Hayi.

You just work through it, you just hang in there - Gayle Forman, If I Stay. 

Hayi's head is filled with only one thought; a thought of keeping her mother around for a little while longer next time because it seems as though she's a repellent of some sort towards Kim Hanbin. It's a strange thought to think about when you're eating lunch, true, but Hayi couldn't help but think about it. Hanbin completely made a U-turn when he saw her with her mother the other day. It was the only day he didn't say a single word to her ever since a few weeks ago. 

It was a good thing, kind of, because all Hanbin's been doing to her these past few weeks is pestering her. He asks these pointless questions and says these meaningless things and she doesn't even want to say anything back because she knows it's something that isn't going to be so pleasant. He's been annoying her all day, everyday and she doesn't even know why.

But she always knew Kim Hanbin. She always knew he was the mischievious type, the one to fool around and be clueless about other people's feelings (girls, most especialy) but she didn't really know he could be this childish and downright annoying. He gets in the way of her doing her daily job of taking care and tending to the flowers, and Hayi hates distractions. 

But perhaps, boys will be boys. 

After lunch, Hayi washes the dishes and her grandmother retreats to her room mumbling something about finishing a scarf she's knitting for Hayi to use this coming autumn for school. But Hayi knows better, the summer heat gets to her grandmother and she wants to stay in her air-conditioned room all day. 

The house is quiet, and it's the eerie kind not the comfortable one. It's been months since she's been alone with her grandmother in the house, but somehow she's still not used to it, even when she knows she has to be by now.

All her life, she left the noise and merrymaking to her brother. But now that he's not here, she knows that somehow, she has to cope with it all, including the silence. 

It takes only twenty minutes (more or less) for her to finish washing and drying the dishes since it's her and her grandmother again. Her mother flew to Taiwan this morning, and Hayi is expecting a postcard or a magnet anytime soon from her. It's the only worthwhile souvenier for someone like Hayi. 

She glances at the refrigerator, and sees there's still some space at the bottom for another magnet or postcard. It's already so crowded with other souvenirs from other countries that Hayi can't help but think about how her mother is traveling so much these days.

But she does knows why, it's because of her brother she's not ignorant, but she can't but feel as though she's being left out sometimes. 

Her mother gets to travel all of Asia, and sometimes even Europe or America if she's lucky, but she never once had asked Hayi to go there. She doesn't want to implore on that thought, because it only gives her a heavy heart just by thinking about it. 

So she chooses not to think instead.

She grabs a book from the kitchen counter after drying her hands, and flees to her room where the air-conditioning can take her mind off things.

> ; <

Hayi doesn't really want to go downstairs and open the flower shop, nobody ever comes in during the afternoon anyways. But she feels these sort of guilt creeping up inside of her when she thinks about her grandmother down there, all alone, doing all the work she should be doing.

Hayi sighs, places the bookmark, closes the book and trudges downstairs with the book tucked under her arm, her steps in tune with the long hour hand of the clock as it hits 1. She walks through the rows and rows of heavenly scented flowers, and flips the sign on the door from "Close" to "Open" before plopping down on the high stool behind the counter and opening the book again, reading where she picked off. 

In the two hours that had gone by, only three visitors had come. Two of them were the regular costumers that were also her grandmother's friends, while the other one was a little boy Hayi didn't know who but thought he seemed sweet and innocent enough so she placed an extra lily on his bouquet before he went out. 

Hayi was finished with the book by three, so she went on to snip some thorns of the newly picked roses from their garden on the rooftop of their house; which is the reason why her family's flower shop is the best in the whole city. Everything in the store is grown by her grandmother on the 8 by 7 foot greenhouse garden on their roof. 

She's tending to the white and pink roses her grandmother picked from yesterday, when she hears a sound.

Tok-tok.

Her ears pick up the faint, soft sound and when she hears it the second time around, she whips her head to the direction and find a smiling boy behind the clear glass door of the flower shop. 

Hayi sighs but before she can open to say anything to him, at all, he raises his left hand up and waves at her from the other side. "Hi," she sees him say. She doesn't really hear him say it, just sees it through the way his lips moved. "See you at school tomorrow,"

Hayi's eyes widen just a little and she wants to say something, but too late, Hanbin is already turning his back on her and the store and is walking away. 

She gets over her initial shock by rolling her eyes. "Still such a weirdo," she mutters to herself. 

"Hayi, who was that?"

Startled, Hayi turns around and sees her grandmother by the doorway, squinting her eyes at the door, where Hanbin had just been. It doesn't take Hayi long to realize that her grandmother had seen that gesture of weird from Kim Hanbin. Weird, because after years of ignoring each other, why now?

"Oh, that was..." Hayi trails off, not really sure she should be mentioning him to her grandmother. It's been a long time since she's last talked to him, touched him, much less saw him so grown up. "Hanbin, Kim Hanbin. Do you remember? He used to be a... playmate of mine."

"Ahhh," her grandmother nods in understanding and Hayi sees something behind her glassy eyes. It's recognition. "I see, Jungah's son." she says. She turns to Hayi and nods once. "When you're done, come up for tea."

She nods back. "Of course," she says and like that, her grandmother is walking up the stairs again. 

She faces the roses again, but doesn't seem to have the concentration and focus to cut and rid off the thorns which is bad since one time she made her finger bled while cutting off extra stems and baby leaves from sunflowers. 

Hayi puts the tool back in the toolbox that's hidden behind the counter and instead, reads. But it doesn't really help her situation. Hayi has a one-track mind, that's what her mother and brother called it. The mind of an athlete, of a writer, of someone whose head is focused on one thing at a time only and not all at once.

It's pretty annoying, for Hayi, because trying to shake thoughts off aren't as easy for her as it is for some people. 

She shakes her head, blinks her eyes several times.

Jungah.

Blink, blink, blink, blink.

Kim Jungah.

Hayi sighs and rests her chin on her palm, frowning.

Hanbin's mother had always been nice to her since they were younger, especially since she knew that she was Hanbin's very first day in school. She treated her extra nicely than the other kids, Hayi would even go as far as calling it being "biased" because that was how much his mother favored her over the rest.

At first she thought it was because Hayi treated Hanbin so nicely from the start and his mother was just being grateful. But when she was a little older, she finally knew why. 

She knew it through her grandmother, and it finally made sense to her how Mrs. Kim would look at Hayi's father, how she packed extra food and snacks for Hayi and telling her to "share them with your family, Hayi", how she'd mention his name (just his name and not Mr. Lee) to Hayi instead of "your father", how she shed tears during her father's funeral.

They all made sense when her grandmother told her, and now she wonders if Hanbin knows about it too. 

> ; <

First day of school went by as expected, and Hayi is more than depressed over this fact merely because she expected it to be a little more or less like hell, and it surely was.

The students still avoid her, they shun her out for something she didn't even do but maybe she doesn't really blame them deep down, but for now she does. She curses the people in her head; those who glare at her and whisper behind her back. She imagines stomping over them and squishing them down to unreasonable sizes under her feet. An unforgivable act by her brother cost her her whole life, and she knows she's ruined for the rest of the year if she doesn't do anything about it. 

The teachers aren't any better, which is worse because they're supposed to be adults who have open-minds especially since they're teachers. The only teachers that seemed to be no different was her English teacher, Ms. Park and her homeroom teacher, Mr. Lee. They're both very cool and kind of young to be teachers but Hayi doesn't mind because at least they still acknowledge her in their classes.

The food is fine, but Hayi makes a mental note to make her own lunch next time and to eat somewhere other than an empty cafeteria table. Eating by yourself is hard, especially when all the other tables are full and you're the only one sitting at your's. 

Hayi didn't make it midway to her lunch, she just dumped it on the trashcan nearby and headed for the library with a new book tucked under her arm. She wanted to relax a little since it was the first day, which usually meant no assignment days because the teachers here are laid back like that.

But not laid back enough to let her through when she was tardy for the first period on the afternoon.

The whole class was holding back laughter when their Math teacher scolded her for being ten minutes late to class, and she doesn't want to admit it, but it really had been her fault because mainly, she lost track of time and was too engrossed in her book to hear the bell ring. 

"Be on time next time, Ms. Lee. Or it's the guidance office for you,"

She cringed. "Yes, teacher."

But at least two good things happened on the first day, and one was that she got to sit at the corner-back of the room, where the shadows can help her hide. The light doesn't hit the corner of the room very much, but that was okay since she can still read books behind her teacher's back during class.  The other good thing was Park Jimin, the talkative girl she got the pleasure to be seat mates with. She's the only one who ever talks to her in class, and frankly, she doesn't mind because Jimin is enough for a friend. 

When the last bell rings, she's the first one to get out despite being seated at the very back. She manages to mutter a short goodbye to Jimin before running out of the room.

She adjusts her backpack behind her, thinking of how she's going to get home. Should she walk? Or take the bus? 

The halls aren't crowded like she'd expected, but perhaps it was reaching that because just as she turns the corner, she collides into someone and the words "i'm sorry" are ready to tumble out of . 

She regains her balance, luckily, and shakes her head before looking at the person. "Hey, I -"

"Damn it, look where you're going!" the petite girl in front of her shrieks. Hayi has always been a little below the height of girls her age, but she was nothing compared to the small and can she say, elf-sized, Kim Kyungmi or 'Kemy' as she liked to be known but Hayi didn't want to give her the satisfaction of calling her by her more prettier nickname. 

Kyungmi glares her way, and Hayi only rolls her eyes. "Some attitude coming from you, Lee Hayi."

"I could say the same." she mutters, stepping to the side because she really, really does not need this right now. Every other day, she can handle Kyungmi, just not right now when she's feeling so out of it. The first day of school excitement is just nowhere near her right now. 

"And such a thick face you have for showing it around here after what happened," Kyungmi says behind her, but when Hayi opens and turns around, ready for her comeback, Kyungmi is already walking away with her swaying side to side in a manner that makes her want to puke. 

Hayi rolls her eyes again before putting one foot in front of the other again. She bites her tongue, afraid she might call Kyungmi something she's not suppose to in public. She's always been y, but somehow her iness has increased tenfolds if that were possible. 

She sighs and stops at her locker before heading out to the main gates. She places all of her textbooks inside and takes out the half-read book out. She allows herself to smile, before she closes her locker with a soft bang.

She opens the book just as she's walking forward again, and she places the bookmark in the pocket of her uniform's skirt. She looks up often to see if she's going to bump into anybody again this time, but she realizes everyone is trying to steer clear of her way and giving her some space to walk through, especially puny freshmens, which is ridiculous but handy at that moment. 

Sarang reaches over to pat his cheek in an affectionate way, and he smiles even wider at this gesture.

She glances up, takes a step to the right, then down at the book again. 

"I promise I won't do anything reckless tonight," he tells her.

She glances up, slows her pace, then back down.

"Really?" she snickers. "Promise me?" she holds out her pinky.

She sighs, glances up, then down.

"Of course," he -

She glances up again abruptly. 

She places a bookmark on her book and closes it, and places it under her arm as she approaches a familiar face. She sighs, thinking of something witty and cunning to say to him just in case he's going to say something senseless again like last summer. What would be the best retort? The best comeback? She acts like she doesn't see him as she thinks of this.

She looks at the clear sky, the dirty ground, the other students, the bulletin boards, the old oak tree, the guard near the gate. Anywhere but at his face, or at his eyes.

She doesn't want to catch his attention. 

The gates are right ahead, but his presence is distracting and Hayi really doesn't like distractions. 

She just knows he's going to greet her, so she has to think fast of something. 

He's getting nearer, she shuts her eyes.

"So, Hanbin, I was thinking of this a week ago, and.."

Hey, Hayi.

She feels a figure passing by her. 

"... you know, I think we should do it, Hanbin. Yeah?"

The greeting never comes. 

She opens her eyes and stops in her tracks. 

She turns around, a little puzzled, and she sees Hanbin's backside farther and farther away. Hanbin is walking away with a senior that's animatedly talking to him with hand gestures and all. The senior glances back at her, but Hanbin doesn't. 

It makes her tilt her head in wonder. 

> ; <

so here you guys go. 
this hasn't been properly spell-checked because apparently, there's something wrong with the spellchecker of AFF, so if you find any small or big spelling mistakes, please tell me. As usual, comment your thoughts below! I'd really love to read them c: Hi to my new readers ~