Yoo Jeongyeon met her when he was 13.

He and his sister just moved from Seoul to Suwon, a small city with an hour-and-half driving from Seoul metropolitan. His father had promoted to an office branch abroad, and his mother followed him to work there. Jeongyeon and his sister didn’t want to follow their parents and studied abroad, so instead they were moved in with their grandmother, who by any chance, lived alone in Suwon.

He was waiting for the lift down to the basement of their apartment building when a girl, maybe same age as him, tapped his shoulder. Jeongyeon snapped his head to the girl who tapped him, surprised. His arm unconsciously grab his backpack straps tighter. He furrowed his brows at the stranger, keeping his distance with her. He was a not an extrovert person to begin with, and talking with strangers is one of his biggest pet peeves.

“hello. I’ve never seen you around here, are you just moved in?”, the girl just asking questions casually, flashing her slightly bigger front teeth, as if she had known him before. Her teeth somehow reminded him of bunny teeth.

“ah, yes. Annyeonghaseyo, i’m Yoo Jeongyeon, from unit 510. Just moved in here the day before yesterday”, he slightly bowed at her.

The bunny-look-alike girl just laughed at his slightly awkward politeness. Her lips went into the shape of heart when she laughed, Jeongyeon noted to himself.

“no need to be all formal like that! I’m Im Nayeon, by the way. So we’re next-door neighbour! My family lives in unit 512!”, she stretched her hand, expecting Jeongyeon to shake it. He looked at her hand for a moment, looked up to her eyes for a moment, then back to her hand again. He was amazed by the girl’s ability to make friends easily like this. Eventually he took her hand, shook it slightly then quickly released the handshake.

“so, is this your first day of school?”, she looked at his school uniform ,”i think we’re going to the same school!”

Jeongyeon just noticed that the girl wearing a similar uniform with his. He nodded slightly, then back to his own thought, not made further conversation with her.

A moment later, he was surprised by a slight pull on his hand.

“the lift is here! Let’s go, Jeongyeon-ie!”, she grabbed his hand and pulled him with her inside the lift.

“do you know the way to our school, Jeongyeon-ie?” she asked him, her hand still grabbed his hand.

Jeongyeon shook his head without a word, still amazed by the girl beside him.

“of course you don’t know! You just moved in here”, she lightly slapped her forehead with her free hand, as if thinking that that was the most ridiculous question she ever asked to him.

And that day, Jeongyeon quietly walked beside her, listened to her story about the town they lived in all the way to school, sometimes nodded and hummed to make her know that he listened her.

“i’ll wait for you later after school, Jeongyeon-ie. And you must wait for me at all cost. Let’s going home together, okay?”, she waved at him cheerfully, separated from him at the school gate. He just scoffed at her, thinking to himself, as if he would be lost on his way to home.

But it was no need to wait for each other as they were assigned into the same class.

From that day of going to and back from school together for the first time, they gradually being best friend.

Nayeon learned that actually he was a year younger than her, and demanded him to call her noona. Jeongyeon scoffed at that request, argued that eventhough she was older, she behaved like she was 5 years younger than him.

Jeongyeon learned that Nayeon, known for her charisma and charms – had made the boys in their school chased after her, is actually a clumsy person, often forgets her packed lunch or her books, so sometimes Jeongyeon would share his lunch or his book with Nayeon at school, and that would make the boys around looked at them with jealousy.

Nayeon would go to his grandmother’s apartment just to eat dinner with his family, because both of her parents were working and wouldn’t be home until late night, and Nayeon sometimes fed up from eating delivery food.

Jeongyeon sometimes would go to her family apartment after school hour to comply by her request to tutor her about Math, or just hang out there and do their assignment together, and accompanied Nayeon at the same time until her parents arrived home.

Sometimes they bickering hard, and made Park Jihyo, Nayeon’s seatmate at school and his first bestfriend he made at this town along with Nayeon, screamed at them to just shut up because of their shouting at each other made her head hurt. 

Both Jeongyeon and Nayeon didn’t know how to define their relationship. Jeongyeon just needed Nayeon in his life, just like Nayeon need Jeongyeon. They were inseparable. But they were sure it was not something like romance, because Jeongyeon thought that Nayeon was too noisy and sometimes annoyed the hell out of him; and Nayeon thought that Jeongyeon was too fussy and nagged too much.

They were sure that there was no romantic feeling involved. Or so they thought.

When Jeongyeon reached 15, puberty hit him hard. And good in his favor. He was getting taller, his voice was getting deeper, and suddenly he became very popular among the girls in their school.

His hair, which looked like coconut the first time Nayeon saw him, now was getting styled like those idol singer in TV.

Sometimes Nayeon heard the girls in their class talking about Jeongyeon, some girls even went to her to ask about her relationship with Jeongyeon. When she said that he was just her bestfriend - and she would date herself even if she and Jeongyeon were the last person alive on earth – because never in her right mind she would like – or worse, date - that fussy boy, the girls exhaled a relief sigh then proceeded asking her about what Jeongyeon is like and everything about him.

Nayeon could only give an astonished look everytime the girls responded her