The next morning Sol woke up early to get ready for school, she showered, brushed her teeth, put makeup on, did her hair, and put her uniform on. She yelled bye to her parents and walked out the door to wait for Kai. When she opened her gate she saw Kai already outside waiting for her, “Someone is excited to go to school” she said laughing. Kai was looking down at his phone, he looked up and saw her, she looked beautiful, but he didn’t want to say anything. 

“Are you hungry?” asked Kai. Sol nodded while rubbing her stomach. “Let’s eat some dumplings.” Said kai. 

“I was hoping you were going to say that,” Sol said laughing. They go to their favorite shop just down the street from the park. Once they eat, they make their way towards their new school for the first time. 

“Don’t be nervous, we have each other” stated Kai looking up at the school.

“That’s easier said than done,” said Sol with a worried look on her face. They enter the school and walk towards their homeroom. They find their proper seats and wait for the rest of the students to get to class. Kai rests his head to take a quick power nap, while Sol looks around to see if she knows anyone from her old school, no one looks familiar to her, she turns her head to look at the door and sees Dae walk into the class. She’s surprised to see him, she looks away towards the front of the classroom, Dae walks around the classroom to find his seat. Sol is hoping that it isn’t near her but he walks in front of her desk and sits right in front of her, he turns around and says “Hi again, nice to see you” with a smile on his face.

As the weeks go by Sol and Dae become closer, they work on projects together and help each other on assignments. Kai has noticed it since day one, he doesn’t like that he feels like he could be replaced any day now, Sol and Kai still hangout everyday after school but it has been feeling different for a while now. One day during lunch Sol and Kai sit at their usual table in front of the big window with the view of the soccer field, they begin to eat but Kai forgot his phone in his backpack in the classroom on the third floor, he rolls his eyes and makes his way towards his phone. Sol starts eating her lunch and suddenly Dae walks up to her. “Hey Sol,” said Dae.

“Oh hey Dae, how was that exam in math for you?” asked Sol.

“It was hard even when I studied for hours, '' stated Dae with a worried look on his face. “I wanted to ask you something,” said Dae.

“Sure what is it?” asked Sol nervously.

“I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me?” asked Dae with a smile on his face. You could tell just by the look on his face he has been wanting to ask Sol this for a while. He was tapping his foot on the ground nervously waiting for Sol to answer. 

“Go out? Like dating? Like being boyfriend and girlfriend?” Sol was clearly shocked. She didn’t know what to say because she has had a crush on him for a while now, she tried to hide it because she never thought that he would feel this way about her as well. 

“I’ll be your girlfriend” stated Sol with a grin on her face. Dae hugged her, it was warm and she felt safe. 

“Text me your address and I’ll pick you up at 6 tonight, okay?” said Dae. Sol nodded with a smile, he began to walk away but after a few steps we stopped and turned around to face Sol and waved bye with a wink. Sol started to blush with a smile and she waved back. Kai finally returned a few minutes later, Sol was still in shock at what just happened so she had barely been able to touch her food. Kai took a bite of his food and looked down at her tray and looked back up at her, he could tell she was looking at someone, he followed her gaze and realized she was looking at Dae. 

“Why aren’t you eating? Are you sick?” Kai asked, acting like he knows nothing.

“What? No, I was just thinking” stated Sol with a stern voice.

“What are you doing tonight at 6? Want to go eat dumplings and then go to the swings and eat ice cream?” asked Kai.

“I have plans with Dae,” said Sol.

“With Dae?” asked Kai. Sol hadn’t realized what she had said till just now, she decided to tell him now so he doesn’t find out from someone else. 

“Dae just asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes” she said with a blank stare. She looked over at Kai to see his reaction. Kai wasn’t expecting this, he decided not to give a reaction so he didn’t seem bothered by it, when he really was. Kai has liked Sol since they first met in elementary school, he never said anything because he was always scared that he would get rejected and that he would lose such a close friend. 

“Congrats!” Said Kai with a fake smile on his face. The bell rang and they had to get back to class, Kai noticed that Sol hadn’t eaten anything so he ran to the school's snack bar and bought Sol’s favorite snack; Strawberry milk with two granola bars. When he returned to class he saw Dae and Sol talking at their desks, his smile dropped when he remembered what Sol had just told him. The final bell rang for class to start, Kai gave the snacks to Sol and she mouthed “Thank you” with a smile on her face and began to eat while studying. Dae noticed how they were looking at each other and purposely knocked down his bag so Sol could pick up for him. Sol and Kai snapped out of it and she picked up his bag and Kai went to his seat. Kai and Sol were still so close, a little too close for Dae’s liking. 

A few months go by and it's now November, Dae and Sol are still dating. And Sol and Kai are still close. One day, while Sol is out of town visiting her grandmother, Dae waits in front of Kai’s house. Kai stepped out of his house to go get some takeout for him and his mom, when he opened the front gate he was surprised to see Dae. “Sol is out of town visiting her grandmother. She didn’t tell you?” asked Kai with a straight face.

“Oh, I’m not here to see Sol. I’m here to talk to you” stated Dae.

“Make it quick because I have to get takeout,” said Kai. Without hesitation Dae starts to walk away. Kai is confused but he follows. They arrive at the park. Dae turns to face Kai and says.

“I don’t like how close you are with my girlfriend,” Dae says with a blank stare.

“We have been best friends for over 10 years, it’s only natural that we’re close,” said Kai. You can tell Dae got bothered with what Kai just said, his face changed slightly.

“I want you to stay away from her, she’s dating me not you. You should respect that. I don’t care if you guys have been close forever, but she chose me not you. If I see you near her, you better watch it. And don’t even think about texting her, okay?” stated Dae.

“If she wants to be close to me then that’s her choice, you don’t control her life. Just remember who was here first” said Kai. He walked away without another word because of how that short conversation made him.  

While walking to class Kai sees Sol and Dae talking in the halls. Sol looks past Dae and sees Kai, she waves and motions her hand for him to come over to where they are. Kai hesitates, then he makes eye contact with Dae and walks into class and takes his seat. Sol was confused because Kai has never ignored her like that, she looks towards Dae and sees that he’s smiling. She walks into class without saying anything clearly annoyed. 

At lunch Dae goes to sit with his friends and Sol sits at their usual table in front of the big window looking out to the soccer field. She waits for Kai but starts eating since she didn’t get breakfast. She sees Kai walking out of the lunch line with a tray in his hands, he walks towards their table but stops and sits at an empty table. Sol is confused, she has never seen Kai act like this. She pulls her phone out of her backpack and looks at her home screen before opening her text app, it’s a picture of her and Dae at a museum, she changes it back to the picture of her and Kai at his birthday party eating cake and smiles to herself. She finally opens the texting app and pulls up Kai’s contact, but she notices that he changes his profile picture, it used to be a picture of them in front of the Han River but now it’s a picture of him alone. She ignores it and goes to text him. “Why did you sit over there?” she sent the text while looking over at him. Kai looked at his phone and she could see his lock screen, it was a picture of them two when they went camping. Kai looked over at Dae and locked eyes with him, Dae looked mad. Sol saw the whole thing, and she texted Kai again.

“Why aren’t you answering me?” she sent the text while looking at him, the boys are still looking at each other. At this point Kai has had enough and gets up to throw his uneaten food away. He walks outside to get some fresh air, he has never been so confused he doesn’t know what to do. He pulls out his phone and his headphones, he goes to pick a song and chooses Sol's favorite song called ‘Only’ by LeeHi. He sits there for a while just listening and humming quietly to himself. He wants to tell Sol about what Dae said to him but he doesn’t want her to get hurt, it only makes him even more confused because he doesn’t know what to do.

It’s now the second week of December, Kai is walking to school with his headphones in, he is listening to Christmas Tree by V. He doesn’t bother to wait for Sol to walk out anymore because of what Dae said to him. His music is so loud that he doesn’t hear Sol calling out to him. “Kai? Kai? Kai!” she shouts so loud that he stopped in his tracks and turned to her. She looked beautiful as always, Kai wanted to go up to her and give her the biggest hug. Her hair was done, she did her makeup, and she had a new jacket. 

“What are you doing? Why aren’t you talking to me anymore?” asked Sol with a sad face. Kai didn’t know what to say or do, he didn't want to hurt her feelings. But she has to know one of these days. 

“I’ll see you around,” said Kai with a little smile. That was the first time he spoke to her in months. He turned around and started walking towards school again, with a smile on his face, he forgot how it felt to talk to her again, it made him feel warm inside. 

Sol was left confused again, but this time she felt her heart beating fast when they made eye contact. Her cheeks turned pink and felt warm when she touched her face. 

The next day Kai is walking home from school and decides to go to the park to hangout on the swings. But before he goes there he went to buy something to snack on and something to drink, he pays and starts walking towards the park. He sees Sol sitting on the swing, she looks sad. He goes back into the 7/11 and buys her favorite snack and drink. He walks back towards the park and she's still there but now she’s crying. Kai runs to her and hugs her. When she notices that it’s him she cries even harder and holds him tight.

“What’s wrong?” asked Kai worriedly.

“I got into an argument with Dae, he told me everything that he told you to do” said Sol with a shaking voice.

“He told you? I’m so sorry Sol. I wanted to tell you but I didn’t want you to get hurt” said Kai with tears starting to form in his eyes. 

“I broke up with him. He tried to drive us apart but that will never happen” said Sol with a reassuring smile. She still had tears in her eyes but her smile made Kai feel safe. They stayed hugging for a while, but they eventually began to snack on their chips, they talked like normal for the first time in a while. Sol felt happy to have him back if it has only been a few weeks, to her it felt like they haven’t talked in years. After talking and catching up they started to make their way back home for the night, as they walked towards Sol’s house she turned to look at him with a smile. 

“Are you hungry? My mom made dinner and asked me to invite you over” said Sol.

Smiling, Kai said “I miss your mom's food, let me go tell my mom to not wait for me real quick”. Sol nodded with a smile and watched Kai go into his house, watching him smile at her made her cheeks feel warm again. Kai came back out and they headed inside for some dinner.

A week later, during class Kai texts Sol saying “Meet me at the swings” with a smiling emoji. Sol turned to face him and mouthed “Okay” with a smile. After school Sol started walking to the park, once she got there she didn’t see Kai anywhere. She sat on the swings and got something out from her bag, it was matching bracelets she made for her and Kai. She waited for 10 minutes and started to wonder what was taking Kai so long. She started to look around and saw Kai walking towards the park with a box of dumplings in his hands, she smiled at the sight of him. She felt her heart start to speed up and her cheeks becoming warm. Kai sat on the swing next to her and they started to eat. After they finished eating, Kai and Sol made eye contact, and Kai started to smile. “Sol, I want to ask you something,” said Kai.

“What is it?” asked Sol.

“Will you be my girlfriend? If you don’t want to, it's okay, it won’t ruin anything” said Kai. Sol stayed silent for a while, she already knew what she was going to say.

“Yeah, I’ll be your girlfriend,” Sol said smiling. Kai stood up and grabbed Sol’s hand and pulled her into a hug.

“Thank you, Sol,” said Kai. 

“No, thank you Kai,” Said Sol, smiling. They looked into each other's eyes deeply. 

The End.