THE DEVIL

Kyungsoo didn't ask what I was doing that night, so I didn't feel inclined to tell him that I was going to go and chill out with his ex-girlfriend. Although, if I had told him that, he probably just would've laughed and thought that I was just trying to be funny. 

But I wasn't trying to be funny. 

This was a serious mission in which I was going to try and figure out why the girl that once hated me no longer hated me as much as she used to. Was I in danger? 

"Ugh, I forgot how lame parties are when you can't drink," Chorong moaned as she took another sip from her orange juice. 

I'm typically sober at these things because I cannot handle my alcohol whatsoever and my biggest goal in life was to not make a complete idiot out of myself. It was a lot harder than you'd think it'd be. And, come to think of it, Chorong was generally pretty sober as well. Not that she didn't drink, but more of that she never drank excessively and was always cool with being sober if we needed her to be. 

I couldn't tell if Minah's party was a success or a flop because I know absolutely nothing about how to judge parties. I thought that it was good because they all (everyone but Chorong and me) seemed to be having a really good time, but Chorong seemed to think that it was . 

"I regret this. We could've been at a buffet," she shook her head sadly, rubbing her swollen belly. "Or, you know, any place other than here." 

"This isn't so bad," I said. It wasn't. Don't get me wrong - I still had no intention of being there, but it could've been so much worse than it really was. Also, my hair had been cooperative enough to allow me to slick it back into a decent looking messy ponytail and that never happened. 

"This is lame. This is terrible," Chorong corrected me. 

"This isn't terrible. It's just - no, this is terrible," I hissed in horror, backing up, which was stupid because we were already leaning against a wall. 

I was freaking out because I'd just been spotted by none other than Kim Jongin, the boy who had caused me many nights of torment all throughout the end of my last term nearly a year ago. Jongin was the same age as me (I think. Maybe he was a year younger) and annoying as hell. He also had the appearance of a twelve-year-old child. 

Or he'd had the body of a twelve-year-old male child. 

I hadn't seen Jongin in a few months, but that didn't mean that I'd expected for him to fill out. He was now wayyy taller than me and it looked like he'd grown into his facial features. No longer was it the little boy that looked like his mother dressed him in the finest clothing from Burberry that was standing in front of me, but now it was a fine male specimen who wore skinny jeans and probably had girls throwing themselves at him.

Not that Jongin ever had a problem getting girls before, but at least now I could (kind of) see why they wanted him.

And this was all really stupid, too, because it wasn't fair that he'd grown out of his awkward stage and I hadn't. Like, I was still waiting for s. Why was Jongin the one that'd gotten to become suddenly more attractive overnight? This wasn't fair!

"I told you that this party was terrible," Chorong smirked at me after she'd noticed Jongin by looking over her shoulder at the scene behind her.

"And I told you that I didn't even want to be here in the first place!" It was true; I had said that. "Maybe he won't notice that he saw me," I whispered. That was a dumb move on my behalf because he'd obviously noticed me. We'd made eye contact and then he'd given me that stupid cheeky smile and that's when I knew that I was sunk.

By the time that Jongin had wandered his way over to us, I'd already accepted my fate and knew that I was going to be forced to at least make awkward small talk with him. Which, believe me, was not something that I wanted to do, but I guess that I kind of deserved it because I had allowed for Chorong to drive me there.

"Hello, ladies," Jongin greeted us with that stupid lopsided smile of his. "How's the baby Noona?" he asked Chorong. 

"Well, it just started kicking a lot harder once you got here, so I'm beginning to suspect that he doesn't like you very much," she groaned, rubbing her stomach. Did I ever mention that Chorong was having a boy? Well, it's true, she's having a boy. 

"Or it's just his way of saying hi to me. Maybe he likes me," Jongin kept grinning. 

"No, my son has better taste than that," Chorong remarked with her own smile. 

Chorong and Jongin had never gotten along, but Chorong didn't get along with most people and Jongin's presence is generally unwanted, so I understood why they'd never had a go at being friends. They'd probably kill each other. Let's be real, Chorong would kill Jongin.

Instead of replying to Chorong, Jongin shifted his focus towards me. "Avery? What are you doing here?" 

What am I doing there? What are you doing there? It's a school night! 

But I didn't say that because I knew that that would not be the right thing to say. I've learned a lot throughout my years of many painfully awkward conversations. 

"What are you doing here?" was what I said instead because it was a million times more appropriate and it gave me the opportunity to gain the answer to a question that I'd posed. "I didn't know that you and Minah were friends." 

Jongin shrugged off my comment. Probably because even he knew that he and Minah weren't friends. 

Of course, I was probably just being bitter and didn't think that he and she were friends because of how he was Kyungsoo's best friend, and since Minah had cheated on Kyungsoo it was implied that none of us were to associate with her on account of how she was the one that had been the most wrong. At least, I hope that it was implied because that was definitely the implication that I was living off of and I was going to be really embarrassed if everyone had already gotten the green light on being friends with Minah again. 

Not that I was sure if I even wanted to be friends with Minah again. She gave me social anxiety. 

"I wouldn't say that we're the best of friends, but I'd say we're friends, yeah," Jongin mused, thinking it over. "I'm more surprised that you and Minah are friends again. I thought that you hated each other." 

Me too, Jongin. Me too. 

"I don't hate her," I clarified. I didn't hate her. I just didn't like her and I feared for my life whenever she was around. That was different from hate. It was different from hate, right? "And we're not friends. She invited me here." 

"I don't think that she would've invited you here if she didn't consider you to be one of her friends." Just because you'd finally gone through puberty, Jongin, it did not mean that you had suddenly become a million times wiser. He probably hadn't even been born when Minah and I first became friends with each other; I think that I knew more about her party-planning strategies than he did. 

"Minah invites people to parties so that she'll have higher turnout rate. She probably can't even name half of the people here," Chorong spoke for me in a way much more eloquently that I would have. 

"Well, I feel a lot less special," Jongin joked. I smiled, but Chorong didn't even flinch. It was funny and I couldn't help it. If I was Jongin in this situation, I probably would've turned red, said something stupid, and then would've run away crying because I do not spend a lot of time with other people. But because it was him and he never seemed to be too phased by anything, he kept talking. "You both look lovely tonight." 

Even though the compliment wasn't solely directed towards me, I still blushed. Way to go, Avery. Don't forget about how you still had a boyfriend that had no idea that you were even here. 

"You-you look nice too," I mumbled. Why was I mumbling? I wasn't even saying anything even remotely embarrassing. Not to mention that I generally did not care about Kim Jongin and whatever it was that he stood for. I think my problem lied in how I just couldn't take a compliment. All I had to say was thank you. In fact, all I had to do was smile. Come on, Avery. You were better than this. But apparently my brain didn't think that I was better than that because it encouraged me to keep talking. "You look so much older. You look like you've gone through puberty!" 

Squash. 

Well, I'd had a good run at not saying anything too mortifying. I was also probably the only person ever that brought up puberty at a college party. 

"Christ, I'm going to go find something to eat," Chorong excused herself from the conversation before it could get any worse. I wished that I was pregnant. Except I didn't. I'm not even sure if I truly knew where babies came from. 

I wanted to beg Chorong not to leave and instead stay with me so that she could steer the conversation in the way that it should go, but my brain had now switched into 'I'm-Just-Not-Going-to-Allow-You-to-Talk' mode, and that would've been great if it would've kicked in about five seconds earlier before I'd decided that it was a good idea to talk about the thing that no one ever wanted to talk about. 

Jongin's smile had spread to the point where he was showing all of his teeth, "You think that I've gone through puberty?" He smiled mischievously. 

Wasn't that a trick question? I mean, obviously he'd already gone through puberty. He was, like, what, nineteen? Just because I hadn't ever gone through puberty it didn't mean that he hadn't. 

"Uh," I replied because my brain was freaking out and was not going to let me say anything else that could further embarrass myself. That was nice of you, brain. I always liked it when we worked together. 

"I must say, Avery, I'm slightly appalled at your behaviour." I'm pretty sure Jongin had a complex that meant he only felt like he was being his true self when he was embarrassing me. I'm also pretty sure that that's called bullying, but I felt like I couldn't just say that because I would definitely be the only fifth grader at that party. "If you wanted to talk about my balls, you could've just told me." 

Because your balls drop when you go through puberty. 

Alright brain, it was time for you to get out of your little funk and help me out here. "I don't want to talk about you ... your-" Balls? ? Human beans? Really, Avery, anything would work here, "-tadpoles-" except maybe that, "right n