Moving onto the next day, the high school students were back to their same routine.

The main girl of our story just arrived on campus as she locked in her bike in the bicycle zone of the parking lot while the male smoothly got out of his car with Jieun right in his line of sight.

He was about to step over to see her when he was blocked by his girlfriend, missing the chance to catch up to the good step sister as he glanced at her walking away.

“Guk~” Bong Cha tip toed as she quickly kissed Yongguk on his lips while the boy simply stood still. “Yea?”

“What’s with that face?”

“What face?”

“That face right there.”

“You know I hate mornings, so just chill, ‘kay? Let’s go to class… How’s the nose by the way?”

“Ugh, I had to spend the night at the hospital to get that nose fixed. But I’m telling you, that Jieun is going to pay big time.” As he shook his head in slight exasperation, he rested his arm around her shoulders as they started making their way to their lockers, getting themselves ready for their morning classes.

Back to Jieun, she had just finished packing up her bag, done with her locker and started making her way to her first class, putting her focus into zipping up her backpack when she got bumped by her shoulder making her fall on the ground.

“Watch where you’re going loser!”

Stepping on her books before walking out, Jieun didn’t need to look up to see that it was her step sister who forced her way into making her fall, earning herself to pick up the stuff that came out of her bag. She heard the cheerleader’s snicker fade away making her look back to see that Bong Cha was walking away with her posse. She shook her head and went back to picking up her stuff only to be interrupted by the savior of the day: Bang Yongguk.

He saw what happened from his locker and waited until his girlfriend was out of sight before making his way to Jieun as he crouched down and helped her with her bag. She saw a pair of shoes coming her way and simply ignored them until the voice that came with it made her stop. She lifted her head up to see him smile at her shyly as he helped her out. “Sorry for what she did, it wasn’t really nice.”

“It’s okay, I’ve had worse coming from her.”

Once they were done and got back up on their feet, he handed her back his part of what he took and as she hugged them against her chest, she thanked him and gave him a smile before walking away, leaving him to follow her steps as he watched her with her back facing him. He was about to turn around and step away when she slightly turned her head to him not knowing that he still has his eyes on her. She stretched one side of her lips into a crooked smile and shook her head before turning her face away, focusing back onto walking in class.

He let out a satisfied chuckle out of his mouth and started making his way to class, in opposite direction from Jieun.

As she was about to reach class, she ran into Sunhwa as she was looking for her female lead in her musical. “Hey Jieun! What was that all about back there?”

“Huh?”

“You know~ With your detention buddy~”

“Yah! I told you to stop that.”

Ruffling her friend’s hair, Sunhwa started to walk away backwards as she was making her way to her morning class, leaving Jieun to stand by the classroom’s entrance, a light laughter out of from watching the excitement popping out of her friend. “Then you’ll have to come to practice at lunch time!”

“Sure! Whatever you say!”

First half of the day done, every student were rushing back into their classes as the bell was ringing, signaling that lunch break was over.

Running his way to class, Yongguk arrived just in time as he took his seat, dreading the next hour of chemistry. The teacher started talking leaving the audience to either listen or bore themselves with something else, which left the room with only the man’s voice to be heard.

The next thing the boy knew the teacher was passing around a container, his classmates pulling a piece of paper from it revealing their lab partner for the rest of the year.

It was his turn to pick his partner as he took a piece of paper into his own hands. He looked at the name and smirked. He mumbled to himself and as if she had heard him, Jieun came rushing into class, completely breathless as she was holding onto the entrance, one hand on the door knob and the other on the wall, leaving her body to stand in the opening crack.

“Well, well, well! Look who decided to join us!”

“S-sorry Mr. Kwon… Hmm, there was some drama club stuff and we lost track of time…”

“Just go and find your partner.”

A frown on her face, she looked around the class until her eyes landed on Yongguk who was waving at her with the small piece of paper in his hand. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ She sighed in defeat and strolled her way over, taking a seat next to him. “Hello partner~”

His gummy smile in full display as he looked at her, she stiffly smiled back before turning to look in front of the class, waiting for the teacher’s instructions. Still staring at her, he let out a pout with his bottom lip sticking out before looking back to Mr. Kwon trying to grasp whatever he was saying.

“And since you are lucky enough that I forgot the essentials for today’s class, you can resume studying with your lab partner for next week’s test.”

A groan was echoing between the four walls of the classroom, showing the students dismay at the sudden surprise from the chemistry teacher.

Yongguk dropped his head straight onto the desk leaving Jieun to open her book as she was about to start but quickly got interrupted when her partner turned his face to stare at her with his head still stuck onto the desk. “Wait, you’re really going to study?”

“Hmm… yea? Aren’t you?”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“Okay…”

“When is that musical?”

“H-hmm at the end of the semester, why?”

“So I can mark it down on my calendar.”

“And again, why?”

“So I can hear you sing~”

He chuckled at her flustered expression and lifted his head back up only to lean it against his hand, right on his cheek as he leaned the side of his body towards the desk, his elbow on the white wooden surface. “L-look, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to study.”

“Go ahead, I’m not stopping you~”

She shook her head and couldn’t help but let a smile appear across her lips, amused by the way he was acting at the moment. Even though her hair was falling off her shoulder, he noticed the small grin and scooted closer to her; she saw him move and had to bite down on her bottom lip as not to laugh and disrupt the class. She looked at him as if she was mad but once her eyes were set on him, she was caught off guard by the closeness leaving her breathless for a second.

She felt her heart jump inside her chest and felt the heat back on her cheeks, turning them into a slight rosy shade.

As for the boy himself, he forgot the teasing he was doing to her. He could feel his heart doing somersaults inside his chest, which led him to feel something unfamiliar in the pit of his stomach. He could barely comprehend what had taken over him but soon enough, he found himself drawn towards her as he approached her further more, having this sudden urge of wanting to kiss her.

She noticed how close he was getting, bringing her back to reality as she pulled back and cleared , flustered by the moment. She turned her head back to the open text book in front of her and tightly grabbed onto her pencil as she took several deep breaths to calm down her heart beat.

“How did I not see you before yesterday?”

His words were soft and were voiced out in a mere whisper. Despite the noise inside the classroom from the other students, she perfectly heard what he had just said. Her heart skipping a beat, she tried to brush off the tingling inside her stomach while putting her mind back on her chemistry textbook. “W-we sh-should probably start stu-dying…”

“Hmm yea, sure.”

Sitting back in his chair, he opened his book to the same page and waited. Looking at him, she noticed that he didn’t have a pencil with him making her sigh as she reached out to give a free one she had. “You’ll be needing this.”

“O-oh, thanks. Where should we start?”

“Hmm, I think it would be safe to start from the beginning. Knowing Mr. Kwon, he might ask us questions from the earlier sections.”

“Smart thinking.”

She lightly chuckled at his reply and glanced at him before gazing back into her textbook with Yongguk giving her a glance as well before going back to focus on the subject.

The hour went by and nothing more awkward than what happened earlier occurred. Things were going smoothly between them where Jieun and Yongguk were collaborating – very well by the way – on their studies making chemistry their only common point at the moment.

With the bell ringing, everybody was quick to get themselves out of the classroom. As Yongguk finished packing up, he stood by the desk waiting for Jieun to finish up and as she did, she looked up at the boy waiting to see what he wanted.

“Is everything okay?”

“Huh? O-oh yea, I just wanted to ask you something.”

“What is it?”

“Are you free on Saturday night?”

“Hmm… I guess so, why?”

“There’s this costume birthday party going on at one of my teammates house and I was wondering if you would like to come? Y-you can bring your friends if you want.”

Looking at him acting so shy as he scratched the back of his neck made her instantly smile, charmed by how his personality kept changing from one moment to the other. “What about Bong Cha?”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about her.”

“Then I guess I’ll think about it and maybe see you there?”

Once again, he showed his full gummy smile and his lips as he stretched out his hand towards her. “So I can text you the address.”

“If you wanted my phone number, you could’ve just asked~”

A small laugh out of his mouth, he took a step closer and pursed his lips in a smile before softly asking her what he wanted. “May I have your phone number… please?”

“Of course.”

Handing it out from her pocket, he quickly dialed down his number and gave himself a call to receive hers. Once he was done, he gave it back with a crooked smirk on his lips and started walking backwards as he gave her a salute and disappeared from the classroom, with his heart still beating at an uncontrollable pace.

‘That’s what I call chemistry~’