Chaoter 6

Xiyan's PerspectiveXiyan's Perspective

I bit my lower lip as I rolled all over my bed.

I was currently suffering from boredome and was out of ideas as to what I should do to get rid of it, when something suddenly flew inside from the balcony. I sat up, surprised.

I peered over my bed to see what it was and found a rock on the floor.

Jiyung?

I immediately realized and sprung out of my bed joyfully.

He usually threw rocks at my room whenever he wanted to hangout, since he was to scared to ring the bell at the front door, in fear of that my mother, who strictly forboade me to hangout with the opposite gender, was around.

That way, I'd be able to signal him whether it was a good time to come or not, since he usually came unannounced.

But, today, my mother wasn't coming home until the day after tommorrow, due to some urgent bussiness trip, so I would have to be left alone for two whole days with the house all to myself.

I quickly ran out my room, and climbed down the stairs, three at a time, almost falling down the first floor due to my clumsiness. But I was to exited to care about that.

I threw the front door open and looked around the front porch for any signs of Jiyung.

"There you are." I turned to find him sitting near the sidewalk. He stood up as soon as he saw me, grinning as he approached me. I let him inside and ruffled his hair playfully before closing the door. He rolled his eyes and effortlessly fixed his hair.

"Good thing you came," I said as I led him upstaird to my room." I was just about to die from bordome," I said as I led him upstairs to my room.

"I wasn't planning to come actually, but I decided to stop by since Min-hoo and the other guys ditched me at the convenience store near the school, since they forgot to start planning for the presentation Mr. Dae had us do next week. And that kind of reminded me of our group, too. So, yeah."

"Oh, that." We went inside my room and he sat down on the floor, while I hopped onto my bed as I stared blankly at the ceiling. "I think it's better for the both of us to be the reporters since I've noticed that Xam doesn't seem to be the talkative type. So how about we'll just have him do the PPT? That's not much is it?" I suggested.

"You got a point. I don't suppose he'll mind about it. But anyways, we'll need to do some research about it, so he'll know what to put int the PPT. You have some notes about the discussion?"

I suddenly sat up and gave him a quizzical look. "Since when did you ever see me take notes during class?"

He sighed and bit his lip. "I already knew that, but I still got my hopes up for some reason." He groaned.

"So how are we gonna do this then? We don't have notes, even though we're supposed to, and the text books we have only has nothing but our seatworks and activities."

"How about the internet?"

"That's what I thought too, but since Mr Dae knew we might be depending on online resources instead of taking notes during his class, he wants us to base our PPT on what he exactly taught, which means, everything he asked us to take note and everything he wrote on the board."

"Ugh! So what now?"

We stayed quiet for a while, thinking of possible solutions to our problem until Jiyung suddenly spoke up. "I got it! Let's try the City Library. I'm sure they have a copy of the textbooks in our school, since they usually provide our books."

I smiled at his brilliant idea. "Great thinking. We'll stop by tommorrow after class."

"I know right. I'm the best." He stuck his toungue out at me pridefully and I rolled my eyes and threw a pillow at him.

"Oh, please. You feel so proud over such a small achievment?" I shot back, as I dodge the pillow he threw back at me.

"Just can't admit I'm better than you, huh?"

I scoffed at his remark and threw the pillow so hard, I actually thought it would hit him hard this time, but he was to quick. He jumped back at me and pinned me against my bed and started tickling me at my hips.

"H-hey!! HWHAHHAHAHAH, stop that! " I was laughing so hard, my stomach was starting to hurt. "You know I hate being tickled..HAHAHA," I protested in between my laughter. But no matter how hard I complained, he didnt stop and instead, began to tickle me more. I couldn't take it anymore that I started hitting him, but not hard enough to hurt him.

The feeling of his fingers brushing quickly but gently against my hips was torture to my sensitive skin, especially since I greatly disliked being teased like this. Of course, he knew that more than anyone else, but he still did it whenever he had no other options against my annoying personality. It was sort of his defense mechanism against my greatest weakness.

I managed to get a hold of his hands and manged to stop him for a moment. With the short time I had, I rolled over the bed and manged to have him pinned down.

The moment I could feel the tension of his hands faded, I knew he had offered to surrender.

"It's addorable to see you to be so helpless like that, HAHA!" He smirked at me as I stood up to turn off the lights. I returned and lay beside him, our eyes fixed on the ceiling with nothing but the darkness to accompany us.

"Does it even bother your mom to leave you all by yourself like this?" He suddenly asked out of the blue.

I shrugged. "I don't know, honestly. Well, if you'd ask me,it doesn't seem that way. I mean, I'm going to be an adult in a few months, so I'd better get used to being alone, shouldn't I?" I said, but even I felt uncertain about that.

I was entirely clueless to what exactly was going on in my mother's head. I could never quite understand her actions and it was difficult to read her intentions most of the time. Despite all the years we've been together, it seems that a huge gap still remained between our relationship as mother and child. We weren't close enough to talk about our day during dinner, which we seldom had together due to her busy schedule, and there were even days when her dinner was interrupted by urgent calls from work. She had to take it, of course, and that would be the reason why she'd forget to resume her meal. She was just too busy. Even for me.

"You got a point, but it's pretty dangerous to leave a girl all alone at night, you know? I mean what if someone breaks into your house or something? You even left the balcony wide open!"

He nodded towards the open balcony to emphasize his point.

"Well, first things first: no one's ever broken in here before. You're just overthinking this to much. And second: shouldn't you be glad my mom's not around? I mean, these are the only times we could hangout together."

"Yeh, but I often get worried after leaving. What if something bad happens to you as soon as your left alone? I dont know, it just doesn't feel right to leave you here all alone in the middle of the night, thats all." He glanced at me with a glint of anxiousness in his eyes. I smiled at how concerned he was .

I ruffled his hair and stared right into his eyes. "Why do you have to be such a gentleman? You dont always have to worry about me. Besides, I know how to fight." I said the last part in such a boastful way that he scoffed at me with a mocking look.

"What? You don't believe me?" I grinned playfully.

"Try fighting me then," he suggested sitting up as he looked back at me.

"We both know you can't dare to fight me."

He looked away and smiled. "Of course, I can't. How could I hurt you?"

His words were to unexpected that I was driven to silence.

There was a reason why everyone assumed there was something going on between us even though we've been nothing more than friends.

I've known him ever since I first started High School and I've never saw him more than just a close friend. All we've ever had was a platonic friendship and a bond that was so strong, no one could ever come between us. Sure, we had a lot of other friends whome we often hung out with at school. But, for some reason, we were closer to each other than were to teh others.

However, though it was clear that we only saw each other as friends, others didn't seem to believe our persistent remarks about our relationship.

There were times when I could understand why.

Jiyung's casual remarks about or towards me were often misleading for others, especially since I was the only girl he often hung out with. They couldn't say the same for me since other than Jiyung, I also hung out with other guy friends in the campus, most of whom I got acquainted thanks to him.

Somehow, it never occured to us that we seemed like a couple in other people's perspective until others started talking about it.

But not even the spreading rumors could hinder us from hanging out with each other, even though we knew all to well that would just make things all the more suspicious.

"Anyways, I just remembered something," he said suddenly breaking the silence.

"There's someone I'd like to introduce to you this saturday, maybe after we meet up with Xam."

"And who might that be?" I asked with a hint of curiosity in my voice.

"You'll find out," he said, shrugging.

"Well, whatever you say." I didn't even bother on insisting, knowing how stubborn he could be sometimes.

"But could you atleast tell me why?"

"Well, it seems like she wants to be acquainted with you, that's all. Jeez, you really catch a lot of attention all around the campus, you know that?"

"Heh, it's Yoon Xiyan we're talking about, what did you expect?" I smirked.

"Yeah, well whatever. Though, I just don't get why your still single even after all the attention your getting."

"Oh, shut up! Aren't you single, too? Or maybe you have a secret girlfriend you've been hiding from me?"

"Of course, I don't. And, mind you, it's not because I can't get myself a girlfriend. I just don't want to. There are practically a lot of girls who like me so, if I do want to date, I've got a lot of options to choose from. Unlike you…"

"So what? If I can't have a guy, I'll just chase after girls then. Maybe I can even join you, if you'd let me," I teased him.

He sighed, looking regretful.

"You know what, just forget about it. I'd rather let you chase after guys then have you scare the chicks away."

"Hey, are you insulting me?"

"Oh, is that how it sounds? HAHAHA!"

"Enough, will you? And besides shouldn't you be going home now? It's almost midnight."

He tilted his head and smiled. "Is it that time already? Well, I guess I have to go now. "

He stood up and made his way towards the door but stopped to look back at me. "You don't have to see me off, since it's already late. See you tommorrow and make sure to lock up before going to bed." With a wave of goodbye, he walked out of my room.

I stood up and walked towards the balcony, staring patiently at the empty streets. After a few minutes, I caught a glimpse of Jiyung's tall figure walking through the front yard and into the street. I noticed him looking up at the balcony and smiled at me. I waved at him as I watched him slowly dissappear out of my sight.

I stretched my arms with a loud yawn and decided that I should call it a day and jumped back into my bed.

I was pretty tired, though I had a hard time deciding wether it was because of the tiring day I had or of the tiring day to come.

Hmm. Maybe it was bot h.

I bit my lower lip as I rolled all over my bed.

I was currently suffering from boredome and was out of ideas as to what I should do

to get rid of it, when something suddenly flew inside from the balcony. I sat up, surprised.