It was the beginning of spring, the time in which love bloomed. Cherry blossom petals whirled around in the air, creating a beautiful play of wind and soft pink petals. Love letters were exchanged, confessions whispered into the other one's ear, gazes briefly met before they parted again. Everyone was cast under the spell of spring. Everyone the one particular girl knew of – she was the only one who hadn't been in contact with the so-called love yet. However, she didn’t plan on changing that.

“Areum? Are you coming with us?” One of her friends – Minah – asked, leaning closer to her, as she grabbed Areum's pencil. The latter who sat on the ground – that consisted of healthy, green grass – looked up. “No, I'm not interested in watching a basketball match,” she answered, getting her pencil back.

Minah chuckled and raised her hand. “It's not about the the game, dummy, it's about–”

“ –about the boys!” Yura, her other friend, called out excitedly. The two girls squealed and clasped their hands together, seemingly not able to wait any longer. Their school's basketball team was indeed a group of eye candies, as well as the rival team, but honestly, Areum wasn’t all too enthralled by them. Sure, they were kind of good-looking and also good at sports, but those two aspects didn’t make her feel attracted to them. When she walked past them occasionally, she could only see their muscular statue, light cockiness and many jokes being cracked here and there.

After several complains, her friends finally accepted her refusal and left, and she tried hard to find a comfortable position again. After a few tries, she comfortably leaned against the tree behind her again and proceeded with her drawing. She was drafting the school yard – probably the only pretty place in the whole school – as the sight of all the cherry blossom trees was delightful.

Just as she wanted to continue sketching, she noticed the school's soccer team walk through the yard, about twenty meters away from her. She watched as the female students all turned around and squealed. Some of them reached out and gave their love letters to the boys, some gave them self-made cookies.

Areum tilted her head. The soccer team had a similar aura as the basketball team, a rather loud and chaotic group of muscular and sporty boys. Was this really so desirable? Somehow, she didn’t get butterflies in her stomach when she thought of those sporty boys with good looks. At the same time, her heart didn’t flutter for the smart ones, as well. All those with skills or physical appearance society would rank high, weren't so enrapturing for Areum. But maybe, she was just looking for something else.

She was an artist, she appreciated beauty, and she was seeking for it in humans. Not in the image a certain person had – like most of her school's popular people had – but for the beauty of the person itself. But, it was hard to find it in humans, much harder than finding it in nature, paintings, poems or books. It wasn’t like she could sense their beauty the second she saw them. There was a long process of getting to know someone before you feel attracted to it. Or so did Areum think.

And so the girl was somehow not interested in getting to know many people. After the long process of getting to know each other, to find out that both are not compatible had to terrible. It was such a waste of time. And also, it took long to get to know the real core of a person, as everyone was functioning according to rules and expectations of this world. People … people were boring, and love?

Love was a foreign word for the seventeen year old girl.

-

The whole school was watching the game, as it was a really important on