Lee Sungyeol could feel the warmth of the sunlight streaming through his windows, stirring his conscious to a wake. Slowly, he peeled an eye opened and flickered toward the windows to see that the sun had risen. His gaze fell on his alarm clock which read 8:23AM. Seven more minutes before his alarm would go off.

I’ll just sleep a little bit more, he thought to himself as he found himself slipping back into slumber.

BEEP, BEEP! BEEP, BEEP!

An annoying ringing sound blared into his ear and his eyes flew opened as he raised himself into a sitting position, body jolting awake. “I’m up, I’m up!” he said to no one in particular as he threw the covers away and jumped out of bed.

It was when he hit the showers when he realized it was a Sunday morning and there weren’t any classes for him to attend in college, at least, not until the next day.

Damn.

Once he was dressed and too awake to go back to sleep, he sauntered over to his windows and pushed them opened, allowing fresh air and sunlight into the room. He looked across and a frown played on his lips when he saw that the window to Nam Hyunyoung’s room was close and it was dark inside.

He heaved a huge sigh.

Sungyeol couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen lights flooding through the blinds in her room. He was always looking, waiting. Lights from other rooms flashed from his windows, but never hers.

It had been nine months since the incident, almost a year when he first laid eyes on Nam Jihyun. He remembered the feeling of falling in love for the first time. His neighbor, Nam Hyunyoung’s sister, Jihyun, came back from Cheongchung after five years of their parents’ divorce. Sungyeol met Jihyun in school, figured out she was Hyunyoung’s sister. It didn’t mean much, at first, seeing how Hyunyoung had always been a neighbor, a junior. But with Jihyun, it was different. Sunyeol fell instantly in love at first sight.

Jihyun was smart, she was beautiful, she was dependable, and she was talented. She shared a common interest for acting, like Sungyeol did, and he was blown away by her flawless life. Since Hyunyoung was her sister, Sungyeol asked her for help when Hyunyoung’s best friend, Lee Sungjong, began to direct a play the Drama Club they were going to perform, with Sungyeol as the main male lead and Jihyun as the main female lead.

Everything was going along fine the next few months. Sungyeol was planning to confess his love to Jihyun on that day itself, Hyunyoung being the only one who knew about it. However, things didn’t go according to plan that night. Jihyun found out what he was going to do, as well as her sister’s hidden feelings for Sungyeol. She rejected him, announcing that she was already taken. Then Sungjong dropped the bombshell: Hyunyoung went to live with her father in Chungcheong.

Now, nine months later, he and Jihyun remained friends, and he had gotten over his feelings for her, seeing as she was much in love with her hamster-and-granpa-like boyfriend. But the topic of what happened that night, or any conversations relating to Hyunyoung, never came up. It was like crossing the forbidden zone. His friendship with her after that night already felt like he’s walking on a thread. If he tried to bring her sister up into the conversation, he was pretty sure the thread was going to snap. He already lost a friend; he didn’t want to lose another.

But Sungyeol had not heard a word from Hyunyoung at all. Not a phone call, nor a text. His mailbox was only filled with junk mail and she never accepted his Facebook friend request, nor accepted his request to view her private accounts on Instagram and Twitter. He wondered if Sungjong ever passed along his message to her about wanting to hear from her. But the younger boy was too busy with sophomore year, as well as going on dates with his boyfriend, Gong Chanshik, or Gongchan as everyone knew him as.

Sungyeol looked down and spotted Kim Sunggyu standing outside on the porch of the Nam’s residence and the front door opened with Jihyun stepping out. As he watched, Jihyun kissed Sunggyu tenderly on the lips as Sunggyu wrapped his arms around her waist. He smiled softly at the sight.

He turned away, thoughts still on Hyunyoung, wondering how she was and if she was fine. Sungyeol had to admit that he missed her. He missed her, if he was being honest enough. He missed how she would only smile politely whenever he made a lame joke and she didn’t find it funny but at least had the decency to acknowledge it. He remembered how she was not afraid to be blunt about his acting when she was helping him with his lines, her giggle when he was trying to be serious yet failing immensely.

Sungyeol heaved another sigh, turning away from the windows and walked out of his room to find himself breakfast to eat.

Knock, knock.

“Hyunyoung?” Nam Jaewon’s voice came through the other side of the door. He rapped his knuckle against the sturdy wood that separated him from his daughter. “It’s time to get up.”

Hyunyoung, who had been sleeping in bed, stirred from the sound of her father’s voice. “Mm, I’m up!” Her voice was muffled as her face was hidden under her blanket but Jaewon nodded in approval before turning on the doorknob to enter her room just as she peeped out from under the covers.

“Breakfast is ready,” he was saying to his daughter as he closed the door behind him. “And I can’t seem to find your — oh!”

Hyunyoung had not slept alone. There was an arm splayed across of her waist over the blanket. As Jaewon studied the arm, it looked like an arm belonging to a man, his biceps clearly shown. His eyes trailed along to see the body the arm was attached to and found a male figure lying next to his daughter. The man in bed with Hyunyoung was still sleeping soundly and from what Jaewon could see, he wasn’t wearing any shirt.

Jaewon raised an eyebrow.

Hyunyoung only sighed and shrugged, looking at her father. “It rained last night,” she explained. “You know how terrified this paboyah gets because of all the lightning and thunder.” She pushed the hand away.

“I’m not afraid,” the ‘paboyah’ muttered sullenly, shifting in his position to indicate that he was awake. He turned to see Jaewon standing over the bed and muttered something incoherently under his breath before sitting up, rubbing his eyes with a slight pout. “Good morning, Appa.”

Jaewon could only give his son a reproachful look. “Did you have a nice sleep, knowing that you were not alone to face the terrible storm we had the night before, Woohyun-ah?” he asked, voice filled with heavy sarcasm.

Woohyun frowned, picking up the tone of voice. “Hey, it was really loud and you know I’m a light sleeper. Hyunyoung doesn’t snore, nor does she move around much.”

“Only because you took up much of the space in bed,” she muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes.

“So it was comfortable to sleep with her,” he finished.

“And I sometimes tell your sisters that they were too mean to call you a pabo.” Jaewon only sighed, shaking his head sadly. He turned to his daughter, ignoring the cry of protests from his son. “By the way, Hyunyoung, you told me to remind you the night before to wake