The next couple of days were repeats of my new daily schedule; every morning would be my tutoring session with Kyung, which I have to admit that he was starting to learn math quicker than I thought he would. After school, Kyung would leave early as usual and I would leave for work. But today, my curiosity got the best of me and before he left I decided to ask him where he goes after school.

“What do you think I do?” He asked me, standing up from his desk.
I shrugged in response, “I wouldn’t be asking you this question if I knew,”
He smirked at me, “Would you like to find out?” My brows creased, seeing the smirk on his lips turn taunting. Before I could give him my answer, he took a step towards me and lightly brushed his hand against mine—as if he were going to grab it. “Do you want to come see how I spend my time after school?” He nearly whispered.
“I-I work,” I forced out; but the next couple of words spilled from my lips unexpectedly, “maybe another time.” And as soon as I said that, Kyung’s eyes almost looked like they had lit up. He smiled at me and leaned back—to which I had just realized that he had been close to me.
“I’ll take you with me after our library session this weekend then,” he said and left. It took me a couple of minutes to recuperate myself and realize that I had been standing in the classroom for too long. Swallowing back, I exit the classroom and tried to figure out why I had told him ‘next time’ instead of rejecting the offer.

Maybe when he asks about it, I’ll just tell him that I’m busy, I nodded at the thought.

-

Work was the same—until it almost came time to closing. Just as I was about to walk to the backroom, the door’s bell rang. I stopped walking and turned back around to see the same guy from the other night enter in alone. He wore his school’s uniform and had his hair tied into a small ponytail in the back. I slowly made my way to the counter and waited as he walked towards me with the same soothing smile planted on his face. He waved as soon as we made eye contact.
“You’re working tonight,” he stated rather than questioned. I nodded and tried to remember how to breathe. He looked up at the menu and peered at it for a couple of seconds before he finally came to a conclusion to what he wanted; he snapped his fingers and looked at me, “I bet you can’t guess what I want,”
I furrowed my brows, “Um…” I wasn’t sure what to say since I didn’t know what he wanted. But instead of telling him I didn’t know, I decided to play along and looked back at the menu. I stared at the menu for a couple of seconds, scanning each item and wondering what someone like him would get. My eyes scanned past a certain drink, which I just had a feeling that maybe he would get it and turned back to look at him. “Is it… white mocha?”
He laughed sweetly and nodded excitedly at my answer, “How did you know?”
I shrugged, “My intuition,”
“Well, then, I guess I’ll have to trick your intuition the next time I order something here.” He teased and reached for his wallet in his back pocket. “I never told you my name, did I?” I paused from punching in numbers into the cash register and shrugged my shoulders, though I already knew what his name was, since I had overheard his friends call him. “It’s Jaehyo,” he smiled, handing me a dollar. I took the dollar from him and placed it inside of the cash register. I could feel Jaehyo’s eyes on me after I didn’t say anything to him telling me his name. “You’re… not going to tell me your name?”

As I grabbed a cup, I wasn’t sure if I should say something to him or just ignore that I heard what he had asked me. But, for some reason, I turned my head to Jaehyo and gave him an apologetic smile; I told him my name which he told me he found interesting.
“I don’t think I’ve heard anyone with that kind of name,” he said to me as I was making his drink. “I’m guessing your dad named you it?” I froze at the mention of my dad and nodded at his question without saying anything else. And almost if he had noticed this internal effect, Jaehyo softly said, “I’m sorry if I said something offending,”
I shook my head, “It’s nothing,” I said and finished making the drink. Handing him it, Jaehyo bowed his head at me and smiled happily.
“Thanks for this,” he said, “I’ll see you… maybe another day,”
I nodded and watched as he exited the shop. Just as he disappeared, Kyung appeared. At the sight of him, I tensed, remembering what he had told me earlier today. I’ll take you with me after our library session this weekend then. Swallowing back a lump, I watched as he approached me with a smirk—a smirk that made my insides twist as if he was going to do something vile to me.

“Are you working alone again tonight?”
I nodded, “You’re here early,”
“Am I?” Kyung questioned and turned his head to the side to look at the clock on the wall, “I’m only here about a minute or so, early.” He said, “Should I go back outside and wait till it’s the appropriate time?”
I quickly shook my head, “I didn’t even—”
He laughed, interrupting me from saying any more, “I was kidding,” he winked at me; he stood before me—with the counter in between—and sighed.
I noted his sigh, “W-What’s wrong?”
“You don’t really want to come see where I go after school, do you?” He said, staring right at me while I avoid any eye contact with him. When I don’t answer him back, he clucked his tongue at me, “I’m just as surprised as you are when you said you’d come next time,”
“I…”
“It’s okay,” Kyung said softly, “it’s not like you have to come anyways.”

Guilt ate its way in my heart at his words, especially at the tone of voice he was using. Was he doing this on purpose? I don’t know, but I knew that I would have to agree to coming because it would only bug me later. Fighting back my opposing conscious, I cleared my throat, “I-I’ll go,”
“Seriously?”
I nodded, “I… have nothing to do after the session anyways.”
Kyung smiled and suddenly grabbed my hand; he excitedly said my name, “You’re really going to come with me,” he widened his smile, “you’ve changed since the first time I’ve met you, you know?”
I jerked my hand away, “Just because I said I would go, doesn’t give you the permission to grab my hand like that.”
He chuckled, “Sorry, I just got excited.”
“I know,” I said; looking at the clock, I took a step back from the counter, “I’m off now.”
“Great, I’ll see you outside then,” Kyung waved. Walking into the backroom, I could feel every cell in my body jumble in a mix of excitement and nervousness because I had just agreed to go somewhere with Kyung. I wasn’t sure if this was a sign of being excited or scared, but either way, my mind wasn’t having any of this. My mind was opposing this idea, throwing me scenarios of the bad things that could happen like if Kyung’s friends decided to get too friendly with me. But I shook the thoughts away, knowing that he'd make sure his friends weren’t going to act like that.
Kyung and I walked in sync through the airy night. My hands were placed inside of my jacket so our hands wouldn’t suddenly bump into each other and have things turn awkward. Kyung swung his hands freely, and had his snarky smile on his face. The smile on his face was never soft, but it wasn’t rough either. Just as we reach the end of our walk, Kyung reached out to touch my arm, catching my attention right away.
“What?” I asked.
Kyung took a step towards me and placed his other hand on my other arm. He doesn’t reply to my question and just lowered his head to my level. Not saying a word, Kyung leaned closer to me. I froze, seeing his eyes before mine. My mind screamed for me to move, but my body opposed, so I was stuck. I blinked a couple of times, confused as to what he was doing—though I had a good idea where this would lead to.

Noticing this, Kyung chuckled, “Why are you looking at me like that?” I don’t say anything—I couldn’t say anything because I was confused and a bit shocked at his action. He smiled at me, “I just wanted to tell you that I won’t be at school tomorrow,”
“You… won’t?”
He shook his head, “I have something I need to take care of,”
“Oh,” I nodded.
“I’ll see you at our library session though,” he lightened up a bit, “so I’ll see you then.” He whispered and leaned in to kiss my left cheek, which immediately surprised me. My breath was caught in between my throat, making me forget how to breathe for a couple of seconds. My brows furrowed and I watched as he waved at me and left without saying another word.

***

Just like he had said to me, Kyung did not show up for class the next day. Though I wasn’t really interested in what he was doing today, I was still curious. I sighed in my seat and stared blankly at the teacher as she lectured on about History. Every few minutes or so, I found myself shifting my attention from the teacher to the empty desk next to me. For some reason, I just wanted to see him in it. It felt almost too lonely not seeing him in that seat and sneaking peeks at me or smirking. Had I really grown accustomed to see his face every day now? Probably so…

Afterschool, I felt my phone buzzed from within my pocket and I quickly retrieved it. Once my eyes were on par with the screen, I noticed that I had gotten a message from my manager at work. I narrowed my eyes and opened the message. “You’re off work today, enjoy your weekends.” I read aloud to myself. No work today? I furrowed my brows, unsure what I was supposed to do. I looked around the classroom and noticed a couple of girls gathered around, probably talking about what their plans are for the night. Putting my phone back into my pocket, I exited the classroom and thought about what to do for the rest of the day. I could finish up my homework, but I had planned to do that when I was with Kyung. Maybe I could… I paused and shook my head. I couldn’t just go out without having any friends to have fun with. Speaking of friends, I didn’t even have any—what with my anti-socialness.
Well, not like it really matters anyways. I guess I’ll just figure something when I get home.

“I’m home,” I called out, which I got no response back. Slipping on my slippers, I walked to our small kitchen and looked for a snack to munch on, but I found nothing. “Looks like I haven’t grocery shopping in a while now,” I mumbled to myself and made a quick decision that I would go out to buy grocery. That would make time pass quickly enough that tomorrow would come.
Walking down the street, I swung my hands freely by side and hummed to a tune that Kyung had always hummed to during our tutoring session. He told me he wanted to become a rapper and wrote some songs of his own—the tune being one of his. I told couldn’t understand why he wanted to become a rapper when it wouldn’t get him anywhere because the music industry was so competitive. I guess he found it offensive and asked me what I wanted to become.

I smirked, “A mathematician,”
He laughed at my answer, “How do you know that that will you get anywhere? All you do is learn math,” He simply stated.
“Being a mathematician serves a lot more purpose than you think,” I narrowed my eyes at him, “being a rapper only means to write songs that will probably not do well in the charts—not to mention, even be known.”
Kyung clucked his tongue at me, “Why do you have to be like this and crush my dreams?”
“I’m only being logical,”
“Well, I’m going to prove your logic wrong,” he challenged, “better yet, when I do prove your logic wrong, you’re going to have to do me a favor,”
“As if,” I snickered, “get back to doing your homework.”