You hadn't been able to study at all. You had tried picking your cards up a few times, but always just put them back down again in favor of pacing uselessly through your house.

                "Sweetheart," your mom called to you after what must have been your 50th pass by her room. "What are you doing?"

                "Nothing," you replied dismissively and kept moving.

                But of course a response like that did nothing to fend off your mother. You knew it wouldn't.

                "Is this about your interview?" she asked as she left her room and followed you into yours.

                "No mom it's nothing," you said as you accidently glanced at the clock in your room.

                It was past 11 at night now. If Hoya was coming over he should've been there by then. Your bus ride was very early the next day which he most likely knew. You had to get into the city for an interview in the early afternoon.

                "Are you expecting someone?" your mother asked then as she leaned against the door jam. Why did she look pleased right now?

                "Of course not. Who would I be expecting?"

                "Howon," she said bluntly.

                You accidently paused in your pacing, giving an obvious tell. Not that it mattered anyway. You weren't fooling anyone.

                "You like him?" she asked then, her eyes holding a bright gleam to them now.

                You found that you couldn't deny it. Even if it was just to get her to leave you alone. You couldn't bring yourself to say the words.

                Your mother saw the answer written on your face plainly. She smiled and looked down then, sighing contently.

                "You seem awfully pleased," you muttered as you finally collapsed to your bed.

                "I am," your mother agreed. "Howon is one of the good ones. I knew it the moment I met him."

                "When was that?" you asked as you perked up in the bed, your eyes glued on her now.

                "Years ago," she replied thoughtfully, her brows stitched together as she tried to recall exactly when. "I believe you were in your last year of high school... It was whatever year you had gone to that dance in the town square."

                You swallowed back stiffly. "The dance? Why do you mention the dance?"

                "It was the day after it that I met him," she replied. "I remember because you were sick that day. You had been drinking the night before and spent most of that day after making a mess of my bathroom with your puking."

                "Don't remind me," you muttered with an embarrassed shake of your head. You knew all too well now how stupid you were that night. "When did you meet him though? Where?"

                "Out front," she said simply, like it was no big deal. "He kept walking by the house over and over again."

                "What?" you asked shrilly as you stood up. "Why didn't you tell me?!"

                Your mother only smiled at your anger before she explained.

                "He told me not to," she told you. "He begged me to."

                You sat back down numbly. "Well what happened? What did he say?"

                Your mother moved closer before replying.

                "When I saw him out there and called to him he seemed like he wanted to run at first," she explained, a thoughtful frown on her lips. "He was a much different boy back then. He was anxious, kind of skittish. I wasn't surprised though since I already knew about his family. Even before his father fell ill his parent's relationship had already been rocky. The town gossip was that his mother was cheating on his father. Supposedly neighbors could hear them shouting at night."

                You looked away from your mother as tears stung at the back of your eyes. A day ago you may have been able to fight them off. But you couldn't stop them from b up in your eyes and spilling down your cheeks now.

                "I used my best mom voice to get him to stay," she said then, a smile to her voice. "He listened and was very respectful. Actually at the time he was a little too respectful. He had his head bowed down slightly almost the whole time we spoke."

                Your mom chuckled then and you managed a slight smile as you thought of him in your dream. He had seemed very timid, very respectful and shy. You now knew that he still had that in him, but he was much different now. The man you had gotten to know the last few days was much stronger.

                "What did he say to you?" you asked as you met her eyes again. She was smiling at you sadly now.

                "He asked me if you were doing okay," she informed you. "And he didn't look surprised when I told him about your condition. Of course I took the opportunity to grill him a little bit about it. I asked him if he had been giving you those drinks."

                "Mom!!" you cried in outrage. "He would never do that."

                "I know that now," she assured you. "But I'm your mother. Of course I had to ask. I wanted to hear his answer."

                "Well..." you mumbled petulantly. "What did he say?"

                "He said he'd take full responsibility for your condition. He asked me not to be mad with you and to blame him instead."

                "He said what?!" you cried out again, at this rate you were going to wake your father.

                Your mother only chuckled lightly at you. "Don't worry. I knew he was lying. That boy is no good at telling lies or being deceitful. He's bad at telling jokes too I've noticed..." she continued as she quirked her head in thought. "He finds his jokes funny though. That's all that matters."

                You found yourself smiling slightly now, although you also felt oddly jealous. Your mother had known him for years now while you had walked around blindly.

                "Did he say anything else then?" you asked quietly. "Did he say anything about the night before?"

                "No," she replied, giving you worried eyes. "He just apologized for your condition and told me not to tell you he was there. He said it might make you angry. I could tell that was a lie too though."

                "I wouldn't have been angry," you told her softly. "Just confused. I didn't remember him. He knew I wouldn't remember him. Even after all he did for me..."

                Your mother didn't ask about what you may be referring to, instead she simply sat beside you on the bed. She wrapped her arm around you and pulled your head down to meet her shoulder.

                "He wouldn't want you to feel this way," she told you, but you couldn't help but feel this heavy sense of regret. "He only ever wanted to see your smile."

                You lifted your head then to look up into her eyes.

                "What do you mean?"

                "The picture of you on the fridge in the kitchen," she explained, as if you should know this already. "I always caught him staring at it when he delivered the milk for us over the years. He looked at it every time."

                You looked your mom up and down suspiciously then. How did you not know all of this? Why hadn't she mentioned it before now? What else was she keeping from you?

                "Don't give me those eyes," she said to you then as she got up and moved to the door before turning back to you. "It's a mother's job to notice these things."

                "You knew all along?" you asked then, completely baffled by her. "You knew that he liked me all this time. And you didn't tell me?"

                "You needed to figure it out for yourself," she told you seriously. "You needed to feel it all for yourself. That boy deserves someone that will accept his heart and give theirs to him in return. I couldn't make that happen. Only you could sweetie."

                You thought about your mother's words as she left the room, closing the door behind her. You wrapped your arms around your legs then and rested your cheek on your knee as you looked outside your window. You hoped to see Hoya there, you half expected him to just be standing there, watching over you in secret like he had been for a long time.

                But there was no one. Your stomach twisted with worry as you realized he wasn't coming. You tried not to think negatively as you fell to your side in the bed. You decided that he was just tired or busy. That was why he never came that night. He did have a lot of responsibilities after all.

                And so did you. You had an interview the next day and he would want you to be studying for it now.

                You grabbed your note cards again and tried to absorb yourself in them. But you were instantly derailed as you saw that the top card was the same one he had given to you in the town square hours before.

                You stared at the words you had written; your desire to be important and significant. And you remembered what he said.

                If that's really your goal then you've already achieved everything you've set out to do. You achieved it a long time ago. Just with a smile.

                Just with a smile.

                You managed a tremulous smile now as tears came to your eyes again. Instead of reading the cards you held them to your chest and cried, falling asleep moments later.

                That next day was the long one, the long and brutal one that you had waited all week for.

                It had started with you rushing to the bus station before the sun had even come up, your eyes constantly searching for any sign of Hoya but finding none. You tried not to think too much about him during the long bus ride. 

                At the beginning of the week you never thought that this would be your situation. You never thought that you would be thinking about a boy instead of the most important job interview of your life.

                But there was nothing you could do about it. Hoya was all you could think about, worry still eating away at your stomach.

                The bus ride seemed never ending and when you got to the city everything suddenly felt wrong. You felt out of place and uncomfortable. You wanted to go back. You missed the clean air.

                But most of all you missed him. He was there somewhere, back in the countryside.

                It took all of your resolve to not get right back on a bus. You dragged yourself to your apartment and threw yourself on your bed, crying into those sheets that didn't smell as good as your ones at home.

                You cried out your stress for some time. You figured it was more useful than studying at this point. You needed to get it out. You needed to fight your anxiety somehow.

                It hadn't really worked though.

                You felt cold even as you took a hot shower. Your hands shook as you put on your lipstick and eyeliner. You couldn't stomach any food or drink.

                You looked in the mirror and saw an imposter standing in front of you, your hair in pins and your perfect face painted on. You ignored the way it made you feel and finished getting dressed. You put on your best pencil skirt and smiled slightly as you remembered the one you ripped that past weekend. It was the first time you were able to smile that day.

                You were about to head out to go to the interview but stopped to grab the note card, the