— The Wonder Years —

He walks over, calmly plucking a lollipop out of the sand.

Strawberry.

These ers are like a muse to him, he thinks, as he strums the strings by the bench of the whitest hallway in the whole campus. He’s not sure how long Kyuhyun’s going to be in there but while he doesn’t come out, the lyrics start to, like fireworks that light up in the sky, the outburst of ideas, note per note after every word.

Agitated, Changmin jerks the moment the door to the clinic opens, hoping to see his friend but ending up seeing an obviously on a 24/7 diet cheerleader wearing the school team’s colors. Most probably a senior, like himself, the way she observes him and his plain outdated pants from last year. Go Tigers! His smile proposes, a small awkward wave before he ends up sitting back again, and she shakes her head, limping out of his way and into the crowd. She stands out, as much as Changmin refuses to admit it, and he knows it’s not because of her sprained ankle.

He shrugs it off when Kyuhyun finally comes out, right ear wrapped in cloth and bandages to prevent further bleeding from a small brawl on the way to school. Not even a sophomore and he’s already making headlines, that Cho Kyuhyun.

“A cheerleader was checking me out,” Changmin brags, a smug smile etched on his face. “The… girl that came out before you did.”

Kyuhyun squints, recalling the other patients in the clinic. “I think we’re in the same year, I’ve seen her in homeroom.”

“Uh, no I don’t think so,” he continues, taking his lollipop out and pointing it at Kyuhyun like a lethal weapon. “I would have noticed that if she were.”

“Oh, Shimmy’s got a crushie,” Kyuhyun teases, chuckling. “If she isn’t, then could be that 1st year who tried out for the cheerleading team? Yunmi, was it? Or Yuri? Yooseul?”

“Yoona! Hey, Yoona!”

A girl, just about Changmin’s shoulders tall (he’s been growing a few inches since middle school, thank you puberty), breaks apart the two boys, ruthlessly pushing her way through the crowd to reach the girl shambling to the lockers.

Changmin nudges Kyuhyun, pointing at her. At Yoona. The name rings a bell, somewhere in memory lane, pulling on his sleeves like how a child would be requesting for another pink lollipop, the one in between his mouth at the moment. He takes it out and it hits him, as abrupt as the eye contact: the brief connection that he too can’t tell whether it’s just a tiny spark of hope, or a complete combustion of the arbitrary past.

The first time he’s ever talked to her is a year later, through loud music and endless jabbering at an after game party where the Tigers kills the Wolves at a 3-0 match in basketball. Kyuhyun somehow managed to get their band to play there. Changmin thinks a live band at a home party is a bit overboard, no matter how rich you are or how big the house is, but a gig’s a gig, and he’d much rather keep the money than speak his mind.

They play four songs, until it dawns on Kyuhyun that they never practiced any more than those four songs, so he mumbled something about taking a breather and let the CD to take over their supposed job. Changmin wanders off alone after taking (stealing)