Jinyoung’s POV

I heard about it all after I met Jaebum. He was an orphan who had never knew his own parents and was living in an orphanage in a small town in Ilsan. He was said to be a rather troublesome kid who liked to pick a fight with the other kids. He was quite a handful to the teachers in the orphanage. Nonetheless, he was a very cute child and some couples who came to the orphanage had always taken a liking on him. But every time, he would not last longer than a few days in his new home. They would always come back and returned him. Until he was 15, he was used to watch those kids younger than him left after they were adopted. As he had grown up, he was already matured and became helpful around the orphanage. He had stopped getting into fights and rather became more independent.

Then, the day when he turned 16, a very nice and rich old couple made a request to adopt him. They brought him into their new home in Seoul. When he was in the orphanage, he had to share a dorm with the other orphans. He was happy in his new house. They gave him a huge bedroom complete with a bathroom and a closet for his own use. Although he still felt awkward sometimes, they treated him kindly as if he was their own son and Jaebum was very thankful. They gave him education and prosperity. They sent him to a prestigious school and gave him all the things that he needed. He was not a studious person, but he still studied hard for them. Slowly, he came to love them and bit by bit he was starting to see them as his own parents. At least, that was what he thought.

After only a year he lived with them, the nice dream he had ended cruelly. It was his birthday and the three of them went out to celebrate it together for the first time. He never knew that it was a very bad plan to take a drive to town. There was a truck racing toward them from the other side of the road. They were having a fun conversation that by the time his father noticed the truck, it was too late. It happened so fast. Jaebum did not witness how they get hit. Only when he opened his eyes, he saw both of his beloved ones were crushed in between the dented front bumper of the car and their seats, soaked in blood, right in front of his eyes. He extended his hand, hoping that he still had the chance to save them. But no matter how hard he tried to moved, he could not reach them. His head felt hot and sticky with blood, and his eyesight started to become unfocused. The last thing he heard before he fell into a deep sleep was the hectic sound of people outside of the car trying to get them out.

Jaebum’s POV

“I would say, the kid is left alone. No one would want to take him in. Not even any of his relatives.”
“He wasn’t even related to them to begin with. His grandparents cut ties with the Ims because they didn’t want an unknown kid without a clear background being taken into the family, but the Ims refused and they got into a huge fight. They didn’t even know his real parents.”
“What about the family from his mother’s side?”
“They’re in America. Ever since Mrs. Im moved here to get married with Mr. Im, they hadn’t contacted each other. Seemed like her parents didn’t even care about their life at all.”
“What a twisted family. Poor kid to be stuck in between this mess.”
“You mean poor the director and the chief. They died young.”

“I don’t even wanna think about that brat. I knew it would eventually come to this. But they never listened. Look at what happened! They died because they wanna celebrate the birthday of someone else’s child. That kid is a bad luck!”
“I can’t look at him. He makes me wanna puke! Can’t someone take him away? Why is he doing here anyway? He doesn’t have any right to be here!”
“Luckily they didn’t manage to leave a will. The money and the company will be ours. He’ll eventually get the insurance for the accident.”
“What about their house and their things?”
“It’s ours too. Just find some people to move him out. Even thinking about that kid being in my house will just worsen my health. Something that’s dirty will always be dirty.”

The whole time of the conversation that dad’s subordinates and my grandparents had, I heard it all. I felt so helpless, sitting and mourning by the altar that hold their pictures and flowers that were presented to them, while I could not do anything. I did not remember how long I had been crying, weeping on the floor without a care in the world. At that time, there’s only one thought in my mind.

“More. More. Blame me more,” I thought. “It’s all my fault. If only we hadn’t gone out. If only I die instead of them. If only I wasn’t their child…”

Just as my grandparents said, I was sent out of the house we once lived in. They already moved some of my things to a small apartment that only had a kitchen and a closet, which was in a small district of Busan called Jinhae. The things that could not fit in the house and also the things that my parents owned had been sold or thrown out, just like how they threw me out. They even enrolled me in a public school near my house. Everything else had been handled by them without my consent. Then they left me to take care of my own. I still remembered the words that I said to myself when I first came in my apartment, “This isn’t the first time I’d been on my own. It’s nothing different. I’d always been alone before. I can do this.” Or so I thought. I made it through. Going to school everyday and live a normal life, as if nothing had happened before. Except, I was not as studious as when my parents were still alive, and I kept myself away from other people. I became a loner by spending my free time after school in the library, instead of hanging out with the classmates, to prevent anyone else from knowing my secret. To them, I was just another ordinary student who was hard to be approached. They did try to talk to me, but I always ignore them. So in the end, they would just leave me alone. I thought I would eventually live my whole life like this, until I met Jinyoung.

It was in the morning when I was on my way to school by train. The door in front of me was about to close when suddenly I heard someone shouted “Wait!” and a boy rushed into the train right before it closed, ran right into my arms and caught me off guard that we both almost fell, if not for my left hand gripping the pole tightly. I looked down at the boy and asked “Are you alright?"

The boy nodded as a sign that he was fine, and tilt his head to look up at me. Funny it was, the first thing that I thought when I saw his face was that he was really beautiful. A real beauty that I had never met before. Maybe I was imagining it, but I thought I saw him blushing, that it made him looked even cuter. He finally entangled himself away from me and said, “Thank you,” in a soft voice. “I was late so I was really rushing here. I’m sorry that I crashed into you,” he added.

“Doesn’t matter. Just be careful next time,” I replied. I took his hand to grab the pole and let him stood against me with his back facing my front so he would not fall off. I felt him flinched a bit to my touch but I only shrugged it off.

“Uh…what’s your name? Aren’t you a student from my school?” he suddenly asked. We were indeed wearing the same uniform.

“It’s Im Jaebum.” Maybe because the train entered a tunnel, my voice was kind of muffled with the echoed sound it made, that the boy only heard the last part.

He looked at me strangely and asked, “What? Bum?”

“Im Jaebum. At least hear me right,” I said, a bit irritated.

“Oh, sorry. I couldn’t hear you over the tunnel. By the way, I’m Park Jinyoung. Nice to meet you, Bum-ah!”

Since then, we had been hanging out around each other a lot. Well, he always came to my class; I’m a sophomore while he was a freshman, and kind of invited me to lunch every time. He also came along whenever I went to the school library. Being alone for almost all my life, I did not familiar with being friendly with someone. Usually, I would get annoyed when someone I was not close with talking to me, but not Jinyoung. We had the same interest in books. We talked about the books we liked and I became more and more comfortable with him. I was not even mad that he called me Bum. But it worried me. I thought, I should not become closer to him more than this. If my past was ever revealed to him, it scared the hell out of me.

“Why are you so nice to me?” I asked him one day when we were hanging out in the library. There was barely anyone else beside us in the library since it was almost close time. My question seemed to bother him greatly because his ever so cheerful expression changed into a bashful one. “Is he blushing again?” I thought.

After he kept fidgeting for what seemed like a lifetime, he finally parted his lips, and the words that came next really was not what I expected.

“I like you…Bum-ah.”

Sorry!!! I'm really sorry that I haven't updated for weeks! I had to finish and send my thesis that I got so busy, and now I'm unofficially graduated! LOL
Btw, the story of Jaebum and Jinyoung is long that I have to separated it into parts. I'll update the other parts within this week. Tbh, their meeting was originally very different, but since I thought it was a bit sad, I changed it into a bit of a sweet moment like in shoujo manga(tho I'm not a fan of shoujo manga). I left this chapter as it is because in the next chapter will be more conflicts. I'm sorry that I love conflicts and sad stories more than fluff. I'll save the sweetness for later. Ufufufu..
Hope you guys enjoy it~