You want to ask her what she means by that statement, but instead you turn around and head for class. You’re not going to give her the satisfaction of replying, and you’re not in the mood to tolerate her personality. There’s too much stuff going on in your head right now, and adding to the load will only weigh you down.

You try to focus on school. You try, you really do try. But it’s hard when you’re so used to letting all that mandatory information pass right over your head to be retrieved at a later, busier time. What else can you do? Think about Kai? You fear that if you don’t direct your mind to dwell on school subjects, Kai will invade your head, just as he’s done countless times before. You don’t want to think about him. You don’t want to think about how he can be irritating and annoying and so darn stupid, but then amazing and adorable and sweet all at the same time.

You ask yourself. When you see him … will he treat you the same as before? Will anything change from your pushing him away? This time, will it be his turn to come after you?

Crap. You did it again. Thinking about him. You need to stop.

The bell for the last class of the day sharply echoes through the intercom system. Students briskly get up, grab their things, and speed out of the classroom. You take your time inserting your books into your bag before slinging the strap over your shoulder and slowly strolling out of the room.

You feel your phone vibrate. You fumble to open the pockets of your purse and, after quite a struggle, pull out your phone. Your eyes glance the caller ID, and your breathing hitches in your throat.

It’s Kai.

Your fingers shake, your thumb hovering over the green button that will answer the call. Why is he calling you? He never calls you. It’s never been his way to initiate conversation. So why now? Is this because of yesterday? Does he think he can come back into your life like he hadn’t hurt you once, twice, a million times?

No. You’re not picking up his call. Determined, you smash the red button with your thumb and drop your phone into your purse. Let’s see if he calls again. Let’s see if his intentions are genuine.

You see Hyunsoo in the hallway, busily holding her phone and walking through the crowd. You jog up to her and tap her shoulder, and she allows a yelp to escape . “What the heck, don’t scare me like that,” she narrows her eyes at you. You give her a playful wave, and she walks beside you.

“I met Miyoung,” you inform her. Her fingers stop moving over the screen, but she keeps walking.

“Did you like her? She’s alright, isn’t she?”

You think back to the conversation you had held with her in the cafeteria. You’re not sure if all right is the correct choice of words, but you don’t feel like overthinking the subject. “Mm. Yeah.”

“Kai says her dad volunteered to financially back the company,” she informs you. “They turned them down, of course. But it’s been putting a stress on his dad that his company would ever need a finance backing.”

You want to ask her why she knows such important information, but you don’t want to show the slightest bit of interest in anything involving Kai. She notices this and her head with a smile. “Kai told me this morning,” she confesses, saving you from having to ask the question and giving yourself away.

“So what are you going to do today? Any plans?”

For some reason your mind flashes to the pond, and a part of your heart wants to go there, just to see whether Kai will be waiting for you. That’s an absurd thought, really, it is. You don’t want to hope anymore. You don’t want to expect anymore. The more you do that - the more you let your dreams fly - the harder the fall will be.

“I’m going to do my homework,” you decide. “I’m heading to the room. I’ll see you?”

“Sure,” she says, a strange glint in her eye as she tells you goodbye. It strikes you as strange, but you stay silent as you walk forward and head for the dorms.

You spend the afternoon doing your homework, just as you had promised. There’s a load to do, especially with finals approaching. The teachers have given you pages and pages of homework to complete, but you do them half-heartedly, sometimes concentrating and sometimes letting your mind wander. You suppose that’s why it takes so long to finish everything, but you don’t regret it. It’s not like you have anything else to do today.

It’s about dinnertime when you finish, so you head for the cafeteria to eat. It’s a crowded place, and you don’t see Hyunsoo, so you sit with her group of friends and idly let time pass, occasionally inputting your unimportant opinions in order to contribute to their conversation. The clock ticks. People finish their food. You head for your room again, not exactly sure what you’re going to do, but knowing that whatever it is, it’s going to be something that will distract you from your own mind.

You wish it were possible to run away from the thoughts blurring your head.

You take a nap. You should have learned not to by now, since taking a nap in the late afternoon will result in the inability to sleep normally at night, but you do it anyway. You’re tired, not physically, but mentally. You just want to stop thinking. To stop doing anything that requires action.

You wake up with a start. From your bed, you look out your window and realize that the sky has been tinted in an overcast color of grays and blues. Once again, you had permitted yourself to nap for too long. With a sigh, you sit up, rub your eyes, and are about to turn on the lamp light by your bedside when you hear a faint thumping. Your hands freeze in the air, and your heart hammers in anticipation. You hear it again and identify that the sound is coming from your window. Tentatively, you stand up, your feet padding softly against the hardwood floor as you near the window. You risk opening the window to stick your head out and see that, right below you, an approximate three floors away, is Kai. In his hand is a stone, and when he sees you, he drops it on the ground guiltily. In his other hand is a bouquet of roses, the blood red color looking out of place in the blue hue of the expanse.

You almost have to laugh at the fact that he had thrown rocks at your window. His tactics are so old-fashioned.

Then you remember the events of your yesterday, and all you want to do is close the window, retreat to your room, and bury your head underneath your pillows, but your hand won’t move, and your body refuses to comply. You stare down at Kai, at his open face, at those eyes that implore you to listen. You gulp nervously and let your fingers linger on the windowpane. Leaning down, you call, “You’re here,” because that’s the only thing you can think of. He came. With roses. He has roses.

“You didn’t answer my calls,” he points out. He called you more than once? You take out your phone from your pocket and discreetly unlock the screen.

6 missed calls, it says.

“I took a nap,” you say, not exactly lying.

“I called you right after school, and you didn’t answer,” he says.

“I didn’t hear it.”

“You don’t have to lie,” he shrugs. “Just say you didn’t want to talk to me.”

You look down at him. After taking a deep breath, you murmur just loud enough for him to hear, “Yeah. I didn’t.”

He quiets at this. He moves to hold the bouquet in both of his hands and gathers the resolve to look up at you again, an inviting look in those rich, unending eyes. “I have something for you.”

“I can see that.”

“Will you come down?” He requests softly. There is a tremor in his voice you hadn’t noticed.

“Why are you here?” You ask him, crossing your arms. You don’t intend to leave your room just to hear him talk. If he comes even one foot away from you, the walls you’ve only just rebuilt might crack again.

“I wanted to apologize,” he says sincerely.

“For what?”

He smiles. “For being a jerk.”

Refusing to be swayed, you reply, “How did you even know this was my room?”

“Hyunsoo,” he says simply, and then everything comes together. The way she had looked at you before you left school. She knew, then. She knew about Kai’s plan to come here. “Please come down?” He asks you. “I really do want to say sorry.”

“You can say sorry right there.”

He sighs, exasperated. He looks down at the roses, roses that begin to look just as dejected as he feels. “You gonna be able to hear me from over there?” He squints up at you.

“I’ll be able to deal with you from here,” you respond, your head becoming dizzy at the options. He smirks.

“Alright. Okay.” He forms a fist and pounds his chest lightly, as if to clear his throat before he speaks. He holds out the roses and, with a loud voice, begins, “About yesterday – “

“Are you trying to bother everybody else in the dorm?” You hiss, getting embarrassed. You don’t want the whole world to know that Kai is talking to you right now. It probably looks like a love confession from afar, and a misunderstanding like that is the last thing you need.

“Okay, okay,” he says, softening his voice. “Look.” He lowers his volume considerably. He steps forward to get closer to you, as close as he can from where he’s standing, and repeats, “About yesterday … well. I wanted to apologize. For yesterday.” He repeats awkwardly. This boy … is he that unused to apologies?

“For which part?”

He holds your gaze. “For all of it.”

You clench the windowpane, the creases of the wood digging into your palm. “Thanks,” you say, making a move to return to your room. You don’t want to look easy. You’re not that simple.

“Wait,” Kai calls, his desperate word forcing you to stay. “Look, I … “ he trails off. He casts his eyes down and bites his bottom lip, glossing over his words in frustration. With a sigh, he looks up again and calls, “I’m not going to promise …  that I’m going to be nice all of a sudden. That’s not … that’s not really me. All right? I’m not going to just change, just like that. Nobody’s like that. Nobody’s that quick.” He runs a hand through his hair. He seems to do that a lot, especially when he’s bewildered or annoyed about something. “This is gonna sound … cheesy,” he admits. “But … I’ll … try to be better. To you. For you. Okay?” His eyes beg you to accept his apology, to believe in his words, as a red that matches the color of those roses begins to spread across his cheeks. “I can’t promise anything. But I like you. That’s all I can say. I like you. At least … if you can’t trust anything else. Trust that.”

You in a breath. Your heart is swaying. Heck, everything is swaying. Always. Always. Over and over again, he pushes you away and pulls you back. When will it stop? Will it stop, starting now? You can’t ignore what he’s just said. ‘I like you.’ You’ve been straining to hear those words leave his lips, waiting for the moment when his affections for you would be confirmed, and here you are, at a loss of what to do.

Why is it that every time you wish for a scenario, you never actually know what to do when it happens?

“Can you come down now?” Kai questions you. “Please?”

“I’m going to bed,” you tell him, distancing yourself from the window. “Night.”

“Wait,” he calls again. He glances at the roses, and then bends down to set them on the ground. “Do you remember … last time. I asked you. If you like to fall asleep to music.” You nod, and he continues. “I’ll sing for you. This time. A whole song. I’ll sing for you. Okay?”

“You’re going to wake up the whole dorm,” you reply, but the bite in your voice is receding.

“I won’t,” he promises, his eyes looking endless underneath the night sky. “I won’t.” And before you can say no, before you can turn him away with some sort of excuse, he opens his mouth and sings, right there below your window, right there on the campus with the moon glowing over his head, right there with those roses on the floor and his hands in his pockets, as if he does this every day, as if this is the easiest thing in the world for him to do. But you know it isn’t. It isn’t like Kai to go out of his way to accomplish overly sentimental things. You can tell he’s uncomfortable with it, because the usual cockiness that lines his lips (lips you could’ve kissed yesterday, you remind yourself) is absent, and the usual quirk in his stance has disappeared. He’s putting himself down for you. Just for you, he’s degrading his own image. Because he likes you.

You don’t know if he’s going to stick to his word this time. You don’t know if he honestly means what he says. But for now, you lean against the windowpane and turn an ear to the beautiful, gentle music that his voice announces, at the dark, vibrating tune that shakes his lips and clutches your heart.

For now, you’ll listen. And for now, you’ll stay.