XC

Seohyun emerges from the bus and shields her eyes from the warm spring sun.  She is wearing simple clothes, a blouse and a flowery skirt. A small bag is in her arms, and she cradles its contents carefully. Her grass cord ring, usually worn on a piece of string around her neck whenever she is in class, is now back on her ring finger, for today she is not at her school, but at Myungsoo’s instead.

She checks that she’s gotten off at the right stop, before walking up the slight hill that would lead her to him, passing old shops with rusted metal grates and musty signboards that sell an array of things ranging from groceries to earthenware. This is an old neighbourhood, but these shops have been here for decades and still thrive with business.  She smiles as she sees an old lady waving to her, and takes in the change of atmosphere from the polished, squeaky clean surroundings of her own school.

She enters his school without much trouble—the gates are wide open—and notes in happiness that she seems to have come during lunch period. The basketball courts are worn with use, the paint of the school walls peeling. Students mill around the bleachers and on the grass. It is noisy yet quiet, public yet quiet. The air feels different here; older, less harried, more laid back.  There are boys playing basketball in the courts, and Seohyun hears them swearing at each other as she walks by them. This makes her smile. Back in her school, anyone caught using such language so blatantly would be given detention and perhaps a parent’s letter. Here, everyone seems more relaxed, more concerned with living rather than surviving. It’s different, and rather than being shocked by it, she finds herself welcoming this difference.

Making her way further into school, Seohyun begins to see more and more students, lounging around during break time and enjoying the spring breeze from under the shade of large trees that dot the campus grounds. She’s still a little afraid of this new environment, so she chooses to walk along the side of the campus instead of crossing through the field. There is a boy ahead of her, walking in the shade with a girl at his side. His tall stature and jet black hair, with the quiet, brooding aura, remind her of-

“Taekwoon?”

“Leo!”

Oh.

Her call is drowned out by the group of boys who were playing basketball. The tall boy in front turns slightly, not enough for Seohyun to see his face, and shakes his head when his friends ask him to join in on the basketball game. Seohyun falters in her step. She must have mistaken someone else for Myungsoo’s roommate. She shakes her head and continues walking, but realises that the boy in front has stopped and turned and is now looking at her.

“Seohyun?”

She lifts her head and her eyes widen when she realises that the boy is indeed Taekwoon. She breaks out into a small smile, from relief that she called out for him correctly, and from joy as the usually stoic boy greeted her.

“Hi,” she says, hurrying up to them. For some reason she feels proud of herself for talking to Taek.

“Are you here to visit Myungsoo?”

Seohyun nods, beaming once again at the thought of him. The girl at Taek’s side looks at her curiously.

“Ah— Sorry.” Taekwoon turns to the girl beside him. “Yoo Ah, this is Seohyun; Myungsoo’s girlfriend.

“And Seohyun,” Taek laces his fingers around the girl by his side. “This is Yoo Ah, my fiancé.”

--

Taekwoon—or Leo, as his friends call him—informs Seohyun that it is Myungsoo’s lunch break now, and gives her directions to his classroom. She smiles again in gratitude and thanks him, then gives a little wave to him and Yoo Ah before setting off towards the block of classrooms. Yoo Ah beams sweetly and waves goodbye. Seohyun feels happy at having met and talked to Taek—he’s not so scary after all—and is glad that she had to opportunity to meet Yoo Ah. The two of them look good together, and Seohyun wonders for a moment if their love story is as blissful as the one she shares with Myungsoo.

She locates his classroom easily enough, but hesitates when she’s at the door. The familiar quickening of her heartbeat returns as she places a hand on the doorknob. After checking once, twice, thrice, that she is at the right room, she wills herself to turn the knob, but falters, too nervous to face a new situation, to come in close contact with strangers.

She takes in a few deep breaths. Myungsoo is behind this door, and Myungsoo is worth braving a new situation for. She moves to open the door, but is stopped when her heart speeds up once more. She stands aside for a moment, and focuses on breathing and on Myungsoo’s face. His impish smile and warm gaze fill her thoughts, and she finds herself smiling. When her thoughts are in order and she is not feeling as faint as before, she bites her lip and twists the doorknob open, entering the classroom before she has time to feel afraid again.

The classroom falls silent as she enters—or maybe it’s just the blood pounding too loudly in her ears—and Seohyun feels more self-conscious than ever. Her eyes scan the room, trying to ignore the increasing amount of students who are giving her curious glances. Her clothes stand out amongst the black and yellow jumpers of his school, and it isn’t long before his classmates notice her white blouse and lost expression.

She bites the insides of her cheek, telling herself to calm down and ignore these strangers and look for Myungsoo because Myungsoo is the most important person in her life and if she doesn’t find him soon their lunch would go cold-

“Seo?”

Myungsoo appears before her like a vision, a surreal mirage. He is wearing the same thing as almost everyone else, a black and yellow jumper and dress pants, but—and she tells herself that she isn’t being biased here— he looks better than the others do.

“Hi,” she says breathily, in relief and in joy, as he breaks out into a grin and wraps her in a hug. She doesn’t notice his classmates staring as much now that he is here with her, even though some of them have begun whispering.

“What are you doing here?” He asks. And she raises the bag in her hand.

Myungsoo’s heart swells at the action. She’s brought him lunch, and it makes him want to laugh. It feels like a scene from a fairytale, from a soap on the television, too perfect to be true. It’s amazing how she braved the throng of strangers that were his classmates so that she could come to him. Myungsoo is proud of Seohyun. But more importantly, she is proud of herself.

He pulls her out of the classroom, her hand firmly in his. He feels invincible, like he could fly, and the last time he felt this way was during the war, when he was bruised and bloody and beating the lights out of  an unconscious Changjo. But while all he did during the war was use the feeling of power to make up for his feelings of loss, this invincibility that came now was because he had finally found someplace where he could belong.

“Don’t you have school?”

“Sports day,” she says smoothly before grinning back at him. “I’m not a fan of running.”

He laughs uninhibitedly as he leads her to the back of the school, to an alcove with stone tables and benches that is shaded by large trees. The air is sweet with the scent of flowers. They sit and Seohyun unpacks their lunch; she’s had the whole morning to herself, and she’d eagerly spent it preparing a spread. She lays out the jiggae, kimchi and rice as Myungsoo’s eyes widen.

“This looks amazing,” he says in awe, excitedly picking up his chopsticks, placing a quick kiss on her lips before he returns his gaze to the food in front of him. Seohyun can’t help but smile, for he looks like a little boy at this instant, all animated and full of wonder. She looks at him shyly as he takes his first bite of food, holding her breath unconsciously as he chews. His verdict matters greatly to her, but she supposes that that is to be expected as well.

The best response comes to her when he takes a second bite after his first, and a third after that. The stew hasn’t gone cold and neither has the rice, and they warm Myungsoo up immensely.

“This is amazing.” He beams at Seohyun. “You are amazing.”

--

They finish lunch and spend the rest of his free period talking, lounging around amongst the trees and enjoying the cool spring breeze. It’s the season for showers, and today is an uncharacteristically sunny day, something that the both of them are grateful for. They’ve only had an hour or so together, and to Myungsoo, that is hardly enough. He voices this out to Seohyun as he hears the warning bell for afternoon classes sound.

“Maybe I should skip afternoon period,” he muses. The two of them are sitting on the grass, and he has his head on her lap, his eyes are closed and he is enjoying the feeling of her fingers, which are playing with his hair.

“No you shouldn’t,” she retorts, removing her hands from his hair and trying to push him up. “Go to class,” she says, laughing. “What time do you end today?”

“Three,” he says, getting up with a groan. “Why?” He reaches down to pull her up, holding her close and burying his nose in her hair.

“I’ll wait for you.”

Myungsoo pauses for a moment, leaning back to look at her. “Are you sure? It another two hour wait.”

She nods surely. “It’s fine, I can stay here, and you’ll be done soon.”

He isn’t sure about this plan, frowning slightly as he worries about how bored these two hours would be for her, but she laughs again, poking him lightly on the arm.

“I’ll be fine,” she reassures him before pushing him slightly. “Now go for class, or you’ll be late.”

He grumbles before giving his consent, reluctantly unhooking his arms from around her. She settles back down onto the grass, pulling a book from her bag and smiling at him encouragingly. Myungsoo gives a wave and walks back to class, satisfied from having spent the past hour with Seohyun.

As he nears the edge of the alcove, he stops, whips around and runs back to her, bending, almost rolling, down onto the grass in front of her as he places a long kiss on her lips. They are both breathless when they part, and there is a faint blush creeping up Seohyun’s cheeks. Myungsoo rests his forehead against hers.

“Thank you,” he says mischievously, before getting up and running off to class.

He is late—just by a minute or so—and his teacher gives him an unceremonious glare as he enters the classroom. But all he can think of is Seohyun.

--

She’s been reading for barely an hour when she hears a soft rustling coming from a distance. Seohyun looks up, startled out of her story, and blinks curiously. It’s too early for Myungsoo to have ended class; it couldn’t have been him. It is the period right after lunch, and there shouldn’t have been any students wandering around. Seohyun freezes a little when she hears more rustling and the sound of footsteps on dewy grass, and tries to relax herself. Perhaps a student who decided to skip class; none of her business, really. She tries to go back to reading.

The footsteps finally stop and Seohyun finds that another girl has entered the alcove. She is apparently alone, dressed in the uniform of Myungsoo’s school, with her hair untied and blowing in the slight wind. Seohyun can’t see her face, and is about to return her attention to her book when the girl lifts her head, and glances in Seohyun’s direction. Both their eyes widen.

Memories return in full force to Seohyun, and she shudders for a moment as the girl gives her a wary, curious, slightly menancing once over. She is exactly as how Seohyun remembered her—glossy hair, high cheekbones, deep, dark eyes—except now she is taller. Seohyun finds that she cannot take her eyes off this girl, even though she spent the bulk of her childhood trying not to catch the latter’s attention.

The girl ignores her, walking over to a nearby bench and lying down, kicking off her shoes and closing her eyes. The sun warms her face, and she seems to relax slightly. Seohyun is still staring, unable, or perhaps too shocked, to understand these unfolding events.

The girl dozes off, and Seohyun stares. She stares and stares and stares for what must have been millennia until-

“Do you mind?” The girl snaps. “I’m trying to sleep here.”

Seohyun jumps from her spot on the grass, startled. She mumbles an apology—which isn’t heard by the girl, who has closed her eyes once more—and picks up her book. But Seohyun is too riled up, to jittery and lost to continue reading. Instead she stares at the ink words on the page, trying to make sense of them, but all they do is blur together into incomprehensible gibberish.

They stay like this for another hour or so, with the girl sleeping, an arm thrown over her eyes to block the sun and a slight downturn in her lips, and Seohyun fidgeting uncomfortably while she fights with the memories of her childhood. When the bell rings, the girl groans—Seohyun jumps slightly— turns around to her side, and falls silent once again. Thinking that the girl has gone back to sleep, she heaves a small sigh of relief, but the girl gets up after a moment, yawning while she stands up, and straightens her uniform before walking away from the alcove without so much as a glance in Seohyun’s direction.

The girl yawns as she walks out, her eyes still blurred with sleep and unable to register that she is about to knock into someone. The boy she is about to run into manages to dodge around her in time, and he mutters an apology that she doesn’t reply. Instead, she ignores him and her manners (she has none of those) and continues trudging on. The boy gives her a puzzled glance before walking in the direction she came from, a smile slowly forming over his face.

Myungsoo finds Seohyun sitting where he left her, staring blankly into the distance. It takes her a while to register that he is here, and while he breaks into a grin and sits down in front of her, she still has that look of shock on her face. Myungsoo remembers the rude girl he saw a moment ago.

“You were with someone?” He says the girl’s name, the girl whom, up to a minute ago, had been sleeping less than five feet from Seohyun.

Seohyun blinks slowly, as if she were also unsure if there had been another person with her for the past hour. Her lack of response makes him worried.

“What’s wrong?”

“I-“ Something clicks in her, like she is only now fully realizing how familiar the glossy hair and high cheekbones and deep, dark, taunting eyes are. When she turns back to Myungsoo, her eyes are filled with fear.

“I know that girl.”

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Hi lovelies, thank you all so much for a hundred subs. It's the first time any of my stories have ever gotten a hundred subs, and I'm really thankful and honoured that people are enjoying this story. Hence a slightly longer chapter for you, and the introduction of another character :)

Thank you all once again, and please continue supporting this story! <3