“HUH?” Hana asked, standing up so abruptly that her sketchbook fell open the expose her recent drawing of a girl with no mouth or ears.

“Tell me so you never have to see me again.”

“Can I just say NO THANK YOU? Unfortunately, I don’t want a life on my hands. Besides, IT’S YOUR BUTTON?”

“Hey…hey… hey, is this really murder we’re talking about here?” Onew asked, looking from Hana to the man and back to Hana.

“I’ll be back,” The man nodded sharply, his voice a bare whisper, before he walked silently off the school grounds. Now he knew it, well, at least he believed he understood her; she was scared of saying the truth in front of the other man.

“No…back?” Hana called, sinking back down onto the ground, noticing that the man was serious. No, this didn’t seem like another joke the rich kids played on the poor kids. And if it was, she wasn’t falling for it…again. She used to be young, naïve; at least that was what Hana told herself, thinking that she was experienced now.

“Wo-ow” Onew expressed, raising an eyebrow at Hana. “This has to do with you getting all wet?”

“Don’t ask,” Hana sighed, shaking her head at her own luck.

~

“I sincerely hope this is all a joke…” Hana said as she waited in front of the shop Taemin worked at. Sitting on the little bench, she tried to make herself comfortable, but all she managed was a sort of awkward position where she was half crossing her left as she tried to lay on the tiny bench. Sure, passerbys would think she was some crazy, homeless woman, but hey, she was stressed; who cares?

“Hey, guess what I have for you?” Taemin smiled, coming up from behind Hana and covering her eyes playfully.

“Stop it, Taemin!” Hana laughed, wondering how Taemin always made her laugh.

He grinned. “You know you love me.” From behind his back, he took out a plastic bin (his lunch box) and handed it over to Hana.

“Uh, thanks, I would LOVE to wash your dishes, Taemin.”

Taemin laughed, “open it, gosh!”

Hana opened it to find a whole selection of different types of sushi and sashimi. Her jaw dropped at the yummy treat, but she turned suspiciously at Taemin to ask “sushi is so expensive; where did you find all the money to pay for this?”

Taemin reddened in the cheeks as he realized it would be weird for him to explain to her as to how he got it. Shuffling his feet, he sat down next to Hana and started talking.

“Well, my boss’s assistant made a mistake and ordered sushi from a restaurant he didn’t like for his birthday party, so he got all mad and fired the assistant. And because I was able to beg the restaurant to make last minute preparations and have the sushi he wanted for that night, he was very happy and so when i saw that he was going to throw out all the sushi bought by mistake, I asked if I could have it, he said alright. I went back and distributed it among the other employees. In the end, I took a box for you!”

For a moment, the two of them sat in silence, with Hana staring down at the box.

Stuttering awkwardly, Taemin rubbed his hands together and said, “If you don’t want to eat these, as they are sort of like left overs…”

But Hana had placed the lunch box next to her on the bench and had thrown her arms around Taemin to hug him tightly.

It felt so good to hug someone you cared so much about after such a long day of disappointments and troubles.

Taemin put his arms around Hana and let her head lay on his shoulder for a while before she pulled away, and started on the sushi in the lunch box.

“What was that about? You hadn’t hugged me like that since that time you got lost on the bus and ended up all the way in another city, and had to wait for me to come get you. What happened this time?” He asked, sneaking a sushi out of the lunch box and shoving it into his mouth.

“Well…” and so, Hana told Taemin all that had happened today. She told him all about the strange teen, the weird university class and the last words of the strange teen.

“Don’t worry,” Taemin smiled reassuringly, ruffling Hana’s hair like an older brother and stood up.

“Well, it’s about time I get back to work. Are you going to wait for me today?”

“Yep, I really don’t want to bus home after you mentioned that time I got lost,” Hana laughed, “besides, I have sushi to eat.”

“And did I hear a thanks?” Taemin cupped his ear, sticking his head right in Hana’s face.

Hana smiled evilly and opened to bite Taemin’s ear.

“Oww, you ungrateful little girl!” Taemin grinned as he patted Hana’s head and headed back into the store.

It had been over 3 hours that Hana sat there and the sun was already way below the horizon, making it that the streets were plunged in darkness. In half an hour, Taemin would be getting off work.

Just as Hana waved to Taemin from the window of the shop as he went to the back staffroom to change back to his normal clothes, a hand grasped her wrist from the darkness and she found herself being dragged into a dark alleyway.

“Taemin!!!!!!” Hana screamed at the top of her lungs, thrashing as the hand dragged her on.

“TAEMINNNNNN!!!!” Hana screamed again, kicking out at the person leading her away from the light in the main street.

~

“Hana?” Taemin yelled, running out of the store only half dressed as he had heard her distressed scream. Hana didn’t joke about this kind of thing.

All he found was his lunch box, resting alone on the bench.

“HANA??!!” He called, running up and down the streets, asking whoever he saw that was willing to stop and talk to him if they had seen her.

Nobody had. He felt certain tears burning at the corner of his eyes as he ran up and down the streets, running up to any young girl that had the same ponytail as Hana. He had this similar expression and feelings last time Hana got lost on the bus.

`

“What do you want?” Hana said, muffled against the hand on .

“I need to return your favour.”

The person finally let go of and let her turn around to see the same pale boy she had seen this morning. He was shuffling his feet and looking at her with the same intense eyes.

Hana took in his black hoodie and the torn jeans he bore. Somehow, it seemed to her as if these tears were not included in the design.

As she took in his appearance, Hana forgot all about escaping as she saw the pained expression on his face.

“I have to return the favour.” He continued to mutter, lunging forward and holding Hana by the shoulders. His eyes were panicky, and Hana couldn’t help but stare at his red lips as he continued to mutter that he couldn’t owe anybody anything.

“Why not?” Hana asked, taking a step back to put a little distance between the two of them.

“You don’t understand. If I don’t return the favour… if you’re associated with me… if you remember me… you’re as well as dead!”

For a second, Hana wondered if he was mad, for all he said, she was unable to comprehend. It was almost as if he was speaking some foreign language.

“Look, you need to calm down!” Hana called, trying to pat him on the shoulder, and she found that he was trembling.

He flinched at her touch, moving farther into the darkness.

“They won’t hesitate to kill my family! They won’t hesitate to kill you!”

“They won’t kill me,” Hana soothed, gripping the man on the arm tightly, and this time, he didn’t flinch away.

At this point, Hana forgot about everything as a sense of pity grew at the pit of her stomach and she found her heart aching at the pained expression he had on his face.

“My favour… be my friend; let me help you.” Hana said, gasping as he once again looked her straight into the eyes. But he cowered under her gaze, and tried to move back into the dark.

Hana wondered if he was suffering from hallucinations, but continued to hold onto his arm. “It’s ok-”

But she was cut off as a man ran into the alleyway, knocking Hana down and bringing with him a gun that was pointed straight at her head. “Money or your life?”

 Hana didn’t have a chance to respond as the other strange man pounced and attacked this robber.

In another second, the gun was fired, and blood splattered. In the confusion of the fight, Hana aimed for the robber and threw a rock that hit him squarely in the head.

“HANA!” Taemin called, from down the alleyway, running as fast as he could to find out that now, even Hana was caught up in the fight with the robber.

He pulled Hana away from the fight safely before helping in on punching the robber unconscious. In the belief that the strange boy in the black hoodie was also a robber, he hit him in the jaw, triggering an instant bruise.

“Taemin! He’s helping me!”

“Oh,” Taemin said, startled, backing up and instinctively, putting a protective arm across Hana’s shoulder.

But Hana jumped forward, pulling the man into the light to check on the bruise.

“Come on, I think we owe you some medicine.” Hana said, grabbing Taemin with her one hand, and the other grasped the other man’s sleeve. He seemed rather in a haze as Hana got everybody onto the bus and to the house she and Taemin both lived in.

“Does it hurt?” Hana asked the both of them as she walked around the kitchen, looking for bandages and disinfectant.

“Hana, stop panicking, I know you’re panicking when you’re all jittery like that. The medicine is in the washroom.” Taemin said calmly, though he himself had just wiped away the tears from when he was worried about Hana.

“Right,” Hana breezed, nearly running to the washroom.

Taemin took the chance to peer at the man sitting beside him and recognized it as the man he had seen earlier in the fountain. But up close, he realized that this man looked rather clean-shaven and young, and almost as pale as the vampires he’s seen on TV shows.

“So,” Taemin started, wondering if it had been a wrong move to let Hana bring this stranger into their place, as he knew that Hana was known for being soft-hearted.

The man looked up suddenly, still touching the bruise on his jaw curiously. “Is she your wife?”

“Uh…no.” Taemin said immediately, “we’re both barely 19.”

“Is pain always like this?” The man had asked, pressing on his bruise to feel the pain again.

“Don’t do that!” Hana said, popping back into the room and first disinfecting the cut Taemin had on his head before securing a bandage on his wound.

Next, she turned to the strange man and applied some weird Chinese medicine to the bruise.

“There, that should do it.” Hana sighed and the three of them plunged into an awkward silence.

And then the strange man’s stomach grumbled. 

~

Sorry for grammatical errors!! Oh, and thanks to all those still sticking around to read, although i've been preoccupied with school work and hadn't updated in 2 months :) I'm back to writing now, so please continue to read, and i hope you like it! 

P.S. sorry if this chapter seems rather awkward hehe :) 

- ICEDCOFFEE