After making a promise that he will helps Joy with her writing, Sungjae didn’t showed up to school the next day. Or the days afterward. For over a week he had been absence from school and rumors began to circular that he had dropped out.

At first, Joy didn’t bothered about it but after the third days she began to visits the rooftop during lunch break every day. She wasn’t sure why she came up there. It wasn’t like he was playing hiding-and-seek and going up there would let her found him. But she still goes anyways.

After her second visits to the rooftop, she encountered the light brown feline, Mister Kitty. Mister Kitty really likes Joy and ran to her whenever she comes by. Today like usual, she went straight to the top of the building when the lunch bell rang. After scanning the area, she found Mister Kitty napping on the exhaust pipe of the school. The feline instantly wake up from his nap when he heard the roof door shutting, and he crawls toward the girl.

Joy bended down to pets the cat and placed a tray containing a small portion of her lunch out in front of him.

“Seems like your lunch buddy still isn’t showing up. You just have to make-do with this amount of food for now.”

“Meow…”

Joy smiled and petted Mister Kitty one last time before going down stairs to the fourth floor. When she got there, Wendy had already dug into her food while she waited for Joy to come joined her.

“So, did he show up today?” Wendy asked.

“Don’t even mentioned him. If he don’t showed up tomorrow he’s dead to me.”

“Oh, isn’t your project due tomorrow?”

“Yeah, and my partner gone and disappeared on me. There’s no way I’m going to do his part for him. I refuse! Arrgggg!”

Wendy giggled at Joy’s outburst. “Since when does our Joy care so much about her grades anyway?”

“If I fail my class, I take no responsibility for it!”

“Tell that to Minhyuk. You know he’ll be lecturing you for weeks if you don’t pass.”

“Stupid…Yook…Sung…IDIOT! Arrrrrrrgggggggggg!!”

***

The next morning, Joy didn’t say much on the way to school. Minhyuk tries to converse with her but had no luck. He decided to stop her when they were less than a block away from the school building.

“Hey.…..Joy!”

“……”

“Yah, Park Sooyoung!” Joy jumped and realized that Minhyuk had been calling her name. “What’s wrong with you today? I haven’t heard a single word from you all morning.”

“…..Sunbae-niiiiiimmmm…….” Joy cried out loud as she grabbed ahold of his arm. “You would still love me right? Even if I become a failure in life and went astray, you wouldn’t abandon me right?”

“Aishhh, you’re failing your class again aren’t you?”

“Nooo, trust in me…..….If you don’t believe me, who’s going to believe in me?”

Minhyuk just ignored the girl and went on ahead without her. He was too used to her behavior to not see what she was up to. He knew that as soon as he gave in to her trap, she will restore herself immediately like nothing ever happened.

When Joy saw that her plan no longer works, she dragged herself to the field of the main entrance with her head down.

“Morning.”

Joy kept on walking and soon hits the chest of the person standing in front of her. She lifted her head to be welcomed by Sungjae's wide smile. She squinted as a bright beam of light blinded her eyes.

“My eyes must be playing tricks on me. Since when was he this handsome? Tsk……”

“Hey, stop talking gibberish. You don’t look so well. Are you okay?”

“Gibberish? Where have you been? Do you know how many hardships I have to go through because of you?”

“Huh?! You don’t know?”

“What?”

“Geez, what kind of fan are you? If you just searched my name up on the internet, you’ll know that I been in Japan doing my promotion.”

“Japan? Why so sudden?”

“I know right. Manager hyung told me at the last minute too. He said I been on hiatus for too long and my fans are getting anxious. So, back to work for me. Anyways, did you missed me?”

“Nope, not at all……..Oh,wait! What about our project? Did you finish it?”

“You dork. Can’t you see this giant poster I’m holding in my hand to right now? I can’t let you fail the class just because of my incompetence.”

Upon seeing the dark circles on Sungjae’s wide smiley face, Joy gave him a slight patted on the shoulder.

“Well, at least you have a sense of responsibly. You did good.”

He freeze at Joy’s noona-like behavior. He found that side of her attractive and he flustered at their eye contact. His heart was beating faster than usual and his ears started to turn bright red.

“You’re really oblivious aren’t you?........”

“What now?”

“Nothing……..…..Here.” Sungjae reached into this backpack to pull out a piece of paper and handed to Joy.

“What is it?” Joy asked and glanced at the paper that was handed to her. On the top are bold letters that read Writing Contest of 2012.

“You should apply. The winner will get a four years scholarship to any university of their choice, and their story will also be published as the winner of the year. The deadline is the end of November.”

“Why?....You know I only writes fanfic. I don’t have any experience with writing actual novel.”

“That’s okay. Anyways, meet me after school?”

“For what?”

“To help you get inspirations.”

Every now and then, I have a really strong desire to just upload everything. All the chapters!........But then that will be too much and I’ll be really burnout afterward. >.<

Do any of my readers read other Sungjoy’s fanfics? Recently, I came across one that I really enjoyed (don’t know if it’s okay for me to give the name), and it brings back so much feels.  Initially, I wanted to write a story similar to that one but my heart couldn’t bear the sadness. I’m glad now I can enjoy it from another author’s point of view that is similar to my own.