{ 3 }

The day was bright with outrageous blue skies and bursts of colours everywhere I looked. The heat was there; creeping up to my neck and cheeks and drenching my school uniform with sweat. Even in the morning, the sun was already high up in the horizon and everything was techicoloured and splashed with red flowers as bright as spots of blood. Sometimes I felt like a small boat adrift in the fog, in a world in which everything was changing.

I was planning to skip school again, but then I remembered that my entrance exams were coming up, so I couldn't afford to fail this time around. 

And I needed to see her.

Students thronged the hallway; making the air heavy with conversations and mass of bodies. I slipped by unnoticed like a fading shadow, trying to avoid any sort of eye contact with everyone else.

The first two periods slipped by like a wisp of cloud, barely there, like a drifting patch of humidity. I tried to stay avid with whatever the teacher was blabbering about, but as expected, it was hard because all I could think of was her. She wasn't in any of my classes so far, and I felt my hope deflating to get a chance to see her today. I tried asking around, but nobody seemed to know who the hell was Haeri. I supposed it made sense since she only enrolled here yesterday, but I was starting to feel restless. 

My side still throbbed, but it was bearable at least. Since I had plenty of time before fifth period started, I escaped into the washroom to inspect my contusion. I lifted up my shirt and scanned over my right torso in the mirror. The bruise had turned green; with hints of yellow forming around the corners. It was recovering, but I wasn't.

Leaning over the sink, I washed my hands with the cold water when my eyes caught sight of the long scar lining my right palm. It was barely decipherable now, but the memory instantly made my chest tightened. 

I was ten, and I was crying so hard it was difficult to breathe. Their quarreling resonated into my room from the living room, and I felt so small. I curled up my body to make myself smaller; so maybe I could disappear and wake up from this nightmare that constricted my chest and sent raging sorrow coursing through my scrawny body. I closed my eyes tightly and pushed both of my hands against my ears to deafened out their screams and yells; slashing each other with venom words, trying to outwin the other. 

I didn't know why it hurt so much---the sadness gripping my neck, my chest, my arms and my entire body---icy fingers that curled around my throat; pressing hard and hard and hard. 

Please stop. I begged silently. Please, stop fighting. 

My fingers trembled when I held the sharp razor blade against my right palm. I needed....I needed to feel something other than this suffocating numbness.

It wouldn't hurt, right? 

Squeezing my eyes shut apprehensively and shutting out everything around me, I slashed the blade across the soft skin of my palm. My sharp intake of breath fluttered my eyes open again and I was mesmerized with all the red flowing from the cut. I felt a sting of pain, but I was glad.

And in that moment I thought maybe if they saw the blood oozing out of me, my face white as a sheet, my body crumbling to pieces, they would stop. Maybe if they saw me bleed in the outside, they'd know that I was also bleeding far more worst in the inside.

But when my mother found me sobbing against my bed, when she saw the pool of blood my hand had made on the carpet, did you know what she said?

"You disgraceful child!" she screamed. 

"God dammit you spoiled my carpet, you brat!"

"You disgust me, get that in your thick skull. I always wished I never had you." 

My trance was cut short when my breath started to become heavy. I gripped the sink with my hands and dropped my head; trying to breathe normally through my mouth. It was like invinsible veins had curled around my lungs, constricting my throat, avenging me for remembering the past. My heart thumped rapidly against my chest and sweat trickled down my forehead like rivulets. My head swam and it was so hard for me to focus on the tiled floor. 

Not again not again not again. 

I was having a panic attack in the school's toilet and it was so pathetic I wanted to laugh but I couldn't. 

I stayed there, leaning over the sink with my head bowed down, taking in huge gulps of air, until the bell rang for fifth period. 

I walked into English class with every ounce of my energy dissipated into thin air. But being Byun Baekhyun, the most famous hockey player of Jungwon High School---soon to be team captain of the team---couldn't afford to look fragile and weak. So I took a few minutes after I managed to calm down to groom my brown hair to perfection, washed my fatigue face to eliminate any traces of frailty, and stroded into class with confidence and not to forget, a big, fake smile on my face. It never failed to deceive.

I was getting used to these pretenses, but I hated it with every inch of my body. If they could see beneath the layers and layers of secrets I had kept within me, beneath the bright smiles and ebullient laughs and monotonous expressions, they would shrunk away in disgust from who I was. Who I really was.

Just like my parents. 

I slided into an empty seat behind the class and waited for Ms. Jang to arrive like i always did; as if I didn't experience any kind of frightening anxiety attack in the washroom. The class was clamoured with empty conversations and laughs that sounded muffled to my ears. I leaned against my chair with my legs stretched out under the table just as Ms. Jang entered the classroom; followed by a lean, brunette-haired student with glasses framing her small face. Perhaps it was the glasses, or the fact that her hair was up in a ponytail, that I didn't realize it was actually Haeri. 

Haeri saw me just as my eyes widen at the sight of her, but she didn't give me even a hint of smile.

"We have a new student joining us today. Miss Lee, please introduce yourself to the class." Ms. Jang instructed her just as the whole class fell into silence. 

Haeri nodded and walked to the center, looking anywhere but me. 

"Annyeonghaseyo. My name is Lee Haeri but I go by Haeri. I just transfered here from Cheonan Girls' High School and I love arts and reading and anything that has to do with exploring my imagination and being in my own world."

A few of the guys sitting at the front whistled and sent her flirty glances. I clenched my fist and felt my jaw tighten.

Haeri ignored them. "I may look like a gullible person, but if anyone tries to lay a finger on me without my permission, I will kick your balls and you will not have children for the rest of your lives." 

I snorted and the whole class laughed except for the es sitting at the front. She looked up at me for a split second that I barely managed to catch before she returned her gaze to the class. She bowed her head and turned towards the teacher. 

"You may go seat now, Miss Lee. Next time, less threatening." Ms. Jang lifted her eyebrows in amusement. 

She walked to the empty seat beside my desk. Without even glancing at me, she took her seat and returned her attention to the class. I stole a glance towards her and fiddled nervously with my pen that I twirled around my fingers. What should I say? I always had bad experiences when it came to girls, and I was such a er when it came to apologizing. 

Ms. Jang started to go on about a new project that we had to do which was assigning us a new book for the new semester. Literature wasn't my forte---I didn't even know why I took this class in the first place---but it must be hers because her eyes light up brightly when she listened to Ms.Jang's explanations. 

I took a deep breath and tried to calm down my nerves. It was now or never.

I leaned my body a little to the right and turned my face towards her. "Are you still mad at me?" I whispered. 

Her ears perked up but she didn't turn her attention towards me. "Why do you think I'm mad at you?" she replied nochalantly, not bothering to turn to look at me.

"You're not?" 

"What would you do if I was?" 

"What do you want me to do?" I hastily asked. 

She shrugged and finally looked at me. "Shouldn't you be paying attention to the teacher, Baekhyun?"  

I smirked as I leaned a little bit closer towards her. "Shouldn't you?" 

"Do you always answer questions with questions?" She asked amusingly.

"Do you?" 

She shook her head, a small smile dancing at the corner of her lips. "Can either of us say anything other than questions?"

I pretended to be deep in thought before grinning. "I don't know, can we?" 

She laughed. "How long do you think we can keep this up?" she asked, and then she propped her face on her hand and gazed at me, giving me a playful smile. "Do you even like literature?" 

"Why? Do I look that bored?" I wasn't stopping with the questions until she does. I was highly competitive. 

"Are you bored?" She said with a challenging grin.

"Do you think I'm bored?" I challenged back and she narrowed her eyes at me, aware that I just trapped her. She stared at me and leaned against her chair, crossing her arms in front of her chest. 

"I at this game." she huffed, blowing a strand of hair that fell in front of her face. 

"HA! I win!" I exclaimed excitely.

But then I noticed that something was different. I listened closely but what had caught me was not a sound, but rather an absence: the sound of Ms. Jang's voice and the entire classroom. I looked up, and everyone was staring at me. Haeri was hiding a small giggle.

"Mr. Byun, would you like to share with the class what you won?" 

I had learned an invaluable lesson today and that was that I couldn't even read a page of a novel without yawning a gazillion times. Prior to the sudden burst in class, I ended up receiving more tasks and assignments compared to the other students. But perhaps God heard my prayer and sent an angel down to help me because Haeri voluntereed to be my partner for the book assignment. 

"This novel ." I grunted and covered my face with the book. 

"Shut up, it's not." She hit me on the arm lightly and my skin tingled from her touch. She reached out and pulled away the book from my face. We were sitting at the empty table located outside the cafeteria, the one under a tree with the canopy shielding us from the sunlight. 

I huffed and my breath blew my bangs that covered my eyes. I propped my chin on my clasped hands on the table and looked up at her with expectant child's eyes when they wanted their mothers to buy them expensive toys. 

"Can you...read it to me?" I asked slowly and she stared at me in surprise. 

"You want me to read it out loud? You're that lazy?" she raised her eyebrows. 

"Pretty damn lazy." I said. "Please?" 

She narrowed her eyes at me curiously. But then she sighed and fixed her posture before she read the first line on the first page and that was: When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. 

Over the next couple of hours, I listened attentively to every word that poured out of but I wasn't paying attention to the story at all. I was listening to the sound of her dulcet cadence, the way she pronounced each word, the way curved into a sheepish smile when she read out the romance bits in the novel, the way she laughed almost silently when she stumbled upon a funny dialogue. I memorized the curve of her face, the different hues of her eyes behind the glasses, the cute shape of her nose and her unique rosebud lips. 

I wondered about her; about what made her happy the most, about her favourite flavoured ice cream, about her fears and hopes and dreams and es. 

Because I was falling for her. And I was falling hard. 

{A/N} 

Tbh it was difficult for me to write this chapter, especially the self-harm part because I felt really awful and I hope none of this will ever happen to any of us. Self-harming is not going to help with any of our problems but rather it will pained us more. I have a close friend, and she opened up to me a few days ago about her cutting herself because she was too stressed out with her problems. She said she didn't know what got into her; perhaps the stress got the best of her and she ended up harming herself and I was so sad when I heard about it. But thankfully she realized what she did was wrong and she promised she would never do it again. So yeah, it was hard for me to write the scene. I'm sure all of us have problems of our own that we hide and keep to ourselves, but please, don't ever harm yourself. You deserve happiness, and I can't promise you that it will get better soon because I don't know that, but things will get better if we start to look at things at a positive perspective, and that you deserve the life you have and you deserve a happy one.