7 DON'T PLAY WITH ME

"What brings you here, General Rudale?" Isabella says stiffly. She isn't exactly warm and cuddly with us, but talking to the strange man in the doorway, there's an icy edge to her tone.

General Rudale steps inside the classroom and leans against the wall with his hands in the pockets of his majestic cloak. "I am merely observing how this class goes," he says, his voice low and slithery. His presence and voice fills the room with uneasiness, and I can feel it as if something cold were trailing down my spine.

Isabella, to everyone's great bewilderment, sits on a desk with a slouched posture, as if taunting Rudale. "Well," she says slowly, her gaze digging into Rudale's soulless abyss eyes unflinchingly, "then I must remind you that this is my class, my ship, and you are not to interfere."

General Rudale doesn't say anything, but his eyes trail lazily from one student to the next, lingering longest on Namjoon and Jin. Jin's hands are clenched around fistfuls of the cloth from his pants, and Namjoon's eyes blaze with silent anger.

Curiosity blooms in my chest. What history between Namjoon, Jin, and General Rudale must they've had to spring such hatred? I can tell from Kookie's expression that he wants to know too.

The rest of class continues with such tension in the air that it's suffocating. Isabella comes over to evaluate our glass cube, and Rudale passes our group countlessly. Isabella seems to notice Rudale's weird obsession with Namjoon and Jin, and she lingers around our group, as if shielding them from Rudale. Today, I could just kiss her from gratitude.

When class is dismissed, Namjoon and Jin are instantly gone. So is General Rudale. After putting back the glass cube to our locker, Kookie and I stare at each other with silent questions, but we save them later for midnight.

I go to Astronomy and Kookie goes to his Safety and Defense class. Astronomy is in the South Wing, so I have to walk a lot to get there. I end up taking the transport lift to Astronomy. The transport lift can take you places in the ship sideways, horizontally, through the walls. And all you have to do is stand there and press a button for where you want to go.

At first, I'm the only one in the lift. But the next stop, several people bustle in, and I'm squished in the corner with a guy pressed to my left side. He smells good. Smells like-- I flashback to the Safety and Defense class this morning, when Jimin leaned into me, he smelled refreshing and warm, sort of like scented candles. I can still smell it clearly now just by the memory. This guy next to me smells like candles, too.

"Candles," I mumble, then an electric jolt goes through me as I realize the guy next to me IS Jimin. Jimin seems to realize who I am the same time I realize who he is. We stare at each other simultaneously, me with dreading horror, his smile mischievous and playful.

All I can think, when I feel like my body is melting into a pitiful puddle, is 'why me??'

The next stop, everyone gets off EXCEPT me and Jimin. When the doors of the lift start sliding closed, I attempt to move away from the corner and Jimin, but he thrusts his arms out suddenly, his right arm pinning me back. My heart jumps into my throat. He fakes a yawn and stretches his arms dramatically. I roll my eyes and wait for him to finish. Then I step away, but his leg crosses over my left foot and hooks my ankle there, preventing me to move away.

I growl warningly at him, and he gives me that smirk.

"What do you want?" I say, trying to scare him away with the murderous look in my eyes.

He acts unfazed, with an innocent, "Hmm?" and tilting his head to the side.

"Don't play with me," I say without thinking, trying to keep my voice steady but it ends up faltering. I clear my throat, heat creeping up my neck. "Just... be honest and say whatever you want from me, or just leave me alone. Ok?"

Jimin's expression softens. He brings back his leg, but I don't move away, I just stand there with tense shoulders and stare at a spot on the wall across me, trying to flush out any embarrassment.

'There,' I think quietly, 'I said it. But now he's gonna find me annoying... he won't ever look at me again...'

I feel a warm breath on my neck. I jerk my head up, startled, to see Jimin leaning close to me, his face serious now. His eyes dance, almost nervous. He sucks in a breath, and I feel his fingers lightly resting on the back of my neck, his thumb brushing away stray strands of my hair from my cheek. So softly, so gently. I freeze and hold my breath. I can't move.

"Emma." His voice is soft and nice. I look at him, and I don't look away. "I want to know you better. I want to be your friend, I liked you the moment I saw you. You don't know... you have this strong aura, and it shines in your eyes, the way you walk and talk. ...I will never ever try to hurt you in any way, I just..." Jimin is very close now, and I still can't move or breathe. "I love it when you blush like that."

On cue, heat floods my face. Jimin grins widely, and the lift's doors open with a 'ping'. I feel like crumbling to the ground, and my lungs still aren't working. Jimin pauses, waiting for me to move, and when I don't, he pulls on my wrist gently and leads me out of the lift. "I assume you have Astronomy," he says, "since there's only one class so far down the South Wing."

"You..." I say breathlessly, "you know you're way around here already, then?"

Jimin winks. "I learn fast."

We enter the Astronomy class, and he sits by me. This shameless guy won't stop looking at me. I stare hard at Mengxi, who's starting class with a short talk of something about tidal locking of planets, but it's hard to focus with Jimin propping his head on his palm over the desk, staring at me with those dark marble eyes.

"Uhm... Park Jimin?" Mengxi's voice saying Jimin's name yanks us both back to reality. He turns to Mengxi, whose eyes are narrowed at him. "Look up this way. Welcome to Astronomy, we look at many beautiful things, but you can stare at Emma another time."

The class roars in laughter, especially Taehyung and Yoongi, who're sitting together in the back. I curl up in my seat and hide the lower half of my burning face with the top hem of my shirt, but Jimin is just slouched in his chair, smirking and shameless.

I sigh into my shirt and smile at Jimin. This guy is full of surprises...

Astronomy is the only class on this ship with windows. This room is pretty big, and one wall is completely glass, giving a magnificent view of swirling colorful nebulas, burning stars, and broken asteroids. There is a smaller room above us where you can go up by a rope ladder, and there is a giant telescope where you can see this side of the breathtaking universe clearly. We do that today, crammed in that smaller room, each taking a turn at looking over through the telescope. It never gets old looking through it. When you look through, there are small numbers on the top right corner telling you how far whatever your eyes are focusing on are. It senses your eye movement and gives you names of stars and the distance between nebulas, the speed of spinning asteroids, and zooms in so far in that a tiny dot of empty space becomes whole solar systems.

Jimin, Taehyung, and Yoongi, as newbies, are utterly at loss for words when they look through the telescope. Mengxi beams with pride; she treats this telescope like it's her baby.

After an interesting lecture, I head to our second and final meal of the day. Jimin disappears off with Taehyung and Yoongi. They seem to be really close friends, all six of the boys. And I notice, they're really friendly with me and Kookie too. I'm walking over to the meal-room, and there's a light spring in every step and I can't wipe off the smile from my face. I keep replaying the elevator scene with Jimin, my heart fluttering wildly, my fingertips tingling--

"OOF!" Turning the corner, something rams into me and I'm pushed down hard onto the floor. I wince and look up to see a man in black glaring at me. It's General Rudale. My blood turns to ice and I scramble to my feet. When I glance up at the tall man, my stomach lurches as I look into his eyes. His eyes are still black, but they've become thin slits, and to my horror, I watch as they slowly dilate and expand until both of his eyes are all completely black. Even the whites of his eyes.

He smiles at me with no warmth at all, almost like he's purposefully trying to be creepy, and it's working. Behind his smile I watch, paralyzed with fear and confusion, as his normal-looking teeth taper into sharp jagged points. With the haunted eyes and creepy smile, I nearly scream, but it's lodged in my throat. I open my mouth but no sound comes out.

"My apologies, young lady," he says coldly, his voice slithery and almost like a strained hiss. His eyes slowly turn back to normal black irises. His teeth form back to normal. He acts like he doesn't know what his eyes just did; maybe he doesn't know. We lock eyes for a moment longer, my mind spinning, and then he finally walks off, his boots clipping on the cold floor and his long legs carrying him quickly down the hall, so fast that he disappears around a corner in seconds.

For the second time today, I can't move like my legs are rooted to the ground. After some minutes, people passing by giving me strange looks, I start walking numbly to the meal-room, breathing too fast, General Rudale's complete black eyes almost burning into the back of my head just by the memory of it.