“Minsun ah, where are you?” Nichkhun sounded anxious at the other end. Minsun had a bad feeling from the way he talked. He was always gentle and collected.

“What’s wrong, oppa?”

Taecyeon started to pay attention to her conversation when her tone changed.

“Minsun ah… Halmeoni…”

“Halmeoni? What happened to halmeoni? Did she fall sick again?!”

“Where are you? I’ll come and get you right now,”

Minsun looked up and pulled away her phone from her for a moment and looked at Taecyeon.

“I’m sorry,” she said to him, but Taecyeon could understand her.




Minsun ran towards Nichkhun’s sport car, this time personally driven by him himself. She was waiting at a bus stop nearby the main gate of the theme park, accompanied by Taecyeon.

“Oppa!” Minsun said as her anxiety possessed her. She was too scared of what might come out from his mouth about her grandmother but she couldn’t wait to know what happened to her either. She repeated over and over again in her head asking God for his mercy and spare her her grandmother. She was not yet ready to lose her. Not now.

Nichkhun managed to steal a glance at Taecyeon before he heaved a small sigh.

“Get in first, quick.”

Minsun nodded and walked around the other side of the car. She opened the car door but paused before entering it. She sent an apologetic look at Taecyeon.

“Take care,” Taecyeon smiled a little as a way of saying that he was okay with her leaving.

Minsun nodded and entered the car to fill the front seat. 

It was only a matter of seconds before the car sped off, disappearing from Taecyeon’s eyes.

The basketball captain sighed as he kicked a small pebble in front of his foot. 

He didn’t realize that he still harbored such bitter feelings towards Nichkhun. He especially realized that when he felt a sense of dislikeness the moment he knew that they both were quite close. 




“Oppa, what happened?” Minsun asked again. Her face started to break out in a cold sweat. Nichkhun turned briefly to look at her, and then focused on the road again. He himself didn’t feel good looking at her wide, scared eyes.

Nichkhun tried to tell her but he didn’t dare. He opened his mouth only to close it again. The words were already at the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t spit it out no matter how hard he tried.

“Oppa, please, tell me!” Minsun started to sound desperate. Ever since her parents became busier and started to work and lived oversea long time ago, Minsun had always been with her grandmother. She was the one who taught Minsun how to be a lady, giving her wise advices and always supported her whenever she was feeling down. Her halmeoni was her everything, and she still needed her. She wasn’t strong enough yet to be on her own.

Nichkhun just sighed.

Minsun looked outside the window, watching the scene passing by in speed.

“Where are you going?” Minsun asked again when he took a turn at a place she least expected. “This is not where the hospital she usually goes to is!” Minsun added.

Nichkhun ignored her comments and continued to be engulfed in silence. Slowly, Minsun became familiar with the place they were going through. It was the residential areas for the higher up society, where all the big mansions and villas were. It was where her house was. Or more like the big empty building owned by her parents.

“Oppa, what’s going on?” Minsun’s tone got calmer. Nichkhun still kept himself quiet. He slowly entered into a private compound so familiar, yet so alien to her. It had been almost 5 years since she stepped on that very ground. 

Nichkhun turned off the engine and finally gave her a response.

He looked at her and smiled. 

“Surprise.” He said with a calm smile.

“W-What?”

Nichkhun got out of the car and quickly ran to the other side. Minsun waited for him to open the door for her.

Minsun started to think that this wasn’t about her grandmother afterall. But it might not be a good thing either.

As if it was the heaviest thing ever, Minsun pulled out her legs from the car and touched the ground with her feet. She could feel cold shiver running down her spine as she pulled herself out of the car and stood still on the stone paving. While she did so, she kept her head low. She knew what was waiting ahead of her, it wasn’t her halmeoni, but this, was not something she was ready for either.

When she finally readied herself, she finally looked up.

“Minsun!” A voice that Minsun almost forgot how it sounded in the first place shouted for her name.

Right there in front of her, standing in front of the tall, wide-opened door of a house she refused to call home were…

Her parents.

“Eo…Eomoni… Abeoji…” Minsun muttered.

“Oh, my baby!” 

Mrs. Lee ran to her daughter with wide opened arms, unable to contain her happiness anymore. It had been so long since she last saw her daughter and Minsun had grown so much. There was a little regret in the far corner of her heart that she wasn’t there to watch her growing up. 

Mrs. Lee finally got her hand on her daughter and crushed the young girl in her embrace. Tears started to pour out as emotions overwhelmed her. Her lips never stopped chanting Minsun’s name and how thankful she was that God gave her the opportunity to see her daughter again.

Minsun was the exact opposite though. She didn’t mutter a word, nor did she show any emotions at all. It was way beyond a shock to see her parents standing alive in front of her eyes.




2.30 p.m.

It was practice session as usual for the basketball team. Everyone was in a high spirit because they were aiming for national victory this year. Last year they managed to snatch second place at the final round. All the boys, clad in their training attire started the warming up session without being told. Everyone was stretching themselves, an important routine to avoid muscle injury during their harsh physical trainings.

“Seems like the date went well,” Jaebum started as he purposely sat nearby the captain. Since Taecyeon uploaded the picture he took last Sunday with Minsun on their date, his minihompy visits rose to triple the times of normal visits which was around 4000 per day. Now, everybody realized that he and Minsun were going out for real.

“Not really. It ended half-way, like a half-baked cookie.”

Jaebum chuckled at Taecyeon’s preferences with metaphor that relates to food.

“She had to leave, with Khun,” Taecyeon continued, emphasizing on Khun’s name, but making sure that it wasn’t loud enough for everybody around to hear him.

“Really?” Jaebum’s eyes widened. He didnt know that Minsun had anything going on with Nichkhun, Taecyeon’s born nemesis.

“Yeah. Apparently, their families knew each other. They were quite close. She left with him when he told her that her grandmother was admitted to the hospital. Everything was okay now though, from what she told me last night.

“Ooooh, so you guys talked on the phone at night now, huh?” Jaebum wiggled his eyebrow. Taecyeon hissed, warning him to stop.

“Yah, have you seen the replies? It’s crazy, you know!” Jaebum quickly changed the topic, still looking enthusiastic like before. 

Taecyeon sighed. “No... I was too nervous thinking about how people would react to it. I can’t bring myself to check on the guestbook... yet,”

Jaebum laughed again and patted Taecyeon’s back. “Good luck, friend.”

Taecyeon continued with the stretching and twisted his hip around, and looked at the back. He was surprised to see Wooyoung’s blank face there. He was sitting on the ground too but his head was leaning so closely towards him.

“GAH! What are you doing, Wooyoung! I don’t remember any stretching moves like that!” Taecyeon shouted in surprise.

“Er… hi, hyungs.”

“Were you eavesdropping?” Jaebum took his turn to ask.

“Eh~ why would I do that?!” Wooyoung faked a laugh. “I wasn’t! I was just doing the stretches, see?” Wooyoung demonstrated some stretching moves by bending his waist forward to touch his feet.

“Anyway, where is Minsun? Are you leaving her alone again?” Taecyeon asked in his strict voice that he used whenever he was conducting a drill practice in place of their coach. It was almost similar to an instructor in military training.

Wooyoung quickly shook his head. 

“She didn’t come to school today.”

“Really? Minsun?” Jaebum asked again.

That was strange, Taecyeon thought. She wasn’t the type to skip school, but she couldn’t be sick either because he had just talked to her last night and she sounded well.




Wooyoung found that the practice that day was quite a drag, probably because Minsun wasn’t around. Right when he found a new target to bully. Munhwa seemed occupied today bcause her friend came and they had been chatting for the whole time ever since.

Even Gohee nuna wasn’t around. Her kimbab last time was great. Sigh.

Practice session finally ended. Everyone had cram session later on, but since he was feeling a bit moody today he decided to skip tonight’s session. Wooyong went to the water cooler that was located at the end of the hall which led to the open entrance to get some drink, but realized something was going on outside when he heard soft voices talking back to each other.

“Stop avoiding me.”

That was Jaebum’s voice, Wooyoung could recognized it any day.

Wooyoung took a little peek and saw two people there, standing facing each other. It was Jaebum and Gohee, and they didn’t seem happy to meet each other. Gohee’s body was slightly turned to the side as if doing what Jaebum had told her just now, to stop avoiding him.

“Can you please tell me what I did wrong? You don’t even answer my calls, how can I know what happened?” Jaebum gently talked into her.

“You stood me up yesterday. Wasn’t that wrong enough?” Gohee finally spoke after sulking for a while.

“…I-I know… But that had happened before, and you weren’t this mad…” Jaebum’s voice slowly toned down as he spoke.

Aish, that stupid hyung. How could he standd her up on a date and asked her to explain what he did wrong? No wonder she got really mad. Why did she went out with him in the first place? Gohee nuna deserved much better. Jaebum hyung was always obsessed with basketball and spent more time practicing than being with her.

“You’re unbelievable. Don’t you remember what day was yesterday?” Gohee asked him this time.

“Yesterday… urm… Yesterday was…”

“Yesterday was my birthday,”

*Gasp!* Wooyoung’s palm flew to his mouth. How mean to not even remember your girlfriend’s birthday. What are you going to do, Park Jaebum? You are so dead, Wooyoung thought.

Jaebum was left speechless. Really? Yesterday was her birthday?

“I don’t want to be petty by bringing up issues like my birthday, it’s not the point anyway. What upsets me the most is the fact that you weren’t even apologising about it because you can’t even remember it!”

“I-I- I’m really sorry, Gohee. I was really tired the day before that, and can’t help but overslept…”

“You can tell in advance if you can not make it can’t you? And who was the one who asked me out that day? And who was the one who told you so many times that we shouldn’t because you might be too tired for a date? Do you know how much sandwich, rice, kimchi, eggrolls and kimbab I made gone to waste because you didn’t turn up? When I tried to call, you never pick up, and-” Gohee sighed. She really hated nagging. She hated arguing. And she especially hated explaining why she was angry, when she was currently.

“Gohee, I’m so sorry… I didn’t know you prepared so much, I… I won’t let it happen again…”

“Don’t talk to me until I’m not angry anymore!” Gohee turned around and left. Her steps slightly faster and more forceful than her usually graceful ones. Jaebum didn’t have the courage to stop her anymore watching how mad she was. Gohee wasn’t the type who easily got angry, he guessed she was at ‘the’ time of the month too and it was always not easy to get her calmed down again.

“Aish… how could he do that to her?”

“Who was that?!” Jaebum turned around and saw a glimpse of the little monkey before he nervously scrambled away from the crime scene.

“Yah, Jang Wooyoung! Were you eavesdropping on us? You’re going to be dead!” Jaebum shouted as he ran after the naughty little prankster. Wooyoung kept running without even looking back. However, the distance between them wasn’t advantagous to Jaebum and the older guy eventually gave up.

Jang Wooyoung will definitely be dead tomorrow.




Wooyoung panted as he grabbed his shirt on the chest. It felt as if the air in this whole world wasn’t enough for him. He thought that was the hardest he had ran before. Probably harder than when he was in a game. Was that the feeling to escape death? He was glad though that Jaebum missed him. Now all he had to do was to pray hard to God that tomorrow Jaebum would forget everything he had done today, even though that was unlikely to happen.

Wooyoung finally stood up and looked around. He wasn’t even thinking where he was going when he was running before.

He was nearby the female toilet at the ground floor of Block A, where his class was supposed to be. His class was on the first floor.

That was not good. He was supposed to skip cram session that night. He shouldn’t be around where his class was.

“Aw, c’mon! There has to be someone you like from the basketball team!”

Another voice! It was coming out from the toilet. And basketball team? Interesting.

Wooyoung hid behind a large column and waited for the girls to come out. It was Munhwa and her talkative friend from before. His excitement faltered a bit even though he was still curious and interested.

“Why don you tell me about yours first?” Munhwa asked.

“For me, it’s Wooyoung. Isn’t he the cutest thing ever? I really wanna pinch those cheeks of him!”

“Uh, no thanks,” Wooyoung softly muttered as he softly rubbed his full, soft cheeks with his fingers.

“What about you, Munhwa?”

Yeah, yeah. What about you, Munhwa? Do you happen to like someone from the basketball team?

“Ah, speaking about Wooyoung. Have you seen him? I bet he was going to skip tonight’s cram session.”

Ah, she knew me too well. Shouldn’t let her found me.

“Stop changing the topic! Tell me who do you like the most,”

Munhwa sighed. “Um… for me… it’s…”

“AHCHOO!” Damn! Why a sneeze all of a sudden, Jang Wooyoung? And does it have to be at the juiciest part?!

Both girls turned around.

“Jang Wooyoung! Where have you been?” Munhwa asked.

“Er… I was just…”

“Were you eavesdropping? And are you trying to run away? I’m not letting you! Your grades were really bad last time, you should study a bit more seriously!” Munhwa walked towards him and grabbed onto his collar before he was able to react.

“Yah! Yah! What are you doing?! Stop acting like my mother!”

“You’re going to the cram session tonight.”

DARN!!!