Coming Monday was warm, a sudden wave after a night of icy rain. The window was cold when she pressed her fingers on it, leaves damp and limp on the sill. A cold night of huddling was being thawed into warmth, clear skies whispering promises of a dry day.  

Gayoon paused before one of the kitchen cabinets on her way out. She found a metal tin, girdled with a ribbon, and slipped it into her bag, kissing her mother on the cheek.

The walk was pleasant; she spent it alone, for college admissions and scholarship applications were starting to drain the soul out of Kyungsoo, and he’d declared a morning of solitary commute to school. Feeling guilty that she’d forced his help in the bakery a few days ago, she bade him goodbye over the phone and made her journey alone.

She arrived at school to see him in his usual corner, frowning, eyes trailing the words on a small, creased note. Her presence alerted him; he folded the note, tucked it away.

“Morning.”

“What was that?” Her eyes followed his hands, searched his person.

“Nothing.”

“You know it’s not. It’s a letter.”

Kyungsoo was silent.

“Who’s it from?” She plonked down next to him, dragging her chair nearer, closer, so she could see Kyungsoo’s eyes. They were dark and thoughtful and troubled. “Do you have a secret admirer I don’t know about, Soo?” She nudged him playfully, picking at his sleeve.

“It’s no secret admirer –not mine, at least.” He bowed his head, busying himself with his books, his papers. Drawing pens from his pencil case. Putting away notes in neat piles.

“Then why are being so secretive about it?” She reached into her bag, found the tin, and plonked it in front of Kyungsoo, beaming. “Have a cookie. And please, do tell.”

“Always with a nose for good gossip,” Kyungsoo scoffed, sighing. He nibbled the cookie, shifting subjects. “So what are you so happy about today?”

“I beg your pardon?” she said blissfully, munching on her cookie. The classroom had too many windows, too much glass. It made her think of Jongin’s secret studio, his figure in its mirrors, coming forwards, taking her hands.

“Cookies. You bake when you’re happy.”

She answered with a soft smile.

Kyungsoo brought the cookie away from his lips. “Is it about Jongin?”

“Maybe.” She shrugged, happy to leave the sentence hanging and Kyungsoo wondering.

To her surprise, he looked uneasy, cookie crumbs falling from his hands.

“Tell me what’s in that letter, Soo,” she begged, leaning closer, eager with curiosity.

His eyes passed across her face, torn, uncertain. He brushed away the crumbs from his fingers, showered it onto his books in a way that his normal, uptight self wouldn’t do, and said, slowly, as though reluctant to have the words pass his lips, “It’s a note, from Baekhyun.”

She looked at him, amused. “Why would you two make study arrangements by note?”

“Its not for me. It’s for you.”

“He gave it to you?” she asked, surprised.

Kyungsoo nodded his head once, staring at his hands.

“And you read it? Soo, that’s breaching privacy!”

Kyungsoo shook his head, disquieted. “You don’t understand, Gayoon. I’m just looking out for you.”

“Why would you need to know what’s in it?” Disappointment washed away easily into betrayal. “It had nothing to do with you.”

“Gayoon, please, listen to me –”

“Give it back, please.”

She held her hand out, her face tight, angry. Outside, a sudden gale pounded floating leaves onto the window.

Kyungsoo stiffly reached into his sleeve, pulling out the note. He slid it to her without looking into her eyes, but as she turned, dragging her chair across the floor, he reached for her, eyes beseeching. “Gayoon, you don’t know –”

 She turned away, mute with fury. To Kyungsoo’s credit, he didn’t beg. Just stared at her through the next passing seconds, conflicted, apprehensiveness and guilt a deep wound in his eyes.

She refused to look at him, to speak to him.

After some time, he turned away.

She was still simmering, even after she escaped from class. Her exit, although lacking in showiness, was still dramatic in its taut soundlessness. She gathered her things, and left Kyungsoo watching her, helpless.

She veered into a turn down the corridor, waiting for the usual mob to pass, and with it, hopefully, Kyungsoo. In a dank corner, she ducked before a shuttered window, extricating the note and pulling away its folds. Baekhyun’s handwriting looped across the small note in neat script. There were only a few sentences, brief but friendly, asking for a study session with her at the library this evening. If you’re not busy, it said, I’ll be waiting at one of the tables by the window.

She was absolutely bewildered.

Three times she reread the note, and for three times the content was the same: Baekhyun wanting to study with her, Baekhyun promising to wait for her.

She didn’t know what to say, how to feel. Her heart beat, but excitement was not its root of reason. Anger for Kyungsoo had ebbed confusion and dubiousness, but every sentence written in Baekhyun’s hand had been impressed with sincerity, even hopefulness.

The bakery could go without her help today, she thought. Early weekdays rarely boded many customers. Her mother could handle it, along with Jongin. Although something in heart stirred at the thought of foregoing Jongin’s company that day, Baekhyun’s letter and its quiet hopefulness was convincing in its beguiling innocence.

Tests are nearing anyway, she thought. I suppose it can’t hurt.

The library was quiet today, emptier than usual. Occupied seats were sparse, open books on the table less of an ocean.

She padded quietly past the shelves, the books and tables and chairs. Few saw her pass; noses were buried too deeply in books. Her own books weighed down her arms. She struggled, straightened, and tried to nudge whatever was slipping back into a neat pile.

Baekhyun was huddled in his quiet corner when she found him, beneath a strip of sunlight that painted his hair bronze. He was poring over a notebook, brows knitting. They smoothed when he looked up at her, blinked, and smiled.

 “You came,” he laughed, leaning forwards, patting the space in front of him. “I was afraid you wouldn’t.”

“Why didn’t you ask Kyungsoo to study with you?” she asked conversationally. “He’s your tutor. He wouldn’t have turned you down.”

“I’ve imposed on him for long enough.” He looked genuinely guilty. “I know how strictly Kyungsoo manages himself. He would bend heaven and earth to get what he wants. I don’t want to get in between that so I thought of you. You seemed pretty smart yourself, so I thought, maybe, you’d take enough pity on me to come. It’s not that I minded if you didn’t,” he added hastily. “I understand that you have better things to do.”

“But I’m here.” She pulled out a book and spread it open in the light of the late evening sun. “So let’s get started, shall we?”

A smile touched the edges of his lips. He picked up his abandoned notebook, stuck a pen above his ear, and started bleeding yellow highlighter onto the pages.

They spent an almost an hour in silence, poring through pages and pages of text. Baekhyun seemed content with the silence, though he hummed, occasionally, when it got too thick. For half an hour, Gayoon read in peace, but after sweeping glances and catching Baekhyun’s eye, she couldn’t help herself from wondering.

Baekhyun in the light was an ethereal being: compact, slender, haloed. Even his eyes, when he let them stray to hers, were rimmed gold.

 “Can I ask you a question?”

Amusement flickered, a book carefully set down. “Fire away.”

“It’s more prying than it is an enquiry,” she warned.

“Now you’ve made me interested to hear it .” He twined his hands, smiled in wait.

“Why did you want to keep your relationship a secret?”

Baekhyun withdrew, his back against the chair. Instead of looking hurt his eyes carried pensiveness, which raked across shelves, the tables, her face.

“She doesn’t like publicity. Said if we really loved each other, the world doesn’t need to know.”

She remembered what Jongin told her that day, about Yeonjoo being in love with ballet. She looked at Baekhyun, unhurt and clueless, and couldn’t stop herself from asking: “Why didn’t you ask her to study with you?”

He shook his head, his smile not really sad, but not quite touching his ears either. “She goes to a different school –a performing arts school. The curriculum there doesn’t stress so much on academics as it does the fine arts.”

 “Don’t you miss her?”

As soon as the question slipped, she bit her tongue, appalled, realising she’d overstepped common courtesy. But Baekhyun remained genial; his answer had no venom.

“I do, but there’s not much I can do. I’ve no right to interfere with someone’s hopes and dreams.”

The conversation trailed, lapsing into silence. She drifted towards her text and continued where she left off. Korean history pieced itself together in her head, all its names and dates. At one point, faces blended together; a young, handsome prince in traditional garb started to look like he had Jongin’s smile and an advisor, Kyungsoo’s bow lips.

Baekhyun came along somewhere in the middle, in the smiling picture of an ambassador. She saw his fate like an unwinding road, the outcome in the beds of Jongin’s eyes: a trap of pain.

How long would it take for him to become as broken as Jongin?

“What about you?” Baekhyun asked. She snapped out of her reverie. When she looked at him she realised he’d already abandoned his books, fingers clasped, torso halfway across the table, to hear her answer. “Have you no one special?”

Her cheeks burned. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’d have told myself if I did,” she tried to joke.

“Is it because you don’t give people a chance or is it because the right person hasn’t come along?”

“It’s because nobody would have me.” She tried to play it off lightly, tried to stop her restless fingers from twiddling with a pen.

“I don’t believe that.” He shook his head.

“It’s the truth.”

“To you.” Baekhyun being wise was making her stomach flutter, her blood thrum with nerves. “Other people don’t think so.”

“Maybe it’s just you,” she joked, too dry for a laugh.

His eyes lingered on her longer than they should. “Yeah. Maybe.”

She stayed with Baekhyun for another hour, until the clouds began to hang grey and the wind started to turn into a furious whip of cold that whistled through the windows’ cracks. Everybody hurried out of the library, worried, shrugging on coats. She and Baekhyun joined the rapid flow to the main doors, at which point it was already too late.

She looked up at the sound of the first few drops hitting the sloped roof, then gawked, dumbstruck, as rain laid siege against the faultless earth. A blue thread of lightning leaped and tore a rip across the clouds.

“Oh, damn,” Baekhyun muttered in front of her. He looked as helpless as she felt as they watched water pound against the sidewalk.

“How long do you think until it lets up?”

“Too long. The clouds are dark and heavy. It’s going to take a while to empty their tank.”

Everybody was shivering on the school steps, watching water gush and trees bend. Ricocheting droplets created a fine mist of silhouettes.

Cellphones were pulled out, rapid sentences fed into the receiver. They listened in awkward silence as others called parents, brothers, sisters, friends. A gale swept rainwater onto their faces, catching in her hair. Something else caught her sleeve. Looking up, she saw Baekhyun.

“Best get ourselves into shelter. No use letting ourselves getting soaked to the bone here, anyway.”

He pulled her further in, towards flat expanse of wall where they could lean. They watched in dull silence as rain fell and fell, rivers descending from roofs, waterfalls from gutters. After fifteen minutes, the number of people taking shelter on the school steps had dwindled. She slid down the wall, curling for warmth, and watched the world through its hazy looking glass.

It felt too soon to have someone touch her shoulder and a voice to speak in her ear. She jolted, disoriented but awake. Sometime in the furious thunderstorm, she’d fallen asleep.

Baekhyun was crouched next to her, hair glistening with spattered raindrops. He smiled when she woke, helped her up, and began shaking something out –something bright and yellow and curved.

“I didn’t know you had an umbrella,” she said hoarsely.

“I carry one all the time. Figured we’d wait until the rain eased up before we storm our way through.” He stood closer to her, held it up over their heads. “Perfect fit.”

She felt shivers down her spine; Baekhyun this close rekindled old nerves.

“Ready?” He grinned down at her.

She in a breath. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

They barged into the courtyard, straight into a sheet of falling drops. Their shoes squelched the wet ground. Water was quick to drum against Baekhyun’s sunny umbrella, loud over their heads.

“We’ll make it a game,” Baekhyun said, lips close to her ear. “Walk as fast as you can and see who’ll be the least wet.”

She smiled and together they set off into the rainy evening, puddles at their feet, grass and greens colourless, insipid shadows. The water was soaking the right side of her blazer, coolness tunnelling into bone. She shrunk closer to Baekhyun. The next minute, he’d put an arm around her and pulled her to his side.

She swallowed, unsure what to feel. His touch was firm, protective. Normally it would have sent her heart into acrobatic feats. Now, she just felt the warmth of his hand and wondered if the right thing to do was pull away.

“Don’t want you losing so early into the game,” he chuckled. His arm around her tightened, and they rushed into cold, dripping streets.