Classmates with iKON

Chapter 8: apology

Mina POV
The next afternoon after school, I walked home alone as oppa had dance rehearsals in school and I have no idea where the iKON boys or Eunmi were.

I walked past the playground near my house to see a girl sitting on the slide alone.

Once she saw me, she immediately ran over and hugged me. Due to her small height, she was only able to envelope my legs in a hug.

I removed her arms from my legs and squat down to a more comfortable height to talk to her.

"Hanbyul, why are you here alone? Where's your oppa?" I asked as I turned my head to observe the surroundings. Hanbin was really nowhere in sight.

"Eonnie, will you forgive my oppa? He knows that it was his fault already." Hanbyul asked with those big round puppy eyes of hers.

"That's a matter between your oppa and I. C'mon Hanbyul, I'll bring you home. Do you remember where you stay?"

"What must my oppa do before you can forgive him?" Hanbyul asked innocently again.

"If he apologises to me personally and not through his cute little dongsaeng." I poked her nose and stood up.

"I'm sorry Mina, please let me explain myself."

Hanbin was right behind me. After those words, he hung his head low in embarrassment and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Oh so you even resorted to using your sister to apologise to me." I scoffed.

"That's because you have been ignoring me the entire week! I really tried to approach you but you kept avoiding me. I'm sorry okay Mina, I'm really sorry..." His eyes were filled with sincerity and I kinda wanted to give him a second chance.

He took my silence as a cue for him to continue. After asking Hanbyul to go play with the other kids at the playground, Hanbin and I took a seat at the bench and started talking about life.

"I'm sor-" Hanbin started but I interrupted him.

"You've already apologized countless times, but can you tell me why do you hate me so much?"

"I don't... I just... I was just confused."

"Confused?"

"You resembled someone I knew. She was really pretty and popular, just like you. But I did not suspect anything when she tried to get closer with me during our dance competition a few years back."

I can't help but blush when Hanbin indirectly complimented me.

"I started to grow to like her but that girl, turns out that all she wanted was just fame and popularity. Social class you can call it. When we lost the dance competition to Winner, she left us and joined them instead."

"I tried talking to her, but she blatantly admitted that she just wanted to be friends with the champions of the dance competition, which wasn't iKON anymore."

"No wonder you were wary of me, especially so that my brother is part of Winner now." I concluded after Hanbin finished his story.

"At that time I thought Mino was your boyfriend, so I was suspicious of why you would join our group of friends." Hanbin replied.

"Have you gotten over the girl? She is definitely not worth your time."

"Her family migrated to the US last year and I doubt she will ever return to Korea. WAIT, Mina are you worried about me? Have you forgiven me?" He asked eagerly.

"Yeah, we're good now. Just talk things out nicely next time. Don't be so mean."

I was considering on forgiving him ever since that day when Taehyun oppa talked to me. I finally understood that Hanbin's worries were not uncalled for since he couldn't trust me entirely then. But it would certainly be better if he didn't just bluntly insult me.

We watched Hanbyul play with the other kids in comfortable silence. Well, it is considered much more comfortable than the previous weeks when there was tension wherever we were.

"It seems like you're very close with Junhoe." He mentioned out of the blue.

"Yeah, we are good friends probably because he has always been there for me during the tough times." Not willing to clearly state when was the tough times as it would be awkward.

"I took a long time to break the ice with him so I'm kinda surprised that he opened up to you so quickly." He said.

"It's probably because we have common topics to talk about. Anyway how's the dance competition going?"

"Haven't you heard from the boys or Eunmi?"

"Well, this topic is taboo to talk about since we weren't on good terms due to this issue."

"We've passed the preliminary rounds. The final match will take place in front of the whole school and there will be three performances in total."

"Ah yes, I've heard about the rules from Mino oppa."

"Is Winner the other finalist?"

I just nodded my head.

"I hope you won't feel uncomfortable being stuck between the two finalists. I trust that you are a countable friend." Hanbin gave me a genuine smile for the first time ever.

He should smile more because he looks good with that charismatic smile.

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"Omg what is this?" Donghyuk said, dumbfounded.

"Are my eyes playing tricks on me?" Chanwoo asked.

"I think we have gone mad already." Bobby rubbed his eyes.

"What?" I asked, laughing at their exaggerated expressions because I knew what they were shocked.

I had walked into the dance studio with Hanbin and I wasn't giving him the cold shoulder. In fact, I was laughing at a funny story he just shared with me.

Overnight, I had grown closer to Hanbin and we clicked well instantly. I didn't know he could be this approachable after shedding that jerk-ish side of him. It was as if the bad boy Hanbin was gone for good and he was replaced with a humorous and kind boy.

This was the first time I visited the boys during their dance practice and I was looking forward to seeing their performance. After some warm up, the boys turned up the music and danced to Taeyang's Ringa Linga.

I must say they are really talented and all of them were good dancers. I couldn't even focus on one person for long because everyone shined in their own way.

"From the top again, let's do this." Hanbin instructed and they tried the dance. He shook his head and looked as though he was in deep thought. Did he felt that their performance was lacking something? I thought it was already perfect!

They did the dance routine for 2 hours straight and it was obvious that all of them were dead tired. But seems like the tiger leader wasn't ready to let them off the hook.

"Let's take a ten minutes break before continuing." Hanbin instructed before heading towards the computer and making adjustments to the song.

Eunmi took a towel and bottled water before handing them over to Donghyuk. He smiled at her lovingly as he gulped the water down. They were really such a sweet couple.

"Mina I am dead tired, where's my water and towel?" Bobby whined childishly.

"Ya Mina I want mine too~" Jinhwan added.

"But too bad I'm not your girlfriend so come and take it yourselves." I teased.

The weird thing was, I caught Hanbin and Junhoe staring at me after what I had said.

"What?" I asked them.

But they just shrugged their shoulders and continued with what they were doing. Hmmm, weird...