Junghye turns to look at the pink-haired male with a stoic face. He grins, sitting next to her. “Looks like peasant has a boyfriend,” he comments, looking at the direction of the school gate. “Never knew that someone like you will be able to score a partner.”

 

She sighs softly; the mood of wanting to continue watching the sky dissipates. Her hand reaches for her bag and stand up. She walks away from the male and almost collides into a male who was training for track and field. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he apologizes, holding onto her arms to prevent her from falling.

 

She nods, indicating that she was fine and he releases his grip, both taking a slight step back from one another. “Yah peasant, you should stop flirting with other boys!” the peach-haired teases and she stiffens slightly.

 

She continues walking, not wanting it to affect her. When she was about to reach the school gates, someone stops her gently. The grip on her wrist makes her look at the owner. It was the same male who bumped into her. He was slightly out of breath, having sprinted across the whole field despite her simply walking across it. 

 

He regains his breath and straightens up, “I’m sorry.” 

 

Her eyes widen as she feels utterly confused and her head tilts. “For Daniel’s actions,” he explains and she nods before smiling slightly, bowing slightly. Again? “He didn’t mean it.”

 

She forces a smile out and he sighs, noticing it. He sticks his hand out, his other hand in his pocket, “I’m Kim Sanggyun.”

 

Her hand reaches for his and shakes it lightly. “You’re Choi Junghye,” he says before she could introduce herself. “You’ve made yourself a name by putting that sticky note on Hyunmin’s table. I’m not even from the school and I heard about it.”

 

He smiles and she returns a shy smile. “Yah! Kim Sanggyun!” a voice yells for him and he turns around to make some gesture.

 

He turns back and excuses himself, promising to meet once again to get to know each other better. She watches him resume his training as an unsettling feeling appears within her. It bugs her that more situations like this will happen over time, sensing a pattern. She releases a breath then walks out of the school grounds, prepared for the remaining hours of the day.

 

As time went by, Hyunmin and Junghye got closer, playing and joking around like siblings. But in the eyes of everyone else, they were a couple. In between the happy times, Daniel will pop up every now and then, teasing her about her social status if not, he completely ignores now but recently he has started to build interest against her.

 

She finds him endearing to some point and amuses him from time to time with her words or a flicker of emotion. It just brought more teasing especially whenever Hyunmin and her were spending time together. Daniel’s group of friends would join in from time to time while his fangirls giggles along with his teasing, sometimes hanging off him. 

 

It was slowly becoming a habit that whenever Daniel will about her social status or ruin her things, different males from across the school years will apologize for his actions. But what made her even more puzzled is that none of the males that apologize to her was from Daniel’s friends' group but people she never expected him to hang out with.

 

She always nodded, assuring that she was fine but inside she grows weary of whenever Daniel is around. If he were to do anything, they will apologize for something they never did. She wasn’t sure if she felt better with their apologizes or more guilty. With this, she concluded that Daniel wasn’t mature enough.

 

“Junghye!”

 

The latter turns to see Hyunmin bouncing up and down whilst maneuvering between students as he tries to catch up with her. She remains in the same position, ignoring other students’ looks and whispers about the both of them. He catches up to her with a smile, his hair bouncing around, “Let’s go!”

 

She returns a small smile as they both head for the canteen. Both of them found a sanctuary for themselves a few weeks back in the corner of the canteen where most students avoided for its slightly worn down tables and chairs, opting for the newer ones installed by the school. Junghye heads for the seat first and studies the language book in front of her to pass the waiting time.

 

Hyunmin finally sits across her with a smile, cooing over the food. She smiles at his antics and places the book aside after marking where she left off. She took out her lunchbox and takes off the lid to reveal plain rice balls with a small strip of seaweed to accompany it. As he digs in, wolfing down almost everything at one go, she picks up the rice ball and nibbles into it as she flips open the book once again.

 

He swallows and glances across to her, noting her daily routine. “Yah,” he calls out and she looks up from her book. “Is that enough?”

 

His chopsticks point to her food and she looks down to the plain, poorly made rice ball that was bland-tasting. She looks up to make eye contact and nods before smiling slightly. She shifts to lowers his chopsticks, giving him a scolding look as he sheepishly smiles back, mumbling an ‘I’m sorry’. She returns to her book as he returns to wolfing down his seemingly never-ending meal.

 

A hit to her arm makes the rice ball fall to the ground, immediately scattering as it rolls away from her. Her eyes lay on the hardly touched rice ball before looking up, eyes glaring at whoever done so. Kang Daniel. She glares, having enough of his teases of her family background. “Oh. Mian,” he says mockingly, moving over to pick up the basketball.

 

She stays silent; not wanting to speak for she knew that she would start cursing. Hyunmin has his eyebrows knitted together, a disapproving look on his face. Fists forming as he grips the utensils in his hands tightly. “I’m sorry that peasant can’t buy herself some food,” Daniel continues with a smirk.

 

She stands up, the chair screeching against the floor. She continues to glare at Daniel as she walks out of the canteen, everyone’s eyes on her. She enters her classroom and returns to her seat. She slams her book down, not caring about saving the page. Her eyes are squeezed tight and her hands are curled into fists on top of her thighs.

 

She refuses to cry.
She refuses to cry.
She r-refuses to cry.

 

Her teeth immediately find her lower lip, biting down hard to prevent the hot tears rolling down her face. Never in her life did she think she would be emotional in school, not that she was emotional anywhere else. She simply had wished for a peaceful life in this prestigious school where she stays in the shadows and graduates with the grades she needed and she was out. But Kang Daniel was making her life way too hard. She didn’t do anything to him and her mind cannot wrap around how he was like and only towards her.

 

She buries her face to make it look like she was sleeping if anyone were to look in the classroom. As her mind whirls with questions and thoughts, she doesn’t notice someone walking in carefully. It was only when something was set on her table, she shoots up to see a male with a baby face. She quickly wipes off her tears, looking at the table.

 

“Noona…” the babyface calls out and her heart warms slightly, remembering her of something. “I’m sorry for Daniel hyung’s actions… He shouldn’t have done that but he doesn’t mean it, Noona. Please forgive him.”

 

There it was. She smiles bitterly, albeit slightly forced. As if sensing her emotions, he winces slightly. He bows once again, uttering another apology and then pushes the bread towards her slightly. She accepts it with a nod, unwrapping it. But when another apology came, she stops, staring at the younger male.

 

He looks up slightly to see her staring at him and his eyes immediately dart to the ground, another muttered an apology. “Are you apologizing for him or for looking up,” she asks in a low tone voice.

 

“B-Both,” the younger stutters, feeling a little intimidated.

 

“You don’t have to apologize for either,” she states and he hesitantly straightens his back. “The consequences happened by one person should be burdened by that person. It shouldn’t be bored by people who were never involved in such affairs. You have nothing to apologize for, Lee Woojin-ssi.”

 

Woojin freezes slightly at the cold tone. “N-N-Noona, I j-“ he tries explaining but was cut off by her hand.

 

She stares down at the bread, hand still in the air. She breathes out, eyes closing momentarily. “If it is Kang Daniel that caused the pain of me and it clearly should be him standing in front of me, apologizing, why are you doing so? Lee Woojin-ssi, I don’t see you hanging out with him and there hasn’t been anything going around the school about both of you knowing each other,” she says with a hard tone, wanting to the truth.

 

“Too many people have come to me apologizing when Kang Daniel should be the one doing so. I hope to not receive any more of such apologies. If Kang Daniel is really apologetic and if you are his friend, get him to apologize to me, personally,” she states indicating the end of their interaction.

 

Woojin seems to get the message and bows before scurrying out to the classroom. Junghye sighs, slightly tired from the interaction. She looks down at the bread, taking a bite out of it. How much longer does he want other people to clean up the mess he makes?