After the disastrous dinner with Sehuzy (“It’s not a ship name!” she insisted to her friends. “I just call them that to avoid having to say her name.”), Jimin threw herself even more furiously into her studies. I’ll show her stupid face how NOT to under-estimate me! She fumed, slashing at her math problems with a freshly sharpened pencil. To make matters worse, by the middle of the week, Hanbin had transferred into her English class. Unlike math, which he was surprisingly good at, English happened to be his least favorite class, as he started reminded his friends every lunch.

            “God, Leeteuk assigned us 30 pages of Romeo and Juliet tonight. Do you know what 30 pages of sappy poetry means??” He stretched his arms out wide, hitting Bobby in the face. “It means I’m that much closer to having to write an essay analyzing their stupid deaths!”

            “As an aspiring poet, I consider Shakespeare a pretty cool dude. Yo yo I’m Bobby, I’m bobbing my head to the music, yeah I’m Bobby,” rapped Bobby offbeat, probably to annoy Hanbin as revenge.

            The rest of them ignored Hanbin’s complaint, having passed the point of even feigned interest for the sake of their friend. Jimin couldn’t help but sigh. It was such a drag to have someone like him grumbling about every little thing in her favorite class.

            Out of the blue, Yunhyeong announced, “My sister’s coming to visit next week.”

            Jinhwan looked up in alarm, “Eunjin? When is she coming? Where is she staying?”

            “Obviously not with you,” Yunhyeong replied. “She’s coming on Saturday, and spending two weeks. I wanted to ask you, Jimin, if you would mind her staying with you? It’s okay if you don’t want to, but she wanted to experience school life before she applies here. So I thought it’d be nice if she could…”

            “Of course I would love to,” said Jimin, happy to be considered. “But I have to check with my roommate, Irene, first. I’ll get back to you tomorrow”

            When she asked Irene later that night, she just answered “Sure, I don’t care who you bring in as long as they keep their on your side of the room. Good night, love.”

The next morning, Jimin was studying with Jinhwan during their free when he suddenly asked her, “Do you not like Hanbin?”

            “Eh what? Why do you ask?” It was true she didn’t exactly like Hanbin as much as the rest of his friends, but she always took care to restrain herself from saying anything rash. She hated to be the one who made things awkward in their new friend group. If Jinhwan noticed, then everybody else probably knew too.

            “You know, he didn’t want to come here.”

            “Oh wow really,” she said, rolling her eyes.

            “No it’s not that, he’s just…Nevermind.” Jinhwan went back to reading his biology textbook. “Just don’t be too harsh on him, okay? He’s going through a rough time.”

            Jimin studied Jinhwan curiously, but decided against probing further.

“Hey, so you want me to help set you up with Yunhyeong’s sister when she gets here?” she poked him on the side, chuckling gleefully when his head whipped around so fast he almost twisted his neck.

Jimin didn’t think much more of Jinhwan’s comment about Hanbin until the next morning when she was running through the theatre department, looking for Joy’s ballet shoes. Long before she reached the dance classrooms, she heard music reverberating in the hallways. What kind of person wakes up to blast music here before classes? she wondered, turning a corner and spotting the source.

            The hallway was dark except for one practice room that cast a halo of light through its half-open door. Hip-hop music surged out and beat against the cold, empty, walls.

            Jimin slowly approached the room, stopping a few feet away, just close enough to peek inside. Dancing to the beat of the music was a boy, wearing a loose white tank top and baggy gray sweats. His sharp movements flowed cleanly from one step into the next, alternately fast and slow. He arched his back like a cat, then burst out in an explosion of power, pulling and pushing at the air around him with his muscular arms, as if summoning the powers of the wind to give in to his control. Jimin watched in breathless awe, unable to break herself away, but feeling inexplicably intimidated by the passion. In this moment, the dancer seemed to be the source of energy itself.

            All of a sudden, he collapsed to the floor with a painful crack, shattering the tension and releasing Jimin from her trance. The boy grabbed his ankle and threw his head back, cursing loudly.

           She took the chance to get her first good luck at his face. With a pounding heart, Jimin realized that the boy, under his sweat soaked mop of hair, was undeniably Kim Hanbin. Before she could fully understand what was happening, her phone rang, and Jimin ran outside the building to answer the call.

           “Jimin?” a tired voice croaked.

           “Sehun? Is it you?” she immediately replied worriedly.

“Are you free today? I want to see you.” A few weeks ago, she would have done anything to hear these words. In her dreams.

            “It’s probably not the best idea for us to meet right now. You should probably spend the time with your girlfriend.” More like if I spent any more time with her I’ll probably smash her pretty face in, thought Jimin savagely.

           “She broke up with me,” said Sehun shakily. Wait what? “S-she left me f-for some guy named Lee Min­–” Sehun chocked back a sob. “I just want to see you, Jimin.”

            Unable to stop herself despite the bad feeling at the pit of her stomach, Jimin accepted, “Okay. Let’s meet tonight.”

*****

Hanbin had been dancing for two hours in the practice room after a sleepless night in bed. He was finally able to relieve the tightness in his chest when the music started, waking his muscles to the memory of the familiar moves. He pushed himself to dance harder, taking pleasure in the painful pounding of his heart and the burning in his muscles. This is the only rain I want to see, he thought, watching his sweat shower the floor. Suddenly his ankle gave in, and Hanbin crashed to the floor, just as he did 6 months ago in the YG building.

            The sound of a ringing cellphone made him look up, just in time to see someone dart down the hallway. Who was that spying on him? he thought angrily. He had told no one here about his practicing. Jinhwan was the only one who knew, and he wouldn’t tell anybody. He was certain.

            The doctor had said that his injury was healed. But if he wasn’t careful, it would happen again, and that second time would not be fixed so easily. The doctor had also warned him against strenuous exercise. Hanbin was frustrated by this advice. Didn’t anyone understand that every day he rested was a mile further from where he needed to be? His dream couldn’t wait any longer.

            His chest seized again remembering his mother’s phone call the night before. She wanted to inform him that his summer job at his father’s business was all arranged and settled. “Hanbin-ah,” she reminded him, “we let you try out your rapper dream for a while. And it didn’t work out. You got injured before your audition. So remember your promise: do well at your school now and come back to work for the company. Good night, son.”

*****

Jimin tried not to feel too excited about Sehun’s breakup. For one, she felt sorry for Sehun that he had fallen for someone like Suzy. More importantly, just because he didn’t have a girlfriend anymore didn’t mean he would like her now. But he did call me when he was upset, she couldn’t help thinking proudly.

           For once, even Leeteuk ‘s power wasn’t enough to keep her mind on English as her mind swirled around the Sehun issue. As if sensing that he needed to come up with a new trick to put his students on guard, Leeteuk announced a new group project at the end of class.

         “You will be acting out a scene of Romeo and Juliet with a partner. Joy, you’re partners with Baekhyun…. Jimin, you’re with Hanbin.”Of course, Leeteuk knew exactly who to pair her with: the last person with whom she would ever have a romantic encounter.

“Let’s meet right after the last class. Library, second floor,” she informed him as soon as class ended.

“Sure, whatever you want,” he muttered, shuffling out the door ahead of her.

That afternoon, they had barely begun working on their project when Hanbin threw his book down and groaned.

           “Why are you so obsessed with this story anyway? Romeo is totally messed up. For one, they’re like thirteen. For another, isn’t his first love Juliet’s cousin? Why would you die for a dude who was in love with someone else for way longer than with you?”

           Jimin rolled her eyes. “It’s the classic tragedy about star-crossed lovers. Most romances nowadays are inspired in some way by Romeo and Juliet whether or not their creators realize. It’s absolutely perfect in its use of dramatic structure in the poetry to create tension and ––”­

“Okay okay I’m sorry I asked. Geez, no need to go on a crazy lecture,” Hanbin cut her off with a terrified expression on his face.

           “Have you even been paying attention in class? Whatever. I don’t expect you to understand anything about romance,” said Jimin with an eye-roll. She had already decided at this point that the dancer from this morning was just an extension of her dreams. Maybe she was suffering from withdrawal due to her beloved Big Bang not having a comeback for too long, so her subconscious has resorted to dreaming about random dancing. It’s just a sign that she’s spending too much time with Hanbin that her brain chose his face to stick on that scorching hot body. And obviously, she could not trust Hanbin to do the project properly without her guidance.

“Oh please. You don’t understand the first thing about love,” he shot back.

“What is that supposed to mean??”

           “It means that the only person you’ve ever ‘loved’ was some childhood bully who’s never done anything to deserve your trust and devotion!” For some reason, Hanbin’s comment stung. She hated the way he scoffed at her, as if she was a foolish girl playing house. She had always been so sure about her feelings for Sehun, despite what anyone else might say. After all, if they didn’t feel the same way, she couldn’t expect them to understand, right? But the way Hanbin spoke to her, Jimin always got the strange feeling that he was personally attacking Sehun. It made her uncomfortable, and especially defensive.

“I don’t have time to waste with you. Let’s get this over with. I have plans tonight,” she finally responded.

           “What could be more important to you than English homework?” He smirked and leaned in until she could feel his breath on her ear. “Is it… Sehun?”

Jimin felt the blood rush to her face as she shoved Hanbin away from her. “It’s none of your business!”

           It was already too late. Hanbin started cackling so hard the surrounding tables all turned around to glare at them in annoyance. That is, until his chair tipped too far back and he banged his head on the corner of the bookshelf.

Jimin hid her smile as she duck her head down and pretended to be hard at work. Serves you right, .

More about Hanbin.... And Sehun's making a return? 

I tried to do a short bit in Hanbin's perspective. And I realized earlier today that I had completely neglected Bobby and Yunhyeong from the story for the last two chapters after the foreward! So I'm gonna give them more of a role hehe

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