June 21st, 2011

Less than a week left before summer vacation started. A break that almost all of the students have been waiting for. A break from all those lectures, submissions, deadlines, study groups and all sorts of stuffs that are part of everyday life for students. All students were so looking forward to their destination getaway. Yes, all except one lonely soul...Yong Hwa. He might look like the kind of person that is very laid-back, composed, and nonchalant, which explained why most of the souls in that college admired him, but the truth was he had started to feel uneasy since he arrived at the college that morning.

It was when he walked down the college hallway, where he saw his colleagues were happily chatting about their plans for this upcoming summer vacation. When one or two of them saw him and asked where would he be going to or what would he be doing during the vacation, he just shrugged his shoulders and gave them a mirthless smile. That kind of brittle smile that everyone has wised up to him since she left.

Since then, that uneasy feeling has been bugging him. The kind of a feeling you had when you were sitting for an exam and realised that the topics that came out were topics that you have skipped from revising as you thought it won't be coming out again. You couldn't do anything. You couldn't just give up and walked out of the examination hall yet you couldn't write down any relevant answers or thinking process on the papers. You could do nothing but to hope for a jolt of memory to came across your mind. A memory of what you learned in class. And as for Yong Hwa...a memory of what was it feel like to spend summer vacation on his own.

Yong Hwa decided to walk away from the loud crowd in the college hallway. It would be best for him to avoid from being there for awhile, he thought. At least until the crowd has dispersed. He let his legs carried him to a place where he could no longer hear an indistinct noise of people talking. He eventually arrived at  a familiar lecture room. It was the same lecture room that was used for class 2-1 back in 2009. The same room that he went to grab his bag right after that fateful detention. And without being forced to, the permanently etched memory of what happened two years ago flowed smoothly into his mind.

Even today...I live in your traces

Even today...I live in your time

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June 24th, 2009

"Yong Hwa-ssi...Yong Hwa-ssi...let's hurry so that we can finish this early. It's summer rainy season now, and we might not want to be caught in the rain later in the evening." urged Shin Hye as she realised Yong Hwa had been staring at the same book for few minutes. "Don't take my words seriously. I am just this kind of person who likes to ponder over some small things like this and not to mention me being a bit philosophical and sentimental sometimes," Shin Hye let out a small laugh. "Let's hurry."

"Oh. You're right. I'm sorry," said Yong Hwa getting back to focus on rearranging the book on the shelf. The job became tedious when one of them mistakenly put the book on the wrong section. And as if it was a game, each of them took turn doing that. One minute they were focusing on looking at the number carefully before grouping the books of the same code number and another minute you could hear either of them shouting, "Yah, who put this book of code 345 in History section?!" The reply from another party would be either "I'm sorry" or "I don't know" or a shrugged shoulders or simply a sticking out tongue. They got along well during the detention period, well since it was just the two of them. And thanks to the easygoing, carefree, witty and amiable pesonality that both of them have which helped a lot along the detention period. 

They were completely absorbed in their chore until they had it accomplished. Yong Hwa was breathing a sigh of relief when Shin Hye took a brief glance at her wristwatch, "Omo..Yong Hwa-ssi, it's 6.50pm already. What a day! Pheww,"Shin Hye sighed, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. Yong Hwa caught a glimpse of her doing that, and he chuckled softly as he found it was cute. They quickly went back to the library help desk to give back the key to the librarian and after giving a bow of gratefulness to her, they both walked together back to the lecture room building to grab their bags and stuffs before going home. They parted ways when they reached the stairs next to the theatre rehearsal studio.

Yong Hwa's class was at the third floor while Shin Hye's class was at the first floor. When Yong Hwa reached his class, he noticed the sombre sky so he quickly grabbed his stuffs, walked out of the lecture room and after making sure the door behind him closed properly, he eagerly descended the stairs to the college entrance only to find that it has started raining. He paused his steps for awhile before making up his mind to just walk in the rain as it was just a slightly heavy drizzle.

Two steps in the rain and he could feel someone was already there next to him sharing umbrella without a word of offer. He turned his head to see who the person was and their eyes met before he saw her smile. "Ah..it feels good to share umbrella with someone you know, isn't it?" said the girl.  

"Shin Hye-ssi..." he paused as he fumbled for words of gratitude. He thought it would be the day where he would go back home drenched in rain and ended up listening to his mom's nagging. But he was wrong. He couldn't find the right way of expressing his gratitude but instead he said, "You can just walk me to the bus stop near the college gate."

"Oh, sure!" was her short reply. 

Such a nice girl, Yong Hwa thought. They have just got to know each other for approximately 6 hours which was a quite short period of time for her to act generously like that. When they reached the bus stop, Yong Hwa finally found his words and  thanked her before they waved goodbye to each other. Yong Hwa watched her as she walked away before he decided to sit down on the bench knowing that in this kind of weather, the bus would always running late. He was searching  for his red headphones and his iPod in his white CEMULA backpack when he heard a familiar voice saying, "Where do you live?" He was startled a bit. He raised up his head and their eyes met again. His eyes grew wider. She was bending down a bit so that her head was at the same level as his. Shin Hye giggled softly when she saw his startled expression, causing him to blush. 

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to startled you like this. It's just that I thought if we happened to live in the same neighbourhood, I could just walk you home. That's why I turned back. Well, considering the bus frequency at this time of the day, walking home would save you some time," Shin Hye tried to make her pure intention clear to him. 

"Oh, it's fine. I live in the hillside neighbourhood there," Yong Hwa pointed to the distant blurry view of his neighbourhood. "It's 15 minutes walk from here."

"Really? Then consider it as your luck. I live in the neighbourhood up on the hill. We can walk together then," she said.

Yong Hwa smiled and nodded in agreement. "Let's go," he packed his stuffs back into his backpack. At least today was not that bad, his mind told him. Although his day started ugly with him getting the lowest mark in Electromagnetics combined with the cancellation of his band performance followed by the 6 hours tedious detention in library,  the generous act of someone he just got to know really made his day. He asked Shin Hye to let him hold the plain turquoise colored umbrella. Shin Hye was more than delighted to do so. And so the first journey of that two young students walking back home went. Little did they know that it was not going to be the only day they walked back home together. That was just the beginning. The days ahead were waiting to bear witness to their blossoming love which was flourished from the very first day of their meeting.

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June 21st, 2011

Yong Hwa's trip down the memory lane was cut short when someone called him.

"Hyung! So you're here! What a relief!"

"Oh, Jong Hyun! What's the matter?"

Jong Hyun walked towards Yong Hwa. "Everyone is looking for you. Aren't we supposed to have our practice with the Drama Club today? Eun Jung noona told me to pass you the message to gather at the theatre rehearsal studio." He paused for a while to take a look around the lecture room he was in. "Oh I didn't realise this was the lecture room we used 2 years ago. There were so many beautiful memories we had in this lecture room, right Hyung?" Jong Hyun looked at his friend in front of him waiting for his answer.

"Yeah, a lot. I miss all those times we spent here."

Yong Hwa could feel as if the song Thank You by Nell was playing at the back of his mind.

I miss you...more than anyone in my life

Yong Hwa got up from his seat and gave a friendly manly tap on his bandmate's shoulder. "Let's go."

Jong Hyun watched the back of Yong Hwa as he walked towards the entrance of the lecture room, giving a hopeful smile to himself before catching up with his friend. Surely, he knew very well the real deal of what happened to his bestfriend back then when they were still the students in that lecture room.

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A/N: Dear readers, here is my second chapter. I feel like the story isn't really progressive so far. But I really want to express in details every single moment of them together. Sorry to update it quite late. When my exam ended this afternoon, I went straight to have lunch with my friends to celebrate our end of exam period. And as I got back, I was completely lost on how to start off this chapter though I already have the main body. Feel free to comment or voice out anything that you think is not good enough. I need it for my improvement. Thanks for spending your time to read this shabby work of mine.