Areum made a face when she still hadn't found her pencil even after having looked for it in the whole house. Where could it be? She couldn’t have lost it. No, simply no! It wasn’t just a pencil. To her, it had sentimental value, as it was the pencil her deceased grandfather had given her. Her grandfather who had loved art like her, who had taken her out so often just to draw or paint landscapes. The two of them had been really close, and to Areum her grandfather had been the wisest and kindest person in this world. And he still was for the girl, as her memories of him didn’t fade. 

When her gaze fell upon the clock on the wall, Areum sighed loudly, forcing herself to stop looking for the pencil at least for today. It was already one in the morning and she had school the next day. With an uneasy feeling because she still had no clue as to where the pencil could be, she went to bed.

Tucked up in her blanket, the girl quickly drifted off to sleep, and her dream replayed the scene of that boy standing among all the cherry blossom petals.

-

The next day at school, Areum rummaged through her desk's drawer, hoping to find the short pencil there, but the desired outcome stayed away, and the girl closed the drawer before she laid her head on the wooden surface of the desk. Just where … All of a sudden, the girl shot up and in the process her knee painfully bumped into the bottom side of her desk.

“You alright?” Her friends – Yura and Minah – looked at her, lightly amused by their friend's little scene.

Areum sat down again and slowly nodded her head, ignoring her surroundings at the moment, because she figured out where her pencil had to be. In the schoolyard, near the big tree. The place she had talked to that boy – Baekhyun. It was possible that the pencil fell out of her sketch pad and dropped to the ground. She wanted to go look for it in this instance, but class was going to start any second, so she had to wait until the break. Impatience was growing inside the girl and she nervously gnawed on her lower lip.

What if someone stepped on the pencil? What if it fell into some small hole?

She had to go there as soon as possible and look for it. However, the more she was thinking about her pencil, the longer the periods seemed to drag. Two periods passed and the class had to change rooms for the next one. Areum was unconcentrated while she walked through the corridor; her friends were chatting excitedly next to her, but her thoughts were still with her pencil. She almost bumped into someone when a slightly familiar voice made her snap out of her thoughts.

“Oh, Areum!” At the mention of her name, the girl looked up and her eyes widened. Baekhyun was standing in front of her, but she was the one in the way, as she had just walked into the door-frame without looking, and bumped into him as he wanted to leave the classroom. The girl glanced at the sign above the classroom's door and she turned around and gaped at Baekhyun.

“You're a senior?” She asked, looking at him surprised.

Baekhyun nodded his head casually, grinning at her. “Yup.” And with that he walked past her. “See ya,” she heard him say and as she turned her head a bit, her gaze fell upon the thousand smile of his he was giving her. For a moment, she was just staring at where he disappeared to, still intrigued by his smile. However, she soon found back to reality when she was grabbed by her shoulder.

“Do you know that guy?” Minah asked her curiously as she spun Areum around. Yura too, looked at the girl with questioning eyes. Areum twisted her lips a bit before she slowly replied, “Kinda …?” Did she know him? Well, she knew his name, and that's it. She shook her head. “Not really though.”

“I heard he's a strange guy, that Byun Baekhyun,” Yura said as she crossed her arms.

Areum tilted her head a bit. Her friend knew his name? She hadn't even known of his existence before yesterday.

Minah nodded her head. “He doesn’t have friends, but he doesn’t give off that loner vibe. Still, he's always by himself. And I heard he got into trouble with teachers a few times already.”

“Better avoid him,” Yura added.

Areum stared at her two friends. They didn’t even know Baekhyun, did they? And yet, they were already basing off rumors that it was better to avoid him? She was never someone to be all too interested in gossip, so she basically didn’t know any rumors. But Minah and Yura loved gossip.

When the second year had started, the two of them had approached Areum since her seat had been next to theirs – both of them had already known each other before. Areum wasn’t exactly close with them; they were just the people she hung out with during breaks. Now that she thought about it, to her it wasn’t really thrilling to hang out with, but Areum was mostly living in her own little world anyway, so Minah and Yura definitely weren't to blame. Sometimes though, she'd laugh at some of their jokes and say something, but most of the time she just sat with them while her thoughts were somewhere else.

But oh well, it was in the human nature to judge others …

“Hmm,” Areum mumbled absent-mindedly as the three of them entered the classroom.

-

When the bell finally rang, Areum almost jumped from her seat. “Where are you going?” Minah mumbled, quickly glancing up from her cellphone display. “I lost something,” Areum shortly answered before she rushed out of the classroom. Her pace didn’t slow down until she finally reached place. She immediately crouched down and reached out to search for her pencil, her eyes scanning the grass.

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