The first love letter Cheng Xiao had ever received in her life came with a single yellow rose with red tips. The stationary was of a floral print and the sender had topped it off with a flower sticker to seal the envelope. Cheng Xiao remembered how stunned she was, staring at the letter that had been left inside her locker for nearly three minutes. God damn the school for not allowing locks on lockers. What the hell was the point of a locker then?

Anyways, she was a proud one, the topic of boys was extremely uninteresting to her, she’d rather converse about sports or music. Although countless of boys had confessed their undying love to her, she was always blunt and humiliated them in front of a crowd or her group of friends. It wasn’t that she was so discourteous to do such a thing – it was just so damn annoying.

Day after day, month after month, boys would only declare they ‘loved’ her because of her appearance and her innocent persona. As though she was the submissive bride that they could finally receive, the perfect girl to show their parents that they weren’t a boy and could get a good girl like Cheng Xiao.

Cheng Xiao was cleverer than that. The more they yelled about how much they loved her, the more she ridiculed and deflated their self-confidence. The rejected boys often spoke behind her back and what a she was to them, but Cheng Xiao could have cared less.

This was new. A letter that sat on top of her statistics textbook, the cute pattern on the stationary made her want to rip her hair out. And who gives a single rose as a gift nowadays? The desire to toss the letter into the trash was growing more and more inside her.

Annoying. How annoying. They just never learn, do they?

Cheng Xiao snatched the letter and her textbook swiftly before slamming her locker with her free arm.

Annoying. They don’t love me. They just love the thought of me.

Adjusting her bookbag to her side, she sauntered towards her next class, the letter still in a tight grip on her left hand.

“Hey!” Cheng Xiao jumped at the proximity of the voice. She smiled. “Let’s walk together.”

Eunseo stood with a seraphic grin on her face. Today, Eunseo was in a bright yellow jumper matched with her favorite white tennis skirt, topping it off with a pair of dirty white converse. Cheng Xiao had pleaded her repeatedly to clean the dirty shoes, and each time Eunseo would refuse. Apparently, making it look ugly and dirty made it appear more vintage. Something like that.

Cheng Xiao allowed Eunseo to chat nonstop. “Did you know Dayoung stole pizza from Yeoreum?” Yes. “Did you know our math teacher died recently?” Just did. “Dude, Yeonjung beat that girl’s in the courtyard yesterday, you should have been there!” Ha, that would have been a sight to see.

Often, Cheng Xiao would get lost while listening to Eunseo’s words. It wasn’t boring or anything of that kind, but it was completely tiring to have a best friend who won’t shut up about every single thing that comes to mind.

“Who wrote the letter?”

Cheng Xiao snapped back to focus only to have Eunseo peering at her with wide eyes filled with interest. “Who wrote the letter?” She singsonged, nudging Cheng Xiao on the side with her arm. “Come on. Spit it out, Xiao!”

“I don’t know,” she answered gruffly. Eunseo, on the other hand, was the opposite of her. Romantic, ecstatic, and filled with kindness towards the opposite . In fact, she’d always push Cheng Xiao towards boys whom she thought would be perfect for her; however, Cheng Xiao found this bothersome. She didn’t need a boy to complete her life and have told this to Eunseo about a thousand times by now.

Her best friend, to put it simply, was an idiot. She was a genius when it came to textbook-related subjects and useless facts she found on Google, but she was a complete dunce when it came to Cheng Xiao’s feelings. “At least open it,” she pressured. “Then you can throw it away.”

Cheng Xiao rolled her eyes, Eunseo always had her ways. The former ripped open the letter not bothering to save the envelope, resulting a disappointing look from Eunseo but she ignored it. She grabbed the letter and sighed. Cheng Xiao sighed a lot when it came to cheesy crap like this.

The letter was in cursive which agitated Cheng Xiao even more; however, the donor surprisingly had legible handwriting. The letter had a matching pattern alongside its envelope – flowers scattered all around the corners and sides of the paper. The paper itself was in a light pink tint instead of regular white.

It took a while for Cheng Xiao to carefully read what the donor had written. She despised cursive but what curiosity overtook her and she began to slowly decipher what each letter was written.

Hello.

I’ve fallen in love with you, but I cannot tell you face-to-face. You’ve always continued to surprise me. I’ve seen the way you acted towards boys, but you’re too good for them. Too good for me. I don’t deserve to fall for you, but I unfortunately have.

Since I know about you, I suppose it’s fair for you to know about me, right? I’m a second-year in the same school as you. I have exactly twelve friends, but I will tell you about half of them because I feel that twelve is too much. To keep their identities a secret, I shall keep their names a secret and instead give them each a nickname.

The six friends I have decided to choose are Leader, who cares too much, Star, who is extremely immature, Shorty, whose voice is soothing, Halfie, who is far too handsome for us, Beanie, who loves games, and Quiet, who plays the piano.

And that’s only six of them. Combined with the other six, they’re a bunch to take care of. But I get along with them well. I think you’d like them too. Well, then. I hope you’ve learned a little about me. I hope to meet you soon.

Seo Myungho

“You satisfied?” Cheng Xiao announced when she finished reading aloud the letter. It wasn’t a love letter at all. Rather, it was just some stalker who decided once again that she was beautiful and decided that she needed to know about him too. She didn’t know anyone with the name of ‘Seo Myungho,’ and frankly, she didn’t want to.

“He seems like a gentleman,” Eunseo responded. “At least he had to guts to write his name. That’s more than what you got from other boys.”

Cheng Xiao rolled his eyes and tossed the letter to Eunseo who fumbled before catching it. A mere “keep it” and a wave of her hand, the letter was the last thing on her mind.

When school was dismissed and the day was over, Cheng Xiao stretched her arms behind her back before bringing them into a full circle. Thank God for her flexibility otherwise she wouldn’t know how to live with herself.

Cheng Xiao had learned traditional Chinese dance for ten years before quitting. It took her a total of 42 seconds to completely regret her decision. Although she missed her teacher and her dance mates, it was all for the better. She had been completely immersed with it that nothing was in her mind except to dance. And that put a strain in her body.

She sighed exasperatedly, shaking the thought out of her mind. She hadn’t thought of dance for a good two months and she wasn’t going to start now. She gently opened her locked and tossed her textbooks in, forgetting that the rose still sat there, now buried into a sea of textbooks.

“Ugh.” Taking the textbooks one by one, she swiftly took the rose out and tossed it aside.

“M’lady,” a boy with long hair picked up the nearly destroyed rose and lifted it in front of Cheng Xiao’s face. “You dropped this.”

“Keep it.”

“Cold one, aren’t you?”

“. . .”

“Have a nice day,” the boy smiled, placing the rose next to her feet before leaving her alone.

The letters went on for a total seven days, and each day Cheng Xiao read and tossed it to Eunseo who in return slid it into Cheng Xiao’s locker again. It frustrated her to no end but concluded that she should just keep the letters for now and use them as evidence when she would finally report a harassment to the dean.

She decided to give her stalker a week before taking matters into her own hands.

On the seventh day, the last letter arrived with a single red rose. The thorns had been removed, and the stationary that day was of a cloud pattern. She had stopped reading the letters out loud by the third day. To be truthfully speaking, she had stopped reading the entirety of the letters and decided it to be best to just skim through it to save her more time.

One the seventh day, the letter was short. It was no longer in cursive, there was no more heart sticker on the front of the envelope. Instead, the letter simply wrote:

I killed someone and must pay for my sins.
Don’t worry about me. I will disappear.
I love you, Cheng Xiao.