-Winter, 2012-

It was always a busy day for the students who was in the last year of junior high school. She spent so much hours to study at school since the morning until the afternoon and she got to attend an extra class after the school time was over. She almost could not feel her body, she felt exhausted. The circle repeated every day, and it would be like that until she faced the examination, which would be held in next month.

That evening, she was with some friends, including Lee Chan, whose house was in the same direction as her. They took the same bus after their extra class over. They all looked dreadful, they were too tired and they ended up saying nothing as they ate some burgers on the bus. She caught Chan sighing many times. Yes, this school life was really tiring. She just wanted to go home and sleep.

It was almost 9 PM when Chan rose from his seat saying that he would see her tomorrow at school before got off the bus. She sighed again, realizing that she, as always, was the last one among her friends to get off from this bus. It was like normal day, some other people were on the bus too, but mostly most of them were office workers. She was the only student which seen by looking at her uniform. The night was colder than yesterday and she thought her skirt was too short. She really wanted to reach home soon.

To reach her house, she should walk pass a convenience store and it was usually quiet today. Their neighborhood was that quiet at this hour. But today was different.

As she got off the bus, she could see bunch of school boys in front of the convenience store, it was like five or six of them. She didn’t dare to look up and count. But it was still scary to walk pass the boys. She tried to walk like usual as she heard them murmuring something to each other.

“Hey.” She heard a voice behind her. She almost felt her heart dropped. She held her breathe and convinced herself to keep walking. Maybe it was not for her, but for someone else.

“Hey, you, I’m talking to you.”

The voice, it sounded like the owner was drunk. It sent chills down her spine. And she also heard footsteps behind her. She quickened her pace. To her bad luck, she felt a touch on her shoulder and she was turned around. She saw one of the school boys grinning at her. She tried to release his grip, but he held her wrist tightly.

“Hey, I’m talking to you. Why did you keep walking?” he said with drunk voice. He smell a lot of alcohol and she couldn’t stand it.

She tried to release the grip. “L-leave me a-alone!”

The boy opened his mouth again to say something, producing more alcohol smell. “Come with us. Show us any nice place around here. Come on.”

She hissed. “W-why s-should I go with you? L-let go of me!” she still tried to release the hand from her wrist.

“Oh, come on~ just for a moment.” The boy said. He was about to drag her with him, she screamed asking for helps. It was too loud that finally the boy got angry and smashed her body to the wall. He even pinned her and said with that alcohol smell breath, “come with us, okay? We’ll have fun together.”

She was so scared that finally tears rolled down her cheeks. She cried loudly with all her body trembling. The boy sounded kind of panicked and tried to shush her by covering with his hand, but seconds after she heard another voice.

“HEY!”

That voice was deep and loud. She looked at the source of the voice and saw a boy, wearing hapkido uniform and a beanie, looking at them with cold expression written all over his face. He looked so mad. In just some seconds, the hapkido boy made the drunk boy falling to the ground and ended up locking the drunk boy’s hands on the back. The drunk boy looked so hurt and he screamed asking the hapkido boy to stop.

“Go, go away from here!” the hapkido boy said as he slowly released the drunk boy. “If you dare come here again, I will break all your bones!” The drunk boy looked scared and quickly ran. He came to his friends in front of the convenience store and they ran from the scene.

She couldn’t stop crying even though the drunk boy was already gone. It was still shocking to her and scared her. No one would know what would happen if nobody came to save her. She was still crying on her knees as the hapkido boy bent down beside her.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. He’s gone.” The boy said. “It’s okay now. It’s safe now.”

She slowly looked up at him. The boy formed a simple reassuring smile. He even mumbled that it was safer now and she could stop crying.

“Where’s your house? I will send you home.” he gave her a hand to stand. She wiped away tears from her cheeks as she was helped to get up. She mumbled that her house was one block away, he nodded and said again. “If you’re still scared, you can hold my hand.”

She still had her body and hands trembling but she did not cry anymore, and she ended up clutching to his uniform sleeve. During the walk, the hapkido boy explained one little fact that there was a hapkido competition near this neighborhood which he joined. The competition was for senior high school students. She understood why he told her that because he wanted to make her less scared. The night was getting colder and there was almost no sound around them She could only hear their footsteps. She even did not say a word and just looked down at her shoes all the way to her house. She was still shocked, she even could still smell the alcohol from the drunk boy befo