Kim Doyoung walked back and forth in front of sports equipment room. Sports day officially ended thirty minutes ago but Bona was nowhere to be seen. That girl owed him a date and he wouldn’t a single second go to waste. As much as he anticipated the rest of the day with Bona, he just couldn’t ignore loud thumps against his chest.

Another minute passed, and the one person he was waiting anxiously finally appeared behind a stack of brightly coloured cones. He could easily spot her even though she was trying so hard to hide. Bona always dressed nicely to school, with neatly pressed uniform and tightly secured ponytail. One thing she could not hide was those pair of worn-out white sneakers to school. It made him curious of what kind of life she was living.

“I hope you’re not thinking of running away like that.” Doyoung purposely trying to scare Bona.

“Don’t startle me like that.” she almost screamed. he was laughing hysterically once he saw the cones dropping to the floor.

“You are running away, aren’t you?” he raised his eyebrows to .

“I thought we are supposed to act like strangers in public.” She argued as they picked up the colourful plastic cones scattered pretty much everywhere.

“There aren’t many people left in school. Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asked with twinkly eyes. Bona looked away. She didn’t have the heart to say no to that face now.

“Let me put this away first.” She tried to get out of the conversation.

“I’ll return these to the gym. Wait for me at the front gate. Give me your hair band.” He demanded. Bona looked confused.

“What are you going to do with that?” she asked but not reluctant to give him the hair band that was holing her hairs up just a second ago.

“I’m keeping this as hostage.” He told her with the smirk that she hated across his face.

 Doyoung knew well that she wouldn’t walk around without her hair tied up. She’ll probably just wait for her outside the room while he filled in the entry book. Somehow, she was glad that Doyoung was there to help. She wasn’t comfortable talking to other people aside from Sojung, the art teacher that she finally opened up to and recently, it was Kim Doyoung.

“So, aren’t you going to show your medal?” he asked as soon as he exited the equipment room.

“Hair tie first.” She asked. Doyoung showed his wrist and she quickly took it back. That was the first time she saw it without a wrist band. It shocked her. She knew immediately that it was not something that she was to look at.

“My wrist band got dirty during the match.” He answered before she could think of a question to ask. Bona nodded. She didn’t want to pry.

“I saw you during my class’s match.” She admitted. It was hard to focus when everyone at the basketball’s court practically was gasping over him and the rest of the basketball team watching.

“Really? I tried hiding.” Doyoung lied. Bona rolled her eyes.

“You’re spying on me. Here.” Bona handed him the medal from her backpack.

“You did well. Good job.” He ruffled her hair. Bona could feel the temperature instantly rising on her cheeks.

“We only won bronze medal.” She mumbled.

“Come on, don’t ruin it for me. I never had a successful protégé.” He elbowed her lightly.

“I’m the only student.” She scoffed.

“See, that’s how good I am.” He praised himself and ruffled her hair again.

“You’re a good teacher.” Bona admitted.

“How did they end up letting you play?” he asked.

“Lee Nagyung takes a fall the flight of stairs right before the match. I heard someone pushed her and ran away so fast. She couldn’t see his face.”

“Really? So, a dude pushed her down the stairs?”

“Why are you smiling like that?” Bona couldn’t help but smiled too. They both knew what was in each other’s mind. The girl deserved it. That was like only a hundredth of what she did to Bona. Whenever Bona received her test papers back, they were always crumpled or ripped and her desk was always scribbled with curse words with electric pink lip matte that only Lee Nagyung would own.

“Nothing.” Doyoung almost burst out laughing. The only thing he’d done was nudged her a little. It was more like her attempt to sabotage herself so that she didn’t have to play. All this time, she went to practice just to look cool in front of the guys. Her skills were crappy as it could go.

“Aren’t you afraid that people notice us walking together?” she asked as they reached the main gate. It worried her that they could be seen together.

“We’re walking two meters apart. I can barely hear what you’re saying.”

“You know, about that thing we discussed before,”

“You owe me a date.” Bona looked around to make sure that there wasn’t anyone around before she walked closer to Doyoung.

“Right now?” she asked for confirmation.

“Come on, you promised.” He sulked.

“But I won.” She defended herself even though she knew it didn’t count.

“No, you didn’t. It’s third place.”

“You just called me a successful protégé.” She protested.

“Well, my bad. You’re not. Let’s go.” Doyoung held out his hand and waited for Bona to take it. Bona carefully reached for his hand. Whenever he squeezed her hand, she could feel the warmth from his palm shifted to hers. Bona could feel her heart pounded on her fingertips. Holding hands with him made her nervous yet, it made her forget about all her worries in a blink of eyes.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked after the comfortable silence.

“You have to buy me flowers.” He glanced at her to see her reaction.

“Don’t guys do that for girls?” she giggled. Doyoung could feel the warm on his cheeks. He quickly looked away and cleared his throat to ease the nervousness.

“That is a very common stereotypical mistakes of first date. I can like flowers too, you know.”

“Okay, let’s get some flowers for you, then.” she agreed easily this time.

…………………………

“I like this one.” Doyoung pointed at one of the plants in a small orange clay pot.

“Really? A cactus?” Bona asked for confirmation. Just a few minutes ago, he was whining and demanded her to buy him flowers but opted for the most non-flower-looking plant from the florist.

“I like it. Now you choose one.” He offered.

“I thought we aren’t going to make it a stereotypical date.”

“We’re going back and forth between calling this a date or not, so, whatever goes.” He .

“Just buy me a rose.” She pointed at a ready-made rose bouquet.

“No, thanks. It’s thorny. I’ll buy you these little flowers.” He disagreed and handed her white baby’s-breaths, instead. Bona sighed. He could just buy her one if he was going to buy her what he wanted.

“Okay, whatever goes.” She chuckled at his offer. It was ironic that he was holding literally a clump of thorns in a pot but forbid her to get a rose.

“Is there anything else that you would like to do?” Bona shook her head.

“Then, I guess we’ll get food.” Doyoung told her. Bona nodded. Somehow, she didn’t want it to end. She knew deep inside she anticipated today as much as him. Doyoung who was walking ahead noticed Bona was no longer at his side. He turned around and spotted Bona standing still as she looked at a direction.

“Photobooth.” She said when he stood next to her.

“Huh?” he said in confusion.

“I saw a photobooth right across the street. Let’s do that and get something to eat. I don’t want the face paintings go to waste.” She lied. Doyoung couldn’t hide his smile. He reached for Bona’s hand and they both headed towards the direction of the photobooth.

“Okay, we’ll do that together. Tell me if you want to do anything else.” he told her with a warm smile across his face.