“You are still eating those inedible sandwiches?”

She looked up to see that it was no other than Kris standing there with his hands in his pockets. She didn’t expect him to come especially with that new girl around.

They stared at each other silently for a long moment…

“You were greedily eating them last time.” She finally said.

“I didn’t have choice. I was hungry and when you’re hungry everything is good.” He shrugged his hands on his pockets.

He was embarrassed by her stare on him. It was the first time he meets her alone since Friday night’s incident and he wasn’t proud of what he had done.

He sat on the bench next to her.

She kept staring at him, amazed.

“He is going to do like nothing happened on Friday night?”

“We should go out to eat next time.”

“Yeah you should go.” She turned away and started eating her sandwich.

“How I am supposed to start to talk about that night?”

“How was your dance class?”

“Like a dance class.” She said while sighing.

“I didn’t think you will come today. In fact I hoped that I would be able to keep this place private again. But I think that I will have to find another place to spend my lunch time now.” She started to pack her stuff to leave.

What he feared the most was happening just in front of him. She was starting to close her true self again and it was the last thing he wanted.

“You’re not going to ask me about Friday?” she stopped packing for a few seconds then acted like she didn’t hear and continued.

“I was actually waiting for you to talk about it first. I ing want you to explain what happened. But which right do I have to ask?” she thought.

 “I know I owe you some explanations.”

“You owe me nothing Kris. What is so a big deal about Friday?” She said without hesitation before straightening.

She was only pronouncing his name when she was being serious. He turned to her and softly snatched her bag from her hands. He took a deep breath.

“Listen, I’m sorry about Friday.”

“Sorry for what?”

She maintained his gaze with fierce eyes.

“For pushing you to a wall. I know I don’t have any excuse for that. Even if I was drunk it is unforgivable.”

“Just forget about it. I’m not made of paper.” She turned her gaze away with her arms crossed on her chest.

He took her chin in the palm of his right hand and obliged her to face him.

“Hurting you matters for me.” He confessed with sincere eyes. “Because you’re my friend.”

Sora’s heart was pounding and she couldn’t escape his gaze. Even if she could, she had no envy to escape. At that right moment she wanted to die in his eyes depth. Her lips quietly opened and she whispered.

“Then what happened to you Friday which made you act like you did?”

He released her chin and Sora almost sighed in disbelief. He was now looking away with his hands on his thighs.

“A lot of things happened in my life these past days and I have so many things I want to say…”

He seemed so serious and Sora could detect a little sadness through his words too.

“… but I can’t.”

She wanted to know what made him worry so much.

“Whatever. I already told you, you owe me anything.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you but I can’t.”

He took her hand and her eyes widened. He got closer to her and his eyes penetrated hers again.

“How I am supposed to keep calm when he doesn’t stop looking at me with those eyes!”

“I need you to trust me.”

She could feel his breath on her skin.

“Trust you?”

“I will tell you everything you need to know someday but just give me time. Do you trust me?”

Sora’s heart was racing. “Why is he so serious?”

Before she could say anything, she heard a voice behind them.

“What are you two doing here? Don’t you know it’s dangerous?”

They both turned towards the voice and saw Mr. Jeong standing there with a furious look in his eyes.

“Down quickly before I put you on detention.”

Sora hurried and gathered her belongings before going down with Kris following her.

“I think we need to find a new place to meet from now.” Kris said returning her her bag with his usual teasing smile. “What about meeting tomorrow after school?”

“Huuh…”

“I’ll take you after school.”

He didn’t wait for her answer for preventing her from saying no and turned his back to her and started to leave.

“Where will we go?” she screamed.

“You’ll see!”

Seo Ah first day at her new school was quite awkward. She arrived at her first dance class and everybody started asking questions about this or that. So at lunch time she went away from school to be alone. She found a bench under a tree and sat there with a book. She opened it in front of her so that people would avoid bothering her but she wasn’t reading. She was reflecting.

“Girls in this school are so curious. They want to know everything about your life and they act like you were longtime friends. When I heard that I had a brother I took it as an opportunity to start from a scratch. I hated the girls from my school in England. They were so materialistic. I’m not the judgmental style but I was in a school for rich kids. All that mattered for people there was having fun and partying. I may look like the opposite of it, but I’m an old-fashioned girl. I like to stay at home Saturday night to watch a movie in my bedroom or read a book under my blanket. This is me. I’ve always been like that.”

She sighed. When she came here, she had believed that she could have a brother-sister relationship with Kris but she couldn’t blame him for being rude to her. She could understand how much he felt betrayed by his father after discovering that he had a hidden child all this time. She hated him as well for not telling her the truth at first but it didn’t last long. She had grown up as a unique child and she could only see her father a few times in a year. She had always been a solitary children and she lost her mother a few months ago. Kris was the only family with his father that was left to her.

She felt shadows covering the sunlight which cut her from her thoughts she was so concentrated in to not notice that a band of three guys had approached her.

“Hey pretty lady!” one of them said squatting in from of her.

She furrowed her eyebrows. They didn’t seem like the guys you want to get involved in something with.

“How come I’ve never seen such a beautiful girl like you around?” he was grinning and the other guys behind him was doing the same their hands in their pockets.

“You seem like a new student. Come with me I’ll show you around.”

The guy grabbed her arm and pulled her. Her book fell down.

“Leave me alone please.”

“What are you talking about? It’s going to be fun come on.”

He was dragging her away from her bag and she tried to free herself from his embrace but she wasn’t strong enough. She had never been. Usually since primary school, she had always been the girl scared of everybody; the girl who cried when someone looked at her too intensely.

“You’re hurting my arm!” she complained.

She had started to yell so that someone would hear but they were a little far from school. There was anybody around.

“Keep calm, I promise you you’ll enjoy the walk.”

She looked over her shoulder to see her belongings getting more and more distant.

“She said to leave her alone. Don’t you understand?” a masculine voice said.

She looked ahead and her eyes widened.