“Can we- “Shhhhhh”

“… Hey-“Shhhhh”

“ Can you just-“Jongin, please.” Hye Seon had shushed him far too many times to count. The two were currently in Kai’s room, Hye Seon sitting in a chair with her eyes fixed on piles of notes and open textbooks while Jongin lay down sideways on the bed. There were only 6 days left before the first day of 8^th grade started and Hye Seon was not supposed to be out of her room as she would study for hours weeks before school so that everything she learnt would be fresh in her memory. However, now that she had finally made a friend, she became a tiny bit more lenient and only agreed to go over to Jongin’s house since he had asked for help and wanted to study together. It had not even been an half an hour, about 22 minutes to be precise, until Jongin threw those thoughts out of his head. Studying was not really his type of thing and he never really had a long attention span to begin with.

“You know, I kind of liked you better when you were all quiet.” Jongin said offensively.

“I don’t see how I’ve changed” Hye Seon finally answered him after cutting him off for no less than ten times.

“How long have you been studying for?” Jongin asked as he fiddled with the loose strings from his pillow case.

“Not much. I just read a few pages last week, some yesterday and some today.” Hye Seon said, sounding slightly annoyed as she didn’t want to be distracted yet at the same time, didn’t want to be rude to him.

“And how long was that?” Jongin questioned.

“I guess in total… about 34 hours.” She peeled off a sticky note for the pad and bookmarked the page.

“Let’s take a break.” Jongin suggested, only to be ignored by the one and only. Frustrated and bored, the boy got up from his bed and marched over to Hye Seon, taking the pen from her and closing her textbook. Slightly taken aback, she did nothing  to stop him until he pulled her out of his chair.

“That was rude-“Not as rude as ignoring the owner of this house. Now do as I say and take a break! I swear you’re growing white hairs from all that studying.” Jongin said sarcastically, pushing her down to take a seat on his bed. Right then, a loud shout came from outside the house.

“YAH KIM JONGIN! GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW IF YOU WANT A DRINK!” His cousin, Luna shouted from the car. Not wanting to face the older girl alone, he pulled Hye Seon along with him, but not without struggle.

After retrieving the drinks from her, Jongin took the chance to drag Hye Seon even further away from her studies towards the park. He had stated that since they were already outside, why not take a break at the park and cool off. Her opinion wasn’t really needed though since she was going to be dragged their either way but Hye Seon still said it anyways.

“I hope you like cherry.” Jongin made sure he said it right after Hye Seon had taken a sip of it.

“Ughh… yuck. You know I hate cherry.” Hye Seon swallowed it since it would be too gross to spit it out.

“What’s yours?” she looked at the drink in Jongin’s hand which had a similar shade of red.

“Strawberry.” Jongin said happily.

“I don’t think I’m going to have anymore.” Hye Seon set down her beverage on the  bench space between them and did a small stretch, looking at their surroundings. Stealthily, Jongin traded his untouched drink with hers. Although he didn’t particularly hate the cherry flavour, he definitely liked strawberry and enjoyed seeing Hye Seon happy.

“If I were to slap you right now, what would you do?” The two were in the middle of a game Jongin suggested.

“I would spit cherry juice in your face!” Jongin answered, threateningly holding up the drink causing Hye Seon to laugh. Feeling a bit dry, she decided to take a sip of the nasty drink just so that she wouldn’t have to keep clearing to speak.

“Oh. What?” She took a drop of the ‘cherry flavoured’ slush and realized it tasted different.

“You’re right. The cherry flavour is kind of nasty.” Jongin smiled, taking a mouthful of her beverage.

“But…I drank from that already.”

“Doesn’t really matter. You wanna taste the cherry flavour again?” Jongin teasingly held it in front of her. She turned away and continued sipping Jongin’s or now that he gave it to her, her own drink.

As the morning sun slowly moved down to the west, the breeze that hit their faces and ran through their hair slowly became gust every so often. Hye Seon’s hair which had been put up in a ponytail became looser and looser, the shorter pieces dangling in front of her face. Jongin who noticed it all too well, took action and gently slipped the hair band off her hair, releasing the bunch into brown silky strands that cascaded down her back. Feeling the weight of her hair change, she bunched them back up in a hand and turned around to face Jongin.

“What are you doing?” she asked, trying to take back the hair accessory.

“I’ll tie it for you, turn around.” Jongin nudged her shoulder. Instead of moving though, she eyed him doubtfully.

“I’m not going to do anything! Trust me!” He replied and turned her. Gently, he gathered up her hair and ran his fingers through it to make sure there weren’t any tangles. Her hair was soft and silky under his touch and he thought the same. Looking at her backside, Jongin began to fall in a trance again.

Do I… No. Why am I even thinking about this?

Jongin shook the thoughts out of his head. Nevertheless, he still couldn’t deny that he had a strong sense of protection for her.

Hye Seon who was waiting patiently, detected that Jongin had stopped moving midway.

“Umm… do you need help?” Hye Seon asked, her hands reaching behind her head. Hearing her voice, Jongin quickly snapped back to reality.

“No it’s fine! I almost got it.” He flinched when he felt her fingers touch the back of his hands. After a bit of twisting and turning, her hair was secured.

“So, how is it?” Jongin beamed proudly at his finished product. Feeling around her hair, she turned to Jongin and gave a nod and a discreet smile.

“Yah! Quit walking so fast!” Jongin caught up to Hye Seon. She stopped for a very short moment and waited until he was within arms distance before continuing her journey at the same pace. Although Hye Seon was quite alert of Jongin’s constant complaints, she decided it was not worth it to slow down for Jongin and face the possibility of being late on the first day.

As if her mind was read, Jongin spoke up. “We’re not going to be late!” Doubting him, Hye Seon tugged the edge of her sleeve up and glanced at the time. The hour hand landed exactly at 8.

He’s right. There’s still over half an hour left.

Seeing Hye Seon finally stop, Jongin took the chance to jog up to her side, knocking shoulders. He began making decent conversation with her while they walked, or at least what seemed to be decent to Jongin. During the school year before summer break, the most he got out of his attempt to talk with her was a nod, and if he was lucky, eye contact. Decent in his mind with Hye Seon would be something like being able to talk to her without always having to run and catch up to her and  knowing that she is listening instead of trying to get away as soon as possible like she always used to seem to do.

As they reached the school, Hye Seon picked up her time table and breezed past everyone including Jongin. Jongin was far too used to this and caught sight of her within seconds. She turned into the C section and stopped in front of a door, then leaning against the wall beside it.

“Oh, are you in this class?” a shorter girl walked up to Hye Seon. She turned around, hiding her surprise and gave a small nod.

“I see. I transferred to this school today. My parents just suddenly wanted to move here.” Hye Seon could see her attempt to break the ice but stayed silent. She hadn’t made an attempt to talk to someone herself other than Jongin and it was usually him that came up to her so Hye Seon didn’t know how to react.

“…Umm, I’m Subin. I’m not really good with introductions.” Subin bowed awkwardly. Jongin could see from afar that Hye Seon looked troubled and took it as his cue.

“It’s the beginning of a new school year and you’re still like that?” He popped out of nowhere and rested his arm on Hye Seon’s shoulder. The smaller girl looked at Jongin with surprise at his sudden entrance and quickly stifled a bow.

“You chose the wrong person to talk to. She’s really nerdy and shy.” Jongin joked.

Staring at Jongin with an offended expression, she stepped to the right, opposite of Jongin so that his arm would fall off her shoulder. “I’m Go Hye Seon.” She finally spoke, giving a slight nod.

After taking up some of their time, Subin left, giving a polite smile before that. Relieved to see her leave, Hye Seon exhaled deeply and leaned on the wall, resuming to her original position. Jongin turned his attention to the girl beside him and inched closer only to have her move just the same distance away from him.

“Yah. What’s  wrong?” He complained.

“I just don’t want you to look bad for hanging out with a nerdy and shy person like me.” She answered without making any eye contact.

“Oh. So you can get mad sometimes. I never knew you were so sensitive.” Jongin teased. Ignoring him, Hye Seon moved into the classroom, seeing there were only 15 minutes before the first official lesson of the year started.

*Present time*

Cheeks reddened by her harsh ways of wiping her tears, Hye Seon stared at her pathetic reflections in the mirror. Resenting her current self, she turned around and pressed her palms on the edge of the sink, tilting her head up just in case any more tears came out. She waited a few more minutes until she knew her breathing had steadied before facing her reflection again. Pink rimmed eyes and red nose, both swollen.

I can’t go home like this. What will they say?

Her parents would be shocked and she knew they won’t leave her alone until they know they’ve squeezed out every single tiny bit of information on why she came home looking like that. She entered one of the stalls and removed her outerwear soaked with both tears and water.

Great, why did I forget to bring an extra shirt out of all days?

She loathingly pulled out her gym uniform which had been sitting in there for about a week. It didn’t exactly smell horribly like sweat as you’d expect but she did feel very unhygienic for wearing it. It would have been clean days ago if only the washing machine coincidentally wasn’t broken and she wasn’t given so much homework from her English tutor.

After changing, she took the back exit of the fast food store and headed to the convenience store a couple blocks away. Since there were no ice packs, she thought she might as well get something cold to cover he eyes and decrease the swelling.  Hye Seon scanned the fridge for any popsicles since they were cheaper than buying cold drinks but to her dismay, they were sold out. Tubs of ice cream were on special, a dollar cheaper than the beverages but she didn’t want to take that and put it on her face nor did she want to spend extra money on the drinks.

“Excuse me, are there any more popsicles?” She approached the clerk at the counter.

“Sorry, they’re sold out. We’ll have them restocked by tomorrow.” The girl behind the counter replied. Nodding a thank you, she headed over to the drinks aisle to pick out something inexpensive that she would drink after using it as a cooling patch.

“Umm, do you want this?” Someone approached her, handing her a filled plastic bag.

“It’s okay.” Hye Seon replied, catching a glimpse of a few popsicles inside.

“I was just stocking up on them. Having a few less won’t make a difference.” The boy continued.

“…Thank you. I’ll pay you back.”She replied after much consideration. She reached for her backpack but was stopped. “It’s okay.” The boy replied and quickly left.

As he exited the convenience store, he turned back to look at the girl through the glass windows. She walked to a corner and sat down, thinking it was a good hiding spot and took out two popsicles.

Two at once?

He thought and expected her to open it but saw her put the two over her eyes instead. Furrowing his eyebrows in confusion for her strange actions, he stood there and thought.

Oh. Her eyes were swollen.

He remembered. After a while, she got up and slipped the popsicles back into the plastic bag, her face looking a little brighter and livelier. The boy’s eyes never left her and alas, when Hye Seon left, a small timid smile formed on his face.