"Wooyoung-sshi! Wait up!"

Wooyoung sighed at the voice, contemplating whether or not to just pretend he hadn't heard her. Thinking, apparently, took too long: in the time he was considering his options, a girl's arms had already linked themselves with his.

"Oh...hi...Tiffany..." he said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his tone.

"Thanks for waiting for me!" she replied cheerfully. "Want to grab a bite?"

"No, thanks."

Tiffany frowned at the instant rejection. It seemed as if his words didn't require much thought - which they truthfully didn't. "But why? It's our last day as college students! Don't you think we should celebrate?"

True. After four years of official majoring in certain subjects, they were finally free. Wooyoung did think that it deserved some form of celebration - but certainly not with a girl who clearly was interested romantically in him while he was completely indifferent.

It wasn't that Tiffany was particularly flawed. Other than the fact that she was unusually skinship-oriented, but maybe that was because she grew up in the States. She was beautiful and smart, and kind and patient. Every boy had at least a small crush on her.

Every boy...except for Wooyoung.

"I'm going to pack my things from the dorm and then go home," he said honestly. "The sooner I get out of this place, the better." That was true, too. 

"But it won't take long to just eat something, right?" Tiffany argued. "And you won't let me visit your house...who knows how long it'll be until we see each other again?"

I've been missing one person for four years, he thought. I'm sorry.

"Find yourself a nice boyfriend," he said. "Because, like I told you, I already have someone else."

As with any girl who was being rejected by the boy they liked, Tiffany's face dropped. "You haven't talked about her at all, though!" she protested. "How important could she possibly be? You don't even have her phone number, remember?"

"Is that how we discover close relationships nowadays?" Wooyoung asked, half-amused. "Whether or not we have each other's phone numbers?"

Confusion crossed her expression. "Well-"

"There are a lot of boys who like you, Tiffany. I'm not one of them. You're a good person, so don't spend your time chasing someone whose mind is already filled."

It was impossible for her not to be sad, of course. If he had maybe told her sooner, this might not have happened. But he hadn't had the heart to - until today.

Her face fell even further, and the tears that began to form in her eyes didn't escape Wooyoung's attention. "But..."

"You understand, too. We both know that."

She looked at him. At his eyes. The same eyes that held the same, unwavering expression that another girl had also spent four years staring at.

And wordlessly, she nodded.

~

The school was the same as when he left it.

Wooyoung stared up at his high school, admiring how it hadn't changed a single bit. The walls were still the same. The doors. The sign broadcasting to the world that it was "home of the Phoenixes".

There was one thing that was missing:

The girl sitting beneath the cherry tree.

He stared at the tree, which was in partial bloom. Immediately, he flashed back to that moment of his last day at this school, when he couldn't even find the words to say when she told him everything. How stupid, he thought. She hasn't even heard my voice, has she?

The spot underneath the tree where she usually sat was empty.

"Of course," Wooyoung muttered to himself, staring up at the clear skies. "It's not even raining. Why would she be here?" And who knows what she would be studying in college? She might not even be coming back home depending on what her major was.

He should be heading home. To see his mother and father. To visit his friends, who, for sure, are also back from their schools. A reunion was a given.

Instead, he stands on the opposite side of the road as the school, staring at the cherry tree.

How long he stood there, he wouldn't remember. Just like those rainy days back then, he lost track of time. And he did not care.

It was when his phone rang in his pocket that he was drawn out of his thoughts. "Hello?" he said upon picking up.

"Yo!" It was Junho. "I heard you just came back to town?"

"From who? I didn't even go home yet."

"Lucky guess." Wooyoung rolled his eyes. "How about a game of pool like it was back then?"

"Sure," he agreed before hanging up. He sighed, giving one last look at the tree before turning to the direction of Junho's house.

Five feet in front of him was a girl - no, now a woman. She stands tall and prettily, with a red suitcase standing beside her as she gazes across the road at the same cherry tree as Wooyoung.

He stands for a moment, staring at her as she doesn't realize his presence. There was no way he would mistake it.

It was her.

"Lee...Jieun...?"

She turned.

And like old times, they were silent.

~

A pretty voice can be heard across the neighborhood. It is singing an alien tune to the residents of town, but the voice is stunning enough to make up for the foreign language.

If one had followed the acapella music, they would have found themselves in front of a high school, near a cherry tree. Underneath it would be a girl singing, so lost in music that she would not have noticed their presence.

"What're you singing, Jieun?"

The song abruptly stopped as the voice's owner jumped in alarm at the bizarre greeting. Hanging from one of the tree's branches by the legs was Jang Wooyoung, grinning as he hung upside-down in front of her.

"Nothing," she answered, "now that you interrupted me."

He agilely dropped from the branch, landing easily on his feet. "It was a pretty song."

It was about a year after Wooyoung had returned home from college. In that time, he had been scolded endlessly by the people around him.

Why aren't you getting a job?

Why are you still living with your parents?

Who's that girl?

He didn't have the attention to keep up with all of the nagging, though. Jobs wouldn't be an issue when he started to look for one - he had graduated top of his class from the best college in South Korea. He wouldn't be living with his parents soon. No matter how much someone pestered him, finding faults, he would never be fazed.

And "that girl" just happened to be his girlfriend.

It was a mystery to everyone. The girl who never talked...slowly began to form words. When she was walking with Wooyoung, she would be talking happily. The girl who never smiled. The girl who never conversed. Was she really the same as the one next to Wooyoung?

She also began to sing. It was a voice that would stun everyone into silence. It was a voice that everyone would listen to as long as it could be heard.

It was like a miracle: the puzzle of Lee Jieun had been pieced together.

No one understood completely why, but the cherry tree next to the school was precious in more ways than one to the couple. The only thing anyone knew was that it was where they had first met. It was where they spent countless days together.

Also (though no one else would know), it was where they shared their first kiss.

People would complain. Someone would always be complaining, calling Wooyoung useless. That even though there were so many girls out there, he had to choose the one who had been antisocial. But no matter how many insults they threw at him, there was one thing they would have to admit:

He had given the girl he loved her voice.

 

Oh my gosh. This ending . T-T I'm so sorry. I just really can't do oneshots.