March 6, 2017    Day 315

3:45 AM

I tried it today for the first time, but only once. It didn’t quite hurt as much as I expected.

Today was no different than the last. The world was still noisy. When will it just shut up? When will it let me sleep?

It didn’t help me. I still could not sleep.

“Good Morning, sweetheart,” The first thing she heard was the voice she despised the most. Ma Ri sat across Ha Na in the dining table while handing Mr. Kim his daily news paper. She always had this strong desire to make them look like a real perfect family. Every morning without fail, she insisted that they have breakfast together. For Mr. Kim, it was okay. He was very supportive of the whole façade, anything to keep Ma Ri from whining.

Ha Na however, hated breakfast the most. Every single day, she wanted to throw her apple at Ma Ri.

“Today’s your first day of senior year, excited?”

“Sure.”

“Good! Also please come home early for the fitting. I’m sure you are going to love your dress,” Ma Ri said in squeaky voice. She looked at her with fake interest while she smiled, some of her red lipstick staining her teeth.

“Fitting for what?” Annoyed, Ha Na stabbed the bacon on her plate. Oh how she wished it was Ma Ri.

“Stop that --- Anyway, it’s for your father’s birthday this weekend, silly! You didn’t forget did you?”

“Yeah actually I did,” Ha Na deadpanned, eyeing her father for some kind of reaction but she got nothing but a slight rustling of the newspaper as he turned a page. For a slight moment, it was silent until Ma Ri spoke again. “Kim Ha Na!” she hissed.

Ha Na shrugged, “Nobody seemed to remember my mother’s birthday last month. I’m not the only forgetful little in this table.” That was it. She stood up and grabbed her bag and rushed outside. If Ha Na was ever good at anything it was running away. The last thing she heard was Ma Ri’s squeaky voice, shouting her name.

                                                                                                                  ≠

Just one more year then everything will stop. The noise will stop.

Despite having numerous cars in her name, Ha Na never used any of them. Walking to school was her favorite part of the day. She always thought that morning air was the most fresh, especially when it rained the night before. Somehow it felt like the rain washed away all of the world’s impurities. It was a quiet walk, and somehow it comforted her. But in a few minutes, the world will be noisy once again. Oh how she wished she could stop the noise.

When Ha Na arrived at school, it was already half packed. Students were running towards each other, squealing about how their vacation went. Some of them were giving each other big hugs like they haven’t seen each other for years. She rolled her eyes at the thought. How can you miss someone you see almost every day?

Ha Na was annoyed but she had to admit she was little bit jealous. Ha Na only had one friend but she let him slip away like all the other things she took for granted. At her peripheral vision, she saw Lu Han with his new group of friends. Childhood friendships don’t last after all, not when you reach the depths of hell – high school.

Sipping on the banana milk, she grabbed along the way to school, she looked at the clique Lu Han was with.

There, with his arms crossed across his chest, was Kyungsoo, the son of the CEO of Byul Entertainment, biggest entertainment company in Korea. He looked annoyed at what Lu Han had said. If I knew Lu Han well, he usually says stupid things on a daily basis. The other one, Chanyeol, the heir of a hotel conglomerate stood taller than the rest. She wished she smiled as often as him. And then there was Byun Baekhyun, leaning against his car, a girl by his side. Baekhyun, the only heir to the richest conglomerate family in the country, soon to be wed as what Ha Na heard. Bummer. Among all of them, Baekhyun was the most difficult to read. It was like he built this obscure wall around him. You can see his shadows faintly but you can never tell what the real image was behind those walls. That or Ha Na never really paid attention to him.

Engrossed within her thoughts, it was too late when she realized that Baekhyun was looking at her. When Lu Han followed Baekhyun’s line of sight, he flinched. Immediately, Ha Na looked away and continued walking to her class while bumping several students along the way. She did not care nor did they. They knew better than to mess with the unstable Ha Na. They had family reputations to uphold. Nobody really messed with anybody, at least not in the open.

The school was big but the students were scarce. Only the ‘best of the best’ went here. Ha Na thought it was the most pretentious thing she has heard. Money speaks louder than anything, she guessed.

“Hey, Ha Na! Wait up!” Luhan was running towards her, trying to keep up when she hastened her pace. “Hey!”

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