“Another Valentine’s day…another day of girls either screaming in excitement for received gifts, or girls crying over the absence of gifts…” Taemin sighed, swinging his arm over Hana’s shoulder, while shaking his head at the scattered chocolate wrappers on the ground.  

“The day they care so much about themselves that they forget about the environment…” Hana laughed, noticing the look on Taemin’s face.

He had always been like this ever since he tripped on a candy wrapper when he was little and broke his leg. Luckily, the wound had healed quickly and he recovered motor skills with his leg, but things like this leave a psychological impact.

Picking up the wrapper and throwing it in the garbage can, Hana noticed a young man standing at the fountain near her campus, seeming as if he had lost something.

“Don’t climb into the fountain!” Hana yelled, rushing over to where the teenager attempted to jump into the water.

The fountain had become something of a legend at this university, as its history wasn’t pretty.

Word was it that the first year this university had opened; this fountain had been beautiful, complete with sparkly water and little fish. But the following year, when a couple broke up in front of this fountain, the boyfriend had ducked his head underwater for a full 10 minutes to prove his love for the fickle-minded girl, but had only succeeded in suffocating himself.

The years following, people had shied away from this fountain; some feared the boy’s spirit, others merely not seeing the beauty in it anymore.

Then, a couple of years back, a few third year science students had thought it would be funny to dump a bunch of lab wastes into the fountain. As they did so, they released bacteria, dead organisms and who-the-hell knows what else. This had only acted as another reason for people to avoid this fountain.

The slimy, dirty appearance of the water didn’t help either.

The boy barely gave her a glance as he proceeded with stepping into the fountain.

“There might be some kind of toxins in there!” Hana continued, grabbing his arm and attempting to pull him out.

Without much effort, he flung her arm off of him. Without a word, he shuffled to the middle of the fountain, unaware of the attention he was drawing to himself from the crowd of students.

Stubborn as she was, Hana forgot about the toxins and stepped in after the boy. If he was willing to go into THIS water for something, it must be important, right?

“Let me help you!” Hana said, dipping her arms into the water to look for something-anything, as long as it didn’t happen to be some decaying rat limb.

“What are you looking for?” Hana asked, barely glimpsing at the man.

And, as she had predicted, he didn’t answer.

“Oh! I found something!” Hana exclaimed happily as she held up a silver necklace that she had found.

For a second, she saw a glint of hope in his otherwise sad eyes, but it returned to its icy coldness once he saw the necklace she was holding.

Pursing his lips, and clenching his teeth, he walked forward and attempted to push Hana away from the fountain. However light Hana seemed, she didn’t budge one centimeter.

“I don’t want you staying in this fountain for too long, who the hell knows if the toxins will seep into your blood stream from your skin? No, two people looking will be faster, and we BOTH won’t have to stay in here too long.”

He gave one last attempt to push Hana out, but, determined, Hana only crossed her arms and looked him in the eye.

“Suit yourself.” He finally talked!

Hana gave one startled look in his way, but quickly resumed her search.  One by one, she brought up items from the bottom of the fountain; accessories, jewelry, random toys and what not, but every time, he gave her nothing but one single cold glance.

And then something got stuck to the heavy, wet wool socks of Hana, so she bent down and brought out… a button.

His head rose to only give her another cold glance, but he caught sight of the single button, and snatched it from her fist.

“You… ran into possibly the dirtiest water ever… to get… your shirt’s… button???” Hana asked in strangled voice, wondering why she had climbed in after him.

Taemin shook his head, for he was too used to Hana’s stubborn personality; to tell the truth, it was the sole trait of her’s that got on his nerves. Many times, she would dive head first into situations without thinking first about herself! She had always refused help from him, or anybody else, and insisted that she would solve her own problems, but he could never stand letting her stand by herself, and so, he always ended up helping her behind her back.

“Hana! Are you okay? Why did you jump in like that?”

“I…I don’t know,” For once, even Hana didn’t have an excuse for her rash behavior. Why DID she jump into the fountain?

Oh yeah, the expression on his face; wait… and the lone gaze he gave her.

How stupid she had been, just diving into the fountain without knowing what she was looking for!

Hana looked up from her confused expression to realize that everybody had gone, even the strange man with the button.

“Why’s it so empty?” Hana asked, letting her hair down from the ponytail so that it would dry quicker.

Taemin looked at the clueless Hana and gave a half chuckle, “We’re late, Hana.”

Hana’s jaw dropped and she looked around once more; now, why didn’t being late go through her mind before she jumped into the fountain?

What a GREAT first impression.

“Run!!!” Hana grabbed Taemin’s arm and made a mad dash for the school, not taking into account her wet clothes and absence of shoes.

From the shade, he looked at her run for the school, and he clenched the button harder in his fist. 

~~~ 

- ICEDCOFFEE