"I don't want to take the CSAT anymore."
Aera said with tears rolling on her cheeks. She was still lying on the bed, facing the ceiling instead of looking at the teacher who was talking to her.

"But you were working so hard for this-"

"Then, do you want me to see them again after everything happened? Do you think I will
be able to stay calm and relax?" Aera cut off the teacher and lost her temper when the teacher was still asking her to take the CSAT since it was an important examination for college entrance.

"You never think of my feeling. You never ask me whether I am okay or not." Aera clenched her fist and quickly covered her body with the blanket, telling the teacher to leave her.

"I want to get a full treatment at my hometown.  and stay there. I don't want to study at college. I just need a break to make me feel good again." Aera spoke up.

"Aera, you should get into college and get a quality job-"

"I have my way. Don't you dare to share my personal information with everyone, or I will come again and do the same thing that happened at the school earlier?"

-

  After eating the medicine, Aera decided to take fresh air by leaving the building. She walked through the hallway and ignored those people who were asking about her condition as she looked pale and sick.

Aera suddenly stopped when she saw Jay and Yebin were talking to Sunghoon in the room. She looked at them through the window and teared up when the scene broke her heart. Sunghoon was smiling and laughing again although he just had surgery a few hours ago.
Sunghoon was rubbing his stomach gently as it was hurting when he was laughing too much.

Yebin saw Aera and patted Sunghoon on his shoulder.
Sunghoon and Jay saw her and smiled and called her to be with them, but she quickly ran away.

"Aera, wait for me."

Aera fastened her steps when she realized that Jay was running towards her.

"Aera."

"Stop there."

Aera ignored him and ran into the empty room. She locked it and listened to Jay carefully as he was leaning his body against the door.

"Aera, do you know how much we miss you?"

"I miss your smile and laugh."

"I miss the old version of you."

"I miss the sweetest and prettiest girl, Aera."

"So, can you open the door for me?"

Aera took a deep breath and wiped her tears,
"Jay."

"Yes?"

"Stay away from me. Leave me alone if you want to live happily."

"I refused to do this," Jay replied coldly.

"I don't want to be your friend anymore.
I don't want to have any interaction with all of you. Just forget my existence. It's between the three of you now."

Jay knocked at the door,
"Aera, what are you talking about?"

"So, stop approaching me. I'm protecting all of you."

-

  Aera was allowed to go home today. Tomorrow will be the examination day, and she decided to stop everything, just wanted to live in her hometown and work there forever without anyone knowing. All of her efforts to go into college were useless, and she didn't feel any regret for doing that.

Sunghoon was healing right now, and he will be able to go home in a few hours. Aera still didn't talk to him and avoided him when he wanted to meet her. Their rooms were not that far, but she still chose to stay apart from him because she was really scared to see him after everything she did for him. She wanted to apologize badly, but she knew Sunghoon would never forgave her as she almost ended his life.

Aera wrote a letter to her friends for the last time, expressing all of her feelings in one paper. After that, she gave the letter to the teacher and told him to give it to her friends after she was leaving the place.

-

" Park Sunghoon, I'm sorry. You don't deserve someone like me. I almost ended your life, and I don't want it to happen again. So, I decided to protect you by staying apart from you forever.

Thank you for being my friends. You are a great man and always help me at my worst.
Don't forgive me, Sunghoon. I want you to hate me and curse at me all day long. So, I will do better because I know my mistake to you.

And Sunghoon, take care of yourself, and good luck with the CSAT!  I don't know what you will be like in the future, but I hope you will do well and meet a girl who is better than me.

Thank you for loving someone like me.
I hope you will be happy with someone else.

Forget me, okay?"

-

" Jay, my first love and my friend who cared about me like a brother.

I'm sorry for leaving you. I just want to protect you and see you live happily in the future. I think it's better this way, Jay. I hope you will do great for CSAT! I will always remember the way you teased me and cared about me at the same time. I'm comfortable being with you, Jay and I never wish to stay apart from you, but the world scared me a lot. So, I need to go for me and your sake. Thank you for noticing me, Jay. You never left me behind although others were talking bad about me. I was glad that you believed me more than anyone else. Thank you so much.
Take care!"

-

"Choi Yebin, my girl best friend. I hope you will take care of yourself when I'm no longer with you. Eat a lot and stay healthy! Your smile and humble personality, I will miss it.
I don't care how many times you hurt me, betrayed me, or left me behind. I still love you like my sibling.

Thank you, Yebin for staying with me.
Thank you for choosing me to be a friend of yours.
I never expected Heather to be a friend with me.

-

"What should we do, Sunghoon?" Sunghoon lowered his head and hugged the letter tightly,
"Why did you do this to me?" He mumbled to himself and shut his eyes.

"We can't stay here and watch her leaving."
Jay spoke up, forcing Sunghoon to find a way to stop her. They looked at the clock and it already showed 9 in the morning. They had two hours before they need to get into the examination hall.

"No," Yebin said to both of them.

"We can't let her go."

"We need to chase her, "Sunghoon replied but Yebin stopped him.

"I know. I want to chase her too but this examination is important. This is not a joke anymore. We will lose the chance if we still  want chase for her." Yebin said again. Sunghoon and Jay agreed with her but they still wanted Aera to be with them.

"You stay here then." Sunghoon stood up from his seat and grabbed his key before running out from the place, ignoring everyone who was looking at him blankly. Jay grabbed his key too and followed Sunghoon from behind.

"Where are we going to?"

"Her house."

"What if she already leaves?"

"Let's see first."

-

"Jake."

Aera placed a flower in front of the gate and looked at his house for a long time. She wiped her tears and sniffed her nose while smiling to pretend that she was okay.

"I miss you."

"I need to go now."

"I love you." Aera chuckled and went into the taxi again before leaving the place for real.

-

"She was leaving us," Jay said in a whispering tone and threw his helmet away.
"I can't believe this."

Sunghoon just stood at the gate and rubbed his stomach gently as it was getting hurt again,
"Does she think that we will be good with this?"

Jay crossed his arm, "I know that she wanted to protect us but this-" Jay became frustrated and took out his phone to call her but she didn't give any answer.

"I will never give up."

"I will search for her. I will find her. I will make sure that I will meet her in the future."

"I'm going now." Jay wore his helmet and drove his bike, leaving Sunghoon at her house.

Sunghoon was hurting, not in his stomach but in his heart. He never wanted this. He never wanted to stay apart from the girl he loved. He can't bear the thought of losing her, he never is okay with this. He loved her for a year and adored her in silence but when he had the chance to be with her, she suddenly left him hanging.

how can he endure the pain?

He will miss her a lot like the way Aera missed Jake.

"I will search for you. I will never let us end this way. No matter what happens, I will meet you again although it will take a few years."

"I'm promised."

-

"What would you like to order?"

"Ice Americano."

"That's all?"

"Can I have your number?" Aera titled her head and looked at the guy who was standing in front of her. The guy slowly handed his phone to her, hoping for her to enter her number. Aera cleared her throat and took a glance at her colleague, Caesoo.

"You are in charged to serve the order now." Caesoo made an excuse to help Aera and took Aera's place as a cashier.

Aera nodded and smiled at Caesoo while preparing and serving the orders.

"What a pity." The guy sighed and took his drink, searching for the seat in the cafe.

"You're so popular," Caesoo said to Aera with a teasing smile but Aera just shook her head in response, didn't want to admit the fact.

"Do you know that you're pretty?"

"What do you mean by pretty? Stop talking nonsense." Aera replied while arranging the ingredients.

"Our cafe suddenly gained a lot of customers when you worked here. Your visual easily made everyone amazed at you. So, they came here just to look at you-"

"It's because the customer service is good, Caesoo." Aera denied again.

Caesoo approached Aera and showed her phone to Aera happily,
"Our manager told us to do this to promote our cafe."

Aera was surprised and grabbed the phone.
"Why did you post my picture on social media?"

"To promote our cafe. Look, it reached almost 10k likes and 4k comments. They were saying that you are pretty."

Aera took a deep breath and became anxious.
"This is wrong. Delete it."

"Why? I know it's wrong to upload your picture without your permission but we need to do this since our cafe was underrated. The manager didn't care about it when it came to his business."

Aera bit her eyes, tearing up making Caesoo became worried about her.
"Why, Aera?"

"I don't want anyone to know me."

"I was hiding from my ex-classmates for 5 years. I don't want them to know about me. This is wrong. What if they see this?"
Aera sniffed her nose and rested her head on Caesoo's embrace.

"It's been 5 years, Aera. They already forgot you."

"Caesoo, can you delete this for me? I'm
begging you."

Caesoo smiled and nodded,
"I will."

-

"What happened to you back then?"

Aera bit her lips, hesitated to tell the truth to Caesoo although they were already close.

"You will hate me."

"No. I will never hate someone like you."

"Tell me. What happened?"Caesoo patted Aera on the shoulder.

"I brought bad luck to others. My boyfriend died because he wanted to protect me and my best friend almost died because I accidentally stabbed him with the scissor."

"I was getting treatment here and I'm okay now. I was scared back then. My body was aching and shaking at the same time. I was always sweating although I didn't do anything. I was losing my control when I heard people were talking bad about me."

"I guess it traumatized me a lot."

Caesoo patted Aera again,
"But you still survived from it. I'm glad that you were strong enough to face it."

"I miss my boyfriend so much. I wanted to end my life because I wanted to meet him and stay with him."

"I'm pretty sure that he is happy to see you now, Aera. You finally changed into a cheerful girl again. You are getting prettier too."

Aera laughed at her friend,
"Stop with that words."

Caesoo was surprised as she remembered something.
"What's wrong, Caesoo?"

"Something amazing happened yesterday."

"What is it?" Aera showed a teasing smile to her friend as she thought Caesoo was getting a boyfriend again.

"A handsome and tall guy came to this cafe yesterday."

"Don't tell me that you were asking for his number," Aera said and drank her coffee.

"I wanted to!"

"He is like a CEO like we always saw in drama. Handsome! He bought a lot of food and drinks for his friends!"

"It's your type, right?" Caesoo nodded immediately and screamed when she remembered his face again.

"What surprised me the most is."

"He asked me about you."

"Me?" Aera asked blankly.

"Is he one of those stupid men who asked for
my number-"

Caesoo quickly cut Aera's off,
"He said that he was your classmate."

"He also said that you knew him well."

"I wanted to ask him more but he was talking to his friend on the phone in English. His accent was sexy." Caesoo screamed again.

"One more."

"He said that both of you had a lot of beautiful memories together."

"Stop talking nonsense. I will also
say the same thing if I get to meet Changbin of Stray Kids." Aera stood up and prepared
herself to leave the building since her shift was already coming to the end.

" I will say that I am his cousin and also his best friend." Aera continues as she didn't believe what Caesoo told her.

-

Aera was standing at the bus stop and looked at her watch. She sighed heavily, knowing it's already 5 pm and the traffic will be really busy at this time. The bus might arrive late than usual, so she took a seat and plucked her ear pods before taking a nap for 5 minutes.

"Oh my god, my heart!" Aera screamed when she heard a clap of thunder. She looked at the sky and noticed that the cloud was getting dark and cloudy like it was going to rain soon.

"I'm dead," Aera said and sighed heavily when the rain poured heavily.

She shut her eyes and screamed when the thunder surprised her again. At the same time, someone stood in front of her. Aera was confused and blinked her eyes to see the person.

"It's..."

He gave the umbrella to her,

"You're still weak and stupid."

He said and smiled at her,
Aera blinked her eyes and looked at him for a long time because she didn't believe it was him.

"I found you."

"I found my love back."

"I miss you, Aera."