Jungah's thoughts: Purple

*Juvenile home: Place where children go when they have commited crimes. transfer over to an adult's prison after reaching twenty.

Chapter 6

Year 1. Summer.

Kaeun had a lot of things running on her mind as she walked side by side with Eyoung and her other cell mates.

She couldn't help but feel uncomfortable. Not that she wouldn't want to trust her fellow inmates or anything, she was not sure whether she should be getting close with anyone here. She couldn't trust her cellmates yet. Like how the word 'prison' implies, they were all dangerous at some point of time. If not, why were they all here? She however hoped that she did find out about these people soon. Despite almost being strangled to death, she didn't feel anything other than plain gratitude. She just felt too strongly indebted to them after what happened just now. They chose to stick up for her despite knowing so little about her. They seemed like good people.

And also...

Just where were they going?? They have been walking across the grass for some time, she believed that they must have travelled fifty metres of field by now.

How long was this so called exercise time? She kinda missed being in the cell now.

Was the exercise time really for exercise?

And who was in the rest of the group Jooyeon talked about? Would they accept her? Trust her?

Are they scary?

Kaeun really had a lot of things on her mind. Many questions that were left unanswered. Her head hurts a little from too much thinking.

~

Not long later, Kaeun saw that they were slowly approaching a really small basketball court at a corner of the field.

"Jungah unnie was a doctor before she came here." Jooyeon ( who most probably was itching to show Kaeun their clique) said as she tried to let Kaeun know more about them.

A doctor? Interesting person to be here.

~

After taking a few more steps, she finally saw 4 other figures (Most probably the rest of the clique) sitting around large staircase steps beside the court.

Two of the figures were leaning against each other's backs and their heads were in fact resting against each other, with their legs crossed too. They both had similar bored expressions on their faces.Their black and brown hair mixed together as they continued to rub their heads against each other. Their faces' side view made Kaeun feel as though the one who was apparently taller, looked like a desert fox. The other strangely reminded her of her neighbour's puppy, a beagle to be exact.

Another figure who has black shoulder length hair was sitting (legs crossed) not far away from the first two, was playing with a basketball herself (Kaeun figured out that these four was most probably waiting for the other 3 to play basketball, and thus understand that exercise time was indeed for exercise) as she rolled the ball on the floor lazily. Her face was rounder and fluffier than Uee's and her face definitely reminded Kaeun of takoyaki she saw on television. Her cheeks were chubby and her face shape was round. Just like a hamster.

The last one who apparently has short caramel coloured hair, was sitting at the edge of the steps with one leg over the other in a very lady like manner as she had anxious expression painted onto her face.  Despite everything, the one that stood out the most was her eyes. Her glistening eyes were beautiful as they sparkle under the sun and it made Kaeun melt a little inside.

Once the lady spotted the approaching figures, she immediately stood up, as she clasped her hands together with a smile of relief. The rest who also noticed the figures, only kept their eyes on the newcomer who seemed to be tagging along.

~

"Just where have you been?" The lady worried.

"Yeah! It wasn't easy to convince Bekah to let us play with the basketball without filling up the form. If we don't get to play a good game of basketball, it will be all your fault!" The hamster girl(as how Kaeun names her) added on.

The other two sitting crossed legged nodded their heads in utter agreement.

"I was so worried that something bad happened to you guys."The lady, caring more about her friends' well being, said.

"Mianhae Jungah Unnie! We actually wanted to show you the new kid." Uee explained as she gestured to Kaeun. " But we kinda lost her when we were halfway here. When we found her, Minhee was messing around with her. We had to stop Minhee from strangling her and almost got ourselves into a fight."

"A fight?! Omo! Did you guys get hurt?"

"You should have seen Eyoung just now, she was crazier than Lizzy!" Jooyeon exclaimed as though she was telling a story that wasn't a revelant answer to Jungah's question at all.

"Yah~"

Another girl with short brown hair, immediately straightened her back as she raised her hand(as though to threathen to hit Jooyeon) in annoyance.

"I still can't believe it, Unnie! I mean you should have seen Eyoung literally hit Minhee with a rock! Lucky for her I think Minhee didn't really bleed or anything. Or did she? I am not sure. Isn't that girl even scared of being in trouble with Officer Jo? If i were her, i would!"Jooyeon getting overly worked up, continued to sputter useless things that didn't really seemed to even desribe the story of what happened.

"Uh, never mind, Jooyeon. Thats enough. Just... just no more fights. Alright?" Jungah pinched the bridge of her nose in stress."Lets leave this matter alone for now and hope no one gets punished."

Jungah didn't really know about what happened, even though she knew it wasn't something good. She was just grateful that they haven't got into trouble or hurt themselves...

Yet.

~

Shifting her attention to Kaeun, Jungah tried to change the subject. "Now, about wanting to show me..."

"Ah, this here, is Kaeun. She is the new kid. Isn't she cute?" Uee introduced.

Kaeun bowed sheepishly as she greeted the new faces.

The other four bowed and greeted back in respect.

Uee cued herself to continue,

"Shes only twenty years old. Kinda young."

Uee whispered as though Kaeun couldn't really hear her.

"Oh? Did she just transfer here from the Juvenile home*?" Jungah asked in curiosity, wanting to know more about this kid.

"Unnie, some of us were from the Juvenile home, remember? We did recognise her straight away if she was a transferree. But I have never even seen her face before." Lizzy's other partner, who introduced her self as Nana, spoke out.

"I see... so how did she get here?"

"..."

Everyone remained silent for a short while before Uee started to speak up.

"Truthfully Unnie, we haven't had the chance to talk to her just now. So we really don't know anything." Uee scratched her head. She finally realised how little they actually knew about their new cellmate.

But if they were this distant with each other, why did she feel very attached to Kaeun so easily?

~

Ah... the rest haven't really have the chance to open up with her yet, so it did be useless to ask. Hmmm, we need a proper introduction to know more about each other.

Jungah turned to Kaeun as she stood closer to get a good look at this new face. Kaeun shyed a little but still remained her eye contact. Jungah, perhaps sensing some kind of insecurity given off from Kaeun, gave a warm motherly smile.

"She looks really cute. Quite shy also."  Jungah said as she stared onto Kaeun's face with fascination. "She doesn't even look as though she belonged here."

Kaeun could say the same thing about Jungah though.

"Annyeong, Kaeun-ssi. Don't mind if I speak to you informally? I am Kim Jungah."Jungah found herself so silly that she hasn't actually introduced herself earlier. "So... what is your 'excuse' to be here?" She joked to lighten the awkward atmosphere.

Her 'excuse' to be here? While thinking about the reason why she was there, Kaeun suddenly felt emotional. She removed her eye contact as she started to find looking at the ground more interesting. Her voice was soft as she reduced it to a volume close to not much of a whisper. After a short pause, she talked.

"I-I was charged for manslaughter. On my twentieth birthday, it was my friends who killed someone. However, only I was caught and was sent here."

The emotions rose in her as her face turned redder. She started to regret being rebellious. She could still remember the pained looks on her parents' face. She was embarassed that she even got here through one of the most stupidest and shameful reasons to go to jail.

All together, she felt bad.

Jungah as though being able to read Kaeun's mind, tried to encourage her as she Kaeun's hair.

"Hey, hey. There is no need to feel bad. All of us are the same. We all had that bad past that placed us here, however, the past is the past, we can only move on. As long as we changed for the better, right? Anyway, some friends you had there. Aren't they little cowards!"

Even though what Jungah said wasn't much, Kaeun felt somewhat comforted. Jungah was not only right but she was nice too, trying to cheer Kaeun up.

RIght at that point, Kaeun then realised that being at where she was in wasn't bad at all.

Most of the people here, or at least of this clique, has changed for the better.

It made her change her view of coming back (to the women's prison) again.

So for the first time ever since she came, the corners of her lips pulled into an unique upward curve. Her eyes thin out as it formed two long lines.

Kaeun genuinely smiled.

Jungah, who never left her eyes off Kaeun, gave Kaeun a similar yet very different smile in return as her eyes thinned out and formed cresents.

Good job, Jungah. Unnie will be proud of you.

Eyoung was somewhat happy for them too. Just looking at the scene in front of her, deep down in her she felt butterflies tickling her hard in her stomach. She looked on as she unknowingly smiled along with Kaeun.

Cute.

"Okay, okay enough with the cheesy talk. Let's play!" Lizzy impatiently urged.

~

As the rest of the of the others started to enter the court, Uee remembered a little something as she pulled Jungah and whispered a little something.

"It looks like Minhee has did some pretty good damage to Kaeun's neck, may you please help to check her up, Unnie?"

Jungah nodded as she told Uee not to worry and go play. She then tapped on Kaeun's shoulder.

"Hey, Kaeun! Come here."

///

Author's note: okay i noe took quite some time for this, and it may not make sense. but im sry, i have bad plans for the beginning of the story (like how Uee Jooyeon and Eyoung hasn't really talked to Kaeun blah blah when they first met.) So i hope this chapter can steer over the bad ideas i have came up with. I hope that the story does not sound too awkward at this point. there were just too many things to talk about so i hope you guys don't get too confused.