February

It had only been the fourth day back from winter vacation, but to Hyunjung it felt as if they had been attending school for two weeks already. That was how much time dragged.

The worst of it all was that all her friends resumed back to their extra academic responsibilities such as clubs, meetings – etcetera, etcetera. And if you were particularly involved in sports, the first few months back were the busiest.

Jungkook along with Jongin were promoted from deputy captains to the new senior captains after the third year students graduated. It was also their preparation time for the games against numerous state schools—and later if they did well—private schools in the upcoming months to come. If you were selected to play in the team, attending training was vital, and skipping even just one session was out of the question. These weren’t just any average game which happened every two or so weeks, these were almost like the nationals.

And although Hyunjung wasn’t particularly sporty, she knew that if Jungkook were to ditch more than one practice, he’d face punishment from Mr Song and may not be allowed to participate in the games. And if that happened, he’d say goodbye to that sports scholarship he was working towards. No doubt that Jungkook was above average in his specialty, but there were thousands among thousands of other students just like him in the country; appearing in newspapers, grabbing awards, being recognised among competing schools… What would make ‘golden boy’ Jungkook any different from them?  

If you wanted that scholarship for university, you had to grab every chance you got while you were still in high school – Jungkook had one more year.

To let you have an idea of the numbers, let’s say as an example, there were 603,000 boys and girls who participate in track and field in high school, but are competing for around 4,500 scholarships. For the scholarship Jungkook was aiming for, the numbers were even lower. If you wanted that scholarship, you had to at least be noticed. Jungkook wasn’t too far away, but at this point in time, he wasn’t exactly close either. Even if his team didn’t win, but were successful, they would at least be recognised, which was precisely what they wanted.

So when Jungkook had said to Hyunjung a few days before the school year began that he would gladly ditch practice to be with her during lunch breaks, Hyunjung had suddenly burst out on him—trying to make a point but ended up preaching instead—and scolded him as if he were a child. Her outburst had surprised both Jungkook and Hyunjung herself, but that was because she knew how hard Jungkook had worked to be where he was, and to throw it away would be a huge mistake. It was probably the first argument they had which wasn’t over something small and petty, like who would hang up over the phone first or what film to watch. And neither spoke to each other for three days until Hyunjung came to her senses and apologised first. But she was serious when she said that Jungkook shouldn’t skip practice just for her. They both reached the mutual agreement that Jungkook would attend every practice, and Hyunjung said herself she didn’t mind because she understood.

But she couldn’t deny that she missed the buoyant atmosphere during lunch breaks, when she was surrounded with all her friends, but like Jungkook, they had their own activities to attend to, and the first month back was always the busiest—it was that time when all the clubs were active in order to attract the new first-years.

So it was just Hyunjung and Taehyung for the meantime, which Hyunjung had no problem with. And although they usually didn’t have much to talk about, she was grateful for his company.

Taehyung didn’t even do or say anything when Hyunjung took one of the cheese sandwiches on his plate, he merely looked at her and opened the container with his salad. Hyunjung spared one glance over at the textbook he had in front of him, but didn’t bother continuing once she saw the diagrams.

She took a bite into her sandwich (previously Taehyung’s), and sighed while having a look at the other students in the cafeteria around them. There weren’t many people she recognised today, it probably has something to do with the fact that the clubs were more active, but there were plenty of first-years.

“Wow, Jungkook does so much,” Hyunjung said in despair. “I’ve contributed nothing to this school other than attend it.”

Taehyung didn’t look up from his textbook. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t do any other activities or clubs either so I’m just like you.”

“But it doesn’t matter because you’re smart and so teachers love you.” She rested the side of her face in her palm as she studied his face.

Sensing her stare on him, Taehyung raised his eyes and his brows fell into a line. “What?”

“You know,” she began, “sometimes I wonder why you became friends with me first and not any of the other students when you first came here. Wouldn’t it have been better if you were around people of similar intelligence?”

Her self-belittlement of her own intellect made Taehyung look at her in disbelief. “You hit me with your bag and demanded me to be friends with you.”

Hyunjung blinked. “Oh, I forgot about that.” Her glorious moment of realisation ended, and when it did she then narrowed her eyes at him, and he returned her stare with an equally stone expression. “And I didn’t demand you, I asked you,” she pointed out.

“And I quite clearly refused and then you hit me with your bag. What kind of logical, sensical person hits people they want to be friends with?”

“Desperate people,” she murmured in downcast, and Taehyung arched a brown at her.

He stabbed his fork into his salad and resumed eating. “But you know,” he spoke up, “if you weren’t so desperate and persistent, I probably wouldn’t have spared a look in your direction, yet alone be friends. Things turned out alright, don’t you think?”

Hyunjung smiled at him, and as she did so, her cheekbones lifted and her eyes arched as she nodded.

He continued, “And you shouldn’t put yourself down like that. You’re neither dumb, nor stupid. You simply lack some of the most basic common-sense.”

Wow, Taehyung sure knew how to bandage up a wound and then rip the plaster off afterwards. Hyunjung wasn’t sure whether to feel grateful or offended—but she pushed away the unnecessary feelings aside and decided to be grateful anyway. “Thanks, Taehyung.”

“Anytime.”

“Have you been studying for that short test we’re having tomorrow in geography?”

“. . . What test?”

A sigh. “Do you want my notes?”

“Uh, yes please. That would be helpful.”

“Eunsook!” Hyunjung called in the hallway, and the girl in front of her immediately flinched at the sound of her name. Eunsook turned behind her, though it seemed more of a shuffle as she tried to face Hyunjung, but the bundle of towels in her arms made it difficult to.

“H-Hyunjung?” Eunsook stammered once she saw her jog up to her.

Hyunjung had overheard Mr Jung talk to Eunsook who thought that in order for Eunsook to ‘break out of her shell’ (as he had called it), she had to be more involved with school life. And for some odd reason, their homeroom teacher thought it would be a great idea to make her do something she had one of the least likings to.

And so that was how it led Eunsook to run errands for the senior sports teams. And to her dismay it mainly consisted of sweat (not her own), and towels – sweaty towels.

“Do you need help with those?” Hyunjung asked, already taking some off of Eunsook’s load, but Eunsook shook her head and stepped away from her before Hyunjung could take anymore.

“It’s okay, these towels s-smell bad, and if you carry them, your uniform will get—”

“Then I’ll be no different to you,” Hyunjung butted in. Eunsook blinked at her, and Hyunjung took the chance to take some of the towels from Eunsook’s burden. “So where do you need to take these?” Hyunjung continued, grinning at her.

It took her a few seconds to finally answer. “Th-The utility room beside the boys’ changing rooms—that’s where the laundry machines are.”

Hyunjung nodded and nudged her by the arm. “Let’s go then.” She smiled at Eunsook, and even though Hyunjung didn’t expect her to smile back, she thought she’d caught the slightest curve of her upper lip when Eunsook looked down.

“So how long do you have to keep running errands like this?” Hyunjung asked as they walked further down the hallway together.

“I don’t know,” Eunsook said with a sigh. “Mr Jung just said I need to be around more people.”

Hyunjung wondered what the heck was going through Mr Jung’s mind if he thought this was supposed to boost Eunsook’s self-esteem. They walked by a few students, but no one said anything, but only looked at them as they passed before resuming with what they were doing.

“And do you think it’s working?”

“I d-don’t really know. It’s only been a few days.”

They arrived at the utility room, and Eunsook opened the door. As soon as they entered, Hyunjung made a scrunched look of distaste. A pile of shirts in the school’s representative colours were gathered on the floor (clearly missing the laundry basket beside them).

“Do you have to do this every lunch time?” Hyunjung asked, crouching down to put the shirts into the basket.

Eunsook nodded in dismay as she put the towels into the machine. “I think so. I-I have to help out after school today too.”

Hyunjung would offer to help, but she had to study for a test tomorrow (which she didn’t know about), and despite her loathing for tests, it wasn’t as bad as carrying sweaty towels to and fro to the utility room. But poor Eunsook. . .

“I’ll be fine on my own if-if that’s what you’re thinking. I have nothing to do at home anyway and I need something useful to do.” Eunsook patted the material of her uniform to neaten it, and began to make her way out of the room, with Hyunjung following behind.

Hyunjung checked the time on the nearest clock to them; they still had thirty minutes of lunch left. Taehyung was at the library studying, but Hyunjung had been spending the last few days of her lunch breaks in the library since Jungkook and all her other friends were busy, so instead, she’d decided she could accompany Eunsook today. “So, uh, how do you spend the rest of your time at lunch?” Hyunjung asked.

“I go back to wherever Mr Song and his team are.”

Hyunjung blinked. “And do you just. . . wait there?”

Eunsook looked down and fiddled with the sleeves of her school blazer. “I g-guess you could say that, but I have my bag over there, and I just sit and read until they call me.” Eunsook seemed to have accepted that Hyunjung was going to come with her, and didn’t really mind; she wanted to have someone she at least didn’t feel intimidated around to be with her, even if it was just for today.

It was spring so it wasn’t cold outside, but the wind did constantly change direction, which was a bother for Hyunjung who didn’t tie her hair up—the reason being she had no P.E in her schedule today.

They sat themselves down onto the grass at the corner of the pitch where Mr Song’s team appeared to be doing some kind of exercise drill. Eunsook ped her bag and took out a book. “I-I don’t think they’ll a-ask for anything now. But Mr Song told me to stay here just in case,” she murmured, but Hyunjung heard everything she said.

While Eunsook read, Hyunjung watched the boys as they ran from one of the pitch to the other, and it wasn’t difficult to find Jongin and Jungkook who were the ones leading the drill. Jungkook had soon seen her, and she caught his grin when he waved over at her, which caught the attention of the rest of the team. Heat rose to her face when they all turned to her direction, and even if it wasn’t currently windy, her hand flew to her hair, pretending to tidy it as she looked down. She swore she heard the distinguishable sound of Jungkook’s laugh in the distance.

When Hyunjung sensed they returned back to what they were doing, she left her hair alone. But to her unfortunate luck, a strong gust of wind blew past her in the opposite direction and whipped her hair against her face. Eunsook was completely unaffected, and Hyunjung did her best to cover up the fact that she couldn’t tame her hair to the point they looked like the snakes of Medusa, but it wasn’t long until Eunsook finally looked up from her book and watched Hyunjung struggle as she faced whatever direction the wind was blowing, only for the wind to change again in the opposite direction she was facing.

Without thinking twice, Eunsook put her book back in her bag and pulled out her own hair tie, holding it out to Hyunjung, but Hyunjung shook her head as she made an attempt to smoothen her hair out by combing the strands with her fingers. “I’m fine, I’m fine. . .” she dismissed, but Eunsook didn’t shift.

“If you don’t, your hair will be ta-tangled.”

Hyunjung paused and looked up at her. “But so will yours.”

“It’s f-fine. He-Here.” Eunsook stood and moved herself and sat not too far behind Hyunjung, and took her hands away from her hair so she could help Hyunjung tie hers up. After she tightened the band, she stood back up and went back to her original spot.

Hyunjung didn’t know what else to say other than a, “thank you, Eunsook,” and Eunsook nodded and faced forward, holding her own hair down while watching the team on the pitch.

“T-Take it as a thank you for staying with me here today, and for that time before Christmas,” Eunsook said quietly without looking at her, and a small smile formed on Hyunjung’s face.

—

It was the end of school, and Hyunjung was making her way to the door when she felt another body’s warmth encasing her from behind. She jumped in surprise, but relaxed as soon as she heard the person behind her laugh.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at practice?” she said, facing him with a smile.

Jungkook grinned boyishly, but Hyunjung could see from the way he strained it that he was tired. “There’s nothing wrong with seeing you for a few moments.”

“You look really tired, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he replied, rubbing his hands over his eyes and keeping them there. “But I completely forgot I had to study to catch up with some work in class, but I barely have any time, and thinking about it makes me even more tired.”

Hyunjung was quiet while she remained in careful thought. “You could always ask Eunsook, she’s in all your classes, isn’t she? Maybe you could find time before and after practice to review the things you’ve missed in class with her. It would save you a lot of trouble.”

Jungkook took his hands away from his eyes. “You—you don’t mind that?”

“Uh, no?” she replied, puzzled with his question. Jungkook just stared at her to the point it was almost uncomfortable, and she tilted her head. “What is it?”

“Hm? Oh, nothing, it’s just. . .” He scratched the back of his nape before smiling. “I’m glad you trust me.”

Hyunjung’s brows creased. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“It’s not that. . .” He seemed to hesitate. “But my past girlfriends didn’t like it when I would spend time with other girls, even if those girls were one of my friends.”

Now that Hyunjung thought about it, ever since they started to date, and even a few months before they began dating, Hyunjung hadn’t seen Jungkook be around many other girls—he’d only talk to them if it was for class or they passed in the hallway. And if Hyunjung remembered correctly, she had seen Jungkook talk with plenty of girls before that time last year when he first began talking to her properly. In fact, it made Hyunjung feel bad.

“You know I don’t mind you talking with other girls, right? I don’t want to be the reason you’re not talking to some of your friends.” It was probably a bit late for her to say that now, but at least she said it.

Jungkook blinked at her, but his lips then formed into that all-too familiar smile. “You really are something different, Hyunjung.” He leant down a little to place a soft kiss to her temple. “And that’s why I liked you in the first place.”

Hyunjung was left speechless, and he chuckled before hugging her one more time, his arms secure around her waist before she could get a chance to respond. “See you tomorrow!”

“Bye,” she managed to utter, and she watched Jungkook as his figure got further.

Even if Jungkook was going to be busy, even if they both knew they would barely have any time to see each other—they were willing to make it work, somehow. That was what mattered. Because when you really wanted to be with someone, you’d do your best, wouldn’t you?

The smile wouldn’t wipe off of her face, and she stood there a little longer, until she felt a weak tug at her hair. She snapped her head to the side to look at the culprit, but it was only Taehyung.

“Oh, hi,” she said, and Taehyung held some papers out to her.

“Here are the notes I promised. You better study hard.”

She took them from his hands. “Thanks!”

He stood there a few more moments before he began walking away, his hold tightening on the strap of his bag which was slung over one shoulder.

“Wait! Where are you going?” she called, and he turned around.

“I’m staying behind to study,” he answered.

“But you always study. Let’s walk home together today. It’s not like you have anything to risk for resting for one day.” Hyunjung looked at him in anticipation while he thought, until he looked up and sighed before slowly walking over to her side.

Hyunjung grinned at him, and Taehyung only looked at her once. “You smile too much,” he murmured to the floor.

“And you don’t smile enough,” she replied as they walked out the doors. She sighed. “Can’t you just make my life easier and tell me what makes you smile so you can do it more often?”

“Oh no, I definitely can’t tell you that.”

“Wait, why not?” Hyunjung suddenly burst out.

He paused. “Just because.”

Hyunjung frowned and then huffed. “Just you wait, Kim Taehyung. When I find out, you’re going to regret we even had this conversation,” she mumbled.

Taehyung didn’t say anything, but his lips had the sudden urge to twitch.