The next morning, Yura woke up before anyone else in the family and left the house to wait at where her school bus is going to pick her up. Her hair was still in the messy bun she forgot to undo last night, but she didn’t cared much about it right now. She dropped her bag down and waited with the other students at the stop, as usual everyone looked like zombies, half dead half alive. Hyojin arrived shortly, she smiled at Yura with her eyes almost completely closed. They stood side by side next to each other not talking, in fact, no one was talking, everyone just stood quietly with confused and tired faces.

Yura turned around after hearing someone sneezing, she didn’t see whoever sneezed but she found L.Joe looking her way, and as an instinct she quickly turned away. It didn’t matter if he was looking at her or something else behind her, seeing his eyes made her nervous. She felt cool breeze around her neck and the back of her ears, then remembered her hair was up in an extreme messy bun. She bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes in embarrassment. Why? She thought.

The school bus came later than usual but it was still early enough to get to school before it starts. Yura and Hyojin followed the students onto the bus and found their seats, Yura took off the elastic band and brushed her wavy her out with her fingers, then tied them into a high pony tail, at least this way it’ll look better than a huge ball of hair on top of her head. She fell asleep on Hyojin’s shoulder after a while, she didn’t even care about the poor driving skills of the bus driver or the rough condition of the road, she was too tired to even care about them.

L.Joe rubbed his eyes and yawned as he walk off the bus carrying all his stuff, and followed Niel to the entrance of the dorm. He walked with his head down because he wasted all his energy staying up almost the whole night trying to finish an essay that was already overdue, so now he couldn’t even keep his head up for too long.

He heard the scanner beeping, but he wasn’t sure if that was a second ago or twenty seconds ago, he shook his head to wake himself up, and as he lift up his head he bumped into the closed glass dorm door. He fell two steps back and squeezed his eyes shut, the pain on his forehead hurt but he was thinking more about how embarrassing it must be running into the door. A first-year student behind him kindly scanned his pass and let the door open up for L.Joe to go in. He mumbled thanks and walked to his room.

He dropped all his bags against his closet and fell right onto his perfectly made bed, he sniffed the blankets and smiled, “This is what comfort is.” Niel let out a chuckle from the bottom, “I recommend you to get the hell up and get ready for school, because look at the time.”

“Only weaklings get ready for school,” L.Joe mumbled into his pillow.

“Wake me up two minutes before school starts.”

“Only weaklings need people to wake them up.”

L.Joe laughed but still stayed in the same position, and fell asleep. Niel rolled his eyes at the top bunk and glanced at the time on his nightstand, there was only five minutes left. “I’m leaving so you better wake yourself up,” he called and left the room after hearing L.Joe’s mumble.

Yura hung all her clean clothes into her closet and looked at the clock, there was still time left so she decided to clean around, even though there’s always people that would come around and clean the room when the students are all gone on Friday, but dusts still form during the weekend.

Hyonjin had already left to go finish her art project before school starts, it was just Yura alone in the room, cleaning while waiting for time to pass. She would rather wait until she’s almost late then leave, than leaving before the first bell even rang and be lonely at school. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her new friends, it’s just that she sometimes feel weird when Hyojin’s not with her, they’ve been friends for so long they’re like each other’s other half.

She sighed after looking at the clock, three minutes till the first bell. She grabbed her bag from her desk and headed towards the door, she played with her hair as she walk down the hall, it was so quiet she felt like she can sing like a dying bird and no one would complain about it. She walked into the cafeteria before officially leaving for school, the cafeteria was quiet and the only sound she could hear was some kind of cleaning machine in the kitchen. She slowly walk up to the cashier with a muffin in her hand, one of the kitchen lady came out seconds later. “Shouldn’t you be at school?” the lady asked.

“I know,” Yura smiled and paid, “I just need to eat something before my stomach sets off horrible alarms.”

The lady smiled and gave Yura a cookie for free. The ladies that work in the kitchen are just like everyone’s grandmother, they get worried when you tell them you haven’t eaten anything, and they might as well run into the kitchen and make a huge meal for you.

Yura walked out nibbling her muffin while the other hands shoves the cookie into her bag. When she walked into the school, she could tell the first bell has already rang quite a while ago because there’s barley anyone in sight. She walked up the stairs and down the hall to her locker, she should be rushing but she thought it would be okay to take her time since the classroom was just a few steps away.

On the other hand, L.Joe was walking down the hall like he owns the place, he didn’t care if he would get into trouble for being late, he would skip the class if could get marks for doing that. He turned around the corner and saw Yura just walking up the stairs and going to her locker. Why is she here? He thought and peeked his head out. His first plan was ruined but he was much more prepared and thought of another plan beforehand, just in case the first one doesn’t work out.

“Yura!” Yura’s eyes flashed opened and turned around. L.Joe was jogging towards her waving his hands at her, and for some reason she wanted jump into her locker and hide in there, but her whole body was stiff and unmoveable. “Hey,” he said.

Yura swallowed her saliva and smiled. “Hi,” she barely said it.

“So, my next class is up here and my first class is just down the stairs, but my locker’s on the other side of the school,” L.Joe smiled and paused for a second, “can I leave some of my books here?” While he waited for Yura to answer, he was asking God to forgive him for lying, because his locker wasn’t on the other side of the school, it is just outside of his first class and it doesn’t even take a minute to walk up the stairs after first block.

“Oh. Yeah, sure,” Yura said and cleared , “umm, do you want my combination so you can come open it later?” Yura added while L.Joe was busy putting some of his books into her locker and a little something for her. Yura quickly wrote her combination down on a little piece of paper ripped and gave it to L.Joe before he could even answer it, then fast walked over to the opened classroom door, and the second she stepped into the classroom the bell rang.

L.Joe stared at the wrinkle scrap piece of paper in his hand with Yura’s handwriting on it, he smiled and put it into his pocket. He walked down the stairs to his next class with a smile, his art teacher looked at him, shaking her head. “You evil child, why are you late?” she yelled across the room as if everyone was just as deaf as her. “I took a nap and forgot to wake up,” he said. The teacher rolled her eyes at him then went back to do whatever she was doing.

Yura walked towards her locker with an armful of homework assignment that she will be missing this week, and the part she was scared was the pile of English assignments she’ll be receiving in the afternoon. She walked to her locker, already feeling exhausted from half of the day she had just went through, she threw everything into her locker right after accidentally slamming the door on the other locker.

She looked at the top shelf finding all the books L.Joe placed up there this morning were gone, she puffed her cheeks out and slowly nodded. Of course they’re all gone, it’s his books, he should take it. She thought and started organizing, but a white shopping paper bag sitting at the bottom caught her eyes, she usually hang her stuff on the hook if it has a string or something, it was unusual to see a bag on the bottom of the locker. She picked it up without hesitation and opened it, a piece of folded paper was placed on top a soft looking, familiar jersey. She picked up the paper and read the message.

A random gift from me, maybe just think it as a birthday gift. ^^ Hope you like it!

                                                -L.Joe

Yura covered her face and giggled, she buried her face into her locker and continued giggling. She didn’t care if people walk pass and wonder why her whole upper body is in her locker and why is she giggling by herself, she was just feeling something in her heart that she has never ever felt before.

“Yura. Yura!” Hyojin patted her shoulder and frowned at her best friend. Yura pulled her head out of her locker and gave the note to her. She covered her face with her hair in embarrassment and watched Hyojin’s expression changing from frowning and a giggly girl like her.

“God, Choi Yura,” she took a deep breath, “want me tell you something?”

“No,” Yura managed to say between her giggles.

“He bought you this?!” Hyojin whispered while pulling the jersey out of the bag. Yura nodded and took it away from her, “It’s brand new, don’t tough it with your dirty hands.”

Hyojin gave her a hurt look, “Dirty hands?” Yura laughed and shut her locker. “I actually saw him this weekend and he was wearing that.”

“Then you told him how your mom wouldn’t let you get them, so then he was like, I should buy her one cause she wants it so badly.”

“How’d you know my mom wouldn’t buy me them?”

“Cause you cried for two days when she wouldn’t buy them with your birthday money. Anyway, want me to tell you something?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because, I know what you’re going to say.”

“What?”

Yura paused and looked at Hyojin. “That he likes me.”

“He does! What guy buys a girl a piece of expensive thin cloth?”

Yura sighed, “You know, I actually tried to think that way, but I just can’t. Maybe he just wants to be nice and give me something. I actually tried to think that maybe he really does like me, but then it just seems impossible to me, it doesn’t make sense to me.”

“You don’t make sense,” Hyojin said.

After a normal baskball practice Yura went back to her dorm, washed the sweatiness away first, then changed into something clean. She pull out the jersey from the bag and smiled, the brand new scent surrounded her when she pulled it over, she looked at herself in the mirror and laughed quietly.

She walked out of the bathroom and grabbed her books from her desk, and left Hyojin alone to go study at the library. There were tons of work she needed to finish before everyone else, and studying in her room would never be a great idea, because there’s always something that would distract her.

Yura walked into the library, people scattered around the tables, some people sat with their friends and some sat alone. She found an empty table on the side and sat down. The place was dead silence beside the sound of pages flipping, it wasn’t like the public libraries where there would be a random kid screaming or crying out of nowhere, and the parents wouldn’t even stop them, it was calm and full of people that actually respect other people that are in the library.

After hours of sitting down and readying pages after pages, Yura decided to take a short break, she stretched her arms out and looked around, the amount of people got lesser, and more people were sitting alone than with someone else. Just when she was about to go back to studying, Hyojin fast walked into the library, she found Yura immediately and went over to her. She sat down beside her and ped her bag. “I brought you water and food,” she whispered.

“You’re not allowed to have food in here!” Yura whispers back.

“You wanna starve? It’s already pass dinner time.”

Yura looked up at the big round clock above the entrance, it is pass their dinner time, and the rule is if you don’t eat when you’re supposed to eat then you don’t get to eat whatever the kitchen makes. Yura looked into her bag, it was full of breads, she smiled and gave Hyojin a thumbs up.

“Okay, I gotta go finish my homework. See you later,” Hyojin said and quietly left the library.

Yura waited until eleven when the librarian left. The library is always open, it has nothing but old books that nobody touches so there’s no point to lock the doors. She took out a bread from Hyojin’s bag and started eating, she was starving but food weren’t allowed in the library, well, it's not allowed when there’s a supervisor in there.

She finished two right away but when she was about to take out another one to eat, she caught the girl sitting a few tables away staring at her like a little puppy, a starving little puppy. “You want one? I have a few more left.”

The girl nodded and walked towards her, by the table the girl was sitting at, Yura thinks she’s graduating this year and is probably studying for some kind of exam even though school had just started a few weeks ago. Yura gave her two, leaving the squished one at the very bottom of the bag. The girl thanked Yura and quickly went back to her table to continue studying.

L.Joe walked out of his room and down the stairs to the cafeteria to get some more energy drink, he needs to stay up and finish the novel his English teacher assigned, but he barely started when everyone else are already on the thirteenth chapter. He walked into the empty cafeteria and bought himself some drinks. He looked into the library as he walked pass, just curious who would be in there at this hour. He almost dropped the drinks in his hands when he saw Yura sitting alone in the library, he stood in front of the entrance for a while before slowly being pulled in. He walked up to Yura but she didn’t seem to notice it, he cleared his throat to get her attention, and as she lift up her head he got a better view of what she was wearing.

Yura looked up at him then looked back down, and smiled, which made him smile as well. “Thanks,” she said. L.Joe turned around and sat back facing at the table in front of hers. “You’re welcome.”

They sat there for another hour, L.Joe was done reading up till chapter thirteen and Yrua was done studying all the assigments and works she brought with her. They walked out the library together, one in front and one behind. “Goodnight,” L.Joe said. Yura mumbled the exact same word and quickly turned around before he could see her face turn bright red. Her heart fluttered the moment she heard the word coming out of his mouth, and the more she thought about it the redder her face got.

Author's little note

I haven't been on for a while or even thought about typing new chapters for a while because I've been busy volunteering for a few days and went on a vacation for a few days and watched dramas for a few weeks straight none stop  but anyway, I forced myself to stop being such a lazy and yeah... BUT I'm not sure when I will be updating again since school's about to start (not really) and I'm going to be super busy with school and volunteering stuff so...but I will TRY update a chapter every few weeks. ANYWHO, I hope you all enjoy this chapter...maybe not??! idk :)