I step out into the street soundlessly. Taking one last look around to make sure I wasn’t being followed, I unconsciously pat the plastic bag a little tighter to my chest. My heart beats faster and faster with every step I got closer to my destination. I was nervous, but I didn’t know why.

It wasn’t as though I hadn’t done this before. This had become a weekly routine. Just this night in particular something didn’t feel right. No matter how much I reassured myself, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up in unknown fear. Something was going to happen, something bad, and I was going to be caught in the crossfires.

Changhyun, don’t get into any trouble and be safe! My mother had said.

If only she could see me now, dressed in all black as I ran though the dark streets to the rendezvous spot with a pound of weed hidden inside my pocket, oh how proud she’d be.

I laugh despite the knot in my stomach telling me to stop before it was too late and continue on. What a disappointment I must be. I couldn’t ever find the right group to hang out with, and now I was breaking the law for my ‘friends’ so they could get their fix for the week.

Rounding one of the last corner that lead to where I’m supposed to be meeting the guys that requested I bring them the drugs, I immediately stop. Just around the turn about thirty feet away are two police cars with their red and blue lights flashing angrily. Four officers surround a group of teenagers who are on their knees with their hands above their heads.

At that moment, I should have just run but the fear of somehow getting caught made me stop. As the ring leader looks up past the police my heart drops to my stomach. We made eye contact, and I swear I could hear him promising to kill me.

Pushing myself away from the scene, I lean against the wall and take a deep breath. What I hear next I could have lived without for as long as I lived.

“That kid has the drugs!”

I didn’t need to be a genius to know who had said it, or who that kid was. So I did the only thing my mind could logically think of.

I ran.

I sprinted, huffing and puffing in the cold air, trying to somehow ditch the feet I heard behind me. Being in not the best physical shape, the cop quickly caught up to me and grabbed the back of my jacket. Without thinking, I slipped my arms from the sleeves and continued running.

Thankfully the part of town I was in, I was familiar with.

When I used to hang out with Chunji and the others we would always go through all of the back streets because it was faster to get to where we needed to go. This may be the only time I didn’t regret hanging out with them. As I turned down an alleyway that led right into a busy night district, I could feel my whole body and soul rooting me on to get just a little bit further.

I knew I had lost them when I boldly stop at one of the street vendors and the police officer passes by me. He still held my jacket, and for a brief moment I thought my wallet was in there, but then I remembered that I hadn’t carried my wallet with me this evening, and I give myself a mental pat on the back for rushing out earlier.

Making sure that my phone was still tucked away in my pocket, I turn in the way of my house, but get stopped immediately after as I run into someone.

Mumbling a quick apology, I try to push past the body, but they grab onto my wrist and pull me backwards. I was about to get angry at whoever this person was for stopping me and as I turn around to yell at them I get a shock. My ready insult dying on my lips and instead a small, weak whisper escapes.

“Ch-Chunji…”

The older teen stares at me as if not knowing why he had grabbed me to begin with, probably forgetting in his own shock, and opens and closes his mouth like a fish. His eyes are wide, my heart clenches in a mixture of emotions.

I didn’t want to see him, of all people. I made sure to avoid him at all costs in school and everywhere else as well. Honestly I feel like I would rather be in handcuffs with the cop then standing in front of Lee Chanhee. Hadn’t I been through enough? Was my luck really this bad?

In a flash Chunji’s expression changes into a hard glare and he tightens his hold on me. I try to pull away, but he doesn’t let me move an inch.

“Ricky,” he says sternly. “You shouldn’t be hanging out with the people you are right now. I’ve seen them and they aren’t good people, they are going to get you into trouble.”

I stare in disbelief. This person really had the nerve to tell me not to hang out with someone when he hadn’t even laid eyes on me in over two months. Purposely avoiding him and trying not to think of him all this time so that the hole in my heart could fill with something, anything else, and here my first love was scolding me for who I was hanging out with.

I scoff lightly pulling my wrist away and maliciously saying, “Then I guess there isn’t much of a difference from you.”

Turning away, I ignore the pleas he yells out after me as I storm away from the happiness radiating from the street. I didn’t know where I was going, but anywhere seemed fine to me right now. I couldn’t go home for another few hours because I had told my mom that I was going out to a movie with some guys from school. So, I just walked, boiling in anger and hating Chunji for everything I could think of.

Who was he to tell me who I could and couldn’t hang out with? Obviously it wasn’t my choice to be around the thugs I had been with. They had had some convincing reasons why I should help them do a few errands for them—namely a sharp knife and brass knuckles—but that didn’t mean I was their friend.

I didn’t have friends.

I learned my lesson about trying to have anybody like that.

No one could be trusted.

Nobody could be my friend.

And I was perfectly fine with that.

I guess.