Chapter Five

First in introductions

“They wanted to eat me alive, I swear” Jiyong said as he placed his palm over his forehead, closing his eyes tightly and almost shivering at the thought of those…monsters glaring at his back as he walked through the college campus after leaving Mrs.Park’s office. Seriously, if looks could kill, then he would have died one hundred times over per angry person.

“Well it’s your own fault” he heard Yougbae said while shrugging.

Jiyong turned his head to his best friend with a dumbfounded expression and had the sudden urge to punch him.

So he did.

“Ouch! Man, what was that for?!” Youngbae asked rubbing his arm where the other guy had punched him.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Jiyong answered.

“Pfft, says you” their other companion said chuckling, his eyes disturbingly concentrated on the can of beer he was holding in his hand.

Jiyong couldn’t even be angry at the guy though, he was too wierded out by his peculiar position, sitting in a relaxed manner over his seat at the bar they were currently in with one arm across his chest as the other extended itself in front of him while holding the drink he was having a staring contest with.

“Uh, Hyung…”

“Just admit it Jiyong, you liked the girl”, the guy said looking up at his friend who could only gape at him.

“What?!” He asked indignantly and was about to deny that one statement when he caught the raven-haired man once again staring at his can of beer intently “Top hyung, does that beer have something weird in it?”

“Nope”

“Then why—“

“It helps me to concentrate” Top said quietly as he narrowed his eyes at the can “Exams are just around the corner and lately I haven’t been able to remember anything”

“Maybe it’s because you don’t usually study a lot” Youngbae said and received a second punch to the arm, this time by Top “Ouch! The hell’s wrong with you guys?!”

“That’s because you say ridiculous things” Top answered rubbing his knuckles over his coat, examining if they had turned red. “I pay a lot of attention in class, I’m usually good at remembering stuff…I just don’t understand why I’ve been forgetting things lately”

“Hmmmm, maybe ‘cause your head’s already too full?” Jiyong asked with a cute smile upon his face, mocking the already irritated Top “You should consider throwing some of that knowledge out from your brain, Hyung. It might blow up any moment now if you don’t”

Punch, a pretty hard punch…and this time it wasn’t meant for Youngbae.

“Ouch! Hyung!” Jiyong cried and Youngbae laughed.

“Ha, serves you right” YB exclaimed and was immediately puched back by Jiyong on the same spot he had hit him earlier “Ow!”

YB punched him again “Ah!” Jiyong answered with another punch “That hurts!”

And they kept on punching each other, leaving Top shaking his head in irritation.

“You guys are such kids” Top said darkly making both ‘kids’ stop while looking at him with annoyed looks (pretty much because they didn’t like how the guy had called them) and narrowed his eyes at them, who were still rubbing on their slightly sore arms “I can’t really imagine you on college”

“Why? It can’t be that bad, you’ve been there two years already.” Youngbae asked.

“Exactly!” Top answered, “You guys would drown there, I’m telling you, I’ve seen it before, especially someone like Jiyong, he’s too spoiled”

Jiyong just rolled his eyes and glared at the older man “Yeah, says the guy who stares at a can of beer because he wants to concentrate better”

“Remember” Top corrected.

“Whatever” Jiyong muttered and stood up with a resigned sigh.

“What’s up?” Youngbae asked, looking up at him

“I have to go home” Jiyong said lowly “Tomorrow’s a big day…so I need some rest”

“Oh, right. College duties” Top said with a smirk and Youngbae snickered beside him.

“Good luck with your first morning with those—how’d you call them again?”

“Monsters? Potential murderers?” Jiyong provided names.

“Right, just good luck” Youngbae said rolling his eyes and Top patted him on his thigh causing the younger one to look at him weirdly.

“What? You’re standing up, I’m not about to reach up to you, I’m lazy” Top defended himself.

“I’m not even going to answer to that” Jiyong decided and just turned to walk away. He paused for a second though and turned around to glare at both his friends “Just so you know. It wasn’t my fault” he said loudly and then narrowed his eyes at Top “And hyung, you might be old enough to be able to drink, but if I see you staring at any alcoholic beverage lika a maniac again, then I’ll ask all the places you frequent to not give you anything for the next couple of months, you know I can do that” he ignored the older guy’s groans and YB’s laugh and walked out of the place, almost tugging his hair out in frustration ‘I can’t believe I’m spending a perfect saturday night sleeping’, he thought to himself.

He could spend the night partying with his friends or riding his car and search for good competition for an interesting race, but no, he was sure that if he did that he would be spent for tomorrow and he’d be looking less than perfect in front of his future (or should he say current?) faculty dean, and he couldn’t risk his image right now. Especially when those stupid girls almost killed it while in the process of saving their own butts.

Agh, he really hated those girls right now…especially that brunette that had got him into this whole ordeal in the first place.

“Ah, and Ji!” he heard Top call as he excited the place, his head turned to see the older man behind him and smirking at him like an idiot “Make sure you get a new phone, I need an update of your new romantic interest” He said enthusiastically and then running back towards their table “And don’t be too miserable!” He shouted as he ran for his life because Jiyong was just about to kill him.

“Shut up you as*hole!”

“Oh” Jiyong could only say as he walked towards the music building seeing a small silhouette standing in front of its entrance, his eyes widening as he recognized it to be the petite brunette he’s been hating on these past several hours after she involved him in the trouble she and her friends caused. Such a pity that the girl was pretty enough really, now that he could see her better from his position he could tell, but she just had to be one of those crazy troublemakers.

He breathed out a frustrated sigh and shoved his hands inside his jean’s front pockets as he decided to walk closer to the girl and make his presence known. Anyway, he could do with small talk right now since he had gotten a little bit too early here in the first place, he just wanted to get on with this fast.

Now that I think about it though, why is she here so early?

“Ah” he heard the girl say softly as she looked up at him from her position leaning against the wall near the stairs that led up to the building’s entrance, her eyes slightly wide with surprise “Uh…you’re-“

“Early? You’re too” he finished with furrowed eyebrows, normally he would always be the first one to arrive anywhere really. He just had a thing for being on time (or rather, before time, if that was even a correct expression) to appointments, and now it just seemed weird that someone would actually make it even earlier than him.

“Well, it’s not like I have any other choice” the girl said while rolling her eyes and then averting her eyes from him to stare at the floor. He frowned, what did she mean by that? “How about you?” she asked quietly still looking down, forcing him out of his reverie.

“Just felt like coming early” he answered shrugging.

“I see” She said now looking up at him again “Uhm, look, I wanted to talk to you about yesterday…”

“You mean about that crazy chase you dragged me in?”

“Uh, yes. My friends asked me to apologize to you for—“

“I don’t really need apologies, I just need a new phone and my jacket” He interrupted.

She looked at him with mouth agape and then glared up at him “I retract my words”

“Oh, that hurts my feelings” he said with a mock hurt tone.

“It wasn’t on purpose you know?” she defended herself, pushed herself from the wall and faced him with her hands on her hips.

“You still broke my phone and lost my jacket”

“It isn’t lost, you just didn’t search well enough” she retorted with a glare, he rolled his eyes “Did you search at all?!”

“I don’t even know where it fell!” he answered with slight irritation.

“Well you’re just lousy! It should be somewhere behind the bushes near the library, search there, you’ll surely find it”

“That still doesn’t solve my broken phone problem”

“Buy a new one! You’re going to attend this college, you must have enough money to do so”

“You attend here too I assume, why not pay me for my broken phone instead?”

“To a rude guy like you? No way!” she yelled and then stayed silent as both glared at each other.

“Mr. Kwon?” the voice of the Music Faculty’s dean broke through their tensed atmosphere and made them snap toward Mrs.Park’s figure standing next to the half open door to the faculty building’s door “You’re early” she said with a positively impressed tone and smiled down at both “Dara, why didn’t you guide Mr. Kwon to my office?”

“I was going to but he went rude on me” the brunette answered with a pout and he almost gagged. What was this girl thinking, acting all…cute (?), in front of the Dean?

“It’s not appropriate to act like that in front of me Dara, and please don’t bad mouth Mr. Kwon who had been very understanding of the situation as of now” Mrs. Park said seriously turning around to enter the building. Jiyong glanced at the young brunette next to him and smirked at her, ignoring her glares.

Ah, life is good.

He started walking up the stairs towards the door and entered not minding if the girl had hit herself with it while he closed it behind him. “Ow!” he heard her squeak…oops.

Well serves her right, he thought to himself with a smirk on his face as he kept on following the Dean to her office and sat across from her. The brunette came next, sitting on the chair to his left and glaring at him, trying to blow up his head with her eyes.

“Well, thank you for coming this early in the morning, I assume you already want to know what you will be doing from now on until the end of summer vacation so I’ll just cut it to that part” Mrs. Park said sitting on her chair and staring at them both with a small smile.“There are four jobs to be done” she continued, leaning back on her chair across them and crossed her arms in front of her chest observing Dara and Jiyong in front of her, seeming to contemplate something “One would be to organize all the mess the dogs left behind, the other would be to buy new materials and make sure they won’t run out for the artists, the third is recovery, to see if we can find works that are not so damaged and see what we can do with that and last creative, which is helping out in the making or rather, remaking of the artists’ works”

“Oh, so can we just pick one?” The brunette asked and Jiyong nodded somewhat excited with the option of helping artists’ creative process.

“No” Mrs. Park said shaking her head and then leaning towards the table and propping her elbows on it, resting her chin on her interlocked hands “Unfortunately we have four jobs to be done and five volunteers so I have to send three to work individually with the artists while a pair must help with the most…extensive work”

“You mean exhausting work” The girl cleared and Jiyong couldn’t help but silently agree.

“That is why we need a pair, Dara” Mrs. Park said and Jiyong could almost see a very quick glare cross her eyes towards the younger girl, but quickly disappeared “And since you both are the first ones to arrive here, I’ve decided to set the two of you as the pair who will help on cleaning up the mess that was left at the arts classroom, is it clear?”

“Excuse me?” Jiyong asked after a short pause with bewildered eyes, had I just been paired with the girl who had got me into this whole ordeal in the first place?

“You’ve heard it well Mr. Kwon” Mrs. Park said with a faint smile “The both of you shall work as a team to organize all the mess those dogs provoked and later you can help with the other jobs I’ll assign the other three to make”

“But…but wouldn’t it be better for me to work on the creative job since it would help me for my future career?” he asked with a miserable look which the brunette girl relished on.

“I’m sorry Mr. Kwon, I do have my own reasons as to why I think it would be more suitable for you to start with this job” Mrs. Park said with a smile “You’ll enjoy it, and Dara here is a good company, please, work as a good team”

Again with calling her by her first name…he was starting to wonder if they had a close relationship, probably they had. But that still didn’t justify her defending that brunette’s company quality! Good company my A*s! That girl was irritating just by looking at her!

“Oh don’t worry!” the girl said with her sudden wannabe aegyo attack “I’m a very cute and lovable person! You won’t even want to get away from me in the end!” she said cutely and then extended her arms towards Jiyong “We’ll be best friends!” she exclaimed and suddenly hugged him.

Oh, please lord save me he thought as he faked a smile while the girl hugged him, pretty much because Mrs. Park was still sitting across from them, smiling at their seemingly good start.

“So are we best friends now?” he asked sarcastically as both walked together through the arts building’s hallway searching for the messed up classroom, which she apparently had forgotten where it was, or what was its number for that matter.

“VERY best friends” she answered with wide eyes and a pouty smile (however did she do that?) and wriggled her hips as they walked.

“Stop that, you’re creeping me out”

“Well, why do you think I’m still doing it?” she asked cutely again.

“Geez” he said shaking his head “Anyways, why were you here so early?”

“Oh, stuff” she said nonchalantly, finally stopping her cute act and moved her head from classroom to classroom, checking which was the one they had to work on.

“Stuff like what? Seems like you were forced to be here early” he said nonchalantly as well, shoving his hands inside his pockets while looking through the classroom door’s small windows that allowed him to see inside them.

“I’m not telling about my stuff to a stranger” she answers.

“Then I guess I should introduce myself, that way I won’t be a stranger”

“Of course, though just knowing a name doesn’t comes across to me as to no longer being a stranger”

“Okay then” Jiyong stopped in the middle of the hallway and extended his arm towards the startled brunette and smiled at her. “My name is Kwon Jiyong, I’m 18 years old, currently studying in YG high school just near here and planning to enter here in the same college we’re standing in after graduating to focus my studies in music, urban music to be exact. By the way I like the colors black and red” he introduced himself “Was that enough to not consider me a stranger?”

She didn’t answer and eyed his hand curiously and laughed, “Well, I better introduce myself as well, then” she took his hand and squeezed it. “My name is Sandara Park, I’m 22 years old, currently studying creative writing in the college you want to enter right now, and I love pink”

“And?”

“And you’re still a stranger Mr. Kwon” she said rolling her eyes and slipping her hand away from his, turning around to continue walking down the hallway.

“What? That’s not fair!”

“That’s what you get for being rude to me earlier!” She yelled while still walking and suddenly stopped “I’ll let you on a little secret you’ve been wondering about, though” she turned at smiled mischievously at him “I'm Dean Park’s daughter” she said with a giggle and then pranced down the hallway ahead of him, leaving Jiyong standing dumbly behind.

“Oh” he murmured.

Wait, what had he said to her on their previous conversations? That’s information she can tell to Mrs. Park!

“Hey, wait!” he yelled as he followed her.

Yay, fifth chapter two weeks later, so far so good!! I’ll try to update with a new chapter this week since I don’t have school! I’m so happy! Especially since I’ve been working on another fic I’ll post once I finish it, please look forward to it. Oh, and BTW my banner-drawing is still in process and probably will still be during this whole week so I won’t be posting it today. Ah, and thank you to those who reviewed; Sandaragon and eunniesharae, and to my new subscribers hyunseunguncovered, imaseokyudaragon, darajiyongbae, jlynne, eunniesharae, RachelAmabel11, abya01, loverC14, nanaISyeoni and lucyl5! You guys are all awesome, I'm glad you liked the story so far ^^ bye!