Hanbin would always disappear during lunch break, Jennie noted. While other students spent their breaks with their friends, Hanbin spent lunch away from Yunhyeong as she observes him joking around with a bunch of classmates. Jennie was extremely curious but was never courageous enough to act on it.  

One day, Jisoo urges her to go follow him. 

In Jisoo’s words, “you’ve already stalked him to the cafe and watched over his entire blind date, what can you be scared of now?” 

Jennie had no choice but to oblige. 

//

As usual, as soon as break starts, Hanbin grabs his phone and milk, and silently drifts out of class. 

The echo of students rushing off to the cafeteria to get their hands on the bread of the day radiated throughout the school hallway. Hanbin escapes the crowd by sneaking off and entering the emergency stairway. He hears the shuffle of his every step as he climbs up the cement-paven staircase leading to the  doorway towards the vast rooftop of the school building. 

It was his little secret. 

Besides Yunhyeong, no one else knew where or what he did up in the rooftop. 

Despite appearing as the overbearing and intrusive friend, Yunhyeong fully understood that Hanbin needed his time alone. 

Hanbin spends his lunch breaks on the roof top. In this dull confining world, the rooftop was a space that felt most free. He enjoyed feeling the wind flushed right against his face, the warmth of the sun. He enjoyed observing the snail-paced clouds slowly drift their way across the sky. It was here. It was this place where he found most of his inspiration to write. To write his next songs. 

Like all the other days, he drags one of the abandoned class seats to the centre and takes a seat. He begins swinging back and forth on the chair’s hind legs as he leans his upper body back to observe the skies. He noted how the wind came and went, how it started bending.. parting around him, never remaining constant. Meanwhile the clouds were soft dashes of white in the vast infinite blue sky, it was ever so silently present yet the skies still seemed so empty … stretching for infinity ….

Hanbin closes his eyes, and starts humming the tune that came to mind.

Unbeknownst to Hanbin, he was accompanied by a familiar stranger that day. Jennie had been observing him all this time. She had silently followed his every move and unintentionally hid at the entryway to the rooftop as he sat at his seat. As soon as Hanbin started humming, however, Jennie had unconsciously moved towards Hanbin - as if she was just naturally drawn towards him - to the boy who was still leaning back against his chair. 

Spellbound by the beautiful tune, she inadvertently murmurs in a hushed tone:

’It’s beautiful.’

Hanbin immediately opens his eyes and immediately turns his head towards the unexpected source of sound in a rush of confusion. As he makes eye contact with Jennie, Jennie comes to realise what she’s done. 

Flustered, she takes a small step back and fumbles with the lunch that she’s still somehow holding onto. 

Her milk carton and apple end up falling to the ground as she blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. 

‘H-hi’ she tries to smile through her sheer embarrassment as a huge flush of pink spreads across her face and neck

Hanbin slowly sits back up and faces her, with a curious expression on his face

If I could dig a hole and hide, this would be the perfect time, Jennie internally curses.