“You should stop working at that nightclub” there are times when I’m sitting down at this changing room in which I can’t help to hear his voice in almost a whisper in my ears, that extremely soft voice that could pass as almost inaudible at times but I had grown quickly accustomed to, especially when he spoke more than he usually did, “I don’t mean any harm but being a waitress until that time in the night could turn out to be dangerous” his genuine concern he showed me when I was but a waitress in a nightclub, in one of the many nightclubs from these people blackmailing and threatening me always gave me a reason to smile at least a bit.

“But I can’t help dropping by to see you…” when I find myself staring at the mirror as I remove all the make-up that hides my real features, when the matte dark wine lipstick is gone and the mask has been put right in front of the mirror and I see my reflection going slowly back to my real self, it is almost impossible not to remember him.

“Martini?”

“Coffee please”

“Who comes to a nightclub during the afternoon to get a cup of coffee?”

“And who is sneakily preparing coffee for a client instead of drinks..?”

On occasions I wish I had been allowed to stay in that nightclub instead of the one I’m at now, because at least I was able to see him there every now and then, when the situation wasn’t as bad as it got, “I want to get you out of here before someone harms you” before they noticed he could prove danger to their business, after all, he was no commoner, he was like I used to be before fleeing home and any contacts he could have could turn out in disaster for those people that in a way, had me bound to them for who knew how long.

“Spacing out again?” The voice of the guard, thug, whatever you could call him, called out to me as he did his usual thing, looking at me through the mirror, “Don’t forget that we are having extra shows this weekend”

“What day…?” I slowly asked as that meant that I would have to stay even more than I usually did.

“Friday, you have to be here that day since early”

“I’m not coming at all that day! I have classes and practice!” I exclaimed without realizing it, while forgetting who I was talking to and the consequences it would bring to just try to stand up for myself.

The man quickly approached me and turned the chair I was sitting at rapidly, making me shut my eyes tight in fear as he placed his hands on my shoulders, “You seem to forget you don’t have a choice, don’t you want to be free after all?” it was the question that I always got asked whenever I was being reminded who was the chief here and who was the slave, who was their little doll they could command for their own monetary benefit.

“Yah”

“Or do you want to be tied to us for even a longer period of time until we just find no use for you?” the way I always was made feel fright irked me, it made my blood boil at the fact that I had no way to protect myself, from the looks, from the undesired touching to make me understand I was in no position to respond back, to say no, to escape. That I was in no position to have a choice, neither an opinion. That they were in other words, my owners until they decided they had had enough of me, until I became useless.

“Yah Cha Soojin”

The tone of that deep voice I had come to know so well made me react in an instant and took me back to where I was, my college, my class.

“What do you want—why are you talking to me?!” I responded, trying not to be so loud, hissing at the presence of Lee Hongbin next to me as he was staring at me, head resting on his right hand as his eyes were glaring at me.

“It’s not like I want to talk to you or that I need to talk to you about anything in particular” he quickly replied, attempting to whisper so he didn’t get caught talking to me in the middle of our class, “you are just spacing out and many students are gazing at you” he continued, a judging look on his eyes.

“And your problem is?” I said in an attempt to get him mad and see if he could probably get kicked out of the classroom if he had so many problems with being next to me in this specific class.

He glared and breathed in some air, most likely trying to keep his cool and not explode in anger at my attempts to pick a fight with him as the norm was whenever we exchanged words “We happen to sit next to each other in this class and the gazes this way kind of bother me”

“Then move” I bluntly stated as I tilted my head to the side and quickly glanced at the door as a signal that was telling him to just leave the place if he felt so annoyed by my presence.

“Easier said than done” I knew he didn’t want to be close to me, and neither did I, he had a thing for getting mad whenever I spoke, whenever he saw me and even if I had somehow sparked that dislike towards my presence I believed that it had gone overboard. But it was reciprocated so far.

“Hey you two,” the teacher called out to us sternly as her eyes glanced from Hongbin to me and vice versa, “Why are you chitchatting so much? We are currently deciding the topic for the dance presentation before midterms”

We both lowered our heads at the same time and promptly apologized, “We’re sorry”.

Quickly murmuring started to fill both our ears as the whole classroom started glancing at us, some were chatting among them in whispers, pointing and gossiping between them. I shook my head, it was starting.

“I think they just pretend to hate each other” a guy from the class suddenly yawned as he crossed his arms over his chest while the girl sitting next to him just nodded in response.

“I think Hongbin-ssi is just still salty about what he heard Soojin say about him” another girl suddenly stated like she had found out the reason why Earth was round, Hongbin didn’t look pleased when that issue was mentioned, he started to look more irritated as the seconds passed by.

One of the girls who actually wasn’t into Hongbin bluntly stated like it was an actual fact, “I actually believe the two favourites of the teachers have something going on” fixing her glasses as she had let out her bit of poison for the day. With this Hongbin rose to his feet and fixed his eyes on her, sending daggers her way and looking like if he could have, he would have murdered her.

“Let’s make it clear that I’m not into someone like Cha Soojin” Hongbin declared, I gasped a little bit angered by his words but not because I wished that he could see me with other eyes but because he had said “someone like Cha Soojin” and the way he said it annoyed the hell out of me, like I was THAT bad of a person to begin with, and coupled with the fact that no one knew what I was going through it angered me. But I tried to play it cool, I couldn’t let it be known that I was in fact annoyed or else it would come out as me getting angry at some guy not liking her.

“Oh you offend me” I mockingly said, hand over heart pretending it had just been broken by prince charming.

“Must still be salty when you heard Soojin-ssi saying you are nothing special” the same girl who had said that me and Hongbin had something going on ended up throwing the last attack at Hongbin for the day and she had apparently succeeded because Hongbin was left standing there, his mouth slightly agape. He had no choice but to sit down, he hid his face on his hands and started inhaling and exhaling like he was about to hyperventilate from all the anger, or maybe the memories or possibly just the fact that that girl had hit the right spot and knocked him down with some words was more than enough to make him feel like he had lost the argument. I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or not so I only stared at him as he was losing his fingers in his bangs in frustration.

“All of you, stop, whatever problem Miss Cha and Mr. Lee have let them settle it on their own” the teacher interrupted all the exchanges that were being had in the classroom to aid with Hongbin’s irritated state, “Or perhaps” she slowly added as she began to gaze from him to me intently.

“I think we could make use of this opportunity to present something different” I was starting to freak out as her gaze began to be more evident “Like a duo”

“What?!” I replied loudly, quite surprised at my own outburst.

“We are going to present a routine in duos, choose whatever song you feel most comfortable with, be it pop, r&b and make a routine that expresses the feelings of that song” she began explaining.

“I don’t like where this is going…” I muttered as I grasped the edges of my desk and bit my lower lip in a raising state of worry. I could see Hongbin resting his head on the wooden surface of the desk as he glanced my way.

“I can agree with you, out of the few times that I do” he uttered, and I could see a bit of worry taking hold of his expression.

“And since we have you two being so surprisingly talkative today” the teacher continued, “I want something grand so I want prodigy girl yet bit of a procastinator Cha Soojin to be accompanied by our so devoted and strict Lee Hongbin” she triumphantly stated as she fixed her eyes on both of us and our faces filled with surprise.

“No way!” we both shouted at the same time. My mouth was slightly open as I looked at Hongbin with the same expression of rejection at the thought of being close to each other in such way as dancing needed us to.

“And I will be now choosing the other couples and that’s it” the teacher blatantly ignored us and took out a file from her bag, it most likely was the list of the students in this class, I could see her writing something on it, probably it was Hongbin’s and my name next to each other, “I’m sure you can come up with something astonishing so surprise me and bond”

The teacher kept calling out the students and making the duos she wanted, she was mixing students up, putting people that never talked to each other together and the good students with the not so grea