Since her room was too dim for me to attend to her wounds, I brought her into my apartment and helped her sit on the nearest sofa in my small living room. I noticed how her gaze travelled around, inspecting my unit, but I was confident to show her every corner of it since I was the tidy one.

“Your unit’s clean,” she nodded but then a small frown came after as she added, “But too plain. You could use a splash of different colour besides black and white.”

“I’m not really onto designing,” I shrugged as I got my first aid kit.

“Don’t you have a favourite colour?” she kept on asking.

“Green?” I asked myself.

“You should repaint this unit and I’d gladly help you,” she offered.

“Tss,” I hissed as I inspected her wound. “How could a clumsy one like you help me?”

“Yah. I’m just clumsy. Not useless,” she retorted.

I just nodded teasingly as I started cleaning her wound with dry cotton. Noticing that there was some debris on her wound, I got some tweezers but even before I could remove the glass on her wound, I heard her gasp. I then glanced at her and realized that her face was as white as a sheet of paper. She covered her eyes with her palm as she kept murmuring too herself,

“Think of happy thoughts, Bae Suzy.”

I just beamed at the thought of her self-encouragement. Trying to distract her from the pain, I engaged her in a conversation. I asked, “Do you live alone?”

“Hmmm,” she just nodded.

“Where’s your family?” I questioned again.

“Gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Gone,” Suzy whispered. “Like… gone forever.”

“Oh,” I stopped for a while.

“How about you?” she directed the conversation. “Where’s your family?”

“Away from Seoul,” I answered. “I only have my mom and two of my siblings; one of them is in her first year in a university and the other is in his first year in high school.”

“Are you older than me?” she questioned.

“Five years older than you, to be exact.”

Her voice was full of wonder as she asked, “And how did you know that?”

Ah.  I almost forgot that Bae Suzy doesn’t have a clue that we have already met. I shrugged again and said, “I guessed.”

I then looked at her and showed her that her wound had now been properly aided and bandaged. A sweet smile formed on her lips as she mumbled, “Thank you.”

“No problem,” I smiled back. “If you ever need help, just call me. I’d rather do the work by myself than treat your wounds and then still do the work you failed on doing.”

She pouted and I chuckled because she looked too cute. She then grinned back and said, “Lee Jong Suk-ssi, can I drop the formalities already?”

“Anytime you want,” I nodded.

“Then, please take care of me, oppa,” she tilted her head and charmed me with yet another smile. It never occurred to me that this would be the first time that she would call me ‘oppa’ and it was yet another formality but for it sounded like a term of endearment.

We’ve finished a long exam in one of our subjects. Yes, it was difficult but I didn’t think that it was an achievement enough to celebrate for. However, for Sora it was. She dragged the three of us into an arcade shop as she reasoned out that we needed to celebrate for overcoming one of the hurdles of life, and for us to get to know more of each other.

“We should be drinking in a KTV,” Woo Bin complained.

“Oh, come on,” Sora argued. “Don’t let the kid in you just die silently.”

The next thing we knew, Woo Bin and Sora were already competing on various games in the arcade. I was playing alone too in the lottery game until I found Yu Bi having difficulties on getting a prize at the claw machine.

Her lips formed a small pout as her eyebrows furrowed upon failing for the nth time. I let out a small chuckle and Yu Bi snapped her gaze towards me. She then spotted the bundles of tickets I had. She widened her eyes as she asked, “You won?”

“Hmmm,” I nodded then, mockingly, I asked, “How about you?”

Embarrassed, she slowly shook her head. A sigh then escaped my lips as I asked, “Which one do you want?”

“You’d get it for me?” she asked in a whisper and when I nodded, she excitedly pointed at the pink teddy bear. I had numerous tries but I still came out successful in the end. When I gave the plushie to her, she was like a kid in awe.

“Thank you,” she beamed and I patted her forehead in reply as she suddenly reminded me of Dahyun. She then glanced at my tickets once again and asked, “What are you going to do with those?”

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully.

“You could exchange them for another stuff toy at the counter,” she informed me.

“Do you want another one?” I asked.

She shook her head and replied, “You already got me one. Why don’t you give that stuff toy to your girlfriend instead?”

“I don’t have one,” I whispered as I stared at the set of cute stuffed toys arranged on the counter. Dahyun was allergic to anything furry so it was no use of getting one for her but then, another image of a girl flashed into my mind.

With a smile, I turned to Yu Bi and asked, “But I do have a friend that is a girl. Do you think she’d like it?”

I almost thought that the emotion on the girl’s eyes changed from one of delight to disappointment but I immediately dismissed it when she smiled at me and nodded slowly.

It was