At school the next day I was a little nervous to see Yongsun again knowing what I know now. When I walked into my mentor class everyone turned to look at me, including her. Whee In smiled at me from the seat beside mine and I dumped my stuff on the ground as I took my seat. “So, what’s going on in that head of yours today, Moon Byuli?” she asked, chin in her hands and elbows on the desk.

“Not a lot at the moment, but I’ve decided that I’m going to talk to her, and is it okay if I invite her to join us at break and lunch?” the younger girl smiled at me and nodded.

The morning went relatively smoothly with no major irks from Mr Lee and no awkward collisions with Yongsun. In chemistry she took the seat beside me and decided to make it her own. “Hey, I was… errr…. wondering if you…. errr… if you wanted to sit with us at break and lunch. You know, seeing as you’re new here and everything.” Stuttering again?! She’s gonna think you’re some kind of socially inadequate idiot or something, Byul, get a grip on yourself, she’s only a girl. The smile that captured her face was shy at first but grew into a massive grin as she nodded her head excitedly and told me she would like that very much.

“You stuttered so much then I thought you were going to ask me out or something” she giggled. I felt heat rise to my cheeks as I blushed a dark shade of red. I put my head down.

“I mean if you wanted to we could go and grab coffee or go to the cinema some time, seeing as you suggested it” I said, as my confidence came back. She looked flustered by the offer “Not as a date or anything though, as friends, we only just met” I said laughing as her cheeks turned red. She slapped me on the arm gently but said nothing in response. Something in my stomach fluttered a little bit at the sight… and then I hiccupped. She laughed outrageously at me

“Is that what happens every time you try pouring grease?” she giggled, which made me blush. I stuck my tongue out at her.

At break and lunch she sat with the maknaes and I- it was nice. Turns she actually talks a lot once you get her going. That was until Hyejin decided to ask the question “So why did you leave you old school, Yongsun? I mean, I heard some rumours but I’m curious” Yongsun looked mortified by the question, and then she shut and her eyes turned solemn. It took her a minute or so, to finally respond and when she did it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. “I had a boyfriend at my old school and I was the envy of all the girls- he was good-looking, smart, kind, caring and genuinely a really great guy” her face turned to a wistful smile which then turned sour “But, some time after we’d been together, he started to change. He started to treat me almost like his possession and started asking things of me that I just wasn’t ready to give him. I did really like him still, but I didn’t like this new side to him, so one day I told him that if he continued to behave in such a way then I would leave him. He said he’d try to change, but it only lasted a matter of days before he went back to controlling me. I told him I couldn’t go on like this and that maybe we were better off just being friends. I ended the relationship with him there and then. At first I felt kinda bad because he was really hurt by the breakup, he took it badly; he started skipping class and not eating. At first I wanted to get back with him just to end his unhappiness, I did some thorough soul searching. But when I eventually picked up the courage to go and talk to him again, a girl, I can’t remember who she was now- she was just one of many- said “Eric doesn’t want to speak to you ever again. You’ve broken his heart, Kim Yongsun, when all he wanted to do was make you happy”. That was when the abuse started. At first it was just y encounters in the corridors, girls making snide remarks at me for how cruel I was to Eric, guys telling me I was frigid because I wouldn’t take my relationship up a level, Eric’s friends just completely ignored me when I asked them how he was. It was miserable, it really was. I got past the stage of getting upset every time a girl told me I was a bad person, and they could see that. But it got worse. One day, I went to the toilet after class and just as I was about to go to my next class, it was Maths- I remember that vividly, a group of girls blocked me in the room.” she took a deep breath, preparing herself for what she was about to tell us. I reached across the table, grabbed her hands and squeezed them gently. She looked up to face me.

“Yongsun, you don’t need to tell us you know. It’s okay. Whatever they did to you there, it isn’t going to happen again here, I’ll make sure of it. Trust me, it’s all in the past now. What do you say we go and buy an ice cream instead?” I tried to comfort her but I just didn’t know how. She shook her head.

“It’s okay Byul, I’ve got this far. There isn’t much left anyway.” She sighed “They hit me. I tried to call for help, but no one came. They pushed me to the ground and kicked me. Repeatedly. And then one of them pulled me up by the hair and she slapped me so hard my lip split. Blood poured down my chin and they laughed. Once they left I went to the sinks and cleaned myself up to go back to class, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t show up to any classes for the rest of the day. The school called my dad to inform him I wasn’t there and he called me late that night. I told him that I was going through a rough patch and that I didn’t feel well enough to go in for the rest of the week. He told me that he wasn’t spending thousands on my education for me to ‘turn out like this’. I didn’t go in for the rest of the week (bear in mind that it happened on a Tuesday) and my dad went mad when the school told him I wasn’t going in. He told me that if I was going to try and overrule his judgement because I thought I was better than him, I would have to start paying for my own tuition, for my dorm, for myself. He cut me off just like that. School ended a week later for the holidays and the next payment was due. When I realised my dad was being serious, I wrote an email to school telling them I wouldn’t be returning to finish my studies there. I took a couple of months out, to clear my head, to find myself and then I wound up here because I can’t afford to pay for my education. Because I can’t afford to pay for anything because I can barely cover the cost of my apartment.” She started to cry. Whee In put an arm around her and told her that it was okay. Hyejin just looked sorry for her, sorry that she’d asked. I felt sorry for her, I really did. When Hyejin told me the rumour last night I thought she’d had it tough, but hearing her story was worse. She hadn’t just had a tough time, she’d been through hell recently and what she needed more than anything right now was a good friend.

After school I made sure to wait outside her locker because I’d had a great idea that I needed to share with her. When she came round the corner and saw me leaning against there she looked utterly bewildered. “Byul-ah, your locker is at the other end of the hall. What are you doing here?” I started to chuckle to myself.

“Is that how you greet your knight in shining armour, Kim Yongsun?” she looked utterly puzzled. I showed her my bag which was already full of the contents of my locker and started to tell her my great idea “Basically, this is gonna sound really weird because we only met yesterday, but I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said earlier and I realised I might be able to help you out a little. You said you can barely afford your apartment, mine is dirt cheap in terms of rent and bills. Do you want to move in with me? It would take some of the pressure off of you, and I really wouldn’t mind. AND I-didn’t-realise-how-weird-my-idea-was-until-I-just-said-it-out-loud." I paused for breath having said the last sentence as basically one long word "You know what, forget about it. You probably think I’m some kind of creep” I looked down as I started to walk away. She grabbed my wrist making me stop. I turned to face her

“You wanna go and grab that coffe you suggested earlier? I think we need to talk” she smiled gently at me. But it didn’t quite reach her eyes. I nodded.

Author's note: AND I'm gonna leave it there for you. I had a lot of ideas for this chapter, but this one was the hardest to articulate, so I thought why not? (who doesn't like a challenge?) ;) This is the longest chapter so far because I felt like I needed to put a lot of explanation into it- I hope you guys don't mind that. Hopefully this is starting to build up a picture for you in the same way my head is constructing it.

As always thanks for reading it, I hope you're enjoying it. If you subscribe to the story, thanks a lot I'll try to post updates as frequently as possible, but probably not as frequently as I have this week (probably once a week, or once a fortnight worst case scenario). If you want to leave your opinions, thoughts or ideas below that's fine, leave a comment- I like to see how you guys are finding my story, it also helps me to remember to fill important gaps that I overlook (points to whoever can figure out which gap I'd already forgotten and covered up later) :P Thanks again guys, hope to see you soon with the next chapter (which is already underway). Stay happy, stay healthy and have a great week :)