“Morning, Sunshine!” JongIn chirped happily while settling on his seat beside ByulHee in class, and the girl who was reading a book, looked up at him and offered him a smile. “Hi, JongIn.”

“So, I went to your house on Saturday but your parents said you went on a small trip for the weekend. How was it? Where did you go? Did you go alone? Why didn’t you invite me?” JongIn straight away bombarded her with questions, and ByulHee blinked in confusion for a moment.

Closing her book, ByulHee answered, “Well, yeah, I went to a short jaunt last weekend and just got home yesterday. I uh ... went to visit a relative at our hometown. My parents didn’t come with me because they were busy so it was just me. It was fun, though.”

“But why didn’t you invite me?” JongIn asked with a sulk, and ByulHee almost laughed out loud seeing his facial expression. “You could’ve emailed me or something and we could go on that trip together. You even said that you went there alone.”

ByulHee sighed at his whine and scratched her nose. “I didn’t get the chance to tell you because I found out about it on that morning itself. Besides, I didn’t know that you’d like to come. Had I known, I would’ve made a quick phone call.” ByulHee replied with a nonchalant expression.

JongIn, still pretending to sulk, crossed his arms with a loud exhale. He looked at ByulHee from the corner of his eyes and said grouchily, “Fine. Next time, I want to come along. I’ve never been outside the city before. I really want to see how it looks like.”

ByulHee just nodded her head with a sigh, and rolled her eyes after. “Yeah, yeah, fine, whatever. And what were you doing at my house on Saturday, anyway?” she asked, suddenly remembered that JongIn knew she went on a trip because he dropped by, probably hours after ByulHee had left.

“Oh, about that.” JongIn said, suddenly recalling that he went to her house last week. “Well, I just dropped by to see if you were home. It was Saturday but I didn’t really have anything to do at home. The other boys had their family programs and I was bored. That was why I went to your house, to ask whether you want to hang out.”

ByulHee only nodded her head again, and before she could say anything more, their Mathematics teacher entered the class and all of them were ready to start their lesson.

They were learning a new topic that morning, and ByulHee found herself liking that chapter because it took the whole of her attention to focus on it. She was trying to find something to occupy her mind for a while, as she was still missing Chen, and Algebra seemed to be doing the trick.

It seemed to be a bit complicated hence, she poured all of her concentration to the lesson, and the thought of Chen and their old home slowly floated away from her mind.

Once done with the explanation and lecturers, the teacher gave them a set of questions for them to try, and ByulHee got down on it immediately. She was never a big fan of the calculating subject, but she found that particular topic to be rather interesting.

The whole class was in dead muteness while trying to solve the problem, and within minutes, ByulHee was done with the first four questions. She was about to move on to the fifth when she heard a loud, panic sigh coming from beside her.

She slowly turned and saw that JongIn was flipping out, while none of his questions was solved. He was puckering his brows and he gripped his pencil as if he was going to break it in half. He glanced around the class and seemed to panic even more once he saw that everybody was solving the questions.

Luckily, the teacher didn’t seem to notice his panic attack.

ByulHee prodded him gently, and the boy jumped in his seat with a start, as if ByulHee had scared the living lights out of him. ByulHee frowned at his reaction and slanted her head at him, as if asking, what’s going on with you?

Sighing, JongIn quietly began poking at the questions given by the teachers. ByulHee looked at the questions and then back at JongIn. She raised her eyebrows. So?

At the top of the question paper, JongIn wrote, I don’t understand anything in this chapter. How am I supposed to answer the problems when I don’t even know how to start? What am I to do if she asks us to show the solution on the board one by one?

After reading his note, ByulHee now nodded in understanding. So JongIn had no idea how to solve the Algebra questions. Okay, it wasn’t a national crisis, at least.

ByulHee wrote something back on the same piece of paper, why don’t you raise your hand and tell her that you don’t understand anything?

What good would it do? She wouldn’t be bothered anyway. I’m so dead if she’s going to give us homework regarding this chapter.

The bell ran, ending their conversation and the teacher stood up from her desk while gathering her things. The mathematic lesson for that day had ended. “Okay class, listen up. I want you to finish the exercise I’d just given you, and hand them in tomorrow. I shall expect no excuses since there are not many questions there. I thought of giving you people some more but I think for now let’s just settle with that.”

The students secretly sighed in relief, including JongIn, though that relieve was short-lived.

He hadn’t started on a single question, so that didn’t actually make anything better. He was just a tad bit lucky that the teacher changed her mind about adding the homework.

The teacher went out, and while they were waiting for the next one to come in, JongIn began scratching his head like crazy and exclaimed, “I’M SO DEAD !! I’M GOING TO BE THE ONLY ONE NOT HANDING IN THE HOMEWORK TOMORROW !!”

ByulHee nearly jumped out of her skin when JongIn suddenly shrieked, and suddenly she recalled something KyungSoo said about JongIn losing his marbles when he was in panic.

Thinking about the way KyungSoo said it made ByulHee become certain that she too didn’t want to witness JongIn’s anxiety side. And a part of her felt pity towards JongIn, too.

“Hey, JongIn.” ByulHee casually called, and JongIn turned to her with a long face. “What?”

“Do you want to finish this homework together?” ByulHee asked. “You said you understood nothing in this chapter so I don’t mind helping. Unless you have anybody else in mind to help you with.”

His face lit up immediately, and he straightaway sat up straight. “Wait, you can help me? Are you for real? Are you really going to save me from our Math’s teacher’s wrath just because I don’t hand in the homework?”

ByulHee rolled her eyes again, and said, “Don’t be so melodramatic, JongIn. What’s the worst thing that could happen anyway? And yes, I’m willing to help, because you look so lost as if there’s no way out.”

“Because there really isn’t.” JongIn replied. “Most of the boys aren’t good in Math too, and KyungSoo’s a scary teacher to ask for help. I asked him for help for a subject once, and if he could, he would’ve beheaded me multiple times for not getting it.”

His head slumped onto the table, as he stared at the piece of question paper sadly. “I’m sorry, question paper, for not being able to answer any of you. But Sunshine is going to help me soon, and I think I can understand better. She’s much gentler than KyungSoo, and very much less scary.”

ByulHee shook her head with arms akimbo, while deep inside she was trying to hold back a laugh. JongIn can really be hilarious when he wanted to.