Melodies

2

Woozi's POV
No way... Was that really her? Choi Aelia. The girl I fell in love with for a day. I shake my head. There's no way. It's been a whole year since I've seen her, not to mention in New York. It's not possible for her to be in the same city and country, especially in the same university.
It's probably someone who looks like her... Right?
"Jihoon."
I come back to reality when my friend, Seungcheol, calls my name. Seungcheol raises an eyebrow at me and I blink at him.
"What?" I ask.
"Were you just staring at Choi Aelia?" He asks, pointing back in the direction she walked in.
So it is her... How is this possible...?
"No. I don't know what you're talking about." I continue walking down the corridor, picking up my pace.
"Wait, do you know Aelia?" He asks with slightly wide eyes.
Turning back around, I watch her talking to a really tall boy around the same age. My chest fills up with a feeling I've never felt before. My expression becomes dark and I turn back to face the way we are walking.
"I did once. It's been a while." I sigh, continuing down the corridor we are in.
"Man, she's been at this school for a whole year already. How did you not see her last semester?" He chuckles "The school isn't that large."
"W-what?" I halt in my step, looking at him with wide eyes, "She's been here the whole time?"
Spinning on my feet to see her once again, I notice she's already disappeared from sight. The tall boy she was with and another boy who is skinnier and slightly shorter than the other boy stare in the same direction I'm looking. Did she run off?
"Come on. Let's go eat lunch." Seungcheol wraps his arm around me and drags me into the cafeteria. 
After school, I decided to go to the library to catch up on my work for biology. I've been here for hours, studying and not even looking up from my textbook. Sighing, I continue writing notes for an upcoming test while clenching my hair in frustration.
After a while, my neck starts to ache from looking down for so long. I look up, moving my neck around everywhere to stretch it out when something catches my eye. Actually, a girl catches my eye. She is the only one here other than me. My eyes lock on her as her gentle eyes scan the pages of the textbook in front of her. My eyes widen when I realize it's Aelia. I've been studying at the library for months, has she been coming here too?
Shaking my head, I look back at my textbook with a deep sigh. Every ten minutes or less, I look back up to her see her concentrated on whatever she's studying for. Her eyebrows furrow in confusion when she doesn't get something but as soon as she understands she mutters an 'oh' and nods, writing something down again.
After another hour, I notice she starts to doze off. She continuously has short nap sessions before almost hitting her head on the desk. She looks around to see if anyone notices and that's when I turn back to my notes. I'm not sure if she even realizes we are the only ones here, or that I'm here with her.
Every few minutes after that, I check to see if she's staying awake. Half an hour later is when she finally gives in to her tiredness. I smile lightly at her before seeing someone walk in from one of the aisles of books.
The boy has black hair and is about the same height as the tall boy from earlier. He has a book in his right hand and he's wearing some oval shaped glasses. Walking up to Aelia, he bends down a bit and shakes her lightly.
"Lia... Lia." He says softly.
"Hmm?" Her eyes flutter open like a princess who just woke up from her nap.
Wow... Her eyes are so pretty... Wait what am I saying?
"Come on. You were studying late again. Mingyu asked me to come get you. He knew you'd be here late so he asked me to stay too." He chuckles.
"Can you carry me home, Wonnie?" She rubs her eyes.
He sighs and nods, giving into her cute state. He starts gathering her stuff and puts it in her school bag. I just watch with a hard facial expression. How does this guy know Aelia? And who's Mingyu?
"Get on my back." He squats down for her while gripping her backpack in his hand.
She nods and carefully gets onto his back. She rests her cheek on his shoulder and wraps her arms around his neck from behind.
"Thanks." She mutters with a cute tired voice.
Cute...?
"Anything for you." He pats her head before turning to look at me.
My eyes widen and I turn back to my textbook, pretending I was doing my notes the whole time. He must've felt my stare on them and wanted to get a glance of why I was looking. As soon as I hear his footsteps walk towards the door, I glance back up and watch the two leave the library. Sighing, I close my book, packing my stuff to leave as well.
A couple of days later, I go to the store to buy Seungcheol and me some ramen for dinner. Seungcheol is my roommate and neither of us cook well so we go to the local store often.
While looking at the shelves for the different flavors of ramen, I happen to turn my head to the right to see someone familiar. My eyes widen once again when I see Aelia. What the hell? Is she stalking me or something? My eyes land on her basket. No... She's not stalking me.
"Hi, Aelia." A boy walks up to her with his own basket.
His smile is very pure and his eyes look soft. He looks like a soft boy in general.
"Oh! Jisoo. Hi! Are you going over to Minghao's apartment tonight to hang out? Mingyu's cooking tonight." She sighs, adjusting her basket up a bit.
"You alright? You seem a little down." He looks at her with concern.
"Yeah... I got mad at Mingyu a week ago and I still haven't apologized. I overreacted but I don't want to admit it to him." She groans, looking up at the ceiling.
I smirk, biting my lip a bit. What a stubborn girl...
"Just talk to him. You know he doesn't take things to heart when it's you... Want to talk about it at your apartment before going to Minghao's?"
"Please." She begs him.
He chuckles and ruffles her hair. His smile is too handsome for my liking.
"Of course." He looks up for a second and catches eyes with me.
My cheeks flush and I go back to looking at the soups. A chuckle sounds from him and I grit my teeth.
"What? Did you see something-"
"No, I just saw a funny word on the food container. Come on, let's go pay then head back." He grabs the basket from her hands and they walk the opposite way.
I sigh in relief and close my eyes. I need to get back before Seungcheol gets curious as to why I took so long.
The next day, I enter music theory and see Seungcheol sitting next to an empty seat. He waves to me with a smile and motions for me to come over. I walk over and take the seat next to him, setting my backpack down by my feet.
Seungcheol starts talking about the assignment this week, saying how hard it is but I zone him out. Observing the room, me eyes land on each person in my class. I scoff. All of these people are just gossiping. Why isn't there anyone actually here to learn?
That's when the door to the classroom opens. My head snaps towards the door to see who it is. My heart stops when she walks into the room. Her smile is bright and beautiful. I feel like she's walking in slow motion, her hair flowing behind her. How is she so gorgeous to me?
A boy walks in right after her and she turns to him, laughing at whatever he said. He scratches the back of his neck in embarrassment and for some reason, I glare at the boy. I can tell he's younger than us but still.
"Hansol! Aelia! Come sit here!" A girl calls for the two of them from the other side of the room from me.
They smile at her and walk over. The bell rings at that time and everyone takes a seat, quieting down as soon as the professor sets foot in the room. The professor immediately starts the lesson but I don't listen at all to what he's saying. I've been in this class for a whole three months already so why haven't I seen her before?
My eyes glance at her from time to time, not even knowing what the lesson was on. Seungcheol says it's hard but I can always figure it out on my own. It's really getting to me that after only seeing her once that day in New York, she got prettier than the first time I met her. And she was already pretty the first time I saw her...
The teacher assigns us a task with a partner and Seungcheol pairs up with me. I help him out with whatever the project is but I can't help but to get that feeling in my chest again when I see her laughing with the Hansol boy. Does she like him?
"Jihoon?" Seungcheol waves a hand in front of my face.
I blink and look at him, forgetting where I am momentarily.
"Huh? Did you say something?" I ask, tilting my head to the side a bit.
"Yes. Like five times." He looks over at Aelia and smiles, "You've been looking at Aelia for two hours straight." He chuckles, a slight teasing tone in his voice.
"What? No I haven't. I was just thinking how I've never seen her-"
"My goodness, Jihoon. Do you want to meet her? I'm her friend. We can do it at lunch on Friday." He asks, cutting me off.
I look at him with a dumbfounded look.
"Why didn't you say that before?!" I hit his arm playfully with a glare.
"I didn't know she was so important." He smirks.
My cheeks turn a little red but I roll my eyes, groaning. I tsk and turn back to my paper.
"Let's get back to the assignment." I scoff, attempting to change the subject.
He laughs, luckily leaving the conversation at that.
A couple of days later, I walk out of biology to see Seungcheol already outside, waiting for me. He smiles at me and grabs my arm, pulling me down the hall.
"Let's go! We have to hurry and buy food before the line gets long and we don't meet the others!" He pulls me out the door.
"Others?" I raise an eyebrow.
We speed walk through the corridor and quickly purchase our meals. He nods for me to follow him after and I gulp. Will she remember me?
We walk outside near the main entrance of the school. There's a big tree in the center of a large area of grass there and that's where Seungcheol leads me. I notice a few long tables pushed together full of boys and my eyebrow raises when I see we're walking towards them.
"Seungcheol, I thought-" I'm cut off when someone yells.
"Boo Seungkwan! Give me back my bread!" A girl shouts, chasing a blonde boy around the large table of boys.
The two of us watch the two for a minute before Seungcheol sighs.
"Geez, Seungkwan, give the poor girl her bread back." Seungcheol says.
Everyone gasps and turns to the two of us. My eyes become golf ball sizes and my breath catches in my throat. I look around the table and immediately recognize the boys I've seen with Aelia recently. I even recognize other boys I've met in class and actually are acquaintances with.
"SEUNGCHEOL!" All of the boys run up to him and tackle him in a big hug.
"Hey!" The said boy chuckles, hugging everyone.
"Where have you been?!"
"You barely hang out with us anymore!"
"I've been having to deal with these children on my own, you jerk."
"I'm sorry! I've been busy! But I've brought a new friend." He smiles and waves a hand towards me.
Everyone looks at me and a few gasps are heard.
"Hello." I bow in greeting, "My name is Lee Jihoon."
"Nice to meet you!"
"Ooh! He looks friendly!"
"Another guy?"
A whole load of comments and questions are thrown at me and I get a bit overwhelmed. So many people talking at once.
"Hey! Quiet down, boys!" Aelia yells.
Everyone immediately quiets down and looks at Aelia as if she's the mother goose. She walks up to me and my heart beats faster. She stops right in front of me and my mouth opens to say something but nothing comes out. We stare at each other for a while before I decide to actually let words form.
"Hi. I'm Lee Jihoon." I hold my hand out for her to shake.

Why the hell did I just do that?

Her eyes widen and a hurt expression is visible for a slight second before it goes away the very next second. She puts on a smile and shakes my hand.

"I'm Choi Aelia. It's nice to meet you." She bows her head at me.
"Oh! Jihoon~ You're friends with Seungcheol?!" I turn to see Soonyoung jumping up and down next to me.
"Oh, yeah I guess." 

Seungcheol messes up my hair. I glare at him and he puts his hands up in defense. I look back at Soonyoung.
"Actually, I know Seungkwan and Seokmin too." I nod towards the two.
"Oh! Hey, Jihoon!" Seungkwan smiles brightly.
"It's nice seeing you out of class!" Seokmin also smiles.
"Let me introduce you to the rest of the boys." Seungcheol wraps an arm around me and points to the first boy.
After learning everyone's name, they all quickly get comfortable with me. Some of them I know anyways but the rest easily accept me since their other friends did. The few boys who saw me looking at Aelia keep glancing at me. When I catch their eye, my face reddens and they smirk.
I am able to talk amongst everyone but mostly just Soonyoung and Seungcheol. Soonyoung keeps asking me if I did the projects for certain classes and I keep telling him yes. He keeps asking me to help him and I keep telling him to do it himself.
The boys ask me questions and sometimes when I answer, I look at Aelia to see if she's listening. Sometimes she is but other times she's in the middle of a conversation with another boy.
From time to time, we make eye contact and it's always awkward. Gosh... I'm such an idiot. Why did I lie about not knowing her? I mean the way she just slips her long, silky brown hair behind her ear and smiles when talking to people she's close to- it's honestly like a movie.
I can't help but bite my lip slightly when the bell rings. I watch as everyone picks up their trash from their lunches and throws it away. Aelia even yells at the ones who try to leave trash there. They apologize to her and do as told.
I sigh. I didn't even talk to her once other than when she came up to me to introduce herself. I shake my head. Why do I have to be such a dummy?
"Aelia, don't you have music theory right now with us?" Seungcheol asks.
"Oh, yeah. Wait... Us?" She raises an eyebrow at him.
"Jihoon has it too." He points to me.
Both of our eyes widen and we look at each other.
"You're in m-music theory t-too?" She whispers.
"Y-yeah." I nod.
She stares at me in shock and I look at my feet.
"Oh that's great! We can all walk together then!" Hansol smiles at the three of us, obviously not reading the room.
I make a slight groaning noise and Seungkwan pokes my cheek, laughing.
"I heard that." He tells me quietly before walking off to his class.
"Let's go before we're late." Seungcheol instructs.
We walk for five minutes, everyone talking except for me. Seungcheol stops all of a sudden and we all look at him. He has a shocked face and I raise an eyebrow.
"Seungcheol? What's wrong?" I ask.
"I completely forgot I need to grab something from another classroom!" He runs a hand through his hair in frustration.
"Oh. Do you want me to come with you? I don't mind being late to that class honestly." Hansol asks, oblivious to what Seungcheol is trying to do.
"Sure." The older boy smiles and grabs his wrist, pulling him down another hall.
Great... Now Aelia and I are alone. We look at each other and tense up. I stare into her eyes, my heart racing now that she's here and no one else. She sighs and looks down the hall. She remains quiet, not looking at me at all.
"Let's get going, I guess." I mutter.
We walk to class in silence. I look at her from the corner of my eyes a lot to see if she'll look at me, but nothing. Why am I so damn awkward?!

"So, why'd you pretend not to know me?" She finally speaks up after a long time.
My eyes widen and I immediately look at her. So now she wants to make a conversation...
"I didn't think you remembered me..." I mumble, playing with the hem of my shirt in nervousness.
She stops right before we enter the class and looks me directly in the eyes again.
"Of course I remember. You became my inspiration."