It's midnight, and after a day of messing around on DDR, singing very bad karaoke, and playing endless games of Monopoly, Haeri and Lina are finally settled in their sleeping bags in Lina's room. A long-time visitor to the Park house, Haeri had been warmly welcomed by Lina's parents. Now, as Lina flicks the lights out and crawls into her sleeping bag, the room is lit only by the crescent moon that filters like rippling water through the window pane.

There's a moment of silence, and then-

"Ready?"

Haeri giggles, feeling weirdly nervous, even though she tells Lina everything. "As ready as I can be. Here we go again!"

"Okay. Truth... or truth?" Lina asks.

This is Lina's special version of Truth or Dare, with the obvious consequence being that the only thing the players can pick is 'truth'.

"Hmm..." Haeri pretends to wonder. "How about... truth?"

"Alright. Spill the beans," Lina breathes. Haeri shuts her eyes, trying to stall for time.

"I know you're stalling, Haeri. How bad can it be? Just tell me," Lina coaxes.

"Fine, mom," Haeri groans. "Okay, so where should I begin?"

"The very beginning. Tell me everything," is Lina's immediate reply.

"It's really not much," Haeri says, but begins her story anyways, building up speed and confidence as she goes.

Haeri lets out a small huff of relief as the last little girl finally finishes her craft and skips off. The big clock at the end of the library reads 3:30 PM, which means Haeri's shift at the public library is finally over for the day. She signs herself out on the volunteer sheet and returns her nametag. With a wave at the librarian, who smiles back and nods her off, Haeri's off. Outside the back entrance to the library, she unlocks her bike from the rack, straps on a purple helmet, and starts to pedal home leisurely, where an unfinished novel sits on her bed, waiting to be read. The sun is bright and almost blinding, and as the light washes over and warms her Haeri gets lost in her thoughts, though she's careful to stay on the sidewalk.

It's pretty nice doing arts and crafts with the little kids, although Haeri has to admit it gets tiring sometimes. But it only takes one look at the lonely shelvers doing their tedious work to make Haeri realize that she'd much rather be working with children than doing that. Some of the kids are truly crazy - one in particular had had an unhealthy obsession with popsicle sticks and stole half her store before Haeri had figured out what was going on - and another had refused to cooperate. There had even been a little boy, once, whose mother had asked Haeri to go over homework sheets with her son. The kid had been distracted and a little sullen but Haeri could hardly find it in her heart to blame him: who wants to do homework during the summer? And then other kids were just absolutely adorable and willing to listen to Haeri.

She doesn't let herself admit it to anyone, not even really herself, but Haeri's pretty worried about her future. She has perfect grades and does well in school, but what does she actually want to do? Become a doctor? An engineer? A scientist? Her fall back answer is doctor, typically, but she can't say for sure that she's really interested in going to med school. The competition is intense and after putting in years of work in high school, Haeri is just about burned out. And honestly, the only reason she's taking so many college level courses is so she has an academic cushion, so that she can basically choose any major. Also, she has to do well on her college examination, and-

The angry screech of tires screams in her ear and shakes her out of her reverie and Haeri can feel the motorcycle shoot past her, so near that a centimeter closer and she would have been knocked onto the road for sure. By the time she recovers from the shock, the culprit, dressed in black leather, is already far ahead, moving rapidly at what is way over the speed limit.

"What the !" she shouts at his back. There is no reply, of course, and that only makes Haeri angrier. Who is this jerk who disobeys traffic rules, almost knocks over pedestrians, and doesn't even have to grace to say sorry? For a moment, she is of half a mind to follow him just to see who it is, but knows she won't ever catch up. A couple people pass by, looking at her curiously, and she ignores them all, still angry and annoyed.

"What's with people these days, anyways?" she mutters as she checks herself for wounds (only a few scratches, but still) and gets back on her bike.

"Miss, are you okay?" a tall, handsome boy probably around her age, who has evidently seen the whole thing, walks over and looks at Haeri with concern. Haeri straightens up and nods, cheeks flushed. "Thank you, I'm okay. Just a little mad that he would do that, even if it wasn't on purpose."

"Well," the boy says, "I hope he gets whatever's coming to him. He had no right, almost running over you. I'm just glad to know you're not hurt."

"Thank you," Haeri laughs again, pleasantly surprised by his sweetness. This is how people should be, she thinks to herself. Not like that motorcycle jerk.

She makes to push off, but the boy speaks up again. "Oh, by the way, I'm Kris." He holds out a hand.

Haeri takes it, dipping her head. "Haeri. It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," Kris answers, eyes crinkling as he grins. He pauses, then continues, "Oh! I better let you go now. God knows you've been delayed enough."

"It's fine," Haeri replies. "I wasn't in a hurry anyways."

She hesitates. "See you around?" she offers tentatively.

Kris laughs. "See you around, Miss Haeri. Keep out of trouble for me in the meantime, won't you?"

Haeri can't help the laugh that bursts from her as she kicks off. "I'll try!"

Finally back on track, Haeri shakes her head when she thinks of Kris, amused by his polite and open character. She really does hope she sees him around in the future; the fact that he hadn't asked for her number tells her more about him than anything else would have, and she thinks that they could become friends. He would get along great with Lina, too.

At the left intersection that leads home, Haeri pauses and decides to take a right instead, which leads to the local cafe. She'd still like to blow off some steam concerning the incident and doesn't really feel like going home at the moment. A vanilla bean frappuccino, she decides, is the perfect thing to soothe her disrupted state of mind.

She hums as she turns the corner but freezes when the cafe comes into view, for in the parking lot by the cafe a black motorcycle sits in one of the spaces. It's not as if motorcycles are an uncommon sight, but having almost been run over by this particular one (and Haeri's absolutely sure it's the same motorcycle), Haeri feels a lot of things at once, the first ones coming to mind being anger and disgust. As the cafe is the only shop in this area worth going to, Haeri's got a pretty good bet as to where the owner of that motorcycle is right now. Fate must have brought her to this cafe.

She takes off her helmet and locks her bike in the rack, and then squares her shoulders. She is determined to figure out who the mysterious motorcycle jerk is, and equally determined to give him a good dressing down about safe driving etiquette. Black leather, black leather, she mutters to herself as she enters the bustling shop. As she proceeds down the order line and even while she is ordering, she keeps an eye out for telltale black leather and possibly superior, jerky aura emitting from anyone in the room. She picks up her drink and takes seat near the back of cafe, where she has the best vantage point. She doesn't see any black leather.

After she's had half her drink and at least twenty long minutes have passed, Haeri starts to doubt herself. Maybe motorcyle guy really is at another shop. Maybe she's completely wrong. Thirst suddenly gone, she sighs and stands up to throw away her drink, but crashes at that exact moment into somebody, who the rest of her vanilla bean frap spills onto.

"I'm so sorry!" Haeri keeps her eyes downcast, cheeks red with embarrasment. "I'll go get napkins right now and clean up this mess, I'm sorry, I wasn't looking and-"

"That won't be necessary."

The voice that answers is cold, absolutely cold, and Haeri looks up slowly from her feet past black leather into the hard, expressionless face of motorcycle jerk. Sadly, it is a face she already knows.

It is Oh Sehun.

Shocked, mouth gaping open, Haeri can't manage to say anything. When did Sehun come into the cafe? Why didn't she see him at all? And the biggest question of all: why didn't she even consider the possibility that motorcyle jerk would be Sehun? Sehun is rich and entitled and is just the sort of person to be doing that to perfect strangers. Because it's true: even though she and Sehun have attended the same schools since middle school, Sehun has always been part of the elite and has never taken notice of her, nor would he have any reason to.

There is one coherent thing that forms in Haeri's mind from all this, and she lets herself think it:

My life is over.

Sehun studies her, eyes raking from her disheveled hair down to her beat up converse. Haeri swallows.

"What's your name?" he says finally.

"Lee Haeri," Haeri chokes out, almost sobbing with despair. She has spilled coffee on Oh Sehun's jacket. He knows her name. He will make her life absolute hell from this moment on. Isn't that what he does, he and his little group of privileged friends?

Sehun nods. "I'll remember that." Without another word, he steps past her and out the door. Haeri watches as he straps on his helmet (also black, figures) and leaves on his motorcycle.

Haeri throws away her now empty cup and sits back down, shivering.

She should have just went home.