Nothing crept into her mind.

A sudden wave of boredom washed over her. She wasn’t paying attention to where she was walking, because she nearly stumbled by her own feet. Only then, she realized where she was, the place she hated the most, the garden.

Technically, nothing’s wrong with the garden. It’s just, for her, it seems perfect, too perfect.

She thinks perfection makes people think that it does exist. But it doesn’t, if it does, she should’ve been happy by now. Nobody knew the story behind the jolly, blissful queenka of their school. Soojung lost her father at the age of five. He drowned because of saving her. It was her fault. That’s what her mother thought. Her father wasn’t the only one she lost, she lost her mother too.

All those years, it wasn’t her that her mother’s seeing, all those years her mother saw all the failure that she did but never did her mother saw how hard she’s trying just to prove that she’s her daughter and she deserves to be loved too.

“Perfect. Too perfect.” She shouted.

Her voice sounded childish, echoing back at her. She is all alone once again. Her bestfriend Sulli is with her boyfriend, Chanyeol. To keep her petulant mood, she swung her leg back to kick uselessly at a rock on the ground. 

Before she can complete the kick, she heard a voice from behind.  “You know, Soojung, you can kick it all you want, but that won’t change anything.” She fixed a small, derisive smile on her face.

“Kai.” Her one word of greeting.

“Bad day, huh?” Kai said. As he stood next to her, soon he uttered, “Of all places, why the garden, why would you shout in such a quiet place like this? You seemed nicer before.”

She casted a cold glare at him without uttering any word at all.

“Alright, alright, chill... I’ll keep quiet now.”

Time passed, all that she can do was too stare miles and miles away. It is her father’s birthday today. She knows that today, her mother will treat her coldly. What she’s doing is just away to prepare herself from her mother’s coldness.

“Hey, Kai?” Soojung uttered hesitantly.

“Yeah?” Kai asked, as he tilted his head toward her. She sighed and asked as her eyes met his, “Don’t you have to do anything? You’ve been here since a while ago.”

“Nope, I usually hang out here, to read books and have a peace of mine but someone shouted a while ago and now I can’t concentrate.”

“Oops... sorry.”  Soojung scratched her head. “Let me just make it up to you. Can I?”

“Uhm… O-kay.” He said with a playful tone on the O.

Soojung looked at him, slowly, her eyes filled with warmth, softness, kindness. She chuckled and said, “I never knew you were funny.”

He leaned closer to her, “You think?”

She chuckled and answered pinching his nose, “Yeah, let’s go?”

“Sure!”