i. noir

It was just another dawn.

She woke up to the roaring sound of truck engine piercing through the thin wall of her room. It was her Dad, getting ready to go to work at early day. Dad worked as truck driver for a construction site. He left before sunrise, and back to home almost at midnight. Sometimes, when she was still up to do her homework or plainly just couldn't sleep from nightmare, she witnessed dad's tired face as he walked to the bedroom. She wanted to greet him, but she knew he would get worried if she told him about the nightmare.

Seulgi swept her eyes to the bare ceiling above. At first, there was nothing, only blackness hanging there like a cloak. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, a sneer conjured from the darkness, presenting a pair of ugly lips. Then ugly teeth; smiling and haunting. And then the voice.

"You're alone, huh?"

Seulgi blinked her eyes. Once. Twice. The sneer was gone, but the trail of that mocking voice still echoed in her head. She shuddered, pressing her palms to cover her ears. She felt her heart beating rapidly, her breath became rough and hasty. She brought her head to knees, curled up beneath the sheet and staying like that for several minutes.

But it was just another dawn. The sneer and the voice were her routines. It shouldn't bother her anymore by now.

Yet, it did still.

She knew that lips would never speak to her ever again. She also completely knew that the voice would never come out to threaten her again. They were all dead. But the ghost was still here, lurking inside her head, sprouted and bloomed into nightmares that haunting her sleep since that night, when she felt the stickiness of blood running down her hand.

***

"Need a ride?"

Seulgi turned her head towards the voice calling her. Nam Taehyun was leaning against his motorcycle, looking amused. Seulgi eyed him with suspicion. The motorcycle was an ancient thing, rusty piece which had been through multiple modification and adjustment to make it keep functioning. Seulgi kept telling him that motorcycle was a junk; however Taehyun was still proud of it as he earned it with his own money and effort.

"Go away," she murmured, tried to walk her way past him.

"You're gonna be late, tho." He chuckled, a hand gripped her upper arm.

"Not your problem." She brushed his hand off of her. Taehyun smiled at her.

"Certainly not."

Seulgi sighed and studied the boy. Taehyun didn't have his uniform on. Instead, he wore a pair of rugged jeans and cheap leather jacket on the top of his plain t-shirt which once was white, but now Seulgi wasn't sure about that.

"Where's your uniform?"

"I'm not going to school today," he replied. "Want to know why?"

"Not my concern." She turned away. Taehyun laughed.

"Come on, Seul. You'll be late. You won't like it. Mr. Jung's punishment isn't to be taken lightly."

"I have a bad feeling about that junk of yours. I'm not getting on that thing. Never."

Taehyun glanced at his phone, then showed it to Seulgi.

"Okay. You have three minutes to escape the punishment."

She frowned, then let out an annoyed sigh.

"You planned this, didn't you?" She threw accusations to him. Taehyun only shrugged his shoulders and dragged Seulgi to his motorcycle.

"I'm just being kind and helpful."

Seulgi couldn't help but gave him a small smile. Although she was kind of mad at him for delaying her, but the truth was she felt thankful. Taehyun was a friend for most of the times. Not best friend, or even good friend. But he was the only person closer to the definition of friend than anyone she ever knew. At least, she didn't have to avoid him that much.

She knew Taehyun three years ago, when her family just moved to this neighborhood. Taehyun's house was just three houses away from hers, and their families shared the similarity of living hard in the slums. At first, she wasn't that friendly towards him. But he was stubborn. He didn't heed Seulgi's warning about her and kept trying to be her friend. Eventually, she gave up.

Until Taehyun got his arm broken because of her.

She tried to avoid him after that. But Taehyun was just being Taehyun, stubborn as ever.

"I don't want to ruin you further." Her voice was harsh when she said those words.

"Let's just say you owe me for this. Pay that with staying as my friend." He replied, a smile spreading across his face.

Even after all these years, sometimes Seulgi still questioned her decision to stay. She brought misfortune with her. She was a bad omen. Everything terrible would occur when she was around. She tended to ruin people even when she didn't mean it.

But having someone close to her somehow brought small comfort to her lonely life.

***

School break was just another round of solitude. Seulgi didn't come down to cafeteria like others. Mainly because she didn't have money to buy lunch there, the other was because the crowds made her uneasy. Seulgi didn't despise crowds that much. Sometimes she liked being among other people so that nobody would care or paid attention to her. But the kids in school were different story. They watched and judged. They talked behind your back. Even when she sat quietly and tried her best to become invisible, they always had two or three things to talk about her; sometimes it's her shy nature, sometimes it's her shabby uniform, other times they would say anything they wanted about her because they could. But it was all limited to her classmates, or kids who're the class were close to hers. Because for most of people in school, Seulgi was a total stranger. She did well with her academic, but it wasn't anything special. She didn't join any extracurricular activities. She was just Kang Seulgi, plainly an ordinary girl and she felt grateful about that.

Seulgi sat on the deserted bench beside the broken vending machine of the second floor and started to eat her lunch. She had been eating her lunch there for two weeks. It was a secure place from other students' prying eyes. Well, sometimes one or two would pass that place however it's easy to just ignore them.

She was halfway through her meal when suddenly heard noises from the stairs. The voices were low but clear enough for her to catch the words.

"You rich boy won't mind small money, right? Why don't share it with me? Give me some. I can hurt you if you don't do as I told ya."

A silence. Then sound of something crashing the wall.

"Just give me your money, you have plenty anyway!"

Another quiet moment. Seulgi stopped eating and shoved back her rice cake to the plastic pack. Someone was bullied.

Slowly, she shifted along the wall until she got a better view of the two students talking. She couldn't see the boy who  was threatening because he faced the walls, but the sight of the second boy made her almost dropped her plastic pack.

It was Kim Jongin, facing the bully without saying anything. He seemed bored, actually. Seulgi knew him. Everybody knew Kim Jongin. He was in student committee and ranked third in school for last exam. He was also in the soccer team, and he had good looking face and features, thus making him included to the list of popular students of the school. The model student Kim Jongin, they said. But Kim Jongin bullied by someone? Seulgi wouldn't believe it if she didn't see it with her own eyes, like now.

The bully was losing his patience with Jongin's silence. He grabbed Jongin's collar and pulled him closer.

"Dammit! You won't just give me the money, huh?" He hissed with anger boiling in his words. But Jongin didn't seem intimidated by it. Seulgi swore she caught a glimpse of him smirking.

Then everything happened so fast. Suddenly Jongin had the bully's collar and pushed him to the wall. His fist smashed the boy's face and he kicked his legs as he went down to crouch on the floor. Jongin kicked his ribs again, then grabbed his hair and hissed to the bully.

"You ungrateful scum. I was nice enough to give you the last time. If you think I'll keep providing you my money after you threatened me, you better be dead before I crushed you further." Then he landed one more punch to the other boy.

Seulgi witnessed all of that in horror. She didn't realize that her hand already made a way to her pocket, searching for something which wasn't there. So she stood frozen, didn't know what to do.

The bully tried to stand, but he fell down. He scrambled away before Jongin could approach him and blindly ran towards Seulgi's direction. Seulgi was too shocked to make any move, and when the bully bumped her left body as he ran, she lost her balance and fell.

She cursed under her breath, brushing off dirt from her legs and skirt. Her hand stretched to reach her plastic pack when a pair of shoes entered her view.

"You okay?"

Seulgi lifted her head and found Jongin's face loomed over her. She felt a sudden shiver down her spine. She always knew Kim Jongin as model student with nice behavior. But after saw that rough side of him a moment ago, she wasn't sure anymore.

He held out a hand to her, and when she didn't react, he grabbed Seulgi'a arm and pulled her up.

"I'm alright," she muttered, eyes still locked to the floor below. She heard his sigh, tired and annoyed. He leaned a little to Seulgi, and whispered.

"You better don't talk about this."

He walked away after said that, leaving Seulgi stunned alone.

“What was that?!”

That's all for the first chapter... hahaha

xx

crest