point could I find a place to rest that didn't feel like someone had just put knives into my back.

I'm not really sure what was the thought process behind it, but at around three in the morning I found myself standing outside Sehun’s door with a note, so like all the others we had written to one another, firmly in my grip. I wanted to slide it under, but I really didn’t think he would like nor appreciate it. I stared at the wood for a moment, imagining Sehun standing on the other side of it somewhere. So close to me, and yet impossibly out of reach. It seemed a little unbelievable to me at that I would never see Sehun again. I thought things had been fixed to the point that I would be able to stay with Sehun forever. Complacency, as it happened, was a lesson I had to learn to avoid the hard way.

The next morning, moving men came to empty the apartment and that’s when it suddenly started to feel real. I was really leaving here like I’d never been at all. I would be leaving this place and this school and these people – all of them.

“Your father wants you home by lunchtime,” one of the moving men told me. “He said there will be a car waiting for you outside your school once you get your transfer form signed.”

I didn’t respond.

It would be a lie to say I wasn’t nervous when I turned up at the gates to the school. I wasn’t wearing my uniform like usual, instead I wore a hoodie and a pair of jeans. I had some random baseball cap pulled firmly down over my face with my hair draped on either side. Sehun didn’t want to see me, and I didn’t want to force him to.

The school day was already in full swing when I arrived, so the hallways were all but empty apart from the odd person with a lavatory pass. The school staff were, of course, oblivious to what had happened yesterday so I received well-wishes from them all. I had almost completed the form when the final box became apparent to me. The only signature left to get was my teacher’s.

With a deep intake breath, I knocked on the classroom door and moved my cap and hair to the side so that no one would be able to see my face at all.

The teacher called me in, looking a little surprised by my face and attire. Despite my efforts to remain anonymous, there was a muffled buzz of chatter as soon as I entered. I felt like I’d just entered a sleeping bear’s cave.

“Can you please sign this for me?” I asked the teacher, not even daring to look to the back of the classroom to where my seat was.

With a raised eyebrow, the teacher took the piece of paper and read it quickly. “My, my, you didn’t stay long, did you?” she commented as she shuffled around her desk for a pen. I could feel the eyes of all my classmates fixed firmly onto me as I stood there, praying she would find one soon.

“Back to your old school then, is it?” she asked as she scribbled her name in the appropriate box.

“Yes, Miss.”

“Well we wish you the best.” She turned to the class, “Don’t we?”

There was silence; cold and unwelcoming.

With a raised eyebrow, my teacher looked back at me in confusion. “It’s a shame Sehun isn’t here today, the two of you seemed quite close.”

Hearing her words, I allowed myself a glance at the back of the room where I saw not one but two empty seats. Only Baekhyun sat in our row, staring blankly at me. I quickly looked away before his stare could turn hostile.

Dashing from the classroom for the last time, I almost leapt the height of myself when the school bell rang and flocks of students came flurrying out from their classrooms. Most of the students didn’t notice me, but the few that did would point and whisper, shooting glares my way. I tried to ignore them and force my way to the office to hand in my form.

The closer I got to the office, the more hostile people seemed to become until I began hearing people shouting down the corridor about me, or perhaps to me. Either way it was awful.

“It’s her!”

“Isn’t that Lee Mira? She’s got some nerve coming back here!”

“After what she’s done, I’m surprised she even has the pride to show her face.”

My hair was suddenly yanked backwards with such force that I found myself on the floor with my cap ripped from my head, looking around helplessly for the source. Snarling at me, Kim Yunseo stood above me, barking words I couldn’t hear to her posse of friends. Around us people were gathering at the sight.

“You evil little witch,” She snarled, grabbed my hair again and dragging it towards her roughly, my body following despite my resistance. “Did you really think you could use Sehun like that and get away with it? How low can you sink to, just to go after