Surprisingly Hwamin’s academic performance improved greatly since having befriended Kyungsoo. No one could explain it because they didn’t know that Kyungsoo practiced with Hwamin after her mother had sent her to bed. Not everyone was equally optimistic about her improvement. Hwamin’s teacher watched the girl draw on a spare page after finishing her assignments early. It just seemed too good to be true.

“Okay class, let’s say the tables of multiplication!” She suddenly announced. As she’d expected, Hwamin looked horrified. Perfect, the teacher thought as she walked to the girl’s table. “Hwamin, what’s seven times eight?”

“Fifty six miss.” Hwamin answered, hesitantly looking around her to see if anyone was laughing. How was this possible? That was always the one she got stuck on. The teacher frowned. Hwamin was probably cheating, she thought. She must have a cheat sheet hidden somewhere. She’d get her for this!

“And what’s seventeen times thirteen?” She asked in a cold tone. As expected Hwamin didn’t have an answer ready for this. Helplessly Hwamin turned to the seemingly empty spot beside her where Kyungsoo stood. He seemed furious at this unfair question. Before this time he’d never helped Hwamin out with quizzes, but this was going too far.

“Two hundred and twenty one.” He whispered at Hwamin, although he didn’t have to whisper. No one else could see or hear him. Hwamin turned back to her teacher and repeated the answer.

“You can’t know that. I knew it, you’re cheating.” The teacher hissed and slammed her fist on Hwamin’s table. The girl jumped back, shocked and scared. The whole class seemed surprised with the outburst. “Well? Where are you hiding it? Your cheatsheet? Or calculator? Whatever it is you have?” Hwamin shook her head, starting to sniffle. Kyungsoo balled his fists in anger and moved in front of Hwamin. Frightened and upset, Hwamin reached up to take his hand for comfort.

“What are you doing?” The teacher yelled. Hwamin ducked down and crawled back until she hit her head to the table behind her. Everyone was staring at the strange event. Then, before the teacher could say anything, something strange happened. Hwamin’s desk fell forward as if it had been pushed. It had, in fact. Kyungsoo had kicked it over.

“You leave her alone! She’s done nothing to deserve your bullying.” He snapped at her. Even though the teacher couldn’t hear him, she did seem to notice something. The air seemed strangely warm in front her, as if a fire was blazing there. Her eyes widened as she stepped back. Kyungsoo followed her, raising an arm to punch her. Other than Hwamin, he’d never touched anyone.

This wasn’t what Hwamin wanted. Yes, she had wanted Kyungsoo to protect her and for him to only be her friend, but he’d always told her violence was never the answer. If he did this things wouldn’t go well, she’d seen this happen a lot on cartoons. No matter what, fights had to be avoided.

“Kyungsoo please stop.” She said.

Since no one else could see him people behind her started whispering. Yura, who was always eager to tease Hwamin, was the first one to say something. She pointed at Hwamin and laughed.

“She’s talking to air! Hwamin’s gone crazy and she’s talking to air.” Gyu Seok quickly joined her in laughing. The laughter spread like wildfire. Soon the entire class was laughing and pointing. It wasn’t that Yura was saying mean things that Hwamin felt bad about, she did that all the time anyway. What she disliked was that Yura was insulting Kyungsoo like this.

“I’m not talking to air, you’re just stupid because you can’t see Kyungsoo.” She defended her friend. Said friend glanced at the girl who was spreading her arms as if to protect him. Other than Hwamin, he decided, he hated children. Although he was angry he just wanted to protect his friend and crouched down beside her. Hwamin was crying.

“Can’t I go to your home?” She whispered as he wiped her tears. It was a very tempting idea to sweep her away from this place that seemed to hate her for no reason. They would be happy when they were alone, with no one to hurt her. Because he wanted to say yes so much, Kyungsoo didn’t answer her and instead took her hand, squeezing it gently. Seemingly out of nowhere a drop of warm, salty water appeared on Hwamin’s hand. So touched by the warmth that she still carried inside her, Kyungsoo too had started crying.

The teacher, who had recovered from the shock by now, found only Hwamin to blame for the chaos that had been created in her class. Determined to punish Hwamin she got up and grabbed her ruler from the blackboard, heading to the girl. Unable to see her coming, Hwamin yelped in surprise and pain when the plastic struck against her shoulder. Kyungsoo, who hadn’t seen it coming either, got up and shoved the teacher backwards. As his fingers briefly touched her, his fiery eyes shortly became visible to her. Terrified she let out a scream. Ghost. Kyungsoo’s chest was heaving as he tried to control himself again, when Hwamin’s small hand tugged on his shirt.

 “Let’s just go home, please?” She asked. Kyungsoo nodded and took her hand, following her out of the classroom. The whispers only started after they’d left.

Although no one had gotten hurt, Kyungsoo seemed unusually upset. He wouldn’t or couldn’t tell Hwamin what was going on. Since she’d learned there was no prying information from him, Hwamin and Kyungsoo just walked in silence. It went against every part of his being to tell Hwamin to leave school, but Kyungsoo knew she wouldn’t be safe here. People stared at Hwamin as she walked, following a route Kyungsoo described to her. They couldn’t go home, it was too far to walk and Hwamin didn’t have money to go by bus.

“Hwamin, I’m sorry.” Kyungsoo said when they arrived in front of the police station.

“What are you sorry for? You just protected me.” She replied. The air felt heavy all of a sudden, as if something bad was going to happen. Kyungsoo knelt down beside her and wrapped his arms around her, squeezing harder than usually.

“I shouldn’t have done that. Touch her, I mean. I’m not supposed to touch anyone other than you.” He muttered, holding her close as if she might disappear between his arms. “I broke the rules today. That means I need to break a promise to you Hwamin…”

Confused Hwamin looked up at him. Kyungsoo had often promised her things but he’d never gone back on them. When he said he would read to her, he always did. When he promised to sing for her, he did. Then she remembered the promise he was talking about; the promise not to disappear. Her shoulders shook lightly as she started to sob.

“You can’t.. Please don’t do that.” She whispered, clutching his shirt between her hands.

“You have to go in there.” Kyungsoo spoke breathlessly, his voice dry. His shaking hand slowly turned and pointed at the police station. “You have to go in there and tell them that the teacher hit you. It’s against the law. Tell them, and they’ll make sure she never hurts you again.” His voice cracked. One more second, he thought, just one more second to hold her and tell her things will be okay.

“Hwamin, please don’t ever forget how special you are. Promise me. You don’t always have to listen to your parents because sometimes they’re not right. You don’t have to listen to your teachers all the time either, but don’t stop learning because you’re a smart girl, okay?” It sounded so much like he’d go away forever that Hwamin initially shook her head.

“I won’t! I won’t promise, so you can’t leave! You have to be here and make sure I do those things.” She cried.

“I wish I could be… Be strong Hwamin.” I’ll come back. Kyungsoo wanted to say those words to her, but he felt himself losing his voice. In a last effort to convey his feelings he pressed a light kiss to her forehead. Then he was gone.