People must have looked at her like she was crazy. Giving her odd glances as the girl stood behind the white column glancing around it ever so often. She must have heard the loud whispers of confusion and amusement at the bizarre girl who was hiding behind that column for a good thirty minutes. Even the people who were studying in the library tables near that column were giving her odd looks. Some even moved away, unable to concentrate with her around.

But she didn’t notice. In fact, she was so occupied in her own thoughts that she didn’t even know thirty minutes had passed since she first spotted someone she knew she should not avoid.

But she did.

And now here she was, glancing behind her every so often, trying her to convince herself to come out of hiding.

But she couldn’t. Because every time she saw him, she froze. Her feet stuck glued in the same position and her heart pounded endlessly.

She couldn’t move. And when she did, it always ended up with her hiding behind the solid white pillar that held the ceiling up. A ceiling that seemed to become smaller by the second, suffocating the very air she was breathing.

But even though she was acting this way, she had actually planned what she wanted to say to that boy when she finally saw him. Finally saw him after four days.

And honestly, those four days were hell to her. How was she was supposed to react when she saw him?

She went through every possible conversation in her head. But every time the possible outcomes came out worse and worse. And even when she finally thought that she had the best conversation starter in her head, even when she told herself that it wasn’t going to be a big deal, and even when she saw him from the distance, she hid at that last possible moment.

And every time she looked at him, it hurt.

Sure, her head hurt from thinking about all the possibilities and heart hurt from the idea of the uncomfortable consequences that might happen. But the pain she was focusing centered on was around her finger. More specifically her left pinkie.

Because every time she looked at him, that red string would tighten and crush it. As if it was telling her to get up and go.

But somewhere in her, that was part of the reason of why she didn’t want to go.

Because that would mean what was happening to her was the one thing she was afraid of.

Afraid that the reason she was beginning to be so attached to that boy was because of she was fated to.

And not because she honestly was interested in him with her own feelings.

She wanted to yell at that inanimate string and tell it to stop messing with her feelings, but she didn’t want to seem even crazier than she already seemed like.

But unfortunately for her, with every glance, the pain would intensify.

She took a deep breath and ventured behind that pillar of safety and into that void of uncertainty.

With every step toward that table where that boy was peacefully working at, she felt her heart grow heavy. Every possible thought of failure came rushing, and she had the urge to abandon the mission and run. Just like an animal in face of a situation where it knew it was going to fail.

But at the last possible moment, he looked up.

He looked up at her and smiled.

The softest and reassuring smile she had ever seen grace his lips.

As if he knew.

As if he knew what was going through her head at that moment.

And for that reason, she stood her ground and gave a small smile back.

She took another tentative step before pulling out a chair in front of him and sat down.

She glanced around before landing directly on his eyes.

Dark brown eyes that were staring right back at her without wavering.

“Hi,” she shyly muttered.

“Hey,” he answered back with the smile still on his face. “How’ve you been?”

“Good,” she replied cautiously.

“That’s good.” He hesitated before pushing a long sheet of paper over to her, “Here, take a look at this and tell me what you think about it. Sungjong told me that it was the most hideous thing he had ever laid eyes on, but I think it looks fine. Of course, Sungyeol didn’t even give his input.”

Soojin slid the paper to her and looked at it. A hand-drawn sketch of a house layout with each area named.

She didn’t know what to think. She was shocked at how calm the boy in front of her was. As if he didn’t remember how she ran out on him that day. As if he didn’t remember what she said before she ran. As if that moment never happened.

She didn’t like it the way she was feeling relieved. She knew she shouldn’t be. She knew it was better to talk things out and try and explain what happened on that day.

And she hated it. She hated being a hypocrite who, despite believing that communication was the key, would not follow through with that principle.

But despite what she thought, she couldn’t bring herself to say anything to him. If Myungsoo wanted to leave the circumstances like this, then she would too.

Even if she hated herself for it.

So she simply smiled a bit gratefully and said, “It looks lovely to me.”

Myungsoo was a smart boy. Perhaps a little sharper than others. He caught on things quicker than others. He knew why two seemingly unrelated objects could be related to each other.

So it came to be no surprise that he knew that Soojin was hiding from him but also trying her best to confront him.

Not that the people around whispering about “that crazy chick who’s going insane” didn’t tell him enough.

He also knew what she was thinking. It wasn’t hard to for him when it so painstakingly obvious.

He initially wanted to talk about what had happened that Saturday. But after seeing the pain and confusion Soojin was going through, he decided against it.

He didn’t know why though. Didn’t he finally decide on communicating more after all this time? So why couldn’t he say anything?

Perhaps it was because he hated seeing people get hurt. Especially her.

But seeing her smile made him not regret his decision a tiny bit. But still, only a tiny bit.

Soojin got home tired and exhausted. Mentally and physically.

Who would have known that constantly thinking about how to explain yourself would take so much energy.

She headed to the kitchen for a snack and a drink of water. However, she was surprised to see her mother sitting at the couch watching television with a bag of chips in her hands.

“Is that my bag of chips that I bought yesterday?” Soojin asked in surprise.

Her mother looked up at her and then back down at the snack in her hands. “It was,” she murmured as she flipped it over to reveal that there were no more chips.

Soojin stared befuddled at her mother before realizing a more important question at hand.

“Hold on. I didn’t see your car outside.”

Her mother looked ashamedly away. “About that. Well, I got into a very small, miniscule really, accident on the way back home. So, I took it the repair shop. And, you see, I was told that it was beyond repairable. So, until I get a new car, well, let’s just say that I’m going to be driving an old car that I haven’t driven in a long time.”

“I’m without a car,” Soojin stated in understanding. “Mom!”

“Sorry, hun. But I have to borrow your car for a while,” her mother tried to say as cutely as possible.

“How am I supposed to go to school now?”

“There’s something called public transportation.”

“Great. Lovely,” Soojin muttered as she rolled her eyes. “I guess there’s no helping it.”

She glanced around. “Where’s Jaewan?”

“Your brother? He called home to say that he was staying at his friend’s house for dinner. He’ll come around sometime.”

She shrugged her shoulders and headed to her room, not giving it any more thought.

Soojin woke up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. She moved around in her bed, trying to get more comfortable, but no avail. She stared at the ceiling and tried to ignore the sensation she knew was coming.

She winced as she felt her stomach grumble.

“Great,” she thought. She told herself that she would stop with the late midnight snacks, but apparently today was not the day to start it. So she pulled herself out of bed despite being groggy and tired with sleep.

She headed to the kitchen and the light. She opened up her pantry cupboard and observed her selection. She knew she shouldn’t eat anything heavy since it was not healthy to eat so late, but her eye caught on the cereal.

And without a second glance, she pulled it down, grabbed a chair, and started to eat. She didn’t even bother getting milk to go with it, not even a bowl with a spoon. She was too lazy and tired to care.

She didn’t even notice that someone had just walked through the front door as quietly as possible. And to try and pass the kitchen which was directly between the front door and the hallway to the bedrooms. She didn’t even notice that same person trying extremely carefully to pass by her and into the hallway to safety.

But she saw him.

“Jaewan?” she questioned, as if she couldn’t believe that her younger brother was standing in front of her.

“Hey, sis,” he mumbled.

“Why are you home so late? It’s…,” she murmured as she glanced at the clock, “almost three in the morning.”

Her brother mutely nodded.

And that’s when Soojin noticed something odd about her brother. It wasn’t abnormal enough that her brother had just tried to sneak into the house at three in the morning. It wasn’t weird enough that her brother was rather quiet through this whole chat. But through the dim lighting that casted on his face, she could see something.

“Come here,” she commanded.

Her brother looked flustered. “W-why?”

“Just come here,” she said as she gestured him to come closer to the light.

“It’s late, sis. Can we do this in the morning?” he tried again, trying his best to avoid this conversation.

Soojin abandoned her cereal and tried pulled her brother into the light, who was wincing and struggling against her grip on his arm.

And her eyes widened at what she saw. Her brother had a swollen right eye that was red and beginning to turn purple. His lip was bruised on the right corner of his mouth.

That was it. Nothing more. As if he simply had an unfortunate circumstance happen to him.

“What happened?” she hissed.

He shrugged. “I wasn’t watching where I was going and walked into a pole.”

Soojin narrowed her eyes. She had a gut feeling that wasn’t the truth.

Before he could protest, Soojin quickly lifted up his shirt. He immediately pulled it down and growled, “What the hell do you think you doing?”

But she saw enough. She saw enough to see that he was beginning to form nasty purple-black bruises on his skin. Bruises she had seen before on someone else.

“What did you do?” she asked worriedly, holding his wrist and searching his eyes for answers.

But they were blank as he shrugged her off of him. “Nothing,” he mumbled.

“That wasn’t just ‘nothing’,” she exclaimed softly. “That was something. Something that is more hideous and horrible than you think!”

“What do you know?” he sneered back.

“Enough,” she said softly.

“But apparently ‘enough’ isn’t enough anymore,” he grimaced. He looked pleadingly at her. “Don’t get involved, Soojin. You just can’t.”

And with that, he carefully limped his way to his room.

Soojin watched his retreating back with a blank stare.

Don’t get involved?

She wanted to laugh. How many times have someone said that to her?

Too many times.

But she was already involved from the start.

Whether anyone liked it or not.

A/N: I’m back! I’ve been back for a while, but I’ve been busy. And therefore, this story wasn’t updated until this late. Sorry, guys.

I hope this chapter was enough to keep you satisfied.

Thanks for sticking around, and I hope that you guys stick around until next time.