These past few weeks the “Jaehyo topic” wasn’t brought up—only once out of ten chances, and lately she had been asking about me, my interests, and my opinions about various things. But still. My one-sided rivalry with our gang’s leader was still strongly etched at the back of my mind.

“Yukwon-ssi, I’ll be going to class now,” she bid me kindly, as she would always do, that cloudy Wednesday, when she had to go class. This happened last week.

And it was that day when I had resolved to start putting a wall between me and her. I would start by just giving plain answers to plain questions, and interact without dropping any motive. This is it. “Hm,”

My friend may had seemed to be a little disappointed that she asked for a better reaction. “Yukwon-ssi annyeong,”

“Yeah.” I mumbled, not even glancing to look at her, pretending to arrange my cleaning materials. After that I don’t know if she already left—I chose not to care; I was drowning in my thoughts about various things—just to keep my attention away from my object of admiration. Again and again, again and again, I did this for a long string of minutes until I was done. Heaving a sigh, I wiped an arm across my forehead to remove the sheen of sweat there. My shift for the morning was done. I turned to my right and taking one step—

“AH!” I yelped, when she was standing just beside me the whole time.

I must have lost my poise that she covered with a hand and politely chuckled. “Yukwon-ssi, you didn’t seem to hear me,”

I looked away, blushing. “I heard you,”

“Aw,” she pouted. “By the way, is anyone going to give you anything on Valentine’s Day?”

Valentine’s Day. That was next week, right? And it will be my last day as a janitor. I made an inaudible gasp at the realization.

I might never have to see her again.

“I…” I cleared my throat. “There will be a lot, for sure,” I managed to laugh at this. Resisting the urge to say, you wanna give me one too? I diverted the topic into something else, I said, “You, any plans on Jaehyo-hyung?”

Now it was her turn to get shy. “Well, I…” there was a hint of disappointment in her voice. “I don’t know. There will be a lot of girls giving him stuffs,” and when she looked back at me there was something that puzzled me. I don’t know how long it lasted—one, two…maybe more than five seconds? We stared at each other, and there was something in her eyes I could not exactly point out—I’m not good at reading women, but the way she looked at me was utterly disturbing. She looked worried, scared, embarrassed—all the same time—I don’t know! but all I know is that after that long moment she broke the staring contest and one heel. “I’ll see you later, Yukwon-ssi,”

But we didn’t see each other for the rest of the day though.

In fact, the next time I saw her was the week that followed; it was on a Monday. Everything was back to normal, or at least, I hope so, but truly we treated each other like how we would always do. Her telling stories, and me reacting, and vice versa. There was a little problem though. Every time a conversation died out an awkward atmosphere would instantly take over, and to start a new round of talk would be a struggle. We would unconsciously try to beat each other on who would try to talk again, to start a new topic. This didn’t usually happen. In fact this is the first time that it has ever happened. Something was up, definitely—but I didn’t decide to delve into whatever that was, and neither did she.

Good thing, though, a suitable topic had been brought up, though honestly it was a little marred by an incident.

She had brought her bag into the “closet” (as what I had been accustomed to calling it) and for more than a couple of times that day, I noticed her peeking at something inside it, but never bothered to bring out. Finally, my curiosity won over and I asked, “What are you looking at in there?”

She abruptly lifted her head and sort of stammered, “Uh, n-nothing,” but when I looked at it I saw something—the edge of a box.

“Hey what’s that?” I giggled, suddenly sitting beside her and gesturing to get her bag.

“Ah—ani!” she yelped, drawing her bag away before my hand could even reach it.

“Come on!” I laughed, teasing. “I saw a box!”

“Please, Yukwon-ssi, no!” there was a mixture of laughter and alarm in her voice.

“Give me that!”

“Please, no!”

“Come on, we’re friends!”

“Yes, but—“

“Please?”

She swung her arms to the right with her hands tightly holding onto the object, while we fought over it I followed every movement of her arm. “Yukwon-ssi, please!”

“Hey, it’s okay! I know that’s for—Jaehyo-hyung!” she raised it up in the air, and, in my determination to get a hold of it I leaned forward, falling on top of her without any intention.

“Uh…”

“Um…”

There I was, sensually on top of her, my face hovering on hers. I swear I could feel her breath from my position there.

“Uh...Yukwon-ssi…”

“I…”

We were frozen like that for three long seconds, until we heard the bell ring across the campus.

Quicker than anything else, I wedged myself out of my position—goodness how I did that, but luckily I had regained my bearings. “S-sorry,” I muttered, sitting.

“I-uh—no, I should—um—“ she mumbled, syllable after syllable as she hastily got up, and dashed to the door, her face bright red. “Goodbye, Yukwon-ssi,”

And as she left me, I just remained there sitting, looking blankly into space, feeling like embers were dancing on the surface of my face.

***

“Hey, I won’t let them get away with this,” I growl, looking already at the door, now having made up my mind to go out.

“Please, no. Yukwon-ssi, I can’t let you get into trouble again,” she pleads.

“This isn’t about me,” I reason angrily. “Good thing for you, you merely got that for today.” I gesture at the ruined cookie-box nearby which she possessed. “What if tomorrow, or the day after? Aren’t you forgetting that the day after tomorrow is Valentine’s Day? They know you have a chance with hyung so they’re going to do anything to get their hands on you,”

“Aniyo, aniyo,” she shook her head, a soft smile on her lips. “I’m fine,”

“But—“

“Please, Yukwon-ssi…if you truly care for me…”

I open my mouth to say something, but nothing smart wants to come out. “Fine,” I grunt, looking away.

“Thank you, Yukwon-ssi…”

I sigh. “But I know the es, so you better warn them,”

I could tell from her face that she was about to laugh. At which, though, I don’t know. “I think they’re already pretty knowledgeable that I have Kim Yukwon as my backer,”

Smirking, I reply, “So they better stay away from you,”

But they don’t.