A few days have passed, and it is now Friday. Sunny had experienced the most eventless week so far, despite the fake forum post that happened earlier that week. She knew Jessica didn't bother her as much because Tiffany was back. And Tiffany's interest in Taeyeon had also kept Jessica in a distance. However, Sunny knew Jessica would not let the events that had happened on Tuesday go. Because she never loses. If it's something that she wants to happen, she will make it happen. If not, she always find a way to get back at you.
Today Tiffany decided to stay behind to study since she didn't think she did well on her exam and Friday was the perfect time to review while everything is still fresh in her head. Thus, Sunny knew Jessica might target them again from her past experiences. Sunny wasn't worried for herself, but she felt anxious for Taeyeon. Because of the events that had happened between her and Jessica, Jessica might do something really bad to her. In spite of all that, Sunny was too afraid to do anything, so she just prayed that Taeyeon was safe.
You are such a weakling, Sunny. Taeyeon's words echoed in her head.
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After school, Tiffany decided to stay and study for a bit longer, since Sunny was successful in helping her make progress.
Walking down the hallways to get to the library, Tiffany recalled her time with Taeyeon this week. From occasionally hanging with her during lunch, she noticed that the girl was really smart. Although Tiffany was getting tutored by Sunny, when the latter could not figure out a problem, she went to ask Taeyeon. Taeyeon would solve the problem in a snap and unlike Tiffany, Sunny could understand the solution once Taeyeon showed her the answer.
She noticed that Jessica did not like Taeyeon, sometimes she would intentionally bump into the girl. One time Jessica even knocked the textbooks out of Taeyeon's hands for no reason. Tiffany guessed it was because Jessica disliked Taeyeon for finishing the exam before her, because she knows her best friend can be competitive at times. Tiffany tried consoling her best friend by telling her that Taeyeon might have just guessed some parts because she didn't get enough time to study and no way she can score higher than her. In the end, she stopped talking about talking about Taeyeon with her, because even herself did not want to risk facing Jessica's wrath.
After seeing Taeyeon's interactions with Jess and her reactions, she realizes that Taeyeon to be the most interesting girl she has ever met. Not only did Taeyeon not mind Jessica's behaviour, but she would also always make some witty remark that leave Jessica speechless. It was the first time for her to see someone who was not intimidated by Jessica's character.
Taeyeon always acts all cool and cheerful, like she is interested in everything she encounters. When she is with her, Taeyeon would talk about many different topics. She talked about all the video game she played, movies she watched and some interesting things she learned online. Tiffany realized how well Taeyeon can explain things if she puts her mind to it and is actually interested in the topic. During one lunch period, she talked about how things worked in her favorite video game, the terms were very technical and hard to understand, but she made it so that even Tiffany was intrigued. Tiffany, who had never touched a single video game. She thought if Taeyeon could tutor her the same way in her schoolwork, then she would become an 'A' student in no time.
However, Tiffany did notice an odd vibe around the short girl, she seemed different from other students, but familiar to her. She had nice skin, nice posture and despite being impatient with her and constant battling with Jess, Taeyeon also had nice manners. No matter how careless sometimes Taeyeon acts, Tiffany knew these qualities all too well. She was Jessica's best friend after all, and she remembered all the mannerisms her best friend had in her fancy large house. There's that and also Taeyeon's steadiness of mind, it's like some of these habits and traits were drilled into her ever since she was very little. The more she thought, the more curious she becomes about the new girl.
One amusing thing Tiffany also noticed was when she acted caring and overly friendly to her, so much as to give her a side hug, Taeyeon would get flustered and jumpy. Once she shared a pack of chocolate with her, Taeyeon acted like if she had received a gold medal. The amusing part was that she tried to act like it was nothing when her expression and reaction betrayed her. Tiffany swears that if she had teased a bit more, Taeyeon would faint from happiness over something so little. No matter how witty, smart, or cool Taeyeon thinks she is, Tiffany knew in the end she is still just a kid. Teasing the girl to reveal her childish side became one of Tiffany's best motivations to come to school.
Back to the present state of mind, Tiffany heaved a sigh remembering that all her friends are out to have fun.
Since they just completed an exam, Jessica and her other friends had already left, as usual to do their silly after school things. Post Exam Celebration, they called it and they had a celebration for just about any occasion. Tiffany sighed, how she wish she could be as smart as them and take extra time off, no matter how little free time it was. She was the last one in the classroom to leave due to her dedicated habit - to write a summary of what she need to study at the end of every class.
She walked down the empty corridors; it was rather peaceful. Everything was silent, aside from some chatter coming from study rooms and the library. She was about to enter the library when she heard chatter down the hallway that sounded like her friends. However, before she was going to walk up to them, she heard something concerning.
"...let's get her! How dare she go against us!" Hyoyeon exclaimed out loud.
Are they pulling a prank? Tiffany thought, eavesdropping on her friends.
"Shhh, Hyo you are going to inform the whole school!" Yuri put her index finger to her mouth, shushing the girl.
"It's about time she is taught a lesson." Jessica said with an evil smirk.
Tiffany thought something fishy must be going on, so she followed after the group. She remembered when they used to play with certain other students, but they were just playing. But when Jessica said that sentence, she seemed serious about it, like she wanted that girl to suffer. Tiffany knows that tone because Jessica used to do that to her servants at home when Tiffany visited her house. If the servants managed to get on her nerves, Jessica would plot against them. That made all the servants at her mansion scared of her, but at least she stopped doing that as she grew older.
From a distance she could see that they were trying to follow someone walking alone not far from them in front.
Are they trying to pull a prank on that girl? Tiffany tried to see if she could recognize the girl. She had short hair, lying an inch above her shoulders, and judging from height, she seemed pretty short. Taeyoon? She thought.
Tiffany followed them to the entrance of a narrow alleyway just a few meters away from the school. Seeing there's nowhere to hide in the alley, she just looked at the group from a distance. When the group made a left turn, Tiffany started moving again. Then she realized there were pieces of scrap paper littered everywhere, leading a trail.
She followed the trail and indeed it was Taeyoon who had been dropping them. But after the turn the trail stopped and she looked around wondering where they could have gone.
...
Hyoyeon and Yuri approached the short girl and turned her around to face Jessica. Tiffany knitted her eyebrows and tried to see what's happening from afar.
The girls stood on each side of Taeyoon and held onto her arms. Tiffany let out a gasp before covering her mouth. She couldn't make out Taeyoon's expression, she expected the girl to be panicking, but instead, Taeyoon had a nonchalant expression on her face. She did not even struggle.
Jessica walked towards the girl and started pouring a bottle full of water over her.
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Taeyeon took a deep breath and braced herself over what just had happened. Although she had no readable expression on her face, it still felt uncomfortable to be treated like that. However, she did not feel bad about ruining Jessica's schemes.
"Littering garbage while you knew we were behind you, you trying to insult us?" Hyoyeon shoved her.
"Only if you played nicely and minded your own business, maybe we wouldn't have punished you...this harshly." Yuri smirked at her, pushing her head down.
"We are not dumb. Even if you rip away all your notebook, nobody will follow you here, nobody ever walks this route loser."
Jessica satisfied with the look of the girl kneeling below her, whom her friends had forced to kneel on the ground with hair dripping wet. "You look pretty hot when your hair is wet like that."
"Wow Jessica, did you just call her hot? Aww, I am so jealous!! You never call me hot!!!" Yuri whined.
"You better respect and obey every word I say, or I am going to make your entire life at the school miserable." Jessica whispered the harsh words through Taeyeon's wet hair.
...
JESSICA what the heck are you doing?! Is this the prank!? Tiffany was about to walk towards the group when she finally found the group but stopped when she saw someone else running past her towards the group.
"HEY! What are you guys doing!?" A guy's voice came from the distance.
"You better stay out of our way, Taeyoon!" The group fled from the scene, with the now emptied water bottle thrown at Taeyeon.
After Jessica and her friends left the scene, Taeyeon grabbed the water bottle and threw it towards the direction they fled to.
The guy ran as quick as he could to the scene. It was behind an alley way near the school, that had no points of interest, so students rarely came down this way. Taeyeon only took this way because it was quiet, and it was a short cut to the bus stop. The only obstacle were a few short fences.
"Aish! Bastards, ran faster than a bunch of spooked rats!" The guy panted after stopping in front of Taeyeon. When he turned around, Taeyeon was already up looking into her bag. Funny enough, her bag had nothing but random accessories.
The guy looked at her and smiled. "Why did you throw that bottle at the air? It's useless after they had already left, you know?"
Taeyeon looked up from her bag and glared at him. "I was frustrated. Can't I vent?"
"Hi...it's you!" The guy exclaimed, pointing a finger at Taeyeon's face.
Taeyeon scrunched up her face and tried to remember where she had seen the boy before. She did recognize him; it was the same guy she met on the bus during her first day of school.
Oh great, annoying dude from the bus. Taeyeon thought to herself, remembering how much the guy talked when she was trying to sleep on the bus.
"Yah! You, what is with that face?" The boy pretended to look away with a weird look.
Taeyeon took out a comb from her bag and brushed her hair.
"What the...and you have the mood to brush your hair after that? Were those girls...picking on you?" The boy asked her carefully, trying to act like a gentleman out of the sudden.
"Nope, I was having a shower." She replied as she squeezed the excess water out of her uniform. "What should I have the mood to be doing then?"
The boy shook his head at the response. "I don't know...for a short little girl like you? I expected you to be crying."
"Right, crying over that? And you are the knight in shining armour." She joked.
"Well, aren't you the oddest girl I have ever met."
"Shush. Do I look hot like this?" Taeyeon looked up at him with her now combed hair and straightened uniform.
"Huh?" The boy caught off guard by the question.
Taeyeon looked at him amused, "Never mind, I just thought of something."
"So prideful. It's not embarrassing to admit that you are being bullied you know. If you admit it, maybe I will protect you." The boy leaned in, his face closing into hers.
In fact, Taeyeon was not prideful. She just didn't want people to look down on her. But not to the point that she thinks she is invulnerable, she just didn't want people to worry about her. She didn't know how to respond to such caring gestures, plus she felt that she always knew what she is doing.
She put her palm over the boy's mouth and pushed his face away.
"Haha. Funny. Bye."
"Hey! I haven't asked your name yet!"
"Mr. Handsome," Taeyeon said as she turned around. "Thank you for coming when you did. But I am really ok, all they did was some petty pranks. I took none of it to heart. I don't need you to follow me. OK?" She said dragging out the last word.
"SO RUDE!" He exclaimed. "Who said I was concerned about whether if you were 'ok'?" The boy joked, and then grinned victoriously when he saw the girl's face change. "I just asked for your name."
Caught off guard, Taeyeon paused for a second to recollect herself. "And? Why would I give someone that isn't concerned about me my name?"
"Ahhh, I see how it is. Chanyeolhyun. But you can call me Chanyeol." The boy replied giving in. "Now I told you my name, it's only polite if you tell me yours."
"Taeyoon."
"You are really fine?"
"Yea." Taeyeon was about to turn around and leave but paused before turning back again. "Can you not tell what you saw to anyone?"
"Why? We need to tell the teacher. This is unacceptable." The boy retorted.
"Can you just promise me and not tell this to anyone first?" Taeyeon said in a frustrated tone.
"Ah? First time meeting you and we've already got a secret?" Chanyeol couldn't believe it, and a wide smile emerged from his face. "Wahhhh, this is amazing."
Taeyeon facepalmed herself and wanted to leave.
"OK. OK. I promise. Now, what were you saying before?"
"Didn't you see the person earlier was Jessica?"
"Jessica...Jung?!" His eye grew wide as Taeyeon had expected, everyone knew her.
"What did you do to catch her attention? No wonder you told me not to say anything, teachers won't do much to her anyway." Chanyeol rested his hands on his hips.
Taeyeon stifled a laugh from his cute gesture. "Do you know anything about Jessica?"
"Other than she is rich, popular and get away with whatever she wants? No."
Taeyeon rolled her eyes at his uselessness, "you can go now." She put her backpack back over her shoulders and starts to walk away.
"BUT I CAN SPY ON HER FOR YOU...if you want?" He shouted after her, but Taeyeon kept walking.
"Interesting." He smiled and walked after her. "Oh, who's going to pick up the litter?!"
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"What took you so long? Do you want to die? Making me wait for so long." A guy asked Chanyeol when he came out of the alley way entrance.
"I cleaned up the path, it looked quite dirty with all the scraps of paper. Probably dropped from some window." Chanyeol said, remembered the reason why he followed the path through the alley. He saw a bunch of scrap pieces of paper laid on the ground in a straight path, so he followed it, thinking that it was odd. The path was usually clean, as no one ever go through there. That girl's smart, but she still lucky I noticed it...How the heck did she lay the trail so perfectly straight?
"Huh? I don't believe you, what did you see?" His friend Suho pestered him.
"Nothing! It was really nothing, but the view was cute though...when she is wet." Chanyeol blurted out and quickly tried to save himself.
"Did you catch someone having ... in the alley?" His friend gasped teasingly.
"Why would they lead a trail of paper if they were?! Are you an idiot?"
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During the weekend...
Tiffany wondered what to believe: her best friend since childhood was a bully? Or was she just seeing things and it was more than meets the eye?
Sunny wondered if Taeyeon was safe and she started to worry even more after she got home safely. She worried so much that she did not think she did well on her exam that was deferred until today. To be honest, she felt guilty, because she tagged along with Taeyeon absentmindedly. Shamelessly stayed with Taeyeon because she has no other friends. If something were to happen to Taeyeon, especially if it were from Jessica, Sunny would feel like it was all her fault.
She recalled how she always sat so close, yet not too far from Taeyeon. When Taeyeon finally relented and allowed her to sit with her, Tiffany joined and kind of cemented their relationship. I am so pitiful. She thought, and it took a while before she shook that feeling away.
Meanwhile, Taeyeon was concerned about none of that, she started studying other things that interested her out of boredom. Her diligence in working on her own hobbies was a special talent of hers. She busied herself with them throughout the whole weekend, sometimes staying up as late as 3AM.
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