You had made the JV team. You nodded once at the list in appreciation. You could handle that. Your view of the list was blocked by a head of hair but now that you got the information you wanted, you left the fringe of the growing number of students at the bulletin board outside the office with the official list of athletes for the school sponsored sports clubs. You had also looked for Jimri’s name on the list and you were pleased to see her name under varsity. Your eyes stared hard at that for a second before shrugging it off. Your classmate was going to be unbearable if she gets her hands on you. You got to your class as inconspicuous as you could be.

After confirming Jimri’s absence in the classroom, you made it to your desk. You settled in before taking out your notes. Last night had been exhausting as you had tried to review all of your notes since the beginning of the year. You had also dipped in last year’s notes including the notes from your time in your last academy. All you got was stress from the whole ordeal but you knew you would have to do the same again that night and the rest of the week leading up to next week’s mock exam.

You thought sadly of your mom’s new order about your time at home. You were now strongly advised from taking care of Mieun for the next two weeks just to focus on studying. While the same was said about cooking, you felt the loss of Mieunie even more. Nunji had also been told to leave you alone but that hardly counted since your sister would find a way.

Dinner had been a quiet affair but that didn’t last long until your mother placed her chopsticks to the side of her plate with a resounding clack. “Mikyungie.” Your name was uttered in that voice. Every child knew that voice.

Without further prompt, you pulled out the list of academies she had recommended from your sweats’ pocket. Two academies were circled. You passed it to your mother’s outreached hand.

Her eyes took on a brighter tone as the hard edge in her eyes softened. “Thank you Mikyungie.”

You closed your eyes for a second before giving her a weak answer. “Of course mom.”

Under the table, you felt a tap on your foot. You met Nunji’s eyes and saw her sympathy.

You were now resigned to do your duty as a student under your mother’s house after taking it easy last year. You shook your head. You should have spent that time more wisely so as not to let yourself get this far in laziness and reluctance. You had to start applying yourself more but there was the worry of how far you would be pushing yourself. To exhaustion? To success? To a breakdown? Those three usually went hand in hand these days.

Your mother had also decided on your tutoring schedule so as to accommodate your future academy hours and volleyball practice. This pending work load was one of the reasons you were thankful to have made junior varsity. You honestly didn’t think you could take the pressure of varsity added on. You would still hold yourself to the promise you had made to do the best you could for your chosen club but you now had to lower that on your list of priorities.

But there was one more concern; you looked down at your bracelet and the beads, a habit you had taken to doing since you had received his gift. Taekwoon.

And he now sat down in Yoohyuk’s chair to give you a tired smile. A smile you returned in tenfold. He was caught off guard by that but you didn’t feel like hiding your feelings at that moment. Your hand was already holding his and your smile was still lingering as his eyes brightened considerably. Your thumb ran circles on the back of his and it didn’t slow down when you thought about the necessary conversation you two needed to have about your schedules. As far as you knew, he had academy time of his own and you still didn’t know how serious he took soccer club so you didn’t know how much time he planned on dedicating to it.

But you didn’t want to care about that right at that moment. He was next to you and it was relieving. While your stress didn’t altogether disappear, you felt the difference between now and five minutes ago when he wasn’t there.

With your free hand, you pulled out a different bracelet from your pocket. It was actually the wristband N had given you during the school sports festival and you wanted to give it back to its owner. Taekwoon eyed the black wristband before giving you a questioning look. You held it out to him and he just took it. To be honest, you had just found it last night after looking for your notes from last year. You had considered keeping it but after re-reading the words engraved in it, you thought it best to give it back to Taekwoon. Besides, it did match the bracelet he gave you so it could be something you two shared.

The thought of couple bracelets flickered in your mind but you had put a stop to that. It was still too mushy for you to think like that. You just wanted something that was for you and him. Choi Mikyung and Jung Taekwoon.

When he had placed the bracelet in his sweater pocket, you gave him a stern look before reaching over and withdrew the bracelet. Like he did yesterday with you, you placed the wristband on him. He gave you a look that made you embarrassed but you were adamant in your wishes. You avoided his eyes to look out the window but whipped around when you heard him snickering. Your eyes narrowed dangerously on him and hit him on his side. That made him snicker even more. You tried to take your hand back but he prevented that easily by tightening his grip. You gave up and gave him your back, ignoring him as his chuckles died down before picking up again.

He could do whatever he wanted and think about whatever he wanted.

You two held hands until class was about to begin but you did try to remove your hand from his multiple times. He just wouldn’t let go.

Classes that morning were surprisingly slow, in your opinion. It seemed like the usual pace was lacking and in some cases, the workload had been lessened. And you weren’t the only one to have noticed it. You had caught a few conversations just after the lunch bell went off when the teacher left after giving out the assignments. The girl and boy seated in the row in front of you started to discuss it and you couldn’t help but agree with them. More than likely, the teachers were doing so at the expense and expectation of more studying to be done on their students’ part. But those thoughts would have to be put on the backburner as you thought about Taekwoon.

It was lunch and you only wanted to spend that time alone with Taekwoon. N and Ken had walked over and you made sure you got Taekwoon’s attention first. You held his eyes, hoping he would get your wishes telepathically. He only gave you a sharp look.

His two friends looked between you two, “Are you guys okay?”

N had a sparkle in his eyes, “Did you two make up?” He got an eraser thrown at him as a reply. “Just checking,” N shrugged while reaching down to pick up the eraser. He held out his other hand toward his upset friend before his tone turned demanding, “Give it.”

Taekwoon made a show of slowly getting his school bag and ping it. He dug around in there before zipping it close.

“Where is it Leo?” N’s eyes were progressing to a glare as his hand fisted around the eraser.

Taekwoon shook his head at his friend’s impatience, “Tch,” he grabbed his gym bag this time. Once again, he took his time opening the bag. He pulled out a pair of headphones and N seized it immediately while tossing the eraser over.

“I told you I was innocent,” Ken proclaimed with a puff to his chest.

N frowned at him, “Because of you I was running in circles.”

“Yeah? So?”

“So you wasted my time.”

With Taekwoon watching you, your eyes went to his friends reluctantly, “Um.”

Their eyes widened fractionally and Ken kneeled down in front of you. “What is it Mikyungie? Is everything alright? Who did it? I’ll make them pay.”

You frowned at him. “Nothing.”

“Her voice is so cute!” Ken gushed looking up at N who nodded with a fond smile at you, argument forgotten. Ken’s eyes went to Taekwoon’s, “Cute, unlike…”

You could see where this was going when you saw Taekwoon frown immediately, so you quickly spoke again. “I want to eat lunch with Taekwoon alone.”

Before you could even get the words out, N was nodding with a light smirk. “Okay. Whatever you want Mikyungie.” You felt your eyes widen as he walked away. Ken saluted you before running after his friend.

You watched them leave the classroom but heard Taekwoon take his seatmate’s desk behind you. When you saw the last of Ken’s cowlick hair, you slowly turned around to see a satisfied look on Taekwoon’s face.  He gave you a small warm smile and you waited for the sun to break free from the clouds to complete the picture. When nothing else happened, you placed your lunch box on the desk between you.

You were still surprised at his friends’ immediate response to your request so you couldn’t help it when your eyes went to the door. Your brows drew down in thought as you laid out the meal for you two. You didn’t bat an eye as Taekwoon took out a roll of kimbap from his bag but you blinked when he pulled out two containers of banana milk from his duffle. Your attention went to his face but there was no change in expression as he put one of the small cartons in front of you.

One corner of your lips went up in amusement but you let it be.

Your meal was a quiet one until he burped. You looked up at him slowly and he made a face at you. He met your gaze before breaking it abruptly and resumed eating. You followed his example seeing no point in focusing on what just happened. He saved you the last piece of the meat and also the last piece of fried egg in the rice. When all of the small trays were empty, you put them away.

You didn’t think much of pulling out your notes but rethought your actions as Taekwoon narrowed his eyes at the notebook. You were unsure about his reaction but ignored it. You read through your notes while adding a comment or underlining something here and there. You could feel him watching you and since he wasn’t doing anything, you gave him a pointed look after a couple of minutes of him just staring.

He only shrugged and took out his phone. You rolled your eyes and returned to your studying. After a few silent minutes, your mind wandered from your notes as you wondered when it would be the best time to broach the subject of your pending schedule. He already knew about volleyball and to certain extent, your tutoring. You stared at the same word for more time than was necessary when you turned to a fresh page and got into the process of drawing a time table. It would probably better to just show him what was on your mind for this case.

He watched what you were doing but didn’t get closer to see more. You finished up the table then tore the paper out before sliding it to him. He sat up properly before running his eyes through the contents on the paper. You paid attention to the changes in his facial expressions so you weren’t surprised to see the increasing intensity in his gaze.

“Two?”

You gave him a nod as he pushed the paper back to you and you let yourself look at the paper once again, wondering what he was thinking. “One after tutoring and another on Saturday,” you murmured, your eyes watching his face closely for any hint of his current feelings.

“Hmm,” his eyes drifted back down to the paper. You really wanted to know what he was thinking about but you couldn’t get much from him right now. While you knew you two spent the majority of your time together at school, you felt that your new schedule would take any potential time together from the two of you. The only thing you were sure of was that you wanted to make it work with him even if he did add an academy to his own schedule. Thinking about that now, you wondered how his schedule worked. Without further thought, you tore another paper out from your notebook. When you passed that piece of paper to him, he knew what you wanted.

His schedule was similar to yours but without the tutoring though his soccer practice times were different. And he had added another academy. You could barely make out his handwriting but it was clear as day that he had a time block for his new academy.

You probably should have told him you were going to be adding academies to your new schedule considering the chance you two could have chosen the same one to attend. On the paper, you wrote, ‘what subject?’ you pushed the paper for him to read.

‘Science.’

Your eyebrows shot up in surprise and he caught the change in your expression. His mouth drew down into a frown and his eyes mimicked that by narrowing.

You smiled reassuringly at him before writing down. ‘One of mine is science too.’

It was his turn to have the same reaction. It turned out you two didn’t have to plan anything with the high chance that you two would be going to the same academy anyway. You both shared a smile that was meant for the other’s eyes only.

“Kim Taewoo?” he whispered. “On Saturday?”

Your smile only got wider and his did the same in answer. This really made you happier than you thought you could be with academies as the topic. But most things about your relationship with him could make you happy especially when you were in bed going through what went on during your day. Your interactions with Taekwoon topped many of your recollections, sometimes only beaten by a bubbly Mieun and a sulky Nunji.

This whole thing made the rest of your day too common. He had practice after school and your mother was the one who would be picking you up today. Mieun’s day care has an early dismissal that day so you would have to watch her while your mother returned to work. So you couldn’t stay for his practice.

He passed the paper to you after having written something down. You nudged the paper closer to you while he placed an arm on the back of your seat. ‘When’s your first game?’

His chair moved closer to you as you wrote down your answer. ‘Next Tuesday.’

He withdrew his arm just as you were