Summer with You

Chapter 3

A girl could be seen wandering the area, hands in the pocket of her hoodie playing with the MP3 player that was inside which was blasting music through the earphones she was wearing. She sighed to herself feeling bored since she's been walking since earlier trying to find something she could do but nothing seemed to catch her interest at the moment.

As she continues to walk she notices a group of friends passing by and decides to observe them for a few moments but she quickly regrets it when she realizes that the group of friends recognize her and start to talk about her "Hey isn't that Rei?"

"Yeah it is"

"What's she doing alone though? I thought she and the other popular kids usually hang out together even during the summer break?"

"She's probably heading to one of their places right now"

"She must be having the time of her life, I wish I had that, being rich, being friends and getting to hang out with the popular kids, being one of the most popular people is wow just amazing"

And this makes Rei sigh, whoever said those things were wrong, she didn't have a certain location in mind to where she was heading and no she did not like hanging with the so-called 'popular kids' of their school. Sure Naoi Rei, one of the richest and most popular people in their school could have anything and everything she ever wanted, her life seemed absolutely perfect well that's what it looked like in the eyes of others. In reality, despite having almost everything she always felt that something was missing in her life and she just couldn't put her finger on whatever it was.

She sighs and shakes her head trying to stop herself from thinking about those thoughts but they only stop completely when someone suddenly calls her name"REI UNNIE!" surprisingly this action even stops the group of friends from gossiping about her.

She turns around to the direction where she was called from and finds two unfamiliar people running toward her "Hyunseo-ah wait up!" the other girl who was running said breathlessly just because she sprinted a short distance, was this her sign that she needed to exercise more? Honestly, it actually might.

The girl named Hyunseo stops right in front of Rei engulfing her in a big hug "Play along for just a bit I don't want them gossiping about you" she whispers to the Japanese while the blonde-haired girl who just arrived places her hands on her knees trying to catch her own breath.

"Uhm hey guys" Rei says awkwardly not knowing what to say or do at the moment to be fair though who wouldn't? Two strangers suddenly run toward you and you have to act as if you've been friends with them for a long time just to stop a group of gossiping kids. You could say it was a bit overboard but if it gets Rei out of her current situation then she'd be ok with anything at the moment.

"Yah unnie you promised that you were gonna meet with us an hour ago where were you?" Hyunseo says with a pout.

"Who are they?" one of the girls asked as she observed the two girls who were with Rei, apparently all of them were still eavesdropping on their conversation trying to know more information about the two by just watching whatever was going on in front of them.

"Why the hell would I know?"

"Why don't we just listen in then?"

Rei gulps when she hears that and turns towards the two with nervous eyes the blonde-haired girl notices so she decides to play with whatever they had created "Rei-ah don't tell me you forgot your promise?".

"Uh..." Rei says acting as if she forgot about her so-called promise to them.

Hyunseo gasps dramatically at this and holds onto Rei's arm pulling her away from the group "Since you forgot, you are gonna treat us now let's go unnie the others are waiting" Hyunseo says and as they start to walk away another pair of people come from around the corner and before they even know it, the four bump into each other.

Both groups end up stumbling over one another and almost end up falling to the ground luckily most of them end up balancing themselves, except for one girl who ends up on the ground catching herself with her hands "Hyunseo are you ok?" the shortest of the group asks worriedly as she helps the girl get up, Hyunseo is quick to reassure her she's fine though before looking at the two who bumped into herself and Rei.

"Yujin unnie!" She exclaims excitedly once she recognizes the girl "Please don't tell me this girl is gonna drag even more people into this" Rei thinks as she watches the little interaction between the two girls.

"Hyunseo!" the puppy-like girl who Rei assumes is Yujin, says cheerfully engulfing the younger into a tight hug, other than the fact that Yujin missed Hyunseo this was also her little way of apologizing to the younger.

"Didn't we agree to wait at our usual spot? What are you two doing here?" Hyunseo asks looking at the two with a confused expression which makes the two other people she's with confused and a bit panicked since they didn't know each other and now she was going to bring along two more people none of them even knew, how great.

Yujin gets slightly confused when she hears the girl say this but Hyunseo gives her a look that she immediately recognizes and immediately racks her brain to help them "Oh yeah, we couldn't wait so we just decided to look for you guys since you were taking super long."

"Well now that we're all here let's get going" Rei says with a smile and the group proceeds to walk away completely from the gossiping group, Rei even faintly hears one of them say "Come on let's not pry into their business anymore."

After a few minutes, the Japanese turns around finding that no one was watching or following them anymore. She then turns back to the group of people in front of her and releases a breath she didn't know she was holding before saying "Thank you for that."

The group halts their steps and stares at the girl for a few moments before a smile appears on Hyunseo's face "It's no problem really they didn't seem like a friendly group in the first place" she says shrugging as if what they did was nothing.

"How can I ever repay you guys?" Rei asks with pleading eyes.

A chuckle escapes the blonde-haired girl's lips at this "Who says you need to repay us?" she says.

"Eh but I need to repay you guys somehow if it weren't for you guys they'd probably still be stalking me honestly"

"Don't worry about it, besides it's the least we could do and like...what's your name?" the tallest of the group questions, turning to the blonde-haired girl.

"Kim Gaeul"

"Ok like Gaeul-ssi says who said you needed to repay us? It's a simple thing, don't worry about it"

Rei ends up pouting slightly, she wants to repay them even though this was such a simple thing to them, it meant a lot to her "Please?"

Yujin shakes her head when she sees that the girl won't give up so she turns to Hyunseo, who is already looking right back at her "So what's your decision? You're the one who brought us into this" she said with her arms crossed, trying to look serious despite the fact she had a huge grin on her face knowing what Hyunseo would do, the young girl had one of the kindest hearts after all.

"Hang out with us then you wouldn't have to worry about people like them anymore" Hyunseo says making Rei a bit confused why would she ask her to hang out with them all of a sudden, I mean yeah she wouldn't have to worry about people stalking her anymore but this was a bit random.

"Why?"

"You wanna repay us, right? And I want you to repay us by getting to know you and possibly be friends with you besides I've been dying to get to know you better, I don't want to know you as one of the cool or popular kids in our school, I wanna know you as Naoi Rei"

Rei looks at each of them one by one, contemplating whether she should accept the offer or not but then again what harm could this do? She needed to repay them and if this was what they wanted she honestly doesn't mind. So she smiles and gives the girl a firm nod "Sure why not"