After numerous discussions in the library, in empty class rooms and on KaTalk, the group of five had finally decided on a topic: The Battle of Gong Mountain.
The battle had been fought sometime in the 10^th century between the forces of Taebong and Hubaekje in the slopes of the nearby Palgong Mountain.
They were confident that they would find enough information on it.
That was before they had scoured the entirety of the school’s central library. All they had found was one page worth of information. Definitely not the amount of information one could give a presentation on. That was the reason why had begrudgingly agreed to meet at the public library on a Saturday.

Cho Eunmi was someone who always made the most of weekends. She never woke up earlier than ten even if it meant being lectured by her mother for the next two hours. She also spent most of Saturday afternoon catching up on all the weekday TV shows she missed. The evenings were spent talking to her friends back in Seoul, the group she had lunch with and every now and then she’d send a text or two to 2-B’s group chat. Homework usually was a Friday evening thing, so she could spend the weekend stress-free.

So when her phone rang early that Saturday morning, she thought the apocalypse had begun. There was just no reason for anyone to call her at 8 o’clock on a Saturday morning.
The first time it rang, she didn’t– couldn’t receive the call on account of being too tangled in her blankets. Maybe the world wouldn’t end if she ignored the ringing of her phone.
The second time it rang, reached blindly in the general direction of her phone, grabbed it and slid her finger across the screen to reject the call.
When a voice spoke from the other end, her eyes shot open as she realised she had done the opposite of what she had intended.

“Eunmi? Are you still sleeping?”
It was Jihoon. She sat up immediately. They were the same age and there was no reason for her to be scared of him being mad at her as such, but the thought of Jihoon being disappointed didn’t sit well with her.

“I’m up, I swear,” she told the boy. There was a short silence which convinced her that he didn’t really believe her.

“We have to meet at the public library in an hour,” the boy informed in a voice Eunmi thought was too polite.

“Okay. I’ll be there,” she assured.
Jihoon let out what could only be described as a muted grunt, and hung up.

Eunmi sprung out of bed and frantically looked around her room for a while.
What did people usually do when they first woke up?
It took a few seconds for her brain to come up with an answer.
Bathroom.
She tossed her phone onto her bed, and then ran out of the room and into the bathroom. There she took what was probably the shorted shower of her life and then brushed her teeth.

Hastily, she made it back into her room where she stood, still disgruntled, for a moment or two. She glanced out of the window. It was sunny. The sun streamed happily into her room.
She walked to her dresser which she hadn’t bothered cleaning since last week. As quickly as possible, she chose and put on an outfit. That was when she realised her hair was still dripping wet. She leaped over to her vanity and pulled her hair dryer out of one of the drawers.
The one good thing about having short hair was that it was easy to wash and very quick to dry.
Five minutes later, she was out of her room, small backpack slung over her shoulder and phone in hand. It was the quickest she had ever dressed herself.

Having to wake up early during the weekend hadn’t been enjoyable at all. However, what she did enjoy was the look on her parents’ face as she walked into the kitchen at eight-forty on a Saturday morning.
Her dad’s eyes widened only a fraction, but he was unable to go back to his newspaper for at least five seconds. Her mum seemed to be having difficulty in deciding what to feel. She seemed to be stuck between disbelief, joy and suspicion.

“Do you have somewhere to be?” the woman asked finally.

Eunmi nodded.
“The public library for a History project. I don’t think I have time for breakfast.”

“That’s what you get–” her mum started, but was interrupted by her dad.

“Nonsense. At least have one pancake.”

“Don’t go out on an empty stomach,” her mother agreed. She placed the pancake she had been cooking onto a plate and handed it to Eunmi with a pair of chopsticks.
She placed her phone on the dining table and still standing, all but devoured the pancake in less than a minute.
“One more?” her mother asked.

Eunmi nodded silently and held out her plate.
Her phone on the dining table started ringing at the very moment. The girl, startled, almost dropped her plate, for which she received a disapproving look from her mum.

Her dad snuck a glance at the screen.
“Who’s Wonwoo?” he asked.

“We’re in same group,” Eunmi responded before hastily accepting the call. “Hello?”

“Eunmi, hi,” Wonwoo greeted, “I’ll wait for you near the store, okay?”

Eunmi was intensely aware of her father’s eyes on her and also of the fact that he was probably trying to listen in on her conversation with Wonwoo.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll see you in five minutes. Bye.”
She hung up before her dad got more suspicious.

Quickly, she stuffed the second pancake whole into , grabbed her things, said goodbye to her parents and walked out of the house.
The store Wonwoo worked at was about ten minutes away from her neighbourhood, so she had to rush to keep her word of arriving there in five minutes.
When she did arrive at the place, she found Wonwoo already waiting for her. She waved at him from a distance. He waved back with a smile.

“I hope I didn’t make you wait for so long,” she said as she walked up to him.

The boy shook his head, “I got time to buy a few snacks for us.”

Us?
“You shouldn’t ha–”

He dismissed her protest with a wave of his hand.
“We’ll have to do a lot of reading, so we probably won’t get time to eat properly.”
Eunmi pouted. The prospect of skipping lunch wasn’t appealing.
Wonwoo seemed to notice and let out a laugh.
“Don’t worry. We can go out for a proper meal once we’re done. I promise,” he assured.

“Cool,” the girl responded, not sure how she felt about Wonwoo promising her things.

The boy’s smile grew wider by a fraction of a centimeter. It went unnoticed by Eunmi.
Wonwoo gestured her to lead the way in his usual manner: with one hand behind his back as if he was escorting a noble lady or something.
Eunmi was starting to wonder if it was a habit or something.
Did he do that with everyone else too?

Their walk to the bus stop was as silent as expected but surprisingly not as awkward. It was probably because it was a short walk but also because the weather was nice. Sunny with a light breeze.
Spring seemed to be in full bloom. Flowers lined the road, hanging out from beyond the fences of some houses.
There was a bounce in Eunmi’s step and Wonwoo was wearing a bright yellow shirt (Eunmi somehow expected him to dress in dark colours). The atmosphere was light.

When they had arrived at the bus stop and waited for almost five minutes however, Eunmi decided she had enough of silence. So she decided to break it by telling Wonwoo about how she had only made it because Jihoon had called her and also about how she was worried that she might have made him angry.

Wonwoo chuckled at that.
“Our Jihoon is pretty strict,” he admitted, “but he gets things done.”

“So there is a chance that he could be mad at me?”

“No. He’d hunt you down if you didn’t show up though.”

The bus arrived as soon as he was done speaking so Wonwoo missed the look of genuine fear flash in Eunmi’s eyes before she stepped onto the bus. He would have laughed if he hadn’t.
Thankfully, there was a pair of seats available towards the back of the bus so they didn’t have to sit apart.
If she had been left on her own, Eunmi wouldn’t have known where to get off.

“How far is the library?” she asked Wonwoo.

“Five stops, so about half an hour.”

Eunmi groaned.
“Do you mind if I fall asleep?”

Wonwoo only shook his head, so she shifted in her seat till she found a comfortable position and facing the window, closed her eyes. She could feel the rays of the sun stream through the window and onto her face but it wasn’t warm enough to make her uncomfortable. She enjoyed it, in fact. The warmth was making her sleepy.

She must have really fallen into a deep sleep because she only awoke when she felt someone touch her head. Her eyes shot open at the foreign touch, only to find Wonwoo closer to her than she remembered him to be. Also, it was his hand that was on her head, or rather, it was the other way round. His hand, she realised, was sort of cradling her head.

When their eyes met, he whipped his hand from behind her head as if he had been burned.
“I’m sorry!” he apologized. “I–Your head was hitting the window so I thought I’d move you a bit.”

This was the loudest Eunmi had ever heard Wonwoo speak. She wanted to smile but the fact that he hadn’t moved too far away from her quite literally rendered her motionless and speechless.
She took a few moments to composed herself during which Wonwoo looked like he was contemplating moving to a different seat or out of the moving bus altogether.
“It’s okay,” she finally managed.

Wonwoo’s shoulders sagged as he moved to sit back in his seat.
“We have to get off at the next stop,” he informed without looking at her. He glanced at his watch.

“We’re not late, are we?”

The boy shook his head, “Not really. I don’t think anyone other than Jihoon will show up on time.”

She couldn’t help the tiny frown that appeared on her face.
“Poor Jihoon,” she said, “He’s a responsible guy.”
The boy was always trying to organize things and for them to run smoothly but the fact that they technically hadn’t made any progress was bothering him. That made him irritable.
Eunmi wondered if she should be saving her sympathy for the person who would arrive last. She had a feeling it would be Soobin.

The pair got off the bus five minutes later.
There was no library in sight. In fact, they had gotten off on a busy street. Eunmi looked up to ask him how far the library was, but before she could get a word out, he gave her the answer. Five minutes.
So they walked for five more minutes.

The library was located on a smaller, quieter street with a lot of greenery. The warm spring sun seemed to make every colour more vivid.
Eunmi looked around as they entered the compounds. There were trees around, benches lined the courtyard, and there was a car park in the distance and even a telephone booth for some reason.
Her smiled however, dropped when her eyes landed on three familiar figures standing near the stairs that led up to the building’s entrance.
As it turned out, they were the last ones to arrive.

Eunmi couldn’t help but wince as they approached the group.
Jihoon had sounded annoyed when he had called her in the morning. She suspected he would be a little more than annoyed because of their tardiness.
Wonwoo on the other hand, waved at the group almost cheerfully.

“I’m sorry!” Eunmi called as soon they were within earshot, “It’s my fault we’re late.”
The other three, to her surprise, didn’t seem bothered.

Jihoon grinned at her mischievously.
“No one’s late. I was just messing with you in the morning.”
For about a second, Eunmi didn’t know how to react. When she did react, she only managed to sputter out an incoherent sentence.
“Let’s get going, we have a lot of work to do.”
This time, Jihoon’s smile was gentle.

Still, she found herself looking up at Wonwoo, whether for sympathy or reassurance she did not know. What she did find was him smiling down at her.
“Let’s go,” he said as he lightly patted her shoulder.

Eunmi found her lips quirking up as she followed the other three into the library with Wonwoo beside her.

Author's Note:
I am a terrible person for missing Wonu's birthday last week.
I'm sorry.
But I hope anyone who reads enjoys this chapter.

xx Hoonie