It's that time again.

He looked down at the crumbled piece of paper. He kept looking at it wondering why she didn’t take the few seconds to read it. His frown only got deeper as he walked down the street.

He watched as his hand slowly closed, crumbling the paper even more. He raised his arm to throw it away before her confused expression cropped up. Her eyes couldn’t betray her shock when he took back the small note he took the time to write. And he lowered his arm to glare at his fist clenching the paper.

Why couldn’t she have read it? He unfurled his fingers and looked back down at the paper again. It wasn’t really the note he was mad about.

His eyes narrowed. No, it wasn’t.

The note in front of him was only a small part of his frustrations with her. He has seen similar papers in her hands. Folded just like his was, with words he thought deeply about before he wrote them down to share with her. Those other boys had their notes read by her. Even that note his female classmate wrote to her was read by her.

He remembers first seeing that particular note on her desk and he could feel her watching him from behind. There was the impulse to get rid of that note, to grab that piece of paper and shred it to pieces. But she wouldn’t like that so he headed straight for his desk. He still eyed that stupid paper even when he was in his desk, even when class started.  He watched her unfold that trashy paper and read through it and then stuff it in her pocket.

He had been so relieved when that girl came up, claiming to be the writer of the note. He couldn’t help but let a sigh of relief leave his body with the knowledge it wasn’t more competition for her attentions.

Taekwoon wasn’t a stupid person. He was just a jealous person. Mikyung was attractive. Very attractive. And that caused problems. There were the appreciative looks she got from guys from different years. Those lingering looks that he felt she was oblivious to. And as a guy who liked her, they were very hard to ignore. He always wanted to be around her so that it left no question to who she was with. So that those looks only stayed at a distance.

Yet, there was a problem that was closer than he would like it to be. And that problem’s name was Lee Yoohyuk. He sat right in front of Taekwoon and there was nothing he could hide from him. Those shy glances that bordered loving. His body was always angled to her while Mikyung was Mikyung who stared straight ahead at the teacher or at her book.

Yoohyuk’s note was also read by her and Taekwoon’s fist was white. Notes. There was more than one and Taekwoon watched them being passed back and forth between them. That wasn’t the only thing that happened between the two students who came from the same middle school, something Yoohyuk had took the time to tell him. Sure, it was okay to be caught in a moment, but that didn’t mean to step in her personal space.

He remembered the event after the homeroom teacher announced the news of the class’s victory. He remembered wanting to reach for her while cursing his desk for getting in between him and her. He had wanted to feel her admiring eyes on him especially with how hard he played to get her attention. She had been about to turn to him when an arm reached out to her that wasn’t his. He saw her look of confusion directed at her seatmate who quickly apologized to her. His jealousy reared its head and he wanted nothing more to do than take that guy out of school. At that point, news of Mikyung and him was becoming common knowledge and he didn’t see how this guy could not know.

Taekwoon kicked a rock on the sidewalk.

He wasn’t feeling confident if Mikyung even knew. Mikyung.

He cursed himself as her smile infiltrated his mind. Her hand had been so soft. The hand that was currently clutching the paper had been holding her hand just hours before. He didn’t like this.

But he liked her.

Her saving words danced around his head, ‘My boyfriend.’

He sighed while looking at the gates leading to his cram school. Okay, maybe she did know.

As he walked through the door, he looked down once more at the piece of paper before depositing it in the waste basket on the first landing of the stairs.

It looks like he’ll have to tell her himself what was in the note. He took the stairs two at a time to the floor of his destination. He couldn’t hide his unhappiness for even being here. He knew he needed the extra lessons, especially for math. He felt his mother and sisters were overreacting about his grades but he was still under his parents’ house and he had to listen to them.

He opened the door after walking down the short hallway and the name Park Jongwoon’s Academy decorated the door. Who would have thought that he was going to Mikyung’s old academy. It was his second day here with yesterday being his first. The memory of his mother calling him to remind him about it had disrupted the nice atmosphere going on with Mikyung and his friends. Then her sister appeared with the man in his military fatigues which had made him panic a little.

He tried not to let it show but there was a knowing look in the man’s eyes when he looked at Taekwoon and the other boys in their plain school uniforms. His mandatory military training was always in his mind but with it looking at him in the face made it real as he looked at the man. Seeing Mikyung’s father hadn’t affected him nearly as much then but seeing someone much closer to his age in that attire scared him.

He had looked at the guy’s shaved head hidden by the cap and his shiny boots and Taekwoon only saw his future in a couple of years. Maybe even not a couple of years if he didn’t go to college. One of his sister’s boyfriend had bragged about going right after he had graduated high school but his sister had glared and snapped at him while running her fingers through middle school aged Taekwoon’s hair. Boy did that guy get a tongue lashing from all of his sisters and even his mother.

He couldn’t help but chuckle at the memory. He was always babied by the females in his family and he and his father sure enjoyed it.

But Mikyung didn’t baby him. She had him working for her and punch him if he didn’t like it.

He took his seat in the desk in the back and ignored the other students who were there wearing different uniforms than him. The teacher wasn’t there yet and Taekwoon pulled out his phone. N was supposed to text him when they were going to meet at the park this weekend. When there were no new messages, he placed his phone down on his desk and went about getting ready for the upcoming class especially since his parents were paying a pretty coin for him to be here.

It was as he was getting his calculator out when his phone beeped. He laid down the calculator on top of his notebook and reached for his phone with the other hand. It was a message from K