Before everything began. "I'm so hungry even you look so delicious right now." Final short for HJ/YD.

This wasn't what she volunteered for when she offered to sneak into Baekho that night to fix their stereo problem.

“Stop staring.” Ha Joon snapped, and Yeon Doo flushed guiltily.

“Sorry,” she muttered, turning her attention to something other than the ugly purple bruise on his cheek that seemed to grow darker everytime she looked at it.

“Hn.” He showed no effort in hiding his discontentment at her being there, opting instead to flip through his biology textbook and pretend that she wasn't in the room with him. Yeon Doo wasn't making it easy, however.

Huffing, she swung her legs back and forth from where she sat perched on the table. Bored, she had started choreographing a dance routine in her head until she decided she would just dance for real instead.

It felt weird dancing in Baekho, on the squeaky clean floors and pristine walls—there was also a matter of one of pair of eyes watching her every move and looking annoyed when she so much as breathed. She was so distracted she messed up on a turn and almost twisted up her ankle again.

“Stop staring.” She echoed his earlier words, glaring at his unabashed expression.

“As if.” He sneered, “You're not that pleasant to look at.”

Yeon Doo glared and made a knife slashing motion across her neck. Ha Joon flipped her the bird.

She gasped. What a bastard.

They went back to ignoring each other for another moment, until Yeon Doo's stomach started to growl loudly and embarassingly.

“Do you have anything to eat around here?” She whined.

Ha Joon's eyes flitted momentarily from his book to her. “This isn't the cafeteria.”

“Well yeah. Obviously. But don't you have any snacks?”

Ha Joon's face was blank. Yeon Doo gasped in near horror, “Seriously, nothing?! What kind of clubroom is this?”

“This isn't like your low-rate clubroom, Real King. We don't eat here in Baekho.”

“Of course, because you're all perfect aliens that don't even need food like us plain old humans do, right?” She said sarcastically. Ha Joon didn't dignify that with a response. He busied himself by checking the time on his phone. 6.00 a.m.

He made a noise of frustration. Nobody would be in the school for at least another half an hour, or later, since it's the first day of school and the students and faculty would be taking their sweet time arriving after their long semester break. Ha Joon had returned a day earlier because of his eagerness to get away from his father. He had snuck into Baekho after midnight when he find that he couldn't sleep because the bruise on his jaw was aching too much.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. It wasn't uncommon to spend late nights studying in the clubroom, and the teachers allowed it. After a few hours of fun algebra and English, Ha Joon had fell asleep on his desk.

Barely thirty minutes later, someone was shaking him awake and frantically calling his name.

It was her.

“What are you doing here?” He had asked accusingly, but Yeon Doo pretended like he had never spoken.

“We're locked in here.” She said instead.

“What?!” He shot up straight in his chair.

It turns out that security locks up all the classrooms during semester breaks. He just had the misfortune of falling asleep when the guard came to lock up, and they hadn't realized that he was in there.

That still hadn't explained why she was there though.

Ha Joon's attention returned to the present when he heard her stomach growl loudly again.

Yeon Doo groaned. “I'm soooo hungry!”

She tilted her head and looked at him contemplatively.

“Even you look so delicious right now.”

Ha Joon stared at her, expression betraying how weirded out her statement made him. “Are you hallucinating, Real King?”

“Stop calling me that. That's not my name.”

“Isn't it?” He smirked lightly.

“No. I don't go around calling you 'Baekho bastard' now, do I?”

His smirk fell.

“Shut it, Kang Yeon Doo.”

Yeon Doo turned around so he couldn't see the little smile that suddenly grew on her lips. So he did knew her name.

Ha Joon sighed when he finally got some quiet, but of course that didn't last long. He almost threw his book at her when she started complaining how bored she was.

“Get out then.” Ha Joon replied bluntly.

“Oh, sure, I'll just happily jump out this third floor window and be on my merry own,” Yeon Doo exclaimed cheerfully. She actually made a point by skipping to the window and sliding it open.

“So get on with it.” he smirked while she seethed silently.

“Jerk!” She crossed her arms, “Why don't you come over here and jum--”

Yeon Doo cut herself off abruptly when she had unconciously leaned back against the wall... only to miscalculate the height of the window and fell out. She managed to find her balance at the last minute, grasping at the window panels and gasping at the near miss.

Ha Joon had shot out of his chair the second he saw her swaying. “! I didn't mean for real!”

Heart in his throat, he tried to reach her as fast as he could. Ha Joon wasn't really thinking, only he knew that he had to pull her back from the danger.

He staggered at the momentum, and they ended up crashing to the floor; her head against his chest, while he had the sense to lift his head at the last minute to avoid getting a concussion.

Yeon Doo blinked rapidly, unsure of what had happened. She felt more than heard Ha Joon's groan when his chest vibrated underneath her.

She peered at his face. “Are you okay?”

Not really. Ha Joon sighed, staring up at the ceiling. When he tilted his head slightly to the left, her attention was drawn to that... thing on his face again.

Yeon Doo's eyes narrowed and she couldn't resist asking anymore--

“Where did you get that bruise?”

This time, Yeon Doo felt his breath caught and muscles tensed up.

“Get off.” He said. His tone suggested that he was seconds away from throwing her off himself.

Yeon Doo scrambled to her feet, dusting her hands and skirt off. After a second consideration she offered a hand to Ha Joon, which he promptly ignored. He stalked to his desk and she scowled at his back.

“Would it kill him to be civil?” She complained under her breath. Since the room was empty and small and apparently had amazing accoustics--Ha Joon heard every word and he did not seem happy about it one bit.

“I don't have to be nice to people who break into our clubroom and try to steal our electricity.”

Yeon Doo's mouth fell open and she blushed. So he had figured it out himself... that Yeon Doo decided to come early to school so she could plug in their stereo to Baekho's electricity outlet. It was just dumb luck when she snuck in just when the security guard was about to lock the doors, and she had to hide herself or risk getting caught. It was even dumber luck when she realized she wasn't the only one in the room.

“Excuse me?!” She spluttered, “You don't own the electricity!”

“The families of all the Baekho members have been funding this school since the start of first term. So, Kang Yeon Doo,” he said her name like it was a disease, “We essentially own this school and for as long as you walk these halls--we also own you.”

Yeon Doo had nothing to respond to that, because she was too busy trying, and failing, to keep her anger in check.

“IF YOU THINK YOU CAN TREAT US LIKE YOUR SLAVES--!”

“I never said slaves.”

“You implied it!”

“I. DIDN'T.” He bit out, “Who would want you as a slave anyway? You're slow, clumsy, and annoying as hell.”

Yeon Doo gasped. Oh, how dare he?!

“AND YOU'RE TOO FULL OF YOURSELF!”

Ha Joon slammed his fist on the table. She's so goddamn loud!

“STOP YELLING! THE GUARDS WILL HEAR YOU!”

“ME?! HELLO?! POT, MEET KETTLE!”

“THAT'S IT! GET OVER HERE!” Ha Joon stood up abruptly, causing his chair to topple backwards.

Yeon Doo rolled up her sleeves in preparation.“YOU WANNA FIGHT? HUH? COME ON THEN BRING IT! BRING--”

She took one threatening step forward... and promptly tripped on her own shoelaces.

“NOT AGAIN!” Yeon Doo cried, finding herself crashing first into a very male body, and then crashing down into the very hard floor.

“... I'm not clumsy.” Yeon Doo defended weakly. She felt like she had just crashed into a freight train... but she could only imagine how Ha Joon felt.

“.” The man in question cursed, and blinked dazedly up at the ceiling (again). “Are you trying to kill me, Real King?”

“My name isn't--”

“Yeon Doo. Your elbow's poking into my ribs.”

“Sorry!”

“s'okay,” Ha Joon muttered, and then with a burst of strength, lifted himself up while Yeon Doo was still lying atop of him. At the last minute he wrapped an arm around her so she wouldn't be thrown off.

“Oh!” Yeon Doo exclaimed quietly in surprise. Suddenly they were sitting face to face.

And that bruise had never looked worse, seeing it this close. She raised a hand to touch it, slowly so she wouldn't startle him.

Close. Too close. The voice in Ha Joon's mind warned. He was about to pull away but he saw the look in her eyes, and his intention faltered. Gentle. She looked so gentle, and concerned. No one, sans Yeol, had ever looked at him like that before.

Her fingers were soft, tracing over the purple coloring from cheek to jaw. He saw her wince, as if she was the one in pain, not him.

“How did this happen?” She asked quietly.

His hand came up to grip her wrist, stopping her movements. “Please. I don't want to talk about it.”

Yeon Doo hesitated, and then finally nodded. It wasn't her business, and if he didn't want to share then she wouldn't pry.

“Is... is there anything I can do?”

Ha Joon looked down at her in surprise. This girl... who he barely knows and who he insults on an almost daily basis, was asking if she could do anything to help him?

Why?

“It looks like it hurts a lot.” She frowned for a moment, before a smile suddenly lit up her face. “Oh wait! I remember I have something for that.”

She struggled to get up to her feet, and Ha Joon belatedly realized that he still has his arm wrapped around her. He let go immediately.

Yeon Doo grabbed her bag, sitting idly on a chair, and began rummaging through it's pockets. She produced a small 'aha!' when she finally got what she had been looking for.

She knelt down in front of him and took his hand. Ha Joon was about to ask what she was doing, when she pried open his palm and placed something in it.

Ha Joon had to take a moment to figure out what it actually was.

A little tube of cream ointment. And bandages.

He looked at her, bewildered. Yeon Doo was chewing on her bottom lip and trying not to smile.

“So you won't be hurt anymore.” She explained, almost shyly.

A million emotions coursed through him that he couldn't seem to settle on one. He ducked his head and clenched his fist. The medicine and bandages bit into his palm, but he didn't mind, because the feel of them were comforting.

He smiled.

The only light in the room, his table lamp, managed to illumate just enough light so he could see the ticking wall clock--their hands say 6.20 a.m. The guard should be here to unlock the classrooms in just a few minutes. Finally.

“Oi, Real King... let's get some breakfast afterwards.”

Yeon Doo's stomach simply growled in respond.  

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