The rabbit hopped around the cage, nibbling on some carrots. It rubbed its paws against its face and stood on its hind legs. When it opened its eyes, it was face to face with a girl with doe eyes and brown hair.

“If you stare any harder, your bunny just might die.”

Aeri whipped her head to the side and looked up, noticing a boy leering at her. Sighing heavily, she brushed the dust off her sheer tights and stood up.

“Shut up, Ducky,” she retorted, sticking her tongue out at him. “That’s impossible. And if I were to accidentally murder my rabbit, I wouldn’t do it in such a way.”

“I thought we made it clear that you would call me Sandeul?” the boy said pouting. “Also, should I be concerned about you potentially being a serial killer in the future?”

Aeri laughed and reached for her backpack, gathering her notes and textbooks. “Only if you provoke me, Junghwan,” she teased, as she carefully put on her black framed glasses.

Sandeul scoffed and shut the cage closed on Oreo, waving goodbye to the tiny animal. He threw an arm over Aeri’s shoulder and dragged her out of her room, eating what was left of her breakfast. A half-eaten piece of toast and nectarine.

“That’s not much better than Ducky, but I’ll take it, Air-head,” he rolled his eyes, chewing on the fruit angrily.

--

The hallways were packed with students, and as calm as Sandeul was, unnecessarily congested hallways irritated him the most. Students were scattered across the area, with no consideration of those trying to get somewhere in mind.

“I can’t take this anymore,” Sandeul groaned, pushing through the students with Aeri in tow. “I mean sure, talk to your friends, but step to the side, will you?”

Aeri quietly laughed as she was dragged along by her noisy friend. A two minute walk to her locker took more than five minutes today, and although it wasn’t something she was too excited about, she was definitely coping better than Sandeul was. She supposed it made sense how rowdy people were today, since it was the first assembly of the year.

“Be as annoyed as you want, but you’re the bad guy in the end,” Aeri laughed. “For someone as calm as you are, you sure like shoving people aside like they’re nothing.”

Sandeul scoffed. “You know better than anyone else that there is nothing I hate more than blocked hallways.”

Aeri hummed in response, ignoring further complaints from Sandeul as she pulled a sticky note off her locker. Today it read “Don’t be afraid to be yourself,” and she smiled, opening her locker. In her locker there were two other sticky notes, both from the previous days of the new school year. Today marked the third day and the third note, as she placed the new one in the very back, as she retrieved her books.

“Nice to see you’ve still got your secret encourager. Two years and still going strong,” Sandeul whistled, leaning against some lockers. “Grade 11 and he’s still telling you to love yourself. If that’s not dedication, I don’t know what is.”

Aeri pinched Sandeul’s cheek and glared at him. “Don’t be salty because you don’t have someone like this in your life too.”

Sandeul hissed in pain and pinched Aeri’s cheek too, “I’m not being salty. Couldn’t you tell? This is me being amazed. But really, two years is a long time. You’d think he’d expose himself by now.”

Letting go of each other’s cheeks, Aeri rubbed her face, trying to soothe the pain. He was definitely right about that. Two years is a super long time to be posting encouraging sticky notes to a girl’s locker. Although there were days that there was no sticky note, the following days were always met with an extra note to make up for the previous.

“I’d really like to meet him before we graduate,” Aeri thought aloud, closing her locker. “Whatever, let’s just go.”

--

The classroom was noisier than ever and the teacher seemed to make no attempt in quieting the students down. Sandeul stopped at the door upon bumping into his friends and stayed to chat for a bit, ironically blocking the doorway.

“Hey Aeri,” Gongchan and Baro smiled, before causing their own ruckus with Sandeul. Aeri smiled in response, but decided against staying with them. Aeri sighed and rushed to her seat, immediately dropping her shoulders.

“What a gloomy girl,” Kyungsoo commented, pointing at Aeri. “We’ve known her since kindergarten but I’ve never heard her speak more than a sentence. She doesn’t have much of a presence, does she?”

Baekhyun glanced at Aeri and laughed nervously in response, deciding to talk about better things. “How have your classes been so far?”

Aeri heard those judgemental words and sighed. She turned her head and watched the clock tick by, patiently waiting for the announcement to call students down to the auditorium. What a gloomy girl she was, indeed.

“Staff and students, please make your way down to the auditorium now.”

The PA system was loud and masked the sound of clamouring students, forcing them into silence. The homeroom teacher stood up and made orders, requesting the students to sit in their respective rows in the auditorium before dismissing them.

“Hey, can you wait in the hallway for me, I have to put away my backpack before we go down,” Sandeul said, petting Aeri’s head. Aeri nodded and walked out, clinging to the wall, trying not to be carried away by the sea of students.

Teachers strutted down the hallways and ushered students down to the auditorium, making sure no one would skip. “Let’s get a move on, miss,” a teacher said pushing Aeri into the mass of people.

“I- No, wait,” Aeri stuttered, trying to speak up for herself. “I’m waiting for someone.” Aeri’s soft voice went unnoticed by the teacher as she was suddenly one in hundreds of students in the hallway. She was truly pathetic.

When Sandeul looked outside, he saw Aeri panicking and making every effort to not make contact with anyone and for a split second he made eye contact with her before she was whisked away by the others. “How bothersome,” Sandeul groaned, ruffling his hair before rushing out to find Aeri. Truthfully, it was more worrying than bothersome.

--

Sandeul bolted down the hallway, trying to find Aeri. He was certain that she was near tears at this point, being surrounded by so many unfamiliar faces. There was no use in calling her, considering how she wouldn’t even be able to pick up due to her being sandwiched between so many people. She was really too fragile for her own good.

Upon seeing his friends, he wasted no time in asking them to help find her. “Not a problem. We just have to find the girl trying to avoid human contact of any sort,” Baro lightly joked. It was kind of depressing how true that was.

--

Aeri was in the auditorium and fiddling with her fingers as she stood in one place, not knowing where to go. She hated herself and how she couldn’t do anything alone. It irritated her knowing how she couldn’t do something as small as finding her seat during an assembly. She avoided eye contact and hung her head low, trying not to be brushed up by others.

Baekhyun looked at her from across the room from his seat and raised a brow, debating whether or not he should drag him out of there himself or wait for her to muster up her courage. How hard was it to walk confidently through a crowd of people?

“Ah, she’s worse than I thought,” Baekhyun spoke under his breath, feeling guilty. He knew Aeri wasn’t the most social person but he didn’t realize to what extent.

“Look at Aeri,” Chanyeol spoke up, “she’s looks like she’s about to cry. I wonder what’s wrong. I feel bad for her.”

“She’s been like that since elementary school, but I guess it’s hard to notice since she has no presence,” Jongdae sighed. “She freezes up during any type of gathering. Literally. I pity her.”

Baekhyun silently agreed with his friends and watches her, as she continued to make no movement, amongst the people trying to get to their seats. When Baekhyun stands up to go to her, he sees that her friend is already there, by her side—where Baekhyun should have made an effort to be.

Sandeul ran towards Aeri and grabs hold of her hand and shakes his head. How long has it been since he’s seen her like this? “Thank you, Junghwan,” Aeri whispered, holding on tighter and rubbing her eyes with her free hand. “You and Kris were right. I guess this caterpillar still isn’t used to sociable environments.”

“You remind me of a caterpillar,” Sandeul said to Aeri, first year of middle school.

“Kris said that too,” she smiled a little before sobbing again. He had never seen her cry as hard as she did then and upon that, he made the voluntary decision to never let her cry like that again. After the day she poured out her emotions to him, Sandeul wouldn’t leave her alone. From then on, Kris was never brought up between them.

His heart clenched when she said his name again, but he didn’t have time to reply before they were tackled by Baro and the rest of his friends. Aeri laughed and allowed them to drag her to their seats.

Baekhyun watched as they were all reunited and pursed his lips. He couldn’t forget how fidgety she was when she was alone, how anxious she seemed, how terrified she was. Upon sight of Aeri clinging onto her friends and wincing every so often a loud noise was made, Baekhyun scoffed. “I guess encouraging notes don’t do much for you,” he muttered.

I’ll do better from now on, I’m sorry.

a/n: casually updates after like two years ha h  a,,... i am a very good author i swear (p.s this is like half edited, sorry for any mistakes/if things are unclear)