“Oppayah….”

“Yes, honey?”

“What do you think would happen to us if we have known each other when we were still in high school?”

“Hmm… I think we’d still be together, Ji?”

“Why do you think so?”

“Because you are my destiny.”

***

He was still acting nonchalantly when his mother, again, telling him about a ‘special guest’ who was going to visit their mansion that day. That guest was going to visit his grandfather to talk about her enrollment to Taesan High School, the school under the management of his family’s company, the school he was enrolled to as well. The girl was apparently a granddaughter of his grandfather’s long lost friend thus made her a special one. Though, Sunggyu smelt something fishy since his mother mentioned her over and over as if she was trying to cram the girl’s name into his head.

Jung Eunji.

Thanks to his mother, that name was still ringing inside his head even though he never met her personally. Geez.

He had just met his grandfather in his study and was about to walk back to his room when he heard some noises came from the stairs’ direction in the other side of the hallway. Thus he somehow hurried his way to his room but since he had already seen an appearance of shadow in the end of second floor hallway, he just randomly got into the nearest room so that he wouldn’t meet whoever went to that floor he was in.

Sunggyu was somehow facepalming himself—why should he hide himself as if he was a fugitive?

He tried to peek through a slit of cracked door, wondering whether the noises were really coming from the special guest his mother mentioned before. And there he saw his mother was walking with a young girl with a broad smile. They then stopped briefly in front of his room and the girl stared at the room with a somewhat curiosity. He heard how his mother then told her that the room was his, her son’s. The girl nodded and they continued to walk to his grandfather’s study.

He noticed that the girl was that Jung Eunji his mother always mentioned as he had seen her by a photo her mother gave to him when she visited them before. The girl looked so much like she was on the photo, especially her signature eyesmile. He admitted that she was pretty and cute. But he didn’t have any interest at her since he didn’t know her yet. He was not the kind to easily fall by girl’s physical appearance. She had to have another thing on her to make him attracted to her.

When he heard a sound of closing door, he then strode himself to his own room quickly and there he realized why the girl stared at his room. He had stupidly left his room’s door opened, showing how messy his room was with his book collections scattered here and there people would mistook it as an old messy library. What an embarrassment.

“What a great manner of yours, young master Kim Sunggyu,” he turned around just to find his mother was leaning on the doorframe, crossing her arms above her chest, looking upset at her son.

He didn’t say anything but just crouched down to pick some books on the floor, he somehow felt relieve that none of his undergarment or any other private things of him were scattered as well or else he’d be more embarrassing.

“Why did you have to hide, son? Didn’t I tell you to greet her nicely?” his mother obviously noticed him when he was hiding a moment ago.

“Why should I?” he responded nonchalantly.

“Well—to show our family’s hospitality?”

“Tch. I don’t even know her, eomma.”

“Fine then, it’s okay if you didn’t want to greet her yet. But notice this, son. She’ll be enrolled in same school with you. You’ll meet her more often there, and I wish you can greet her in some way, and show our respect to her.”

He just hummed and still busying himself to tidy his room.

“Eomma will go now. Don’t forget to close the door, Gyu-yah. Gosh, I feel so embarrassed when she looked at your room before.”

A slight blush tainted his face. He just stared briefly at the door when his mother closed it carefully before turning back to what he was working at. He was actually a tidy person, but lately, he couldn’t keep his room’s tidiness as he was still busy in student council to prepare some events to welcome new student in next term of school. Thus, people noticing his messiness was knocking down his pride somehow. He didn’t like people to judge him badly.

And he was also considering what his mother said before about greeting the girl as hospitality. Should he greet him as what his mother told him to? Or could he just keep silent, acting nonchalantly, since they didn’t know each other yet? The girl wouldn’t know about him either, anyway. But—would she suppose him as a bad guy then?

He then heard some noises again from the hallway, signing that the girl had already come out from his grandfather’s study to come back home. He somehow felt guilty though he didn’t sure what his fault was. All he noticed then was that he was acting spontaneously, standing up then walked quickly to the door. And when he finally pulled the knob opened, he could only catch the sight of the girl’s back when she was turning right to the stair.

There, he lost his very first chance to greet her.

***

High school life was indeed fun as what her sunbae told her. She enjoyed her first year very well as she got so many good friends there. Even though she could be enrolled to this prestigious school by scholarship she got from the chairman of Taesan group, no one ever bullied her because of that matter. Rather, her friends always asked her whether she had already met the grandson of the chairman who was rumored as a handsome and gorgeous boy since no one in the school had ever met him face to face even though there was another rumor that he was actually enrolled to Taesan high school as well.

Unfortunately, she never met that certain boy yet. Though, she didn’t feel disappointed at all. She wasn’t really interested in the son of Taesan group as there was another boy catching her attention nowadays. A weird boy, she said.

That certain boy was quite popular among the girl as he was handsome, cool, smart, also the last year’s student council president. His name was Kim Sunggyu, and everyone saw him as a perfect guy yet the boy acted so nonchalantly on his own. He only mingled around his boy friends and was well known of rejecting girls’ confession many times. He was so mysterious as he never talked too much and always be so introvert. He was also hard to be found around the school except for the class time and no one really knew where he was during break time.

But she had known where he was all this time.

It was when she was voluntarily emptying the trash bin to the bigger garbage behind the school building on lunch break time after she had her quick lunch before. There was a small garden there, yet students were rarely visiting that garden since it was too desolate at the very back of the school campus. The garden was just some meters away from the big garbage. When she was emptying the trash bin, the wind accidentally blew some of the paper she was throwing away to the garden area thus she had to run after them there, collecting them back to the garbage.

There, she noticed that there was someone was sleeping under the big zelkova tree loudly. She was about to laugh because of the snorting sound when she noticed who the person was, the mighty Kim Sunggyu. She quickly covered her own mouth before she could wake him up and making him to notice her presence. He seemed sleeping so comfortably there as if it was indeed his routine during break time. Eunji also noticed that he brought his own dosirak and had finished it there—explaining why he was never seen around school cafeteria during lunch break.

Weird boy, she thought, for the umpteenth time.

Yet, she found that the almighty Kim Sunggyu, the former student council president, apparently could be a cutie when he was sleeping. He looks like mashimaro—the cute white lazy rabbit character, she thought. Though, she somehow pitied him because of his loud snorting, she was worried whether he had problem with his sleeps during night or any problem on his respiratory.

However, she didn’t want to bother him more thus she just left him there, peacefully.

Sleep tight, sunbaenim.

***

He sighed heavily as he rubbed his eyes, still felt so sleepy. He strode down to the corner of the library, to his favorite spot, so that he could spend the rest of break time by napping there. He had a bad habit and weird biological hour of staying awake during the night for reading, studying, or doing anything else so that he always looked so tired during the days that his close friends always as a lethargic grandpa. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t sleep in the night so that he spent his break time at school to sleep and regained his energy back. On weekend, he could be sleeping full day thus he hardly to hang out with his friends.

The school secluded backyard was his favorite place to have a nap since students barely came there. But he couldn’t sleep there on Wednesday because it was the day of garbage combustion. It would be so messy there since the ‘secret garden’ was near the garbage. Hence, he went to his second choice to sleep at school, the library.

However, today was not his lucky day as he found a long haired girl was sleeping on his favorite desk, snatching his only favorite spot to sleep beside his secret garden. Yet, he didn’t leave but he’d rather to sit across the girl, watching her somehow. He himself didn’t understand why he felt something interesting about the girl that her face could not be seen because she was facing the table flat and was covered by her long hair.

He found it fascinating as it was so rare to see another student coming to this most secluded area of the library, with a high stack of books near her, ready to be read. And there was also a pair of glasses lied by her head. She must be a bookworm, he thought. He smiled, unconsciously, as he indeed had a thing about bookworms as he was also one of them. It might sound weird but he was attracted to a girl her face he even couldn’t see yet.

He was still watching the girl intensely across her, until sleep drifted him down, and when he was awake because of the school bell, he found nothing but a membership card of a karaoke house with a number combination written on it as its owner’s ID.

‘19930818’.

***

Eunji arrived so early in the morning as she was on cleaning duty today. She thought that she was the first one to arrive at school since she didn’t meet another student yet.

However, she felt a bit disappointed when she saw a boy with crouched back was walking in front of her while ruffling his messy hair. The boy didn’t bring a school bag but only a notebook he rolled and tucked in his belt. He looked so indifferent and sleepy thus Eunji thought that he might be staying up the night—or worst—he maybe was a drunkard and was at a night club during the night and when he realized, it was already morning thus he hurried himself to go to school so that no one would notice his night activity.

Geez—she had watched too much dramas on TV to have that kind of presumption.

Besides, the boy didn’t seem drunk at all. He seemed only sleepy, because she could hear his loud yawn over and over during the walk. She was surprised when