“S-Song Mina?”

“Yes, that’s me. It’s been quite a while, Im Hyekyung.”

Hyekyung’s blood runs cold, the hairs on the back of her neck standing. All of a sudden this moment feels like deja vu to her- once, in elementary school, Mina had cornered her in the bathroom as well, threatening the out of her.

Hyekyung takes a deep breath to compose herself. To think that the person she wanted to escape from so badly is standing right in front of her eyes.

“What do you want?”

“What I want is simple,” Mina says, her eyes glittering deviously, “I want you to stay away from Kim V. He is mine, and you’re a for thinking that you can just throw yourself at him and he’ll welcome you with open arms.”

Another punch of deja vu straight in the gut.

Hyekyung exhales sharply. “I did not throw myself at him. If anything, he was the aggressor. He started everything.”

“What do you mean?” Mina’s eyes are blazing.

“He was the one who came up to me and started demanding that I do whatever he asked me to. He forced me to come to the dance with him, against my own will. I never wanted to have anything to do with him-,”

A loud, resounding slap echoes through the bathroom, followed by a gasp. A stinging sensation spreads over Hyekyung’s cheek.

“You…”

“This is what you get for messing with my man, then lying right through your teeth and saying that he was the one who started it. You really don’t have any shame, do you?”

Hyekyung fumes silently, trying to read Mina. She knows that it’s no use arguing with someone as unreasonable her; it would only earn her another slap across the face.

Instead, she stays frustratingly silent and waits for Mina’s next move, hoping to provoke her further with her lack of response.

It works. Mina’s eyes glitter more dangerously than ever and she takes a step closer to Hyekyung.

“Has V ever told you what his real name is?”

~

1 week later

The petite girl behind the bar, with the face of a high school student, attracts many stares, especially from the male customers.

Among the large crowd, an equally attractive couple makes their way through to the centre of the dance floor. Song Mina, dressed in a body-hugging dress, latched onto the arm of Kim V, looking striking as usual.

“Oppa, isn’t this party great?” Mina squeaks, her voice barely audible in the loud, thumping bass music resounding through the club.

V begs to differ, but he simply nods and lets her lead him right in the middle of the dance floor, amidst hot, sweaty bodies.

He doesn’t understand how people can enjoy this , and when Mina runs her hands up and down his forearms in a manner that is supposedly enticing, he feels like puking.

Not to mention that his head is filled with thoughts of Hyekyung. He wonders why she ran away and disappeared to after he had kissed him; though he admits that he was rash, he doesn’t feel a single ounce of regret for his actions.

He hasn’t been able to talk to her for about a week. After the school dance, she disappeared, quick as a flash, and for some reason, during the whole five days of school, it felt like she was making an extra effort to avoid him. She already does so, but this time it felt especially obvious to V, the way she avoided eye contact at all costs, disappeared behind some corner whenever he tried to approach her.

To make matters worse, Song Mina had to drag him to the very club she worked in for some ‘quality bonding time’. He cringed at the thought of seeing Hyekyung, or rather, at the thought of her seeing him with Mina. Sure, he did want to talk to her, but not in this particular setting where his supposed girlfriend was clawing at his arm hard enough to leave scratches.

“Mina, I’m going to get a drink at the bar. I’ll be right back.”

She doesn’t even hear him over the loud music, so he sighs and just walks away from the dance floor and toward the bar. After scanning the bar for a few seconds, he calls one of the bartenders and asks, “Hi, um, where’s Im Hyekyung? One of your staff?”

“Oh, I think she’s outside taking a breather. She left by the back door.”

“Thanks.”

V escapes through the same back door and exhales in relief when he is greeted by the cool night air. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he sets off in search of Hyekyung.

He wanders down the dark alley, not liking where his  footsteps take him. This isolated, secluded and dimly-lit area is the perfect place for a young girl to get preyed on and attacked; what the heck is Hyekyung doing in such a place?

V’s heartbeat thumps through his ears as his pace quickens. Where is she?

“Urgh… stop! Get off me! HELP!”

A series of feeble protests capture his attention and immediately, he traces the source of the voice with his footsteps.

When he turns a nearby corner, the hairs on the back of his neck stand up immediately and he clenches his fists so hard that they turn white.

He stomps furiously over to Hyekyung, whose face is blocked by a large, tall man, his hands roaming her body and his lips attacking her skin.

V feels a surge of adrenaline produced by cold fury and without any sense of rationality whatsoever, he grabs the collar from the back of the man’s neck and pulls him violently off of her before delivering a hard punch straight into his stomach, ca