Myungsoo was about to scold the person who bumped onto his back while walking into the corridors but as he turned with eyebrows furrowed, he found Suzy smiling and panting at the same time.

“You walk so fast,” she commented as they started walking side by side and Myungsoo just gave a small smile in reply.

“Hey,” she added as she walked backwards in front of him. “Where will we go next?”

“Uhmmm,” Myungsoo started to think for a while. “To the cafeteria?”

“Ani,” she shook her head. “It’s going to be the last week of our photoshoot. Aren’t we going to go to anywhere special?”

His steps halted and so did Suzy. He thought that it would slip her mind and how he wished it did. Truth is, everything was already done but he couldn’t tell her that the portfolio was already finished ahead of the expiration of their contract. He couldn’t tell her that he had shot enough pictures of her in the clothes that she was supposed to model for. He couldn’t tell her because he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to end the only relationship he had with her, sooner than planned.

“Ani,” he smiled. “We’re going to shoot pictures in school.”

“Eh?!” she asked back with eyes wide. “We’re going to have a photo shoot in front of the other students? You’re going to make me wear clothes other than the uniform in here?”

He chuckled before saying, “No. I’m going to shoot candid pictures of you.”

“What does that mean?” she tilted her head.

“It means I’m going to follow you around all day and shoot pictures whenever I want to,” he replied with a bright smile. He commended himself for being so smart to think of a perfect excuse so that he could always stay beside her.

“Ohhhh,” she nodded and they started walking again before Suzy suddenly grabbed Myungsoo’s arm.

He watched while she fiddled with his right hand and she flashed yet another bright smile as she showed him what the change was. A warm smile crossed his lips as Suzy said,

“It’s your favorite color.”

He chuckled once more as he eyed the black bracelet that dangled on his wrist. He was more than touched and he wondered how one single gift can make every fiber of him filled with happiness. But he reacted in the way that Suzy would expect him to. He teased, “This looks so cheap.”

“Yah! I made that myself!” Suzy complained with a pout and he pinched her cheeks in reply making the former whine. When Myungsoo released her cheeks, she started slapping his arms for revenge.

“I’ll be expecting my gift too,” she suddenly said as she shot him an eye-smile. Myungsoo looked at her in disbelief as he replied,

“You’re unbelievable. You give something while expecting a return?”

When she shrugged her shoulders, it sent both of them laughing. But the laughter quickly faded away as they looked straight and noticed that Sungyeol was coming in their direction. The blush that quickly crept into Suzy’s cheeks was not left unnoticed by Myungsoo. He wondered if the black shade under her eyes was caused by sleepless nights thinking of Sungyeol or making the bracelet that was given to him- and how he wished it was the latter.

“A-Aren’t you going to eat for recess?” Suzy asked, stuttering.

Myungsoo and Sungyeol stared at each other for a while before the latter smiled and replied, “Ani. I’ll read instead.”

“Okay,” was the only word that left Suzy’s mouth; Sungyeol smiled again before walking past them.

Suzy and Myungsoo started walking again towards the cafeteria until Suzy halted her steps and told Myungsoo, “You go ahead. I suddenly remember that I have something to do in the library.”

Myungsoo tried to smile as he nodded. He stood still as he watched her ran in the other direction, in the path that Sungyeol took.

Sungyeol was ten when his parents decided to send him into a regular school. His parents’ friends commented on how awfully quiet he was, and how he lacked every emotion normal children would have. It was then that his parents considered that he was depressed and concluded that perhaps going out and meeting new people would help him.

On his first day, he didn’t even utter a single word to introduce himself. However, people also knew that Lee Sungyeol wasn’t shy- the way he would coldly stare at them straight in the eyes told them so. He was sent to school in his parents’ hopes that he would make new friends but he didn’t even talk to anyone. While teenagers get dramatic on how they tried so hard to fit in, the ten-year old Lee Sungyeol did not want to belong.

“Are you mute?” one of his classmates asked him but he as usual, replied with a blank stare. His classmate then squinted, as if trying to observe him under scrutiny and suddenly, he slapped a hand on the table but Sungyeol didn’t even jerk. His classmate sighed and shook his head and Sungyeol heard him mutter, “You’re really mysterious. Aren’t you too young to play chic?”

He kept pestering Sungyeol with questions but while many were defeated with the way Sungyeol replied with silence, this classmate of him was too stubborn to give up. On a theory that Lee Sungyeol was a robot, Kim Myungsoo had developed uncountable mischievous plans, such as putting frogs on the former’s locker, or slipping a fake cockroach in between his notebook, just to pursue Sungyeol to make an expression different from the one he had always carried. Myungsoo wanted Sungyeol to complain on how he bullied him. He wanted him to tell the teacher how nasty his tricks were. He wanted to hear his voice but instead, Sungyeol would not even give a small reaction.

Until family day had come and the other children crowded Sungyeol as they bombarded him with questions about his parents’ absence. They ranged from innocent questions like “Where are your parents?” up to disturbing ones like “Are you an orphan?” and when Sungyeol didn’t answer any of them, the simple questioning became bullying. Children that he was indeed a robot because he had no parents. Frustrated by the same blank expression on his face, they pushed him around, causing him to stumble and fall. It is when he had scraped his elbow that Myungsoo entered the picture. Sungyeol knew that from the very start, the other children feared