I’m his fiancé I’m his fiancé I’m his fiancé I’m his fiancé

Those three dreadful words kept pestering me.

 “You’re engaged? How do you sleep at night, knowing that your wife, my mom, perished in a car accident six years ago and now you’re engaged? You’re in ‘love’ with this woman? Had it ever occurred to you just once, just once, that you should contact me since you drove away from the boarding facility’s premises months ago?” I remembered screaming.

“Hei Ryung ,  I-” Dae Jung interjected.

“Let me finish!” I hissed. “I don’t appreciate the manner in which you have been treating me ever since I’ve landed on Korean soil. A loving parent does not dispose of his child in a boarding institution like unwanted, filthy trash. How do you think I feel? You expect me to love after you have neglected and abandoned me?” I hollered.

“Hei, let’s go.” Sulli urged me out of the building.

“Didn’t mom mean anything to you?” I asked him before I left.

 “Miss Lee!” Mr. Kwon snapped.

I lifted my head to focus my attention on Mr. Kwon, the aggravating Guidance teacher.

“Neh, Mr Lee?” I replied faking a bright smile since I couldn’t smile genuinely after recalling those events.

“Pay attention!?” He shouted at me but I couldn’t. My mind was slipping in and out of the past.

“Hey beautiful, just turn around. One look will satisfy me.” I heard their footsteps getting closer and closer.

“Babe, slow down. You’re exhausting us already.” Thye chirped, whistled and wooed. It was those stupid kids, Jay Harris and Malcolm Wayne. They kept on harassing me but I’d always make it home before their school was let out. Ughh! Dad had forgotten to pick me up again. I started to run, run and run. I was running as fast as I could but my knee pains kicked in , which slowed down my speed. I heard their heaving breaths and their chuckling getting louder and louder behind me, which meant they were getting closer and closer. My strides were no match for their athletic build. They caught me from behind and I felt their hands snaking around my waist.

“Playing hard to get” a raspy voice resounded in my ear and the smell of alcohol and weed intoxicating me.

“Let me gooo!” I yelled and flailed my arms and legs but Jay’s hold on me grew stronger.

“Now we wouldn’t want to invite the whole neighbourhood in on our little game” Malcolm said with a smirk on his face. I was shaking, my arms and legs were shaking and it was dark it was sooo dark. I hated the dark.

“I’ll go first, you watch.” And they erupted in laughter. I felt the hot tears streaming down my face and his hands on my bare stomach. All of a sudden I penetrated Malcom’s chest with the switchblade I was carrying around. He yelped and staggered back. I yanked the full length of the blade out of his chest and the blood spurted like water from a fountain. I turned around just in time to see the other one coming after me. He knocked the weapon from my shaky hand and pushed me to the ground. I hit my head quite hard and felt the gravel pricking against my back.

“You’re gonna get it real good, .” I heard groans and cries from Malcolm, having received a stab wound. I felt Jay heavy set pulverizing my stomach. He was fidgeting with his zippers and he slapped me across the face. A sharp pain exploded in my neck and I was quickly losing focus. It was getting so dark, I couldn’t see his face. I felt him. I felt him undoing my trousers. I cried out but he gagged me with a bit of cloth. I felt around the ground helplessly. Anything, anything would be useful to get him off me. Then my fingers grazed a sharp edge. It was the switchblade. By that time he had already got my pants down.

“Ok!” I improvised. “You don’t have to rush, it’s only us now.” The tears trickling profusely down my bruised face.

“Never thought you’d said that.” He leaned his face close to mind and at that moment I grabbed the blade and swung it back and forth back and forth back and forth. He was screaming. I was screaming. He was scaring me. I was scaring myself. His blood spotted all over my face and bare stomach. His blood was warm .I smelled his blood on me. He fell to the side, writhing in pain on the gravel road. Malcolm was off in the distance, unconscious, I supposed. I dropped the blade, brought my pants back up and ran for it. I ran, ran and ran.

“Hei Ryung!”

“Huh?” I was brought back to the present. I felt the hot, burning tears stinging my eyes.

“Stop losing focus!”

“Yes” I choked. I couldn’t focus in the least. My eyes were blurry as the nightmares came rushing back.

“He thinks I killed her. He thinks I killed mom. He hates me. He doesn’t say it but I know. He doesn’t need to say it because his actions speak for themselves. He hates me because I killed his first love. He thinks I’m a liar and a potential criminal”

“Hei Ryung! That’s not true.” She tried to console me. It never worked. It never works. “Oh, but where are you going?”

“He’s taking me to South Korea, bye.” I turned my back on my only friend and left. I heard her calling my name. I ran across the street but she wasn’t as swift as I was. I heard her screaming my name, pleading, asking me to come back in order to sort out my predicament but I kept on running until the blaring of the car horns and my distance droned out her voice.”

“Hei Ryung, are you alright?” Taemin whispered.

“Yeah.” I sniffled and rubbed the back of my hand against my red nose. “I’m fine, never been better!” Another sniffle.

“Hei Ryung, honey are you alright?”

“Oh, mom! What are you doing here??! I thought you were working overtime.” I blurted, trying to hide the goods behind my back.

She approached me and sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?” I gave her a clueless look.

“I guess the neighbour was smoking earlier.” I hoped that she would fall for my excuse but she didn’t. How could she? My mom was definitely not a fool.

“Are you smoking, Hei Ryung?” She asked, tearing up. It broke my hate to see the tears forming in my mother’s eyes. “Why are you smoking dear? Is it because I’m a bad mother?” she cried.

“No mom! You’re the best, please don’t cry. I promise I’ll never touch a cigarette again.”

I couldn’t stand all the nightmares rushing back. I couldn’t sit in class and feign interest in whatever Mr. Kwon was taking about. I just couldn’t because I was breaking down. As I felt the hot tears down my cheeks I rushed out of the classroom. The last sounds I heard were Mr. Kwon’s voice bellowing for me to come back to his class and the many gasps and scoffs of classmates.

I wound up in the garden crying my eyes out. Asking myself why was I alive. Why couldn’t it be me who died? Why did I have to endure all the nightmares from the past? I didn’t deserve the gift of life. What they said was true. I was a murderer. I killed my mother and I almost killed Jay and Malcolm. I must have been cursed. I felt so sorry for dad for having to put up with me. I was crying so hard that my eyes swelled up and my face became funny.

“Hei Rung?”

“Taemin go away.” I hissed with my hand covering my swollen face. But instead I felt him close to me.

“Hei Ryung, let’s go home if you want. You’re not well.” I felt a pair of arms around me, comforting me. I tried to suppressed my sniffles but they were just erupting one after the other and my body was shaking, which scared me a lot.

“I don’t deserve to live. Each day, I’m reminded of my horrific past and I can’t seem to live beyond it.”

I felt his arms tighten around me. “Don’t say that. You deserve life as much as anyone else. Everything happens for a reason. Please let’s just go home. You need some rest.”

I rose to a standing position and wiped my face with the napkin that he offered me. Since I’d broken down in front of one of the guys I thought I liked and it seemed as if nothing could get worse, I came out and said what I’d been hiding all along.

“Taemin?”

“Yes, Hei Ryung?”

“I like you.” He stood there, motionless. Very shocked, I assumed. I’d probably scared him. “Well…ok-let’s go now.” I started to move off but stopped.

“I like you too” My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I heard those words. I thought I’d heard wrong.

“What did you say?” I asked in a whisper.

“I said I like you too.” He said more confidently and firmly.

“You do?”

“I really do like you Hei Ryung.” As he said those words the tears flooded my smiling face. I didn’t know why. I guess I was happy. I was trying to make something good of a bad situation. Not that his liking me was a bad thing.

He stepped closer towards me and wiped away the tears with his thumbs.

“Is that why you always try to find me when I’m or whenever I run off like an idiot?” I asked, peering into his dark, mesmerizing eyes that melt me feel all mushy on the inside.

“Yes and yes but no you’re not an idiot. You never were and never will be.” He said. “Now let’s go home and wash up. It’s heartbreaking to see you cry.”

. 

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Ahhh! it seems like i rushed this!!!!

Hmmmm. Turning point! :)