Chapter 4 Art Festival Fiasco

Taemin grinned as an upbeat song started playing on the radio. He moved his arm to turn it up and then grabbed Desi’s wrist.

“Let’s dance!”

He started moving around gracefully and chuckled at Desi’s not knowing what to do. She was flustered and quite embarrassed as she weaved her way out of the newly forming crowd to her place on the box, but something stopped her. She looked back behind her and Taemin was staring directly at her.

Don’t just leave him there!

He came bounding towards her, but she got swooped up in the arms of one of his friends as they danced and hopped around the crowd.

“Hey, I’m Minho,” He smiled—was all of these boys gorgeous? Was it just a thing for when you dance you have to be gorgeous?

Is that why I can’t dance?

Don’t be silly, she told herself and even laughed at the thought. Dancing has nothing to do with beauty.

“I’m Desi,” her reply was short as Minho spun her around like all the rest of the people dancing, and she ended up in an even more handsome man’s grasp.

“Why hello, I’m Kibum,~” The boy purred and  kissed her knuckles as they danced.

How were they not disgusted by her? How could they stand to even be near her? This made no sense to the poor girl as she got jostled and danced with by a few more men—Jinki, and Jonghyun.

Finally she was allowed to sit. Flustered, out of breath, and tired as a work horse, she sat on her bucket. Desi wiped the sweat from her brow and looked at it thoughtfully upon see a smudge of foundation on it.

Her eyes widen in realization.

The makeup! Nobody saw the truth! Of course no one was scared; she had her sunglasses and makeup on.

She wiped off some more sweat-foundation mixture and was too busy making sure she looked okay that she didn’t even hear the sloshing sounds behind her.

“Hey, you want to cool off?”

Desi did a quick 180 pivot on the seat of her pants but it was too late; the two unknown men had already thrown the water on her.

Frozen on the spot with ice-cubes mixed in with her bright red curls, all she could do was gape. She opened and closed like a fish out of water—a very cold fish out of water. The harsh impact of the water had knocked off her glasses as well as washed the remainder of the makeup off of her port-wine stain. The two men had backed off laughing as they disappeared out of sight.

She blubbered and felt the backs of her eyes get pricked by hot tears wanting to be let loose.

People began whispering about her birthmark, her red hair, and even her eyes. The rumors began to spread that she would take your children and that she was a bad influence. This was all going to happen again! Desi began to cry, but bit her lip to stop herself.

A few people let out gasps and she rose to her feet in an attempt to run away, but her foot got caught in the handle of a bucket, causing Desi to face plant on the hard concrete sidewalk with a splat.

Laughter rang throughout the crowd and she looked up to see Taemin’s worried expression. An ivory taste entered and she knew immediately that her nose was bleeding.

As quick as a person could blink, Desi got to her feet and tried to run away but could only manage a weak limp—giving her a mild trot in her step as she made her way back to her church room.

Not even caring what she looked like, or for her health at the moment, Desi flung herself on her small mattress and began to bawl uncontrollably into her pillow. She cried for her lack of friends, she cried for her lack of beauty, talent, family, security, and everything else that was wrong with a mutant’s life.

Desi was wrong to have ever left her room that day; she was wrong to have ever thought people could care other than the Pastor and her Aunt.

This day was going so perfect…maybe a monster like her just can’t have friends? She really hoped this wasn’t the case…. 

MAN I AM ON A ROLE, BABY! 3 chapters in an hour! :D Comments are love! Thank you guys for reading; it means a lot.