~

늘 같은 질문에 늘 같은 대답뿐야.

It’s always the same question, and the same answer.

~

“Somi! Get your lazy off the couch and go answer the door!” Sungyeol yelled, coming out of his room in sweatpants and a baggy shirt.

“Who is it?” Somi glanced at the television screen, where Yoo Jaesuk was chasing Kwangsoo around.

“It’s your new FREE calculus tutor,” Sungyeol replied, with a smile on his face.

Somi shuffled over to the door and looked through the peephole.

There stood Kim Myungsoo, dressed in his usual outfit: a flannel with skinny jeans and a hat.

Somi didn’t know much about Myungsoo, but she did know that he, Sungyeol, and Sunggyu were always in the same class. She knew that Myungsoo used to sit by Sunggyu in class, since desks were in alphabetical order and they were both Kim’s. 

She also knew that Myungsoo had a very bad relationship with his parents.

Myungsoo was also Sungyeol’s best friend, and spent a lot of time at Somi’s house. However, Somi was always out with Howon or in her room while Myungsoo was over, so she never really had the chance to “bond” with him.

Sungyeol really cared about his sister, and he wanted her to have more trustworthy people to rely on in her life. So, seeing that she got bad marks in calculus, Sungyeol seized the perfect opportunity to help her strengthen her relationship with Myungsoo.

Plus, Myungsoo would be able to come over and tutor Somi at any time. For free!

Somi opened the door and peeked out behind.

“Annyeonghaseyo,” Somi bowed politely to Myungsoo as he stepped into the house, taking off his shoes.

“You don’t need to speak formally to me. And call me L,” Myungsoo flatly stated, without even saying hi back.

“Oh.. O-Okay,” Somi responded, a little intimidated.

“HEY MYUNGGIE!” Sungyeol popped out of nowhere, putting his arm around Myungsoo’s shoulder.

“Yeol! I told you not to call me anything that involves the name that those people gave me!” Myungsoo glared at Somi’s overly enthusiastic older brother.

Somi figured by those people, Myungsoo meant his parents.

But Sungyeol, being the annoying person that he was, called Myungsoo by his name anyway.

“So, I’m going to head out to buy some new things for our cat,” Sungyeol stated.

“You mean, YOUR ugly cat,” Somi replied. She wanted to have nothing to do with that wrinkly thing that Sungyeol treasured.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Sungyeol grabbed his wallet and was out the door without another word.

Then, he slightly opened the door and popped his head back into the apartment.

“The two of you don’t do anything weird when I’m gone,” he wriggled his eyebrows.

“What?” Somi looked at him weirdly. 

“I don’t want to come home to my sister making out with my best friend. Gross. I know he’s handsome, Somi, but he’s MINE!” Sungyeol laughed obnoxiously.

“Get out!” Myungsoo pushed Sungyeol’s head out the door and slammed it shut.

“So, should we get started?” Somi asked, leading Myungsoo into her room and pulling out an extra chair for him to sit on.

“Sure. Do you have any homework to do?” he asked Somi, looking at the numerous textbooks strewn over her desk.

“I actually finished it already, but I have some trouble on this challenge problem that Mr. Kang assigned,” Somi replied, pulling out a piece of paper and handing it to Myungsoo, who took out a pen from his back pocket.

“Let’s see..” Myungsoo looked at the paper, thinking. “Oh! This is simple!” he smiled, looking up from the paper.

Then, Somi realized that this wasn’t the first time that Myungsoo had helped her out with math.

~~~

“Lee Somi! You’re so stupid,” Sunggyu ruffled Somi’s hair.

“I didn’t know pre-algebra would be this hard!” 11-year old Somi sighed.

Somi and Sunggyu were studying at the local library.

“Don’t worry! Oppa will help you with your homework! I’m in middle school, I know how to do all of this.”

“Can’t oppa just do it for me?” Somi sighed, placing down her pencil.

“That’s cheating. That’s not good,” Sunggyu scolded her, putting the pencil back into her hand.

Somi quickly worked through all the problems, leaving one unsolved.

“This one is too hard. Please help me,” Somi looked at Sunggyu with pleading eyes.

“Oh my gosh. This is something I did when I was like five,” Sunggyu said, but his expression said otherwise. He frowned at the paper, not knowing how to solve it.

“Then how do you do it?” Somi questioned him, suspicious.

“Yah! Myungsoo! Come over here!” Sunggyu gestured to a handsome boy, who was sitting at a table by himself looking at his own textbook.

“Can you please help us with this?” Sunggyu smiled innocently at Myungsoo.

Somi just watched the two boys quietly, looking at Myungsoo’s handsome face.

“We learned this two years ago,” Myungsoo laughed, as he quickly solved the problem.

“I know, I was just testing you. I already knew how to solve the problem,” Sunggyu said, not wanting to sound stupid in front of Somi.

“Yeah, whatever,” Myungsoo walked back to his table and resumed his study session.

“That guy is hot. So hot,” Somi glanced dreamily in Myungsoo’s direction. “He studies well too.”

“Hey! What about me?!” Sunggyu sounded upset.

“First, actually OPEN your eyes and take a look at yourself in the mirror,” Somi replied.

“They are open!”

~~~

“Somi-ah. Somi?” Myungsoo tapped the desk.

“So do you get it?” he asked her with a light smile.

“Uhh… Can you explain it again?”

Myungsoo sighed. “So first of all, this is a non-terminating number, which means you need to square the value and then factor it. After factoring, you put it over two, and then take the remainder of that value and plug it into the equation. Then, take the cubic root of that and find the sine of it to the nearest tenth, and after finding the sine take it to the 8th power. You should get this fraction. Are you with me so far?” (A/N: I have no idea what this means, it’s just a bunch of random math that I know, & I’m not even in Calculus yet! xD)

“You lost me at non-terminating number,” Somi replied. “I’m hopeless.”

Myungsoo kept his patience and explained slowly, writing out all the steps in pen, and showing Somi each value he entered into the calculator.

“You get it now, right?” Myungsoo said in a dull, tired voice.

“Yeah.. I get it..” Somi actually had no idea what Myungsoo just did, but since he wrote out all the steps, she decided that she would take a look at them and figure it out later.

“Good,” Myungsoo tapped his fingers on the desk. “Any more problems you need help on?”

“Well, not really.. But I kind of have a question for you. It’s a personal question, not related to math, and it doesn’t actually have to do with you, but it’s something you can answer, you know..” Somi rambled.

“What is it?” Myungsoo chuckled.

“Remember that guy, Sunggyu?” Somi asked.

“Who?” Myungsoo thought he had heard wrong.

“Kim Sunggyu.”

“Yeah..” Myungsoo slowly said.

“I used to be really close to him. But we lost contact. Do you know where he is now?” Somi questioned Myungsoo.

“Oh yeah! I would always see you guys hanging around together when you were younger. Sungyeol and I didn’t really speak much to him though. We did when we were in our first year of middle school.. But then he turned weird.” Myungsoo slowly said.

“Weird? What do you mean?” Somi urged him on.

“Like, he would say these creepy things under his breath in class,” Myungsoo’s expression wasn’t good at all.

“What creepy things?”

“In our second and third year of middle school, he would break out into cold sweat for no reason. He would say things like, ‘I’m only just another one of their tools.’ ’It will be mine.’ It was freaking creepy. His eyes would have this strange glint in them and he would glare at people as if he wanted to kill,” Myungsoo said.

“Oh.. I never noticed anything weird about him,” Somi was confused. She had hung out with Sunggyu throughout all his years of middle school, and he was always the same, happy Sunggyu. Was Myungsoo making things up?

“Sunggyu also hung out with a guy in your year. Forgot his name, dunno if he still lives here anymore. I haven’t seen him around since before Sunggyu transferred. But they were really close, and Sunggyu would always walk to school with that guy in the morning. I heard that he would spend the night at Sunggyu’s house often, too.”

“Also, no one really knows what happened to him. I mean, our teacher said that he transferred, but Sunggyu never even took a copy of his records with him. Plus, he should’ve gotten transfer papers signed. He kind of just disappeared,” Myungsoo said. 

“He was a guy who was more on the quiet side anyway, I guess. He had no friends besides that kid your age. No one really cared once he was gone.”

“I cared..” Somi thought.

“Oh! And you weren’t the only girl he hung out with! I would often see him walking around with another girl, hand-in-hand, talking. That was also when we were in middle school, and the girl was also around your age.” Myungsoo added.

“Another girl? Did I really even know Sunggyu at all..?” Somi was thrown into confusion.

She pulled on the locket around her neck.

Did she mean anything to Sunggyu?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*Author’s Note: And that’s the end of chapter 4! Myungsoo is an interesting character. He can seem cold one second, and happy the next. And I don’t have anything against Sungyeol and his cat, Jureumie! But I do think that he could’ve bought a cuter looking cat. Ehehe.