The next day Soojung has a big smile on her pretty face while entering the school, which is very rare because everyone has always seen her with a broody face or just her plain bored face. Jinri, her close friend (just a close one but not her best friend) eyes her weirdly when Soojung sits beside her for homeroom.

“What is up with you?” She inquires. Several boy classmates of them greet her while they go to their seat and she smiles brightly at them, teeth flashing and hand waving. Jinri is popular with the boys because she’s really cute like a baby, in the student council, as well as the drama club, third in class standing and she has a great personality. She gets two or three love letters and sweets in her locker at least twice the week. She’s the school’s role model.

Soojung, on the other hand, is also famous around the school but not only with her pretty face but with her -like persona, earning her the title Little Ice Princess (little because her sister, also was called Ice Princess during her high school days). People are afraid of her, girls are jealous and boys (especially the upper class men) drool over her. She gets by with her studies like any other average student but she’s very excellent when it comes to sport. She’s captain of the tennis team and also an aspiring gymnast. Once in a while, she also participates in the choir to help out.

“Nothing.” She answers cheerfully.

“Are you sure it’s a nothing, Soojung?” Jinri raises a brow. “Is it a boy?”

Soojung side glances Jinri just as the teacher comes in and with a sCheol Yongk, she whispers, “Maybe.”

After four hours of grueling classes, it’s lunch time. Soojung is keeping her books inside her bag when Jinri elbows her enthusiastically. One of her notebooks slips from her grasps and falls to the floor. She picks it up and raises her brows, irritated, “What?”

“Who is it? Who’s the boy?” Jinri prod, beaming.

Soojung sighs and shoves the fallen notebook inside her backpack and stands up with her lunch money, urging Jinri to follow. They eat outside the cafeteria, especially on sunny days, just down by the field where boys play soccer. They buy their foods first before going out. “You don’t know him.”

“Not from this school?”

Soojung shakes her head.

“Then where did you meet him?” Jinri asks continuously, taking a bite of her sandwich. Several boys whistle at their direction and Soojung couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Sometimes she thinks boys are idiots.

“Yesterday. By the park, near our house.” Soojung answers and Jinri’s mouth goes into an oooooh. They are quiet for a while, watching the play in the field until Jinri speaks again, only with a lower voice and her head cast down.

“So will I be able to meet him?”

There’s a sudden tension between them. There used to be a time when Soojung introduced her soon-to-be boyfriends to Jinri because she wanted her to approve of them. But after a while, the boys didn’t seem to mind her anymore and kept asking mostly about ‘What’s Jinri doing?’ or ‘Why isn’t Jinri hanging with us?’ or ‘Does Jinri have a boyfriend?’. She wondered if they were just curious of her friend but then when she found out from Jinri that her suitors were bothering her, she quickly dismissed the idea of introducing every boy she knows to Jinri.

It’s not even like Soojung doesn’t want Jinri to know her love life, it’s just rather difficult that your friend keeps on stealing your boys, even though technically she wasn’t. Plus Taemin is handsome so there’s also a possibility of Jinri liking him too.

“I don’t know Jinri. We just met yesterday too so I still have to see if things work out. I’ll be meeting him later though… you can come if you want.” Soojung says, looking anywhere but her friend.

Jinri manages a grin and shakes her head. “No, it’s alright. I kind of have club activities later plus school festival is coming up too so the council is pretty busy preparing too. I guess, I don’t know, some other time?”

“Okay.”

After school is over and everyone is waving goodbye to their friends, Soojung dashes off to meet Taemin near a café beside the park. Jinri was excused before even their last subject came so she really didn’t even have to say goodbye. Rounding up at the corner street of the café, Soojung breathes in deeply to muster up all the breath she had lost from running and scans the inside of the room. She doesn’t see Taemin inside and she’s sort of relieved he won’t see the state she’s in.

“I guess you missed me that bad, huh?” A voice creeps behind Soojung and makes her jump a little. She turns around to see Taemin smiling widely with a brow raised. He is in his uniform too, but she couldn’t recognize what school he was in.

“You wish.” She rolls her eyes and Taemin just laughs. He reaches up to swipe the sweat bead trailing down Soojung’s forehead but she smacks his hand away with a glare. It surprises him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I—“ Taemin starts but he quickly dismisses the thought and instead just shakes his head. “Let’s go?” He doesn’t even bother to tell Soojung her hair looks like a bird’s nest. They eat inside the café for just a while (they buy their own food) and they talk about all kinds of stuff, mostly about school. Like how Taemin has a classmate who flies boogers out of his nose, and just by the thought of it makes Taemin chuckle while Soojung just stares at him weirdly, obviously disgusted. Apparently, his fascination of funny things doesn’t apply to others. Or like the time he almost busted his for accidentally (“Okay maybe it’s not entirely an accident”) throwing a bucket of water from his classroom window to his Math teacher’s head. At this, Soojung snorts and sCheol Yongks and says that he has bad judgment on making teachers suffer.

“Well I’m sorry, if you were so good at harassing teachers, why don’t you cite your own cases then?” Taemin jabs a fork at her but not exactly poking the thing on her skin.

Soojung flinches anyway. “Ha! No way. I have a spiffy and shiny school record, thank you very much. Unlike you, I guess.” She drinks her juice, still looking at him.

“Really now? I’ve always thought of you like a rebel, you know? You really seem like it.” Taemin says and Soojung nods, agreeing. She really used to be one of those rebellious kids, who always annoyed their teachers and threw insults at other students back then but that was before high school. Everything has changed now. She won’t go back to those days and certainly, she also won’t tell Taemin about it. She’ll keep him guessing for now.

“Shall we take a walk?” Taemin suggests and Soojung nods. The place is too stuffy for her own liking anyway. She likes being outdoors more than indoors. So the two of them goes out the café and that’s when Soojung sees herself in the window’s reflection.

“The ! !” She screams and several heads turn around towards their direction. Soojung scrambles off, fixing and combing her hair down. Taemin is holding his smile down but he couldn’t help but give a squeak. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I tried! But then I wanted to know you’re reactions when you finally did see!” Taemin is now laughing, hand over his mouth. Soojung thinks he laughs like a girl but she also thinks it’s kind of cute. But that doesn’t meant she forgives him for not telling her. She pushes him away, scowl on her face.

“Oh come on, Soojung. I still think you’re pretty even with a nest as a hair.” Another round of laughter bursts and Soojung really wants to punch his face now. She can be very violent at times and her athletics also comes in very handy. She just proceeds on glaring at him.

“You done?”

He nods. “Yeah, okay, I’m done now, mother hen.” Soojung smacks his head.

They head to the arcade (Taemin assumes Soojung likes this stuff and she does) and they compete in every game. From hoops to racing, playing Tekken 5 to the thing where you get stuff toys inside the machine (sadly, they both get none. Soojung kicks the machine when no one was looking.) And Taemin really, really is amazed by how competitive she is. It reminds him of someone.

“Who?” Soojung asks, going back to the stuff toy machine after getting coins. She’s really not leaving that machine unless she gets one toy.

“Just someone.” Taemin says, watching Soojung motioning the controller towards the pink penguin in the corner. She picks it up with big claw but it drops before it even reaches the hole. Soojung curses.

“Your girlfriend?” Soojung supplies, staring intently at the penguin.

The blonde snickers. “Why? Jealous?”

“In your dreams.” She retorts, starting again with another coin but failing again. For a third time, she inserts a coin and this time, she’s really serious. Taemin thinks she looks the prettiest when she’s determined. Even if it meant she was just getting a toy from a probably broken machine, which is only tricking them for the money.

He leans on the machine and watches Soojung’s face. “No, actually. Just a close friend. He really gets pumped when it comes to sports, bets, games... It’s really crazy because he always has to win. If he doesn’t win or his team doesn’t, he goes berserk.” He does a face, like the way Minho does when he loses to Taemin over a game. But Soojung doesn’t really see it. She is clearly distracted. “But he’s a cool hyung you know, so I don’t really mind. Maybe I can introduce you to each other sometime.”

When Soojung drops the toy for the third time, Taemin sighs and bumps her away from the machine (receiving a glare from the raven-haired girl), inserting a coin and the game lives up. Concentrating on the pink dolphin, he takes the claw close to it and with so much carefulness, urges the claw to grab it and plunges it in the hole. Soojung’s jaw drops, staring at him in disbelief as he holds the toy in her face.

Taemin just winks at her.

Soojung bids goodbye to Taemin an hour later, when he walks her off to her apartment’s complex, and smiles as Taemin tells her, he had a great time and hopefully they can meet soon again and then he proceeds on giving her more cheesy pick up lines, which she just laughed at by the way .

“What are you some die hard romanticist?” Soojung inquires, crossing her arms around her chest.

“Maybe.” Taemin grins. “You just have to find out.”