Aerin’s POV

Ms. Kim was about to begin her lecture, so I reached in my desk in search of a pencil, but I felt something unusual.  I peered in the dark desk, and discovered a fruit-flavoured lollipop with a sticky note attached to the clear plastic wrapper.

Glad you’re okay. ^^

The corner of my lip pulled up.  It wasn’t autographed, so who could it be that sent me this note and the lollipop?  If the person was referring to the incident yesterday, only 1 person popped up in my mind.  Was it him?  I was lost in my own thoughts, until I realized Ms. Kim was about to erase the notes that I didn’t even copy down yet.  Clumsily, I stumbled upon a pencil and began scribbling.

A knock on the door interrupted Ms. Kim’s lesson.  Whew~  Now I have time to copy the notes down before she erases it.  But I was distracted again, by a familiar voice.

“Excuse me, Ms. Kim?”  Kikwang stood at the door speaking to our teacher.  “Mr. Park was wondering if you have any extra chalk, because he ran out.”

“Oh of course.”  Ms. Kim reached into her drawer, and pulled out a box of white chalk.  “Here you go.”

Kikwang politely thanked Ms. Kim, and just when he was about to walk away, he nodded a smile in my direction.  My heart suddenly skipped a beat, and I felt my face quickly heating up.  Embarrassed, I put my head down, thinking to myself, ‘What’s wrong with me??’

Yoseob’s POV

I wonder if she had discovered the little present yet, that I placed in her desk this morning.  My heart was still uneasy after seeing her getting hurt like that yesterday.  So to soothe myself out, and to cheer her up, I decided to leave a piece of her favourite candy in her desk.  Who knew that fruit-flavoured lollipops were so scarce in Korea?  I had to go to 7 different candy shops and 9 supermarkets just to find them. 

As soon as the school day was over, I wanted to seek the reaction of Aerin, but she ran away before a word came out of my mouth.  Why was she in such a hurry?

Aerin’s POV

As soon as school was over, I flew out of the classroom to thank Kikwang.  His note and the lollipop really made my day.  When I arrived at his classroom, the room was empty, and he was nowhere to be seen.  I stood at the door of the empty classroom, wondering where he could have gone.

“Aerin-ah, why’d you run out of the classroom so fast?”  Yoseob tapped my shoulder when he caught up to me.

“I-” I paused.  “Nothing really.  Let’s go home.”  I walked away, disappointed.

On our way home, I thought of the lollipop I had received this morning, and the disappointed feeling faded a little.  I took the lollipop from my bag, and began to unravel the wrapper.

“Yah, can I have a lollipop too?”  Yoseob pleaded with his sparkling puppy dog eyes.

“Sure, but not this one.”  I swung my backpack to one side of my shoulder and searched the pockets for an extra lollipop to give to Yoseob.

“Why can’t I just have this one?  You didn’t eat it yet.”

“No you can’t, because this one is special.”  I handed him one of my own lollipops.  “Here.”

Yoseob’s POV

“What so special about it?”  I asked, eyeing the sacred piece of candy in Aerin’s hand.

“It’s from someone special.”  She answered with a sweet smile as she popped it in .

Someone special.  Was she calling me special?  I couldn’t help but smile silently to myself.  It’s official.  I had fallen for Song Aerin.

Aerin’s POV

“Yoseob-ah?”  I looked up at him while on my lollipop.  “Since I don’t know much about Kikwang yet, what’s he like?”  I tried to ask as innocently as possible.  I didn’t want him to have any suspicions about me liking Kikwang.

“Um…”  Yoseob thought for a while; then answered me.  “He’s a really friendly and nice guy.  Amongst the 6 of us, he is the fool.”

“The fool?”  I gave Yoseob a weird look.

“Yeah.  He’s really gullible and easy to fool.”

“Does he have any special talents?”

“Um… his best ability would probably be dancing.  He’s a really good dancer.  We used to dance together after school in middle school, before I moved away.”  The boy explained.  “Why are you all of a sudden so interested in Kikwang?”  Yoseob jerked up one of his eyebrows.

I began to stutter.  “Well… I… I was just curious.  That’s all.”

Luckily, we arrived at the intersection where Yoseob and I part our separate ways.  “I’ll see you tomorrow.  Annyeong!”  I dashed off before Yoseob could react, to avoid his further questions.

I was saved.

That night, I fluffed up my pillow to get ready for sleep at 11:00PM.  But oddly, I couldn’t fall asleep.  Then the next time I checked my clock, it was 3:27AM.  I rolled around in my bed, experimenting different positions to lose my consciousness, but nothing worked.

Something echoed in my head.  Great.  That’s why I could fall asleep.  Kikwang’s voice rang in my brain.  I sat up on my bed, sighing.  ‘Do I like him?’  I thought to myself.  ‘No way, it’s probably just a phase.’  I must’ve only felt something, because he was being so nice to me.  Yeah, that’s it.  Ugh!  LET ME SLEEP ALREADY!  I covered my face with my pillow, and surprisingly, this caused my brain shut off.