The school bell rang as I reached the front gate. I was really late and it was the first day of school too! I hurried along the path and passed the notice board. I then ran back to check which class I was in on the schedule pinned there. I scanned quickly for my name and when I caught a glimpse of it, I looked up to read the class I was in. I huffed in relief then hastily ran to class. I took the stairs two at a time, trying really hard not to trip and fall.

Finally I was on the third floor and was turning into a corner that led to my class. But suddenly, I was thrown back and fell hard on the floor. My right shoulder ached where I ran it into something. I grasped my shoulder as the real pain set in. Tears welled up in my eyes as I massaged my shoulder gently, trying to ease the pain. That was when I heard a voice in front of me; apparently the something I ran into was a person, a guy to be exact. His hair was red and he had some weird red stuff on his face too. Did he dye his face too? No, wait. He was bleeding!

“Omo!” I gasped, my hands covering my mouth. “Are you okay??”

But he was silent, letting the blood paint the tiled floors crimson. I grabbed my blue handkerchief from my bag and offered it to him, asking again, “Are you o –!”

He snatched the handkerchief from me and my face flushed from astonishment. He covered his bloody nose using the handkerchief as he got up, and then he glared at me and left without a word. The sound of his footsteps on the stairs reminded me that I had to get to class too. I pushed the sliding door open to reveal a class full of chattering students. The teacher wasn’t in yet, lucky for me.

“Anyeong, HyoJin!” A guy waved his hand wildly at me to come over. “I saved you a seat!” He pointed to a chair next to him cheerfully.

“Pipe down,” I shushed him when I was seated. “I don’t want people recognizing me this early.”

“You and your jokes,” he chuckled and smiled broadly at me. “Never get tired of it.”

I eyed him suspiciously, “You are so weird Choi MinHwan. You know that? Every time we start school, every year, you say those exact words. For how many years?” I calculated it in my head for awhile and we both say, “Seven years!”

“And you’ve been saying that since we started our final year of middle school,” he pointed out, resting his chin on one hand and the other patting my right shoulder.

“Don’t even get me started with – AH!” I winced, as the pain in my right shoulder flared back to life by MinHwan’s pat.

“HyoJin! Are you alright?” He quickly got up from his seat and took a look at my shoulder. “Does it hurt a lot?”

“No, it’s nothing,” I answered, rubbing my shoulder. Then I tried to move my arm around, the pain was still there but I could barely feel it.

”You should go to the clinic or something, it could probably be a dislocated shoulder or worse,” the second the word worse escaped his mouth, he regretted it because he pulled his hands to cover his rounding mouth.

I stood up and tried to overshadow him by standing on my toes, but wow, was he tall. I threatened to punch him and with a dark expression I said, “You trying to jinx me??”

*****

MinHwan didn't dare to speak to me for the rest of the day. But vy the end of school he did try to say that he was sorry and all using his aegyo. Unfortunately, his aegyo no longer affected me like it used to. Like it used to...I remember having a crush on him when we were in middle school, we have been friends for a long time and I guess that his charm kind of caught on me. I also remember being jealous everytime a girl confessed to him. But at the end of the day, I realized that we were just meant to be friends and nothing more, nothing less. He never saw me more than a friend anyway, so I gave up on him, on love...boohoo...

My phone rang and swept me away from my memories. I glanced at the caller ID, MinHwan. I sighed and rejected the call. He has been trying to call me ever since I got back home. We don't usually fight much but I was really sensitive about my arm because it was my guitar playing arm, so I couldn't just let it go. Before I could even close my eyes to reminicse some more, I heard some rattling near my bedroom window. I sat up straight, bewildered, and stared at the window closely.

I jumped when the sound came again but there was nothing at the window. I strained my eyes just in case I missed it the first time. And the noise was there again, louder this time but I didn't see anything at the window at all. I inched forward on my bed to get a closer look and just then, I heard a hissing sound. Omo, could it be that there was a snake in my room? But how did it even get in? The window was closed and my room was on the second floor! Unless it slithered its way up the tree just outside my window...or was it another one my little brother's pranks!

Anger fumed inside me at the thought of a stupid prank as putting a live snake inside my room. “Ya –,” I started to shout out to my brother when the rattling just got louder with a clink accompanying it this time and the next thing I knew, the window's glass cracked. That was when I realized it wasn't a snake after all, someone was throwing rocks at my window!

Quickly, I got off the bed and opened the window to scream at my stupid brother – because he was the only stupid person who would do such a stupid thing – only to get a mouthful of gravel. I heard a gasp as I spit out the soil from my mouth and brushed off the dirt from my face. Lucky for me, I had my eyes shut so none of it got in them and when I opened them, I saw a very scared MinHwan standing at the base of the tree looking all guilty.

“HyoJin-ah ...” his voice trembled as he looked up at me. “I...I'm –”

“You threw rocks at my window?” I interrupted him, giving him a glowering look.

“Um...”

“I never knew you were this stupid Choi MinHwan. Look at what you did to it! You cracked my window, babo! I mean, who throws rocks at someone's window and then gives that someone a mouth full of dirt?”

“Hyo-HyoJin-ah...” he started to say but I scowled at him closed the window before he could continue. I really never knew he was that stupid. I stomped my way to the door and when I opened it, my brother was there.

“Did you call?” his eyes widened when he saw the dirt on my face and then he laughed himself to death. Well, not really but I wished he did. I pushed him aside and went straight to the bathroom to wash my face. But my little brother, being the irritating kid he was, came up to me and asked what happened. “Did you decide to take a swim in the dirt or something?” he laughed at his own joke.

The swimming thing was kind of a personal joke. When I was a little, omma asked me what kind of lessons I would like to attend to discover my hidden talent. I took up swimming lessons at first and found out that it was boring so I changed to guitar lessons instead. And despite some of the swimming lessons that I attended – though it was just for three lessons – I was a very bad swimmer. Okay, I lied, I couldn't swim at all. And besides the whole arm thing, swimming was also a very sensitive topic.

“HyoJin-ah, HyoJin-ah!” I heard omma shouting from downstairs. I turned off the tap and dried my face with a towel before answering. “Come down here! Someone's here to see you!”

MinHwan. Even thinking of his name made me pull a face. “Be right there!” I called back and threw the towel roughly at my brother's annoying face. I hurried down the stairs and saw omma talking to MinHwan at the front door, acting all innocent like he didn't just crack a window at someone's house.

“HyoJin-ah,” his face lit up at the sight of me. Omma turned to face me too and glanced at MinHwan before walking away. “HyoJin-ah,” he said again, annoying me.

“What.” I said sternly but quietly so that omma wouldn't overhear.

He took a deep breath before he let out a long apology which he said so quickly that I could only make up a few of the words like; sorry, fault and stupid. He was stupid, anyway. So I just stared at him with a blank expression until he finished his apology speech. By the time he was done, he was out of breath but still looking hopefully at me. I scoffed at him and shut the door on his face.

“What was that all about?” omma asked me just as I was climbing the stairs.

“Nothing,” I replied quickly and wanted to dash up the stairs but omma then said something that really surprised me.

“If you two really like each other that much, he shouldn't be knocking at the door at this time of the day. The neighbors could misunderstand us, HyoJin.”

“Mwo? Omma! It's nothing like that!” I exploded, taken aback by omma's narrow-mindedness. “We're just friends, omma. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Then why did he have roses behind his back?”

Roses? What the hell was MinHwan thinking? Showing up at the front door with roses? No wonder omma misunderstood. Okay, I take back what I said about omma being narrow-minded. MinHwan babo!

I raced up the stairs before omma could say anything that was unbearable to hear. I stepped into my room and shut the door tight behind me. I was so not ready to have boyfriend talk with omma. I let out a sigh and before I could feel relief, I saw MinHwan in the tree outside my window. I couldn't believe he would go that far to apologize. That kid has issues.

“What are you doing?!” I asked him when I opened the window. He grinned and waved at me like nothing was wrong. “What do you think you're doing?!”

“HyoJin-ah~,” he said shakily because the branch was moving with his weight as he squatted. “I just wanna apologize. I'm sorry for saying wor – I mean, bad things...and cracking your window causing you to open them to scream at the stupid person who was doing it but unfortunately having to eat dirt because of that. Mian~”

I couldn't say that I was touched by his apology. But he looked so stupid at the same time that I had to hold back my smile. He looked like a monkey in a tree but a very cute one at that. Then, surprisingly, he held out a bouquet of roses and gestured for me to take it. I took the roses willingly but then I remembered what omma said about us liking each other, and feeling slightly embarassed at that thought, I kind of pushed him away. Yes, away from the window, away from the tree … so he actually fell off the tree.

“I'm okay!” he said as I peered down to look at him, feeling guilty for what I just did. He was sitting on the gravel smiling and waving up at me to show that he was fine.

I sighed out of relief to know that he was okay. But then I hastily drew myself away from the window and pulled it shut. I couldn't be that weak to just forgive him like that. No, I won't forgive him that easily. Not even if he fell off a cliff or something. Not that it was possible, I mean, what would MinHwan be doing at a cliff? But maybe I could forgive him for the bouquet of roses. I felt so happy to see it in my right hand and as I put it down on my bed, it matched with everything in the room. I was happy that MinHwan at least did this one thing right; he actually knew that I would go soft for blue roses.