Spring came, and with it, the world turned a beautiful, green color, dotted with various other colors from the flowers beginning to bloom. YuHan walked to his school, a light breeze running through his slightly bed-heady hair. He looked up at the sky, the trees, and the world around him, thinking. Thinking about anything really. His thoughts jumped from how nice the weather was to what he’d be eating for lunch to how would class be like and more. When he passed through the gates, he noticed a short girl he had never seen before in front of him looking around. “New girl, huh?” he thought. He considered walking up to ask her if she needed help, but another person beat him to it. He noticed how she stared right into the guy’s eyes as she spoke and how his eyes would wander away from her steady gaze. She looked calm, but he looked a bit nervous as he answered her questions and by the end, she gave him a sincere word of thanks and continued walking. The guy who had answered her questions, though, quickly scurried away to his group of friends, slightly cowed from their interaction. YuHan observed all of this from a distance as he walked towards the doors of his school. “Well, it’s nice to have a new person I guess... sincere, too. A good trait to have for sure…” he thought as he walked through the doors.

From the entrance of the school, he walked to his locker, which was on the 8th floor. His school was big, very big. Complete with all the escalators running through it. Although, most of the time, they weren’t working. While on the escalator, he saw her again a few steps in front of him. There were quite a few people blocking his view, but despite her height, he was quite sure that it was her. As he continued his journey upwards, it became clear to him that they were both going to the same floor and when they both got off, they walked to the same place as well. He walked to his locker and unlocked it. Her locker was just a few feet away from his, he noticed. She pulled out the piece of paper upon which her combination was printed. Turning the lock in the right way, she pulled on it and found that it didn’t click open. Slightly frustrated, she tried again, but it wouldn’t work for some reason. At that point, she let out a little growl of annoyance and YuHan, who had been watching, decided to walk up to her and ask if she needed any help. It was then that he noticed just how much taller he was than her. She was a few inches shorter than him, and she was pretty cute and he knew she was sincere from before.
“Hey, do you need help with that?” he asked her.
She turned to him and studied him for a little bit before she said, “Yes, I do. Thanks.”
“No problem,” he replied, “Lock not opening?”
“Yeah,” she said in a bit of an aggravated tone, “I don’t really get what’s wrong.”
“Well, can I see the combination?” he asked pointing at the piece of paper she held.
She hesitated for a second before saying, “Sure,” and handing it to him. Reading the slip of paper briefly, he held the dial and spun it a few times to the right before turning the lock to the numbers written. He pulled on it and it clicked open. He removed it from the hole and handed it to her.
“You probably didn’t spin it a few times first, am I right?” he questioned.
She looked at the lock in her hand, then at him and said, “Yeah… I didn’t think of that.”
She locked her eyes on his and smiled, “Thank you, my name is Jin-Young, but you can just call me Jin. I’m new here.”
He stared at her smile for a couple seconds before returning it with one of his. “YuHan,” he said, introducing himself, “I thought you were new, I didn’t see you before today, so…”
“Yeah, I transferred in today… Now, could you help me with one more thing?” she asked him.
“Sure, but do you want to unpack first? I need to finish that myself and grab my books from my locker,” he said pointing.
“Oh,” she looked to where he was pointing, “Yeah. Okay,” she nodded at him. He then turned and headed towards his locker again, threw in the binders he didn’t need for the first half of the day, and grabbed his textbooks. Then, after locking his locker once again, he turned around to face her and waited. She didn’t take long and after locking up, she turned to him and walked towards him.
“So, I was wondering if you could show me to my first period class. I don’t know where anything is in this school and I could really use the help,” she said. He looked at the clock for a second and saw that there would be plenty of time for him to do so.
“Okay,” he said, “Can I see your schedule?”
After handing it to him, he scanned it and said, “Okay, well, I actually have a few classes with you and the rest of your classes are on the same floor as mine, so I can take you to each of them if you want.” He looked up to see her delighted face as she said, “Really?! That would be great! Thank you so much!” He thought back to when he thought that she was a bit too serious and unemotional. He realized that it was just that she didn’t show her inner self all that often. Especially with people she didn’t feel so comfortable with. In a short span of time, he had figured out quite a few things about this girl and she seemed plenty interesting to him.
“Let’s head to your first period class then, shall we?”
“Yeah, let’s go!”
Thus, they started a friendship that soon became stronger as they talked longer and found that they were similar in some ways from their whole train of thought sequence/process to their personal tastes.
Within a few months, they were comfortable with each other and often showed little acts of skin ship that usually ranged from him offering her his hoodie if she was cold to little hugs that lasted no longer than a couple seconds.
It became a bit of a routine for them. Going to their classes together, talking during passing time and lunch, laughing together, just enjoying their time together, but neither of them knew what would happen next.


A bolt of realization hit her. She figured out what some of the things that had been swirling in her head were about. Why she would sometimes feel a certain way when he was with another girl, why she would sometimes long to touch him for a longer time, why things were happening in her heart that weren’t “supposed” to.
The next day, they stood next to each other on the escalator. He was saying something, but she wasn’t quite listening. She was staring at his hand. His hand that may not be very large to some other girls, but would fully cover hers without a problem. Her arm itched to reach out and her hand itched to grab his. She gave in to their desires and the minute her fingers interlaced with his, he stopped talking and looked down. He looked up towards her face and noticed the blush and embarrassment that was clearly displayed. She was looking away from him, counting the tiles on the wall next to the escalator.
“Jin,” he softly called.
They were alone on the escalator. Most of the students had already left the building and the rest were busy talking on the floors. They had the escalator all to themselves and in that moment, time slowed down.
She turned to him at his underlying plead for her to look at him. She looked into his eyes, searching for the feelings she had been feeling. She couldn’t quite find them, but in a final burst of courage, she wrapped her arms around him. Tiptoeing, she brought her mouth next to his ear and stuttered her confession to him. After saying what she had wanted to say, she slowly brought the heels of her feet back down and watched him. His mouth was slightly agape. At surprise, not disgust, she noted. His face contorted slightly as his brain processed the information and he looked into her eyes. She searched once more for the feeling and before he said his next words, she knew what he would say.
She had found it and he was hers.