When she walked past the school gate, she pretended she didn't hear them shamelessly talking about her when they noticed her finally coming. Of course, it has been the habit her schoolmates have gained since freshman year when it came to her. And she's quite aware that she's been that popular around—in a bad sense. She didn't like that at all, of course.

Iseul didn't like being the talk of school at all.

She's not like other people who love the attention, much more not the kind of person to intentionally create a scene so others would notice her. Still, things happened from freshman year—that moment she first stepped in this high school, which made her life more interesting. Yet, while others are enjoying on prying over her own life—specifically her love life, she didn't enjoy all of it. Not at all. Not even once—well except those times she thought she finally found 'the one'.

"Did you hear?" Someone dropped, "She dumped her boyfriend again!"

"What?!"

"Not a surprise!"

"Isn't that one like her eleventh boyfriend from our school since freshman year?! How can she change guys so fast?!"

"Who knows what sorcery she does to them?" Someone says and a train of laughter was heard afterwards.

Iseul could only cringe at the cackling sounds they released. She have never gotten used to them mocking her and making fun of her like that, even if she always holds a calm facade in front of them—she only uses it to hide her true feelings and not look the more vulnerable around those vultures. Deep down, she’s still plain hurt at the end of the day because they talk about her as if they already know so much about her when in fact they don’t.

She sighed as she fastened her pace to get to her building as she had heard enough from her schoolmates gossiping about her. It was always like that anyway and all of those stories didn't seem to even make her feel better so why should she listen to more bull? It's not like all that they have been saying are all true about her.

Yes, she may have had come right from another break up but it's not like it was her who was always at fault. Or that she was the one who broke up with whomever, all the time—that's just all according to rumors. In fact, it was all the guys always ending things with her. They are the ones always breaking up with her, saying how they couldn't love her anymore. They always have excuses to tell her all the time. Like this last boy who broke up with her, who told her that he couldn't keep up with the relationship because they couldn't spend enough time with each other nowadays due to their busy schedules as seniors. She accepted his decision coolly, saying how she understood his reason well even though she knows it was just a lame excuse to get rid of her. Exactly just like how the other guys did before after telling her how boring she was just because she asked for proper dates instead of going forward to committing pleasurable acts with them in the short span of time they’ve known each other.

To her, there is so much more to cherish in a relationship than mere submission to lust and physical needs, so no matter how someone became very important to her, she lets go of them if they want to finally oust her out of their lives. But no matter how easy it was to break away from each relationship, it wouldn’t take her a second to simply forget. Her tears would easily invade her eyes right after every heartbreak, and her heart would shatter to tinier fragments with every try at love. It was a repeating cycle she sometimes wondered why’d she even keep trying, but at the end of the day she would always have the answer to—it’s because she simply wanted to find the guy who will stay with her no matter what the season is.

To her every relationship she had meant a lot to her. To her, every break up is devastating. It’s as if she’s a whole new person again when she finds love, but when that love comes to an end, it’s like she’s just back to being the incomplete and insecure girl she is that no one wanted—like some kind of favorite food in a certain season, she would only be seen as the unpicked fruit in an orchard right after it passes to a new season when she’s not yet in full blossom.

Yet, to others whatever she had with those boys were simply stories they could twist and gossip about. Rumors would fly here and there until everything is so twisted up that Iseul would look like the bad one. When she's in fact just another victim.

To her, she's just like any teenager who falls in love and falls out of them.

But, to others, she’s a 21st century who hooks up with guys here and there each season of the year.

Aren't they just like her in terms of falling in love? How come she's any different? How come her life is much more interesting than their own?

Reaching the senior's floor, the bustling corridor filled with loitering students became even noisier when they saw her trudging her way to her classroom. She's in 3-B, so are the other students she had recognized that were indiscreetly watching her every move while saying the new gossip about her to their friends next to them—at this point she could only care less.

"So it's true?" Someone utters out to her friend as she trails her eyes on Iseul, "She broke up with Park Chanyeol just as autumn is almost ending."

"Indeed. Have you heard of those stories too?"

"What? That she changes boyfriends every season?"

"And not all that! She makes sure she doesn't date them for too long! Haven't you noticed how she broke up with Chanyeol on their 100th day together?! For the record, he's the longest!"

"Is that true?!"

"Of course! I heard it from the top source in our year!"

"Whoa!"

"Look how innocent she looks, yet how good she can play with guys' hearts." One girl uttered out with such a pointed look on her face dedicated to the most popular girl of the day. The one and only.

As Iseul entered her classroom, all she did was to sigh softly again after hearing all those accusations being thrown at her. How good can they be at judging her? They merely know anything about her and yet they talk about her as if they've known her all their lives. How come they even knew she and Park Chanyeol broke up on their hundredth day, when she herself didn't even know what day it was or how many days they lasted? For she never counted the days she has been with her ex-boyfriends—because to her each day spent with her beloved was important, and numbers don’t even need to be counted or recorded. The only dates she would ever remember are the days when she started dating those guys, for along with the memory of it is the hope that she'd be able to celebrate their anniversary. But not even once were those dates she had memorized became useful, for after a short time, in two or three months, her relationships always ended. And it's always those guys who intended to break up with her—not like she wanted for that to always happen to her. But as time went by, as she learns and her experiences became quite the routine, she'd always foreseen the worst coming to her—so every break up was like a normal thing by now; however the twinge of pain would still always be right there.

It's sad like that for her—to see someone you've let in your life go out of it permanently. But she never stopped loving and hoping. She just pushed herself to believe that there's someone out there that will truly love her and would want to date her no matter what the season is or for whether how long it may be.

Yet, after her last heart break, it seems she just wants to stop. Why? Maybe it's because she finally felt tired. Her life has turned into a joke just because she followed her heart, loved different guys she mistook as the right one for her, along with the different seasons that greeted her and bid her goodbye, it was how fast each of her love stories came by and left. It suddenly became a cycle that she started questioning herself whether she's still doing the right thing or if everything she did had been all wrong. How did things turned out this way, anyway?

She doesn't know.

Her chair produced a screeching sound as she pulled it backwards and sat on it lifelessly. Sighing again, she just propped her elbows on her desk and rested her chin on her palms as she stared blankly at the whiteboard in front.

How she wishes she can just simply start like a blank slate just as she has been admiring the still untainted board that was purely unblemished with any pen mark from afar. She would have been probably treated better now if only she was not as reckless to let herself fall for the wrong guy over and over, worse, let them treat her like she’s something easily disposable.

“Good morning.” Someone greeted her.

She looked around the vacant room and saw how the person who greeted her just happens to be coming in from the back door. Her eyes widened just as she noticed who it was that spoke to her—was he really talking to her? She looked around her to confirm it to herself that her mind wasn’t just simply playing tricks with her when she heard his deep, full voice actually speaking to her. But there was no one but only her… and him in the room, currently. She let out a gasp upon realizing that she had actually been holding her breath just as she had heard his voice. The latter chuckled at this as he took his seat next to her desk. Much as she couldn’t believe this boy actually talked to her, Iseul only felt more flustered now that she remembered how they are seatmates in every class.

Jongin and her.

Jongin and Iseul have been in the same class ever since middle school. Studying in the same school for both middle and high school, for some reason they always end up being in the same class. And bearing the same last name as Kim, they always end up being seatmates. So, for six whole years they could only get used to being so close to each other until they graduate senior year—that will be happening in three months’ time.

The odd thing about this pair is that for these six years they’ve been put in the same class and has been sitting next to each other for that long, yet not one of them ever took the chance of befriending the other. Well, maybe they exchanged a few words here and there, but it’s not like they’ve gone further than greeting each other or anything. So to say, perhaps they could only be labeled as acquaintances to each other, or maybe classmates for that matter. But for six years? Really? They could only progress into their relationship that slow for six-freaking-years?

For Iseul, it wasn’t really that she didn’t want to be friends with him, it’s just that she isn’t the usual kind of girl to strike a conversation with anyone at any time. She’s probably one of the quietest and most reserved students you’ll ever see in her year. That’s why, even if she has this certain reputation in school and her face has been quite remarkable—as she holds a beauty incomparable to many, as they say, she only managed to gain a few friends. At least, a few that stood true to her all along.

For Jongin, it also wasn’t that he didn’t want to be friends with her. In fact, he always tried to reach out to her, but it’s just that, for some incomprehensible reason, he finds it hard to really break through her wall. Maybe, it’s because no matter how much people try to get closer to her, in the end it has always been her pulling away—afraid to get too close. Or maybe, people aren’t much that enduring to actually try and completely destroy her walls.

To Jongin, she has always been a mystery no matter how he tried to decipher her. For six years, he tried doing that but failed. In his case, he failed in one thing, but managed to discover something more in him for her. Well, curiosity made him so interested that he got so obsessed with this puzzle—Iseul.

A folded paper that has been tossed on her table made Iseul snap out from her own pool of thoughts. She looked down, saw the said paper, and turned her head to Jongin’s direction—almost as the same time as the said boy looked away from her direction. She felt her lips twitch up slightly into a smile as she saw him playing with his fringe, pretending not to know that she was already looking at him. She shifted her attention back to the piece of paper and unfolded it. Upon reading what was written on the piece of paper, she didn’t hide her laugh. All these was being watched by the boy and to his utter surprise of hearing her sweet cackles he could only feel his cheeks turn to a decent shade of red. He didn’t know that writing a simple ‘hey’ on the piece of paper could finally elicit the kind of reaction from her. Had he tried this earlier, he could have written her a thousand ‘hey’ notes just to witness her show a different kind of emotion like that.

Jongin scribbled something again on a page of his notebook and indiscreetly tore the portion where he had written something, aware that Iseul could probably be watching him while doing this. He folded it into four again and faced the girl. As expected she has been looking at him, and as he reached out his hand to pass her the note, he couldn’t hide the nervousness he could feel right when he saw her cautiously taking the note from him.

Iseul was confused why Jongin is suddenly doing this. It was a mystery for her—as she is to him. But she took another shot and accepted the second note the boy wanted for her to read. Maybe he wanted to finally become friends with her after six years, or something like that. She isn’t much that suspecting towards his behavior since this is the first time they interacted this way on an early morning in the classroom—he wouldn’t be trying something else, right?

Much to her disappointment though, her eyes widened when she read the words scribbled on the piece of paper. She didn’t think he would be that straightforward into asking her that question. What could he have been thinking? Is he even serious?

She looked back at Jongin, this time finally meeting his captivating brown orbs she had failed noticing in the