How the hell can it rain when the sky is clear and sunny? Junhong asked himself as he and his best friend tore through the wet streets past other equally distressed students. They both held their laptop bags over their head for shelter, praying the material was thick enough to keep the electronics dry. Neither had thought to grab a coat that morning, let alone an umbrella, what with it being such a clear day. Junhong could imagine how his mother would berate him if she could see him now.

But she couldn't. He was miles away in another city studying joint courses at university and living with his band new best friend. Well, if you could call half a year “brand new”. Though he did seem to be learning new things about him every day, such as the various short-cuts he knew to avoid the rain. So far it seemed to be through an area Junhong had never been in before.

“Jongup!”Junhong called to his friend, grabbing his wrist.

“What? What is it?” The shorter boy nearly fell back as Junhong stopped him, looking around in case something had happened.

“That house!” Junhong pointed excitedly.

It was old, clearly, and stuck out from the rest of the houses with its drastically different architecture. The large white wall and huge wooden white-pane windows with crawling ivy bushed around it. A small stone balcony jutted out from the side of the windows, overlooking the bridge and the river running past them.

“It's like a fairy tale!”

“Great! You've seen a nice house! But it's still raining.” Jongup grabbed hold of him and yanked with a surprising amount of force, pulling the lanky younger student across the bridge and turned a corner, following the river.

Junhong glanced back as they picked up their speed, rain lashing down with new vigour as though to encourage him off home. He blinked the water from his eyes and shifted his laptop bag, taking one last longing look at the huge bay windows. Like a fairy tale, he thought to himself.

“I bet a little girl lives there,” Junhong said as he pulled on a dry t-shirt, “with long hair in ribbons and she carries around huge old books full of fairy stories.”

“Hm,” Jongup hummed from his position on the battered couch, controller in hand as he beat the daylights out of his opponent on the tv screen.

“And she lives with her sweet grandma who bakes her warm cookies and can play on a grand old upright piano.” He sighed wistfully before glancing down at the coffee table where a wad of mail had been stacked up, with an official looking envelope on the top. He picked it up and grimaced as he recognised the company logo. “And they don't have to worry about bills or rent.”

“Ah, rent! I need to remember to set that up.”

“You still haven't set the standing order?” Junhong looked at his friend, shocked.

“I just... Keep transferring it the day before. I forget to set it up.”

Junhong shook his head. He loved Jongup dearly, he'd been the only person on their entire Performing Arts course that hadn't been annoyingly loud or pushy, and had accepted his quirks whole heartedly. However this did mean he now had to accept all of Jongups quirks, of which there were many. Like not doing what seemed to be the most reasonable thing. He watched the older land a fatality, before wandering up to his room.

She picks wild flowers, he told himself as he shifted a pile of work off his bed and onto his desk, and makes flower crowns, and gets mud on her dresses and all over her knees. He swiped a bundle of dirty clothes onto the floor. Her room has the huge windows, and she's got loads of old toys like a real doll house and tiny delicate porcelain dolls. He flopped down and stared up at his ceiling. She's got a scrapbook full of pressed flowers, hand-written letters from her pen-pals in France or Italy or Sweden, and newspaper clippings that she likes. He lay silently for a moment. And I bet she listens to traditional music too. He let his eyes slowly drift shut.

She dances in the garden and wears lots of hand made bracelets. She collects feathers and pretty stones, and hand makes pots. She helps her grandmother cook, but isn't very good at it. Their kitchen has pretty matching sets and lacy table cloths and ornate curtains. There's a really beautiful tea pot. There's pretty statues everywhere and her drawings are framed on the wall and stuck to the fridge. There's old photos of the family on some of the tables and a big thick album full of baby photos. Her bed is covered with a hand made patchwork quilt and covered in decorative cushions and a toy she's had since she was born, and has been on all her adventures. Sometimes she leaves her window open and leaves blow into her room...

“Junhong!”

Junhong jolted awake, nearly choking on his own drool as he jerked himself up. He blinked, eyes unfocussed in his dimming room.

Jongup huffed out a laugh. “I'm ordering take-away. Do you want in? The other's are still out so it's just us. It's like 8pm by the way, were you asleep this whole time?”

“Ugh, I didn't mean to be.” Junhong sat up slowly and rubbed his head, feeling the way his hair had cow- into a spike on the side of his head. His stomach ached and tugged. “Yeah, I'll get in on food. What are you ordering?”

“Pizza?”

“Pizza!”

They both grinned as the taller boy leapt from his bed and they stumbled down their rickety staircase to the tiny kitchen. They bickered for a short while over toppings, and eventually went for a two-for-one deal just so they would stop arguing about pineapple's right to be on pizza (Junhong was firmly against it, but Jongup was defending it like his life depended on the Hawaiian touch).

It arrived, discounted at student price, at the perfect time for the two of them to agree that it was Too Late To Attempt Work, and so they slouched on the couch, appreciating having the common area to themselves. Jongup hopped through their options on what to watch as Junhong slowly peeled a slice from his box, admiring the stretch of the cheese. The rain had died down while he was asleep, and the glow of the sunset filtered through their only window.

Junhong watched dust specks hover through the orange beam before turning to Jongup. “Do you think there's a nice view from that house?”

“Hm?” Jongup glanced at him for half a second before going back to browsing through cartoons.

“That fairy tale house. Do you think those windows get a good view, which is why they're so big? I bet you can see all the way down the river.”

Jongup glanced at him again. “Maybe... You can probably see inside people's houses.”

“What?”

“It's sort of on a hill, isn't it? It looks down into people's windows...” The older boy trailed off, thinking about it.

“I bet you could watch people go about their day from there... I bet it's amazing.” He imagined the little girl looking out of those windows and viewing lives unfolding.

“Would you watch people get changed?”

Junhong's face coloured. “No! I mean like- like do work or cook or talk to their family!”

Jongup was laughing, grin spread wide across his face and eyes squeezed shut. “If you're so obsessed with that house, why don't you write a rap about it for your Contemporary Music course?”

Junhongs mouth dropped open. It hadn't even occurred to him that he could take it as inspiration for his joint course. He could tell the story of the little girl through words and make it his final submission...

Jongup shoved the pizza slice into Junhong's mouth. “Stop thinking about it. If you do work I'll feel bad for not doing anything. Just eat your pizza so you don't cry so much when I hand you your on a platter when you lose to me at Mario Kart.”

Junhong snorted around his slice, biting the end off so he could talk around it. “As if! You're going down, shorty!”

He should have known how late it was even before he heard his other housemates stagger into the house as quietly as they could manage in their somewhat inebriated state. His pencil was still scribbling notes, secretly, into his notebook. He knew if Jongup caught him doing work he'd be annoyed. They had an agreement not to get ahead of each other.

The page was filled with scribbled out notes as he struggled to express the magic of the beautiful house into something he could work with. So far it was a disaster and he was starting to think he'd taken Jongup's offhanded comment too literally. He found his pencil shifting to sketch the house in the free corner of the page. It was vague and misshapen.

He frowned and snapped the notebook shut, then threw it across the room.

He had to get a better look at that house.