"Are you finally done?" With a deep sigh, Minho looks up and down at me.

"Yup. How do I look?"

"Horrible."

"Then I need to change again—"

"Kidding!" He says fast. "Don't take more time. You look fine."

I'm wearing the red top I made. It's peeking out from under a sleek leather jacket. The black color of it matches with my denim skirt. I've even adorned my eyes with silver little glitters.

"Thanks." I smile before we go downstairs. We meet Mom in front of the door, her arms crossed and eyes stern.

"You're going with Thomas? He picks y'all up along with Brenda and Teresa?" She asks.

"Yup." Minho tries to slide past her, but she raises a dangerous eyebrow.

"You won't drink?" She asks him.

"Nope."

Suspicious, Mom turns to me. "You watch him."

"Will do."

Won't really do.

In what universe will Minho properly listen to me? Right.

"But you can take a beer," she adds. "But you can't take drugs or drinks from strangers."

"We know. We got it. We would now like to leave, thank you—"

"Please don't dive into bed without anyone either."

"Ew, Mom. No."

"I swear if a girl shows up pregnant—"

Minho presses his hands against his ears.

"—or if you show up pregna—"

"I won't," I say fast. "It's just a party, Mom."

"Be home before eleven."

Offended, Minho removes his hands off his ears. "Four," he says.

"Half twelve," she replies.

"Three."

"Half twelve."

"Three."

"Half twelve."

"Five."

"Half—"

"—six, yes. Okay." He pulls my arm, finally slips past her, then rushes outside. "Bye."

Thomas is already waiting in his father's car, with Teresa next to him and Brenda in the back. I have no idea how he convinced Dan to give him the car. Probably promised him something stupid in return, because Dan knows how some cars standing close to a party get ruined. Actually, I'm predicting he told Thomas to park it like ten minutes away. And Thomas will end up doing it five minutes away.

"Hi, guys," they greet. Minho and I quickly sit down on the backseat, next to Brenda, and we start driving.

Brenda has her short hair in a half-up half-down bun, and is wearing a pair of glittery shorts and a black top. Teresa, in fact, went for something a little more casual. Her hair is loose and her dress pretty, but simple. It looks really nice, though.

Thomas and Minho are wearing jeans and a shirt, of course. The most basic things ever.

"So... who's organizing this party?" Brenda leaned forward to speak to Thomas and Teresa. "Will it be the most boring thing ever, or the most chaotic thing?"

"It's just a normal party," Teresa responds. "That's what they told me, at least."

All eyes go to Thomas, as if he knows the answer.

"What? I randomly got invited," he says offendedly. "Ask Minho, as he's so popular."

Minho rolls his eyes. Not a single decent reply comes out of his mouth in the following minutes, and then, Thomas stops driving five minutes away from our destination.

Told you.

"What are you doing?" Brenda and Minho ask in unison. "The house isn't here."

"My dad told me to park like ten minutes away."

"And you listen?"

"No, this is five minutes!"

Satisfied, I lean back, grinning to myself. Of course, after eighteen and a half years of knowing him, I also know his father very well.

"How late do y'all need to be home?" Teresa asks as we make our way out of the car.

"Half six," Minho says.

Thomas gives him a look that says enough: I don't believe you.

Brenda frowns, too. "Your mother is Asian. There is no way."

"She said half twelve, he made it half six," I summarize quickly. "She'll be waiting with a slipper, very ready to ground us."

"I don't think I really care." Minho starts walking, and we follow. "I'm not returning at half twelve when it's already nine PM right now."

I glance at Thomas, eyebrows raised. Two, he mouths. I turn back to Minho. "I'm staying 'till two, that's it. You might have a lot of people who will give you a ride back, but I don't. I'll go with Thomas."

"I have kids to babysit tomorrow morning, so I won't stay until late," Teresa says. "But I told Tom to just continue partying without me. Newt's sister will pick me up 'round twelve."

Ah, Sonya. Really not as sweet and behaving as she seems. She's currently sixteen, almost seventeen, and in Minho's year.

Our parents are quite strict, but so are Newt and Sonya's. Our parents are also a bit oblivious. Newt and Sonya's aren't. They'll notice if they sneak out, so I'm guessing they have to be back around twelve, and that's why Teresa is going with Sonya.

Anyway, I'm starting to hear the music. It's so loud that I have a suspicion neighbors will call the police, until I see the house is alone in its area. And wow, it's big.

The front door alone is twice the size of ours, while I wouldn't call our house small. That proves a lot about this one.

The doors are wide open, though. They're welcoming us into a chaos of dancing and laughing people. Someone stumbles out of the house as we enter, obviously drunk. A few couples are making out on the staircase we have to go up.

I recognize a few faces but no names. There's people playing beer games and making drinks at the counter. Shirts are off, revealing clothes are on— I feel like I'm in a movie.

Thank God Finn isn't here, though. He wouldn't have let me, nor Minho, close to the crowded areas, let alone the drinks.

When I turn to show my amazed expression, both Minho and Brenda have already vanished. Thomas stares—all the crazy events here mirroring in his eyes—around, then looks at Teresa, who seems a little taken aback.

I don't like this. I can already tell. The screaming people, the smell of weed and alcohol, the bareness... not for me.

"I'm going to the bathroom," I yell through the music.

That's where I'll be taking breaks every twenty minutes.

They give me a nod. I disappear back into the crowd, my eyes focused on the hallway and that only. It's a whole parkour to reach the bathroom. Once I do, I'm grateful there is no line, and then enjoy the immediate silence.

The yells and music are blurred on the background. I stare in the mirror for a few seconds, fixing the glitters on my eyes.

They're barely visible, though. My eyelids are hooded and that is never a benefit. The curls I put in my hair are no longer there. I should've known my hair never sticks to any type of twists. It's pin straight. Won't hold onto anything.

But well, nothing to do about that here. So after a minute, I exit the bathroom, enter the crowd, change my mind, and then decide to stand against the wall for the rest of the evening, with some kind of drink in my hands.

"Hi." A boy I personally don't know appears next to me.

I've heard stories, though.

"No." I turn my head away. Now I'm forced to stare outside until he leaves. At more people making out in the pool this house of course has. People ripping off their clothes and jumping in. People taking drugs around it.

But the boy doesn't leave. He also doesn't speak. He just moves closer, so right away, I walk outside. Get a few splashes of water from my dear brother on my clothes before I sit down on one of those beach chairs.

"Hey, you're Minho's little sister, right?" A girl plops down on a chair next to me.

"Big sister, yeah." I give her a small smile.

She's got long, wavy brown hair. I can't see a lot other than her darkish eyes. The blue glow coming from the pool reveals them.

"Do you think I have a chance?" She asks dreamily.

"Huh?"

"With your big brother."

"Finn?"

"No, Minho."

"He's not my... whatever," I mutter below my breath. "Uhm, I don't know. Give it a try."

"He's just so... cute. And sweet. And handsome." The girl lies back in her chair, eyes on the sky. She's smiling, hard.

I think she's on drugs.

"He's not sweet," I say.

"He seems to be," she sighs out. "Do you have another brother if this one doesn't work out?"

"...yes. But he's too old."

"I'm seventeen."

"And he's almost twenty-one. You're still in school, he's—"

"I'm also twenty. Graduated a year ago," she lies.

I give up.

She continues talking about how amazing and sweet and lovely and wonderful and hot and blahblahblah Minho is. Then, out of nowhere, she's silent.

I look away from the sky to check if she suddenly died, but it's just Minho who has made his appearance.

"Oh, hi, Minho," she greets, twisting a piece of hair around finger.

He glances up and down at her. "Hi.." he says slowly. "I don't know you." And he turns to me. "Where did Thomas go? You look horrible here and that will ruin my reputation. Go do something."

"That will ruin my reputation," I mimic, voice high-pitched. "No one knows who I am. No one cares about your reputation. I have no idea where Thomas is."

"Go find him before he does something stupid."

"He's with Teresa Agnes. What stupid things can happen around her?" I say. "Leave me in my peace, please."

With a groan, he does as I say.

"Wow," the girl whispers.

This is clearly not any better than the boy inside.

So I get up again. Maybe there's like a balcony upstairs. I don't want to immediately leave because I'll seem like a boring person, but I still don't feel like partying either.

But nope, interrupting at least three couples, two junkies, and one sleeping person later, I'm back downstairs.

"There you are!" Thomas pulls me to the side of the 'dance floor'. "I was looking everywhere."

"Oh." Surprised at the sudden greeting, I inspect him. He doesn't look like he has partied much either. "Where's Teresa?"

"Went to the bathroom and would get some drinks after that. Do you want something?"

I shake my head.

"Of course not." Smiling, Thomas waits next to me against the wall. Teresa reveals herself about ten minutes later, with two red cups in her hands. She gives one of them to Thomas.

"Oh, hi. Do you want a drink, too?"

Again, I shake my head. "No, thanks."

Then the three of us stand there, in silence, against the wall. Thomas and Teresa are holding hands but both staring at nothing in particular, just not each other. And I feel a bit awkward here.

"If you want to go dance, do it," I encourage. "Or swim, or play games, or... I don't know, make out, take freaking drugs..."

Gosh.

I want to slam my head against the wall.

"I asked Sonya if she could come a bit earlier. I figured this isn't exactly my kind of party," Teresa says. "She will be here in five minutes. Won't be worth it to dance now."

"Ah, alright." Even more awkward than before, I look away.

And indeed: Teresa is completely gone about five minutes later, not a single track of her left in here.

"You always used to say you were excited for these kind of parties," I say, barely audible through the music.

"What?" Thomas screams. He leans closer so I'm able to speak in his ear, and he nods. "Yeah! Guess I don't really like it, though."

Okay, communicating in this place also won't really work.

We try to speak a little bit in the following twenty minutes, but it doesn't do much. I'm bored out of my mind, ready to leave. I'm sure he's ready to leave, too.

But neither of us mention it.

"Come on," he suddenly says, taking my wrist. "We've got to do something."

He walks us over to the beer pong table before I can protest. Then I'm forced to play, and have to take a lot of shots.

Have never been good at games. Board games, I'm good at, but things even slightly related to throwing balls... nah.

I feel tipsy by the time we're done. I'm laughing more at the jokes the people around the table made and dancing seems more attractive now.

Thomas and I share a glance. Will we? His eyes ask. We will, I silently reply.

Then we're dancing. And laughing. And dancing and laughing and muttering along with lyrics and trying to talk above the music.

And it's a lot of fun.

"Okay, my ears hurt, let's go!" Laughing, Thomas pulls me along with him. We go outside. Not to the pool, but the front door. The couples on the staircase are gone. We're free to sit in peace for a while.

The music is still ringing in my ears. I wipe sweat off my forehead. Share some laughs with Thomas. Feel the alcohol do its job on my body.

"That wasn't too bad," he says.

"It wasn't," I agree, smiling. "But my feet hurt and I want to spare myself from Mom. It's definitely past half twelve by now."

"Okay. We'll go home." Thomas wipes some sweat off his forehead too, but some of it sticks to his brows. Always happens to him. It's not noticeable if you don't focus on it, but I do, because... because I don't know.

"Do we need to get Minho?" I ask. "I don't want to leave him behind and let something bad happen."

"He won't come with us, even if we get on our knees," Thomas tells me.

"True. We'll just go home, then."