It's already been three months since school started, and I got back to the usual cycle of things, just like last year. Only now, though, IU was being more active than I thought she could get. Probably still head over heels in love with that dude from before. If there was I thing that I would like to confess to her, it would have been something like this.

In February, Sunggyu and I were having our recess as usual. He leaned in close and whispered into my ear, "Hey, I need to tell you something."

"Tell me?" I questioned rather loudly, earning a shush from him. "Tell me what?"

"Something, just keep your voice down. IU can't hear about this." IU? What does this have to do with IU?

"I'm listening."

"Well... He's coming."

"He's coming... No way, he's coming?!"

"Yeah. He doesn't have anything on later so we are going to have lunch after school. You Are coming, right?" Putting my spoon into my bowl, I sighed.

"You sure you're not going to tell IU?"

"You know how she'll react if I ever do."

"But she'll kill you if you didn't." Not joking here.

"Better than having her murder the living daylights out of him, right?"

"True, very true." I went back to finish my food as Sunggyu returned his plate. Man, knowing that he's coming was a shocker. The last time that I had seen him was last year, during my birthday. We went and watch a movie together (with Sunggyu, of course. Can't leave my best friend out in anything) before having dinner. It was probably the best birthday spent in my life so far, instead of the normal stay home all day and have cake. But the thing that worried me the most was IU. The fact that I am keeping this a secret was too big. IU had always been wanting to see him ever since he left, and it's cruel to just leave her and him apart. Then again, it was never a smooth 'relationship' from the start.

IU, please don't kill me.

I met Sunggyu again after school, at the bus stop beside the school rather than opposite it. I kept my mouth sewed shut for the entire time IU was with me, though I had many close calls. We sat together as the bus moved on, me taking the window seat.

"You sure he is coming?" I asked again, tapping my fingers against the frame of the seat in front of me.

"Do I ever lie?" After staring at my poker face for what seemed like 10 seconds, he replied, "Yes, he is coming. Trust me on that."

"Fine. But isn't the school quite a distance from here? Why in the world would he want to see us on a day like this?"

"Can't he?"

"True..." Getting off the bus, the both of us walked slowly to the eatery that we frequent to when we were still a trio. We also stayed silent as well, me counting the steps that I take, while he playing a song in his head, playing a game of 'ram into each other's sides' at the same time.

When we finally get there, feeling pretty sore on my right, I saw him, standing by himself as he leaned against the wall for support. He smirked when he recognised us, prying his back from the wall and started walking towards us as well. I didn't know what I was thinking about at that time. Maybe I thought that he would give us a warm reunion speech or something, because I was unexpecting yet expecting that at the same time. Do you know what we're the first thing he said to us?

"Hello again, lowly humans."

Lowly... humans...

That's when it hit me. Literally. My hand immediately collided with my forehead after he said that. How could I forget that crucial fact?

Kris is a jerk. 

 How do I describe Kris?

Try taking the brain of Albert Einstein, and put it into a body of a male idol with an English accent. Then fill his personality with minecraft, chess, barbarians, and unicorns. 

That's Kris for you.

He is a jerk, but in a good way. It's always that role playing side of him that is fun. Most of the time, he would be too busy trying to prove illogical stuff, like what Sunggyu would do as well. Only more illogical.

Fancy some examples?

"Therefore, based on my theory, 1 is equal to 0."

"It is now proven that 1 plus 1 does not equal to 2."

And my personal favourite, which IS factually correct.

"The square root of 144 is not 12, but -12"

Try that with anyone and you'll always win.

This random, intellectual friend of mine has been my friend since Year 1, being in the same class as me, Sunggyu, IU, Ailee, and a lot of other people. He was also our class manager at that time, and was very famous for being IU's obsession. Honestly, you can never find a day when these two would stop fighting with each other.

I remember a day when I stayed back to clean up the classroom, and Kris was busy learning a new mathematical formula, scribbling numbers and letters onto the whiteboard. We held a light conversation, and I learned of his frustration figuring out which part of the equation was written wrongly.

Out of the blue, a really random IU appears. And just because she saw the two of us together, I get the first question that would forever be repeated continuously with Sunggyu in year 3 and 4.

"Are you guys dating?"

"No!" I replied immediately. 

"Obviously not, Jieun." He replied as well, erasing off a few numbers at the same. "And even if she was, she's a lot better that you are."

"WHY YOU!" She screamed, running straight at him. Kris dropped the marker and ran, asking me to take care of his bag for him as he sprinted off. They both left the classroom, and after wiping off the formulas written on the whiteboard, I took both of our bags and went out to join the running duo. Turns out that they both ran all the way out of the school. How did they not get caught by the discipline masters at all?

I tried calling him as I walked out of the main gate. It took three tries before I could reach him. He then told me to wait near the next bus stop from the school, which I did. Our school was surrounded by a forest on one side, and residential bulidings on the other. After five minutes, he burst through the bushes of one of the side roads leading to a house, with IU nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Jieun?" I asked, passing the bag back to him as he caught his breath.

"Lost her. At the back." He smirked. "And I'll take a while for her to come back again. C'mon, let's go."

"Seriously, what did you do?"

"Okay. You know that little road outside of school that leads to the back of the houses?"

"Yes..."

"I ran in there as she chase after me. When I reached the dead end, I climbed over one of the ledges-"

"You did what?! You're trespassing private property!"

"Hey, when you're being chased by a rampaging Jieun, anything is possible. Anyways, so I took that shortcut and came all the way here. Now, Jieun is probably wondering where I am now, reaching the dead end."

"You are so bad." I commented, before we went over to the nearest playground to have fun like the immature 16 year olds we were.

There was also a time when he wrote a song that piss IU off so much. This is how it went:

Jieun doesn't know.

What she thought was H2O,

Was H2SO4, 

And Jieun is no more.

It became a common favourite to piss her off ever since, especially when we have a piano to play on.

Kris was a fun lad to hang out with, and it was sad knowing that he wasn't going to join us in Year 3. (Because he was too smart for the syllabus.) Thankfully, he could still meet up with us on small occasions and have fun together again. That day, we had so much to talk about. Sunggyu and I commented on his long hair which was starting to go beyond the acceptable boundaries of school, which he told us was fine and incredibly y. We rant on about our enormous pile of homework, and obnoxious teachers, and thing like that. Then we all went to my house to hang out more. When he left, we reminded him of the promise he had made to give us free ice cream, and him promise us again that we will meet each other soon.

Of course, it was sooner than I thought.