"Are you okay?" The brown haired boy waves his hands in front of the distracted girl in puzzlement and laughs when she shoots her head up in realization.

"No wonder this problem was so confusing! Sunggyu, you should’ve known what to do!" The bright-eyed girl rapidly jots down how to solve the math problem before she forgets and closes her notebook in immense satisfaction. "Finally! No more homework!"

The sky’s painted in a light gray fog, mushy the farther you get away from it and distinct as you come closer. It hides the city’s secrets from ambush as the chilliness of it all forces the majority of people to stay inside the warmth of their houses. In the depths of one of the smaller towns in the city lays a small, down-built apartment where a high school girl tackles her way through life.

"I forgot how to do this stuff, Miyoung. At least you’re done now, let’s watch some TV or something." The sharp-eyed boy tugs her hand in impatience to bore his mind into something fun and drags her to the couch with him.

The two of them plop themselves in front of the plasma screen and they smile at one another as they tangle their fingers and minds together in admiration. Miyoung’s eyes follow the cartoon show word by word and as seconds go by, she already finds herself trailing her thoughts away from what’s happening. She bites her tongue and glances at Sunggyu before staring at their hands holding one another’s. The fair girl struggles in deciding whether or not to speak before saying, "I wish I didn’t have to go to school."

Sunggyu diverts his attention back to Miyoung and messes up her hair in comfort. "Everything’s going to be alright."

The weather’s surmised to a sunnier firmament than yesterday’s and the chirps of nearby pigeons flying by awaken the children to get up in morning drowsiness and pack up for school. Miyoung squints her eyes in distaste of how bright it is already so early in the day and shuns the light seeping through her curtains. She grudgingly slumps herself in doing her morning preparations and stuffs all her supplies down her school bag. The note in the kitchen counter brings Miyoung to exhale a deep sigh and she wonders when her parents will ever give their time to her. For once, she’d like to not have to walk to school—selfish or not.

Half an hour goes by and the sight of her academy arrives closer and closer until Miyoung stops her steps when reaching the front of the gates. The delicate girl clenches her hands deep into the flesh of her palms and she cringes for a second at the sting when her nails dig too far.

"Well what do we have here. Guys, look who it is?" The sound of the voice behind her makes Miyoung exceed beyond any kind of frustration known to a high school girl and yet somehow she contains it all through a roll of the eyes. The temptation to barf is alluring.

As the crowd behind her pushes against her shoulders in hopes to annoy her, they walk inside the school and profoundly the only thing Miyoung can do is scoff in tiredness. How does someone handle that kind of feeling—to feel hated every single place you go to? She stares at her shoes for a second before also going inside the school.

The experience isn’t strange when eyes are immediately sunk onto Miyoung’s skin and she, once again, tries to act normal under the stares leeching onto her. The whispers behind her back, the rumors stretching from every hallway, the names stamped on her forehead, the torture of being alone.

"The bell rang. Aren’t you gunna go to class?"

At the sound of his voice, Miyoung blinks her tears away and nods her head. "Where were you?"

"I don’t know? I was running late?" Sunggyu smiles the tense atmosphere away and blocks Miyoung’s path. "Come on, don’t be so glum!"

The crushed girl looks the other way and smirks. "I thought hamsters were supposed to be fast. I had to walk to school alone."

"Pft, funny." He widens his smile even further and Miyoung hates how contagious it always is. Before she gets the chance to go around him, Sunggyu frowns when he catches the expression on her face. "What happened?"

Miyoung observes the sharp-eyed boy in a moment’s inhalation and grins in stubbornness. Doing what she does best, she laughs it off. "Don’t be ridiculous, nothing happened."

Doing what he does best, Sunggyu shakes his head in disagreement. "No, don’t give me tha—" As if perfect timing couldn’t be any off, the conversation gets interrupted by something worse to come.

"Too dumb to stay in class?"

Miyoung takes in a sharp breath and turns around. "Hi Baerim."

There in front of them is a person too cruel to describe—too inhumane. It makes you wonder what had to have happened to make someone once so innocent to be so repulsive. Sunggyu glares at the red headed girl standing between the two of them and before he can say something just as bad, Miyoung shakes her head in anguish for him to not speak a word. Baerim only scrunches her eyebrows in disgust at what Miyoung’s doing and giggles a sound putrid to the human ear. "Hello? I’m right here, what the heck are you looking at?"

A sudden gust of wind blows against the three of them and Miyoung rolls her eyes when Baerim’s skirt lifts off her legs. Everything’s so fake about her—how she thinks she’s oh so popular, the tight clothing, the stingy mascara, the seductiveness, everything. Even with all that, it’s no point for Miyoung to stand up against her. Popularity wins and always will. Baerim takes a step closer in intimidation and her strong perfume overpowers Miyoung to sneeze. "Why don’t you just stop going to school? I think it’s clear that nobody wants you here."

The fume in Sunggyu explodes and he shouts, "Hey, sleazebag! Why don’t you—"

"Sunggyu, I said it’s fine. I can handle this." Miyoung places a hand on his shoulder in slight reassurance and passes him a smile. The anger bottled in him confides her strength, but her knees start to go weak and she gulps down the knots on her stomach as she looks back at Baerim. "Look Baerim…"

Blurts of laughter shock the two of them as they watch the conceited woman howl in mockery. She holds a hand against her stomach from laughing so hard and slowly ceases into a look of abhorrence. Miyoung wonders why teachers aren’t here to stop them by now. "Sunggyu, Sunggyu, Sunggyu. Will you get over him already? God, you’re such a loser you know that." It seems that she’s just about finished with her bullying before Baerim halts for a second and shoots Miyoung another look. "Don’t…Don’t you ever get tired of clinging on to him?"

The tone of Baerim’s voice pierces against Miyoung’s chest and she finds it fuzzy and unclear. Before the confused girl gets the chance to ask what she meant, Baerim scowls and walks back to her classroom.

"I’m clinging?" Miyoung gazes at the way his hair gleams brighter from the sun, how his eyes only shine brilliant more and more each day. She observes how he notices her watchfulness and tilts her head in perplexity. "To you?"

Sunggyu smiles at this. "Don’t give Baerim the enjoyment and forget what she said. Besides, she probably doesn’t even know what she’s saying."

Miyoung doesn’t say anything and finds herself still contemplating about what Baerim had said. The idea is so queer and even though it’s been brought up so many times, this one—strangely—, is different. She soaks in the words one more time and in that same second, the words repel back out of her mind. It’s not deniable that her brain’s being surrounded by a barrier—a shield that penetrates reality.

Miyoung diverts her attention back to Sunggyu and closes her eyes when seeing that he’s smiling at her once again. The tears pricking at her makes it unbearable and she rubs her eyes in weariness.

Sunggyu’s been her hero ever since the start of elementary. It’s ridiculous how Miyoung fell into the tortures of bullying since a mere child and watching it progress this far over a few years is oppressive. There wasn’t any reason for anyone to make fun of her from the very beginning, but because there was nobody else to torment on, they had to choose the shy girl. The suffering Miyoung had to endure just because of that pesky decision to mess with her—a choice that sticks with someone for the rest of their life.

It was only later on when Sunggyu had stood up against the bullies that Miyoung realized that maybe there really was someone for everyone. It didn’t stop people from threatening her, but it helped. Sunggyu helped her grow more than he could ever imagine, and for that, it’d take a millennium for Miyoung to even begin to repay him.

Here he is in front of her: her hero, smiling at her, somehow admiring someone as pathetic as her. Miyoung hesitates before opening her eyes. She regains her composure after a few breaths and shoos him away as she enters the classroom and invites the rest of the day to come at her.

Over half the midday has gone by and the sky deems darker and darker as the sun sways back for the moon’s shift. The holidays are coming sooner and sooner than needed, and it changes the city’s atmosphere remarkably with Christmas fever. Today marks a week after what had happened with Baerim, though it doesn’t stop the students coming at full force to crumble Miyoung’s little world down.

The two of them cushion themselves in the soft plush of the couch, like any other Saturday, and numb their minds at the TV. A commercial interrupts the show they’re watching and Miyoung finally blinks her eyes after intently staring at the screen and glimpses at Sunggyu. "Remember the first time we met?"

The sudden question makes the brown haired boy avert his attention entirely at the girl next to him and he nods his head in reminiscence. "How could I not?"

Miyoung grins and blushes at what she’s going to say. "You know, when I first saw you yelling back at those people…I thought, someone from heaven had sent me an angel. To be honest, I still do." She turns her head the other way in embarrassment and sheepishly expels a laugh. "We never even talked once, but you still defended me."

There’s a slight pause that makes her nervous, until Sunggyu replies, "Of course I had to do something. For a bunch of five year olds, they were big." Miyoung can’t tell whether or not that was a joke because of the silence clouding them. He continues on. "I won’t ever let anyone hurt you."

At this, the beautiful girl grins in what one wouldn’t have seen as hopelessness, and shakes her head. "But I don’t need your protection anymore. Everything’s fine now, especially starting last year! I think everyone’s starting to accept me—" The frown on his face makes Miyoung stop short.

"Why don’t you open your mail and tell me if those aren’t threats. Tell me that those people you call "friends" at school didn’t call you those names yesterday. Tell me—"

"Stop." The bitterness in his voice poisons her and she clenches her teeth. "I don’t need you to point out anything for me." The anger tainting her tone can’t be hidden. "Just believe me when I say that everything’s been going so much better than I thought it could’ve ever gotten. Don’t you want the best for me?"

The question exclaims so out of place in this argument and it drowns Sunggyu into a guilt-trip. He brings himself closer to Miyoung and seals their lips together in a short kiss. "Always."