A flower that blooms in the middle of frosty winter—that analogy described your current situation the best, you decided. Although the second term of your final year in school had started and more intensive studying schedule was haunting you, you had never been this happy before. Teachers were becoming more annoying and pushing students to study harder, but you weren’t bothered by it. Pressure to nail the final exam also came from your parents, who hired private teachers for you and Minkyung. But again, you were still filled by serum of happiness which ran through your pulse.

You didn’t know being in love could be this beautiful. All this time, you were always experiencing the bitter side of love—unrequited love. You remembered all those experiences made you nervous or afraid when you started to have a crush on someone because you knew he would break your heart anyway. But for Chanyeol’s case, it was different.

Before, you already knew Chanyeol was different. You knew he liked your twin sister and wanted to get closer to her, but you still dared to like him. Something about him made you couldn’t walk back, although you were almost succeeding on it. Still, in the end, you couldn’t back away from him.

The fact that Chanyeol liked you—even though he didn’t say it directly yet—broke your worries about falling in love. At last, you felt the sweet side of being in love which you craved for so long—having the guy you like, like you back.

Moreover, Chanyeol was a sweet guy. You knew you weren’t falling in love with the wrong guy. Even you could say confidently that Chanyeol was better than all Minkyung’s ex-boyfriends combined.

As soon as the school started, the rumor of you and Chanyeol had been spread between students. Girls started to stare at you with judging eyes—maybe they were confused why Chanyeol chose you over them. You could only stay quiet without any bravery to stare back, meanwhile Soohyun and Yeri would glare back at those dirty looks. Because Chanyeol and you weren’t officially dating yet, a lot of students questioned your relationship.

“There is no way they’re dating—I’m betting on my shoes collection that they will never date.”

“Chanyeol is just being nice to her.”

“But if they are really dating, it’s kind of sweet.”

You heard many different comments, and Soohyun told you to only hear the good ones and ignore the bad ones. But since you had ears that were functioning pretty well and you weren’t retarded, of course you couldn’t just brush off the bad comments, made you wondered why people had such interest in other people’s life that much. You used to be invisible—students and teachers wouldn’t remember your name. Now that people gave such interest in you, you felt uncomfortable.

Few days later, you couldn’t feel any stare or whisper that you got whenever you were walking at school. It turned out to be Minkyung’s work—she requested for all students to respect your relationship with Chanyeol and told them not to make dirty comments about her twin sister. Thank God Minkyung had power. People loved her and listened to her request well, so there were no curious looks at the hallway anymore. She always got whatever she wanted, as always.

As you weren’t bothered by other people’s opinions about you anymore, you started to get loose and have fun. Chanyeol would wait for you in front of his locker every morning. Sometimes, he held a carton of milk with sticky note on it and gave it to you. After arranging your books, both of you would walk to your classes together. Since Chanyeol’s classroom was located further, he always walked you to your class first.

During lunch, sometimes Chanyeol would join your table to eat his lunch together. Soohyun and Yeri didn’t mind him joining in, so the atmosphere was still great. If Chanyeol spent lunch time with his friends, he would sometimes steal glances at you. When your eyes met his, both of you would smile shyly in reflex then looked away before other students noticed it. This caused Soohyun and Yeri teased you often now.

Because of different schedules, you didn’t get to go home with Chanyeol often. You had extra classes for math and physics on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Meanwhile, Chanyeol had to go practice with Kyungsoo and Yixing and they didn’t have a fixed schedule. Sometimes he left school early, sometimes late. But when you got the chance to go home together with him, you wouldn’t go straight to home. Sometimes, both of you would stop by a coffee shop and bought warm latte, then talked until Chanyeol had to leave for his radio broadcast.

Yes, Chanyeol still managed to do the radio broadcast every night.

“It takes only an hour and it is fun. It even releases my stress,” Chanyeol explained when you asked him whether the broadcast schedule bothered him or not.

It was such a relief that Chanyeol wasn’t bothered by his radio broadcasting schedule. Speaking honestly, you also released your stress by hearing his acoustic segment. You would take a break from studying, raised the volume, and stared blankly at the wall while listening to Chanyeol’s guitar play.

The sweet thing was sometimes Chanyeol would say he was dedicating the song he was playing for ‘someone’ on the radio broadcast. Hearing the songs, you assumed he dedicated those songs for you, which made your heart bloomed and filled with sweet nectar of love. You often found yourself smiling like a dumb during his acoustic segment.

If you stayed up late because of studying and your head hurts, you would send a message to Chanyeol, asking if you could call him. Most of the times, Chanyeol wouldn’t reply to your message and called you instead.

Those late night phone calls didn’t contain anything cheesy or lovey-dovey, like you expected a lover should do. It was actually better, you decided. Talking about your thoughts and sharing your activities that day felt more intimate than just rambling over something unimportant. Because both of you didn’t get to meet often even at school, talking about those stuff enabled you to understand what he had been through for the day, and vice versa.

For these several days, you woke up effortlessly and prepared for school light-heartedly. You used to skip breakfast because you didn’t have appetite to eat in the morning, but these days you ate a lot. Minkyung was happy seeing you seemed to be healthier and fitter. Moreover, you looked happier than you used to be as if your burden all this time had lifted up from your body.

“I like it how the corners of your lips lifted upwards, make you look like you’re smiling