11

Hara is sitting in the second floor of the library, her head buried in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban when the book is suddenly ripped out of her hands. 

“What the- Jungkook, are you serious?” 

Jungkook examines the cover of the book and scoffs, dropping it on the table with a loud thud. 

“You could at least have chosen a better book to ditch me for,” he says, and Hara ignores him and reaches for the book. 

She easily returns to the page she had been reading, mostly because she knows the Harry Potter series by heart from having read them since childhood, and makes herself comfortable in her chair. 

Jungkook is unimpressed, and he continues staring at her, standing directly across from her small table all the while. Hara is seconds away from snapping but she tries to keep her cool and nonchalantly flips to the next page. 

“You’re aware of my schedule for today,” Jungkook says, calmly, but there is a hint of annoyance in his tone and Hara revels in it. “You should not have thrown away an entire hour of my time on bull.”

“Your vocabulary of swear words is bigger than I thought, I am impressed.” Hara doesn’t tear her gaze away from the book and smirks slightly. “Give me another curse, come on. I won’t tell daddy.” 

The book is once more ripped out of her hands, but this time Jungkook walks over to the closest cabinet and stuffs it randomly. 

“What the , Jeon?” Hara snaps, angrily getting to her feet, but Jungkook returns and looks anything but affected.

“Let’s go. I don’t know how much you got to see during your little solo trip, but I think it is important you know all the escape routes so you can ditch classes without any hindrances.”

“I’m not ditching any bloody classes,” Hara says, anger bubbling in her belly at the accusation that is fifty percent true. Only fifty percent, Jungkook has no right being this insufferable. 

“Sure.” Jungkook arches an eyebrow. “Now let’s go. I am not fond of wasting my time.”

“And I am not fond of being forced into things, I thought I made that clear on Monday?”

Jungkook bites his lip and places his hands on his hips, looking off to the side for a moment, clearly suppressing his anger. He is no longer wearing his coat, and Hara wonders what he must have been up to during the one hour she basically hid from him. He can’t have been looking for her, that would be too troublesome for him. 

But it does seem like he has been searching for her, Hara realizes, because she had left him at the library over an hour ago, he was not there when she returned from the cold rooftop. He must have made a round, maybe even asked someone if they had seen a hobo on campus.

Hara feels a spark of satisfaction for riling him up this much. It’s the least she can do for all the bull he forces her to endure. 

“Taehyung and Hoseok hyung have lunch break twelve on the dot. There are two hours left until you get to meet them, but let me remind you that father expects me to do this.” Jungkook finally looks down at Hara. “Stop being so stubborn and let’s get this over with as fast as we can.” 

“If it is such a burden, why don’t you just go back home and let me do this on my own?” 

“Because,” Jungkook grits between clenched teeth, stepping closer, “you do not want to be on the receiving end of hate here.” 

Hara had not expected that to be his argument. 

She frowns. “I have dealt with worse. This isn’t that big a deal.” 

“No, Hara.” Jungkook shakes his head. “You have not dealt with this type of hatred. I am offering you my protection by showing you around today, you should take it if you-”

“If I what, huh?” Hara interjects, soffing humourlessly, “you’re acting like this is a bloody movie or something.”

She takes a step closer to him, which is new given that Jungkook is usually the personal space invader, and then pokes a finger against his chest. 

“I do not need your protection like some damsel in distress, nor do I need your name as backing material. I can take care of myself, and I would appreciate it if you would stop treating me like a burden when clearly I never asked for your help to begin with.” 

Jungkook’s jaw clenches, his gaze hardened, but Hara looks equally pissed because she’s had enough of this snob. She does not need his annoying meddling with her business anymore. 

“You’re gonna regret this,” Jungkook finally says, shaking his head slightly, and Hara hates the way her heart skips a beat in slight fear. 

Maybe she will regret this, but what Jungkook doesn’t know is that she’s only staying for three months. She’ll haul before Sunny or any other rich brat has the chance to properly ruin her life. 

“Sure,” Hara replies, shrugging as she takes a step back, “but I’ve regretted a lot of things in life. This is just another pointless addition to the list. Now stop bothering me.”

Hara doesn’t give him any chance to be dramatic and quickly leaves the quiet corner in the back, her eyes averted to avoid any annoying stares as she jogs down to the first floor. 

She leaves the library and somehow blends in with the student body as she makes her way down the hallways, her feet automatically moving in the direction of the fire escape. She doesn’t stop until she’s all the way at the top and then carefully steps out, this time on the lookout for a certain student. 

He isn’t there. 

Hara sighs and walks over to the railing, taking a moment to look over the campus before turning around and sliding down. She pulls her knees to her chest and ignores the feeling of loneliness and anxiety. 

She’s in a building with hundreds of people, and yet she has never felt this lonely. 

Dragging in a deep breath, Hara closes her eyes and wills herself to calm down. This has happened before, she has been left out before, she has been bullied before. This is nothing new, Hara got through it back then, she can definitely get through it now. 

She briefly considers calling Minah or Sana but decides against it when she realizes they’re probably in class. 

Sighing, Hara pulls her phone out of her coat pocket and plugs her headphones in, not even bothering to untangle the wires before playing her usual playlist. 

Ed Sheeran’s soothing voice instantly calms her down, and Hara closes her eyes and leans her head against the wall behind her, arms tightly wound around her knees as she allows herself to relax. Before she knows it, the music becomes a distant sound in the background and her head slowly lolls to the side when sleep takes over.

Hara is usually always on guard, but for some reason, right now, she cannot bother with precautions or wariness as she dozes off in the middle of a foxhole. 

She wakes up to her teeth chattering and her hands feeling like frozen blocks of meat locked around her knees. 

“Holy ,” she wheezes, her breath coming out in cold puffs that are blown away by the merciless wind. 

She quickly untangles her fingers and shakes them out so the blood can properly circulate. Her playlist has stopped playing long ago, and Hara quickly checks her phone for the time only to frown when she realizes she has received multiple missed calls and texts from Taehyung and an unknown number she guesses is Hoseok’s, if the excessive usage of emojis is anything to go by. 

She quickly calls Taehyung up and sighs in relief when he picks up on the second ring. 

“Where are you? Lunch break started ten minutes ago, we have been looking for you!” 

Hara refrains from asking who “we” constitutes and clears . “Sorry, I was just reading a book in the library.” 

Hara does not know why but this place feels like a personal hideout for rooftop-boy. She feels a sense of responsibility, not wanting to expose it to anyone else when he so kindly let her use it earlier today. 

“But we checked the library first, Jungkook said you’d probably go back there,” Taehyung argues, and Hara feels annoyed just by the mention of his name.

“Yeah, I needed the toilet, I’ll meet you guys. Where are you?” 

Taehyung tells her to come down to the cafeteria, and Hara is thankful food is as important as it is because the cafeteria is the biggest part of the whole building and therefore the easiest to find. 

She ends the call and holds onto the railing to pull herself up only to freeze in surprise when she notices the material resting on her legs. 

She blinks, dumbly staring at the uniform blazer that most likely belongs to a student, and then she slowly peels it off her knees and realizes the reason why she survived her slumber is because of the extra warmth the blazer offered her. 

No way, she thinks as she gets to her feet and holds the cloth up to inspect it. Rooftop-boy did this? But why? 

Hara quickly takes a whiff of the soft material and blinks in surprise at the faint scent of cigarettes. Holy cannoli. 

She turns around and looks for the owner, but she’s the only one on the rooftop, and she nervously scratches her neck as she continues staring at the blazer. 

Her phone suddenly buzzes in her pocket, the sound startling her, and after reading the impatient text from Taehyung she quickly curls the blazer under her arm and jogs over to the exit. 

The warmth inside hits her like a train and she takes a moment to thaw, groaning in relief as her body greedily in the warm air, and then she starts on her way down the stairs. 

When she makes it to the main floor, she quickly walks in step with a couple of students and tries not to stand out too much while pulling her file out of her coat pocket.

She ends up having to ask a teacher for directions, and she offers the curious male a quick bow in thanks before finding her locker, ignoring the students lingering around in favour of safely putting the coat away. She takes a picture of her schedule and locker combinations before stuffing her file into the oversized locker, and then she’s on her way to the cafeteria. 

Thankfully, she finds it in no time by following the throng of hungry students, and Taehyung all but jumps up from the chair he’s sitting on when he sees her. 

“There you are! I’m starving!” 

“I’m sorry, I had to find my locker real quick,” Hara says, smiling sheepishly, and Hoseok waves her excuse off and pulls her along to the buffet bar. Hara doesn’t know why she’s surprised, at this point she should be expecting all the luxuries these students are used to. 

“That’s a lot of food.” She tries not to dumbly stare at the huge selection of high quality dishes, and Hoseok snickers when he grabs a tray and hands it over to Hara.

“Yeah, you’ll get used to it,” he says, moving along the counters. 

Taehyung is smiling widely as he follows Hara and instructs her to just grab whatever she wants, and Hara is thankful the food has already been placed in tiny plates or else she’d be piling it up. It is not every day she gets to eat free food of a Michelin restaurant quality. 

“What happens to the leftover food?” she asks when Hoseok places a glass of iced tea on her tray. They leave the food counters and turn around to find themselves a place to sit. 

“The food is donated to an orphanage on the outskirt of the town,” Taehyung explains when they sit down at a table in the back. It seems to be their regular spot, because there are students sitting on every table next to it and yet no one has invaded their space. 

“We also offer some to the church nearby.” Hoseok sits down across from Hara and grins. “They usually eat simple meals, but I know one of the pastors and he always compliments the cheesecakes we have here.” 

Hara is actually genuinely surprised, and she nods and busies herself with the caesar’s salad on her plate. Maybe there is some soul to these over-privileged people.

“So, how did the tour go?” Taehyung asks, holding a napkin to his mouth while he chews. 

“Fine.” Hara wonders where Jungkook is, but she finds she doesn’t entirely care. “I might still need some time to explore, however. This isn’t exactly a small building.”

Hoseok laughs. “Yeah, I get that. There are still some parts of the school I don’t know of.”

“Me too,” Taehyung pipes up, sipping his juice. “But we can do it together. I look forward to it.”

Hara just smiles and shrugs, pushing the food on her plate around. She keeps thinking about the rooftop-boy, and she finds herself wondering where he is. Maybe he’s eating? 

She tries not to be too obvious, throwing quick looks over Hoseok and Taehyung’s shoulders to search for an artificially dark head of hair, but she’s only rewarded with a couple of curious stares and she sighs and returns to eating her lunch. 

Hoseok and Taehyung are good conversationalists.

They manage to distract Hara with all kinds of subjects, and she feels her cheeks hurting from all the grinning. But it’s nice, it’s extremely nice to be able to relax for once, and before she knows it lunch break is over and the boys pout when they dispose off their trays. 

“Our classes end at two,” Hoseok says, frowning, and Taehyung gives Hara’s shoulder a friendly squeeze. 

“You should call Jungkook and tell him to take you home. There’s no point in waiting.”

“Fine,” Hara sighs and smiles, “I’ll see you on Monday?” 

Taehyung grins and pulls her in for a hug. “You’ll see us today.”

“And tomorrow,” Hoseok says. 

“And the day after.” Taehyung pulls back and ruffles Hara’s hair. “You’re not getting rid of us anytime soon, Hara.”

“Great, time to find the painkillers,” Hara jokes and Hoseok cackles while Taehyung fakes a shocked gasp.

“You will regret those words,” Taehyung says dramatically, pointing a finger at Hara as Hoseok pulls him backwards. “Mark my-”

“Ignore him. See you later, Hara!” 

Hara laughs as she watches them leave, but she’s instantly reminded of where she is when she looks around and notices everyone staring. 

She quickly turns on her heel and makes her way out of the cafeteria. 

It isn’t difficult to find the exit and she leaves the building, briskly walking in the direction of streets across from campus. She follows the road while looking around for any signs of a bus stop, and she thankfully finds it right there, a few feet ahead of her. 

It isn’t until she’s sitting in the back of the warm bus that she realizes she forgot to return rooftop-boy’s blazer. 

Deciding that she’ll do it on Monday, Hara plugs in her headphones and leans her head against the window, closing her eyes when her playlist starts playing.