“I promise.”

Da Young stayed pretty late in school that day, despite the incident that had happened to her. But she was not going to be like other people who got into a bullied incident, to go straight home. It was barely her fault that Herim hated her guts and just her in personal and she could not even change anything about her. Like, why should she, the victim, be afraid of Baek Herim when she had done nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong at all?

Da Young was alone in the music room, sitting down next to a wall that blocked herself from other people who would pass by the room. She held up her perfectly carved and delicate pieced violin and placed the small woodwork on her shoulder before pressing her chin on the chinrest. She closed her eyes, her left hand wrapped around the neck while her fingers pressed the strings on the neck of the violin.

Her right hand was holding the bow and gently, she pressed the bow onto violin and started to pull the bow back and fort. Music appeared instantly from the bow and she just played the violin on and on, only stopping when she was thirsty.

She opened her eyes again and placed the violin back into the case, before reaching out to her school bag on her left. She dragged the bag, holding the hook on the top of the bag and pulled her bag towards her. She quickly ped her bag and took out her water bottle, taking in a long sip before putting the bottle back into the respective place.

Da Young rested her head on the wall and glanced back down at the violin next to her. It has been long since she had touched her violin and it was amazing, that she still remembered how to play it. But she was getting tired just from playing the violin. She was restless, and she needed to do something at this instant.

So, she headed out of the music room to take a short scroll that could or might as well, clear her head. She walked past many classes, some contained students having extra classes with each subject teacher, some studying in groups, there were also some having their extracurricular classes. It was exactly just like another school day for Da Young- if you exclude the fact that you encounter someone you have been trying to avoid for this entire time.

Da Young halted. Her eyes widen. She could not move. She was looking at him. Park Ji Hoon. Whom she had tried to avoid. But it was not just any normal Ji Hoon. This Ji Hoon looked sick. He was a combination of sad and ill looking but yet, Da Young couldn’t do anything. She tried to take a step back every time he took a step towards her. Her feet stopped moving and her heart broke, just by looking at him.

“Da… Young,” he whispered, taking stumbled step to her. She opened but no words could come out from those lips.

He was only a foot away from her, when he called her name one last time, before closing his eyes. And he fell. Straight into Da Young’s arms.

✩ ✩ ✩

The next moment she blinked, she realized that she was in the hospital. She had forgotten how she ended up there. She sat down on one of the plastic chairs that were propped up onto the walls of the hospital as she continued to sit there motionless.

She didn’t know how long she had sat there until she noticed a presence beside her. She looked up sadly. It was the school’s nurse, holding two cups of black liquid, which Da Young assumed was coffee. The nurse hands her a cup wordlessly and Da Young took it, but drank none. She was too restless.

“Are you okay?” The nurse asked for the first time after she sat down. She was there when Da Young brought the sick boy into the nurse’s office. “You looked like you were too in shock when you brought… that boy into my office.”

“I just hope he’s fine,” she whispered before staring back into her black coffee.

The doors of the room in front of them opened almost immediately. A man wearing a white coat emerged with a clipboard, followed by a woman wearing the same white gears.

Da Young stood up, almost slipping her coffee everywhere as she rushed towards the white coat man.

“Is… is he okay, doctor?” She asked, grasping onto the doctor’s arm, as she looked desperate.

“Fortunately, he is,” the doctor nodded, examining his clipboard once again calmly. “Apparently he has high fever due to a virus infection as well as a gastric. But there was nothing I can’t fix. You can go see him right now.”

Just before the doctor left, the school nurse gripped onto Da Young’s arm, stopping her from walking away.

“I guess I’ll leave the boy to you now, I have to get back to the school,” the nurse nodded her head and glanced at Da Young before departing.

Da Young took this opportunity and went straight into the hospital room. Her heart dropped immediately. In front of her face was a total different Ji Hoon. She had only been ignoring and avoiding Ji Hoon for a little over two weeks and he looked as pale as one could be. It was how scary one can change when he missed someon