4:56

“See you tomorrow, Kai!”

“Yeah, see you too, Sehun.” Kai waved his hand back to his friend.

After he had been sure that Sehun had gone, he stepped back to the school building and looked around, making sure that there was nobody around.

Kim Jongin a.k.a Kai was a third grader of one of high schools in Seoul. He was known as a cheerful person. He was expert in dancing and he had a handsome face that made every girl (even boy) was heading over heels for him. He had such exotic tanned skin and gorgeous smile too. But, he was never interested of love before, so he didn’t care.

But, behind his well-known behavior, he was exactly a loner. He really liked to be left alone to enjoy his lone time and emptied his mind from all life’s problems. That was why he always headed to the school’s rooftop after school. No one knew his secret, even Sehun, his best friend.

He loved the school’s rooftop because it was always empty after the school had been over and the breeze was soothing. He had never found people who went to rooftop so he made it as his private sanctuary.

But, apparently, that day was different.

Kai was standing at the doorway after he had opened the door and saw something in the middle of the rooftop.

A sketch book.

A ing sketch book.

It meant his sanctuary had been disturbed by someone he didn’t know since he couldn’t find anyone there.

Its pages were flipped by the wind and Kai could see some sketch on the creamy thick paper. He approached the sketch book, looking around to see if he could find the owner, but he found no one,s still no one. He squatted down, hovering above the innocent sketch book, and glared at it.

He was split between taking it or not.

The curiosity won. He took the sketch book and flipped it close to see the cover. He found a weird name there.

D.O

It was just like that. D.O. No class, no real name, no school, no more, no less, nothing. Just a plain D character followed by the dot and then the O character was all Kai got.

Carefully, he flipped the cover to see the very  first page. There was a sketch of flower there, rose, complete with the stalk and the thorns. The petals were shaded in dark grey. He knew it meant red. It looked like whoever made it was a black and white painter.

He flipped the second page and found a cute dog there. It had long fur and looked like wiggling its tail. For the light brown color of the dog (Kai thought) the painter shaded it with light grey.

Kai flipped and flipped and flipped. He found a bee, a landscape of from the rooftop, the sunset, the beach, the house in the middle of hill, the mouse, the ashtray full of used cigarettes and a glass full of ice and the droplets running down on its sides. All in black and white.

But for the very last page, he found a drawing of someone’s back. Kai thought that the drawing had been made while the painter had been in the class since they also had painted the teacher in front of the class. But, the focus of the drawing was the back of someone. The surroundings had been made blurry, not as focused as the back. The person was a male since the hair was short. Kai didn’t have any idea about who it was since he didn’t recognize the figure. The drawing had the sunlight penetrated the glassy window on the person’s left side. And he noticed the tiny writing at the top right corner of the page.

4:56

It looked like a time. It was four minutes before the school ended. He found it unique that the painter had finished it four minutes before the school ended. But, was it really the time or it had some other meaning? He didn’t know. But, for then, he just trusted his thought that it was a time.

Wait, why would he care anyway? Wasn’t it just a random sketch book?

Kai didn’t know why he was so attached to the book but he really fell in love with the sketches in it. It was simple, two colored, but beautiful, and filled by feelings.

He put it into his bag.

-

Kai thought he would forget about the sketch book as the time went by. Apparently, he was wrong, very very wrong. As the days went, he kept glancing at the sketch book every time he had time. He sometime flipped the pages just to see the drawings when he was eating his lunch or even in the class if he was boring as hell.

One day…

Two…

Three days.

He couldn’t move on from the sketch book. He was curious of its owner. He really wanted to know who the hell had made such beautiful drawings. He had never found anyone around him who could draw so he couldn’t help but look for them.

“Is that you?”

Kai looked up and saw Sehun chewing his chocolate while looking at the last drawing.

“Huh?” Kai asked back, “What…me?”

“That drawing.” Sehun pointed the drawing, “Is that you? Who made it? It’s so real.”

Kai raised his eyebrows and looked at the drawing again, “Does it look like me…?”

“Well, you look like that from behind.” Sehun shrugged and sat in front of him.

“Really…?”

“Beside,” Sehun pointed the tinier writing beside the person’s right ear, “It’s written ‘Kai’ here.”

Kai widened his eyes as he saw the writing. He didn’t see that coming. Kai bit his lower lip. So, he indeed knew that D.O but he didn’t know who. And then he had an idea popped out on his mind.

“Can you help me, Sehun?”

“As long as you aren’t asking me to give my Luhan to you, yeah.”

Kai rolled his eyes, “I don’t like your freaking Luhan so no, don’t worry.”

“Okay then.” Sehun grinned, “What is it?”

“Can you take my picture from behind in every last class we attend every day for a week?”

Sehun shrugged, “No problem.”

“But you have to take the photos every time when it’s 4:56 pm.”

Sehun frowned, “And why does it have to be at 4:56?”

“Because the time is at 4:56.”

-

So, from the following week, Sehun kept taking the photo. He had to ask some people to move so Sehun could take the photo. Kim Jongdae on Monday, Byun Baekhyun on Tuesday, Park Chanyeol on Wednesday, Do Kyungsoo on Thursday and Huang Zi Tao on Friday. Luckily they didn’t object and gave the chair easily.

On Saturday, Sehun visited Kai’s house. He had a pack of photos in the paper bag he was bringing. Kai immediately let him in and dragged him into his room.

“Show me.” Kai demanded.

Sehun emptied the bag and five photos were scattering on the carpeted floor. He matched all the photos with the drawing but he couldn’t find the right one.

He sighed and put the last photo into the bag.

“Maybe it’s not me, Sehun.” Kai sighed, “Maybe another Kai.”

“Yeah, as if there was another person called Kai at our school.” Sehun rolled his eyes.

He took the sketch book and stared at it again, sighing repeatedly since he was meeting the dead end.

And then it hit him. He got up abruptly and d the magnifier from his drawer. He put the drawing on the floor and aimed the magnifier to the blurry board on the drawing.

It was blurry but he could see that the teacher in the drawing was writing the chemical equation on the board. He hurriedly messed the photos and found the one which matched.

He laughed and Sehun raised his eyes questioningly.

“Of course we didn’t find the match one. It was raining when you take this photo.” Kai explained.

“Ah…it’s like that…” Sehun nodded.

He stared at the photo Sehun had taken and the drawing back to back.

Got you, D.O!

-

Kai walked toward the rooftop again on the following Monday. He had been running because he thought he would find whoever had dropped the sketch book, they might be searching it at the last place they had used it.

The rooftop.

He opened the door silently and he was right. Kai saw the petite male was messing with the roof and the woods and the ventilations. Anything he could reach. From the doorway, Kai could see the frustration was gnawing him in his eyes.

With a soft smile, he approached the frustrated male and patted the shorter male’s shoulder.

“Hi.”

The boy gasped and grinned awkwardly, “Uh, hey, Kai.”

“Are you looking for something?”

“Ye-yes but I think I wouldn’t find it here. So, I’ll go now.” The boy was about to go when Kai gripped his wrist.

“D.O, you made a drawing with me in it at 4:56 pm, four minutes right before we go home every day, right?”

The boy widened his eyes, “How co-you found it?!”

Kai smiled and handed the sketch book on the boy’s hand, “Yes. You don’t know how hard it was to look for you.”

D.O blushed and hid his face behind his sketch book.

“Why did you draw me?” Kai asked in interest.

The boy lowered the sketch book to show his wide eyes, “Be-because I like you…”

Kai prevented himself to squeal at D.O’s cuteness, “Like me? You don’t even know me, right? I mean we’re friends, but it’s just it, right? We didn’t talk much before so how could you like me?”

D.O shrugged, “I don’t know…I’ve liked you since the first time I saw you dancing…”

Kai nodded understandingly, “So, do you want to be my boyfriend?”

The shorted boy hid his face again but Kai could see the tip of D.O’s hair moving up and down as a nod. Kai chuckled and pushed the sketch book down. D.O gasped as his face was exposed.

“Why?” Kai asked, “I can’t see my boyfriend’s face?”

“It’s not like tha-wait! What did you say?!” D.O stuttered, voice slightly higher than usual.

Kai raised his eyebrows smugly and folded his arms on his chest. Slowly, he could see the red color creeping up from D.O’s neck right to the cute face.

“A-ah…yo-you’re no-not joking, ri-right…?” The shorter m=boy squeaked.

Kai chuckled and stoked the boy’s hair, “I don’t know. But, we can try, right? I don’t have lover anyway.”

“Oh my God…”

Kai laughed out loud and brought the smaller frame into his arms, he was amazed of how the smaller body fitted in his embrace. He rubbed the shorter boy’s back and inhaled the boy’s sweet fragrance.

“Thank you…” The boy mumbled against Kai’s shoulder.

“You’re welcome, Do Kyungsoo.”