"'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

- Lord Alfred Tennyson

CHAPTER 3:

The bell for last period rang. Students from every classroom immediately piled out of the room, eager to breathe from those suffocating lessons they’ve encountered. 

Yoona is still at the classroom, sitting at her desk. The room is deserted except for her. Head turned at the window; she’s been like that for the past few days. She talks to nobody, seeing yet unseeing those who are around her. Her classmates have tried to approach her, but looking at her face, her unsmiling expressionless face, they all turned back.

“Shouldn’t you be out now miss?” a voice rang through the room. She turned her head towards the source of the sound. It’s the janitor, but he’s not looking at her now, his attention is diverted towards the window. “it’s raining, how one can actually predict the weather these days.” He sighed. He was talking at himself now. “Miss, I think you should prepare your umbrella”. He then walked away.

Yoona slowly turned her head to the window, stared hardly at those droplets of water from the sky. Her chest hurts as memories came flooding through her again....

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She was sitting at her desk by the window, staring blankly at the dark sky laden with heavy rain. The room is packed with students, talking and whispering to each other. Probably gossiping about me again,Yoona thought.

Her classmates are like that ever since she stopped hanging out with them, ever since she became the “robot” of the class, uncaring, unsmiling.

Of course they “understand” her behaviour. “That’s her way of coping up with the pain” one student would declare, and everyone would gradually agree.

But NO.

They will never understand her; they will never fathom the excruciating pain she felt after seeing the bodies of her parents, both dead, at the middle of the road.

They weren’t there. They were not there when a massive truck came amiss, when the driver couldn’t control the vehicle and hit both of her parents when they crossed the road.

It was not there parents, it never happened in front of their own house, in front of their own eyes.

“I pity her. I know it’s really hard” a girl whispered.

She couldn’t bear any longer the whispering of her classmates. She’d had enough. She suddenly stood up, making her chair clank loudly at the floor. Silence fell through the entire space.

Yoona lifted her bag and immediately went out of the room, and into the open field. She did not mind the heavy rain which drenched her body. She shivered at the cold, but again she did not mind. She wanted to get away.

Full of her own thoughts, she did not notice the umbrella that was already shielding her from the rain.

“You should have brought your umbrella with you”.

Yoona bolted her head up, stunned at the boy who were holding the umbrella. She was completely unaware of his presence.  When she recovered, her shock turned to anger.

“Get away from me!” she ran. But the boy caught her hand.

“Get your hands off me” she threatened. She’s so angry she felt like she would explode.

The boy did not let go. “You’ll get sick if you do this, here take this.” He handed down the umbrella and was about to run back to school when he faced her again and smiled brightly, his smile reaching his eyes.

“By the way, I’m Donghae from class C.”  

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Siwon is walking along the hallway of the freshmen’s floor. He needs to be fast, or else he will be late. As the basketball captain, he needs to be present at the new recruit’s orientation.

He looked at the window, then at his watch. Its ten minutes before 5 o’clock. When he reached a seemingly open door of a classroom, he instinctively turned his head and saw a flash of blue, then continued to walk. He stopped in his tracks when he processed that the flash of blue is in fact there school uniform.

He retraced his steps. Seems like the entire floor is empty except for that person. Why is that person still in here? Or is it a ghost? He chuckled at his own thoughts. He reached the door and looked inside. He saw a girl sitting by the window looking at the rain, as if she was fascinated or probably annoyed by it. He was about to ask her why she was still in the classroom, alone, when she suddenly turned her head and stared at him.

He stayed rooted at where he is standing. He recognized the girl. She was the person he bumped a few weeks back. But it wasn’t his recognition that made him stand rooted and stared at her back. It was her eyes, the same lifeless eyes he witnessed before.

But the difference is that he saw, even mild, the flicker of an emotion. It crossed her eyes in an instant, but it didn’t escape his sharp eyes. Her eyes showed pain, of longing, of grieving, as if she remembered something so painful, so excruciatingly painful, that even her empty eyes mirrored it.

She suddenly stood up; her actions brought siwon back from his thoughts. The girl obtained her bag, and walked past the room and past siwon. She didn’t even look back.

Siwon just stared at the girl. Still startled, again, at what he just saw. She was running now, so fast she immediately reached the main exit, ran past it and proceeded to the ground, all drenched in the heavy rain.

Siwon was half aware of it, but he decided to ran, and followed her.

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Yoona ran as fast as she could. It has been two years, yet everything; everything is as clear and as painful, as if it just happened yesterday.

His voice, his face, his smile. Everything reminds her of him.

Oppa, I thought I died the day you left me, but every time I remember everything about us, about you, I die all over again.....Umma, appa, why does it hurt like this?

She ran and ran, ignoring the water and mud soaking her very clothes.

Then out of nowhere, someone caught her hand and spoke.

“ you should have brought your umbrella with you”

She was stunned.

Those words......

...donghae oppa...