The morning sun shone through the small gaps of the blocked window, and Maeri watched the strands of light create form on the walls and boxes all around them. Her cellphone told her that it was nearly 7o’clock, and she knew breakfast would be served at 8, so she just patiently waited.

Mingyu had been sleeping in the same position so far, but he suddenly shifted, naturally waking up on his own. Maeri was quite pleased with that, because she didn’t want to have the responsibility of waking him up.

The boy groaned a bit, clearly still out of it, and as he slowly opened his eyes, he raised his hands to his head, to brush his hair away from his face, but as he did so, he felt considerable extra weight on his right hand. He turned to his side to quickly be reminded that he was strapped to another human being.

“Could you not?”

Maeri asked in a frustrated tone, looking annoyed to have had her hand pulled away.

“Sorry.”

He responded, returning both their hands to the space between their bodies, and just fixing himself up with his left hand.

“What time is it?”

He asked, leaning slightly away from her as he tried to somehow look out of the window, as if he would be able to tell the hours by looking at the sky – it was something possible, but Maeri doubted Mingyu had such abilities.

“5 minutes to 7o’clock. There’s still an hour until breakfast.”

She replied, the mention of breakfast making both of their stomachs growl. Since they had skipped dinner the previous night, they were in serious need of some sustenance. And the thought of having to wait one more hour for it sounded like torture.

“Ah, I have this!”

Mingyu suddenly got cheerful, putting his hand in his pocket and pulling out the chocolate he had bought from the convenience store they had visited. He had eaten his, but he saved up Maeri’s- even after she had told him she didn’t want it – and forgotten all about it.

Maeri had long given up or her fake cold persona, and the sight of the chocolate wrapper made her start salivating right away, her eyes widening in happiness.

“Oh, bless you!”

She exclaimed, reaching for it. Mingyu handed it over, and Maeri promptly unwrapped it. She parted it in the very middle, and handed half back to Mingyu. The boy just ate his half in two big bites, but Maeri took her time, biting off small pieces, savoring it.

They were silent for some while, as she ate, but once she was done, Mingyu started shifting uncomfortably, and when she turned to look at him, she found the boy staring at her with an apologetic expression.

“What?”

“I need to pee.”

He boldly stated, and she sighed.

Breakfast was starting, and they had agreed to not skip another meal, so they carefully joined the students as they went to the dining hall. But once again it all felt very awkward. Maeri was used to eating separately, but Mingyu was being greeted constantly, and as he told people he was not going to eat with them, they all once again stared at her wonderingly.

They sat in a more secluded table, and ate in complete silence, not really discussing anything important.

Maeri could see a lot of people noticing them, and whispering to each other, and it made her feel very uncomfortable. She started to fear that someone had noticed that they weren’t in the rooms during the night. If they did, some strange and dirty rumors would definitely be created about them, and that was not good. They couldn’t afford to call attention to themselves, they had to pass that day by and hold it until 3o’clock the next day, so they could request the crazy woman to take that damned string off of their fingers. It would be impossible to do certain tricky things if they had people constantly watching them at all times. And she realized that even the teachers had taken notice of the two of them. It was probably because they were used to always seeing her alone, so it was strange to see her sitting with someone so closely like that.

It was frustrating, and it was difficult for her to find the appetite to eat properly with all those gazes fixed on her, but she tried her best to just ignore them, to pretend they didn’t exist at all. But it was truly difficult to try to pretend that no one else in the world existed other than her – something that she’d often imagine whenever she was surrounded by her annoying classmates – when Mingyu was sitting closely beside her, chewing loudly and struggling to use mostly his left hand to eat, since using his right hand meant he’d could risk moving her arm. She tried to help him and leave her hand closer to his side of the table, so he could have more freedom. But the boy was truly distracting, no matter what.

The two were managing to keep away from other’s attention during the beginning of the morning, hiding away in random rooms as everyone moved around to get ready, but after they all had to gather for the school’s scheduled touring to continue, it was getting harder to be invisible. They were once again doomed to be at the end of the group, and Maeri continued to try her best to listen to the teacher. She wanted to distract herself and learn something about all the amazing sights they were seeing; but Mingyu wasn’t that interested, and he had started to become an annoyance she was forced to drag around.

 And every time she had to tug her hand forward to make him move with her, she complained about the invincible string, thoroughly frustrated over it. Mingyu on the other hand, was very quiet and aloof, keeping to himself and often dazing off into space, blanking out and only coming back to once Maeri forcefully pulled on the string once more.

But what was more annoying than Mingyu at the moment, was the unwanted attention that they were getting. Maeri noticed occasional glances, appearing more and more as time passed. And she also could feel some of the girls glaring at