chapter 3:

"그대를 향한 내 맘 짙어져만 가"
"My mind is going towards you"

___

One week passes as usual. As the days go by Eunbi finds her mind to be constantly occupied by him, to the point it annoys her.

She would be studying, and then suddenly instead of schoolwork her mind drifts off to him. She would be having her meal, and then her siblings would nudge her back to her senses because she's been zoning out again- thinking about him. She would even be in school, and her attention would gradually shift from what the teacher is teaching on the board to the conversation with him at the bus stop the week before.

Could what Yewon and Yuna said be right? Could she really be in love?

Eunbi shakes her head. How could she? It was all too strange for her. Eunbi, who never laid an eye on any guy in school, falling in love with the boy next door whom she doesn't actually know? It seemed to foreign to even herself- it was unbelievable. Eunbi struggles to shift her attention away from him, but fails anyway.

Her mind lingers on the conversation last week, their first conversation together. Her heart flutters remembering his laughter and smiles, and somehow she wishes to see it more; the way she craves for it, it feels so strange. Eunbi judges herself and shrugs her shoulders, and realises that once again she is distracted, thinking about him.

She buries her face in her hands and groans, before dropping her hands onto her desk crowded with schoolwork.

Time for math, she says in her head, hoping that studying would remove him from his mind.

But it never does anyway. Nothing does.

Eunbi covers her head with her file as she hurriedly steps off the bus, before waving goodbye to Yewon and Yuna on who are still on the bus.

Eunbi thinks about how Yuna accompanies them to cram school now and laughs by herself as she remembers the reason. They've mentioned that it must be a waste of time for the elder girl but somehow she doesn't mind and instead says she is more productive when studying at the cafe near their cram school due to its conducive environment.

However, she isn't complaining- one is her best friend and one is her closest unnie. The only thing she'd complain about is how they'd remind her about Jackson every few minutes whenever they're together, with weird questions like "How's the progress" or even "Are you going to tell the rest yet".

Speaking of which, she wonders how he is doing, because she hasn't seen him this week, not at the bus stop before cram school, not anywhere in any miracle that could whip out a coincidence for them.

Eunbi sighs as she looks at the dark pouring sky, wondering when the rain would stop so that she can make her way home. It is too heavy for her to run home, yet part of her is already begging her to hurry up and get herself home. Her watch tells her it's half past ten into the night and she's feeling sleepy already, so she really wants to just get to her coffee and start more mugging.

She hears loud footsteps crashing into the puddles of rainwater, and turns around to its direction.

"Jackson ssi?" she gasps softly, shocked to see him running towards her with a huge umbrella in hand.

Jackson can't help but constantly look at the neighbouring house to she if she has come home. It is late into the night, yet she is still not back from cram school, or so he believes.

Worry uncontrollably grows in him as the clock ticks and clouds begin to gather in the sky. He watches the clouds cover the night sky and the rain start falling.

He opens the window of his bedroom and sticks his head out to as far as possible, looking at the bus stop to see if Eunbi has come. After tapping his fingers anxiously on his window pane for a few seconds, he finally sees a bus arriving and the very girl he's waiting for alighting the bus. The bus blocks his vision of her for a while as it drives off, but he sees her again, with no umbrella in hand.

Immediately he runs down the stairs, puts on his jacket and grabs an umbrella, before he makes a run to the bus stop.

He runs across the road and to Eunbi, and the sound of the rain hitting against his umbrella wakes him up.

What am I doing? A voice at the back of his head asks himself.

Nevertheless, he ignores it and makes his way to Eunbi.

"Jackson ssi?" he sees that she is confused.

"I-I, erm, saw the r-rain and that you h-had no umbrella," he stops himself and silently wants to slap himself for stuttering so much. He feels embarrassed, but nevertheless, he takes a deep breath and continues speaking again. "So, do you want to go home?"

Eunbi laughs softly at his stuttering, but stops almost immediately. "You ran here to pick me up?" Eunbi asks softly, her heart not believing what she thinks. It couldn't be that her parents requested for it- her parents never did mind her running home in the rain, or if they have requested it would be one of her older siblings instead, not Jackson.

Jackson nods his head. Eunbi widens her eyes: her assumption is true. Her heartbeat accelerates and she can feel her heart thumping in her chest.

"Thank you," she tries to smile.

"It's no problem at all," Jackson grins before stepping nearer and holding the umbrella over both of them.

The distance is suffocating her. The distance is so small she feels his arm rubbing against hers, and it makes her heart skip a beat.

The walk home is strangely quiet, because she has expected that the talkative boy would at least say something.

Nevertheless, this gesture of him places a mark in her mind and her heart flutters as she thinks about it. Reaching home with only one side slightly wet, her parents ask her in confusion for the situation.

"Jackson ssi- our neighbour, helped fetch me," she says at first, seeing them stiffen up. "It's nothing really, we're friends now," she says to relieve them. However, she knows she's lying.

Eunbi sighs when she finally gets into her room.

They're not even friends but her mind is so occupied with him.