before i begin, i just want to start off with a question. i don't have any plans in store, but if ( and this is a big 'if' ) i were to write a sequel for htbf! would you guys still be interested in a sequel? i mean, i don't want to bore you guys with the same couple over and over. it would take place in their next school year which obviously calls for many complications. i'm not going to spoil what i have in mind. so if your guys could comment either: yes, no, maybe in the comments i would really appreciate it! keep in mind that this is just for preparation only. i'm still not sure if i want to write a sequel.

“She should be done by now,” Soonyoung glanced down at his watch, biting his lip, “It shouldn't be long until she texts me. That is, if she remembered,”

Stretching his legs out in front of him, Soonyoung leaned back on the fountain on his hands and stared up at the cloudless blue sky. It was one of those days that were perfect for a day out on the field with the rest of his team, but because of finals, they were no longer practicing. Practice, for soccer anyway, wasn't going to start until next year again. The only extra curricular activity that ran into the first week of summer was the play. Which unfortunately, he was a part of. And what was that he wasn't even a part of the play. He was an understudy for the lead role! What dumb luck, really.

His fingers flew across the screen, quickly inserting his password on the phone when the LED notification light started to blink a light blue. Soonyoung hurriedly checked the message, hoping it was Choyoung, but frowned when it was just another one of his classmates sending out details about their end of the year party. He wasn't ever interested in those things unless he was graduating. Then he would attend those parties. Shaking his head, Soonyoung sadly slipped his phone back in his pocket and went back to staring at the sky.

“I wonder what Chan was doing in the Biology Regular Set,” Soonyoung wondered out loud to no one in particular, “Wasn't he part of the top five in Biology?”

According to Choyoung, he did well in Biology so Soonyoung figured that Chan should have made it into the Pilot Set. Unless she was overpraising the boy again. Soonyoung sighed, and shook his head at the thought of Choyoung all starry eyed at Chan during class. It was pretty disturbing to think of but he had never seen her in class, so who knows what she was like? Well it's not like he could do anything about it anyway. What's done was done. Running his fingers through his hair, Soonyoung pulled his phone back out just so he could look like he was occupied and not waiting. Instagram was dry. Twitter was dry. Tumblr was dry. Even Facebook was dry! He had just finished liking Saron's weekly couple picture with Doyoon at a coffee shop when his light lit up again. This time it was a notification from Between.

“Wait a minute, Choyoung still uses this?” he opened the notification, a bit surprised that she still used the messaging app, “Well at least she doesn't just shove our relationship under the rug,”

Between is a popular Korean app used by many couples. It was like a private messaging application used only by couples who were dating, and it kept track of important dates, allowed you to share photos, send gifts to each other and whatever else is crucial to your relationship. What's more was that they already had major couple holidays noted so not a single opportunity to show their love to each other went by unnoticed. Excited, Soonyoung opened her message and immediately, a smile appeared on his face:

aegi_young : soonyoung, i just finished our science final. i'm heading over there now. see, i told you i wouldn't forget! if you're not there and you eat without me, i'm telling on you! （￣へ￣）hahaha see you in a bit~ ♥

Clicking his tongue, Soonyoung shook his head as he stupidly grinned at her text. It was weird looking at her username. They had made their accounts way before Chan ever interrupted their almost-relationship. On top of that, the message was too cute for him to handle. At least, it sounded too much like a text a girlfriend would send to their boyfriend as a sort of 'death threat'. What made him more giddy was that she ended the text with a heart. Now if that didn't send the tingles down your spine, then you probably weren't human. He tapped his chin, thinking about what to send to her until he finally responded with:

sooniebaby : you really had to use between to contact me? Wow you must really miss me, right? (o⌒．⌒o) don't worry, I won't be going anywhere. i'll be waiting! i love you~ ( can i still say i love you or is that cheating? /pouts. )

After he hit send, he waited for another five minutes just staring at their conversation. Soon enough, Soonyoung started to worry. Why wasn't she answering? Did she ignore him? Did it not get sent? That couldn't be. He had great signal downtown! Running a hand through his hair, he sighed, “Was that too much? Did I say 'I love you' too early?”

Turning the screen off, he puffed out his cheeks and leaned back again. Maybe he did push it a little bit? But then how would she know that he was still interested in her and not willing to hand her over to Chan wholeheartedly. Soonyoung shook his head once again, “But that can't be. She contacted me through our couple app! She was totally asking for it!”

“Chan, what on Earth are you talking about?” Choyoung struggled to get out of Chan's grasp to no avail, “We did submit it! I was there when you did it!”

By now almost every student on campus had gone home to study or went out to celebrate the coming of the last day of finals. Only Hansol, Seunggwan, Bee, Minji, Chan, and Choyoung were left standing at the school gates. Their security was getting impatient having to wait for the first year students, and called for them to hurry up. Bee shot a look to Choyoung as if she were telling her 'you better not go with Chan', and back at Minji who was standing next to Hansol asking what happened with Chan and Choyoung's final project. Choyoung finally shoved Chan off, and stepped back into Bee's outstretched arms. But despite being pushed off, Chan grabbed her wrist, “The reason why our screen went black earlier was because our project failed to load! That's why it wasn't submitted!”

“Well what do you want me to do about it?” Choyoung snapped back.

“Miss Lian took pity on us and she's letting us have another ninety minutes to retype our final,” he harshly pulled her towards him, starting to drag her towards the science building, “So if you want to hurry up and do whatever you were going to do, you have to come with me to finish the project!”

With a panicked look on her face, Choyoung looked over at Bee, unsure of what to do. They both knew the consequences of not handing in a completed final, but they also knew the results of a broken heart. A part of Choyoung didn't want to leave Chan to do it alone, and obviously since they were both partners, they both had to be present to submit the lab. And knowing Soonyoung, he would probably be very disappointed that she didn't arrive there on time. Failing to dig her heels into the ground to stop, Choyoung almost tripped and fell if Chan hadn't caught her other hand and picked her up. She quickly protested, and asked, “Can I at least tell them I'm going to be late?”

“We'll be in and out in no time,” Chan indirectly rejected her request, “You'll be in time for whatever you have to do, okay?”

Bee chased after the two, but stopped when Hansol pulled her back, reminding her that if Choyoung were to move to the next grade, she would have to hand in a completed project. There were only two ways that a student couldn't advance to the next grade level: not handing in a completed final test/project, the student failed to show up to the final, or the student received a letter grade less than a C+. There were no such thing as a makeup day in their school; the board didn't believe in that. Peering over her shoulder, Bee only saw the door closing behind her two classmates before they disappeared into the building. Minji saw this as well and placed a hand on Bee's shoulder, mouthing “What about Soonyoung oppa?”

“I'm sure Choyoung will text him that she ran into a problem,” Bee mouthed back, hoping in her heart that Choyoung would do the right thing and do just that. But she highly doubted it. Since Chan was in such a rush to re-do the project, Choyoung didn't look like she had time to text Soonyoung about being late. Turning around, Bee laced her arm through Minji's, and smiled up at her, “And besides, we'll be passing downtown square anyway. If Soonyoung is still there, we can tell him what happened. I'm sure he'll understand,”

Upstairs, Chan and Choyoung were back in their seats with Ms. Lian explaining to them what happened to their project. It was quite common for the computer they had used to act up during finals, and at least one or two people would always experience problems about every other year. She sincerely apologized that she didn't switch the computers this year but she figured that since the computers were upgraded, that they were going to be running perfectly fine again. Choyoung couldn't even pay attention to what she was saying since her mind was too busy thinking about the time. She snapped out of her thoughts when Chan tapped her on the shoulder, and pointed to the screen to start their lab once again. He placed a hand on her shoulder to tell her that everything was going to be okay, “If you and I both put heads together, we should be able to get this done in less than half an hour,”

“Yeah but Soon-” Choyoung immediately stopped mid-sentence, cursing herself for not catching herself earlier.

Her heart fell when she saw Chan's warm smile disappear from his face, quickly turning into a dissatisfied frown. His brows were furrowed together, as if he were deep in thought. Guilt quickly overcame her and she felt like someone had just punched her in the stomach a million times. She knew that the water wasn't calm between Chan and Soonyoung and with that slip of the tongue, she pretty much just made waves again. Sliding the laptop over to her side, she placed her fingers neatly on the keyboard, “I mean, we have to finish it soon,”

“Yeah, right,” Chan slowly said, before resting his elbow on the desk.

He watched Choyoung's fingers dancing across the keyboard as she typed up their answer to the first question. It was obvious that her poor save didn't mean that she wanted to finish as soon as possible. But he couldn't bring himself up to act up at this time. The last thing they needed were their love lives to spring up during a final project. If they did, they weren't going to be able to finish. Sliding the laptop over to him, Chan's fingers replaced hers on the keyboard and started typing faster than she did, “I'll type for you since I type faster than you, but you have to stay with me,”

Nodding her head, Choyoung sat back comfortably in her lab bench and started rolling her wrists in a big circle. It was always a thing she had with typing. If she typed too fast, her fingers and wrists would start to hurt. She would have to lightly press on her joints for them to stop hurting. Her mom had the same problem, only it wasn't as bad since her mom would have immense pain and even get migraines at trying to endure the stinging sensation. Craning her neck to look over the other laptop screens, she made sure that Ms. Lian wasn't paying attention before she ducked behind her screen. She didn't feel comfortable with just having the teacher in the room for company. Choyoung had just finished setting her wrist accessories on the table next to the laptop to relieve her wrists when she asked Chan, “But why are you doing this?”

Chan shrugged his shoulders as he pressed the tab button to begin answering the next question, “Let' just say it's not nice to keep people waiting,”

“No way, you're lying!” Minji exclaimed, examining the picture Bee was showing her on her phone, “That can't possibly be true! Even Hansol oppa hasn't taken me there!”

Bee smirked when she heard that the cutest couple in the first year class hadn't even gone on a date to the butterfly garden in town. Then again, it wasn't a common place for most teenagers to go on dates, especially the younger crowd. Thankfully Jihoon wasn't one of those people. The picture she was showing Minji was a selfie she had taken of her and Jihoon when he decided to take her on a date – or as he called it, a 'mock date'. Jihoon made it clear that they weren't going on a date, but he was taking her out because Bee had constantly been bothering him by asking questions about his dating style. He finally gave in to her annoying ways and bluntly told her, “If you're so curious, then I'll pick you up at five this afternoon,”

In the picture, Jihoon pretty much had his head resting against Bee's shoulder with several butterflies resting on his hair. Minji had to admit, even though she was totally jealous that Jihoon had taken her friend out to a traditional date place, they were really cute together. She'd known about Bee's helpless infatuation with the senior, so she couldn't help but drown in a pool of feels as she scrolled through the rest of the pictures in the gallery. Minji was actually glad that Hansol wasn't there to hear her spazzing over someone else's man. Hansol was, unfortunately, one of the jealous types.

“Well believe it or not,” Bee teasingly turned her display screen off and slid her phone back inside her purse, much to Minji's disappointment, “Jihoon's starting to change for the better. Imagine, he actually told me to go on a date with him! I didn't even have to ask this time!”

The two girls exploded into a giggling fit, completely taken away by Jihoon's actions. He had a reputation around school as someone who never took girls seriously enough to take them out on dates. But Bee was someone who was pushing him out of the norms. At least, that's what her first year friends were noticing. Of course, Jihoon would easily refuse this and just to keep him happy, Bee would play along and say that there wasn't anything going on between them. Which she believed there wasn't since she actually caught him eyeing one of the third year students the other day.

A little further into downtown square, Soonyoung was still waiting where he first arrived about an hour and a half ago. He had gotten to the venue early and from the time she last heard from Choyoung, an hour passed. So the total time was roughly about an hour and a half. Nevertheless, an hour and a half was still an hour and a half and since then, he hadn't heard back from her. Not even a single call or message.

He was starting to worry that something bad had happened to her so he called Jihoon earlier, wondering if he should go out to look for her or still wait. Jihoon told him to wait for an hour, because she might have run into traffic so now that an hour had passed, he figured that it was about time to start panicking. Standing up for the first time in an hour in a half, Soonyoung did a double take and pretty much sat down again, wincing at the needle feeling arising in the lower part of his legs. That's what he gets for sitting cross legged on a block of cement. Trying it again, Soonyoung pulled his keys from his pocket, but was almost knocked over by something ramming hard into him from behind.

“Soonyoung! You're still here!” a familiar high-pitched voice shrieked excitedly from behind him, “Thank God we found you!”

“Bee, Minji? What are you guys doing here?” Soonyoung forced himself to keep standing up even though the pain in his legs were enough to wipe out his entire bottom half. Letting go of the older boy, Minji pulled away and looked around in every direction. Her eyebrows rose when she didn't spot Choyoung in the perimeter, “Wait, is Choyoung not here yet?”

Soonyoung's eyes widened at the mention of Choyoung; he had completely forgotten that Bee and Minji were Choyoung's closest female friends! Soonyoung quickly whipped around, almost throwing Bee off him. He caught Bee just in time from flying off in the other direction, gripping her shoulders firmly. When Soonyoung saw the terrified look on Bee's face as if her life just flashed before her eyes, he felt terrible. He didn't mean to scare her like that, but he was just so glad to finally hear something about Choyoung. Setting the shorter girl down, he pulled his hands away and left them off to his side, “No, I haven't heard from her in almost two hours! You wouldn't happen to know what happened to her, would you?”

“So I guess she really didn't have time to contact you,” Bee bit her lip as she crossed her arms across her chest, earning her a funny look from Soonyoung. Shaking her head, she waved her hands in front of her, “Forget what I said. The important thing is that Choyoung just got caught up in something so she couldn't make it on time. But she'll be here, I promise you that!”

She hesitated to tell Soonyoung that she was still in school with Chan all alone with no one else but the staff and security. If she did, who knows how he would react. Knowing Soonyoung's protective nature, he would drive back to school and demand that the security let him through school gates after hours. And that would surely get him in trouble. Minji gave her a look that said 'you better tell him the truth' but Bee just ignored it. Unfortunately for her, small details such as that didn't get past Soonyoung that easily. He turned back to Bee, “Is there something you're not telling me?”

“And once again, we're finished!” Chan triumphantly pressed the last on the keyboard to finish up the last character.

Next to him, Choyoung was eagerly sitting at the edge of seat just itching to get out of the room. Calling MS. Lian over, they asked if they could monitor their actions so that they wouldn't have a repeat of what happened earlier. Once Ms. Lian gave the okay, Chan and Choyoung simultaneously pressed the enter button once again, jumping for joy when the message 'Your submission was received' flashed on the screen. Ms. Lian smiled and left the two to finish off their celebratory hug; she desperately wanted to lock up the room and go home. She swore she was the last teacher left in the building.

Once all three of them were out of the room and by the gates, Chan and Choyoung showered their teacher with many thanks and wished her a safe and happy summer. Not many teachers would be so lenient as to give them an opportunity to re-do their project. Most teachers would have made them do summer school or worse, repeat the grade. Their school wanted to avoid the idea of summer school since rarely anyone ever had to do it. They usually just held back the failing students.

“Thank you so much, Chan,” Choyoung wrapped her arms around Chan's neck, pulling into a hug once again after Ms. Lian was out of sight, “We may not have finished in less than ninety minutes, but I really owe you. If it weren't for you, I would have had to repeat the grade,”

Smiling, Chan patted her back with his free hand. His heart ached knowing that he was probably the last person on her mind right now, “No problem, Cho. I don't want anything like that to happen to you. Anyway, I have to go study now, good luck on your last tests and see you next year, alright?”

“Next year? Oh that's right,” Choyoung's face fell as she slowly pulled away from him, “You're in both the Japanese and Algebra Pilot Sets,”

That was it then. After tonight, she was no longer going to see Chan. Well she was going to see him during the final play practices and the play itself, but they weren't going to be seeing each other as casully anymore. The final practices were always the most intense and left little to no time for socialization. And after the play, Chan was going to be flying to Japan for vacation with his parents. For the first time in her time of knowing him, Choyoung felt more distant to Chan than she had ever been. She didn't like that feeling. Chan noticed the lonely expression on her face, and lifted her chin up, “Keep your head up, princess. I don't like seeing you sad,”

Waving goodbye to each other for the last time that week, Chan and Choyoung headed different directions; him to his house, her to downtown square. Checking the time on her phone, Choyoung clicked her tongue and cursed under her breath. She was literally two hours late, give or take a few minutes. There was no way Soonyoung was still going to be there considering how the sun had already set. Having lived with the Kwons, she knew that it was dinner time already for them. Soonyoung must have gone home by now.

As if things couldn't get any better, Choyoung felt a drop of water land on her nose. The sky was a a shade lighter than ash as the clouds covered the moon. There was an eerie aura surrounding previously familiar school neighborhood. She didn't realize that it looked so different at night time when it was about to rain. Before she knew it, the light showers started to fall harder, until even a tree wasn't enough to keep her from getting wet. Stopping by the bus stop on the corner, she figured that there was still time to catch the late bus home.

Luckily for her, Choyoung was on and off that bus in about ten minutes when she arrived at Soonyoung's house, her hair and uniform dripping wet from the rain. She shielded herself from the downpour with her folder up until she made it underneath his house's porch roof. Ringing the doorbell, she sighed in relief at the comforting whimsical chime of the house bell. It was Soonyoung's mom that answered the door, but seeing her with a worried look on her face made Choyoung worry. Realizing that Choyoung was drenched, Mrs. Kwon quickly invited Choyoung into the house, grabbing an extra towel from the closet, “Oh dear, what happened to you? You're completely soaked!”

“I got caught up in the rain,” Choyoung accepted the towel eagerly drying her hair, “Is Soonyoung home?”

An alarmed look appeared on Mrs. Kwon's face when Choyoung asked her where Soonyoung was. Choyoung raised an eyebrow until she figured out why Mrs. Kwon looked like she was about to faint. Her eyes widened when Mrs. Kwon told her that Soonyoung still hadn't come home. Choyoung immediately stood up from the now-wet sofa, ripping the towel off her head, “What do you mean Soonyoung still isn't here? I thought he would come back?”

“I can't reach him, Choyoung!” Mrs. Kwon cried out, taking the towel from Choyoung and using it to dab at her own face as tears started to stream down her porcelain-like cheeks, “I don't know what happened but I think his phone is turned off or something!”

Before Mrs. Kwon even got to finish her story, Choyoung was already running out the front door with nothing to protect her from the rain. Her uniform was still full of water, but she didn't even care at this point. It's not like she could get any more wet than she was now. She always had a tolerance to cold temperatures. That's why she rarely ever got sick. And when she did get sick, it was a pretty short cold spell. Buses at this hour were not a common sight especially in the local area, so Choyoung had to go on foot. Everyone out on the streets that were either going home from work, or going from home to their night shift, stared at her weirdly wondering what a little girl was doing running around with no umbrella or rain gear.

“Kwon Soonyoung!” Choyoung started calling out once she reached downtown square, “Kwon Soonyoung, where are you?!”

Even though it was the middle of the city, that didn't mean it wasn't a big place. There were many statues scattered around the area and several nooks and crannies for little kids to play on to keep themselves busy while their parents went out shopping in the tiny stores around the area. The rain didn't seem to want to stop either. There was at least a two inch deep buildup of water on the flat ground, causing her to slip at least twice while she was running around frantically. No one was hanging around the square anymore, and all the night goers were inside enjoying themselves at the coffee shop or noodle restaurant.

About to give up, Choyoung decided to try one last thing to try and lure Soonyoung out if he was even in the area anymore. Sprinting to the middle of the square, Choyoung climbed up on top of one of the carved blocks, and cupped her hands around desperately hoping that this last resort was going to work, “Kwon Soonyoung, it's Kwan Choyoung, your aegiyah!”

Waiting for a few seconds, Choyoung's spirits dropped when he didn't respond to her call. Her bottom lip quivered, frightened just thinking about what might have happened to Soonyoung. She mentally kicked herself for making him wait for two hours, and now that she came he was gone. Bringing her head down, she placed her hands on the sides of the block as she carefully climbed down from the block. Air quickly escaped her lungs when she lost her footing. A squeal escaped her lips as she started to descend, but she was quickly revived when a pair of strong arms caught her; one arm behind the knees, and another arm supporting her neck.

“I never thought I'd live to hear the day you called yourself my aegi,”

Her eyes flew open at the familiar soft, gentle voice that could belong to none other than him. And there, in the dim light of the yellow street lamps, she stared up at the familiar warm chocolate orbs that greeted her happily every morning, no matter what mood he was in. Soonyoung's hair stuck to his forehead like it always did after soccer practice, only instead of it being just his bangs, the rest of his hair was flat on his head. Water droplets fell from the tip of his nose and onto her forehead as he looked down at her. Her tears started to fall, shocked that she was actually seeing him again. She was convinced that she would never see him again after minutes of not responding to her. Despite all the rain on her face, Soonyoung could differentiate between her tears and the rain. A chuckle built up in the back of his throat as he set her down, hugging her once she regained her balance, “Choyoung are you crying?”

“No, I'm not,” Choyoung managed to say though a string of hiccups as her tears began to soak his already drenched uniform blazer, “It's the rain,”

Soonyoung breathed out a sigh of relief as he watched her wipe her eyes, trying to stop herself from crying. It was great to finally see her again despite him being water logged. All his worries of anything bad happening to her were put to sleep, knowing that she was right there in front of him. Bee and Minji had explained to him why he was running late, and since he trusted her to come back for him, he stayed put.

Looking down at Choyoung, he realized that she wasn't wearing any raincoat at all. Just her uniform as well. And because of how heavy the water was, her blazer sleeves were starting to slide down her arm, revealing her clean, bare wrists. Soonyoung's brows knitted together when he caught sight of her wrists. It couldn't be. How come both of her wrists were bare? With a concerned look on his face, he grabbed her right wrist, and asked in a stern tone, “What happened to our watch?”