Part I

Somi rushes to the bus stop to catch the last Monday morning bus to school. Getting closer to the bus stands, she notices quite a number of people gathered at the road side murmuring in quiet voices and gesticulating wildly with their hands.

She could make out words like

'Such a young looking boy'

'He looked completely healthy'

‘I wonder what went wrong’

Paying no heed to the commotion happening around her, she only spares a glance at the flashing ambulance lights tearing down the road before dashing into the rapidly filling bus.

Clutching her sides in an attempt to catch her stuttering breaths, she makes her way towards the back of bus 88 in hopes of finding any available seat, and if the luck of kyungsoo was on her side today preferably a seat beside the window so she could catch a few more minutes of sleep before arriving at school.

Much to her disappointment she found out that all the seats on the bus were already occupied just like she had expected, apparently the luck of Kyungsoo wasn’t on her side today.

Pushing through the crowded bus she made her way towards the back where she miraculously discovered an empty seat on the second to the last row, a rather strange phenomenon she thought as there were quite a number of people holding on to the standing bar surrounding the seat but none of them looked like they wanted to sit in it.

Seated in her coveted spot was a boy, whose head was resting on the window of the bus. The boy was clad in black from head to toe; black beanie, black t-shirt, black jacket with a single Chinese character ‘Kai’ printed on it, and equally black pants. but what really caught her attention was his platinum silver hair against the window which had extra tentacles of frost reaching towards it on the other side of the pane.

The almost white locks fell gently across his eyes, lightly tickling his high cheek bones and creating a stark contrast to his olive skin.The sunlight seemed to filter through the locks casting a halo effect around his head and giving him an ethereal look.

After taking in his entire appearance she found her eyes taking discreet looks at his own eyes.Swimming within a sea of white sclera were deep brown iris flecked with burning gold lines and situated in the middle of it were charcoal black pupils as dark as night itself.

His eyes casted a melancholic glow over his entire being as it held deep within it a certain sadness Somi suddenly found herself wanting to replace with laughter and Joy.

Unable to resist the sudden pull of gravity whether from the boy or from the desire to catch a few extra seconds of sleep, she found herself sliding into the seat next to him.

She hugged her schoolbag to her chest for extra warmth as the heater on the bus seemed to have neglected the area in which she was seated. Settling into a more comfortable position she drifted her eyes close only to snap them open in what seemed like only seconds later as her bus stop being called filtered rather slowly into her sleepy subconscious mind.

Flying out from her seat like she had suddenly just discovered she was seating on a bed of hot coals, she yelled out a ‘wait ahjusshi’ as the bus was already pulling away from her destination, bowing in thanks to the driver she hops out of the bus and lands with a quiet thud on the pavement below, the otherwise loud sound  muffled by her sneakers and a bed of snow.

Taking a few moments to catch her breathe with her hands on her knees, she looks up just in time to meet the gaze of the silver haired guy on the bus as the vehicle pulled away from the bus stop.

Something in his gaze seemed to keep her rooted to her standing spot, and she could only peel her gaze away after the bus had completely disappeared from her line of vision. There was something completely arresting about his gaze that she could not begin to explain why her heart had suddenly decided to stutter like it was drowning in a lake of ice with no source of oxygen.

She stood in the winter breeze for a few minutes before a voice whispered into her far gone mind that she was supposed to be running to school right now unless she wanted to add another of detention to her already less than stellar attendance record.

Pirouetting on her feet, she broke into a sprint down the road towards the black school gates pushing all thoughts of silver to the back of her wandering mind where she forgot all about it for the rest of the day.

The next Monday morning Somi found herself repeating the exact same actions as the week before, tearing down the road with the cold winter air stinging her nostrils as she took rapid breaths to fill her burning lungs while she raced towards the last bus in an attempt to make it to school in time.

Barely making it on time, she clambered into the bus where she mutters a ‘thank you’ to the drive