It had only been two weeks since Yoongi officialy became Yerim's next-door neighbor, and already it felt like a century for her. She couldn't do the things she used to do during summer break before he came: being herself. She couldn't hum to whatever song she felt like humming, she couldn't practice her drawing skill freely, and worst of all, she couldn't open her window to enjoy the sunrise and the sunset she had never miss a chance to watch every single day. Simply because Yoongi was there. He would be there every time she opened her window, she could even hear that sick beat Yoongi listened to through his boom box at night. Sometimes, she would hear him talking to her too, as if he knew she spent most of her time there, in her room, though of course, she never answered.

That day was just the same. Yerim was drawing random things on her notebook, moving the pencil as gently as ever, tried so hard not to make any sound. But the movement she made, made her old wooden table creaked lightly, and that was when the boy was heard again.

"Still not going to open that window for me?" he asked. "I hope the air circulation in your room is doing okay, since you haven't open the thing up for days, not even a minute!"

Yerim groaned lightly, she threw her pencil across the table, made it hit the empty Pepsi Cola can she had earlier in the morning, which produced a loud noise in result.

"Okay, I take that as a no," Yerim could hear his long sigh, and she could imagine his small eyes would open just a bit wider as he did so. "By the way, do you hear it too at night?"

Yerim wondered, was it about the music he listens at night? But then he continued, as if he knew she wouldn't reply him anyway, "The wind. It sounds pretty much like cats fighting. Last night was horrible, right? I know heavy rain doesn't scare you but I swear I could hear footsteps among those thumping sounds the rains made on my roof. I'm not saying I'm afraid of ghosts, but imagine a burglar in the middle of the night, spying you through the smallest space on your window you don't even know exists. Just horrible."

The girl shook her head as she listened, that was just rains. Aren't our roofs too slippery for a man to walk on in the middle of a heavy rain? Don't be silly! She silently responded in her mind. She was quite amused, actually, hearing what he just said to her. Not everyday a boy with his look complained to her about hearing footsteps at night. Well, actually, never. He doesn't look that much of a scaredy cat, she thought to herself again.

But still, Yerim made no sound. She waited for the boy to continue, and it didn't take that long. "That's why I'm so glad this old boom box works out just fine, it covers the thumping sounds just the way I need it to. I hope my songs don't cause you any fuss." Oh, those songs, she rolled her eyes, if only you knew I had trouble sleeping these past few days!

"When I said my songs, I mean my songs. Oh, hell yeah I wrote those pieces my own!" Yerim's eyes grew wider in surprise, he doesn't look that much of a song writer either! "There's this one song I wrote the first day I entered Jintan Senior High. Nah, not a good 'yeay me, now a Senior High student!' song. I complained a lot in it actually," he said before he made that light laugh again.

Yoongi didn't need Yerim to tell him to continue, the boy expanded the sentences himself, almost automatically. "What complains, you asked? Short to say, my life in Jintan Senior High isn't really a High School life I dreamed about years ago. Maybe that's why you don't recognize me as your schoolmate, most don't even know my name. What they know is that I'm a great bully target because I can't fight, my fists just aren't made for fighting, you know."

Yerim startled in her seat, Yoongi sure didn't look like someone who get bullied in school, not with the look that reminded her about that one particular popular boy in the baseball team. So she leaned forward, toward her window, her arms rested on the table with her chin on them, silently asked the boy to go on with his story.

"I went out a lot, you know, skipping classes, all started from the second week of the first year. School is like a hell for me, and sometimes it's better to just stay away than having to face them giant kids, because I might spit their faces and ended up being the one who's at fault. So yeah," he chuckled, "Well, I know you because I know your Dad. He's a musician, right? The famous Kim Ricky's daughter you are, sadly enough I didn't know your name. Guess I was too busy surviving."

There was a long pause before he continued, "He's a good guy."

Yerim held her breath, he knows about Daddy too? But the fact that he was the first among all of her schoolmates who believed that her Dad was as good as the old man she knew, made the uneasiness faded away little by little each time she exhaled. Her walls she built for him since the day they first met too, has softened a bit, for she realized, this boy next door might have faced the same horror she did every day.

She could hear that Yoongi has moved from the window toward somewhere inside his bedroom, his footsteps went further away until a few minutes later he came back and asked, "So yeah, the song's about those bullies in school. Would you like to hear it?"

Slowly and carefully, Yerim opened her window, revealed the pale boy in his bedroom with his window wide opened and his dark brown eyes looked straightly into hers. With a voice loud enough for him to hear, she finally said something, "Yes, please."

He grinned at her respond, so wide that his brown eyes disappeared and turned into lines. As the sick beat was played, for quite awhile, Yerim forgot that Yoongi was a stranger, and at that very moment, it felt like as if he was a long lost best friend of hers that she should have met earlier, just to survive together.