Joohyun has her life all planned out—every single day of it. She’s out her front door at 6:39 every morning and waits for bus number thirty-five (that’s somehow always on time) for two minutes. She always sits in the left window seat three rows from the back and reads eighteen pages on Ban Ki-Moon before ringing the bell of the bus. Half-second later, the stop is announced through the speakers. It takes her four steps to reach the back door of the bus (not before looking back at her seat to see if she’s left anything) and she opens the door right when the green light flashes because she knows that it lights up exactly one second after the bus stops.

On school days, she walks down the side street for seven minutes, greets the old lady that comes out to get her newspaper, and then continues walking for another five minutes before reaching the school gates. When she’s six steps through the gates, she stops, readjusts the straps on her bag to make sure her shoulders and back don’t get hurt, and takes a deep breath. Once she exhales, she looks right, left, up at the Korean flag the school has hanging beside its name, and continues to make her way to the school library with a small smile on her face.

Yoona thinks it’s cute.

That thought drives Yoona to run (not too quickly or else she’ll sweat) to the east entrance of the school, every day, so that she can ‘coincidentally’ run into Joohyun outside the school library at 7:37, eight minutes before the library is scheduled to open (the librarian always lets Joohyun in early).

“Hi, Joohyun,” Yoona beams.

“Hello.” Seohyun bows and shows a timid smile as well.

This conversation occurs every day before they walk past each other, one headed to the library, the other to her locker. And every day, Yoona puts her hand to her chest and exhales, content that she was able to talk to Joohyun, but discontent with the brevity of their conversation.

(It’s really more of a greeting than a conversation, but that's something Yoona will always refuse to admit.)

The next time Yoona sees Joohyun, every day, is at the bench behind the school, eating her lunch alone. Yoona’s friends, Taeyeon and Sooyoung, have no idea how Yoona eats the same hotdog and French fries at the stand behind the school—about 100 meters away from the bench—every day for lunch, but they have come to the consensus that attraction does wonders.

“Hi, Joohyun,” Yoona says, for the second time every day, when she walks back to the cafeteria with two hotdogs and a paper bag of French fries in her hand.

“Hello,” Joohyun replies, also for the second time every day, but Yoona notices—every day—that she covers with one hand as she nods her head slightly because her timing is always right after Joohyun takes a bite out of her sweet potato.

Yoona thinks that is cute as well, but Taeyeon and Sooyoung have long grown tired of hearing about it.

After school, Joohyun doesn't take the bus that's scheduled to come ten minutes after class ends; she takes the bus that comes two hours and twenty-nine minutes later because that bus comes after rush hour, and will therefore always be on time. Yoona thinks that it's too dangerous for a junior (in the honor class of her grade) to be taking the bus home alone, so Yoona signs up for extracurriculars that run after school, giving her an excuse to sit in the very back seat of the bus Joohyun takes home—every day.

"Hi, Joohyun," Yoona says, for the third time every day, as they wait for the bus at the bus stop.

"Hello," Joohyun greets back, once again, with a slight bow. 

This third and last conversation continues.

"Where are you going now?" It takes all the courage Yoona has inside her to ask this—even more courage than it took for her to switch the contents of her brother's shampoo and lotion bottles while he was sleeping—every day.

"I'm returning home now." Joohyun, once again, gives Yoona a small smile that sends butterflies up and down her body, forcing Yoona to try her best not to show that her nerves are being activated all at once. For some reason, she always feels like she's failed terribly.

"M-Me too." Yoona stares at her shoes and lets her hair drape around her face as she feels her cheeks heat up from stuttering.

And every day, Yoona is too blind with embarrassment to catch the colour and content expression on Joohyun's face.

* * *

It's some time in the September of Yoona and Joohyun's senior year, and Yoona wakes up at 6:30—the time bus number thirty-five usually arrives at the bus stop nearest to her house. She curses herself well over a thousand times for staying up until 4:05AM with her little brother Jongin after seeing him rush into her room, crying because he heard thunder. She curses him as well.

After rushing to take shower and get dressed, she's out the door at 6:41, but not before kicking the door of Jongin's room and yelling "grow up" as loud as she can, in hopes that he'll wake up and have his day ruined as well.

He does.

She checks the transit website on her phone to see when the bus will come, but instead of scanning the schedule, she reads a notice of a flood blockage, preventing buses from reaching her stop—and Joohyun's.

Yoona races to enter the code of her garage and doesn't even wait for it to fully open before leaping in to get her bicycle. She hops on the seat and forgets to close the garage, but knows that her mom will close it—and nag her with a text—when she leaves with Jongin to drop him off at the elementary school he attends.

She reaches Joohyun's bus stop at 6:53 and sees her looking at her watch with a distraught expression on her face. Yoona instantly loves Jongin ten times more than before for making her late, and tells herself to buy him his favourite banana milk after school. She stops pedaling and presses the breaks so hard that she stumbles forward and nearly flattens her nose.

"Hi, Joohyun," Yoona pants. Their conversation begins forty-four minutes earlier this time, but Yoona doesn't mind.

"Hello," Seohyun greets back with a bow and smile, as usual.

"Need a ride?"

Joohyun shakes her head. "Oh no, I wouldn't want to trouble you. Plus, the bus should be coming soon so I won't have a problem getting to school on my own. Thank you for the offer, though."

"I usually take the bus to school as well—the very same bus actually." Yoona scratches the back of her head. "There's a flood blocking our bus route, so buses won't be coming for a while. But it would be my pleasure to help you get to school." Yoona points to the back portion of her bike.

"But that's very dangerous, and I wouldn't want to cause harm to a stranger—"

"We're strangers?"

"Well, I don't quite know your name, even though we do greet each other every day."

Yoona thinks for a few seconds, and then puts her hand between Joohyun and herself. "Hi, my name is Im Yoona, and I'm 18 years old. What's your name?"

"Seo Joohyun... and I'm 17 years old—"

"Great! Nice to meet you! And now, we're not strangers anymore!" Yoona mentally kicks herself and vows to reprimand herself later for her childish logic.

"I still don't think having two people on a bicycle with a single seat is a good idea. The area above the back wheel is not a very sturdy place to sit."

"I'll go super slowly."

"I still don't—"

"Suuuuuuper slowly."

"What if we tip over?" Yoona makes a mental note that Joohyun is a safety freak, but thinks its cute, just like everything else about her.

"You can hold on to me so you don't fall off. And we won't crash because I haven't crashed in ten years, and because I'll pedal super slowly. It's also a really long walk to school from here." Yoona doesn't how else to convince Joohyun, so she's glad that Joohyun begins taking small steps towards her.

Yoona offers a hand to Joohyun to help her onto the bicycle—not that she thinks she would need it—but Joohyun takes it anyways and sits sideways with her legs dangling off the right side of Yoona's bike.

"Just this once, Yoona."

Yoona grins.

She knows that Joohyun is hesitant, but when she feels Joohyun's arms slowly wrap themselves around her waist, Yoona knows it's the best day of her life, with many more to come.

* * *

When the bell rings for lunch, Yoona finds herself hurrying to the bench behind the school, trying to get there before Joohyun does. To her embarrassment, they get there at the same time, which results in Yoona wanting to hide and curl up in a corner somewhere, but she takes a deep breath instead.

"Yoona?"

"I—Hi." Yoona flushes.

"Hello." Joohyun giggles, and Yoona feels like she's about to faint because she's never heard anything more breathtaking than that.

"Hi." Yoona blanks.

"Is there something you need from me?" Yoona hears Joohyun laugh again and she thinks—or rather, her mind jumbles together—that if she were to get headshot right at that moment, she would have no regrets.

"I was thinking—do you want to—how would you like—I... give me a minute here." Yoona turns around to take a deep breath, and slaps her cheeks. She's rehearsed this many more times than her script for her performance as part of the acting club, yet she doesn't even remember the opening line.

"Are you asking me to eat lunch with you?" Joohyun guesses.

"Sort of—I—yes," Yoona answers with her back still faced at Joohyun. "That, or we could eat with my friends Taeyeon and Sooyoung, or just me—" Yoona jumps back when she sees Joohyun's face appear right in front of hers, but ends up tripping backwards into the bench. Her expression turns sour as she feels rainwater seeping through the fabric of her jeans, but she still tries her hardest not to show it.

"Well, since I'm already sitting here, may I eat lunch with you today?" Yoona bravely suggests. She slides over to the other side of the bench and her face scrunches when she feels her turn cold, but reminds herself that it's better than having Joohyun sit on a wet bench.

Joohyun nods, and Yoona tries her best not to show that she can feel her insides exploding. She sits down and thanks Yoona, but all Yoona can think about is how close they're sitting because she dried only half the bench.

Joohyun takes out two boxes—one with Keroro on it and one with Mario on it—and hands the Mario box to Yoona with two hands.

"My older sister caught a fever today, but I only found out after I made her lunch. It might not be enough, but I think it's healthier than your usual lunch at the stand…" Joohyun looks over at the hotdog stand. Yoona's face becomes tinted as she tries to hide the happiness she feels when she realizes that Joohyun actually pays attention to her—every day. 

"Thanks!" Yoona begins eating as soon as she lifts the cover of the box and breaks apart the pair of wooden chopsticks she's pulled out of her bag. As she eats what she thinks is the most delicious meal of her life (probably just because it was made by Joohyun), she, for a brief second, thinks about how amazing it would be to live a life with Joohyun cooking for her every day.

She stops eating for a moment and debates whether or not she's crazy.

Her final decision is that she is.

"What's wrong, Yoona? Does it taste bad?" Joohyun panics. "I might have taken out too much sugar from the recipe to make it more healthy for Sunkyu," she mumbles.

"Oh, definitely not—it's wonderful! Like you—," Yoona mutters the last part by accident and instantly silences herself.

"Pardon?"

"It's nothing." Yoona starts to stuff with food. Joohyun begins to eat her lunch as well, beaming.

She heard.

* * *

Yoona is being forced to begin planning her life out, while Joohyun is learning to have more flexibility in the days that make up her future plans. 

In the mornings, Yoona's mother lets Joohyun into the Im household at around 6:40. Sometimes, Yoona's ready to go before Joohyun steps inside, but it's more often that Yoona's still rushing around the house, trying to find her left shoe that Jongin likes to hide.

Joohyun always finds it.

They get to school a bit before eight and Joohyun always waits for Yoona to lock their bike (with two seats) at the bicycle rack outside their school. When it snows, Joohyun insists that they take the bus for safety reasons. Yoona can never say no to her about anything.

When they get to school, they go to library to study—or rather, for Joohyun to tutor Yoona and make sure they go to the same university. Yoona, of course, doesn't mind one bit.

Sometimes the two eat lunch together with Taeyeon, Sooyoung, and the new addition of Sunkyu, while, other times, they sit together on that bench behind the school. Joohyun makes lunch for Yoona every day, but sometimes, Yoona buys sweet potato fries for the both of them to eat.

Joohyun used to spend her time after school doing homework. Following that, she would have done some extra studying and reading before going to sleep at exactly ten. But with Yoona, Joohyun never knows what will happen after they finish studying. She leaves that for Yoona to decide because Yoona doesn't like plans. She's learned that Yoona will always be there to mess her schedule up with her constant yet refreshing impromptu urges and suggestions.

But now, Joohyun doesn't mind the variations that pop up in each of her days because she knows that when things don't go according to the way she's planned them, she'll always have Yoona to save her and change her future in the most unpredictable ways.

So... I meant to post this right before SNSD's mv release, but I was running a bit behind and when I was editing the last paragraph, SM decided to release the MV a minute early. Yes, yes, I'm making excuses, but holy mother of soshi Taeyeon can sing, rap, dance, and look amazing at the same time...

Time to go cry myself to sleep.

I joke; it's past 4AM and I don't know if I'll be able to sleep after seeing igab...

Good night everyone. I hope you're all watching the mv right now (: