People had always said first love had its special place in everybody’s heart. First love allowed a person to experience many feelings for the first time; butterfly-in-the-stomach effect, the excitement whenever they interacted or simply saw their first love, the restless times when they doubted whether to send a message or not, the overflowing anticipation when they got a reply from the first love. Most importantly, first love allowed a person to be hopeful in love for the first time. If it worked out, first love led a person to experience the feeling of being loved by the person whom they loved. For those who didn’t know—it felt amazing when a person whom you cared about, also cared about you.

Many people had their first love when they were relatively young. An innocent, perfect fantasy of first love was still planted in their head, therefore elevated their expectation about love. Unlike fairy tales, love wasn’t always happiness. They didn’t know that they were still immature in many aspects and they were completely clueless about what was it like to handle the downsides of a romantic relationship. It also allowed a person to experience the disappointment hole of breakups for the first time. The anger when they broke up with someone whom they thought would be understanding. The many nights of crying under the blanket because of unimportant fights between them. The feeling of being rejected. The ultimate unrequited love.

For Kim Mingyu, his first love experience remained unclear. He fell in love with his childhood friend and neighbor when he was still 16 years old. The relationship between the two was built up quite naturally, because they had been close to each since forever. Mingyu was ready to take the risk of ruining their long-built friendship by confessing to her in order to take their relationship in a whole new level. Thanks to his courage, he did. He did take their relationship to another level as she accepted his confession and they started dating. Those days were great for both of them. Their families knew each other and accepted their relationship happily, especially Mingyu’s mother who was extremely fond of her son’s girlfriend. Minseo, Mingyu’s clingy younger sister was equally supportive about her brother’s relationship with her favorite unnie in the neighborhood.

It was all laugh and happiness at the beginning of the relationship, but like any relationship, at some point it started to have its own storm. An unexpected incident separated them and they never contacted each other ever again. Up until this day, Kim Mingyu still had regret consuming his conscience. His urge to apologize to her was still burdening his shoulders, but apologizing was hard right now for some reasons. He wasn’t even sure if she remembered him. Now, he was just an ordinary freshman like any other freshman—nothing special, nothing more. He was not her ex-boyfriend, or even her childhood friend anymore—at least in her mind. She treated him the same way like she treated other students, indicating that she wasn’t aware that Mingyu is ‘that’ Mingyu whom she knew or else she would show signs that she recognized him. Mingyu’s current task is to get her attention to make her realize who he was, therefore he intentionally showed up at her class late. Again.

“I’m sorry, I’m late.”

Mingyu could feel the whole class stared at him, but he shrugged it right away. Ms. Song who was sitting at her desk stopped whatever she was doing and stared at Mingyu. “I thought I have already reminded you that if you are late for more than 10 minutes I’ll have to mark you as ‘absent’.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Mingyu just replied whatever, but his eyes were firm on her. He was waiting for her to ask a certain question.

“What was your name again?”

Mingyu smirked a little, but quickly hid it. “Kim Mingyu, Ma’am.”

Ms. Song opened her notebook and searched for something. “So, Nam Daeun is your partner, huh? Being an hour late, don’t you feel sorry for her that she has to work alone for your joint assignment?”

Mingyu shut his lips tight, glancing at Daeun’s direction. He could see Daeun just rolled her eyes, obviously annoyed. Mingyu felt a hint of guilt for making Daeun pissed off, but at least he had time to make himself stood out in front of Ms. Song.

“You can have a seat,” Ms. Song finally announced, before getting busy again with her stuff at her desk. Mingyu bowed down one more time before striding to his joint desk with Daeun. He felt bad that Daeun was the only one who sat alone in the class because he was late. When he reached their desk, Daeun’s eyes were locked at her laptop screen. Her index finger was furiously scrolling down the mouse. Before he could say anything, suddenly Daeun tore away her gaze from the laptop and stared at Mingyu furiously.

“Right on time, Mingyu,” Daeun mocked. “I just finished our assignment when you showed up.”

Mingyu looked apologetic, and he did feel apologetic genuinely. “I’m sorry Daeun-ah,” he mumbled.

Daeun gave Mingyu silent treatment as she moved her laptop to Mingyu so that he could read what she had written for the assignment. Mingyu glanced at Daeun and decided to stay silent and just read because the girl was clearly annoyed. He read what Daeun had written and he felt the need to praise Daeun’s writing skill. There were no typos, she used sophisticated words, there was no mistake in grammar, and even there was no topic gap between two paragraphs. It was obvious that she took this assignment seriously. One thing that Mingyu noticed was she was writing about something which assumed by some people as superstition—reincarnation.

“What was the assignment for today?” Mingyu asked Daeun, being hopeful that the girl would answer him.

“Another fact-finding,” Daeun replied shortly.

Mingyu furrowed his eyebrows. “And you picked reincarnation? Why?”

“That’s the interesting thing. Some people believe in reincarnation and some other don’t, so finding facts about it will be fun. What’s so fun searching about something that is already a fact then write it all over again?”

Mingyu was relieved because Daeun talked longer just now. He was impressed with Daeun’s sense, but he was more surprised because he was familiar with the topic. It baffled Mingyu that of all topics, Daeun picked one topic which he was familiar with.

“You’re right,” Mingyu agreed. “I got to say, you have some skill right there, Daeun-ah. Your writing is really comfortable to read. How am I saying this? It feels like the words, sentences, and paragraphs are in one flow. I am impressed,” he added, praising her.

Daeun smiled a bit, but soon she rolled her eyes again. “So, my writing is good and now the problem is, how am I supposed to submit it? It supposed to be a joint assignment, but you haven’t contributed anything—not even a single word.”

Mingyu noticed Daeun became all pouty again, so he decided to apologize properly. “Daeun-ah, I’m really really sorry. I didn’t know today Ms. Song is giving us class assignment. I swear, if I knew, I wouldn’t come late and help you.”

Daeun stared Mingyu squarely. “Why are you always causing problems in this class?”

Her question baffled him because she spoke so casually. “What do you mean?”

“To think of it, you have never been late to other class and we are classmates for every class this semester,” Daeun stated matter-of-factly. “A few days ago you submitted your individual assignment late because of some lame reasons, but you did great in other class. Are you taking this class seriously?”

Mingyu was surprised that Daeun noticed his different behavior in this class. He thought he wouldn’t be that obvious because he didn’t do it every time, but it seemed like observant people like Daeun noticed it effortlessly.

“Mingyu-ya,” Daeun spoke again, “I’m taking all these classes seriously. I don’t want to submit an assignment that is not properly written, neither do I want you to be a free-rider. So please, next time if it’s a joint assignment, promise me you have to do it seriously.”

“I will,” Mingyu offered Daeun his pinky finger. Dae