Haeri faced forward as she continued taking her notes on history, it was honestly the worst subject to teach after lunch. She had no idea why the teachers decided to make the schedule this way. 

Before the teacher got halfway through his lecture, almost the whole room was asleep from food coma. It was ridiculous, but Haeri managed to dutifully keep her eyes open and take notes off the blackboard as the teacher wrote out all the important dates that they needed to know. 

She sighed to herself softly, she had tutoring at the library at school this time. She had to teach one of the girls who was failing. 

It was rather sad actually, because the girl was smart. The only reason why Haeri needed to tutor her was because she didn't pay attention in class.  

If the girl even attended class. She couldn't remember the last time she saw Miyoung in their home room.  

But either way, it was her job today to tutor the girl just to make sure her grades were on par with the school average.  

Of course, Haeri was always the one who set the curve, though that was irrelevant. 

Their history teacher finally finished writing down all the dates and started to explain them one by one. It all started with King Sejong and his creation of Hangul.  

She turned to the side slightly so she could see a bit more of the back of the room. She saw JongUp doing what he usually did in class, sleep. The least he could do was pay attention, it would make tutoring him so much easier for her. 

If he knew nothing about the subjects taught in class, then she would have to start from scratch and that would take so much time, which was not something either of them had a lot of. 

The teacher finished up his lecture and headed out as soon as the bell rang. Haeri gathered up her things to do the same and tried to wait for as many people to leave the classroom as she possibly could. 

“Don’t you have tutoring today?” Young Jae asked her, hovering.  

“Yeah, I do. But Miyoung is usually late so I was thinking about speaking with a teacher first instead.” Haeri replied back to him. “Have a good afternoon, Young Jae.” She said, heading out of the classroom. 

She wanted to get a chance to tell JongUp that she wouldn’t be at the library but she apparently would have no such luck. There were too many people in the classroom still. She sighed to herself as she walked down the hallways to get to the library. 

Miyoung was lucky that no one usually went to the library, but then again, Haeri had no idea what that girl was doing. She needed special tutoring lessons in order to keep up with class, but the girl was never there.  

Haeri never questioned it before, but now with secrets being out in the open, it made her wonder if Miyoung had some sort of deal with the school to not attend class but only take tests and get her diploma or something. 

She made a right turn into a empty hallway and the library doors were right there in front of her, she didn’t mind tutoring Miyoung actually, but she still wished she had the chance to tell JongUp where she was gonna be. 

“You know I’m right here.” He said, his footsteps tapping against the linoleum floor loudly. 

Haeri turned and saw the smirk on his face, “When do you get here?” She asked him in surprise, “I thought you were sleeping in the classroom." 

JongUp shrugged, “Honestly, I’m so glad you’re letting me walk you home, I’ve been walking behind you for a while now and you were too lost in your own thoughts to notice. You let your guard down at school, I’m guessing?” He said, raising an eyebrow at her suspiciously. 

“Yeah, it’s not as dangerous at school, obviously. It’s not like people would be hiding in the walls for me.” She said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

JongUp frowned, “You’re joking right? That’s the exact reason why you should be careful. People take advantage of people’s weakness and school is one of them, there’s no one in this hallway but me and you right now. Imagine if it was someone else other than me, that was here. What would you have done then?” He asked her. 

This time it was Haeri’s turn to frown, “I don’t know actually. But I bought pepper spray a while ago. It should be fine. Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I’m tutoring in the school library today. So if you wanted to walk me home, then let’s meet around 5pm by our neighborhood?” She asked him. 

“I could wait for you at the back gate? No one goes there. It’s faster to walk home from the back gate anyway.” He suggested to her, it usually got dark around 5pm and he didn’t want her walking alone in her school uniform any more than necessary. 

“Okay,” Haeri nodded, “I can do that. See you then.” She said, going into the library and finding Miyoung already at their usual table. She put her stuff down and pulled out all the worksheets that the teachers had given her to give to Miyoung. 

“I missed this much work?” Miyoung asked her in surprise. “Usually it’s only half this.”  

Haeri sighed, “Yeah, well most of it is reading comprehension stuff for History so that’s why there’s this huge packet here.” She said pointing at the bound notebook for Miyoung. “But we had a lot of problems in class for math, so he gave us extra problems for more practice." 

“What if I don’t need the extra practice? Math is usually my best subject.” Miyoung told her.  

Haeri shrugged, “It’s up to you. The extra practice is easy, and he said we might put those problems on the test.” She answered clearly. 

Miyoung frowned, “Well I guess I have to do them now.” She said sadly. “I’ll get started. Let me know if I’m doing anything wrong.” She asked. 

“Always.” Haeri said, watching her do the work to solve the problems. 

JongUp wandered around the hallways as he waited for Haeri to finish tutoring. It was weird that he was still at school at this time, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was going to walk Haeri home, no matter what. 

He noticed some girls lingering around in a corner at the end of the hall, whispering to themselves. He could feel their stares on him before he even got near them. He hated this part, he had a feeling what was coming. 

They looked exactly like how the boys did that wanted to get Haeri. He could usually avoid them if he didn’t stay at school, but he had to stay at school today. He sighed, it was too late for him to change his path now, it would be obvious that he was avoiding them. 

Plus turning around and going back the way he came would just mean he would be hovering around the library which was weird and awkward. 

He stood his ground and walked closer to them waiting for that moment. 

“Umm.” One of the girls said loudly and he groaned inwardly, he wasn’t expecting them to react so quickly. Couldn’t they have chickened out? Or were they building up their courage this whole time for this moment? 

“Yes.” He said politely. It was rude to ignore them, he usually did, but if Haeri found out then she would judge him. She would be upset that he was mean to a girl, he frowned again. Why was he putting himself on good behavior? This wasn’t like him at all. 

But it couldn’t hurt to find out what this girl’s deal was. He needed to prepared for any sort of ambush by Bang. Bang could try and get a girl to lure him out, he could try and JongUp needed practice, he rationalized. 

The girl’s mouth moved but his thoughts were too scattered to focus on her words. “What?” He asked her. 

The girl flinched visibly at his voice, “Umm..” Her face was red and she looked away from him, “I said I was wondering if you have a girlfriend.” She asked him. 

He narrowed his eyes at her, “Why are you asking?” He asked back. She cowered in the corner with her friends, but they kept nudging her to say what she wanted to say. 

“I want to be your girlfriend.” She stated simply in one breath. As soon as the words left , she let out a huge sigh of relief. 

JongUp frowned, “Sorry. But I can’t do that.” He said in reply to her. 

“What. Why not?” She asked him. “You have a girlfriend then?” She said in shock, her friends’ eyes were all wide. 

“I just can’t let you do that. Sorry.” He said, walking away from them and heading somewhere else. He could spend time by the bleachers by the back gate while he waited for Haeri to finish.  

As soon as his back was towards them, he could hear all those girls muttering to themselves over the rejection of their friend. That girl didn’t even know him, she didn’t know what he was like, what he liked, where he was from. 

How did that girl expect to be his girlfriend when she knew literally nothing about him? And on top of that, he had to protect Haeri, the hood thought Haeri was his girl and he was gonna keep it that way. And he needed to protect his neighborhood, there was no room for a girl in that equation. 

She walked lightly as she headed towards the back gate, Miyoung had finished all of the work with ease and Haeri left the library so Miyoung could turn in the worksheets to the teachers' office.  

She just had to meet JongUp and they would be on their way. It was still weird to think that she was going to be walked home by him all the time now. What would that mean for them? She would see him a lot, and they had to keep it a secret. After all, he was only doing it for her protection.  

She saw his silhouette from where she walked and headed towards him, when she reached him, she jumped on her feet heavily and yelled, “Boo.” 

“I heard you a long time ago.” JongUp said proudly. “You think you can scare me?”  

Haeri rolled her eyes at him, knowing what his words really meant. “No, but you looked like you were spacing. Is everything okay?” She asked him. 

“Yeah.” He said, taking her hand in his, “Let’s go.” He started walking away from campus and she dutifully followed. 

“Thanks for the ointment, by the way.” He said to her.  

“No problem. Thanks for waiting.” She replied. 

“It’s my job.” 

Author's Note;;
Hey :D so in my angsty feels for the moment.
I managed to finish update. I finished my midterms. 
and now I'm just chilling until finals... But yeah. 
enjoy~ I'm gonna try and get to the good part... which is..
LIFE STORY TIME LOL. 
maybe if our two main characters go on a date ;) or something.. 
So JongUp clearly has protective feelings so it's just up to our heroine :D
but do not fret, you shall see soon :)