It’s been two weeks since Haerin and Sehun’s friendship started. Haerin felt Sehun try his best. He started by greeting her back, except he’s still cold about it. He also started to converse with her in a bigger amount of words. He’s a lot caring than he was before and Haerin could see an improvement in his state. But there’s one thing Sehun haven’t done yet—smile. Haerin tried to pull of a lot of jokes but it doesn’t seem funny enough for him. Usually he’d give the ‘what the ’ look when she tries to joke and she’d immediately stop and create another topic. Haerin’s been thinking hard on how to make him smile. Like that happy picture of him in his apartment.

The entire time they spent together, all Sehun could see was a cheerful Haerin. She was either smiling or laughing and it made him wonder what’s the reason behind her happiness? He envied her because everyday she had the courage to be this optimistic and he wished he could be the same but he couldn’t bring himself in such a happy state—not after reminding himself everyday of the painful December morning. He tried though but maybe it’s too late for that. Maybe it’s too late for him to move on. Maybe this is the farthest he could go.

After having their practice in a small dance studio near the school, Sehun and Haerin sat on the floor with a bag of chips and two bubble teas. They’ve stopped after three hours of constant dancing and they were both exhausted.

“You should eat more,” Sehun sarcastically remarked after seeing Haerin fill with a handful of potato chips.

“It’s fun to eat,” She bit back as she rolled her eyes.

“It’s not fun being unhealthy,” He retorted as he threw a piece of chip on Haerin’s direction. She took revenge and threw a chip at him too. Sehun opened his mouth and caught it without the use of his hands.

“Score!” She exclaimed after seeing the chip shoot in Sehun’s mouth.

“That wasn’t bad,” Sehun muttered.

“That was awesome, admit it.” She chuckled fed herself more chips as Sehun shook his head and stole the chip away from her. She took it back and laughed at the face Sehun made after she took it from him.

“Do you always like to laugh and smile? Don’t you ever cry?” He teased.

“Of course I cry. I have my moments,” She smiled and ate more potato chips.

“And those moments would be?” Sehun arched a brow, “When you laugh too hard you get teary eyed, those kinds of moment?” He teased as Haerin grimaced and threw a handful of chips right on his face.

“Yah!” Sehun reprimanded as she stuck her tongue out.

“Let’s practice again!” She exclaimed as she dusted her palm and stood up from the floor. Sehun got a little feeling that she was being evasive about something but he’s far too physically exhausted to overthink about it.

Friday;

“So I’ll be seeing you guys at the orphanage this weekend and maybe rethink all the times you spent not studying for my exams while you play with the kids,” Their math professor said after giving all of their papers back. More than half of the class failed and Haerin was part of the list.

Everyone was dismissed to grab their lunch and as the new usual, Sehun and Haerin walked out of class together. She was really upset with her test results. She didn’t expect much but she thought she would’ve had a higher score than what she got.

“It’s only normal to fail. Don’t over think about it.” Sehun spoke, breaking Haerin’s little bubble. She was quite surprised that he spoke first. Normally, she’d be the first one to start speaking and he’d just go with the conversation.

“But I failed. My score was horrible. I need to lift my grades up or else I’m going to fail his class,” Haerin said with a hint of disappointment in her voice. He looked at her and saw how worried she looked as she had her eyebrows furrowed and her lips almost curving into a frown.

“Just study harder for the next exam. Sulking over it won’t change your test results so just brush it off,”

“Easy for you to say because you didn’t fail. Plus you get more time to practice and I have to take care of kids instead of rehearsing with you.” She pouted.

“You’ve been working way too hard anyway. We could use a rest. It’s bad to overwork your body you know.” Sehun said as he walked ahead of her. He was expecting her to follow his pace but then when he stopped, he found her walking behind him with her head down.

“Yah, Haerin,” He called but Haerin was really into deep thought as she kept walking. She almost passed by him without noticing his presence at all. Sehun grabbed her shoulder that made her stop her tracks.

“Oh, sorry. Were you saying something?” She asked innocently.

“Look at you. You’re overthinking about it. Failure isn’t fatal, Haerin.” He placed both hands on her shoulders as he bent down a bit so they were now face-to-face level. Her worried eyes looked back onto his sincere brown orbs and for a moment silence wrapped them both.

Soon, her eyes softened and her lips slowly stretched into a small smile. Sehun was expecting a bigger smile than that since he wasn’t used to Haerin not smiling. The entire time they spent together, Haerin was either smiling or laughing but she was never the silent one among them. Sehun didn’t like this side of her, the vulnerable side. It pains him when she’s worried or overthinking. He doesn’t know why but he’s sure that he doesn’t like this current state.

“I want a bigger smile later,” He muttered as he stood up properly and patted her head. She looked up at him and her smile grew a bit bigger than earlier. The two of them started walking down the stairwell.

“Sorry you have to practice alone tomorrow. If you want you can skip practice too. It wouldn’t be fair for you that I get to skip practice and-”

“I don’t plan on practicing tomorrow anyways. I’m going somewhere.” Sehun cut off her sentence and she just nodded in understanding. She figured that maybe he’d go to the cemetery to visit Youngmin’s tombstone but Haerin didn’t bother confirm anymore. After their weeks of friendship, Haerin learned that Sehun was still sensitive over this topic and she respected that.

-

Saturday;

It was 7 in the morning when the failing students of 4-C arrived at St. Mary’s Orphanage. They took the school bus with them as their ride going there. Haerin stayed quiet since her real close friends weren’t around because they passed the exam. She was a bit disappointed that Sehun wasn’t there either.

Haerin has grown accustomed to Sehun’s presence because they were inseparable since they became friends—well more like she was inseparable from him—and so she gets this tendency to miss him when he’s not around.

“Okay, I’ll be dividing you into groups and assign you somewhere.” Their professor said and started diving the students. The other groups were composed of six members but Haerin’s group is only composed of four. She found it unfair because they’d have more things to do with lacking members.

“Remember, this is a whole-day task. We’ll ride back to school at 5 in the afternoon. Have fun and be good to the kids, is that clear?”

“Ne seonsangnim,” They all replied. Before they all dispersed into their different areas where their group is located, another school bus from their school arrived. The other students wondered why there’s another bus.

“This must be the volunteers,” They all watched their professor walk to the newly arrived vehicle.

“Ah so there are volunteers,” One of Haerin’s group member said as they all watched the bus park next to theirs and saw students get out of the bus.

Haerin glanced down and saw that her shoes weren’t tied properly. She crouched down and tied her shoelace. The moment she stood up, she looked at her shoelace to see if she tied it neatly and when she lifted her head up, she saw a very familiar face come out of the bus.

“Oh my gosh, Sehun’s here?” The girls from the back giggled as they watched Sehun get out of the bus.

He looked a lot more handsome because he’s wearing casual clothes. Sehun wore a red flannel long sleeves, all buttons undone with a white shirt inside, he was wearing his faded blue skinny jeans that perfectly hugged his legs and black high-cut converse. Every girl was talking about how handsome he looked when he isn’t wearing their uniform and how cool he looked wearing his black snapback.

“He’s so handsome!”

“Omg he’s a lot hotter when he’s not in his school uniform!”

“He looks so cool with that snapback!”

“He’s so hot!”

“It’s his first time volunteering here!” Another girl from the back squealed.

From afar, they can see their professor group the students who just arrived and it saddened Haerin that she’s not going to be group mates with Sehun. But somehow knowing that he’s around makes her feel better already. After being grouped, the students joined the ones from 4-C. Sehun got looks and greetings from the other girls but he just decided to look at them and walk to Haerin.

“Hey,” He said, nudging Haerin’s elbow.

“I thought you were going to go somewhere?” Haerin asked as she raised a brow.

“Yeah. St. Mary’s Orphanage,” He answered as Haerin gave him a look, “I volunteered here. See,” He said as he showed off the white nametag taped on the right side of his shirt.

“Where are you assigned?” He asked as they walked together with the rest of the students, approaching the first building of the orphanage.

“Our group is assigned to bake so we’ll be at room 194—the baking room,”

“Wow, baking room. Didn’t know they have that here.”

“What about you?”

“We’ll be around the back, planting seeds with the kids.” He said as she nodded. Soon they arrived at the hall and the groups began to separate, walking to their assigned areas.

“I guess I’ll see you later then. Bake well,” He said, patting her head.

“Thanks. Work hard and don’t stay under the sun too much, the girls will hate it if you ruin your milky skin,” She teased as Sehun rolled his eyes and they started to separate. They bother found themselves walking backwards keeping an eye on each other. Haerin waved and turned away as she joined her group members but Sehun stopped walking and watched her figure go until she disappeared after making a right turn at the hall.

-

A class of kids ranging from ages 6-8 was sent out at the back building at the planting area with the rest of the volunteers who were assigned there. The kids didn’t go out alone though, they had two nuns with them—one is probably in her 50’s to 60’s while the other one is maybe on her early 30’s. They were the resident nuns in the orphanage and they came to assist the volunteers with keeping the kids in order and behaved.

The kids dispersed and chose volunteers they want to work wit