During the changing season from summer to fall, withering leaves encompassed a cliche scene unfolding on the deserted school grounds. A girl was sitting on a wooden bench while munching down a strawberry flavored Pocky in . Her slouched posture spread across the seat, making sure her wavy dark hair wouldn’t touch the dirty surface of the bench. Her eyes, however, caught the premiere of her best friend getting dumped, again.   “It’s over!”   Some tall girl she did not bother to remember the name of slapped Lee Sung Yeol on the cheek, leaving a red mark. And like any best friend would, she started laughing at the sight before feeling sorry later on. She had witnessed her best friend get dumped in several ways, but the slap was always reserved for a lousy relationship on his part.   The roaring noise caught Sung Yeol’s attention, and he quickly plopped himself on the seat as soon as his ex left the scene. “Ya! Choi Yeon Ah, don’t you think it’s impolite to laugh at other people’s misery?” He scowled with a glare, but his fingers quickly itched to grab a Pocky stick.   “But you’re not other people,” Yeon Ah spoke, giving him a mischievous glint before shoving the entire Pocky box in his hand. “You can have it. I bought it for you anyway.”   “And yet, you ate up half of what’s in here already,” Sung Yeol remarked, counting the leftover sticks.   “Didn’t you say you wanted to go on a diet? I’m helping you.”   “Then why give me Pocky in the first place?”   Yeon Ah’s grin softened as she now looked at her best friend with a rather vague expression. “Because it always cheers you up during a break up.”   The two of them had been lifelong friends tracing back to their late childhood days. It all started when Sung Yeol’s family moved in next door. The balcony of Yeon Ah’s room was located beside Sung Yeol’s. The first time she had invited her neighbor to play a dress up party with her and her stuffed animal, to which the 7 year old Sung Yeol surprisingly agreed to, they connected instantly.   Fast forward ten years later, and the two were still the bestest of friends. They told each other everything, even about their relationship problems. Sometimes they didn’t even have to say anything out loud, and the silence made them understood the other. Their group of friends thought they were dating. Sometimes they smiled, sometimes they acted out on it to fill their friends with false hope, but all playful. Simply because both knew, there was something between the male-female friendship code they couldn’t break.   Again, they were caught in the peaceful silence as Sung Yeol ate the remaining bit of Pocky she had left him. Strawberry was always his favorite flavor--she had a feeling it was because he liked the color pink, not the flavor itself. In front of others, she would always defend him and claim real men weren’t ashamed of liking pink. But when it was the two of them, she’d laugh and , of course.   “How many times did I break up?” Sung Yeol leaned back on the bench and conveyed what had been plaguing his mind out loud.   “Twelve times,” Yeon Ah answered mundanely, eyes set on the outdoor hallway in front of her as several students passed through. She didn’t look sideways even when Sung Yeol shifted his position to give her a look of horror--his taller frame now shadowing over hers.   “You kept count? That was a rhetorical question!” He uttered.   “I keep count of the numbers, but I don’t bother myself to remember their names.” Yeon Ah had pushed her body forwards, resting her elbow on her knee and her chin propped against the palm of her hands.   “Rude!”   “They don’t last more than a month anyway, why bother?” She made a point.   “It’s not like you are that successful in your endeavor to find Mr. Right either. How long have you been dating that dinosaur guy?”   Yeon Ah shot him a dirty look. “His name is Jang Dong Woo, and we’ve been dating for three weeks now, thank you very much.”   “Good luck.” Sung Yeol told her half heartedly with an eye roll. Much like himself, the girl had a success rate of 10% when it came to dating. He may have failed twelve times, but she was not any better with her record of seven guys who all broke up before they reached their 100 days anniversary.   He finished the last bit of Pocky and made sure to throw the empty box in the trash bin. Yeon Ah would start nagging if he dirtied the place, and he didn’t know since when he had started copying her habits.   “Let’s go,” Sung Yeol offered his hand to her, which she gracefully complied to and got up to follow him. The girl was much shorter than him and barely reached the bridge of his nose even when she was wearing heels. In this case, black sneakers with at least an 8 cm platform.   “Aren’t those dangerous to walk in? Why don’t you just get normal shoes?” Sung Yeol noted her unbalanced wiggle, but the girl playfully wriggled her finger in response.   “You’re tall and I’m short, in order to look good walking next to you, I need to match your height,” Yeon Ah said wisely.   “Isn’t your boyfriend short though?”   “Meh… I am more seen with you anyway…”   “Silly girl.”   And the two headed off to class without putting much thought to their words. Because part of them knew it was true, like it was a fact anyway. Sung Yeol and Yeon Ah were a set, they were inseparable, like peanut butter and jelly. The fact she’d spend more time with him than her boyfriend somehow seemed normal.     Unlike Yeon Ah, Sung Yeol was always eager to get to know her boyfriends. He was rather on the protective side and needed to know she was dating a good guy whom she deserved. If anyone was below his standards, he’d tell her to break up. If his reasons were legit, she’d obey. That was how they operated; they occasionally looked out after one another and had grown an unbreakable trust.   This Jang Dong Woo guy was okay. He was very friendly and optimistic, maybe a bit too much. The guy was an epitome of rainbows, unicorns, and everything nice with barely any sense of negativity.   “I flunked my chemistry exam again!” Yeon Ah cried as they were seated on one of the cafeteria tables. She pouted at the test paper in her hand scribbled with a big fat F on its upper right corner. She wasn’t as smart as Sung Yeol was, but not dumb either. She was just weak with numbers and formulas.   “You’ll do better next time. Cheer up, baby,” Dong Woo told her and patted her head. Those were mere encouraging words, but he lacked true empathy. What she needed right now was a distraction, and only Sung Yeol knew how.   “That’s what you get for dating so much,” Sung Yeol remarked teasingly and took a bite from his sandwich. The girl wouldn’t let him eat in peace and kicked the foot of his chair sideways. She was successfully distracted.   “Mind you, this was the day when we were playing Pokemon Go in your room late at night.” Yeon Ah gave him a look.   “I was about to sleep, but you woke me up because you claimed there was a legendary Pokemon in my room!” Sung Yeol shot back, remembering the girl had mistaken a Zubat for a Charizard. Maybe she was dumb after all, mistaking the tiny bat for a dragon.   “Pokemon Go? Who still plays that nowadays?” Sung Jong muttered under his breath.   “But hold on, you were in his room? At night?” Woo Hyun interrupted, giving the two friends a look of disbelief which soon faded into a suggestive smile. “Were you catching a Weedle or something?”   Of course, Myung Soo was the first one to burst out in laughter. Aside for laughing at almost everything, these dirty jokes were the most amusing to him.   “Ya!” Both Sung Yeol and Yeon Ah understood that dirty innuendo at once and grabbed unto the empty juice box to throw at him with such synchronized and coordinated movements. It annoyed them as Woo Hyun laughed with zero guilt.   “He has a point. When a guy and a girl are alone in a room at night, it’s rather… Frowned upon,” Sung Gyu then agreed with his friend.   “You’re just jealous you can’t get a girl in your room at night,” Sung Yeol uttered as they burst out in laughter, Yeon Ah even held her hand up for a high five.   Sung Gyu was the only one not amused and cocked his head towards Dong Woo. “What would your boyfriend think?”   “He doesn’t mind.” Yeon Ah answered quickly on Dong Woo’s behalf - too quickly. She didn’t even look at him to make a proper judgement. Her boyfriend wasn’t as readable as Sung Yeol was whereby she knew what he was thinking of before he even said it out loud.   The other guys around the table threw a subtle glance towards Dong Woo who was still smiling, but upon closer inspection, noticed the slight falter at the corner of his lips.   “I have to go to class now.” Dong Woo probably made up an escape plan. He gathered his stuff from the table and tapped Yeon Ah’s shoulder lightly. “Walk with me?”   “Sorry, can’t!” The girl turned to him with hands folded together like she was about to pray. “I promised Yeol to help him find a book for his final report at the library.”   That smile on Dong Woo’s face faltered again, and this time Sung Yeol noticed. Sometimes, he had a distorted perception between the fine line of their friendship. And sometimes he would notice the boundaries.   “It’s fine, you should go with your boyfriend,” Sung Yeol spoke, stating the status as a reminder for not only her, but also himself.   “Oh…” There was clear disappointment in Yeon Ah’s tone as her lips pursed into a pout. With slight reluctance, she packed up her things from the table, threw away her trash, and bid them all goodbye. Her big round eyes lingered on Sung Yeol a second longer before turning around to go with her boyfriend.   Maybe she was just imagining it, but there was a weird glint hidden underneath his seemingly perfect gaze.     The entire room was clouded in vast darkness when a loud clattering against the balcony’s sliding door was heard. Sung Yeol woke up from the noise and with heavy eyelids glanced at the digital clock that read 2 AM. He grunted in annoyance and was about to go back to sleep when the noise continued.   Reluctantly, he got up with a groan and slouched towards his balcony. There was only one possibility for this disturbance, really. The two friends had occasionally hopped over from one balcony to the other since it was literally next to each other. So as soon as he opened the door he expected Yeon Ah would appear. What he did not expect, however, was her jumping into his embrace with tears on her face.   “What’s wrong?” He asked in immediate alertness, sleep and drowsiness long forgotten.   “It’s Dong Woo,” Yeon Ah spoke, face buried against his chest.   Sung Yeol’s eyes sprung up from the name, already sensing what was coming next. His hand was unconsciously her back in soothing circles. He whispered nonsense sounds to help stop the crying and waited for her to continue.   “Can you believe what he said?” Yeon Ah finally uttered after she was done with the first phase of her cryfest. “He said that you and I are too close, and then told me to choose between him or you.”   Sung Yeol arched his eyebrows. “So what’d you say?”   “I broke up with him right then and there!” Yeon Ah stated.   Sung Yeol didn’t realize he let a smile slip from his lips. He continued comforting her; his hand moving to entangle itself among her wavy hair. It was still fixed in place and as pretty as the last time he had seen her several hours ago. She probably stayed up to talk to her now ex-boyfriend about this matter.   “So why are you crying?” He then questioned.   Finally she pulled back from him and stared at him with those big, rounded, swollen red eyes. “Because I hate people questioning our friendship. And I despise it when they tell me to throw you away.”   Her sadness was soon growing into anger, and he knew.   “I mean, who does he think he is? I’ve known him for only two months or so. And you… I’ve known you more than h