There was one man.
One man, who had noticed the girl.
He stumbled upon her one late night, on the way home from a lovely night of clubbing and gulping down soju. To say the least – he was drunk. He had been out with his group of friends, and they were having a blast. The man was starting to fall behind, which was the only reason he noticed the girl. Sitting there on the sidewalk looking dead to him, as well as the other youngsters, who were running the streets in the late nights. Expect he cared. Other youngsters ran by, barely noticing her, but he saw her. He looked at her. She didn’t gaze back. She just sad there, staring. One would believe she was sleeping open eyed, as the heartbeat signaled that she indeed was still alive.

As the man was drunk when he saw her, nobody expected him to remember her. But it turned out he was getting closer towards a sober condition when he saw her, which resulted in the fact that he remembered. He couldn’t decide his feelings upon this. Was he happy that he remembered? Would he rather just have forgotten the strange encounter? Since he just moved to the town with his friends, he didn’t know the girl, or the stories about her, which still floated in the corners of schools, malls and even the clubs. Stories like those never die in small towns. At least not when they’re still ongoing. But in this town it would properly take ages to die out. Everyone is hungry for something to talk about, so why not talk about the weird girl who stayed out all night, looking for nothing, for years?

As the man didn’t know, he couldn’t forget the look in the eyes of the girl. He questioned himself whether or not to actually call it a look, since it seemed dull to him as well. One thing was for sure – he wanted to know more about her, or at least see her once again. He didn’t know where to find her, seeing that he didn’t know she sat there every night, at the end of the street. Yet that would properly be the first place for him to search. He only committed one mistake – he went there when the sun was still smiling down on the town from above. He didn’t bring any of his friends, which he was rather happy about, sensing the frown that crept over his face when the girl wasn’t there anymore. He sighed, as he put his hands in his pockets and continued his search, wandering around the town, kicking some rocks on his way.

Soon enough he reached the school. He knew that he would be attending it soon, but he didn’t really care. School wasn’t as difficult for him, as it was for some of his friends. It wasn’t that he was extremely smart, he just knew stuff, and he was able to keep up. What he didn’t know, was that the girl he was searching for, was sitting behind the walls he was looking at, in a classroom full of lively students, where only she seemed to stand out, being dull as always. As he passed by the school, and stopped for a second, the girl looked out the window. She noticed the strange man, who she met the prior night, but she was utterly confused. She had never seen that man around the town before. And she knew all the people in the town, as she sat there by the street every single night. Other than that she had a way of observing people, and remembering faces.

When the man didn’t find what he was looking for, he went home. The frown hadn’t disappeared yet, but it was slowly fading, and that was all he needed. Wearing a full frown would’ve made the other boys question him, but a slight frown never hurt anyone. It turned out that he cared for nothing. Half of the boys were still sleeping, knocked out from the night prior. Actually only three others then the man was up, which meant that four were still sleeping. When the man left, nobody was up yet.

“Myungsoo! Where have you been?” the oldest in the group of friends asked. He functioned somewhat as a father for all of the boys. “I’ve been out, taking a walk, getting some fresh air, hyung,” the man called Myungsoo answered. The older boy nodded, leaving the entrance making space for Myungsoo to kick of his shoes, and hang his jacket. He entered the kitchen and was welcomed by the smell of food. Well that’s what he imagined. It turned out they only had cereal, and that didn’t really have any kind of smell to it. He ate it anyway, lucky to get some food smashed into that hungry stomach of his. “Yah, Myungsoo, didn’t you eat before you left?” the older friend asked again. Myungsoo simply shook his head, as he continued eating the cereal. For the first time in his life, the cereal seemed lovely, as if it was pancakes, or any other lovely treat you could possibly eat in the morning.

When he finished eating, he found himself seated in the living room, together with the three other boys, waiting for the rest to get up. Speaking of which, they slowly started to get up one by one. First up was Sungyeol. He kept mumbling about why he drank so much soju the night prior, holding his head, heading straight for the kitchen, not bothering to say a word to the rest of the boys, who had been awake for a couple of hours. It didn’t last long before Howon, who preferred going by the name Hoya, showed up in a condition, similar to Sungyeols. He muttered a “good morning”, before entering the kitchen as well. The only sound heard were their spoons hitting the plates every time they dug in for more cereal.

An hour passed before the two last boys showed up. They were supporting each other, but the other boys didn’t really care, as they were the ones who drank the most the night prior. One of the boys was blond, and had rather thick eyebrows, going by the name of Key, as he preferred to be called. His real name was Kibum.  The other boy had his hair colored a dark purple. The other boys were used to seeing this, as they were all rather experimenting with different hair colors. Earlier the youngest of the boys, named Sungjong, had pink hair, which another boy, named Dongwoo, also has had. The purple haired boy went by the name of Woohyun. Key and Woohyun was the best of friends, and when they were partying together, they were having a blast to say the least.