Sunmi POV

My body feels absolutely numb. I can barely feel the tug of Jongdae’s hand pulling me through the crowded streets of Tokyo and back to our hotel.

Yonghwa saw me. Yonghwa saw me.

The guy who I was in school with from the kindergarten to the 12^th grade. 

The one who came over to my house numerous times to work on projects and assignments.

He’s close to my parents- or as close as a kid can get to his friend’s parents.

What if he tells them where I am?

A cold tremor travels through my body, and then another one, followed by another one. I’m shaking, I realize in a daze.

Jongdae seems to notice this as well. He shoots me a concerned look as we enter the hotel. 

I'm dead. The moment Yonghwa tells my parents about where he saw me they're going to track me down. They're going to bring me back. They're going to make me go through all the pain, sadness, anger, stress, and tears again. 

“Sunmi.”

We’ve arrived in front of our room. Jongdae withdraws the room key card from his pocket and quickly flashes it in front of the door. The electronic lock flashes green and he pushes his way inside. 

“Who was that?” 

Jongdae is staring at me expectantly.

I shake myself from my shocked stupor. “I… oh, someone from my old town. I met him a few times, I guess…,” I trail off.

He doesn’t look convinced. In fact, I would say he looked more suspicious of me now. 

“You were number 1 in your class? You got admission to Taesan and SeoulU for business but you’re working as a chef for my family? Your parents in Busan are looking for you?” he exclaims. Suddenly, his facial expression transforms to one of grim realization. “Oh god, no. Don’t tell me. You're a runaway, aren't you.”

I look away. “Jongdae-sshi, please stop. I don’t want to talk about this-,”

“Oh, great. The smartest girl in school thinks she's intelligent enough to be independent, so she runs away from her parents' wishes and becomes a mere chef." Jongdae snorts derisively. "Does it feel good being able to pick and choose what you can do because you're smart?"

“Stop it.”

He ignores me and continues. “I knew you were trouble when I first saw you. Jeez, you’re like one of those cliché book characters who-,”

“Shut up.” I hiss in a cold voice. Jongdae abruptly stops talking and looks at me, astonished.

“How the hell would you know what I’ve gone through? While you’ve been partying your life away in the lap of luxury, I’ve had to work hard every single day of my life.” Every grueling, unfair ordeal my parents put me through passes through my mind and comes tumbling out of my mouth.

“I had to stay up till 3 in the morning every night working the extra practice problems from Hagwon and the ones my parents assigned me. I studied all of the next year’s coursework during the summer, 7 days a week, 10 hours a day. For every school paper that I would get a 95 or less on, I would be beat.”

“Sunmi-,” Jongdae tries to interrupt me but I cut him off.

“I wasn’t allowed to go out at all, except for internship interviews, tutoring, and to school. My parents told me to make friends just so that I could find out their grades, what places they were volunteering at, if they had any opportunities that I could snatch from them. I was my parents’ slave for my entire life, working hard just so that they could be comfortable for the rest of their life. So that they could brag to their friends about how well I was doing. When they told me to go into business, I couldn’t take it anymore.”

I take a deep, shaky breath. My entire body is trembling. I don’t realize I’m crying until I feel tears drip down from my cheeks. “I was about to kill myself and end all the pain… but then I saw your dad’s advertisement about applying to become a chef.”

It is dead silent in the room. Jongdae is looking down at his palms, an ashamed look on his face. I bury my face in one of the pillows on the sofa and weep. I am shuddering with sobs.

This was a mistake. I didn’t come here just to be ridiculed by some stuck-up member of the 1%. I should’ve done it that day. I had the Xanax pills in my hand.

Everything would’ve been over.

The weight on the other end of the couch disappears, and I hear the sound of footsteps walking away.

Jongdae’s leaving. Predictable. He doesn’t give a crap about me anyway.

My wails slowly turn into quiet sniffs, and my breathing eventually steadies. I’m going to take a nap. Maybe by the time I wake up I’ll feel a little better.

I’ve been given an unpleasant awakening on how horrible my life has been. 

A/N: Sadly, a lot of the things that happened to Sunmi are based on real life. Not all of these happened to me but they happened to some of my friends and classmates. The amount of pressure placed on students to succeed is extremely high. I hope it benefits us in the end. 

I'll be updating tomorrow too! Sorry for the lack of updates!