Under normal circumstances, Minseok would have paid attention to the teacher droning on. But now that the back of the head of a certain someone was visible over at the front, Minseok’s eyes kept straying back to it from the blackboard.

That head belonged to Jongdae.

Their classroom had three straight rows of double desks facing the blackboard, with enough space in between the rows for people to walk.

Minseok and Jongdae were in the same row, next to the windows. While Minseok sat at the last desk, Jongdae sat at the front most seats alongside his friend, Yixing. There was a massive distance between them, literally and figuratively. The distance could be equivalent to the gap between the sky and the earth for all the detachment that the two were subjected to.

He had been gazing at Jongdae’s head since the day the latter had relocated to their school two months ago.

Minseok could not say he was elated. Although he was relieved to see his kindergarten friend doing fine, he was not able to feel any happiness for finally having Jongdae back to the same school as him.

For one thing, they had become absolute strangers; Jongdae did not appear to recognize him at all. And though Minseok recognized the other male he was scared to approach him.

Minseok's fear had nothing to do with Jongdae’s daunting smile (slow curling up of only one corner of his lips and his dark gaze, like he wished to destroy your life) or the inexplicable glint in his eyes.

There was no sign of the ‘dazzling,’ ‘eyes crinkling’ smile Minseok’s diary remembered Jongdae with.

When he had once overheard a conversation between Jongdae and Jaehwan – their classmate – the former had made it crystal clear that he was anything but a stereotypical good boy through his blunt speech.

“Got kic