Kyumi picks up the abandoned phone beside the laptop and scrolls through the caller log; to her relief somewhat, Jongup hasn’t tried calling any of the numbers.

She scrolls down the webpage again and stares at the number, phone in her hand.

And before she realises what she is doing, she is calling one of the numbers that is labelled as Kim Jongup’s ‘parents’.

“Hello?”

And then she hangs up.

 

________________________________________________

“Wow...”

“This is no fair! They must have gotten all the nicest-looking people instead of the more talented ones...”

“I know right!”

Shin Hyorin raises an eyebrow at the comment before looking around at the crowd; the crowd of Chinese exchange students and the crowd who will be their guides.

“You’re right, they really did find all the good looking people,” Hyorin comments dryly, “they probably want us to leave a good impression or something.”

Someone taps on her shoulder from behind, and Hyorin turns to face a Chinese guy, with soft, gentle features, light brown tousled hair and a face that screams innocence to anyone. The guy pulls out a crumpled paper, scanning it once before saying something.

“Kyu... mi? Himchan?” Clearly the Korean tongue isn’t familiar to this guy. Hyorin shakes her head lightly, a friendly smile on her face.

“I’ll help you find them,” she offers helpfully, gesturing for the boy to follow her. He frowns in confusion, head tilting to one side before asking again, “Kyumi?”

“I’m not,” Hyorin tries telling him that she’s trying to help him, but with her last-minute knowledge of Chinese, all she could tell him is ‘no’.

“Ah,” the guy tells her something in Chinese which she cannot decipher, and bows. “Xiexie, uh, kamsa—”

“It’s nothi—” Hyorin tries to cut him off before he speaks anymore awkward Korean, but someone bumps into her and she temporarily loses her balance. Another foreign student reacts quickly, his hands shooting out to break her fall, but before she can fall into anyone’s arms, she feels herself being yanked away.

“What does he think he’s doing?” Her saviour mutters under his breath, his tone deadly. Hyorin’s eyes widen when she realises who he is, and she knows that if she wants to prevent a heart attack, she has to keep her distance.

“Boyfriend?” The foreign student suggests, his face lighting up into a friendly smile.

“No!” Hyorin blurts out, but when she turns around, none of them are there anymore. No Yongguk, no cute-lost-Chinese student.

When she turns back, the foreign student is still there, smiling at her. “Do you happen to know—” He says in perfectly fluent Korean, before getting cut off by Hyorin.

“Siwan?” The last time she has looked at the list, there is only one Chinese student with a Korean name.

The boy raises his eyebrow in recognition of the name, before nodding and smiling again.

 

__________________

“What did you say we were going to do again, hyung?”

Junhong puffs out his cheeks as he waits for the elder’s reply, kicking the small stones on the pavement and watching them skid a distance before rolling to a complete stop. “Yongguk hyung?”

“Hmm?”

The elder is distracted, and Junhong doesn’t exactly like it.

“What are we doing again?”

“Uh, eat ice cream.”

Junhong frowns. “Hyung, you don’t like ice cream.”

Yongguk suddenly looks up, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “Do I? Well but it’s hot weather so—”

“Hyung, it’s less than fifteen degrees celcius right now. And we already got bubble tea.”

“Stop questioning me,” Yongguk snaps before walking ahead of the younger boy. Junhong stares at his hyung’s back, wondering what is disturbing his hyung so much.

“Hyung...”

“What?”

“Do you like someone?”

When Yongguk splutters out the drink in his mouth, Junhong can’t help but feel even more worried than usual.

 

__________________

“So he was really serious when he told me to find a freaking new partner!” Kyumi grumbles as she dashes across the road, and she only starts slowing down when she sees the familiar school gates appear round the corner. “He could have at least tried to find the guy.”

Kyumi needs to find a partner. Her first choice would have been Jongup but things are still too awkward and he still can’t walk properly. Sighing in defeat, she pulls out her phone.

To: Sohyun
From: Kyumi

Hey

To: Kyumi
From: Sohyun

What?

To: Sohyun
From: Kyumi

Are you free?

To: Kyumi
From: Sohyun

Yeah, why?

To: Sohyun
From: Kyumi

I need your help!

 

__________________

And that is probably how the two girls end up running around the entire school trying to find the Chinese student.

“He can’t be gone, right? With someone else?”

“No,” Kyumi replies, “he’ll have common sense not to follow strangers around.”

“I’ll go to the cafeteria to find him, you go to the office and ask? And what’s his name?”

“Okay. Uh, Lu something. I think it’s Lu Han.”

 

__________________

Sohyun finds an extremely lost student sitting at one of the tables in the cafeteria, resting his chin against the metal table. Judging by his bored expression, the kid-like man has probably been sitting there for a very long time.

“Luhan?” She calls, and the guy’s head immediately shoots up, scanning his environment. Sohyun approaches him with a what she thinks is a friendly smile. The first thing Luhan, apparently, asks is;

“Kyumi?”

And when Sohyun shakes her head, she can’t help but smile slightly at the look of despair creeping up Luhan’s face.

She laughs, and Luhan stares up at her oddly.

“I’m her friend,” Sohyun tries to explain and gestures for Luhan to follow her. The latter obediently stands up and follows her into the corridor.

“Are you Himchan?”

And when Sohyun freezes for a moment before laughing awkwardly and telling Luhan that Himchan is a guy’s name, the poor Chinese boy notices the slight change of atmosphere and by Sohyun’s sudden curt tone, he can’t help but wonder if he has said anything wrong.

 

________________________________________________

The trio consisting of Sohyun, Kyumi and Luhan eat their lunch rather awkwardly in the cafeteria the next day. Himchan’s disappearance is annoying the hell out of Kyumi, though she really doesn’t mind if Sohyun replaces that stupid man.

“Luhan, do you want something to drink?” Sohyun suddenly chirps up, “I’ll go get drinks!”

Perfect excuse to get away from an awkward atmosphere. Kyumi watches Sohyun go with a sinking feeling resting at the bottom of her stomach.

Why did they choose me when I’m so freaking antisocial?

Just then, someone slides into the seat that is temporarily vacated by Sohyun with a less-than-warm ‘hey’.

When she finds out who that is, Kyumi glares toasters at the intruder.

“So this is Luhan?” Himchan asks, coolly deflecting all the heated toasters glared in his direction and smiles at Luhan.

Luhan nods, before asking, “Himchan?”

“Yeah, that’s me. Sorry about yesterday though, I was busy.”

“So busy till the point you decided to ditch Luhan here and then tell me at the last minute?” Kyumi adds on sarcastically, speaking especially fast, hoping that Luhan doesn’t understand or catch onto their conversation.

“Yeah,” Himchan calmly replies, before pointing at Sohyun’s abandoned lunch plate in front of him. “Whose is this?”

“My friend,” Kyumi says, “the one I decided to get for replacement because you asked me to find one.”

“She’s in our faculty?”

“No.”

“Who is she?”

“You wouldn’t know her.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Fine. Her name is Sohyun. Jung Sohyun. Do you know her?”

Kyumi stares at Himchan, just long enough to see the colour drain out of his face and his eyes flicker in slight recognition at the mention of the name. “No,” Himchan replies after some time, “I don’t know her. And I need to go. So yeah, bye.”

Something’s wrong.

“I’m back! So yeah, I got strawberry milk. Anyone has any objections to strawberry or—”

“Kyumi’s friend and Himchan would make a nice couple,” Luhan suddenly comments, and when Sohyun drops the carton of milk into Luhan’s lap, Kyumi frowns.

Something is really wrong.
 

___________________________________