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Yoo Mia didn't know it but ever since the clock in the classroom broke her classmates started seeing her as the unofficial replacement. She was almost always first to leave and last to arrive. If Yoo Mia had just entered the classroom then the bell was sure to ring in only a few seconds, if Yoo Mia had closed her notebook and put her pens away then lunch was in a minute on the dot, if Yoo Mias' water bottle was in her bag then then the end-of-day bell was going to go off in any moment.
Fridays were the exception.
Even though she still put her pens away a minute before lunch, on Fridays Yoo Mia got to school early and stayed late. If she was anyone else rumors would've spread about all potential reasons for the deviation in her schedule but Yoo Mia was somewhat of a nowhere girl. Her grades were average, she didn't have any odd or intense interests, and she didn't have any social media until someone told her to make an Instagram account for a group project group-chat. She didn't even listen to music unless it was a piece she was practicing for school band because, somehow, someone as neutral as her was a band kid. Any gossip about her schedule deviation never stuck. An average girl whose only interesting fact was that she played clarinet wasn't a good gossip target.
If you asked anyone in her class why Yoo Mias' schedule changed on Fridays then the best answer anyone could give you was an unsure "Because of her brother?" with the worlds most obvious question mark at the end. Yoo Mias' older brother was the one who drove her to and from school, he was working age but no one know what he did. The girl in question said he did something in game development but she didn't seem keen on giving out specifics. The few that genuinely wondered about the change assumed that his hours were different on Fridays so she got dropped off and picked up at a different time than the rest of the week.
"It's not really my business though you know? It's not even fun to talk about. Honestly we should be asking how she always knows when the bell is about to ring! What is she, psychic?" She got a watch themed after her favourite Precure for her ninth birthday and wore it under her sleeve so no one saw it. So, though today was a Friday, no one knew they could ask Yoo Mia how long until the bell was due to ring. She was left alone to count down the seconds as the teacher droned on about how these equations weren't going to be given to them on the final exam so they should do their best to memorize them.
As Yoo Mia watched the seconds silently tik away on her watch, she tapped her foot on the floor in time with them. She thought about the two girls behind her who had once talked about their matching Halloween costume now talking about how excited they were for Valentine's Day and if they'd get any chocolates. Yoo Mia knew that soon they'd be closer to exams than Valentine's, that they'd be closer to graduating than they would be from their first day, that she had to pay attention to class or else she'd regret it in the months to come, that she should just go home and study instead of staying behind at school again. But it was Friday and her water bottle was on her desk. It was Friday and it was cold and she couldn't have been less motivated to pay attention, all her focus on getting out and up to the third floor. The silence emanating from her watch felt louder than the teacher as she pretended to take notes.
When the bell finally rang it snapped Yoo Mia out her daze, like she had been sleepwalking and had been shaken awake. She almost yelled but was able to hold it back. She packed up her bag, grabbed her winter coat, and took a photo of the chalkboard before cleaning it off. Saying goodbye to whoever was left in the classroom – the poor souls who had to clean the undersides of everyones desks – she made her way up to the third floor.
The third floor was where the music room and science labs were. They took up most the floor space save for a few classrooms scattered here and there but they weren't used for after school clubs very often. As soon as she knew that she was alone Yoo Mia started to run through the empty halls towards room 3-3. Though Yoo Mia and her peers knew it as the music room where the school orchestra practiced, 3-3 had been a classroom once. An echo of the past you could only see in the smaller size of the room, the fading initials of alumni carved into the chalkboard, and scuff marks on the floor from sliding desks.
When Yoo Mia finally reached the door she couldn't hold her excitement back and slammed it open.
A boy with a band-aid on his face, short unbrushed hair, and the worlds scrawniest build, looked up from his book with a jump, Yoo Mia always thought he startled too easily. He sat on top of the low bookshelf under a window which never fully shut, letting in a wind warmer than what was warranted for such snowy February day. His uniform was from the 2000s but Yoo Mia didn't know that, only that it was visibly older than the one she wore but was still in the school colours they had today with the school emblem cheaply embroidered onto his sweater vest, just like the one on her cardigan
"Kim Dokja!" Yoo Mia all but yelled, pointing at the boy who felt as though she was about to accuse him of anything from stealing an eraser to grand larceny. "Yeah?" he hesitatingly asked.
"Your birthday is this Tuesday!"
"So what?"
"I have a dentist appointment so I won't be here, and I know that you're not going to be at school" – like he ever was, when they first met he admitted that he only came in on Friday after school to make up for all the classes he skipped the rest of the week, he didn't even know whose class he was in – "so I'm giving you your gift early!" Yoo Mia dropped her coat onto a chair and her bag next to where Kim Dokja was sitting and began to rifle through it, looking for the gift. It had taken a while for her to find one she'd knew he would like but it was worth it. With all her focus on finding the gift hiding among the hoard of things she brought to school, she failed to see the surprised expression on the boys face. Kim Dokja could not remember the last time someone had gotten him a birthday gift. Maybe when his age was still a single digit he had received a gift with genuine thought behind it, but he really couldn't remember getting gifts after his eight birthday. He had grown used to being forgotten, convinced himself it was better for everyone involved. "Yoo Mia..." he stammered, "I can't..."
"You can!" she countered. "You just won't!"
Yoo Mia considered Kim Dokja her friend but that didn't change how some of his habits frustrated her to no end. He would never let her help with all the lessons and work he missed, the bags under his eyes were so heavy you would think he was a walking PSA about the horrors of sleep deprivation, his skin was vampire pale, and – despite how much she sounded like a grandma saying this – he was too skinny. Anytime she asked him when he had last eaten he would hesitate and his nose would scrunch up as he lied through his teeth. Even in his lies he ate almost nothing, as if he thought that would make them more believable.
When Yoo Mia finally found the gift, a box-shaped-something hidden behind squid pattern wrapping paper, she held it out to Kim Dokja. He raised his hands but paused, considering something something for a moment, before gingerly taking it from the girls hand as if afraid he'd drop it. Yoo Mia sat down next to Kim Dokja who started carefully picking at the scotch tape so he wouldn't rip the wrapping paper underneath. The way he struggled to pick the tape with his chewed off nails reminded her of those scenes in films of someones grandpa failing to do an everyday task to remind you how old they were right before the screenwriter killed them off. Eventually Yoo Mia started instructing Kim Dokja on which pieces to pick off until the wrapping resembled a squid patterned tube. Kim Dokja slide the gift out the paper tube and onto his lap where it landed with a small 'thump!'
"Sooyoungs' Scraped Story?"
"It's the authors first book after she announced she was taking a break like, seven-something years ago?" Yoo Mia explained, "It's about this girl our age named Han Sooyoung, she lives alone and she skips school to write web-novels. She spends so much time writing that she starts writing in her sleep. She doesn't know though, not until she tries clearing up her computer storage and finds a hidden folder named 'later' with like three thousand chapters she doesn't remember writing sitting inside."
"Woah."
Kim Dokja turned the book over in his hand, examining the blurbs from critics and synopsis on the back. "How many pages is this?" he wondered out loud. Yoo Mia knew he was asking rhetorically but it was a fair question. Sooyoungs' Scraped Story was an incredibly thick book, one of the largest fiction stories published in the last year by word count. The noona at the bookstore who had recommended it to Yoo Mia had taken four hours a day over almost five weeks to finish it. "It's not a good gift unless your friend really, really, really likes reading." she had told the young girl, "I will say though, I don't regret the time I spent reading." Yoo Mia repeated both the workers warning and praise to Kim Dokja who had already cracked the book open and was reading the dedication. Peeking over his shoulder, she saw it was dedicated to the authors first reader. Glancing back at Kim Dokja to see if he liked his gift or not, Yoo Mia saw that his mouth was hanging open and pulled up into a smile, the boy may as well have been sparkling with excitement. A satisfied smirk grew on Yoo Mia's face before dropping into a frown as she realized, "I don't know how old you're turning."
Yoo Mia had said that the main character was their age but how true could that be if she didn't know Kim Dokjas' age? Yoo Mia was fifteen and even though Han Sooyoungs' age was never mentioned in the book, the synopsis said she was in the middle of high school, she couldn't have been older than sixteen, maybe on the cusp of seventeen? Kim Dokja was scrawny and small, often drowning in his uniform, and shorter than Yoo Mia. Maybe he was a senior that looked unhealthily younger from bad habits.
Kim Dokja didn't look up from the book when he said "I'm thirty-one." in a too-serious tone. Yoo Mia wanted to hit him. Instead, she crossed her arms and huffed like the brat character in a cliche riddled drama. "You look a few days over fifty if you ask me." she said with her nose upturned. Kim Dokja made a near indescribable sound of protest, almost a mix between a fox getting hit by a car and the sound of a tire being slashed. Yoo Mia smirked seeing his reaction and continued to egg him on. "I mean I should really start calling you ahjussi or something." Kim Dokja sagged reluctantly and turned to the first chapter of his new book. "Don't disrespect your elders Mia-ya." he said while shaking his head side to side. Yoo Mias' want to hit him grew exponentially. Yet, seeing him start the book so quickly upon receiving it she sighed in resignation, she'd beat him on a different day then, if not so he could enjoy her gift then because it was his birthday. If he really was an ahjussi a simple hit would probably break his entire body, it wouldn't do to send him to the hospital on what should be a nice day.
Kim Dokja didn't like being touched so Yoo Mia rested her head in her hands and leaned forward to read the book with him. As Kim Dokja flipped the pages Yoo Mia grew too invested in the story to notice how the winter air that moved through the room failed to ruffled Kim Dokjas' hair like it did her pigtails, how though it rustled through her clothes Kim Dokjas' were dead still. She didn't look at the boys eyes while checking to see if he liked the book but had she Yoo Mia would have noticed that his pupils were unnaturally dilated and his cornea hazy, like the usual foggy setting in black and white detective films. If Yoo Mias' eyes were to drift to Kim Dokjas' hands she would have seen that the ends of his fingers were see-through, only existing as a half-transparent outline.
They got halfway through the third chapter – Han Sooyoung had just gotten a call from her dad asking why the school had told him that she had been absent for two weeks and Han Sooyoung had asked him why he had been absent for the past two years – when Yoo Mia got a text from her older brother saying he was parked in the designated pick up area on the other side of the school. "Why did he park so far?" Kim Dokja asked when she read the message out loud. Yoo Mia could only shrug, it wasn't like he knew which room she was in, just that she was at school. She grabbed her coat and pulled her gloves out of one of the pockets as she prepared to face the cold. "Sorry I couldn't get you a cake, my brother was supposed to help me make one but he got busy." Yoo Mia admitted while texting said brother that she was on her way. Kim Dokja shrugged. "It's not a problem. I don't like sweet stuff all that much.
"God, you are old."
"Fuck off."
"Fucking off! See you next Friday."
Yoo Mia slugged her bag over her shoulder and waved goodbye to Kim Dokja who still sat on top the bookshelf waving back at her. He always stayed after school longer than she did, according to him he took the subway home and had to wait for the right line to arrive, she had asked why he didn't just wait at the stop but according to him it was colder down there than if you were to lay in the snow with no jacket on. Yoo Mia had never taken the subway before so she took his word for it. She closed the door to 3-3 behind her and headed towards her brother. Kim Dokja listened her walk away and waited until he could no longer hear her footsteps to move again. He folded the bottom corner of the page Yoo Mia had left on and continued to read. Next Friday he'd tell her everything that happened from that point on. Kim Dokja continued to read Sooyoungs' Scrapped Story in 3-3, sitting on that bookshelf long after clubs had ended and teachers had begun their trips back to their homes, occasionally he would look out the window and watch some of the older teachers walk to their cars before turning back to the book.
As the sun dropped below the horizon line so did the temperature, becoming cold enough that it began to snow and the wind aggressive enough that trash bins began to fall over, Kim Dokja was too absorbed in his new book to notice the change in both time and weather. He had reached the fifteenth chapter when he heard the unmistakable rolling of the custodians cart. Kim Dokja grabbed a crumpled up paper on the ground, a note passed during morning rehearsal, and placed it between the pages of his book before hiding it in a desk. Not a moment later the custodian pushed the door open only to see an empty music room with a window halfway open, letting in cold wind and snowflakes. The custodian cleaned and left like he did every night as Kim Dokja watched from his place on the bookshelf, only existing as a half-transparent outline of his silhouette.
When the custodian left Kim Dokja, still an outline, pulled the book out the desk and began to think of excuses for whatever chapter he would end up at when Yoo Mia would come back to visit on Friday as he cracked the book open again, using the moonlight to illuminate the words printed on the pages. He had hoped to tell Yoo Mia about his secret but she had been so excited to give him the book that it had slipped his mind. 'Next time' he lied to himself, 'next time I'll tell her the truth.' His internal monologue failed to supply that this was his thirteenth 'next time'.
Back at her apartment, Yoo Mia did her homework in the living room with help from her older brother, silently hoping that Kim Dokja was able to catch the subway and return home.