Areum was roaming around the school looking for her little friend.

 

“Where could she be? Aish, that kid. The break is almost over but she hasn’t eaten yet.” She ended the unanswered call and frowned at her phone. “Hmm. Why do I feel another bull coming?”

 

“Oh my God, what to do? I can’t believe Jinhwan sunbaenim really asked me out!” Two girls passed by and abruptly Areum stopped in her track. Out of instinct, she reached out her hand and grabbed the girl by the shoulder.

 

“Kim Jinhwan?” Areum asked. “The fairy asked you out?”

 

Recognizing Areum as their senior and Jinhwan’s classmate, the girls turned pale and began to stutter.

 

“Ah… S-Sunbaenim… Um, about that–“

 

“Yes or no?” Areum rolled her eyes and tapped her foot impatiently.

 

“Y-Yes.” The girls bowed their heads. In their eyes, this one senior girl had that aura of a big bully who wouldn’t hesitate one bit to beat them up to a pulp – even though she was nothing close to that. Lee Areum was really all bark no bite.

 

Damn it. So this is the bull I felt coming. Areum clenched her fist and gritted her teeth. “Did he flirt with you?”

 

“…Y-Yes, sunbaenim.” The girls’ chins were then touching their chests.

 

“And did you flirt back?”

 

“No, sunbaenim.”

 

“Really? Don’t you know that he already has his own fairy?” Areum’s voice went louder. “Don’t you know who his Tinker Bell is?!”

 

“I’m- I’m really sorry, sunbaenim!” The junior girl, whom Jinhwan had flirted with, bowed deeply and tried hard not to tear up. “I know it’s Hyejoo sunbaenim, a-and I didn’t flirt back, I swear… but… but Hyejoo sunbaenim caught us–“

 

“!” Areum’s yell made the girls flinch in surprise. Before she could say anything further, though, the bell rang signaling the end of the break time. She left the girls without a word and marched her way to the homeroom with a certain fairy boy locked as a target in her mind.

 

Meanwhile, Hanbin was running after the small girl several meters ahead of him. “Geez, how can she run so fast with those cute legs?” He wheezed and picked up his pace. “Hyejoo! Wait for me!”

 

“Leave me alone!” Hyejoo yelled.

 

“I’m sorry, I really didn’t see you coming! Not because you’re small or anything, I-I just didn’t see you, I’m sorry!”

 

Hyejoo dashed into the female restroom and Hanbin had to hit the brake. He ran his fingers through his hair and tugged it in frustration. Then, he wasn’t sure whether he should stay there or go back to the classroom, since the bell had rung a while ago.

 

“Hyejoo, I’m going to wait here,” Hanbin yelled into the restroom. Luckily there was no one in there other than the little fairy herself. “Let’s go back to the classroom together. I’m still waiting.”

 

Hanbin paced back and forth in front of the restroom for what seemed like forever. When Hyejoo finally came out, he froze and gawked at the whole mess on her face.

 

“Hyejoo–“

 

“Be quiet.” Hyejoo walked past the stunned boy, who then followed her as soon as he snapped out of his trance.

 

“Did it really hurt?” Hanbin asked with concern.

 

“Like hell it did.” Of course what Hyejoo meant wasn’t the pain from falling on her , but the boy had no single clue about it.

 

“I’m really sorry.” Hanbin was about to pat her where it hurt, but then fortunately realized it wasn’t really a wise and appropriate thing to do.

 

“Stop apologizing, it’s not about that.” Hyejoo stomped her feet harder against the floor out of annoyance. At the moment, she could only think of how much he hated that boy who had toyed with her feelings.

 

“Huh? Then... what is it about?” Hanbin’s question was left hanging as Hyejoo opened the door to their homeroom.

 

“I’m sorry for being late.” Hyejoo bowed at the teacher before entering with the teacher’s permission. Everyone was looking at her flushed face and swollen eyes in concern, except for two people – Jinhwan, who was looking out the window, and Areum, who had her cold murderous gaze on the boy.

 

“Hanbin, what did you do to her?” Yunhyeong asked once the two were seated in their respective seats.

 

Hanbin looked around like a guilty puppy because of all the eyes trained on him. He whispered to the boy seated in front of him, “I bumped her and she fell, but she said it wasn’t about that.”

 

Areum heaved a long sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose, not knowing where to start to console her little buddy. She wasn’t really the best at it. Deep inside, she had that guilty feeling for having supported the two fairies to be together. All she could do at the moment was to hold her small hand and give it a comforting squeeze.

 

Meanwhile, in his seat at the back, Jinhwan was deeply questioning what he had just done. It felt like he had just made the biggest mistake in the whole seventeen years of his life, and yet, he kept reassuring himself that it was the only way to make his two beloved people happy. He believed that it all would pass, and his little fairy would be happy again with the right person who really deserved her. Not with him, whose heart might change easily. His blurry gaze remained on the empty field outside as he struggled to blink back his tears.

 

I’m sorry, my Tinker Bell... I love you.

 

 

Until school ended, Hanbin was still trying to get an answer out of Hyejoo. Not that he openly asked her about it all the time, but he wouldn’t leave her alone either. Hyejoo was too tired to even utter a single word to that particular fly buzzing around her head. Luckily for him, her big buddy came to the rescue when she was about to lose it.

 

“Let me take her home.” Chanwoo wrapped his arm around Hyejoo’s head and pulled her away from Hanbin. “Don’t worry, she’ll open up when she’s ready.”

 

Hanbin wasn’t satisfied, but what could he do? He sighed watching his old crush walk away with her best friend. That sight reminded him of his first encounter with her. It felt like ages ago. He couldn’t believe he was still as whipped as ever for the little fairy.

 

On the other side of the school, a certain tomboy girl had managed to corner her target. Her eyebrows were furrowed and her arms were crossed over her chest. It was clear how pissed she was.

 

“Don’t give me that bull.” Areum spat out. “How could you change your mind after you’re balls deep in this? Because you’ve waited too long, really? Do you think her heart is some kind of food that you can cancel at a restaurant because they take too long to serve it? Are you really that insensitive?”

 

Jinhwan sighed and looked away. “There’s no use talking about this now.”

 

“And you’re just going to walk away like nothing happened?”

 

“Yes. See you, Areum. Take care of her.”

 

Hands shoved in his pockets, Jinhwan walked away ever so calmly, leaving Areum alone with her gaping mouth.

 

“...Hey, ! You won’t get away with this, remember that! No one hurts my best friend and gets away with it!” Out of rage, Areum took off her shoe and threw it at the boy. It hit him square on his . The boy stopped in his track for a brief second.

 

“I deserved that.” And he continued his lonely way without looking back.

 

“Ugghhh!” Areum groaned and stomped her foot in annoyance. She wished she could just go and beat him up, yet she was smart enough not to get herself in trouble with the teachers. With one shoeless foot she went to get her abandoned shoe. Before she managed to get it herself, though, another hand had picked it up and handed it to her.

 

“Why is your shoe off?” Hanbin asked.

 

“I threw it.” Areum put her shoe back on hastily. “To kill an annoying mosquito.”

 

“Alright.” Hanbin shrugged. He had figured out that any violence done by this girl was nothing to be questioned about. “Ah, Hyejoo has left already. Chanwoo took her home.”

 

“That’s good.” Areum huffed blowing her bangs up. “She’d better stay away from that bastard.”

 

“Bastard who?”

 

“Who else? Your fairy chairmate.”

 

“Jinhwan?” Hanbin frowned. “What did he do?”

 

Areum rolled her eyes, already too annoyed even before starting. Nonetheless, she ended up telling him everything with some profanities sprinkled here and there.

 

By the time she was done, Hanbin had also lost his cool. The dance club president was equally furious.

 

“That idiot, what was he thinking? He had that chance I could never have, and he wasted it just like that!” Hanbin clutched his hair and shook his head in disappointment. “I thought he really had changed for good.”

 

“You could have fought for her from the start.”

 

“It’s too late now. She’s hurt already.”

 

Yes, apparently Bobby wasn’t the only one whom Hanbin trusted to know about his hidden feelings. As the closest person to Hyejoo, Areum was indeed objective and rational enough to give him advices that really made sense, although still the cowardly boy ended up not doing any of them.

 

“I’m going to talk to him.” Hanbin said.

 

“Yeah, do that. I tried to talk to him and he walked away.” Areum rolled her eyes. “He had left right before you came.”

 

“He may still be around.” Hanbin took out his phone and dialed his buddy’s number. “I’ll get going now. Please tell me if Hyejoo talks to you. Later!”

 

Hanbin jogged away and put his phone on his ear. Jinhwan wasn’t picking up his call. His instinct led him to the window, and when he looked outside, instantly he spotted a lone boy sitting on one of the benches by the field.

 

“There you are.” Seeing that the boy was getting up to leave, Hanbin ran down the stairs and towards the field in full speed. His heart was suddenly beating fast; he wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline from running or his bubbling anger.

 

“Hey! Kim Jinhwan!” Hanbin yelled to stop Jinhwan from walking away. Hearing his name, Jinhwan stopped and turned his head back.

 

“Hanbin? What–”

 

Jinhwan’s words were cut by a hard push on his chest. He stumbled a few steps back, yet quickly regained his balance before he could fall.

 

“Idiot!” Hanbin’s leg swung hitting the shorter boy on his thigh. “What have you done??”

 

Jinhwan was dazed for a moment until it gradually seeped into his mind; Hanbin had probably found out about what he had done to Hyejoo.

 

“What do you mean?” The smaller boy answered blankly.

 

“Don’t play dumb, you know what I mean! You were already so close to winning her, but your idiotic chose to flirt with a random girl! Have you lost your brain??” Jinhwan took steps back as Hanbin showered him with more kicks. “How could you hurt her like that?! She’s not a toy!”

 

“It’s my choice, please give some respect.” The soft-hearted boy felt hot tears stinging his eyes threatening to fall seeing his childhood friend being infuriated out of his mind. There was no doubt that angry Hanbin could be very frightening, but this was his very first time being the one and only target of his rage.

 

“A player like you doesn’t deserve any respect!” Hanbin yelled. Deep inside he knew he was going to regret what he said. And yet, at that moment, the teenager couldn’t hold himself back. He failed to see the wound reflected in his best friend’s eyes. “You’ll never find love if you choose to live this way! I thought you had changed, we all thought she was the right one to fix you, but you broke her instead! You dumb!”

 

 “Don’t call me dumb. You don’t know anything.”

 

Hanbin’s eyes went dark and his anger reached the top of his head. In a blink of an eye, Jinhwan was thrown to the ground, clutching his throbbing cheekbone in pain.

 

“I don’t have to know everything to know a selfish bastard. It’s disappointing that it has to be my own friend.”

 

Hanbin turned his back to the teary-eyed boy on the ground. He also knew that this moment was going to be something he would deeply regret. And yet again, he told himself, he deserves it.

 

“I’ve always been selfless to you. I’ll always be.”

 

Jinhwan’s words passed through Hanbin’s ears like a meaningless breeze as he walked away.

 

The crushed heart that was already in pieces crumbled into dust.

 

 

A week had passed, friendships among the group had started to fall apart. Jinhwan was no longer sitting next to Hanbin; he had exchanged seats with a loner boy who hadn’t had the guts to say no to him. Among the dance club boys, Junhoe was the one who still spent most of his free time with Jinhwan. Sadly they weren’t in the same class.

 

At times, Donghyuk and Yunhyeong would try to approach him and talk to him, although most of the time it ended up in awkward silence. Hence, the two sweet chairmates were always trying to find a topic for their conversation before they came up to him. Even though Jinhwan acknowledged and appreciated their effort, he just hated to burden them. So he always stayed away from them whenever possible.

 

So then his class had a new loner; Kim Jinhwan himself.

 

On the other hand, Hyejoo had also become quieter and colder. At times she even sounded like Areum and her sarcasm. The group’s Tinker Bell had learned the hard way not to open up and trust people easily, and the life lesson had transformed her naive self completely.

 

Witnessing her change really killed Jinhwan. Despite having been a big flirt, truthfully the young teenage boy might have been a big flirt, but truthfully just like Hyejoo, he was just a naive, clueless kid who had never experienced real love before. He just wished time would go faster and heal both her and himself. But he couldn’t control time. Cluelessly he tried to find other ways, which ended up making him feel worse and pissing Hyejoo off instead of healing them.

 

Whenever Hyejoo was around, he would randomly come up to a girl and show off his charm, and when Hyejoo had stomped away, he would ditch the random girl right away. Perhaps he just wanted her to see that he was doing fine, or perhaps he didn’t want his vulnerability and loneliness to show up in front of her. Either way, he knew he was doing it wrong.

 

Out of all the changes, the most apparent impact was on their dance performances as a team. Jinhwan would zone out every so often, and Hanbin would get annoyed easily because of his little mistakes. Their practices became tensed. Even Junhoe and Bobby’s attempts to break the ice couldn’t help it. Luckily they didn’t have any competitions to practice for at the meantime, otherwise, the core team could have been throwing fists at each other.

 

Then, Hanbin’s smile was no longer Jinhwan’s indicator of success during practice. Jinhwan knew that no matter how well he danced then, he still wouldn’t see Hanbin smile at him. The emotional boy had teared up multiple times thinking of it when he was alone – none of his friends had the knowledge of it.

 

On the other hand, after three years of unrequited love, finally Hanbin saw an unlocked door. Not open, just unlocked – there was no one to block his way to his crush’s heart anymore. He could just open it. But the problem was, the door was stuck. He needed to try as hard as he could to open it.

 

“As much as I want to keep her away from getting hurt by insensitive bastards, I want to see her smile again. Assure me why you won’t be another wrong person to trust.”

 

Seeing that everyone’s attempts to cheer Hyejoo up only turned into failures, Areum had come up with one theory: perhaps love could only be replaced with love. The place in her heart that Jinhwan had occupied before was then a gaping hole, and someone had to fill it to complete her again.

 

“My feelings for her have never changed in the past three years. You know that already. I also don’t flirt around, so I’m sure I can be loyal. No girls want to be with me anyway. I’m not insensitive, I care about people’s feelings... although I forget that during practice sometimes. But it’s a different case. What else... Uh, I know I’m ugly, but I have a good eye for fashion... Yeah, I guess. It can be fixed.”

 

Hanbin’s last weapon was an awkward grin. The cowardly teen felt like being interviewed and that he wasn’t qualified enough to pass. Nonetheless, he managed to earn Areum’s sympathy for casually admitting he was ugly.

 

“Please think of something to cheer her up.” Areum’s approval came with a helpless sigh.

 

Meanwhile, from Hanbin’s side, there was Bobby as the (not so) helpful wingman.

 

“You’re helpless. At least have a little charm. Yeah, you’re charming and all when you lead. But other than that, you’re a boneless chicken.”

 

“Why a boneless chicken?”

 

“Because you have no courage, and because chicken tastes good.”

 

“I taste good?”

 

“What? N-No. Just think of something to do! Write a love letter or something! Why are you asking me like I’ve tasted you before??”

 

“You called me chicken and said chicken tastes good! What else am I supposed to ask??”

 

Despite the random, irrelevant metaphor, Hanbin found Bobby’s carelessly-thrown advice pretty considerable; a love letter sounded safe enough to try. He’d just exclude his identity and replace it with “your secret admirer”, like the most clichéd way he had learned from old classic love stories.

 

Yup, that definitely wouldn’t make his target cringe.

 

 

"Hyejoo,

I'm sorry, I know a letter like this is old-fashioned, but ahh I'm too nervous to talk to you...
Since you bumped me on the train 3 years ago, I think I haven't been able to forget how cute the way you looked at me with your big eyes, or how cute your small lips were, smiling at me... I wonder why I could never approach you even when we were classmates.

Now that your Peter Pan has flown somewhere else, would you give me a chance? I know I can be a better Peter Pan.

With love,

K.H.B
Your secret admirer ^^

P.S. I'm pretty sure Peter Pan isn't a fairy though? I don't know why people call him that if he's the fairy."

 

Hyejoo stared at the letter with a blank face. No, she couldn’t say she wasn’t surprised, but the confession letter didn’t get the smallest bit of sympathy from her. The identity of the sender was nothing to be questioned about, for all the obvious hints were written there with no apparent attempt to keep it mysterious.

 

Hyejoo brought the letter that she had found in her desk’s storage out the classroom, while the so-called secret admirer got busy being jittery in his seat at the back. Face buried in folded arms on the desk, pretending to sleep or such, he kept one eye watching every movement of his target. His heart was thumping like crazy that he just wanted to flip his desk and scream.

 

When Hyejoo came back without the letter, though, his heart seemed to have stopped beating.

 

“Where’s the letter?” her chairmate asked.

 

“Threw it away,” answered the small girl nonchalantly, not having a care for the boy two rows behind her who heard it loud and clear.

 

“You did? Wow, you’re so heartless,” Yunhyeong remarked, “Really a poor guy. I wonder who it is. I hope it will never happen to me.”

 

“It will definitely happen to you if you also give your crush such a letter,” Donghyuk said, having a meaningful smile on his lips as he secretly glanced at Areum. “It may even get worse.”

 

“Ah, I thought a love letter would be sweet, though,” Yunhyeong said.

 

“You’re just old-fashioned, that’s all.” Donghyuk nodded understandingly and gave his chairmate a pat on