For almost a year, one question had always lingered in Sunhwa’s head.

‘What would I do if I were to meet my first love again?’

The question had always haunted her.

“The library will be closed in a short while…” A woman voice rang through the library, making sure everyone would walk out from the library as soon as possible.

He watched from far as a girl—probably the same age with him—did nothing even with the announcement.  After some hesitations, he finally approached the girl, so that she wouldn’t be left alone. After all, no one seemed to notice her presence. He would feel guilty to leave her there. What if something happened?

“Excuse me,” He called out, with a slight loud voice he rarely used, “Did you hear the announcement?”

The girl’s long hair prevented him to see her face; she probably used her hair as some kind of curtains. From her uniform, he knew that she was from Shuuei High School which was on the other side of the town.

Sunhwa slowly heard someone calling for her—and talking about announcement—in her sleep.

“Sleep?” She asked herself, “Wasn’t I supposed to study??”

With the new realization, she forced open her eyes. She probably slept well as she could feel the stickiness of her drool on the corner of . Her eyes were still heavy from the sleep earlier which made her to rub them so that she could wake up fully. Then, she remembered someone had wakened her up. She turned to her left side, to say her gratitude when she saw his face.

“Sorry and thank you…… YAAAHHHHHH!”

She couldn’t hold back her surprise. And in a second, everything flashed before her eyes.

***

People said that first love was the most special. It happened to her back in the winter of her third Middle School year.  It was the most important time of the year, she had to take many tests and that day, the result of the mock exams had come out.

“Yah, Sunhwa! What did you get in your mock exams result?” Hyosung asked as she approached Sunhwa with JiEun and Hana trailed behind.

“C,” Sunhwa shortly answered, trying hard not seemed to care.

“You got C at this time of year?” Hyosung certainly couldn’t hide her surprise upon her answer.

“Things will work out better,” She calmly replied, waving her hands so that Hyosung could stop bugging her with the exams result talk.

“Yeah, Sunhwa has no worries over this kind of thing, doesn’t she?” JiEun said, laughing with the other two.

“Why don’t you just attend cram school, Sunhwa?” Hyosung asked in concern.

“Eh?! Sunhwa doesn’t go to cram school?!” Hana shrieked in surprise.

Hyosung eyed both Sunhwa and Hana before replying with a nod, “Yeah, Sunhwa usually studies alone at the local library.”

Sunhwa watched as confusion was written all over Hana’s face. Cram school was something people usually did and to find someone who didn’t go there was totally a new thing, Sunhwa understood that.

Upon watching the laughter coming from her other three friends, Sunhwa accidentally lost her balance and fell backward, slamming on someone.

“Ah, I’m sorry,” She turned around and bowed to apologize.

Instead of taking her apologize; the boy said nothing as he turned away. Hyosung, JiEun, and Hana frowned on his behavior and it took less than a minute for them to talk about him.

“He’s so rude, not saying anything even if it was Sunhwa’s fault!” JiEun said in disbelief.

“Yeah, what a frigid guy!” Hana agreed.

Sunhwa, once again, could only laugh it off. Im Siwan was a transfer student on the season of entrance examinations. Although so, he had been so quiet and unsociable from the beginning of his transfer. Because of that mysterious image he built for himself, everyone had talked about him. It made him to be the center topics for everyone.

***

In the afternoon after school, Sunhwa went to the library. It was her and people’s favorite place to study aside from school or other courses. But today, her mood had clearly gone. She didn’t want to study, not even a bit. The exams result had affected her studying mood.

She sighed as she hid herself on one of the book allies. The result paper was gripped tightly in her hands. JiEun’s saying kept echoing inside her head.

“It’s not that I don’t care,” Sunhwa murmured, looking at the paper between her hands with an empty feeling.

With this kind of results—the result of her hard work, she knew she should have gone to the cram school. However, cram school was so expensive that she couldn’t ask her parents to pay for that. The other thought she had was, what if she failed in the entrance exam even after joining cram school? She wouldn’t be able to face her parents after all those sacrifice they made for her and yet she still failed.

With that kind of thoughts alone, she was unable to stand up from where she was. She just sat there with her head hung low. Even when her tummy felt hurt, she ignored it and stayed still. Warm tears flowed down her face eventually as she felt like a failure.

“Sunhwa-ssi?” A hesitant male voice suddenly called her.

She lifted her head to where the voice came. Her eyes met with Siwan’s figure. Siwan looked at her with an expression she had never seen, a mixture of worried and curiosity. 

“Are you okay?” He asked again.

Sunhwa was too shocked to answer the question. Not even once she expected to see Siwan here, in the library. Silently, she wondered why Siwan was there. In the silence, she had made Siwan to understand the reason she was hiding. He saw the result paper she gripped so tightly and her swollen eyes with a trace of tears.

“Uh, I was just trying to take off my contacts…? Ah yes, I was doing that,” Sunhwa tried to answer that with a flat face.

Siwan glanced on the result paper she was holding once again and knew she tried to be strong. He also understood how hard this time for her. So, instead of saying okay and going away, he sat in front of her.

“I’m all ears for you, Sunhwa-ssi. In case you want someone to listen,” He said as he folded his legs.

Sunhwa said nothing as she looked at him. However, it was really hard not to feel the sudden push of emotions inside her. She had always hid them but today was really frustrating. Then, as result, her wall crashed into pieces. Tears once again came out from her eyes. In short time, she had been a crying mess in front of Siwan.

“You can’t tell anyone about this,” She managed to say between her cry.

“I know, don’t worry,” Siwan replied calmly.

“Thank you,” Her words were barely heard as her sobs were getting louder.

“I said ‘it’s fine’ when you bumped on me earlier,” Siwan said.

“Well, I didn’t hear you,” Sunhwa replied between her sobs.

Inside, Sunhwa took a note for herself. Siwan was not frigid; he was just a shy boy.

                                                                                                ***

Even since the accident in the library, somehow, they had been closer. When they met at the library, they would study together. If there was something she didn’t understand, he would gladly teach her. When they met at school, they would greet each other in the morning or whenever their eyes bumped to each other. Bluntly said, she was much closer to Siwan compared to their other classmates.

It didn’t go unnoticed by Hyosung of course. Whenever they got into class, she would approach Sunhwa and bug her with the same question.

“What’s up with you two?”

And none of them would answer it. Siwan would just walk away casually and Sunhwa would run away while announcing loudly what she had to do that day.

Honestly saying, Sunhwa knew she was interested in Siwan. But with exams in front of her, she couldn’t add another responsibility into her hands. Her schedule was packed with studying. So, it wasn’t the right time for her to fall in love with him.

 Even though so, on their graduation day, Siwan took her out from classroom.

“After the graduation ceremony, I have something I want to give you,” Siwan told her once they were in the yard.

Sunhwa noticed that his face had reddened as he said that. And because of that, she anticipated what was coming on the next day. She wanted to believe that he would confess—especially because he had asked her with a red face of embarrassment.

“Sunhwa! Let’s take some more photos!” Hyosung called for her once the graduation ceremony was over.

“Sure, but…” Sunhwa mumbled her answer as her eyes were busy trying to find his figure.

Before she could even answer, Hyosung had cut her. “Are you waiting for Siwan? Things have been so well between the two of you lately,” She teased Sunhwa.

“Huh?! It’s not something like that!”

“Oh! Where’s Siwan?”

“He’s not here, so cut it out, Hyosung!” Sunhwa scolded the other girl.

She tried to find him on the back school but no one was there. That was when she took a notice of a paper with a cat keychain on it. She wasn’t sure if it was for her but then she noticed that her name was written on the top of the paper.

She had to gather all of her courage to open up the letter.

“Dear Sunhwa-ssi,

Congratulations on your graduation and I’m sorry. An urgent matter had come up so I had to go home.

Thanks to you Sunhwa-ssi, I’ve found someone I could talk to and it was a lot of fun.

Thank You—Im Siwan.

P.S : And if you’d like, please take this plus keychain.”

Half of her was disappointed on the turn event and the other regretted on how she didn’t go there earlier. If she came a little bit earlier, maybe she could see him and at least get his contact details. On top of that, she had failed to express her gratitude for what he had done for her.

Thus, her first love remained just a memory for Sunhwa.

                                                                                                ***

“The library will be closed shortly. Please check out soon,” The announcer lady once again  rang her voice in the library.

It had been a year after their graduation. And Sunhwa once again faced the question ‘what would you do if I were to meet Siwan once again’ as her eyes looked at Siwan next to her, waiting for her to get up and recover from her shock.

‘If I have the chance to meet Siwan once again then, I would….’ Her heart and mind whispered only one thing.

“Siwan-ssi?” She finally spoke out.

“Sunhwa-ssi,” He replied with a smile.

“Yeah, it’s me,” She said nervously. It wasn’t hard to notice that his voice had deepened since the last time they met.

“Woah, I seriously couldn’t tell! You’ve changed your hair,” He laughed.

“I even shouted at you. Sorry for that!” Sunhwa chuckled.

“That freaked me out a little,” He said with a laugh.

Half of her still didn’t believe that she had met the real Siwan here. It was really him.

“Anyway, what are you doing?” Siwan asked; his fingers covered his lips for a moment.

“Ah, studying for my exams…” She replied.

Then it hit her. Enthusiastically she took her bag and showed it to him. On the front side of her bag, the keychain he gave her was hanging proudly.

“I wanted to say thank you for this!” She said. 

However, his cold reply made her to lose her spirit. “Oh, did I give you that before?