“Choi Minyoung, you’re delaying me for my team’s practice!” A guy shouted at the top of his lung, drilling into the ears of another girl.

             Choi Minho, the elder brother of Choi Minyoung.

             She was eighteen, and he was nineteen. Both of their parents died when they were young and recently, Minyoung just came back from the U.S to continue her studies in her brother’s school because she didn’t want to be so far apart from him. After all, they were left with each other.

              “Coming!” she exclaimed, running towards the older one who’s waiting at the door.

              “Say bye to dad and mum,” Minho said, pointing towards the photo frame that stood on top on the shoe cabinet.

              “We’re going to school, daddy, and mummy.” Minyoung smiled, hooking her arm into Minho’s.

She was only six when their parents passed away, she couldn’t accept the fact that they were gone. They were the pillars in her life.  And so she ran away, she ran crazily fast until Minho couldn’t catch up anymore.

             Until a certain little boy caught her when she was squatting, leaning against the playground’s slide.

              “Why are you crying?” The little boy asked with a lollipop in one of his hands. She looked up and stared right into his eyes. He was styled with a neatly combed mushroom hair and clothes that seemed expensive.

              “…” but she ignored him.

              “Cute girl shouldn’t cry like that,” he said before wiping off her tears away clumsily with his thumb. “What’s your name?”

              “Minyoung, Choi Minyoung.” She answered, but before she could ask for his name, she heard another adult shouting.

              “Young master! It’s time to go!”

             The little boy looked towards the source of the voice before smiling, “I’ll be here tomorrow too, hope to see you.” And he ran off.

 “What were you thinking?” Minho nudged Minyoung whose soul seemed to be out of her body already. “Nothing,” she smiled and didn’t realize they were already nearing the school gate.

              “Then I’ll see you here after school today. Don’t go without me alright?”

             Minyoung nodded. She wasn’t sure if she was going to tell her brother about the little boy she met. She just don’t intend to. Anyway, it just sounded ridiculous to like someone at that age. Her brother would probably laugh at her for being stupid.

             After Minho walked away to his block, Minyoung took out her documents and check for her first lesson.

             Class 3-5, 3^rd floor it is.

             And when she reached her class, the people there were already settled and teacher was already inside.

              “You’re the new student?” The teacher asked, “I’m Ms. Kim, care to introduce yourself?” She smiled.

             Minyoung stepped into the class confidently, ignoring the fact that a few girls were judging her as she walked by. “Nice to meet all of you, my name is Choi Minyoung, I just returned from the U.S not long ago.”

             Ms. Kim smiled, patting on her shoulder as she told her to just sit anywhere she wants. Minyoung nodded, walking to the last row of empty seats. A few other classmates in the class were whispering as she did that, and she didn’t care to know why. She sat there with her bag on the table, and didn’t even bother to take out books since she already knew what the teacher was teaching.

             So it wasn’t long before Minyoung started thinking about the little boy again.

The next day, she came. She came for the purpose of asking for his name.

              “Minyoung!” she heard someone calling. She turned around and saw the same mushroom hair running towards her, with different flavor of lollipop in his hand.

              “You’re here!” the little boy grinned brightly as though nothing seemed to bother him at all, as though he was an angel with no troubles. “This is for you!”

             Minyoung took the lollipop from him with a smile, “what’s your name?”

              “Lee Taemin.” The little boy exclaimed with a wide smile.

 “LEE TAEMIN!”

             The shouting caught Minyoung off guard and she was once again pulled back into the reality. Lee Taemin?

              “You’re late again,” Ms. Kim said aloud, and everyone was looking at the long-haired guy who just simply walked into the class nonchalantly.

             However, Taemin stopped in his track the moment he saw a girl sitting in the seat beside him. A new girl? Sighing, he turned back and shot a smirk at Ms. Kim.

              “But I’m still here, right? Isn’t that good enough, Ms. Kim?” he challenged.

             The class went complete silent with his words, as though he was someone that people were fear of and won’t let out a sound whenever he speaks. Shrugging, he went back to his seat.

              “Three hours detention,” the homeroom teacher scowled before turning back to the blackboard.

             Whatever, Taemin thought, never once did he attend the detention anyway, he doesn’t have the time for these.

             Minyoung stared at him, looking at his every action, from the way he dumped his bag on the table, to the way he laid his head on it. Lee Taemin, she thought, he couldn’t be the guy that she met twelve years ago right? 

              “Hey,” Minyoung whispered, “I’m new here, and I guess I’ll be sitting here for the rest of the semester. I’m Minyoung.”

             Taemin however did not reply, instead, he turned his head to the other side such that Minyoung couldn’t see him anymore.

             Well… okay. She shrugged.

 “Alright, class shall end here.”

             As if on cue, everyone started packing up the moment Ms. Kim left the class, except for a certain long-haired guy, who was still asleep.

             Minyoung took a glance at him as she packed; he was somehow attracting her attention, a bit too much perhaps. Was it because his name was Lee Taemin? Or was it something else?

              “Here, you missed this.”

             Minyoung was startled when a guy appeared beside her, and he was holding what seemed like her notebook. “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t notice. Thanks.” She smiled.

              “I’m Kim Kibum, you can call me Key. I’m from the class next door.” He said, leaning himself against Minyoung’s desk. Minyoung stared at him, or more like staring at his colorful bangs. “I’m Minyoung.”

              “Hey…”

             Taemin frowned as he pushed himself up from the laying position. “Class ended?” he asked.

              “Yes young master, let’s go. My brother is waiting.” Key grinned, taking Taemin’s bag and flung it over his shoulder.

              “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Minyoung said before Taemin was completely out of sight. But he did not respond. She stood there, staring at the door, was she putting too much attention on him just because his name was Lee Taemin?

 “Hey I’m sorry!” Minyoung ran towards the tall guy standing at the gate. “You’re slow! I thought you were lost.” Her brother laughed while ruffling her hair. “Let’s go.”

              “So how was your first day at school?” Minho asked as he dug for a lecture note in his bag.

             But Minyoung didn’t catch him; she was looking at a certain group of people at the opposite road. Minho looked up, glancing at Minyoung who didn’t answer him and following her direction of sight. “You know them?” her brother questioned when he saw her looking at them.

              “That guy, Lee Taemin, he was in my class.” She replied, “Do you know them too?”

              “Nope, but they’re quite popular though. You know, guys that look good are always a thing in school.” Minho smiled as he shook his head. “I see.” Minyoung raised one of her brows. “Who’s that guy with them, the one with blond fringe?”

              “That’s Kim Jonghyun, Kibum’s brother. You know Kibum? He was my junior in middle school though.”

              “Kibum? Ah yeah, Key, we kind of met in class just now. I was sitting beside Taemin.”

              “Are you interested in them?” Minho teased, nudging his sister on her shoulder with a teasing smile. But Minyoung only responded with an are-you-kidding face.

 “So you’re going to work later?” Jonghyun asked.

              “Yeah,” Taemin answered lazily, sighing as they walked down the street. “Both of us need to head to the market, mum told us to get something.” Key said, looking at the new text message that his mum just sent.

              “Hmm, see you all tomorrow.” The long-haired boy bid goodbye before putting both his balled fists into his pockets.

Life certainly wasn’t so hard for Taemin that he needs to work part-time, if only his dad did not gamble and get into debts most of the time.

              “Hyung,” he called out for the older guy as soon as he saw him wiping the walls, filled with red and black paint. “Loan sharks were here again?” he sighed. He wasn’t surprised anymore, this wasn’t something new anyway.

              “Well, apparently, yeah.” Jinki shrugged, dumping the towel into the pail of water and standing up for a stretch.

             Taemin went into the house before throwing his bag on the sofa and rolling up his long sleeves. “Don’t you need to work today?” he asked his elder brother.

              “I took half day off. Can’t possibly leave this wall here, it will scare our neighbors.” He laughed. “What about you?”

             The long-haired lad grabbed a rubber band from the table and tied up his long hair. “I’ll go after this,” he said as he went to get another pail of water and towel.

             Sighing, the brothers began cleaning the wall silently. It wasn’t something they do every day, just that they do it so often it seems like they did it every day. They weren’t born poor. They used to be rich, very rich, until their mother decided to abandon them and get married with a ‘loaded’ guy because being ‘very rich’ is not enough. And their father could not accept the fact that his other half left him, their company collapsed, resulting them in an instant bankruptcy.

             And now, they were here; living in an old, neglected building with no lifts, and the stairs on every level were so old and worn out that people should be afraid to step on them. It was creepy; with the lights in the corridor flickering at night because it was spoiling and no one even bothered to fix it. However despite the look that the building might collapse when a thunderstorm comes, they still managed to live here for a few years already.

              “I’m going to get changed,” the younger one stood up, scrunching his face up in disgust when he realized how sweaty he gets after cleaning. When he got into his room, a hand whipped across his face without warning.

             The slapping was so loud that Jinki heard it from the outside. He sighed.

              “Bastard and I thought you were working? Why isn’t there a cent in your room?!”

             Taemin’s face remained stern, although he felt the throbbing sensation in his fire red cheek, he did not move.

              “You were searching for money? I see.” Taemin smirked, “if you realized, all the money in this house has already been gambled away by you. You know, salaries were given on monthly basis, not daily.”

              “You son of a , and you’ve to talk to your father in this manner?!” and he slapped him again.

              “Alright stop it already, dad!” Jinki shouted from the outside and by the time he came in the room, Taemin has already ignored his father and went ahead to change. His dad scoffed, changing his target as he asked his elder son if he has any spare cash.

“Your family is wealthy?” Minyoung asked as she the lollipop that the mushroom-haired boy gave her.

              “My dad runs a company.” Taemin smiled brightly while fidgeting with a piece of leaf on his little hands.

              “Ahh, I used to have a dad too.” The little girl sighed, lowering her head when she thought about her loss.

              “It’s okay, next time we will get married, and my dad will be your dad.” The little boy grinned, slotting a leaf ring into Minyoung’s finger.

Minyoung stared at the leaf ring. It has already turned crispy and brown from the time she received it. Ever since she came back from the U.S, the first thing she hopes was to find back the Lee Taemin from the past, and it just so happened that a guy in her class was named Lee Taemin.

              “I’m going out for a while,” she slotted her feet into flats before telling her brother.

              She held the leaf ring in her hand. It wasn’t any ordinary ring, it was made of just one piece of leaf and no one can make a ring this beautiful using only one piece of it. She tried before, she even asked her friends in the U.S to try doing it. But it all ended up being failures.

             She walked to the playground where she met Taemin when they were young. They were still living in the same apartment, not leaving the neighborhood. Even though she went oversea for studies, her brother still stayed here.

             It certainly wasn’t helping when she was thinking of the kid Lee Taemin and the Lee Taemin from her class appeared before her sight. She raised one of her brows when she spotted him sitting on the slide. He was staring at something in his hand, probably doing something; and it’s even weird that she found the scene familiar, like she had seen it before.

             “Lee Taemin!” she shouted. She doesn’t know why. It’s not like they were very close or what, she just feel like talking to him. “Hey??”

             Her enthusiasm will only get his cold response in return.

             He finished what he was doing on hand, looked up, saw her, dumped the thing on the ground and left without saying a thing.

             Minyoung sighed, I don’t think I’ll ever get close enough to talk to him, she thought. Walking over to the where Taemin sat just now, she sat down.

             And she picked up what Taemin just did – a leaf ring.