entanglement'jw

십일11

Your 'friends' had ditched you. How shocking! You really needed to get a control on your tongue, not everyone was Hana who'd shrug off your callous remarks. The bigger problem here wasn't this, however, but rather the fact that you still weren't sure about your way back home.

"You look lonely..." A hand came into your line of vision as someone waved it in front of your eyes, you shivered and looked up, only to find Minho looking down at you with a smirk adorning his lips. With the sunlight beating down on his lean frame and his dark hair messily strewn across the expanse of his forehead he looked like an Adonis straight out of an Egyptian movie.

"Yo," He clicked his fingers this time, "I've been told that I'm attractive, but is it really necessary to look at me like that?" You knew he was teasing but that didn't stop your face to bloom into crimson chrysanthemums. You don't know what was going inside that mind of yours when you blurted the next thing that came into it.

"Minho, do you like boys?" He sputtered at your blatancy.

"What?"

"You're totally my brother's type. He'd love you." That is if you had a brother. It was Minho's turn to get flustered now.

"Yah!!" He exclaimed when you started laughing, "What are you doing out here standing like a lone wolf, anyway?"

From now onward, you hate wolves.

"I forgot my way back home." You decided to not react at the wolf comment and just wing it, trying to keep the conversation as short as possible.

"Let me walk you, then." You hadn't seen this coming, wasn't he new himself?

'Right," you said uneasily, already taking a few steps away from him before fully making a roundabout turn, "I'll walk myself."

You started walking away, not waiting to hear his response and took the common road. The way would get clearer when you see some familiar buildings, you nodded to yourself. The view offered you a stable comfort of breathtaking nature throughout the walk. As you walked further into town, easily recalling the way now, more convinced you were that you had made the right decision in the reassurance that you were closer to finally starting your new life. There was only so long you could live with being the pathetic orphan girl. Here, no one knew who you were, a clean slate for you.

At one of the two stoplights in town, you watched as a group of teenagers helping an elderly woman who had dropped a paper bag of groceries. Once the people noticed your unfamiliar presence, they waved at you in gratification before parting with smiles as the light turned green and the cars started moving.

It was a drastic change from the bright lights and sounds of the busy streets of the city, but it was a welcomed one too. As far as you were concerned, Yangdong was your home now for the unforeseeable future.

You finally spotted your home, the soft red color of the bricks popping out especially with the million shades of green from the forest that peaked out from behind the house and of course, the unmistakable ivy draped over the fence.

You quietly walked in, standing in the middle of the main hallway; more so absorbing the fact that you had really uprooted your entire life and had planted yourself in the middle of nowhere in the middle of January. It wasn't like you protested when your aunt announced she had been offered a job in The States but now with her gone, the reality was slowly but surely seeping back.

"Oh you're home, thank god!" Gran exclaimed as she walked past your willowy frame into the living room, "I was afraid you'll get lost. Anyway, how was your day?" Seeing the frown that immediately adorned your face, her reaction was instant, "That bad?"

You refused to answer that.

Gran nodded in resignation, "You should go introduce yourself around the neighborhood, that might lighten your mood."

You wrinkled your button nose distastefully and didn't respond to your grandmother's idea, stepping out of the living room instead. You were never too fond of neighbors; back in your old home, your neighbors were all too nosy and judgmental.

You climbed the rickety staircase and entered your room, feeling the urge to throw yourself away but refrained. Sleep, that's what you needed right now.

"Yo Cinderella," You rolled your eyes, amused by the Minho's prospect of giving you a different nickname every other hour. He placed his hand over your shoulder as he walked beside you in the hallway Thursday morning.

"Cinderella?" You asked, tilting your head to a side, curious about the story behind that one.

"Yep, like the Disney princess." The boy smiled cheekily, squinting his brown eyes.

"I'm far from a Disney Princess, trust me." you shrugged.

"Oh, I know." Minho chuckled humorlessly, "I was referring to the part where she was the housemaid."

You punched him.

It was only when you took your designated seat in the classroom, did you realize that the seat next to yours wasn't vacant like the past two days. You didn't have to glance sideways to know that Choi San was back, which only meant one thing, so was Wooyoung. You inconspicuously shifted your chair to the other side, trying to make as much proximity from the boy as possible. The teacher passed calculus hand-outs around the class and then took her seat, getting back to grading some answer sheets.

Without any forethought, you took out your pencil and started solving the assignment. You worked for quite a while and were nearly done when San broke the peace, "You seem to be getting closer to the new... boy." You rolled your eyes.

"Not that it's any of your business, of course." you snapped at him, but that didn't seem to offend him in any manner.

"I'm aware-" he began, only to stop when you stood up angrily, gathering the sheets in a bundle and making your way to the teacher's desk and handing over your finished assignment just in time when the bell rang.

You practically stomped back to your desk, grabbing your stationery and shoving it into your canvas bag. "You stay out my business, Choi San." you warned him before turning around and leaving, not waiting to hear his response. Had you stuck around a few seconds longer, you would've heard what he said.

"Stop playing with fire, _____ _____, you'll get burned."