CHAPTER 003

❋Cœur de VERRE❋

It was all quiet on the way to college that all I could hear was the sound of the car buzzing to life like a swarm of angry hornets.

After awhile, he parked the car in front of the University so that I get there first: “You go first; I’ll put the car in the parking-lot and follow you”

I just hummed a reply and did as he said. We both was accepted into *Seoul National University*, Korea’s best university so to our parents you may think I was kind of an honor but actually that wasn’t the case. Of course, leaving out Jung Kook; the family’s grace. After all, he studies in the Medical school while I study in the college of College of Agriculture & Life Sciences only. But that doesn’t perk me anymore as I got used to that eventually.

Today, I was extra sensitive as it was the first day of school again the word I hate most so I slothfully was on my way to the front door when I was welcomed by the two idiots of before; well worth to tell, the guy is kind of handsome. They were weirdly hiding by the door while peeking inside as if they were afraid of getting caught or something. I stood behind them as I whispered in question: “What are you doing there?”

They both jumped in startle but soon exhaled in relieve.

“Sorry, if I had surprised you guys” I apologized soullessly.

“So you’re late too?” The girl asked in a mutter.

I raised a brow at her full of question marks as I uttered: “Huh?”

But then it hit me that they were actually hiding there in order not to get caught coming late by the school’s guard just like we used to do back in high school. At first, a chuckled skipped my mouth then ended up laughing out loud.

“No way! Don’t tell me you’re expecting the Homeroom teacher to come like holding a stick or something and start yelling: “You! You’re late! Go do 50 push-ups! Seriously?!” I described along as I laughed my heart out at them.

They blinked at me twice distinctly not getting a thing of what I just said thus I cleared my throat and added: “Look! You’re in the university; there’s no such a thing, besides today is the first day so it’s fine! Just get in” I advised before walking my steps inside.

They awkwardly fixed their positions and followed behind me finally understanding. They explored the university closely when I waited for Jung Kook by the door when the girl suddenly stopped and faced the guy as she bowed 90° to him: “I’ll be fine from here, thank you”

*Well, they did seem to be awkward to me* I thought.

“Oh yeah! Sure” He replied obviously taken-aback and walked off leaving her there.

“They are so weird” I mumbled until Jung Kook appeared and asked as he looked to me with half an eye: “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing! Just hurry and guide me to my department, I don’t even know why did your car stuck in the middle of the way, it sure brings bad luck” I complained continuously while walking with crossed arms half-heartedly until I passed by that girl and she grabbed my hand lightly to get my attention then let go and asked politely at least not as violent as she was with Jung Kook earlier: “Excuse me! May you navigate me to the campus of Agriculture and life science, please?”

“As if I even know” I sighed nonchalantly.

“That’s your department, you can go together” Jung Kook suggested. I choked up on my own saliva taking into account that Jung kook isn’t that friendly; not even close to that shall I say so for him to say that, it was a big shock to me.

I directly rejected neatly and straight-forwardly: “I prefer to go alone”

YeRin POV :

As soon as I entered the campus, I tried to escape away from Taeyong. I didn’t want him to get in trouble for befriending me because after all most of my school mates of last year will be in this college.

You ask me about friends? Let’s see…. I actually had one friend in my first year in High School, to me I considered her as a best friend but that didn’t last long and that’s all thanks to someone; although I have never heard of her at all after my 2^nd year, she wasn’t the kind of a person I’d love to approach unlike others.

Today I had to submit my courses but adding to the fact that I was late I got lost in the large college, I would have listened when Yejun asked to drive me here. Now I have to ask for people’s help.

The first person I bumped into was Mr. Arrogant and his sister and it appeared that they would be the last ones I’d ever bump into since the campus was almost empty therefore I stepped into my pride and approached them with a heavy heart and voiced a question with a quiet and tender voice. As expected from Ms. Arrogant, she generously rejected with a straight face without a simple thought.

I bowed intending to leave until the guy stopped me: “Wait!”

I hesitated before turning: “Yes?”

“I’ll lead you there!” He told.

*Wait! What did he just say* I thought.

“No! It’s fine, thanks” I shook both my hands and head in reply yet he insisted: “I know you wouldn’t have asked if you really were fine”

*Ok! I look pathetic now* I sighed.

“What do you mean? How about me?” His doppelganger interrupted obviously getting irritated.

“You come as well, of course if you want” He told her coldly. I was left with dropped jaws at the unforeseen plot-twist.

“Excuse me? Really! What’s wrong with you? Weren’t you about to hit her just minutes ago?” She spat on him.

“What’s wrong with YOU! You used to be so affectionate toward others, what happened to you” He nagged back with the same tone whilst I looked back and forth at them.

The girl then glared at me giving me chills all over but soon gave in as she admitted: “Fine! I admit! I was a bit rude to you” She turned into burst of smiles, I can’t say it was fully sincere but it had some emotions in it until the brother spoke up teasingly: “A bit?”

She heaved a deep sigh. I swear at that moment I was praying to not give a birth of a twin brother and sister.

“Pardon me, but in this rate we’ll be late, don’t you think?” I pointed out courteously.

“She’s right! I still have to go to my campus next, let’s go” Mr. arrogant acknowledged and we headed off. He dropped us then left as well.

When I got in the room I spotted Taeyong there, he was in one desktop computer already submitting his courses; as soon as our eyes met, I looked away avoiding eye contact and went to the computer in the back.

Honestly he’s a nice guy in terms of the character and all; also, we would have become good friends. However, something deep inside made me run away from him.

Tae Yong  POV :

I parted ways with yerin in the opening gate of the university, I wasn’t expecting that at all. Because after all, I thought we were already becoming closer somehow but obviously she didn’t think the same way I did. I just left first and successfully was able to keep a computer seat and added my courses until she went in with that girl. Our eyes met but she directly looked away, it felt as if she was ignoring me in purpose so that thing kept irking me.

I passed by the cafeteria to grab something to eat and I was able to spot Yerin sitting alone, I naturally walked her way but I didn’t have the guts to sit with her so I sat in the table behind her instead. She was busy picking out cucumbers from her plate so she didn’t even notice me.

“So she doesn’t eat cucumbers… She doesn’t seem picky to start with” I muttered to myself as I skimmed at her, I’m not usually the kind of person to stick their nose in other people’s business; it was just out of curiousness.

Just then two girls approached Yerin and sat right in front of her, one had a long straight hair with fancy and luxurious clothes on whilst the other one seemed more humble and humble with the nerd look as she had shorter hair with eyeglasses on.

Yerin just stared at them blankly and it didn’t appear that they were her friends so I thought: “Would they be the ones who bullied her back in high school”

Too soon after the long haired girl started off: “You can’t have lunch alone, it’s a NO”

“Eh?” She tilted her head to one side in confusion.

“We’ve observed you earlier in the class and honestly you seemed so cool to us, don’t you have friends here?” She explained.

“Can you stop using the pronoun ‘We’ instead of ‘I’?” The nerd interrupted.

“Ah ! We didn’t even introduce ourselves properly, my name’s Kim Jiho and she’s Bae YooBin, and you can call her Binnie” The other one said trying to cover up.

“I should decide that, don’t you think?” The so-called Binnie commented rudely showing the chilly cold characters of hers.

“Well… She’s actually so friendly once you get to know her perfrctly” Jiho told Yerin.

“So…We don’t know your name yet, ms….?” Binnie cut Jiho off and front onto Yerin questionably.

“Yerin…Jung Yerin!” Yerin replied out loud suddenly with a stutter which statled me.

“So how do you want to be called, I mean do you have any nicknames among your friends?” Jiho asked friendly.

“Rin! My grand-mother used to call me that way” She innocently answered excitedly and I secretly chuckled at that just when a girl appeared before me out of nowhere, when I stared closely I figured out she was the twin sister of the guy who made a fuss with Yerin earlier that morning.

She peeked out at me as she mentioned: “dealing with one-sided love?”

“What are you hinting at?” I raised a brow at her.

She grabbed a chair and sat in front of me as she added: “I mean you’re sitting behind her and chuckling at what she’s saying besides you helped her this morning without hesitating”

“You guessed wrong, we barely got to know each other properly today” I denied continuously.

“Fine! I won’t push you further, I just came here to apologize about my rude behavior this morning” She mentioned.

“Oh… Thanks for that; but have you done the same with Yerin? I mean did you apologize?” I asked her.

“Again with that girl, huh?” She giggled then added: “I was planning to do that anyway”

Next, her brother walked to us and said: “Let’s go back if you have nothing else to do; you already finished, didn’t you?” He said glaring at me.

“I think you’ve got to apologize as well; remember? The guy from today’s incident” She told him.

“So you’re back to normal… I have nothing to apologize about… at least not to him” He scanned me with his eyes as he replied.

“Creepy!” His sister told then he turned to Yerin and stood at her table as he told: “I apologize for today, I admit it was my mistake even though you overreacted a bit”

Yerin was obviously taken aback: “Eh?”

He directly turned to me and said: “We’re even now, Hana! Come on”

Before I could utter anything, Yerin stood up fiercely and basically yelled “No! You’re not”

“Huh?” He raised a brow at her.

“I think that for you to be in such a university atop of that you’re in the medical school, I bet you’ve heard of sincerity. Well… It’s not something they teach nowadays but I’ll be giving you a free course. First, when you apologize, you should make it short without adding excuses, it will completely ruin it; secondly, never apologize in order to please someone else. Lastly, put emotions in it! Yours sounded totally brittle"

All eyes were on them at that time and then Binnie and Jiho started clapping soullessly until everyone  else started clapping along and whistling.

I smiled at how bold she was and clapped as well whilst the guy was so speechless that he didn’t react at all.

YeRin POV :

After leaving the university, I went with my new friends Jiho and Binnie and had fun, without knowing it was already 7 pm so we bid goodbye and each left back home. I was so excited to tell YeJun about my new friends that my lips made crescents all over my face. Suddenly, it started raining and I didn’t have my umbrella, I started running all the way home.

As soon as I got there, and while taking off my shoes and jackets, I started narrating what happened to me in the whole day: “Oppa! You see, today I was able to talk to the guy in the plant shop and he happened to be in the same university as me, he was too nice and even helped me when two siblings tried to bully me in the” I breathed in between as I got inside, and found him standing while crossing his arms and staring at me so I continued: “then I met those two friendly girl Jiho and Binnie, we even went…” Before I could finish my sentence, he interrupted: “Yerin, listen! I’ve got something to tell you”

“I started first; let me finish…so we went shopping together and…” I enthusiastically told.

“Park Yerin, listen to me now!” He yelled. It was probably the first time I hear Jun yelling this loud at me which made me freeze in my place.

“Our parents, I mean your father and mother… They couldn’t make it, what I want to say is..” He couldn’t finish once sentence all through the end but I was able to sense something fishy by the way he stuttered.

“They got into an accident today, and unfortunately, the police said that they already found their corpses. They’ll bring them to Seoul by tomorrow…” He tried to put it in a simple way but it only made things complicated in my head. Nevertheless, I wasn’t able to show any emotions at all, even when my heart was that stabbed.

“So?...” I said trying to act cool about it.

“So?! I’m telling you, your parents are dead and you tell me, so?”

“I… I have already gotten used to living without my parents so this kind of reaction is expected.” I held into the strong girl image all the way through and by the next second, a slap was printed in my face, it was strong enough to make me shiver and to wake me up.

I didn’t think much and just left the house without even wearing my shoes and jacket.

Obviously, I got soaked wet as I surfed the night-street heading to anonymous. It was quite a shock, but my emotions won’t show up no matter what. That wasn’t the case when my grandmother died though.

Actually, Yejun is my half-brother as we have different mothers. His mother died from a heart attack after figuring out that my father was having an affair with my mother. Until I became 8 years old, I had always thought that my mother is Yejun’s as well. Therefore, I felt guilty when I finally realized that it’s his step-mother and since then I was angry with my father and lived in Korea with Yejun.

Empty-minded, I continued walking that night lost in confusion. I even tried to cross over the street and eventually I ended up stabbed by a car but it wasn’t serious enough for me to collapse. I didn’t feel pain either then.

The driver stopped his car aside and came out at me: “What do you think yourself doing?” He yelled at me in the middle of the street.

“I don’t know” I muttered while looking on the ground.

“It’s you?! Seriously do you want to die?” He said as he checked my face.

“I don’t know” I replied continuously.

“And what the heck are you doing without even your shoes” He complained over and over which made me go berserk.

“I don’t know! I said I don’t know anything, can’t you leave me alone?” I spat out in rage and soon started crying out loud with tears hiding my sight.

 At that moment I wanted to thank him, he surprisingly was able to make me let out all my emotions at once. I didn’t hide my tears anymore nor did I act like the good obedient girl in front of him. It was a brand new side of me.