Today wasn’t like any day before it, although it didn’t seem like it. Jinyoung was still stuck with morning duty at the school gates, greeting the students with her usual smile. She was filling in for the Mathematics teacher who messaged her late the night before saying that he had to take his own kid to school that morning. As usual, Jinyoung the pushover filled in. But unlike usual, she had two cups of coffee in her hand. One for herself and one for Sunggyu, because she was now dating him. And that fact changed a lot.

It was easier to get up this morning, easier to get herself to work, easier to give the students a real smile because she was happy and excited. She was really excited to see that face walking up to her now. “Good morning!” she chirped at him. Sunggyu’s reply wasn’t as chipper as hers, but he still shuffled up to her side. He stood next to her unusually close, almost leaning against her. But that was fine. They were dating now, and most of the students had already entered the school. The students who did go past them practically ran past them to go into the school before it was too late. None of them would notice two teachers standing slightly closer to each other than usual.

“Did you do this the other day?” he asked while rubbing his eyes.

“I did, but I’m filling in today for Heo seonsaeng-nim,” she answered.

“You can say ‘no’ sometimes,” he pointed out.

Jinyoung hummed in thought for a bit, pursing her lips. “I could,” she drawled out.

Sunggyu knew what that meant: “But you won’t.”

“Probably not,” Jinyoung admitted with a slight laugh. She then nudged him, who stumbled a bit, not expecting her too. “So don’t ask me to fill in for you, okay?”

“I won’t and I haven’t,” Sunggyu whined through a pout. And that was true. Sunggyu never asked her to cover a shift for him before; Jinyoung hadn’t really noticed that and instead noticed those who abused her kindness. She needed to appreciate those who don’t, like Sunggyu. A smile spread across her face, and one appeared on his. “So do you always have two cups of coffee in the morning or…”

“Yes, this is for you,” Jinyoung said as she handed him the cup. He took it and stepped closer to her again, with his partial leaning. “It used to be warm.”

“Still is. Thank you,” Sunggyu replied after tasting it.

Jinyoung turned towards him. “Do you always come in this late? Nearly all of the children are here,” she noted. Not many teachers arrived later than the students because they had to prepare for class, but here came Sunggyu along with the late students and tired eyes.

“No. I got a late start today because I didn’t sleep well last night,” he answered and leaned more against her as if it was hard for him to stand up.

Jinyoung pat his back, just once; that was all she would risk right now. “Aw, why?” she whispered.

Sunggyu stood back up straight and on his own. “You know why,” he replied shyly.

“No, I don’t,” Jinyoung insisted. “Did you have a bad dream?”

“No,” he drawled out and then looked over at her out of the corner of his eye. “How did you sleep?”

Uh oh, Jinyoung thought. He was looking for a specific answer. And she had a feeling that the one she had was wrong: “I slept very well. Best sleep I’ve had in awhile.” Yep, it was wrong. He looked away from her and continued to drink his lukewarm coffee in silence. “Should I not have?”

“If you really liked me…” he started.

“Students!” Jinyoung interjected when she spotted three students running towards the gates. The two jumped apart slightly, even though they weren’t even suspiciously close, just closer than they’ve usually been. It probably made them look more suspicious, but the students had their eyes on the gates rather than the teachers.

“Good morning!” the five of them shouted at each other as the students ran past.

After the students were inside, Sunggyu decided to follow. He tugged on her sleeve and said, “I’ll see you inside.”

“See you,” Jinyoung turned to respond, but Sunggyu was already on his way. She wasn’t hurt though, instead she laughed because he was scurrying away as if he’d nearly got caught doing something wrong.

Their relationship would be a secret that she’d enjoy keeping…at least from the students. There were a few people she needed to tell.

“Good morning, everyone!” Jinyoung announced a few minutes later after her gate duty finished and she came into the office. A few people acknowledged here, as they’d usually do any other day, even though to Jinyoung this day was unusual, special. It was special to someone else too, and he acted unusually, waving her over to his desk.

As she came over, Jinyoung also pulled up her chair to Sunggyu’s desk and sat down close to him.  “Help me wake up,” he asked in a low voice and with his eyelids nearly closed.

“The coffee isn’t doing the trick?” she asked.

He shook his head and reached over to rest a hand on her knee. Jinyoung placed her hand over his. “Talk to me,” he whispered. “And tell me why your night wasn’t as sleepless as mine.”

Jinyoung leaned in and wiggled her eyebrows. “Were you really that eager to see me again?” she teased.

Sunggyu removed his hand and went to rest his head on his arms on the desk. “Just tell me,” he whined.

Jinyoung slid her chair back and rest her head on his desk too. “You know how I get when I have a secret,” she began.

He let out a soft snort. “Yes, you act like you’re about to die.”

“My feelings for you were a big secret. Even though you already knew it, it was still a secret for me. After confessing, I slept soundly,” she explained. She then bit her lip, hesitant to say the next part, but she knew it was what he wanted to hear. “I did wake up earlier today because I wanted to see you, but you came in late.” She ended with a pout.

“I did. Oops,” he admitted with a laugh. And that laugh grew too much for him and he sat back up straight in his seat. “I can’t believe you thought it was a big secret. I knew! I don’t know why you bothered trying to hide it.”

Jinyoung’s pout deepened while she sat up too. “How? When did you figure it out?” she asked.

“When you told me why you didn’t like Dongwoo, you basically said why you liked me,” he whispered and then mimicked her, “‘I need someone like you…b-b-but n-not n-necessarily y-you.’”

Jinyoung shoved him lightly. “I did not stutter like that! Did I?” she couldn’t even say that confidently. She wouldn’t know how she came off back then. All she knew was that she felt flustered back then and she probably acted that way too. Sunggyu nodded, which made Jinyoung sigh. “I guess I can’t find a guy nosier than you,” she remarked.

“No, you can’t. I got a big nose,” he retorted.

She tapped him on the nose. “You do.” At that Sunggyu flinched, which made her giggle, for only a second. The laughter caught in when she saw someone sit down near them. Sunggyu noticed and looked at her confused. Jinyoung scooted in closer and whispered excitedly, “Oh! Dongwoo, came in! Should we tell him? About us?”

Sunggyu relaxed and nodded. “Go tell him,” he urged her and guided her out of her chair. After three years, Sunggyu knew very well that Jinyoung liked telling people things, especially good news. And Jinyoung knew that Sunggyu liked to be boasted about, so this was good for them.

“Hey, Dongwoo! Guess what?” Jinyoung exclaimed as she jumped on over to Dongwoo’s desk.

“What?” Dongwoo responded with just as much enthusiasm.

She bent down a bit towards Dongwoo and spoke lowly, “Sunggyu and I are together,”

“Oh.” Sadly, Dongwoo’s enthusiasm deflated, and he went back to preparing for class. “About time,” he spoked distractedly. “You’ve guys been having a Some relationship for awhile now.” By now, Sunggyu had scooted over towards them in his chair, also disappointed by his friend’s reaction. Dongwoo looked over at the new couple. “Didn’t you know?”

“What? Since when?” Jinyoung was stammered. She then asked Sunggyu, “Did you know?”

“I mean, I guess we were,” Sunggyu admitted, leaning back in his seat as he looked at her. “But it’s like a recent thing,”

“No. What are you talking about? It’s been a long time,” Dongwoo argued. The couple put their attention on him again. He had spun his chair towards them and pointed at them with his pen. “You guys always used to talk to me about how cute you thought the other was.”

“What?! No,” the two denied together.

Sunggyu then added, “I didn’t, but she did? Really?”

“No!” Jinyoung fought back. “You did!”

“Uh huh! Yea the both of you did,” Dongwoo put the matter to rest. “We knew you two were going to get together after that MT last school year.”

Jinyoung froze and felt her face heat up. “We?”

“Yea, ‘we.’ Everyone,” Dongwoo answered in a blasé voice. He spun back towards his desk and gestured around the office, at everyone, all of their coworkers. Some of which were watching them.

“Oh my gosh!” Jinyoung gasped, and her hands flew to her face. Everyone knew. Everyone! That included Jinyi, the Bull, who…Jinyoung couldn’t decide if she was upset at the woman or at herself.

Dongwoo had no idea about feelings swirling about his friend’s mind. Instead he chided the both of them, “But I didn’t think you guys would be so slow. Seriously slow.”

“Huh?” the two muttered in unison. Jinyoung gazed down at Sunggyu who responded with a shrug. Jinyoung shrugged back. Both still denying that they knew what Dongwoo was talking about.

“Hey, why haven’t we been on an MT since then? We should!” Dongwoo broke into their staring contest by jumping out of his seat. “I’m going to suggest it to the principal. Right now!” he announced before heading out of the office with quick steps.

“Could you at least be a little more excited for us?” Sunggyu called after him. He took Jinyoung’s hand in his and raised them both up in the air for Dongwoo to see.

But Dongwoo didn’t both to turn around. He was on a mission. He did, however, manage to say “Congrats!” before heading out. But it sounded dismissive. It wasn’t the excitement and the surprise that Jinyoung had anticipated. Are Sunggyu and I that dull? That predictable? She gazed down at Sunggyu, whose eyes were still on the door.

“I don’t get him,” Sunggyu muttered. “We were dating other people then, during that trip.” He still had his eyes on the door, but his ears were getting pink. Jinyoung sat down on the edge of the desk and dropped her eyes to the floor. She was pretty sure her whole face was pink at this point.

“We were. I don’t know what we did to give people that impression,” she grumbled back. “We couldn’t have a ‘some’ then, right?”

“Possibly,” Sunggyu wanted to move past this. “Let’s not talk about this. Instead…” His hand grabbed onto hers. When Jinyoung looked over at him, his eyes were on her now. “Let’s tell Do-seonsaengnim about us. Maybe he’ll give up on having you take his side in matters. You’re on my side now.” The grip tightened slightly on her hand. Jinyoung held him more tightly too.

“Sure whatever, but let’s tell Hwang too,” she bargained. She didn’t really want to insert herself in his conflict with the Drama teacher anymore, so maybe announcing their relationship to him would stop that. But the Chinese teacher, on the other hand, that was someone who really need to hear this. “That woman kept provoking me for the past month because apparently she knew that I liked you. I don’t know how, but somehow she knew.” She felt herself getting angry at her coworker, and Sunggyu probably felt his hand throbbing with how tightly she was holding it.

“That’s because you were obvious,” he teased. Jinyoung let go of his hand, crossing her arms over her chest, and pouted. “It’s okay.”

“Was it really just me?” she whined. She was pretty sure that her entire face was bright red now. Since her hair was up in a ponytail, there was nothing to cover her face. “Did people know because my feelings were obvious?”

“Um, uh, no,” Sunggyu stammered; it caught her attention. She gazed down and saw his face deepen in color too. “I don’t think that it was just you.” He then cleared his throat and scooted back to his desk. “We should get ready for class.” Jinyoung wordlessly agreed, just nodding as she walked back to her desk, where she put her head on the desk for a moment or two in order to calm herself down before getting on with her day.

Truth be told, they both knew what Dongwoo was talking about. For the past month, things were more obvious because their feelings had grown too strong for them to hide anymore. That’s why they were confident enough to finally confess to each other. But the feelings hadn’t started then. They hadn’t started during the MT either, at least not for Jinyoung. For her, it started on her first day at the school, when they first met and when he made her heart race for the first time.

Sunggyu wasn’t the first person she met or the second. Jinyoung had met several of her coworkers and administrators during her interviews, and she met Dongwoo during orientation. Sunggyu came later, when he wanted to welcome his new coworkers to the school. Jinyoung remembered being in the teachers’ office and settling into her desk. Dongwoo was doing the same, next to her, and was chatting away. Jinyoung was half-listening to him. Because of that, she hadn’t noticed when Dongwoo wasn’t talking to her anymore and was talking to someone else.

“And who is this?”

“Huh?” That was a new voice. Jinyoung glanced over, and when she noticed a new man standing near the desk, she stood up too, quickly and not gracefully. And her introduction wasn’t graceful either: “Hello, I’m History, and I’ll be teaching Hong Jinyoung.” She didn’t registered what she had said until the two men chuckled. “Ah, sorry. I’m Hong Jinyoung, and I’m teaching History.”

“Nice to meet you, Hong seonsaeng-nim. I’m Kim Sunggyu,” he introduced himself with traces of laughter still on his lips.

Suddenly, a weird feeling overcame her. It wasn’t just that she thought he was handsome or that his smile was nice. He looks like he could be mine…what? She wouldn’t lie; that thought scared her. And it scared her even more when she heard her teenage students say nearly the same thing about him. She chalked it up to him just having that effect on women, to his charisma. And Jinyoung tried her best to forget about that feeling, but it would come back to remind her time and time again that she was attracted to him. For a good while, her feelings for him didn’t extend beyond attraction. Firstly, he was dating someone at the time. Secondly, Jinyoung didn’t talk much with him at the beginning, especially when school got into full swing. She talked more and connected more with Dongwoo and the other non-arts teachers. She even felt more of a connection with Hwang at the start than she did with Sunggyu. She didn’t know what to talk to him about. She knew nothing about music and her musical tastes were very mainstream. Jinyoung doubted that he’d be interested in anything that she had to say.

What she didn’t know was that Sunggyu’s feelings for her had started very similarly. And he too tried to rationalize them away. After all he was already in a relationship with a girl that a dating agency had arranged for him. It had been difficult for him to meet new people after he’d finished school and started this job, and it was even more difficult to meet a single woman with whom he was compatible. This agency supposedly would help with that. And at that time, he was trying his best to make an awkward relationship with a near stranger work. The agency had said that they’d be compatible and he just had to have faith in it.

His faith stumbled when he saw the woman, who had nervously introduced herself to him just moments before, stand up confidently in front of a usually disinterested class and made them laugh, not at herself but at her joke. Sunggyu had been walking by her classroom on the way to his own when he heard the laughter. It was strange to him because he never heard laughter come out of the History classroom, but then again the school’s History class had never been led by Hong Jinyoung. He was intrigued.

However, he soon dismissed the attraction too. It was easy for Hong Jinyoung to be the cutest female teacher at the school when her closest competition was a greying, middle-aged woman. And in the next few months that passed, Jinyoung became distant and mysterious to him. He easily became close to Dongwoo, but it was difficult for him to have more than just a casual conversation with Jinyoung, for whatever reason. And he had little opportunity to connect with her. She’d leave soon after work, which he later learned was because she lived very far away and with her best friends, but at the time, he assumed that Jinyoung was dating.

But his assumption was proven wrong one day.

“What are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” Sunggyu quickly replied and returned his eyes back on the papers in his hand. He had been staring for who knows how long, and he wasn’t really aware of it. He just hoped that, unlike Dongwoo, Jinyoung hadn’t noticed Sunggyu carefully watching her as she pulled up her hair into a bun.

“Jinyoung would be sad to know that you think she’s nothing,” Dongwoo whispered back. He then narrowed his eyes on his friend. “Aren’t you dating someone?”

“It’s not illegal to look at another woman, is it? What? Am I supposed to walk around with my eyes closed? Can I not look at my students?” Sunggyu hissed in reply and closed his eyes for emphasis.

Dongwoo snorted. “It’s fine,” he relented and moved past the issue and onto another one. “Anyway, I was thinking of introducing Jinyoung to my friend Howon. What do you think?”

Sunggyu didn’t even give it a second’s worth of thought. “She looks chic. She’s probably the type to care about specs,” he answered. In his experience, especially with the agency, that was true for most women. “What does he do?”

“He’s an assistant coach for the University’s basketball team,” Dongwoo responded, and Sunggyu came back with a scoff. “What?”

“Go ahead and try,” Sunggyu challenged him. He wholly expected Dongwoo to fail. If Jinyoung wasn’t going to turn down the offer because she was currently taken, then she was going to turn it down because she believed she could do better than an assistant basketball coach. In any case, her answer was going to be ‘no.’

So Sunggyu watched with interest as Dongwoo came up to her and showed Jinyoung a photo of his friend and proposed the set-up. As expected, Jinyoung appeared nervous, but unexpectedly, she asked, “Is he nice?”

“One of the nicest guys I know,” Dongwoo answered with sincerity.

The nerves abated and Jinyoung nodded with a smile. “Then, okay.”

Sunggyu was stunned, so much so that he only snapped out of it when Dongwoo had walked by and hit him on the side of the head. “She asked if he was nice,” Dongwoo hissed lowly and then went to his desk. Honestly, Sunggyu deserved that. He didn’t realize how much he’d assumed about her, and a lot of those assumptions weren’t necessarily good.

And so afterwards, he tried to stop assuming things about Jinyoung and to start learning about her instead.

However, that MT trip wasn’t until nearly a year later. It wasn’t even the first MT that they had together. The first MT was largely uneventful, and they didn’t interact much with each other. However, since that first MT, a year had passed. Things had changed. Sunggyu had a new relationship, and things seemed to be going well between Jinyoung and Howon. As for Sunggyu and Jinyoung, they had grown more comfortable with each other and talked more. Sunggyu wanted to learn more about her, and Jinyoung herself learned that Sunggyu was interested in a lot of things, which made it easier to start a conversation with him. However, the biggest change from their first MT to the second was that during the second MT Sunggyu got food poisoning. It was odd to think that their relationship took a turn when Sunggyu’s intestines did, but that was what had happened.

Just like with food poisoning, you don’t just start vomiting without reason. It was the same for them. There were other factors at play.

When the faculty arrived at the pension for the MT, they split up into groups and divided up tasks. Not every member of the faculty was able to take time out of their weekend for this trip, so it was mostly made up of the younger faculty and those who wanted to escape their families for a short time, like Hwang and Chilgoo. So the groups were small. Being the maknaes, Sunggyu, Dongwoo, and Jinyoung were responsible for buying and cooking the food. This was the most time that Jinyoung had spent with either of them, and she saw different sides of them as a result. Like she knew Dongwoo had a low attention span, but she didn’t know truly how low it was. He was darting all over the store, and she lost sight of him several times. Sunggyu, on the other hand, didn’t seem too worried about Dongwoo. He was more concerned about the list that they’d been given. Instead of running around the store like Dongwoo, Sunggyu kept going back to a store clerk, calling her ‘mom’ and asking where things were. Jinyoung tried her best not to laugh at him. Not only was he calling for his ‘mom’ every five minutes, but he was just so serious about every decision that he made. Was this head of cabbage better or this one? Carrots weren’t on the list, but should they get some? Sunggyu’s mom always made this stew with carrots, so they should get some, right?

“Let’s just get it,” Jinyoung suggested as she slumped over the grocery cart. “If we don’t end up using it, then I’ll just eat it.”

He raised his eyebrow at that. “You’d eat this? Just like this? Alone?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “I like carrots.”

“What are you? A rabbit?” he joked. “If we don’t use it, you have to eat it, okay?”

Jinyoung laughed. Wasn’t that what she said earlier? “Okay, I will.”

“Good, I think we have everything,” he said after putting the largest, fattest carrot that he could find into the cart. “Dongwoo-yah! We’re leaving!” he yelled into the air. Jinyoung flinched at that but started giggling when Dongwoo shouted back that he was coming. It was almost like Sunggyu was a father corralling his lost child. And in addition to appearing silly serious and fatherlike, Sunggyu was also polite, thanking his ‘mom’ for all of his help. Indeed, Jinyoung thought, he’s not well-liked without reason. Her reasons for liking him only increased. And then she saw his mischievous side.

Dongwoo hadn’t joined them yet at the check-out line and they were getting ready to leave. “We can have Dongwoo carry all of this,” Sunggyu said, pointing at most of the groceries that was being loaded into a box. He then put a bag of chips into Jinyoung’s hands. “Here. Look, your hands are full. You can’t carry anything else.” He then picked up a few items himself, but nothing heavy. “My hands are full now too.” The two of them then scurried out of the store before Dongwoo realized that he had to carry the bulk of the groceries. It was harmless pranks like those that Jinyoung always liked pulling, and she felt something pull at her heart too. That feeling from the first day returned again. He seems like…Jinyoung wouldn’t finish that thought. She couldn’t. She was dating Howon.

She then grew solemn the rest of the way back to the pension and tried to busy herself with tasks when they got back. Her idle mind was drifting towards some things that she’d rather not think about. Now really wasn’t the time for them.

After Sunggyu tried to stop assuming things about Jinyoung, he learned a lot. However, not everything he learned was about her. Some of it was about himself too. He learned that he liked spending time with her. He hadn’t figure out to what capacity yet, but he was finding himself looking for her often.

“Where did Hong go?”

“She’s washing pots,” Dongwoo said as he nodded over at the window. There was a wash basin outside where Jinyoung and Sooryun, the Art teacher, were washing. Well, Jinyoung was washing, crouched down at the basin and elbows deep in the water. The old woman was standing with a towel in her hand, waiting to dry the pot that the other was currently washing. Sunggyu was confused. Washing dishes wasn’t Jinyoung’s duty. She was supposed to be cooking with them. “Why?” Dongwoo asked, getting the other’s attention back on him.

“She told me that she wanted this,” Sunggyu partially lied and pointed to the carrot still in the bag. They didn’t end up putting it in the stew. It wasn’t in the recipe that they were given and both of the men were too afraid to stray away from it. And Jinyoung wasn’t there to put them in. She’d made the rice, made a few jeon, and then disappeared. Sunggyu finally learned where she went. He looked out the window again. “Hong has been doing a lot around here.”

“Jinyoung always does things like this. Helping out,” Dongwoo replied as he finished plating some of the side dishes that they bought at the store. He then turned and glared at the other who was staring out the window, doing nothing except staring and eating an orange. “Unlike someone.”

Sunggyu didn’t notice the diss and only commented, “She’s a nice person.”

Dongwoo snorted at that. “Did you just notice that now?”
“Um, yea,” he mumbled and stuffed the rest of the orange into his mouth. It wasn’t that he didn’t think Jinyoung was nice, but she had the impression of a pushover to him. It had seemed that she did nice things out of intimidation and not kindness. But if it was out of kindness, then that changed a lot.

Jinyoung noticed that the men were staring at her through the window. She waved at them and then forced a shiver, showing how cold she was both from being outside and from being wet. The two men waved back and then disappeared from the window. Jinyoung assumed that they went back to cooking, and she supposed that she should go back to the kitchen herself to return these pots and pans. Jinyoung went to gather the cookware but before she could Sooryun went to dry her off as she did with the pots. “We don’t want you to catch a cold,” the old teacher muttered as she dried her young colleague with vigor. “Do we, Sunggyu?”

Jinyoung craned her neck back and sure enough, Sunggyu was walking towards them with his coat in hand.

“Uh, no,” Sunggyu appeared to be caught off guard. “Are you guys done?”

“Eung, you’re too late to help,” Sooryun answered. “We’re about to go back into the kitchen to put these back.” She nodded down towards the pots and pans.

“I can help with that,” Sunggyu offered and picked up a majority of them. Jinyoung chuckled to herself, at how different he was now as opposed to back at the grocery store. But the situations were different too. Dongwoo was an able-bodied young man; whereas Sooryun had days when it was difficult for her to hold her paintbrush steady. Jinyoung would be different too, picking up the rest of the cookware, leaving Sooryun with only the towel to return to the kitchen.

When they were in the kitchen and putting things away, Sunggyu came up to Jinyoung. “This is for you,” he said a placed the carrot on the countertop near her.

She laughed. “I guess you didn’t need it after all, huh?”

“We didn’t, so you have to eat it like we promised,” he spoke forcefully but also with a smile on his face. And Jinyoung didn’t want to break her promise. She picked it up, about to put it into , when Sunggyu stopped her: “Shouldn’t you wash that? I’ll do it.” He took it from her hand and headed over towards the sink.

“No, I can do it,” Jinyoung insisted and followed him. And that’s how it took two people to wash a single carrot and how Sunggyu learned just how much his coworker liked carrots. She ate the whole thing fairly quickly and it made him laugh.

“This is new,” Sooryun remarked to Dongwoo as she watched the two laugh over by the sink. “Or did they always get along like this?”

“No, they don’t really talk much, but I guess this is what MTs are for, right? Creating better bonds between coworkers,” Dongwoo came up with an excuse. But as he’d reveal later on to the couple, his suspicions had begun right then. It didn’t matter that they were dating other people. It didn’t matter that Jinyoung was dating his good friend. Right then, he had a feeling that Sunggyu and Jinyoung would end up together.

And they ended up alone together later that night. Some undercooked meat that he had for lunch disagreed vehemently with Sunggyu after the meetings had finished. He wasn’t able to eat dinner with the rest of them and later excused himself from the table when he wasn’t able to control his nausea anymore. But he didn’t go straight to his bedroom. Instead, he went outside, to replace the smell of food with fresh air and to cool himself down from the sweat that had broken out all over his body. He was feeling terrible. Not only were his insides at war with the rest of his body, but judging by the laughter coming from inside, everyone else was having a good time. And here he was, sitting alone on the porch outside. Sunggyu sighed and reached into his back pocket to pull out a carton of cigarettes.  

“What are you doing?” It was Jinyoung. She closed the door behind her and walked over to him. However, she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were on the carton instead. Her hands on her hips. “I thought you said you felt sick.”

“I do” he insisted. “I think I ate something bad.”

“So you feel sick to your stomach, and you think smoking will make you feel better?” she pointed out. When Sunggyu averted his gaze away from her, she sighed. “I shouldn’t have to tell you that it won’t. Smoking…isn’t good for you. Or smells good. I don’t want to smell like smoke.” The last part was a poor reason, and she knew it. Her voice dropped lower and she slurred her words as she sat down besides the other.

“Fine,” he gave in and set the carton down.  

Jinyoung was surprised it’d worked. If that worked, maybe this would too. She put her own hand out and demanded he do the same, “Give me your hand.”

“I put it down!” Sunggyu exclaimed and pointed at the carton besides him.

Jinyoung shook her head. “Hand!” she insisted again. “Put it here.” She pointed at her hand extended towards him. And he did so, but slowly and with great caution, which was fair, because the next thing Jinyoung did was pull a rather large needle from her pocket.

Sunggyu scoffed, “Are you seriously going to prick it?” He tried to move his hand away from hers, but she held onto it with a strong grip.

“Yes,” she answered cheerfully as she searched for the right spot on his hand. Where am I supposed to do this again? Knowing him, I probably have one shot to do this.

“You came out here to prick me?” he was still in disbelief, which was good because it meant that he was distracted.

“Yes.” There!

“To draw out my blood?”

“Yes,” Jinyoung replied and stuck him with the needle. He yelped, and she ignored it as she applied pressure to the spot. “See? Do you feel better?” she asked.

Sunggyu was silent for one, two seconds and withdrew his hand. “A bit,” Jinyoung thought that he was just being polite by saying that. However, his body soon revealed the truth. When Jinyoung heard it, she tried her best to keep a straight face, but then the smell hit her. And she flinched, horribly, at the stench, which made her break down into laughter out of embarrassment for the both of them.

“Do you feel better now?” she tried to break the tension, just like Sunggyu had broken wind. But he just hung his head. “It's okay! Kim seonsaeng-nim! It's natural! You feel sick! I'd be worried if you weren't farting.”

“Eh?” He raised his head a bit to glance at her.

“Because you might be constipated then,” she joked.

Sunggyu’s head fell back down. “Can we please stop talking about this?” he pleaded.

“Okay,” Jinyoung relented and bit her lip to stop herself from laughing. Quickly, she tried to think of something else to talk about, and all she could think of was the needle in her hand. “I wonder where I could prick you to help you stop smoking,” she mused and showed the needle to the other.

“Do you think that spot even exists?” the doubt was dripping from his voice. He sounded tired and his eyes dropped back down to the carton.

“Oh!” Jinyoung gasped at her new idea. “I could just prick you every time you try to smoke! Negative reinforcement! You'll stop in no time.”

“No! No more poking!” Sunggyu fought back and slapped her hand down. “I'll report you to the principal if you do. So don't you dare,” he threatened.

She put the needle back into her pocket and sighed as her eyes went up to the stars. “It was a joke,” she replied quietly. But it wasn’t a joke. It was a mood killer. Sunggyu was silent, and so was Jinyoung. Yet in spite of the silence and awkwardness growing between them, she still sat there and didn’t leave. A solid minute passed like that, and soon after Jinyoung felt the other’s gaze on her. She, however, kept her eyes on the stars.

“You've never talked about me smoking before,” he brought up. Jinyoung tucked her lips into . Well, honestly they’d never really talked so openly before. Because they’d joked around so much today, Jinyoung felt as if they’d gotten closer. And now, perhaps, she was acting closer to him than they actually were. But maybe Sunggyu wasn’t so bothered by it. “Did it always bother you?” Jinyoung looked over at him and nodded. “Why?”

“Just because,” Jinyoung tried to leave it at that, but Sunggyu stared at her, waiting for her to give him a real answer. “I worry.” That’s all she’d say about that.

“About me?”

“About everyone,” it wasn’t a lie. She did, but perhaps she worried more about some than others.

“There's no need to worry about me,” Sunggyu responded. Jinyoung felt for a second like she acted too familiar again, but then he continued, “This will pass and I won't do anything to aggravate it, I promise. So you can go back inside with the others.”

Jinyoung still didn’t move. No, instead she settled more into her set on the porch. “Actually,” Jinyoung began her first confession to him. “I'm sort of using you as an excuse to get out of drinking. I'm just not in the mood for it tonight.”

“Hm?” Sunggyu turned towards her. “Why not? Do you not drink?” he asked.

“No I do. It's just...” Jinyoung paused. She didn’t know how to say it, and a part of her didn’t want to say it or admit it. Alcohol, though, would bring those admissions to her lips and right to Dongwoo’s ears, who was the last person that should hear that she has doubts about her relationship with Howon. Her and Howon had gone on an overnight trip a few weekends ago, and, well, it gave her a lot to think about.

“It's just what?” Sunggyu prodded her.

“I don't want to say things that I'll regret. I have a lot on my mind right now and if I drink, some of that will come out,” Jinyoung was being as vague as she could, while still giving a satisfying answer. “So can I stay out here with you for a little longer?” she ended with a question.

“Oh, yea. Of course,” he answered, and Jinyoung was really glad that he didn’t tire of her yet. Being outside like this not only saved her from a potentially awkward situation, but it was also a beautiful night in general. You couldn’t see stars like this in the city.

“What is it? What’s bothering you? You can tell me,” looking back on their relationship, this was the moment when Jinyoung realized how nosy Sunggyu was. And it took her aback.

“I...I don't think I should. I don't want it to go around,” she stammered.

“You're not thinking of quitting, are you?” he guessed, quite loudly too.

“No! No, no, no,” Jinyoung adamantly denied. “It's something else. It's personal.”

“Are you dying? Sick? Sad?” he kept guessing.

Jinyoung shook her head. “Nope. I'm well,” was all she would say.

And the nosy man became the annoyed man. “Fine,” he grumbled and looked back up at the sky. He made Jinyoung worry again, but he soon distracted her from it. He farted again. It took her by surprise, and she started laughing. “Stop laughing. It isn't funny!” he was even more annoyed now.

“Okay,” Jinyoung was still laughing as she said that. It took her awhile for her to calm down because the look on his face would send her into a giggle fit again. Sunggyu tried to look intimidating, but what Jinyoung felt at that moment was far from fear. So she suggested, “If you really want to know…”

“I do,” he interjected.

“It’s about my…love life,” she finally revealed with some difficulty.

“Oh,” Sunggyu seemed like he might back away from the topic with that reaction. Talking about love life might be a bit too personal for them right now. But he then came back with another question instead, “Are you still seeing the guy Dongwoo introduced you to?”

“Yes.”

“How's it going?”

“It's going.”

This time he was the one who sputtered into laughter and Jinyoung was the one to glare. “That's just an odd way to put it,” he defended himself, still laughing through his words. He then took a deep breath and calmed down. “Come on, obviously something is bothering you about the relationship,” that left Jinyoung speechless. She’d left the others, afraid that she might say something that she’d later regret, with alcohol loosening her lips. But instead, Sunggyu was acting as her alcohol. How did she end up in this position? “You’ve guys have been dating for a while. Are you thinking about advancing the relationship?”

“Something like that. I mean we went on a trip recently together, and it’s…giving me a lot to think about,” Jinyoung tried her best to remain sober under his influence. She didn’t want to admit more than that.

Luckily, Sunggyu knew that this was their limit. “Ah, so it’s like that.”

“Yes.” Jinyoung wondered how far she could push him, how much could she influence him. “How about you? You're seeing someone new. How is that?”

Sunggyu cocked an eyebrow. “How did you know?”

But he already knew the answer (one second later) and said it with Jinyoung: “Dongwoo.”

“And I overheard you talking about it,” Jinyoung added. It was hard not to overhear things in that office, or so she told herself. “But I don’t know much about her.” Did saying that make her seem less nosy? She hoped so.

Sunggyu let out a deep breath before saying, “My mother introduced me to her. It's one of her friends’ daughters, who happens to live in Seoul. Mom really wants it to work out between us and has been trying to get us together for awhile.” His eyes went over to her. “She's a prosecutor.”

“Oh, wow,” Jinyoung gasped. “She's really smart.”

“She is,” he agreed. “She’s smart. She makes good money, and she has good manners.” He ticked off each quality on his fingers. “So there's a lot of pressure to get this relationship to work.”

“Does your mother want you to marry her?” she guessed. From the way he was acting, Sunggyu had marriage on his mind. Jinyoung wasn’t any different though. After a certain age, marriage has to be considered in every romantic relationship.

Sunggyu was at that point too. He nodded. “She even went to a fortune teller to predict how compatible we were,” he revealed with a slight laugh.

Jinyoung couldn’t laugh with him this time. “That's serious,” she muttered softly. “It's a lot of pressure.”

“It is,” he agreed. It was hard for Jinyoung to tell how he was faring under that pressure, if he wanted it himself or not. But he was caving into another pressure, one that was boiling in his intestines. Jinyoung winced again. It seemed to be getting worse.

“You have a lot of pressure in your belly too,” she teased.

“Stop!” he urged and gave her a light shove.

“What? I didn't laugh this time!” she argued. However ‘this time’ was soon over and she was giggling again.

“Now you are!” he pointed out.

“You're making me laugh!” she put the blame on him. The blame really lied in his expressions. So exaggerated.

“How?” Sunggyu sputtered into a laugh too, but it was more out of disbelief than hilarity. He clicked his tongue at the other. “You’re strange.”

“Yes, I can be,” Jinyoung admitted with little shame. It made him laugh again, but it died almost as soon as it started. And now they were just staring at each other. Sunggyu really looked unwell. “Do you want something more effective for your stomach? I don’t think the prick did anything,” she suggested and she was already getting up from her seat. He needed something more. She couldn’t ignore it any longer.

“I guess I should,” he muttered.

“I’ll go with you,” she offered. “We can go back to that store.” She was about to leave, but then she felt a tug at the hem of her shirt.

“Okay. Hold on, wait for me,” he grumbled. But he didn’t let go of her. Instead he used her as an anchor when he got up with a groan. “Okay, let’s go.”

She stared at him for a moment. The hand fell away, but the touch could still be felt there. Jinyoung narrowed her eyes on him, trying to figure something out. “Was standing up really that difficult?”

“Don’t make fun of me,” Sunggyu whined again and began walking away from her.

“I’m not! I’m worried,” Jinyoung shouted back as she followed after him.

Not much more happened that night. They went to the store. Sunggyu spoke to a pharmacist and got the medicine he needed. And Jinyoung picked up a few late night snacks for herself. When they walked back to the pension, it wasn’t in silence but they didn’t say much worth noting. But it was still nice. And it gave Jinyoung much more to think about that night.

And she was still thinking the next morning on the bus. She was one of the first to get on because she wanted to sit near a window and continue thinking. Headphones were already in her ears, blocking out the outside world and allowing her to focus on what was going on inside her head. So she didn’t hear what he said clearly.

“I’m saving you.”

“Hm? What?” Jinyoung muttered as she pulled out the headphones and watched Sunggyu sit by her.

“I’m saving you from sitting next to the Bull,” he whispered and pointed over to the front of the bus. The last two to get on were Dongwoo and Jinyi. If Sunggyu had sat with his friend, like he did on the way there, Jinyoung would have to sit with the Chinese teacher, again. But Sunggyu changed up the seating arrangements by getting on the bus first.

“Oh! Thank you, I seriously mean it,” Jinyoung said after realizing the situation. She couldn’t stomach another long ride next to Jinyi again, who had either lectured her or bragged about herself the entire time.

“It’s too early to deal with her, isn’t it?” Sunggyu remarked.

“It’s more like too long,” she amended. They both snorted and shook their heads at how true that was.

“So,” Sunggyu moved onto another topic. “Did you call Howon last night?”

“No,” Jinyoung answered and she quickly added, “And he didn’t expect me to.” She didn’t want to seem like a bad girlfriend by not wishing her boyfriend ‘good night.’ He never called her to tell her that either. “That’s just how we are.”

Sunggyu got it. “Sounds similar to me and Yeonwoo. Uh, she’s the prosecutor-daughter-of-the-family-friend girl,” he confessed. He then shrugged. “I didn’t call her either.”

“When could you? You were probably on the toilet the whole night,” Jinyoung spoke so matter-of-factly that once again, Sunggyu was in disbelief. “I’m not wrong!”

“No, but you’re crass,” he retorted. He was apparently tired of feeling embarrassed and decided to poke more fun at her, “So you don’t talk to your boyfriend all night until you fall asleep?”

“Not this one,” she answered honestly. “He’s not much of a talker. He’s more of a…thinker.” It took her awhile to find the right word to describe Howon, and ‘a thinker’ was quite right. You could just tell that much more went on in his head than he was willing to divulge. That characteristic honestly put Jinyoung on edge a lot. Why was he holding back? What was he holding back? She couldn’t always tell.

“A thinker?” Sunggyu thought her wording wasn’t right either.

“He holds in a lot,” she explained a bit better.

“Hm, interesting,” he hummed in response. He cocked his head. “Somehow I can’t imagine you with a ‘thinker.’”

“I’ve been told that I’d match well with a quiet person because I like to talk,” she revealed. And she had been told that from nearly everyone she met. It was also one of the reasons why Dongwoo had set them up to begin with.

“I guess,” Sunggyu didn’t seem as convinced but he understood because…“That’s sorta why my mother thinks that I match well with Yeonwoo. She’s a bit too serious.”

“Too serious? How so?”

They talked about their relationships for the rest of the ride and bonded over how similar they were: two talkative people that were paired with quiet, a bit awkward partners. It was a pairing that was often successful. You could see the pairing in dramas and out on the streets in real life. But Jinyoung didn’t know if it was for her. She didn’t think Howon was for her. She came to that conclusion when the bus ride was over. She didn’t think it was right that she had a more enjoyable time these past two days talking to her colleagues (Sunggyu) than she did on her ‘romantic getaway.’

Sunggyu, on the other hand, appeared to grow more confident in his own relationship as their conversation wore on. “Mature, adult relationships are just like this,” he commented multiple times during the ride, “they aren’t like they were when we were younger.” Priorities in relationships changed. They were less about romance and more about reality. A good, stable relationship didn’t mean it'd be the most passionate.

Yeonwoo must be a good match then, Jinyoung had concluded at the end of the ride. She felt jealous.

So it came as a great shock when Sunggyu broke up with her.

At the time she found out, Jinyoung herself had been single for nearly two months. Breaking up with Howon took multiple attempts. Jinyoung had never dumped someone before and she’d been failing miserably at it. In fact, she failed. The one to finally say “Let’s break up,” was not her but Howon. Jinyoung was relieved that he did. Not only did she not have to say those words, but Howon felt the same way that she did. They had a mature and respectful relationship but it wasn’t just without passion; it was loveless.

Sunggyu had come to the same conclusion about his own relationship. He could not foresee a marriage or a life together with Yeonwoo. He had been more decisive in his break-up. It took him only one night to do it. And that particular night happened over a month ago and Jinyoung hadn’t known. It took her a whole month to hear Dongwoo and Sunggyu whisper about it in the office.

But Jinyoung wasn’t the last to hear about Sunggyu’s break-up. His mother was.

“Why haven’t you told her yet?” Dongwoo hissed.

“Because she’s just going to yell at me, and either try to convince me to get back with her or to set me up with someone else,” Sunggyu defended himself.

“Do you not want to be set up with someone else?” the other replied. Jinyoung stood up from her seat. She went to put things away in a cabinet closer to the two men. She didn’t need to do that right now, but she needed to hear more of this conversation.

However, she wasn’t as stealthy as she thought she was. “What do you think, Jinyoung-ie?” Dongwoo directed the question at her. She spun around to see the two men watching her and waiting for an answer.

“Huh? What do I think about what?” she feigned ignorance.

“Do you think that Sunggyu should let his mom set him up with someone else?”

This was probably the moment that they both of them would acknowledge that their ‘some’ started. They were both single. They were interested in each other and were already being teased by their colleagues for it. Dongwoo looked really pleased with himself for dragging Jinyoung into the conversation, even in spite of Sunggyu’s glares.

“No,” Jinyoung responded as a reflex and then quickly explained herself when the boys looked a little too piqued by her answer. “I mean, he should do it if he wants to, but it doesn’t seem like he does. Do you want your mom to set you up again?” she put the focus back on Sunggyu.

“No. I want to choose for myself,” he said to her.

“Oh,” Dongwoo interjected. “It sounds like you have someone in mind already.” The two stiffened.

“I do not!” Sunggyu raised his voice, getting offended. He then went back over to his desk. “I need to concentrate on work now anyway. We have musical practice and…”

Jinyoung went back to the cabinet and stopped listening. The noise inside her head drowned out whatever was going on next to her. He broke up with her? Why? I thought they’d…

“Jinyoung-ie,” Doncgwoo called out to her again. “Do you think you’ll ever get involved with the musical?”

Jinyoung raised her eyebrows and closed the cabinet. Apparently the men switched topics, from relationships to the musical that they were doing. Last year, it was Beauty and the Beast because of the movie that had come out. And it intimidated Jinyoung to even consider being part of a production like that. “Why would I? I teach History, and I don’t sing or dance,” she excused herself.

“There’s more ways for you to get involved,” Sunggyu replied. “You could help out with stage managing or the lights.”

Jinyoung didn’t want to say ‘yes.’ “I don’t know,” but she didn’t want to say ‘no’ either.

“Maybe not his year, but you should join us next year,” Dongwoo suggested. “It would be fun!”

“Maybe.” Jinyoung didn’t know what the future would hold. She didn’t even know what to think at the moment. Things that she had previously thought weren’t true, which made her reinterpret and reevaluate the last month or so. Her mind was slowly breaking down, trying to process all of the updates.

For the next year, Jinyoung kept processing, analyzing, overanalyzing. But wasn’t that what a some was? It feels like you’re mine, it seems like you’re mine but not…I don’t like you, don’t like you these days. But I only have you. Or however that song went. Jinyoung had hope some days. She tried to be rational some days. Other days she was irrationally rational. She tried to convince herself that she didn’t like him just in case he didn’t like her back. Sometimes she found herself hoping that Sunggyu would find another girlfriend so that she could feel comfortable talking with him again. It was safe having a secret one-sided love.

Except for the fact that it wasn’t that much of a secret and sometimes Jinyoung was a little too comfortable with Sunggyu. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have made fun of his pancake , joke around with him so much, or open up to him about Yewon.

For that reason, today seemed usual and ordinary to everyone in the office. Sunggyu and Jinyoung were flirting again, and they all had to make copies of worksheets before class started. It was that mundane. They were that mundane.

Jinyoung wouldn’t let that bring her down. Today was extraordinary to her because today Sunggyu was hers and she was his.

But regardless of the fact that Sunggyu was hers, she still had to work, and she didn’t see him for most of the workday. However, unlike other days, she couldn’t wait for the day to end and for them to see each other again. Honestly, recently she’d been dreading those moments, fearing that she’d mess up. But today wasn’t like those days before. She was confident in herself and in them.

She even felt confident right now. She had gone into the bathroom to change from her work clothes into the old, holey (and now paint-stained) clothes. It’s not that she looked good, but it was the fact that it didn’t really matter. Sunggyu already kissed her as Grandma Cat Hong and nothing could be worse than that. So she smiled at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and then walked out.

Barely a second later, she walked back into the bathroom. Grandma Cat Hong should never be her standard of attractiveness. She could put a bit more effort into her appearance. So she redid her hair and make-up and then left.

She was glad she did because she ran into Sunggyu soon in the hallway.

“Hey, are you busy now?” he asked her but his eyes were on the students around them. Classes had just ended, so they were getting ready for after school activities, much like the teachers were. But they still had some time to spend together.

“No. Why?” Jinyoung asked in a low voice, even though she knew what he’d ask.

“Come with me. Let’s talk for a bit.”

“Where?” that one was a genuine question.

“Somewhere where we can be alone. Is there a place like that?” he had no idea. He just knew that they had to get out of the hallway and away from the kids.

Jinyoung had an idea. “I think I know just the place.”

There was a staircase at wing of the school where the administrative offices were. The students rarely went down there during the school day, and so with classes finished, there shouldn’t be any students nearby. Besides, staircases, well, they were notorious meeting places for secretive activities.

Not like her and Sunggyu were going to do anything like that. They just wanted to be alone, and they didn’t have much time. It was the first place to pop into her mind and so here they were.

Jinyoung opened the door to the staircase and then closed it immediately. “Okay, this isn’t the place!” she hissed to the other. “Let’s go!”

“Why?” Sunggyu had asked her but he went to discover the answer for himself. He opened the door and closed it too. He turned to her wide-eyed. “We shouldn’t have seen that.”

Staircases were notorious for a reason. What they saw, Jinyoung could only describe it as Jiyeon and Joochan practicing for rehearsal later. She could only describe it as that because she only saw enough to recognize who they were before closing the door. “Do you think they’re dating?” she whispered to Sunggyu as they scurried down the hall.

“You definitely shouldn’t have seen that,” he retorted. “Let’s go to the roof. It’s cold today. No one should be up there.”

This time, Sunggyu took the lead. He jogged up the staircase, ahead of her. Jinyoung heard the rooftop door creak open, but she couldn’t seem him. Until a second later when he was hurrying back down the staircase. “No, not here either! Go!” he hissed and passed by her.

“What? Why?” she asked as she followed him down.

“Kids were screaming things from the roof,” Sunggyu revealed. “Aish, I thought people only did those things in dramas. Don’t they know that everyone can hear them?”

“Wait.” Jinyoung stopped. “People can?”

Sunggyu stopped too and looked up at her. “It’s not like you’re shouting into a vacuum,” he explained.

“Oh.”

He chuckled. “What’s with that reaction? What did you do?”

Jinyoung started down the stairs again. “I’ll tell you some other time,” she said as she passed him. “Let’s go.”

“Right, but let me go ahead,” Sunggyu responded and soon overtook her down the stairs. “I think I know where we can go next.”

A classroom, any secluded, abandoned classroom. That was his new plan, and they wandered aimlessly down the halls until they found one. Well, until Sunggyu found them. Jinyoung was a several steps behind him, watching him check room after room. She found it cute how earnestly he’d been looking. And she was also curious what exactly he’d been looking for. Several of the classrooms that they passed would’ve worked in her opinion. But Sunggyu had a particular room in mind and the chemistry lab was it. Before going into the room, he signaled for her to follow him, which she did, eventually. Jinyoung was still playing that they weren’t together, in case some stray eyes were watching. She slowed her steps, checked out a few posters that she passed, and initially walked past the lab. But then she quickly retracted her steps and darted into the lab.

Once inside, the lab surprisingly still looked empty, even though she’d seen Sunggyu come in. But soon she saw his head poke out from behind a large cabinet. Jinyoung let go of her breath and went over to him. Now she understood why he chose this room. In this lab, in this spot behind the cabinet, there were no windows. If someone poked a head in, they wouldn’t be seen. It was a good hiding spot. No one could see Sunggyu pull her into a hug.

“Long day?” Jinyoung asked lowly as she the back of his head, which was resting on her shoulder. She felt it nod under her fingers. “You tired still?”

“Eung,” he grunted. “We walked everywhere.”

“We did, but we’re finally alone now,” she said. At that he pulled away, but the both of them were still holding onto each other. It had taken them this long to find a place. They wanted to make the most of it.

“Yea, we are,” he whispered. He left a light peck on her lips, and then pulled away, showing off his grin. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she said right back. She then tilted her head and smiled too. “How was your day?”

He sighed and shut his eyes tightly at the memory of his day. “It was alright,” he concluded. His eyes opened and he continued, “Trying. The kids weren't listening to me. They just wanted to fool around. It was frustrating.” While he was talking, his fingers were twirling the strands in her ponytail.

And Jinyoung’s own fingers were tracing his jawline. But she’d been listening. “Hm, I bet. Sounds like a frustrating and long day,” she responded. After a bit, Sunggyu raised his chin away from her and took her hand into his.

“Very long,” he admitted as his gaze dropped to their hands. He sighed again. “And it's still not over.”

Jinyoung grinned and she was sure that her smile could be heard in her words too, “No, it's not. We still have the musical.”

“Yea,” it was obvious that he didn’t want to think about the musical now. So he changed the topic: “How about you?”

“Me?”

“Eung. How was your day?” he asked. “Did your friend call?”

Jinyoung now dropped her eyes, to their hands. She squeezed them. “Yea, she did, during lunch,” she mumbled.

“I figured,” from the sound of it, he was smiling now, but Jinyoung didn’t want to raise her head to see it. Her head felt heavy now, along with her heart.

“She cried again,” she said. “I don't like making her cry. I don't want to make anyone cry.”

“I know you don't,” a chuckle laced his voice. “You didn't mean to though. You don’t make her cry.”

“I know. I just feel weird about it,” Jinyoung lamented. “She says she's happy. She sounds happy, and then she bursts into tears.”

“That's not because of you,” Sunggyu insisted, but Jinyoung wasn’t really convinced. Deep inside of her heart, she didn’t think it was a coincidence that Yewon just happened to cry whenever they were on the phone together, especially when she claimed to be happy moments prior. “You make me happy. Very happy. I’m not going to cry,” he tried to cheer her up.

Jinyoung finally raised her head and her arms too, wrapping them around his neck. “I don’t want you to cry, ever,” she whispered.

“I won’t…Well, I’ll try not to,” he half promised, and it made Jinyoung snort. As a ‘thank you’ she kissed him softly. Had this been a normal day, she would have left it at that, but this day wasn’t normal, nothing about this was, hiding behind a cabinet of an abandoned lab in the arms of her coworker. It was all unusual and thrilling.

It was also probably not the best idea to be making out with him in the middle of the school with students still milling about. Maybe because they found each other in a high school, but it felt like she was falling for the first time. Since this feeling felt so new and fresh, she was willing to give into it and make mistakes.

She wasn’t quite sure why sunggyu was acting like this though. Normally he had a been sense of propriety too. But now he had her pressed up against the side of the cabinet and was kissing her just as passionately too.

Just because they were adults, it didn’t mean that they had to accept relationships without passion. It was something that the both of them hadn’t felt in a long while, and so it felt almost new to them.

Then time was up. The lab’s lights . Frightened, the couple jumped, and Sunggyu had separated himself from Jinyoung a bit too forcibly. She hit the back of her head against the wall of the cabinet and yelped in pain. Apologetic, Sunggyu put his hand behind her head and brought it to his chest, petting it.

It was too late. The intruder already heard her. “Is someone in here?”

The couple knew exactly who the intruder was. They pulled away a bit from each other. “It’s Dongwoo,” they mouthed.

For a moment, they rest their foreheads against each other, before Sunggyu took a step back and motioned at her to wait where she was. “Yea, it’s me,” Sunggyu announced as he walked out into the middle of the lab.

“Oh thank god it’s just you!” relief soaked through his words. “I thought it was a ghost! What are you doing in here?”

“Ummmm,” Sunggyu scrambled for something to say and found nothing. “I’m not too sure.”

Jinyoung, who had been holding her breath, afraid of being discovered, accidentally made her presence known by hitting her elbowing against the cabinet. “Who’s there?!” Dongwoo’s yelp covered her own.

“It must be that ghost you heard earlier,” Sunggyu concluded.“Let’s get out of here. We need to go to practice anyway.”

“O-okay,” Dongwoo stuttered, and a few seconds later, Jinyoung heard the door shut. The men were gone.

She let out the breath finally and counted to ten before stepping out from the cabinet. It should be safe for her to leave now, or so she assumed. But Dongwoo burst through the lab’s doors again.

“Oh, uh, hi! What are you up to?” Jinyoung stumbled her way through an attempt to act casual.

Dongwoo stepped slowly into the room, watching the woman with a coy smile. “I left my phone in the lab,” he said. He went over to the table in the front and picked up his phone. He then turned around to lean against it. “So, when did you die to become a ghost? What’s your grudge?”

“H-huh? Beg your pardon?” Jinyoung stammered.

“You left a bit of ectoplasm on Sunggyu,” Dongwoo revealed. He then pointed at his lips.  “Right here.”

Jinyoung couldn’t believe it. “Again?!”

“Again? What do you mean ‘again’?” Dongwoo , laughing.

Jinyoung couldn’t take any more of this. “I need to go supervise the art club,” she declared and made for the door.

But she couldn’t escape Dongwoo or his teasing. He followed her. “You guys need to be more careful!” he lectured. “Or do you want to be obvious? Do you want everyone to know that you’re…”

“Sh!” she cut him off with a hiss.

They wanted to hide it from the students, at least until they’ve settled more into the relationship. The students already gossiped enough about their Snuggly. She didn’t want to give them more to talk about, not yet. It was hard enough already with just Dongwoo knowing.

At the same time, it was hard for them not to be obvious. Jinyoung could never act. And Sunggyu hated to be ignored. So how was she supposed to act like they weren’t dating?

Jinyoung shook her head. She didn’t want to think about this anymore. She just wanted to continue enjoying this day and this newfound feeling. So she sent one last glare to Dongwoo before she rounded the corner in the hallway.

She picked up the pace after the turn. Art club was starting soon. As someone who was normally five minutes early for things, she already felt like she was running late.

But she could still afford to spare a moment.

Sunggyu was outside one of the dance rooms, taking attendance of the students as they filtered through the door. “Hello, Kim seonsaeng-nim!” Jinyoung greeted him as she walked by.

She didn’t make it very far because he’d grabbed onto the hood of her sweatshirt and pulled her back in front of him. When she was, his hand went to the back of her head, touching it lightly. “Is your head okay?” he asked.

“Yea, it’s good,” she answered with a nod. With a guilty smile she revealed, “You got something here.” She pointed at the spot of lipstick on his mouth.

“Again?” he whined and then wiped his mouth roughly.

“I’ll work on it. Sorry,” she apologized.

“It’s okay,” he replied after lowering his hand. “Dinner?” The request sounded so casual, as if they did it everyday. It made her cheeks grow warm.

“Yep,” she chirped.

“Okay.” He then gave her a slight push down the hall. “You’re going to be late.”

“No, I’m not!” Jinyoung argued, but she did feel like she might be. She was walking backwards down the hall. “I’ll come by later!” she promised and then jogged all the way to the auditorium

She wasn’t late, as usual, even on a day like this one.