I want to escape
This world is full of lies

"You are not going to be lucky again next time." His voice echoed, sending shivers through her spine. She glanced to Jiyong before ducking her head lower. They were in the cafe, getting another cup of coffee after what Dara had bought was wasted.

"Sorry."

He grimaced. "Not your fault."

Dara was stunned. She never expected that Jiyong would not blame her for their wasted drinks.

"Tch. Seriously. For heaven's sake, stand up for yourself, little puppy. Even a puppy knows how to bark."

Jiyong frowned in frustration. It was a coincidence that he wanted to go to the toilet, but the crowd in the corridor attracted his attention, especially after hearing Dara screaming. But he never expected himself to help the girl, it irked him when he saw Dara did not fight back.

"Ji-Jiyong?" Dara then bit her lip. Not really know if she could call him by his name. But he never asked her to call him 'master' or other names.

"What?"

"Why do you only wear that on one side?" Dara pointed to his ear, which sides that he put his mom's earring. Jiyong shrugged, mumbling something like "it's not your business", making Dara shrank in her seat. She averted her attention to her surrounding but realized it was a mistake when she saw some girls staring (or glaring) in her direction where she was with Jiyong. She quickly turned to look back at Jiyong because at least Jiyong did not look at her with judgment. That's what she thought. The way Jiyong looked at her was different. It was not the same as the students in the school look at her.

"Go straight home and don't come to the music room tomorrow."

Dara felt her chest tighten.

"The idiots are going to follow you and that will be annoying if they know about the music room."

That made her feel relief. She thought that Jiyong would push her and did not want her with him again which was actually good but she wonder why she suddenly thought about him like that.

What shocked her the most was when Jiyong followed her to the school gate. She noticed that there were a lot of students hanging around the school compound, which was weird because the school was already over an hour ago. The students watched two of them walking to the gate and Dara heard they were talking about the incident. She glanced at Jiyong. His hands were in his pockets while his eyes looked straight forward, ignoring the noisy students. Without saying anything to Jiyong, she scampered away when they were out of the school.

Jiyong stared at the tiny frame of Dara that getting away from him. He let out a tired breath before heading in opposite direction from Dara, wondering if his action before was dumb or not.

...


"Hello!" Dara hollered as she stepped into the restaurant. It was located in the center of the town. Her manager, Mi, was still young, seven years older than Dara. The restaurant was actually her mom's, but her mom died after only a few years it was opened. Mi did not want her mom's hard works to turn into waste, so she decided to stop working as a doctor and continued her mom's work. But Mi never thought it was easy. At that time, there's only two workers there. Dara was a regular customer. She had seen how hard Mi work with only two workers, which made Dara apply for a job to help Mi.

"Dara! Thank god you are here! There's a lot of dishes back there. Please help me!" Mi said as she quickly made her way through the kitchen. Dara took the apron on the desk near the kitchen to do her job right away. It was always like that. Dara had to do the dishes, which was pretty easy but it was not when there were a lot of customers on a certain day. Dara once told Mi to appoint more workers, but Mi insisted, saying that nobody could do the job as excellent as Dara, Hayi, and Mrs.Hwang.

Dara loved her job and her coworkers. Hayi was one year younger than her. The girl had a good personality and always respected Dara and Mrs. Hwang. That kind of girl was hard to find in Dara's school and that made Dara fond of that girl more. While Mrs. Hwang is their cook. She was fierce but lovely. Mi was the manager. She was pretty but clumsy. She wondered how Mi could pass as a doctor before.

It was already dark when Mi closed the restaurant. After bidding goodbye to the others, Dara slowly walked to the bus station. People were roaming around although it was quite late. Dara put on her mask to cover her face. She didn't mind about her birthmark but the stares she always got from people made her uncomfortable as if she had killed people. She really hated that.

Dara closed the door and kicked her shoes before going into the room. After taking a bath, she wore her pajama shorts and a t-shirt. Her stomach grumbles, asking for food. She still hadn't eaten her dinner. Thankfully that Mrs. Hwang gave her some food. As she switched on the light, Dara found a bicycle near the dining table and a note attached to its handle.

'You don't have to take public transport anymore.'

She smiled, grateful for her mom. Dara guided the bicycle outside the door and locked it. After eating dinner, she did her homework and went to sleep with a smile on her face. There were a lot of good things that happened to her today; Jiyong and her mom. She hopes that tomorrow would be the same.
 

...

Wrong. She was deadly wrong. The first thing she found in her locker was a lot of rubbish and one of her shoes went missing. Dara had to wear her sneakers inside the homeroom, which made some of the teachers' nag at her. Students around her snickered every time that happened. She knew it must be something related to the incident yesterday with Jiyong. Dara put up a stoic face when she saw there were a lot of scribbles on her desk. Some of them were messages telling