Jaejoong, who had never confronted anybody in his entire life, had been scared to the point in which his lips turned purple from fear. He was no coward, but he surely didn’t cause any havoc, for he loved this world too much. He understood too much of the pain received when one was hidden in the dark. He knew too much pain; this bullying was fearful, but nothing compared to the days where he saw his own parents become beasts before him.

 But even he knew it had come too far, and he had let it go on for too long, when someone brought out a knife, and suggested they play a game of “tag” with him.

“Hey, CLOSET-MAN, did your parents not love you? Where did that scar come from? Hey, I heard your parents threw the phone at your face!” Hurtful comments that didn’t help were floating about, and all he could do was bounce back and forth amongst circle they had formed around him.

People were laughing; some were snickering, while others looked just as scared as him, but wouldn’t say a word for him. He tried to smile and say excuse me, but people were crowding more tightly together, cutting away even the tiniest space that he could escape through.

Then, he felt stones hitting him on the small of his back, producing a sharp pain that reminded him too much of the belt his father used to use on him.

“Stop, please!” His cry was desperate, but it was far from strong enough to become an order that people would listen to.

The stones started to get heavier on his back, and even from the side of his neck, he felt the sting of pain. They were getting harsher, and more people were throwing stones now.

“Hey! Everybody! I have an idea,” an obviously masochistic individual called from the crowd. Being the tough leader, he immediately caught the attention of all the followers.

From the inside pocket of his jacket, he brought out a knife. Rusted as it looked, he put his finger to the tip, and with the lightest of a touch, a speck of blood started to form on his fingertip.

“Let’s see if we can carve a prettier picture from that ugly scar you have.”

“Are you so desperate that you need to bring a whole flock of people to take down one boy?”

Hana’s voice was loud, and righteous, but her tiny figure barely seemed to be enough to carry her voice. She shook silently in the cold, but to others, she seemed confident and still.

“Maybe you should start minding your own business, and stop getting into mine. Little girls that snoop get in a lot of trouble,” The bully snickered, twirling his knife in the air as an act of threat.

Hana’s expression got harder, and from behind her back, she brought out a gun… the only weapon she had to protect herself. And here she was, exposing her only weapon, to help a stranger.

“Leave him be.” Her voice was cold, and there was something in her eye that assured the audience she would go to any length to protect herself.

“We’ll get you one day,” The boy snarled, tugging his knife into his pocket and in a second’s record time, brought his crew far away, and disappearing into the afternoon sun.

Jaejoong had been standing silently, looking only at his shoes, but he muttered a shy thank you to Hana as she passed by, stuffing the black handgun into her pocket.

Hana nodded, already regretting her rash decision, but she knew that if she didn’t come out and point a gun to the bully’s head, Jaejoong would’ve become a human carving board.

But how was she to go back to her silent life where nobody knew of her, and she could live in a world where danger would never find its way to her doorstep?

Now, little by little… she was exposed.

When Jaejoong brought his eyes to meet Hana’s, however, she felt that she had done the right thing. After all, the way he looked at her showed her exactly how vulnerable he was; so innocent, so, so innocent.

For a moment, both stood in complete silence, neither attempting to break the intense eye contact. Something in his gaze made Hana realize how much he relied on her now. She had become an innocent boy’s savior, though she was truly, not much stronger than he was.

In the second’s silence, Hana reviewed the story she had overheard about Jaejoong. He was the boy that was clad within the closet of his parent’s bedroom, where they only took him out to beat him. He was the boy that was freed because his parents’ house was searched when they were accused of keeping and selling drugs.

“I must go.” Hana said quietly, blinking suddenly, and realizing that she was to arrive to work by 4:00 PM today, because her boss was leaving for a doctor’s appointment.

Jaejoong closed his eyes, and tried to avoid the sun shining into his eyes… he still hadn’t gotten used to the brightness of the sun on his face. Its glow didn’t warm his face; it burned his skin.

Like a mist, his memories went back to the morning that he was discovered.

The ring of the ambulance didn’t make any of the last 16 years of my life better. They came too late, and now that it’s over; surprisingly, I feel no relief.

Why? Because this is the start of a new life for me; I have to build everything up now when I should’ve started 16 years ago. I was to be released into a world I’ve never grown to know. I was to become a stranger in a stranger world.

I wanted to scream before, hidden in the dark depths of the upstairs closet, the even darker depths of my own world, my own pain.

I had known that nobody would hear.

Now that the world WOULD hear, and WOULD know, I felt the need to scream and let the world know my story non-existent. All I want to do now is fall asleep and never wake back up.

I, I only wish that the world outside wouldn’t be as hostile as the world I just came from.

“I’m Jaejoong,” Jaejoong finally whispered, putting a hand on Hana’s shoulder.

Hana didn’t respond, but she turned to look him in the eye again. “If they find you again, they’ll kill you. I’m sorry.”

“You saved me just now, didn’t you?” A confused Jaejoong asked, tightening his grasp on Hana’s shoulder, much like a little child that has lost his way.

“Stay close to the school. Leave school as early as you can, so that to take the bus with the crowd of students being let off from other schools as well. Don’t cause trouble, and don’t hang around the school too much. You can find me in the library. Hopefully, the gun scared them enough that, in time, you’ll fade from his memory.”

Hana’s words were curt and to the point, and she didn’t linger to comfort him. If he was to survive; in time, he would have to learn that the world wouldn’t comfort someone that needed it; the world stepped on those that couldn’t pick themselves up.

“You’re…?”

“Hana.” 

~~~~ 

- ICEDCOFFEE

P.S. Sorry for grammatical errors!