Fate's Little Bell

Chapter 17

The next day at school, a Tuesday, Prudence literally attacked my neck.

    "What the heck are you doing?" I asked her, trying to fend off her hands.

    "I'm checking to see if you're wearing make up to cover up hickeys!" she said loudly.

    "If I just admit that I am, will you stop?" I glanced around nervously at the students around us, a couple of whom were very much paying attention to our craziness.

    "Maybe."

    "Okay, well I am," I told her quietly, "so would you please chill with attacking me?"

    She burst into laugher. "Jane, you're such a hoe! I love it."

    I rolled my eyes. "I appreciate how literally everyone in the hallway now knows about this."

    "You're welcome." She grinned at me. "Really though, if you slept with him, I'd understand. Just be safe."

    "I'm not gonna sleep with him," I insisted. "As bad as I apparently am at saying no to him, he knows where I stand on that, so... I don't know, hopefully he'll respect that."

    "Honey, from what I heard last night, it sounded like he was trying to do some major stuff to you... so I wouldn't be too sure about that if I were you."

    I pursed my lips. "Honestly... I kinda wonder if he would do anything to me if I let him. I mean... by his standards, I'm underage, and now that he knows how I feel about sex... I just don't know if he'd actually go through with anything." I took a breath. "Probably depends on his mood."

    She nodded. "Yeah, but just remember that he's a hot blooded grown ass man, so I'm sure he'd be able to set aside his morals and whatever just fine if he really wanted to," she whispered as we went into class.

    "True," I said as we parted ways to take our seats.

~ — ~

    When class was over, we grabbed our stuff and shuffled out into the hallway.

    "Jane, Jane, Jane!" I heard someone call, and turned around to see if someone was trying to talk to me.

    My friend Janae was weaving her way through the crowd as quickly as she could, her white blond short cropped hair bouncing with every step. She finally reached us and looked at me anxiously. "I'm probably jumping to conclusions, but you need to see this."

    "See what?" I asked, frowning. "Did something happen?"

    "So I was in concert band and before class started, there were a couple girls watching something and I heard them say something about BTS and since I know you like them, I asked what they were looking at and they showed me and now I need to show you." She took a breath. "I hope I'm going crazy, but if I'm not... well, I'll just let you see for yourself."

    She held out her cracked iPhone in front of us and played a video. "The sound isn't important," she said quickly. On the video, it showed someone's tweet, which read, "Disclaimer: I'm not an ARMY but some of my friends are and they wanted me to share this." Beneath it, there was a video. The tweet disappeared, and the video started playing. I recognized the lobby from the hotel and clapped a hand over my mouth as I registered myself in the shot, standing a few feet from Jeongguk.

    "Oh no," Prudence said quietly.

    "Oh my God," I whispered, as on Janae's phone we walked out of sight.

    "I'm... afraid it gets worse." As she spoke, the video changed and suddenly I could see the shaky recording of a security camera console. It was focused on one corner of the screen, and I could see the pool room.