Hyejeong’s POV

[shorty]: hey dongdong we’re free now where are you? lezz go clubbing

[dongdong]: oh um

[dongdong]: you see I’m kinda busy now

[shorty]: busy with what? getting laid?

[dongdong]: I’m with a student now you idiot

[shorty]: you’re hitting on students now? *gasp*

[dongdong]: you’ll be the death of me

[shorty]: :)

I turned my phone off, and turned back to Seolhyun. It was night now, and a good few hours since Seolhyun did that. We were rushed here by ambulance (we because the hospital needed someone to stay by her and I didn’t have time to contact her parents) and Seolhyun was rushed into the ER. She was stable now, thank god, but she hadn’t came around yet.

Come to think of it, why have I spent the last few hours here, in a bedside vigil, actually? I should probably leave soon, anyway, due to the human need for sleep. And I am so not going to spend the night here. Her guardians, for some reason, couldn’t make it here as well.

[shorty]: don’t blue tick me c’mon dongdongie

[dongdong]: you’re right huh

[dongdong]: I should go home now

[shorty]: you’re not at home????

[dongdong]: yea I’m in hospital you know

[shorty]: sarcasm appreciated. anyway I’ll see you another time? after you’re done “educating” your student?

[dongdong]: yea sure.

Jimin was right. I am wasting my time here. I squeezed her immobile fists together, smoothed her hair, checked her vitals on the screens, and rose to leave.

“Ms…Shin?” I heard a voice echo from behind me. She woke?

I turned, and saw Seolhyun’s hands digging into the sheets, evidently trying to raise herself up into a sitting position. I reached forward instinctively, and assisted her up. “Don’t do it yourself,” I murmured, when she resisted my assistance, “you will only hurt yourself this way.”

She looked at me, awkwardness written all over her face, before stating the obvious. “I guess you brought me here, huh.”

I sat back down on the chair next to her bed, and replied, “I don’t like to see people bleeding to death. Especially in school.”

She grinned weakly, mentioning, “But that was what I would have preferred, you know,” whilst unconsciously tracing the outlines of her scars with her finger. “But I guess that’s what one who doesn’t understand my situation will do. No one can understand. No one will understand.”

“But I do,” I replied, cutting in. “But I do.”

“Do you though? Do you know what I have went through?”

Pulling out the diary from my bag, and placing it on her hospital blanket, I replied “I must be a pretty bad reader to not know.”

Mortification spread like wildfire across her face, completely replacing any lingering remnants of awkwardness that was present prior. “You read…everything?”

“Well, the first three entries, yes. But I think I pretty much know what is going on in your life, at least here in this school.”

“Bbut…that means nothing! Even if you know what happened to me, your privileged upbringing means that you can’t empathise with me anyway!”

Rising, and leaning forward, I gazed hard and long into her eyes. They were pure, and clear, and yet one could detect the presence of some inscrutable form of sadness. “Let’s clear up whatever misconceptions we have of ea