“I’m late…”

Suho’s eyes kept darting from the teacher in the front of the class from the clock to his right. He was going to be late for the first time, of all days, today was the day his friends’ decided to get on the teachers’ nerves—leaving the entire class to sit in the class for an extra 20 minutes after school.

The elder wouldn’t have mind it if it were any other day, but today he had planned something—something important. It had been bothering him since the beginning of the year and it frustrated him that he waited this long to do something about it. The year was ending, it came by so fast and he knew that if he didn’t act now, he would deem it as one of his greatest regrets of his lifetime.

As soon as the teacher dismissed the classroom, Suho and his friends shot up from their seats and scrambled out—with grunting difficulty—out of the classroom. They all chattered amongst one another with goofy grins, Chanyeol wrapping his arm around Kai’s neck while the others started to laugh. Suho smiled at them while at the same time, tried to think of an excuse to not walk home with them.

“I’m telling you man, Ms. Kim hates me.” Baekhyun complained, deepening his frown in distaste as he recalled how the educator scolded him in front of the classroom for reading a passage wrong. Thinking back at how the class erupted into laughter for this, made him puff his cheeks out.

Suho reached out and patted the man’s shoulder with a sympathetic frown, “She doesn’t hate you, maybe she just wanted you to try harder,” he offered. But the latter didn’t agree, instead he sent his elder a glare that threatened him to stop joking around. He put his hands up in surrender before glancing at his watch, “Uh, guys, you go ahead back to the dorms, and I’m going to be on campus a little while longer.”

“Whoa, hyung, where are you headed off to, hm?” Chen teased, raising his eye brow in curiosity along with the others.

Suho stiffened for the slightest, unnoticeable second before rolling his eyes. “I’m going to meet with one of my teachers to talk about a recommendation letter.”

“Can I get a ‘boring!’” The entire group chanted before erupting into laughter while the elder pursed his lips to suppress a smile. His lie went through, and the group made their way out of the school gates; Suho could still hear their loud laughter and the occasional “Hey!” and “Shut up!”

Once he felt that it was safe, he held onto the strap of his backpack and ran back into the school building. He tried to avoid bumping into other students in the hallways. Suho was really late, well, at least he thought that he was.

When he reached the school’s cafeteria, he slowed down a bit and straightened out his uniform jacket, looking around the area to see if anyone was watching him. After deciding that the coast was clear, he made his way towards the schools’ garden that hardly anyone ever went to because of rumors that a ghost occupied the area. And that said ghost had planted a large tree at its’ entrance so no one would enter it. But it was a stupid rumor, people were still able to pass through regardless of the tree being there or not—there was a door for easier access on the east wing.

Stepping onto the grass, Suho held onto the giant tree to keep himself from stumbling. He didn’t want to fall or make any noise, just in case someone was around to hear him. He came to the tree entrance because he knew it would be the least place anyone would want to just idle around at the end of school.

There wasn’t an ghost here, he knew that. It was sometimes ridiculous how superstitious ideas can be taken so seriously and sometimes out of context.

“Oh, shoot!” Suho grabbed onto a branch of the tree, catching himself before he slipped further into the grass and dirt. He made his way, slowly and carefully this time, to the other side and peered over the side of the tree.

He bit his lip and gulped a little at the sight he’s been coming back almost every school day to see.

There by the bushels of roses, was a girl. He didn’t know her name—he didn’t know anything about her. All he knew was that this girl would come to the garden every day to read or to do homework.  Now normally, this wouldn’t have interested him too much but… he always came back. When he did come back, she would be in the same place, at the same time doing the same things.

For some reason this girl intrigued him.

He watched as she picked at the ear of the book, flipping to the next page to continue her reading. “She must be really smart,” he thought, trying to poke his head out even further to get a small glimpse of the book she was reading. He was about to take a further step before a loud ringing made his body jolt in surprise, he quickly pulled back and hid behind the tree; not wanting to get caught. He heard a small beep,

“Hello?”

“Her voice is soft…”

“Hi dad…No I’m still in school. Mom should be home, though… I will don’t worry.”

Suho listened intently at the conversation and blinked when he heard some ruffling and thumps along with it. “Yes, I will. Okay. I love you too, bye.” As soon as Suho reached the other side of the tree, he saw the girl closing the door the garden.

“No wait!” He gasped, stumbling out from behind the tree before the door could click to a close, but it was too late. She had already left and he knew that it was already too late. There wasn’t going to be enough time for him to even ask her out on a date considering finals were coming up and soon after that—graduation. The time where everyone in the senior class takes their leaves to start their college careers—except EXO anyway. They all made a pact to make it into the same university and they did. But...

Where was this mysterious girl going? How would Suho know if she was going to the same university as him? How would he know if she was even going to a university in the area? How would he know if she was even staying here in Korea?

He angrily ran his hand through his hair, biting back the frustration that was building up in his body right now. He was too late. Suho released a sigh and looked on the ground, finding a small phone charm of a water droplet on it. He blinked a few times before gasping in realization. It was the mysterious girl’s charm! He remembered because before when she looked at her phone, it was dangling. At random points of time, she would caress the charm and smile softly. He wondered before whether or not the drop meant she was sad or not—like a tear.

When he picked it up, he smiled a little bit. Maybe he could keep this as a reminder of her. So that all the months he had been going here weren’t put to shame. He watched how the sunlight reflected on the diamond like jewels in the droplet—his mind flashing to a beach where the water flowed freely and the sun shined down on it, making it glisten.

After a few minutes of staring into the charm, he turned around. He decided that it was best if he started to back home. At least everyone already knew why he was still in school—granted it was a lie—it worked. He wondered whether or not he would be able to tell this story one day—about how close he was to greeting this mysterious girl when an unfortunate phone call pulled her away.

When he took a few steps towards the tree, he heard the a loud click behind him. Closing his hand over the charm, he turned around and to his surprise…

“Um, hi. Have you seen a phone charm on the floor somewhere?”

---

comment&subscribe&EnjoyTheSuho