2.00 a.m.

“You scored 70% this time,” Minsun handed back the quiz papers she had prepared and marked for Wooyoung. Wooyoung and the others, Junsu and Gohee perked up when they heard of his marks. Well, that was to be expected after a week being tutored by the ‘geeks’ as Wooyoung earlier called them; not anymore once he was dragged into this intensive studying. They were more like tyrants now, especially Minsun. She had kept him awake for continuos nights since they started. She allocated a strict 3 hours sleep for Wooyoung in the evening, so he could burn the nights oil along with Minsun and Junsu. On weekends, Gohee would spend the night there too.

“You did it, Wooyoung!” Junsu slapped his junior’s back.

“I can pass my exam like this!” Wooyoung beamed like a little boy.

“I’m sorry to say this but not yet,” Minsun quickly interferred before Wooyoung started to daydream of scoring all A’s. Gohee softly chuckled to herself, knowing what Minsun was going to say next.

“For memorizing selected notes for questions I selected, you should have been able to score 100%. At this rate, there is still no guarantee that you could even score 50% for your exam.”

Wooyoung’s bright expression fell flat within seconds. “You sure are good at making people feel bad aren’t you?”

It was Minsun’s turn to laugh, surprisingly. Junsu couldn’t held in his laughter too, but was still on Wooyoung’s side.

“It doesn’t hurt to give him a little hope, isn’t it?” Junsu asked.

“No, this guy should be aware of his level, or he might gave away studying thinking he could score 80% already,”

Wooyoung narrowed his small eyes at Minsun. “I hate you, Seo Minsun!” Wooyoung pouted and turned his back on Minsun. However, Minsun just smiled. The whole week they had spent together had created a closer bond between them. There had been more than a dozen of instances when Wooyoung sulked and said he hated Minsun. Of course he would return to his normal, cheerful self right away when Minsun rewarded him with his favorite ice cream whenever he complied to her instructions like memorizing notes and staying up all night studying. He would always express his gratitude for the ice cream, yes, the ice cream, not the tutoring, by blurting out things like ‘Oh, thank you so much Minsun! You’re the best friend ever! Not even Munhwa had ever treated me to ice cream!’.

Junsu patted Wooyoung’s shoulder a couple more times as an attempt to comfort him.

“Let’s have a break, shall we? I’ll get us all a cup of cold juice,” Junsu said and then left the room.

“Good idea. Let’s have a 10-minutes break.” Minsun added.

Wooyoung turned to the table again and then started to casually flipping through his text books, ignoring Minsun who sat across him.

“Aren’t you going to take a nap or something?” Minsun asked gently. Sometimes she did feels a bit guilty for forcing him onto studying. Now she understood more that some people are just not made for studying, but they are totally good at something else, just like Wooyoung and his basketball and sports. But she shouldn’t get it into her head. All of them need to hang on, at least until Wooyoung passed his reseat exam.

“Not sleepy,” He simply said, not looking at her, still sulking.

Gohee smiled like a mother watching on her child.

“Take it easy, Wooyoung. We’ll move onto the next subject after the break,” Gohee gently advised him.

“Okay,” Wooyoung still continued flipping through his textbook. He began to scribble something onto the hadwritten notes Minsun gave him, adding his own remarks and notes. It wasn’t long until Junsu came with a tray of orange juice and a little snacks.

“Here you go guys,” He said while distributing the drinks to everybody.

“Thank you, sunbae,” Minsun said as she received hers.

“Is Taecyeon really okay with you spending nights and days with Wooyoung like this? You guys haven’t really seen each other this week.” Junsu asked casually, but that was not the case with Minsun. She choked a little on her drinks, which caused her to cough a couple of times. Gohee reacted quick to her motherly instinct and rubbed Minsun’s back instantly. Minsun couldn’t stand it when people with Taecyeon. Especially now that people were convinced that they both were going out, from that picture they took at theme park, wherever she goes, she will always heard whispers about her and Taecyeon.

“W-What do you mean? Sunbae, you do know that we’re just pretending don’t you?”

“But you guys like each other for real, right?” Gohee slipped in. Wooyoung who was looking bored before started to pay attention to their conversation.

“No, I…” Minsun looked down, feeling embarrassed, “I don’t have such feelings towards him.” 

Minsun felt a bit burdened to tell the truth, even though she wasn’t sure of Taecyeon’s feelings towards her because practically evrybody in school thought they liked each other. By the time Minsun claimed so, Gohee seemed the most surprised. She became quiet and her eyes looked lost as she got occupied with her deep thought that nobody knew.

“But Gohee, you said she likes someone from the basketball team. That’s why she came to every game, is that right, Minsun?” Junsu took his turn to interrogate Minsun.

“She does?!” Wooyung suddenly blurted his question in an exaggerated, unnatural shocked expression.

“Well, Minsun pretty much ignored everything going on at school except the Mathemathic Club and the basketball team. I really thought it was Taecyeon though…” Gohee still seemed surprised, but she also felt kind of uneasy because she knew the fact that Taecyeon was interested at her. Minsun probably didn’t know though. She never had any experience with dating and was ignorant about the idea of it most of the time. Underneath her nonchalant, cold appearance, she was just still an innocent young girl.

“Then who it is?!” Wooyoung nosily slipped in his question.

“Shut up.” Minsun said softly, but looking a bit stiff. 

“Hey, I was just asking!”

“Wooyoung ah, let’s not push her, okay?” Others might not see it, but Gohee knew Minsun didn’t like how the conversation was turning into and that she wasn’t comfortable with it. Gohee tried to make them drop the topic and used gentler tone which she always uses whenever she tried calming a person down. 

“So he’s from the basketball team?”

“Stop it, Wooyoung!”

“I’m going to find out for sure.”

Minsun stood up abruptly, looking angry. Some of the books on the table flipped over and the stationaries fell from the table. MInsun was always composed and quiet, but that was the first for all of them, even Gohee, to see her becoming that angry. Her breathing became faster and irregular. Her face red. Her chest heaved up and down heavily.

“Y… Yah, you know I’m kidding right?” Wooyoung tried to lighten the atmosphere.

“Minsun, are you okay?” Gohee asked, looking worried.

“I… I’m going to wash my face,” Minsun fleed from the room and quickly went to the bathroom.

Gohee seemed worried, and she too got up not long after Minsun left. 

“I’m going to check on her,” she said and left. Which left the boys alone in the room. Junsu and Wooyoung looked at each other, weren’t sure of what to do.

“I think…” Junsu paused, thinking before he continued, “You did it.”




Minsun splashed cold water on her face multile times before she looked up and then stared at the mirror above the sink.

Why was she like that? Why couldn’t she control her emotions better? She shouldn’t let emotions took control of her, or it would be difficult later. 

Knock, knock.

“Minsun?”

“Gohee unni,”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. You guys go ahead, I’ll be back soon,”

“Okay. Come back quick, okay?”

“Okay, don’t worry,”

Minsun hung her head low and sighed. She shut her eyes tight and told herself,

“Seo Minsun, get a grip.”




Miryung High
2.00 p.m.

It was finally the day of Wooyoung’s reseat exam. He had been locked in the empty classroom with his homeroom teacher, finishing up 6 papers that he failed on the last mid-term examination from the morning. Even though the basketball team he was in did well, Wooyoung still had to at least pass his exams. The principal gave him another chance to pass his exams or he would be banned from any club actvities for the rest of the year.

After he was finished with all the papers, Wooyoung bowed to the teacher out of courtesy before he weakly walked out of the classroom. He felt a little stuffy and dizzy for sitting the whole day forcing his brain to work on six different subjects continuosly. Wooyoung swung his arms around, to loosen his stiff muscles as he walked towards the end of the hallway, heading outside the building.

“Hey, Wooyoung,” Munhwa waved to him. She was waiting outside for him, but she wasn’t alone. There was Taecyeon, Jaebum, Junho, Chansung, Junsu, Gohee, and even Minsun smiling at him.

“How did it go?” Taecyeon asked and threw an orange colored ball to Wooyoung. Despite being surprised that they were all there waiting for him, Woyoung caught the ball perfectly, showing the results of practicing daily.

“Well… it wasn’t as difficult as the midterm… I guess,”

They all looked at each other and smiled. Taecyeon sent Chansung a look, and the junior understood right away.

“Let’s go to the gym, guys!” Chansung shouted excitedly.

Wooyoung who seemed confused before began smiling widely.

“I’ve been wanting to loosen up my muscles like crazy!" Wooyoung ran to them with the ball in his hand.




That evening, the boys were just playing happily. Taecyeon wasn’t shouting like an instructor from the military nor the boys had to push themselves with extreme workouts. Just like a bunch of happy kids, they just played a game carefreely. Despite the lack of sleep, Wooyoung seemed to be enjoying the game so much, and the rest of the members seemed to miss him a lot. Chansung kept pinching his cheeks and they all picked on him a lot during the game, but he looked the happiest right now than last two weeks.

On the other hand, Minsun stayed quiet and sat at her usual spot, holding onto her exercise books and calculator. She watched their game, and smiled gently whenever the guys broke into a loud laughter. Suddenly, Munhwa blew the whistle loud.

“Guys, let’s take a break,” She announced. Gohee prepared some home made snacks for them, and the boys rushed to her. She kept them under control by handing them each a piece of paper plate with the food already put in it. However, someone wasn’t as excited as the other boys. Unlike how he usually was around Gohee, Jaebum looked a little awkward that day. He cleared his throat before he took a seat by her side. Gohee was still distributing the food for the boys and wasn’t paying attention to him at all. Jaebum raised his hand to accept the food but Gohee quickly handed the plate to Taecyeon, which left Jaebum feeling embarrrased that he was still being ignored by her since her birthday and his failure event. Taecyeon raised an eyebrow at Jaebum but there was nothing he could do at the time. Of course, the hoobaes saw that too, but they rather keep themselves away from Jaebum’s affair when things weren’t going well between them.

Wooyoung looked around to look for Minsun, and childishly grinned at her when he saw her smiling. But then, he realized that she wasn’t smiling at him, because her eyes were stuck at both Gohee and Jaebum. She was smiling, her eyes gentle like a mother watching over her children at their interaction. 

Was there a meaning behind that smile?




8.00 p.m.

“I’m on my way to her house,” Minsun said into her phone while she walked down from the bus stop towards a residential area nearby.

“Are you guys finished yet?” She asked into the phone.

“Yes, we will be soon. You can ask her to come now,” Taecyeon replied in his phone. He was half-hugging what seemed like an old, unstable, folding ladder and on top was it was Wooyoung, his legs shaking from either the unstable ladder or his fear of height which he strongly denied. He was holding somekind of wire, and tried to put them onto a tree. It was really dark in the middle of the park, so he couldn’t see well.

“OUCH!” Taecyeon yelled when something hard hit his head from the above. He quickly looked up.

“WOOYOUNG!”

“It wasn’t me! The hammer fell by itself from my pocket! If you need compensation then you should ask from Jaebum hyung!”

“I heard you!” Jaebum yelled from a distance away from Wooyoung, doing the exact same thing as he was doing.

“Are you okay?” Minsun asked out of concern.

“Yeah, but it really stings.” Taecyeon gently rubed the spot. He was lucky that the hammer was small and it was the that hit his head, not the head of the hammer or he probably wouldn’t be alive by then.

“I’m here already. I’ll call you guys again when we arrived.” Minsun said and then hung up. 




“Unni,” Minsun smiled and waved at Gohee who had just came out from the apartment building. After giving her a call, Minsun waited outside for Gohee to come down.

“Oh, Minsun ah. Did you wait long?”

“Not at all. Let’s go,”

The two girls caught a bus heading to a park nearby their school. Minsun told Gohee that there will be a Light Festival there, it was so beautiful and tonight will be the last.

“But I never heard of the festival or seen the poster anywhere.” Gohee expressed her curiosity at the sudden existing of the festival when she never even heard of it.

“I didn’t either. Munhwa told me because her friend was one of the participants in the festival.”

“I see,”

It only took 10 minutes until they took off from the bus. The bus stop was right beside the main entrance of the park, but there was no sign of any Light Festival. The park was dark, with occasional street lamp lit up at random spots along the paved path.

“Minsun, are you sure it’s here?”

Minsun kept a straight face which she normally displayed most of the time. 

“I’m sure it’s here. Munhwa said she’s here too. Unni, you wait here, I’ll look for her.” Minsun finished her line in one breath and then ran off into the dark park. Her silhouette moved as swift as a wild rabbit hopping off into the shrubs and gone behind black trees.

“Minsun!” Gohee was caught off guard and lost track of Minsun. It was so dark that she couldn’t really distinguish between a person and a flower shrub. She walked slowly along the paved path. She pulled out her mobile phone and called for Minsun.

“Minsun, where did yo go?” Gohee sounded a little annoyed. Minsun never acted that way, so it was all strange and suspicious.

“Unni, I found the place, come here,” Minsun told her.

“Where is it?”

“Just follow the paved path,”

“But I don’t see any lights,”

“Just keep walking forward,”

“Minsun, where are you right now exactly?” Gohee started to feel frustrated at Minsun’s uncommon display of behavior, but she kept going forward nonetheless.

“Just keep walking, unni,”

“Minsun-”

It was as if time stopped. As if she wasn’t standing on Earth, like she had somehow stepped on a warp portal which brought her into a magical land, at least that was how Gohee felt when suddenly all the trees around her lit up with warm, orange LED lights on them. Each tree was decorated with the mono-colored Christmas lights, as if thousands, if not millions of fireflies rested on them, on each bark, each trunk, each leaf.

“M… Minsun?” Gohee talked into her phone, but she realised that Minsun had already hung up, probably for quite a while. She kept her phone back into her tote and slowly turned around, enjoying the beautiful scenery while trying to catch a glimpse of any human being, and there it was. A face, a beautiful face smiling at her. He almost looked like a child, smiling like that with both his hands in his pockets, but Gohee knew he was so much matured and loving than those pair of innocent, mischievous eyes he owned.

“Jaebum?”

His smile widened.

“I know it’s really late, but happy belated birthday,”




Taecyeon who was squatting low behind a thick bush with Wooyoung, Munhwa, and Minsun raised his hand and made a quiet high five with Wooyoung. A wide, satisfied smile plastered all over their faces. They, together with some more boys from the basketball team had been working on the lightings since noon.

“I’m glad it all worked out. You have horrible acting skills, I thought you might give away the surprise plan,” Wooyoung managed to complain in whisper. He slightly turned his face to the side to see Minsun who crouched behind him.

Minsun narrowed her eyes at him.

“She trusts me, so it doesn’t matter if I can act or not. That’s why Jaebum sunbae asked me to bring her here in the first place,”




“Quick! Quick! Take a picture or record this!” Chansung eagerly nudged Junho who was also squatting behind a bush not far from Taecyeon.

“But, isn’t that violation of privacy rights?” Junho whispered back to him.

“Nah. Jaebum hyung will thank me later, trust me. He can show the video to his babies or grandchildren later.”

Junho stared blankly at Chansung for a few seconds before he pulled out his handphone. “Good idea,”




“Jae, did you do all this? All…” Gohee took another look at her surrounding before she rested her sight onto Jaebum’s handsome face again.

“I tried to finish it by your birthday, but couldn’t, so I purposely made you mad at me so that I can surprise you later,” Jaebum’s grin widened, it was so fun watching her got mad, but then it was quite a pain when Gohee didn’t even want to talk to him for two whole weeks.

“You did?” Guilt started to fill her chest. All the memories of when she gave him the cold shoulders from the past two weeks came flooded her mind. Him doing this for her, her treating him badly the past two weeks, and him still smiling so lovely like that despite all those were pushing tears at the brim of her eyelid.

“Are you feeling guilty?” He chuckled as he stepped closer to her.

“Jeez, nappeun nom,” Gohee smiled at him while playfully hitting his abs.

“Well, I tried to do this earlier, but we were all so busy. And then you were caught with that certain guy’s problem and had to be with him the hwole past two weeks…”

Wooyoung choked ath the word ‘certain guy’.

“So I guess there was no better time than now,”

“Are they here? The other boys?” Gohee suddenly was aware of their privacy.

Jaebum shrugged. “If you kiss me, I’ll tell you,”

Gohee shot him a mean glare but oh, God knows how much Jaebum loved that look. He loved teasing her, especially at how she hated and embarrassed at any kind of public display affection. Only after they entered high school Jaebum managed to convince her that it was okay for them to walk together or hold hands or sat by each other on the bench whenever she came to see his practice because everybody else knew that they were together.

“Don’t play around,” she warned him.

“Or should I kiss you instead?” Jaebum took one step closer but Gohee stepped back and started to show her anxiety if it really was true that the other boys from the basketball were there, watching them. Afterall, it was Minsun who brought her here so Minsun must be somewhere nearby too. She kept searching left and right, but there was nobody in sight.

Jaebum sighed, but still smiling in bliss. He raised one hand and placed it on her cheek, rubbing it gently with his thumb. That always calmed her down. Sometimes he would even do it with both hands. Gohee’s focus returned to him again, and she started to enjoy the moment where only Jaebum and her exist.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“Do you like it?” He asked.

She nodded in his hand. “It’s very beautiful,”

“I can do this for you every year if you want to; if you could promise me one thing,”

“What is it?”

Jaebum rested his forehead on hers. He whispered, so that Nobody could hear them, “Promise me that you will stay together with me like this… Forever.”

Gohee nodded. “I promise,” She whispered back, smiling.

Slowly, Jaebum leaned closer to her, closing the gap between them as his lips met hers. Gohee started to relax and enjoy the precious moment of her and him. She felt so blessed as he wrapped his strong arm around her thin waist, while the other s around her neck.

Gohee was so happy that she met him. At the young, innocent age of thirteen, he was such a bully who harrassed her everyday, whom slowly became nicer and sweeter to her before they became best friends. Later, everyone was whispering to each other that they were going out even though they never thought of it, but eventually, they started to when Jaebum suddenly leaned into her and kiss her on the night before Christmas. It all happened in a short time, a year, but neither expected that they would actually found their other half in each other, and they couldn’t even think how would they do without each other. 

She was so happy that they were still together.

She was so happy to realize that she was in love with him, and so was he with her.




“Damn that Jaebum! Such a show off,” Taecyeon whispered to himself. 

“Why? Jealous? Don’t you want to try?” Wooyoung taunted while giving Minsun some kinf of look. Minsun sneaked a pinch on Wooyoung’s waist, hard. The boy almost yelped, but he didn’t fortunately. As gentle as he looked, Jaebum could be just as scary as Taecyeon when he was mad and Wooyoung couldn’t imagine what he would do to him if he ruined his moment with Gohee.

However, after the pinch, Wooyoung realized that Minsun wasn’t looking. Everyone was excited at Jaebum’s public display of affection, even Munhwa, but Minsun wasn’t looking. She either stared at the ground or turned her face to other direction.

“I can’t wait to get out!” Munhwa whispered to Minsun excitedly.

“We’re going out?” Minsun asked her back.

Munhwa nodded enthusiastically. Then she started to explain,

“Jaebum sunbae will give a signal to us, and then we will all go out with a birthday cake.”

“Have you seen the birthday cake? It looks delicious. I can’t wait to have it!” Wooyoung slipped in.

“You can’t! It’s for Jaebum and Gohee sunbae!”

“What the-”

While Wooyoung and Munhwa were bantering with each other, Minsun looked a little down. She looked at her watch, and seemed like her mind was elsewhere. Taecyeon realized this and asked her,

“Minsun, what’s wrong?”

“…Sorry, but I have to go now.” Minsun gave them a quick bow and then carefully left without being seen by Jaebum or Gohee. She left so quickly that Taecyeon and the others there were left dumbfounded. However, Wooyoung started to feel suspicious towards her.

“Is she alone?” Taecyeon asked Wooyoung, who didn’t reply back. Taecyeon was about to get up and go after her but Wooyoung pushed him back. Wooyoung instantly faked a laugh and made up a lie.

“Er… I forgot that my parents want me to be home early today so I’ll just send her home on the way. 
Bye!” Wooyoung crawled away from the bushes and then got up at a darker spot and quickly ran after Minsun.




He ran hard, not wanting to miss her, but it wasn’t hard to catch up. She was walking straight towards the main entrance without ever looking back again even though she knew that someone was running after her.

“Minsun!” Wooyoung shouted. But she wasn’t looking back. In fact, she fastened her steps.

“Minsun!” Wooyoung ran faster, “Yah, Seo Minsun!”