Beep. Beep. Beep.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I groaned and rolled over in bed, further cocooning myself in the warmth of my blankets. The beeping of the alarm continued to rake against my ears, but I couldn’t bring myself to shut it off. Why did their winter vacation have to end so soon? Don't get it twisted, I didn’t mind learning or experiencing new things, but school was not always my cup of tea. Day after day of busywork and monotonous lecturing on subjects with little long-term value. And now I had to deal with a new semester, which meant new classes, new people to warm up to, and new teachers to figure out.

Right as I was about to finally get up, my sister Narae stormed in, "Choi Minyoung, will you turn off your ing alarm! While you may need to wake up at 5:30 a.m., some of us had late shifts at the hospital last night!"

Narae was currently working as an intern at the local hospital as part of her university program to become a neurologist, having graduated from high school three years ago, making her four years my senior.

“Okay, okay,” I grumbled, rolling over to turn off my alarm and almost falling down the ladder of my loft bed as I blearily clambered to the floor.

“Try to keep from making too much noise while you’re getting ready, I’m going back to bed,” griped Narae as she left to return to her room.

Still in my pajamas, I stumbled downstairs to the kitchen where I began to get ready for school. Boiling water for tea and grabbing a store-bought pastry with cherry filling from the fridge, still not overly excited about the idea of school that would start in less than two hours.

As I finished my pastry, Mom came down the stairs, “Oh, good morning, Minyoung. I didn’t even realize school began today. Do you need a ride?”

“No Eomma, I’ll just walk,” Our house was a long walk, nearly half an hour, away from school, but I enjoyed the early-morning calm of the neighborhood, the chirping of birds and absence of the cars that would later crowd the streets

I brushed my teeth, threw on my uniform and grabbed my backpack, swiping on some mascara as an afterthought, might as well try at least a bit to make a good impression, right?

“See you later, dear. Have a good day!” my mother yelled after me as I walked out the door.

The walk to school went quickly, though a wintry breeze made me regret not wearing leggings under the skirt of my uniform despite my long overcoat blocking much of the cold.

I arrived at the school before many of the other students, heading to the gym to pick up the semester’s schedule. I memorized the new schedule as I stored my jacket and books in my locker on the second floor, near the science hall.

Standing with my locker thrown wide open, figuring out what binders and textbooks I would need when, I jumped when I felt a firm tap on my shoulder, “Would you mind? Your locker door is in my way,” drawled the familiar, bored-looking boy standing behind me.

“Luhan, you could move my locker door just as easily as I could,” I snapped back at my friend, Jooni’s twin brother. We had known each other as long as Jooni and I had been friends, beginning in primary school. “Wait! Where’s Jooni?”

Luhan ignored my question “Why hello Luhan, lovely to see you. Of course, I can get out of your way. How was your winter break?” he said in a high-pitched imitation of my voice, before responding to himself in a voice laden with sarcasm “Oh, Minyoung, how kind of you to ask, my vacation was marvelous. What about yours?”.

“No, really. Is Jooni here yet?” I restated.

“How would I know where my sister is? You two are constantly texting each other why not ask her yourself?” He opened his locker, signaling our conversation had come to an end.

Beginning the walk to my first class, math, I turned at a shout from the end of the hall “YAH MINYOUNG!” And there were my two best friends, Jooni and Seora rushing toward me.

We discussed our winter vacations, Jooni’s family had stayed at home and she had spent most of her time training for the upcoming soccer season, while Seora and her mother had gone on a tropical cruise. My family had simply gone to visit my grandparents on their farm three hours outside of Seoul.

Seora had just begun telling a story about almost being left behind on a beach because she and some boy had decided to try climbing a palm tree when the warning bell rang. We all rushed off our separate ways and I made it to my math class seconds before the bell rang.

By the time lunch rolled around, I felt like I was finally settling back into the pattern of school. All of my classes continued to go as expected until I reached the chemistry room for my final class of the day. The teacher we’d had last semester was on maternity leave, so we would be having a student-teacher for the rest of the year.

“Gooday to you all,” the teacher greeted the class, who was awkwardly standing around the room, as they’d been instructed not to sit down yet. “Now, I know you got to choose your seats and partners last semester, but I’ve decided on doing assigned seating!”

I groaned with the rest of the class as Seora, who I shared this class with, and I exchanged a pained look. The teacher began seating students around the room. Seora ended up in a seat at the front of the room next to some martial-arts-obsessed guy whose name I didn’t remember. I ended up in the back corner of the room, next to the window, without a lab partner. Luckily, Seora and I could easily make faces at each other across the room.

The teacher began a boring, seemingly endless monologue on hydrocarbon naming and classification. I tried to pay attention, but I found my gaze drawn to the window that looked out on the student parking lot and the soccer field, separated by a small copse of trees. The parking lot and the field were empty, as everyone was still in class, so I contented myself with watching the puffy, popcorn-esque clouds travel across the bitter blue winter sky

Suddenly, a flash of movement in the trees caught my attention. At first, I thought it was merely a bird, but when I looked again there was a boy standing among the wintry, skeletal arms of the trees and bushed. It may have been my eyes playing tricks on me, but I could have sworn he was looking straight at me, his dark chocolate eyes meeting my own in an intense gaze. He looked as if he had stepped straight out of some European historical reenactment, his billowing white shirt making me wonder how I had mistaken him for a bird moving among the trees.

I turned to check if anyone else in my class had seen him, but everyone was either busily scribbling down notes or staring longingly at the clock, waiting to class to end. I looked back out the window, but he was gone. The parking lot and field remained empty and nothing else stirred in the trees, just the slight breeze, tossing a few dead leaves across the ground. Shaking my head, I dismissed what I had seen, he must have sprinted away while I wasn’t looking or something of the sort. But, as I continued to stare at the spot where he’d stood I couldn’t help feeling that that wasn’t the case.

The remainder of the day passed quickly and before I knew it I was back at my locker, ready to head home after borrowing Seora’s notes from chemistry to copy down.

As I was about to leave, I spotted Jooni walking down the hall toward me, “Hey, you need a ride? Luhan lost a bet on who could chug a carton of milk faster, so I get the car for the week.”

I usually took her up on it whenever she offered me a ride home, but not today, “I’m good, thanks. My mom wants me to pick up groceries on the way home.”

“Suit yourself. You sure you don’t want to go get ice cream or something? You can’t have so much homework already that you can’t go out,” said Jooni, refusing to take no for an answer.

“Jooni! It’s the middle of winter, we can’t get ice cream! And I really do need to get home, maybe we could go get noodles or something tomorrow?” I responded, not wanting to completely turn down her offer of food.

“Alright, if that’s what you want,” Jooni sighed in defeat. “Later, then, Min!”

“See you Ni-Ni!” I called after her, as Jooni headed off to find her brother.

She glimpses him from across the bustling street. He stands perfectly still, as if frozen in time. The white, billowing sleeves of his shirt seem strangely out of place amongst the monotonous grays and blacks of the suits scurrying around him.

As she continues to stare his eyes dart upwards, as though he can detect her gaze. She thinks she sees a smile begin to curl his lips, but her bus pulls up to the station at that moment, so it may have been her imagination.

When she glances out the bus window, the space he had just occupied is vacant. Though she cannot see it, the only evidence of his presence is a single, blood-red rose that falls softly to the pavement. No one passing by seems to notice as the rose is trampled beneath countless feet, yet his whispered words hang in the air.

"I'm here, Minyoung. I finally found you."