༄ AFTER an already long day, it was time for PE and even though Sam was a great runner, she wasn't exactly motivated for this project.

They gathered in a gym room. Sonya, Teresa, and Sam sat somewhere in a corner. Teresa pointed at two girls in the distance, who appeared to be the earlier named Brenda and Harriet, and explained how they met, et cetera.

Both boys and girls were spread around the place. Around the area where Sam noticed Jeff, Minho, Thomas, Newt, and Alby, also stood more girls than she had spoken to in her whole life... which proved a lot about the boys' status.

Sam didn't really bother listening to the teacher because she already knew what they were going to do, so she only got up when groups would be made.

Hopeless, she watched the crowd get louder. It made sense she would go with Minho, unless he had other plans, but that would've ruined the whole purpose of the fake dating act.

The boy squeezed his way through all the people around him and let go of a breath when he arrived next to Sam, running a hand through his hair. "Hi," he said, voice firm.

"Hey." Sam trailed her eyes over the space again. The people who weren't on the basketball team wore black leggings or shorts, and a red shirt.

Minho was in red, with a seven on his back. Shorts and a simple shirt, white wristbands, white shoes.

"Are you good at running?" She looked up at him.

He tilted his head. "You could say that. What about you?"

"You could say that."

A small smile crooked on his lips. "We'll see."

"You say that too much," she commented. "Perfect example of why you might be failing classes. Oh, I got a geography test... I'll see how it goes!"

"Would you stop insulting me for my bad grades?"

"As long as you don't try to make them good... no, I won't."

"Fine, Nerd. I'll continue to insult you for reading the things you apparently can't seem to get."

She elbowed him in the side. "At least I read. Moving on, what about the nicknames? Us arguing isn't gonna make anything more believable so please tell me you made some of those up."

"I got plenty."

"Spill."

"Cute Patootie, Snuggle Bear, Honey Bee, Princess Poo-Poo, and Giggles."

She pulled a face. "Ahw, Little Pudding. You're so sweet."

He rolled his eyes. "Fine. I got Samantha, as in Frozen, Samuel, so I can annoy you. Or Salami, Sammy... maybe Sandwich."

"Idiotic."

"Don't expect me to call you Love, or Sunshine, or Butterfly, or whatever else those men call their girls. Little Mouse? Ridiculous. Samuel or Sammy or Salami, or nothing at all."

"We'll see," she spat. Okay... in the beginning she liked him, but now that was fading a bit. "Let's just go. Grab a stopwatch and go outside."

He did obey to that and later, they were standing somewhere in the middle of the woods with a large group of other kids around them. The teacher told them they were going to run about six miles. It was fine if they started walking midway because this was just to warm up.

Nah, Sam wasn't going to stop running until Minho did, and he seemed fit enough to run the six miles.

"Make sure you stay with your partner, even though this is just the start exercise," the teacher called, then blew on his whistle. "Let's go!"

The first five minutes of running went without a word. Sam had no idea how Minho wasn't out of breath, but didn't care because she wasn't out of breath either. Jogging was the only sport she had done the previous year and she still did it at least three times a week.

"Guess I found some competition." He looked down at his arms. Adjusted his wristbands before he sped his pace up. "So, have you played any sports before?"

She raised her eyebrows.

"What? I can't ask you a question? It would be nice if I knew something about my 'girlfriend'. I know your brother, last name, that your mom's the principal, and that you like to read. That's it!"

"I've done swimming and dance. Am now stuck with jogging," she said. "And you?"

"Swimming, too. I kept going after I was able to swim, but then..." He swallowed. "Then I quit. But it's always been basketball. Sometimes I enjoy running."

Ignoring how his tone had changed when he said he quit swimming, she nodded. "Do you have siblings?"

"No. You only have Jeff, right?"

She nodded. "How long have you lived here? In Etril?"

"My whole life. Jeff told me y'all just moved here, but your mom has always been the principal as long as I remember."

"Yeah. Now she decided it's better that we go to this school too. I'm not sure why. It's so... strict."

"And terrible. Yeah, I know."

"Has changing schools ever crossed your mind?"

"I don't want to leave my friends hanging and my parents invested too much into this school for me to leave." He shrugged. "Anyway— we're doing good. The rest is way behind us."

"Great." A silence in which their now heavier breaths were audible. "Uh... you wanna come over this weekend? My mom's not there and I'm sure we can manage to get inside the office at home and look through some tests, if she has them."

"Sure." He nodded. "Thanks, Samuel."

"Shut up."

"What? It's a good nickname!" He laughed, bright and loud.

She grunted. "Okay, Mean Hoe. If you want to play it like that."

"Stop that. Thomas always teases me with that and I don't—"

"What do I do?"

"Holy shit!" Sam made a jump when the voice suddenly appeared and nearly fall against Minho. "What the hell?!"

"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."

"Thomas, what the actual f—"

The brunette crooked a smile. His hair was matted from small beads of sweat. He put his hands on his hips. "Teresa went to smoke a cigarette so I sprinted to catch up. Did I interrupt something?"

"No—"
"Yes, clearly—"

"Well, I know I didn't interrupt you two making out so I don't even care. What's up?"

"The sky."
"Minho's ego."

Minho gave Sam a glare. "What do you want, Thomas?"

"More than you can provide, but that's not the point. I'm just wondering why you, Minho, out of all people, didn't tell me you were dating someone! I'm your best friend, man. A week ago? When you pretended you didn't know Samira and shook her hand? Not cool. You should've told me!"

They now shared a glance. "Yeah, well, Thomas, I'm not gonna tell you everything if it's none of your business."

"You suck." The brunette exhaled as they continued jogging. "And by the way, try a little harder. You're not exactly being the boyfriend every girl dreams about. I've seen Samira carrying her books and I'm surprised a rotten, emotionless boy who doesn't even touch her made it this far." He turned his head to Sam. "And with emotionless, I don't mean it in an Aaron Warner way."

She gasped. "You know Aaron Warner?"

"Yeah. I'm a proud bisexual teen, of course I know Aaron Warner. I haven't got the patience to read many books, but I've done my research." And he turned back to Minho. "Dude, you're a red flag for not acting like Aaron toward your girlfriend."

Okay, it was awesome that Thomas knew who that divine blonde murderer was, but he did make it very awkward.

"I'll act however the hell I want to my girlfriend."

Bleh, that sounded so weird. For the first time in her life, someone called her his girlfriend and that was strange as hell.

"I won't take dating advice from the boy that's been in love with his best friend for over ten years, Thomas."

"Peeta Mellark would never." With a roll of his eyes at Minho, Thomas sped up his run. "Samira, make a man out of that boy."

"Right..."

Thomas was... an interesting boy for sure.

Eventually, the trio finished the six miles. Thomas got a yelling teacher on his roof for leaving Teresa behind while Minho murmured something about 'have to go' and 'got things to do'.

"Uh— you okay?" Slightly worried, she stared at him. His face had paled and she could see his hands clenching into fists, which caused him to groan. "Are you in pain?"

"Will be fine," he assured after a quiet curse left his mouth.

"What's wrong?" She glanced beside him. More people had finished the run and they were free from school for today. Even the sky was starting to get darker. "Do you have... I don't know— asthma or something?"

"No, it's nothing." But he winced when he tried to run a hand through his hair. "I've got to go. Sorry. I'll see you, Sam."

Well.

She watched him rush away, confused. Confused, curious, but a bit hurt he didn't let her help him. But most definitely curious and confused.

Maybe he just had a sting in his side after the running. Must've been it.

So Sam returned in her dorm with a lowered head. She turned the shower on. Stripped her clothes off and brushed through the hair she had styled with gel earlier. She washed her body quickly, and spent ten awful seconds under cold water.

Once she was dressed in her pajamas, she looked in the mirror. Darker circles stood around her eyes from the previous weekend. Her skin only started glowing when she put a serum on and she felt less stressed after she got her hair under control by braiding it.

Sam looked around in the dorm. How smart of the designers to not place a desk in it while it was a literal school dorm. So she hurried to smash her books in a bag and went into the 'lounge' to study.

Yeah, you could call it a lounge. It was basically the most relaxing place in the building full of dorms. A fireplace was crackling in the corner, other girls were reading or quietly speaking, and the TV that had a two hour screen time per day (ridiculous) was on.

Sam claimed a place in the corner and started working, after she sent Minho a text.

Minho

You okay?

Fine

Okay. Great.
Lmk if you something's wrong

Nootjgijf woengn

What

It took a good three minutes before he replied again.

Nothing is wrong**
Sry
My hands were cold
Wouldn't move

Right.
Night, then.

Night

She ignored how weird he was acting and continued studying. Lovely.