“Again?” The barista exchanged glances with the girl working on the register.

This marked the fourth time that their recently-self-claimed-regular-customer went to the counter to ask for another napkin. Yesterday, it was dessert cravings. The day before, he unnecessarily shared that his body lacked caffeine and he ordered one cup of iced Americano every hour just to come back and talk to the girl behind the register. His antics had been going on for almost a month. She could not help but feel anxious by now.

“Please take it. Take this and go home. I beg you.” The girl pleaded with her voice shrieking as she shoved two stamped coupons into the guy’s hand.

Ethical issues aside, her plan was to get rid of the guy with four cups of tall iced Americano and two slices of Mille crepe cakes. Another male employee who was working in the kitchen kept glancing at them. This is not the first time he saw the two of them doing this.

“Thank you for your offer but as a gentleman, I refuse this act of bribery.” He said with a smirk on his face and slid the coupons back across the counter. “Instead of this, I want you to put on your name tag.” He pointed at the piece of silver plate faced down on the register machine.

“No.” she refused as soon as he finished his words.

“No? Are you sure?” he asked.

For the first time in her life, since the last five part-time jobs she had, she wished the customers were lining up. There was no way she was going to spend another second of her life humouring him. Time passed painfully slow. She prayed all the prep schools surrounding the café just ended right now.

“Fine. I’ll take that for an answer for now.” He made sure to let the girl know that he would not be leaving unless she told him her name. Before he went back to his now-designated-table, he placed another order of iced Americano and a slice of vanilla Mille crepe cake. He seemed to

“Thank you for your order, dear customer. Please be seated until your name is called.” She said while handing the card back to the owner.

“I guess you already remember my name.” He said with another smirk on his face when he saw her already writing his name on the tall plastic cup. “I’ll see you in a few minutes Miss ‘To Heaven’.”

“You know what? I’ll personally bring out your order when it’s ready, Jeon Wonwoo-ssi.” She told him while clenching teeth to contain her anger.

She wanted to end this. She wanted to give him a piece of her mind. Up to three weeks ago, she only had to worry about graduating high school, peacefully. The last problem she needed is a high school boy. At this point, she just wanted to go home and cried herself to sleep. That what she got from crossing the line she had drawn herself.

..............................

“Where did he go?” Mingyu went inside an empty classroom. Just a while ago, he was clinging onto Wonwoo, making sure he didn’t escape for today’s basketball match. Anything that involved speed was his least favourite thing to do but this time, snacks were on the line. He didn’t want to jeopardize one week worth of snacks just because he lost Wonwoo.

“How should I know? He was with you the whole time.” Dokyeom complained. He already had a bad feeling about the result of their match.

“Whatever it is we have to find him. Kids from class 3 is going to win the basketball game if Wonwoo wasn’t in our team.” Mingyu whined. In his head, he could already hear Seungkwan’s nagging.

“Maybe he’s at the outdoor court. Let’s just go there.” They both left the classroom in a hurry, hoping to find Wonwoo on their way.

Wonwoo leaned his back against the wall and slid down. His legs gave up from the sudden hide-and-seek game. Luckily, they stopped searching just before they reached the one homeroom he was hiding in.

“Since when did that kid run so fast?” Wonwoo complained with both hands against his chest. Holding back the sound of his breathing after he broke into a sprint was not a good idea. Wonwoo peeked through the window when he saw the tall kid and his gangly friend walked further and further away, heading towards the direction of basketball rink. Now, he felt relieved.

Mingyu had always been the tallest kid but one thing he knew about the guy, he did not have full control over his limbs. He always managed to break things. All he did was stretching his arms and he could break Dokyeom’s nose. That actually happened once.

Wonwoo carefully moved away from the window and leaned back against the wall. He scratched the top of his head, banged his head lightly against the wall and sighed continuously. One thing about Wonwoo, he was immensely involved in basketball. In fact, he was the first 11^th grade student to become their school’s basketball team captain. Being a leader to older guys wasn’t helping him to escape his rich boy title. There was a rumour about his dad bribing the coach to grant him the title. That probably the worst thing he had heard about himself since middle school.

Lately, he had been contemplating his choices in life. When he said he wanted to quit basketball, everyone thought that he finally had gone mad. That was why they dragged him around even though it was just a short game after lunch. For once in his life, he wanted to lay low. He was sick of people paying attention in whatever he did. He was sick of their out-of-reach’s expectation towards him.

The building he was hiding in was usually quiet during lunch. That was where the art room, laboratories and unused classrooms were. A lot of students avoided the side of the school since they had a new building finished constructed five years ago. He heard rumours about the old building being demolished after the next year. It kind of made him sad to have his secret hideout vanished as soon as he graduated high school.

The first bell rang to mark the first twenty-five minutes of their lunch break had passed. The guys probably will end their basketball match soon to have lunch. He lazily stretched his arms while thinking of another excuse of not participating today. The breeze coming in from the windows made him sleepy. He wanted to stay longer.

‘Ding!’ The notifications sound startled him. Wonwoo hastily reached for the phone inside the pocket of the trousers.

“come home after school finish”

- Mr. Jeon Hyunsoo.

Another dull text from his father. No emoticons, no punctuation marks. He didn’t know what was going on with his old man’s mind. Last week, he suddenly pulled a wildcard and brought a woman home. Between his dad bathrobe and that woman in her not-suit-to-age-lingerie, he could not not have assumption other than the two of them were sleeping together.

‘Ding!’ Another message came in.

“Take your stuff and go home for a bit.

Please tell your dad to not yell at my parents again.”

- Drill Instructor So.

“I’ll leave my stuff and go home. Will definitely warn him. Sorry.” He replied to the latter text message. Wonwoo threw the phone to his side. He felt helpless. He just could not understand his father no matter how hard he tried. Who in the right mind would harass the people who sheltered and feed their son when the son almost became homeless. That’s right, Jeon Hyunsoo. The man was mental. How he wished everything was just a series of nightmares so that when he woke up, he was five again, where his mom was there right next to him, smiling and giggling and kissed his pains away.

Are you alright? How are you these days?

You aren't crying because I’m not there are you?

You used to come in my dreams every night

But why can't I see you these days?

There she goes again. That singing voice next door. Her voice was soothing. But for some reason the way she sang made it sounded even more sorrowful than it already was, if than even made any sense. Wonwoo hummed along to the melody of the song. ‘Why is she making other people sad too?’, he wondered. ‘What’s with her? Why did I feel like she’s going to make me cry too?’ He pondered.

Usually, Wonwoo would just listen to her singing and left before she noticed. But today, the curiosity that grew inside him made him stood up to peek through the glass on the door. Because of his bad eye sight, he had to squint to get a better look of the girl. Just a glance at her face struck his heart.

The girl was seating on one of the desks, resting her head against the window panel. Her skin looked almost too pale but it was obvious that she tried to cover it up with powder and a swipe of lip tint. Her glistening black hair was put up neatly in ponytail. Something about her caught his attention. The quiver in her voice, the sorrow in her tone. Whoever the person is, he needed to know.

Wonwoo sat down and continued listening to her singing. ‘Why is she singing another sad song? Is that a lullaby?’ he thought to himself. The melody seemed familiar. Somebody might have sung it to him when he was little. Maybe his mom. He doubted it was his dad. ‘I’ll go after I finish listening to this.’ Wonwoo crouched down and took a seat outside of the art room where the girl was in.

Her soothing voice slowly made him drowsy. And he fell deep, deep, deep into a slumber.

‘Ding!’ The notification once again brought him into the reality. Wonwoo reached for his phone.

“That’s weird. I thought I tossed my phone inside.” He murmured as he tried to fight himself from dozing off.

2.13 p.m.

“What the hell?! Did I fall asleep?!” He rushed out for the next period, he tripped from leg of one of the chairs.

That was fortunate. It sobered him up from sleep.

“To heaven!” He exclaimed, referring to the girl because of her sad song earlier. As much as he hated to be any later, he couldn’t help but turned back for the girl. As he came near the art room, he noticed that it was unusually silent. Wonwoo reached for the handle of the wooden sliding door.

Both doors were locked. He peeked in but nobody was inside the room.

“What the hell?” Wonwoo could feel the chills crawling to the nape of his neck and strengthen the grip on his phone. Slowly, he began to walk away in confusion.