Chapter 14

Next Day

Niel's POV

I woke up feeling groggy due to the late recording at Music Bank and the long hours of dance practise after getting back to the dorms, Andy hyung let us take a break from school today.
I still need to get to tend to that cherry blossom tree though, I picked up my phone lying next to me and checked the time, it was only 10:30. "Not too bad, usually I'll still be in bed until 12:00." I jumped out of bed, seeing that the others were still sound asleep, I got ready as quietly as possible so that I wouldn't wake them up.
It's too late to go to school for classes now, but I can still pop in the staff room to get the classwork that I missed today, better than waiting for the girls in our class to pull another trick to get close to us. I shuddered at the thought of what they might have tried to bargain us with in exchange for the classwork. 
Soon I arrived at the school, looks like the students were still in class which was good news to me. It meant that I could actually go around the school without being bombarded by the other students.
As I made my way to the staff room, I was thinking about how I first met Hwayoung.

//Flashback//

I was only 5 years old when she first moved in next door. I was making my way home after playing football with the other boys in the park, when I noticed a huge van parked outside the house next door to mines.
My mum came out and saw me, "Daniel! Come here, we're gonna greet our new neighbours." She said whilst waving her arm for me to come over. I ran up to her and after taking hold of her hand I tried to balance the ball in my other hand as we walked next door.
Despite the door being wide open my mum still knocked on the door, soon enough a lady came to the door with a little girl hiding behind her back.

"Hi, we're your new neighbours thought we drop by and see how you were doing." My mum said.
"Yeah, we're doing fine, thank you for asking." The lady said, she spotted me and said "Oh, you have a son. Hello there, what's your name?"
"Hello, my name is Daniel."
"Hello Daniel, how old are you?"
"I'm 5 years old." I said grinning happily.
"Omo, your the same age as my daughter. Hwayoung-ah come and say hello, don't hide behind my back."
Slowly little by little the girl started poking her head out from behind her mother, taking small steps towards me....She so pretty. I could feel myself blushing when I heard my mum say "Omo, I must say your daughter is very pretty."
"Thank you. Go on Hwayoung, greet the nice lady, she's our new neighbour and this is her son Daniel, he's the same age as you." Her mum said to her.
"H-hello, my name is Hwayoung. Hope we get along." She said shyly and bowed her head.
"Nice to meet you Hwayoung." I said cheerfully and stuck my hand out. She smiled and slowly took my hand and shook it.
"Hey do you want to come over and play games with me?" I asked her. Her face brightened with excitement, she then turned her head and looked at her mum to see what her response would be. "Go on honey, I'll call you later when it's dinner time." She smiled happily and said "Thank you mummy."
"If you want, you can come over to our house and have dinner with us if you like?" My mum said to Hwayoung's mum.
"Are you sure? I mean I wouldn't like to intrude."
"Nonsense, we're neighbours now. Think of it as a welcome celebration for becoming our neighbour." They both smiled at each other.

"Let's go play."I took hold of Hwayoung's hand  and pulled her with me to my room.
"I'll call you both when dinner is ready!" My mum shouted to us.
"Ne!" We both said back to her."So what do you want to play?" I asked Hwayoung. "Oh, umm what do you want to play?" She asked meekly.
"I asked you first, so what do you want to play?"
"I've never played at someone's house before, so I don't know what to do."
"Hmm." I put my hands on my hips wondering what to do, then it came to me "Okay, what are your hobbies?" I asked her.
"Well....I-I do like reading books." She said blushing.
I don't really like reading books, but mum does always say you should always be nice to girls. "Umm, okay then let's read a book together then." 
"Really?!" Her eyes brightened with happiness, which made my blush a little.
She quickly ran home to get her favourite book and ran back "Lets read this then." She said holding out the book whilst huffing and puffing from the running. How cute.

"Snow White and the seven dwarfs. What's that about?" I asked her. "Oh my gosh, how do you not know about this story. It's about a prince rescuing his princess." We sat down on the floor side by side and started to read the book. 
After a while we got to the part where the Snow White was tricked by the evil queen and died from a poison apple. "As the princess laid on a bed of flowers in the middle of the forest, a prince came walking by, seeing the beautiful sleeping princess he fell in love with her. He went up to the princess and knelt down next to her and-" 
"Daniel-ah! Hwayoung-ah! Its dinner time!" I heard my mum shout from downstairs.
"Looks like we'll have to leave it here." I said to Hwayoung. She nodded in agreement.
"Okay, we're coming down now mum!" I shouted to my mum.

We ran downstairs to find Hwayoung's mum had already arrived, we sat down next to each other and had dinner. We talked a lot as we ate and learnt more and more about each other, since then we've been the best of friends.

//Flashback Ended//

KNOCK KNOCK
"Sir, it's Niel." I said knocking on the staff room door.
"Ah yes, come in." The teacher replied, I opened the door and went in the staff room.