Azalea

The rest of the week inched by. Azalea and I talked once in a while but it wasn't as often as I'd like, and she just said she was really busy, which was fine, I supposed. We were just friends, and we had seperate lives. That was fine. Jinki and I talked a bit more too, which was pretty good too because I needed to get out more and make new friends because it turned out that all my friends happened to be friends with Phillip and were, by default, horrible people.

We made plans for Friday night. My parents were leaving on Saturday night, so I'd have Saturday morning to say my goodbyes and so on.

I was looking forward to it. I'd spent the whole week thinking about Azalea, and I didn't know why. I was just worried. She didn't sound like herself, and I didn't want to ask because I didn't want to seem nosy, but it still bothered me. She sounded sad.

Jinki and I were going to a new bar because he insisted that I needed to meet new people and that would cheer me up. (He was so damn friendly, trying to boost office morale and things like that. I liked him, but he was so peppy.) I relented, mostly because I felt like there wasn't anything bad that could really happen.

Since I didn't really know where we were going, Jinki picked me up - I made it a point not to drink and drive because I felt like it was an unnecessary risk. Of course, my parents loved him. They loved most of my friends. Soon, we were on our way.

It was a nice bar, I guess. He really liked it, in any event, and seemed like he was a regular because most of the bar tenders waved and smiled at him.

I thought it was going to be a normal evening.

As if.

First, Taemin shows up out of the blue. He's not annoyed or grumpy anymore, and seems to be in a pleasant mood. For now. He was friends with Jinki - what a small little world - and was pretty cool, you know, when he wasn't glaring at me and digging into my leg with his bony elbow.

Everything was fine.

And then Hope showed up.

I shot Jinki a look and he shrugged. In the last week, Hope had been coming by the office more and more and I knew that she and Jinki were kind of friends, but I didn't think anything would come of it. Of course, I was wrong.

"Key!" she exclaimed happily. She had obviously been drinking before, because she slurred her words a little and looked kind of lost. "Oh my gosh, I'm so happy to see you, like you don't even know! This is so great." She grabbed my drink as she threw an arm around my shoulder, grinning. "Bottoms up."

I narrowed my eyes at Jinki and he frowned, mouthing, "Sorry."

"Let's dance! You wanna dance? Let's dance."

"Um... no. I'm okay. I was just leaving, actually," I say, trying to bow out of it as graciouslly as I can. She's not having it.

"C'mon. Stay! It's - we're gonna have, like so much fun!" She squeezed my face, frowning. "Why're you so grumpy, grumpy pants?"

"I'm not. I'm just - I'm going to go. Bye." I slipped out of her grasp and managed to sneak out the door without much trouble. But of course she had to follow me outside. Of course.

"Key! Wait! Come back!" I stopped, rolling my eyes. I turned around with every intention of letting her know exactly how not interested I was in her. And then she sloppily kissed me, trying to stick her tongue in my mouth as she pushed me against the wall. "I realy like you," she whispered, smiling.

"Hope, listen - "

"Shh." And then she kissed me again, and I was trying to push her away, but she just wouldn't budge.

"Kibum?" Hope turned and that was my chance to go, except that Azalea was just standing there, looking at me blankly.

"Az - "

"Don't. It's - it's okay. I should leave. I'm going to just... go." She turned around and walked away quickly. Hope stumbled away after that, laughing as she walked back into the bar. I tried going after Azalea, but she had climbed into her car and was speeding away.

Great.