chapter six | sleep sound, sleep tight.

It’s been four days since she has seen the picture. Four days of not enough sleep, four days of taking shortcuts and walking quickly on hallways just to avoid Changmin, four days of not being really okay.

When she’s not busy updating her stories, studying for her major subjects, or obsessing over what she should eat next, Im Yoona is stuck staring at windows and coming up with theories as to who the girl in the picture might be.

The mysterious girl is too pretty to be Changmin’s sister. She’s also too pretty to simply be his friend, or best friend. And there’s this one theory that Im Yoona doesn’t want to accept but it isn’t like she has a choice. That girl is Changmin’s ex-girlfriend.

She’s someone who, at some point in her life, Changmin loved.

They looked so good together.

Her chest tightened at that thought.

“I don’t want to feel this. I want to stop being jealous, but I can’t help it!” Yoona’s ears buzzed as she overhead one of her classmates voice out what she has just been thinking. Yoona straightened in her seat and leaned back to hear more.

“Ya, stop whining. You’re a girl. We can’t help but be jealous sometimes, especially if you really like the guy,” the girl’s friend advised.

“Urgh, can I just stop liking him already? This isn’t good for my heart. What should I do?”

“Feelings aren’t switches you can just turn on and off. Go to Taeyang and tell him how you feel. If he likes you too and sees how crazy that makes you, then I doubt he’s going to go around and flirt with other girls like that.”

“But I’m not even his girlfriend!”

“You don’t have to be his girlfriend. Look, there’s something going on between the two of you and if he can’t understand how much you’re into him, then he’s no good for you. It’s as simple as that.”

As the two of them continued to babble on about the first girl’s love life, Yoona nodded to herself and not for the first time, she wished for a best friend.

Someone she could unload everything to.

Someone who would hold her hand when she’s down and slap her face when she’s being stupid.

Right now, having a best friend is close to impossible so Yoona wiped her face with her hands and repeatedly bumped her head against the wall because she’s jealous and she can’t help it.

Shim Changmin, what are you doing to me?

Shim Changmin would have been stupid not to notice Yoona’s abrupt coldness.

It’s as if something happened after their time together that caused her to look the other way when he stares at her, or run down the opposite path when he’s walking nearer.  

Every rejection feels like an arrow jammed through his heart, and there’s no way he’s getting shot again. 

Today, fate is on his side as Yoona’s slumped figure greeted him when he entered the library. People like Changmin don’t enter libraries just for fun. However, people like Yoona does.

The large room has the scent of pages and nature. There were couples sitting across and beside each other, pouring over their books or stealing secret glances. A low hum covered the library, but it’s still nothing compared to Changmin’s quickening heartbeat as he sat beside Yoona.

He sighed. Her eyes sported dark circles and her cheeks appeared sunken. She isn’t doing that well either.

He wondered what was keeping her up in wee hours of the morning. What was bothering her? Does it have something to do with him? Is that why she had been avoiding him like the plague?

“Why are you doing this to me?” Shim Changmin sighed, torn between frustration and gladness. After four days of not-talking, Yoona was finally an arm’s length away.

He looked up, to his left, to his right. Everyone else was minding their own business. When the coast was clear, he took strands of Yoona’s hair and brought it up to his face.

Her scent, as usual, reminded him of a strawberry farm. In the short time he’s known her, Yoona never failed to make him think of pastel colors and everything that’s good in the world.

Yoona was nothing but innocence, and his past was a blood-drenched hand he couldn’t use to touch her. He couldn’t stain her like that. Unlike her, he learned the hard way about all of the evilness hiding behind shadows. He closed his eyes and kissed Yoona’s hair.

At this moment, he wanted nothing more than to be the one to protect her from the bad things that might come her way. He’s nothing compared to the person that he was before. Goons wouldn’t tremble at the sound of his name anymore.

His shooting skills might have become rusted, and his tolerance to pain has probably decreased.

Yet, despite these setbacks, he found something that made him stronger: someone else to protect.

“Changmin,” Yoona stirred in her sleep. Changmin’s ears deafened at hearing Yoona for the first time. No automated tune. No computerized recordings. Just vibrations and the sound of heaven opening. “Go to hell, Shim Changmin...”

Completely caught off-guard, Changmin burst into low guffaws. He reached out and patted her head, gently whispering, “You’re too cute for words. I seriously can’t with you.”

When she awoke from her nap, she had the nasty premonition that things would not go right from here. First, the lights in the library were already on, the dull whites telling her it’s definitely late enough. The only people left in the school are the professors and the law students.  While she stretched her limbs and packed her things up, Yoona couldn’t shake off the feeling that someone had been watching over her while she slept.

It was probably just a product of her imagination.

She left the premises of her campus with her headphones plugged in and the voice of a male singer serenading her with every step she takes.  

There’s something about being by yourself in a city at night that’s simply magical. It’s just you, your music, the people you probably might never see again, and the orange lamps that would continue to shed their lights even after you’re long gone.

Yoona smiled, realizing that alone time is just what she needed.

This might help her clear her head with thoughts of Shim Changmin and the girl trapped inside the four corners of a Polaroid.