“Hey Hongbin, wait for me!” I heard a familiar voice behind me, I don’t need to turn to know it’s Hyuk running after me. I felt him collide straight into my back and wrap his arms around me. I laughed, turning around and, much to my distaste, looked up at him.

“It’s still unfair that you’re younger than me and still taller.” I sighed, trying to wiggle out of his grip.

“Haha, it’s great for me.”

It was another boring day at school. In my last year of high school and Hyuk was in the grade below me. Although I was a year older than him, he often made jokes about him being taller than me. He’s one of my best friends along with our other four friends that we hung out with. By some of luck, we were strangely popular. A lot of the school called us the Kingkas, but I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I’m just nice to people, I guess. I was never aiming to be popular.

“Hongbin!” A girl called, one I had grown accustomed to hearing. “Ah, hi Hongbin. I got this for you” She said, holding out a small cake with ‘Hongbin x Minjung’ written on it in icing. She was usually doing stuff like this, she was nice and I couldn’t bring myself to decline anything she’d give me. However, she tended to follow me around and acted like we were a couple.

She makes me kind of uncomfortable, but I’d never say that to her.  

“Thank you Minjung, I’m sure it’ll be delicious.” I replied, taking the cake and smiling at her. She smiled back and then hugged me suddenly before running off again.

“See you soon, darling!” She called behind her.

“She creeps me out, Hongbin.” Hyuk spoke up from next to me and I hummed in agreement.

We split up as he went to his locker and I went to go to mine, unlocking it and grabbing my Maths books. That’s when I saw that girl, the girl with the locker a few to the left of mine. Her name’s Kang Suhyun, well at least I’m pretty sure it is. She doesn’t speak much, she’s quite shy from what I know but she’s in quite a few of my classes. For the most part, most people don’t realise that she’s there; she’s that quiet. But I notice her, I don’t know why. There are so many people in our school and I see and talk to pretty much everyone but the one that catches my eye is her, the girl who never seems to be interested in anything other than her books and studying.

There’s something about her, I don’t know what quite it is. I’ve never even talked to her before. I wonder if she has any friends? I never see her with anyone.

She quickly grabbed her books and locked her locker again. We were in the same class, so I walked a bit behind her while I waved and greeted people as they walked past me.

I saw Minjung and her friends coming towards me as well and I raised my hand to wave but they had a unsettling smirk on their faces that made me drop it back down.

What are they up to?

That’s when I saw her stop and put out her foot in front of Suhyun who was too invested in the book she was reading to notice and ended up tripping. Her books, glasses and everything else she was carrying falling to the floor. Minjung and her friends, who if I remembered correctly were named Eunmi, Jiyeon and Junah, all laughed and kept walking.

I thought Minjung was quite nice, I suppose I was wrong.

I bent down next to Suhyun who had remained silent and helped her pick up her books. She looked up surprised and her eyes widened even more when she saw my face, I handed her books to her and placed her glasses back on her head with a smile.

“T-Thank you, Hongbin.” She muttered softly with her head bowed.

I was about to ask if she was okay but she quickly got up and ran away before I could speak. I considered running after her but decided that if she was running away she probably didn’t want to be followed.

After the interesting walk to class, I rushed to my classroom, the bell ringing just before I got there. I was later than usual and most of the spots were taken. I looked around; looking to find an empty desk when I noticed that the one next to Suhyun was vacant. Smiling to myself, I walked over to her and placed my stuff down. The noise made Suhyun turn her head away from her novel and look up at me. I smiled at her and I notice her eyes dart left and right, almost as if she was checking no one was watching her, before she gave me a small smile in return.

The math class was relatively boring, our teacher was strict as usual so there wasn’t much talking so we both got on with our work.

. . .

Thankfully, the day’s classes went quickly and it was soon time for lunch. There was relief on everyone’s face when the bell finally rang to release us. The hallway was packed as everyone headed to the cafeteria for some hard-earned food after surviving their first few classes. There was no lack of pushing and shoving and the students were like a tidal wave all pouring into the large battlefield that was the cafeteria.

I made my way over to my groups table and greeted the others happily. “Hi guys, how were your classes?”

“Boring as hell.” Wonshik sighed, laying his head on his arms that he had folded beneath him.

“He’s exaggerating of course, it was fine.” Hakyeon laughed.

“Calculus is not fine.” He moaned giving Hakyeon the evil eye making the rest of us laugh.

“You know,” Ken began, “I’m surprised you had time to be bored, you slept through the entire class.”

“Again?” I laughed, nudging Wonshik with a chopstick making him groan and mutter something that none of us could comprehend, probably some threat of violence.

“He was snoring; it was distracting.” Leo stated simply before returning to eating.

“How does he not get caught?” Hyuk asked, raising his eyebrows in question.

“Oh our teacher notices, but she kind of gave up on trying to make him stop. He’s been sleeping through classes since he first came here and he still gets decent grades so she kinds of just leaves him there.” Hakyeon told him amused.

My focus started drifting away from the conversation when I saw Suhyun, sitting in the corner, eating alone. She was busily reading, as usual.

So cute, always lost in a book.

I was watching her expressions change as she read and found myself entranced. I was tempted to go over there but decided against it, she looked so peaceful reading alone over there. I stopped staring, making sure she didn’t notice and redirecting my attention to my crazy friends who if I heard that last sentence right, were fighting over pizza. I was used to this by now.

Way too soon the bell rang again and people started moving to their last class.  

. . .

The next class was particularly uneventful and to the joy of everyone in the building, teachers and students included, it was time to go home. I almost fell asleep like Ravi in that last class, it was that boring. I didn’t plan on doing anything this afternoon, probably just laying around at home, maybe hang out with the guys.

I heard footsteps racing towards me and I turned my head, Minjung and her group were running towards me and I had to quickly step back to make sure they didn’t crash into me. On their way past though I heard Eunmi yell something, “Suhyun will pay for talking to our Kingkas. How dare she!” I quickly turned to watch them run away.

Are they going after her again? Can’t they just leave her alone?

I was distressed, just by talking to us, well at least that’s what I figured this was about, she has a wave of girls picking on her. Mind you, I only remember her talking to me but not any of the others. She must have talked to them sometime last class or something like that.

I started running the way they went, knowing those girls, they could try and hurt her. Worried and wide-eyed, I sprinted full-force down the halls and eventually ended up in the old section of the school. They stopped using it a while ago, I was pretty sure they started using it for storage.

I saw Minjung and her groupies; they were all wandering around looking for her in the classrooms. I had no idea where Suhyun had run off to, maybe down the corridor and outside. I hoped she was alright and wasn’t too distressed because of these girls. The other girls had murderous looks in their eyes and I could only imagine what they were planning once they found her.

Okay, enough is enough. This needs to stop.

“Hey, you girls!” I yelled, clenching my fists in anger. I was furious, not just because it was Suhyun being targeted by their malice, but because what kind of people would hunt after someone just because they talked to a person. I didn’t care how much they idolised my friends and me, this was just wrong.

“Hongbin! It’s nice to see you! How’s my lovely prince today?” She squealed and the girls all swarmed me, giggling.

Minjung went in for a hug but I grabbed her arm, blocking her. Not very hard but firm enough to know that I meant business; after all I didn’t actually want to hurt them. It would go against my own morals; I’m not one for supporting violence.

“H-Hongbin?” She stuttered, looking up at me in shock. I had never rejected her before and she looked extremely stunned.

“Please stop trying to hug me. You girls follow us around constantly and, honestly, it needs to stop. More importantly, I know what you guys are doing to Suhyun and I’ll tell you right now that if you don’t cut it out I will hate you.”

The girls were speechless, mouths open in confusion and they took a few minutes to finally get some speech out.

“But she’s so weird! Always reading, never speaking, she’s some kind of freak! Why would you care about some strange girl like her? We have been so loyal to you, always giving you gifts and food! It’s not fair Hongbin!” Minjung screeched, stomping her feet like a child.

“Look, I do not belong to you. You have no right to dictate who can and can’t interact with me. She happens to be nice, unlike you. You can’t buy friendship, you could give me as much as you want but if you treat people like you treat Suhyun then we will never be friends. So back off, leave her alone or you will make me mad. Got it?”

They all nodded but looked very angry, but honestly I didn’t care at that point. I gestured towards the exit and they all slumped off, muttering to themselves angrily.

Thank god that’s over.

As I started walking, I heard the beautiful tinkling of soft piano playing. I moved towards the sound, it was coming from one of the old music recording classrooms. I peered through the window and I see no other than Suhyun, sitting in front of the piano, her hands dancing over the keys as she played. I had no idea that she knew how to play piano and I closed my eyes to the beautiful melody. I recognised that tune and I finally pinpointed what it was; it was an English song, ‘Beautiful’ by Christina Aguilera. When I realised the significance of the lyrics, my heart ached for her. I’m sure that all the bullying by everyone took more than just a physical toll.

I was so surprised and felt my heart speed up from the sound of her playing and watching her beautiful hands but that could not compare to when she opened and began to sing. I don’t know what I expected, a soft, gentle voice. But that’s not what I got. Although it started softly, as she got to big chorus you could feel the power in her voice, the strength behind her notes. She leaped over high notes like they were nothing and even though Aguilera songs are usually particularly hard to sing, she did it effortlessly.

For such a seemingly reclusive and shy girl she had one amazing voice and I was amazed, as she sang I felt my heart race and I looked at her with a smile. It was obvious now, I was falling for her. It was sudden, I admit but this girl, she had a quality about her that I wanted to cherish.

As she finished the song I looked at her face and saw tears start to roll down her cheeks. I felt like I got stabbed, seeing her cry like that. She must have been holding in those tears for a while, she ran her hand over the piano keys carefully and lovingly. I could easily see how much she loved music, I wondered if she came down to this side of the building often, just to play and sing.

I couldn’t stop myself; I opened the door and walked inside. On the sound of the door creaking open, her shoulders started to shake and her arms wrap around herself protectively. She the spot slowly and her eyes widened when she saw me, she looked relieved but still very afraid.

I walked up to her and held out my hand, going to wipe the tears from her cheeks but as I did she flinched and took a step back.

“Hey now, you don’t have to be afraid of me.”

She blinked her beautiful eyes and stepped forward again and I delicately wiped her tears away with my thumb but kept my hand there caressing her cheek gently. Despite myself, I felt my own cheeks heat up and so did hers. She gave a fragile but lovely smile and I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close to me and resting my head atop hers.

“W-What about Minjung and the others?” She muttered, still scared but a lot more calm as she rested her head on my chest.

“They won’t be bothering you anymore, even if they try, I’ll protect you. You don’t need to worry about a thing.” I ran my fingers through her soft long hair comfortingly and she hummed in appreciation.

I let go of her only to lean down to kiss her lips softly. I closed my eyes, savouring the sweet moment and I kept petting her hair lovingly, feeling the locks slide through my fingers. I felt her smile into my lips and I grinned back, when we finally pulled away, we were both smiling brightly at each other.

“Thank you Hongbin.” She whispered, laying her head on my chest once again.

“For what?” I asked her.

“For everything.”

. . .

A/N: This one ended up being twice as long as most of my other oneshots haha, so I hope you enjoy reading this for a little longer than you usually would! ^ ^ This little oneshot is for mello_marshmallow~ I hope you enjoyed it, sweetie~ ^ ^ <3

Well, bye for now my beautiful subbies, please comment with your thoughts even if it's not something you requested, I love to get feedback as much as I can so it would be very much appreciated! 

Make sure you're all eating well and staying healthy~

~Cait