Chapter 18

“What are you doing here?” She asked and looked at Joon who lay on the ground, with a shocked expression. A drop of sweat ran from his forehead down to his chin as he stared at Hyunseung. Her eyes left Joon and landed on Hyunseung, who looked like a person who didn’t really care about how things turned out.

Gayoon suddenly threw herself to the ground, her already shaking hands locking themselves around Joon’s arm as she pulled him up. The other girls had gathered themselves behind Joon and Gayoon, obviously scared of Hyunseung, who just had pointed a gun towards them a few seconds ago.

“We came to find you,” Gayoon answered and stared directly into Hyuna’s dark eyes.

“You shouldn’t,” Hyuna said and once again looked at Hyunseung, who turned around to roam through the house once again. “Leave”

“N-no,” Joon stammered and carefully took a step away from Gayoon and the rest. “You don’t have to be with him…”

“That’s still not your decision,” Hyuna sighed and looked at Hyunseung, who was busy showing things into a bag. By the way his hand clutched the things he grabbed she could see that he was angry, maybe even frustrated. Every time he grabbed a new thing, he threw it down into the bag over and over again. “Now leave”.

“Why are you acting like this?” He asked, the color slowly returning to his face as anger slowly took over.

“Why are you acting like this?” Hyuna asked and took one-step to the side to block Joon from entering the small house, which she oddly enough had started to consider as her home. Even though she had not been there a lot, it was still a place where she and Hyunseung had been spending and awful lot of time together.

It hurt her to be like this, but even though it was completely out of her nature, she could not help but see Joon as some kind of threat. She knew that it was just a question about time before him and Hyunseung would beat each other to death.

All those times, where Joon had been the one to protect her from people like Hyunseung suddenly seemed to disappear. What he had done to help her did not matter anymore. She would not let him take one-step closer to her so called home.

She kept still until she heard Hyunseung come closer, before she stepped aside to let him out. With one last look at her friends, she followed Hyunseung towards the car, but she didn’t go far before a hand suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

It all went so fast.

Hyunseung threw the bag away from him and turned around, while Joon’s hand held tight onto her arm as he tried to pull her away from the man before her. It wasn’t until she was standing completely still, she realized that another hand had grabbed her.

In front of her Hyunseung was standing with one of his hands holding around her wrist, while in his other hand, he held the gun and pointed at Joon. Joon on the other hand, kept still and refused to let go of his best friend.

“Let go of her!” Hyunseung snarled and tightened his grip around the gun.

The look in his eyes was scary. Hyuna had never seen him so determined before, not even when they had left Seoul to live in a small and cold house, not even when Yoseob had appeared in her house and attacked her. He was ready to pull the trigger if he found it necessary.

“No,” Joon said and tried to take another step back, but failed when Hyuna remained at her spot. She could feel a single drop of sweat run down her neck as she glanced back towards Joon and back at Hyunseung. She didn’t want to see them fight, nor did she wanna see one of them get killed by the gun in Hyunseung’s hand.

She wanted to say something, but a lump had gathered itself in and she was afraid that, if she said something, one of them would get hurt.

“I’m not going to let her leave,” Joon said and tightened his grip around her.

Her hands immediately grabbed his as she tried to make him free her. She wanted to scream and yell at him to stop, that it was stupid and unnecessary of him to act like this. Deep down she thought he had gone mad, who wouldn’t act when a gun was pointed at them? If it had been her, she would have let go!

“If you don’t let go,” Hyunseung said threatening. “I will shoot you… I’ve done it before and I won’t hesitate to do it again”.

For a short second, she felt Joon’s grip loosen around her, and immediately started to move around in his grip, but he didn’t let go. It wasn’t until the sound of a shot was fired she stopped trashing around.

She felt the blood leave her face as she felt Joon fall backwards behind her. The cold air hit her back and almost sent her to the ground as she heard the sound of Joon landing on the hard ground. Her heart was beating fast and her entire body was shaking. What had she done?

The smoke from the gun blew away with the wind as Hyunseung slowly pulled her closer to him. It wasn’t until his arm hugged her, that she dared to look back.

He wasn’t dead, but blood was oozing out from the hole in his thigh.

Relief rushed over her as she felt her beating heart slow down to a normal beat again. He wasn’t dead.

Without saying anything, Hyunseung turned around and walked towards the car. She didn’t hesitate to follow and entered the car with him. As they backed away, she saw her friends fall to the ground to help Joon, Jiyoon was holding a phone in her hand as she called for help.

It wasn’t until the car had gotten turned around that she felt a hand hold hers. Hyunseung was sitting beside her with one hand around the steering wheel as he drove away from his former home. His grip was tight, but it made her feel safe, it made the regret from what had happened just a few seconds ago disappear. A smile found its way onto her lips as she held his hand; slowly she brought it up towards her lips and kissed the cold skin of his hand.

In that moment her lips touched the skin, she felt utterly happy. Her heart was once again beating fast, it felt like it was about to explode from happiness, she wanted to cry and just hold him in her arms. She wanted to tell him everything, how he shouldn’t leave her, how much she loved him and how much she wanted to stay with him for the rest of her life.

“I love you,” she whispered against his hand.

A smirk appeared on his lips as he opened his mouth to speak: “I thought you would hate me after what I just did”.

“Never,” she said and removed her lips from his hand to look outside the window. They drove in another direction, away from Seoul. Small houses lay beside them, where small fences kept farm animals away from the busy road. Kids were running around and playing, even when small drops of rain started to fall, they didn’t go inside, but kept laughing.

Once again they drove for hours before they reached a small town, which name remained unknown to her. This town had more life to it than the other one they had visited. In this town there was a school and even a small supermarket and a café as well. The streets were just like in Seoul, filled with cars and people who randomly walked out onto the road and stopped the entire traffic.

“Hungry?” Hyunseung asked as he turned to the right.

“A bit,” Hyuna said and kept looking around. It wasn’t until Hyunseung parked the car that a thought appeared inside her head. Joon. She had completely forgotten about him. She knew that he would survive, but she felt guilty about not being more worried about him, after all, he had just been shot in the leg.

With Hyunseung guiding her towards the small café, she kept her thoughts had the same place as before she left the car. It was not until a waitress appeared to take their order, that she snapped out of it and let Hyunseung order whatever he wanted.

“What are you thinking about?” Hyunseung finally asked and grabbed her hand underneath the table.

“Stuff,” She said and let a hand run through her short hair. “Stuff I shouldn’t worry about”.

Hyunseung smiled, but quickly forgot about it as the waitress showed up with two mugs of coffee. He quickly thanked her and pushed one of the mugs towards Hyuna, who immediately grabbed it and brought it to her lips.

“After this, we find a place to stay,” Hyunseung said and looked around. The paranoia was slowly getting to him; he feared that one of them would show up and destroy everything.  “After we have stay for I don’t know how long, we leave once…

“Hyunseung”

He immediately stopped speaking and looked up at Hyuna. Her face was turned away from him and towards the small TV that hung on the wall. The volume was low, but it was loud enough to everyone could hear what there was said.

Hyunseung turned around and saw his own face staring down at all the people at the small café. Beside his face was Hyuna’s smiling face, her hair still long and brown. A news reporter was speaking out loudly in the middle of the Seoul.

People were looking for them…

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