CHAPTER 4
Always Out of Place[March 4th 2020] [2 MONTHS AGO]
It was her mom… She’s not defending herself against those judgmental rumors because it was her mother’s doing? Eccentric thoughts continue to bug Joohyun as she stares at Seungwan in class.
Because of what happened last night, she figured it was best to stay out of Seungwan’s sight for a while. Although she doesn’t know why, there was something about the way Seungwan looked at her that conveyed she’s not happy about that encounter. She wasn’t pleased whenever they ran into each other for the past two days, but last night was different.
The deep pondering ended when other students started leaving. Joohyun shakes her head to snap back to her senses, knowing that she hasn’t listened to anything their professor had discussed. She would’ve told Sooyoung about it and sought answers to her questions to shut her distracting thoughts down, but Sooyoung is nowhere to be seen, and Joohyun doesn’t have her number yet.
“Is it even possible to avoid her?” Joohyun sighs, recalling that she has the same schedule as Seungwan for the rest of the semester.
She keeps her blank notebook that doesn’t have any written notes besides the repeated scribbles of the word “mom” and “why” back in her bag. She takes her sweet time in an attempt to let Seungwan get to their next class first. That way she can choose a seat that’s nowhere near her. Just then, Lisa approaches her from behind.
“You alright?” She asks to get Joohyun’s attention.
Startled, Joohyun gets up from her seat and looks at Lisa who's now in front of her.
“Oh, it’s you. I didn’t know you also attend this class.”
“Of course, you didn’t. You were distracted throughout the hour.” The bob-haired woman remarks.
“W-was I? I didn’t get enough sleep last night. I guess that’s why.”
Lisa was apparently doubtful but chose to move on and not make things awkward. So instead, she asks, “Have you checked whom you’ll be taking care of for the next two weeks?”
Joohyun proves, once again, with her expression that she was indeed distracted the whole hour. She had no clue about what Lisa had just mentioned. But as their conversation continued, the sight of Jennie and Lisa together flashed in Joohyun’s head.
She got reminded of what she had seen yesterday, so instead of asking Lisa about this checking-whom-to-take -care-of thing, she answered “No, not yet” and then excused herself.
Fortunately, Joohyun records every lecture she attends. Since she's not exactly the intelligent type and is often distracted, she resorts to recording lectures to get back on track in case she misses something… just like today. This method was introduced to her when she was a freshman, and it had worked really well for her that she decided to carry the habit to date.
When she arrived at the lecture hall, Joohyun couldn’t believe the situation she was caught in. She took her sweet time on purpose, but her conversation with Lisa seemed to have dragged too much of it. She arrived before the professor came, but it was too late to choose a seat.
The lecture hall was occupied, and the only empty seats were those in between groups of friends and the almost-empty seat in the front row. “Almost-empty” as Seungwan is the only one seated on it. Of course, Joohyun whispers to herself. The smart anti-social kid in class sitting alone. A very likely scenario.
She has a choice, but she doesn’t really want to bother people to move a few seats for her. It’s not a big deal if she did ask them, but she has this understandable fear of attracting attention from others. With it, she chose to sit in the front row but settled by the opposite end, leaving at least a five-foot gap between her and Seungwan.
When everyone, including the professor, had settled, Joohyun thought she’d make it through the class without communicating with Seungwan. But lectures are not complete without the late-comers.
In three minutes, the five-foot gap between them narrowed down to two. And not soon after, another woman entered the hall. Joohyun’s eyes focused on her while unconsciously chanting “not here” in a whisper. But there were not many vacant seats left; the woman stopped to look around.
“You can sit here, miss.” The professor suggests.
Joohyun turned to look where the professor was pointing and froze when she realized it was the seat beside her.
Since she refused to move, Seungwan took the initiative to make room for the late-comer. But as she scoots over, she leans to Joohyun’s direction, whispering: “Let’s talk later.”
Joohyun gazes at Seungwan to confirm whether or not it is her that she's talking to, but Seungwan is already focusing on the lecture. She kept staring, waiting for Seungwan to look at her, but her prolonging was of no avail, so she subsequently took advantage of the other woman's nonchalance to study her face.
She stumbled over words that perfectly describe Seungwan’s face, but she is very attractive, she thought. And even if she can’t help but notice the bluish bruise on her jaw that remained unconcealed behind the lax make-up, she’s still at a point where she's clueless about what to do because they’re no better than strangers. She can only exhale in frustration.
--
The students proceeded to step out of the hall one after another when the lecture ended, leaving only Seungwan and Joohyun still seated beside each other. When the remaining students finally stepped out, Seungwan hints at Joohyun with an awkward clearing of . Joohyun, although still nervous for no reason, receives it well and arises from her pretend nap while they wait for everybody to leave.
As much as Joohyun tried to, she couldn’t keep up with the intense eye contact. Seungwan was looking at her straight in the eye, practically staring into her soul. Joohyun kept looking away from the persistent stares and soon couldn’t keep it together, so she initiated to speak first.
“About y-yesterday…”
“Let’s not talk about it.” Seungwan answers almost immediately, leaving Joohyun in a daze.
“But… isn’t that the reason you wanted to talk?”
“No. I wanted to talk to you because I want you to do something for me.”
“You mean a favor?” Joohyun asked, still confused.
Losing the intense eye contact, Seungwan continues. “I need a stand-in at work later this day. Sooyoung is not around, and I don’t know anybody else who doesn’t have anything better to do.”
Her remark leaves Joohyun offended amidst her confusion, but she has chosen to excuse the rude behavior. She’s just having a hard time, she gaslights herself. “Why do you need to work?” She asks instead.
“The same reason other people do.”
“O-Okay? But why do you need a stand-in?”
“I’ll get fired if I miss another day of work.”
“Why can’t you attend today? We have no classes left.”
“I have another job interview.”
“You’re skipping work to get another job?”
The conversation they’re having struck Joohyun with a roller coaster of emotions. She’d feel nervous, confused, annoyed, and now even feel admiration for Seungwan. The shift in emotions also causes her to shift from one thought to another that she’s back to recalling what she had witnessed yesterday.
“I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to talk about this, but I can’t help it—“ Before she could even finish, Seungwan cuts her off.
“My mom is mentally unstable. And yes, I am in studying this field in hopes of helping her… if that’s what you want to ask.”
Most of Joohyun’s questions in her head got their respective answer, but it felt strange that Seungwan blurted out those words with a straight face.
“So you’re doing all these for her, I see…”
Seungwan nods and halfheartedly answers. “You can say that.”
There was a moment of silence soon after. Seungwan went completely silent as she regretted disclosing such a thing, while Joohyun fiddled with her fingers as if regretting her decision to ask. So to try and set the awkward atmosphere off, Joohyun primps up, pretending to act confident as she asked. “If I were to go as your stand-in, would that make us, uhh… friends?”
“No. But it’ll make us even.” Seungwan says with a smirk that Joohyun found annoying.
“Tch. Even? When did I ever ask you for a favor?”
“Last Monday, you asked to tag along so you won’t be late for class.”
“You do realize that’s petty, right?”
“So what? It still works.” Answers Seungwan with a shrug.
Joohyun couldn’t help but smile at her peculiar reasoning. “Alright, I’ll go. But Seungwan… didn’t I just tell you yesterday?”
“Tell me what?”
In no time, Seungwan felt the warmth of Joohyun’s palm on her face. Joohyun gently caresses the side of her face and then gently tilts her head when her fingers finally cupped her chin.
“You missed a spot again. I told you to come to me if Sooyoung isn’t around to do your make-up.”
Since Joohyun refused to let go of Seungwan’s face, the latter looks at her with eyebrows furrowed. “Says someone who spent hours avoiding me.” She scoffs.
The unexpected backfire brought embarrassment to Joohyun; she didn’t know how else to react but to shove Seungwan’s face away from hers. She did it without thinking which caused Seungwan to feel unnecessary pain from her bruises.
“Ouch…” She groans.
“S-sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to…”
“Don’t!” Seungwan warns as Joohyun tries to touch her face once more, intending to help. “Just don’t do anything.”
“Alright. I’m sorry, let me just…” In a panic, Joohyun takes out her make-up kit from her bag. “Let me fix your make-up.”
“No, I’m good.”
“No, you’re not. You shouldn’t be doing your interview with your bruises visible on your face. It’ll leave a bad impression.”
Her genuine intentions convinced Seungwan to finally be off her guard and let her face be touched but still hesitated to come closer. She just shut her eyes tight as if expecting brutality.
The expression she displayed made Joohyun realize how painful those bruises actually were compared to how they appeared to be, so she went an extra mile to be gentle with her touch.
Seungwan’s expression softened in a few careful touches. With the littlest trust, her muscles finally relaxed, losing the tightness in her shut eyes. When Joohyun was assured that Seungwan was calm enough to talk to, she took her chance to ask. “Does Sooyoung know… that these bruises are caused by your m-mom?”
Seungwan appears to be relaxed regardless of the nosy question when she lightly shakes her head as a means of saying “no.”
“No?” Joohyun repeats in doubt.
“No… they’re not from my mom. Maybe the bruises on my back are... But not this one.”
The unexpected disclosure stops Joohyun from what she’s doing. She stopped for too long; Seungwan decided to finally opened her eyes, only to see Joohyun gazing at her with so much puzzlement in her eyes. “What do you mean?” She asks, almost in a whisper.
It took Seungwan a while to respond. She contemplated between the idea telling her or not, but the curiosity in Joohyun's eyes made it impossible to keep the answer untold. So after a suspire, Seungwan explains. “Loan sharks. These bruises are from being harassed by my creditors.”
--
[May 4th 2020] [PRESENT]
Walking home after her café shift, Seungwan rummages through her bag. She searched for her phone as she had wondered why it had not rung yet when it was past midnight. By then, Sooyoung’s email should have arrived already. But to her disappointment, she received nothing. Aside from Joohyun flooding her inbox to check on her, nothing else came.
Failing to notice the humungous tree ahead of her, Seungwan bumps into it. She put her weight on the sole of her feet to keep her from falling, but her nose and forehead couldn’t be saved. They suffered the roughness of the tree bark as she bumped.
“Damn it.” She cursed while rubbing her nose.
She had been staring at her phone for so long that she had not realized she was nearly home. She looked around after she got to her senses, and it was only then that she realized she was in front of the neighborhood’s rundown bakery.
She takes a moment to get a glimpse of the bakery. Although it’s merely beside her home, it has been a while since Seungwan paid attention to it. She also passes by it every day, but she ignores it on purpose in fear of reminiscing unwanted memories. Be it the good ones or the bad ones.
It was the bakery that her mother used to run.
It was the bakery she grew up in and the place that served as her playground while her mother was busy trying to make ends meet for her. All these part-time jobs that Seungwan is currently going through were unnecessary when their bakery was operating, but it had to close down when her mother could no longer manage.
Seungwan heaves a heavy breath as she walks towards the entrance of this long missed place. She had decided to check on it with feelings of guilt. She felt awful that she had been too clouded about Sooyoung’s passing. So much that she had not thought often about her mother, who had also passed away not too long ago.
She hadn’t thought so much about her mom and had never talked about her because nobody else was aware of her passing. Only her cousin, who sometimes watches over her mom while she studies, knows about it, but she’s not really someone who Seungwan can talk to about the difficulty of her grieving.
And not even the genuinely concerned Joohyun knew.
As soon as the door opened, Seungwan was welcomed by a damp atmosphere, smelling like the heaviest layers of mildew. She attempts to turn on the lights, but it’s either one of the switches or the bulb which no longer works; she has to use her phone to light up instead.
Walking in, Seungwan runs her fingers through the pastry stands as if trying to discern how much dust was accumulated after years of zero maintenance. Some of them were already covered with rust; the walls bare moldy cement due to the worn-off paint.
Seungwan thought she’d be down memory lane, but she was too distracted by how worn down the place was that nothing else came to mind.
When she got to the counter, a red blinking light caught her attention. She came closer to see what it was, but she could not think of any other possible source of light inside. She even tried to block it, thinking it was only a reflection from outside. But the red light remained.
“It’s not a reflection?” She whispers. “Then… the cash register?”
To prop up her suspicion, she pulled away the cloth that concealed the source of this light. In doing so, she even turned away to avoid the expected heavy layer of dust.
To her surprise, however, it wasn’t the cash register under the covers. She confirmed it after seeing the actual machine by the opposite end. What was in front of her was another monitor.
Seungwan gaped in shock when she recalled what the monitor was for. She dashed outside to see if she was right and almost screamed when she saw the CCTV still flashing a red light regardless of the cobwebs around it.
It is still booting.
Seungwan then rushed back inside to see if the monitor was also working.
No… damn… way… She exhaled when it , directing her to the footage being taken outside at the moment.
What the hell…
She was more than astonished that it still works after years of not having it touched. She even browsed through the files to check if the data saved were not corrupted, and they actually weren’t. There was at least three months' worth of data in there, and all of those are dated recently.
“Is this programmed to operate by itself? There’s no damn way this is actually working…” She kept talking and cursing by herself in the dark.
She kept browsing and playing random pieces of footage in astonishment until she stumbled upon a file she failed to realize she actually needed. Dated March 29, 2020, the footage from two months ago.
“T-this…” She trembled, hesitating to watch it as it might not contain the actual footage of what she wanted to see, but she would never know unless she actually went through it. So she pressed on play with so much anxiousness building up inside her.
She went straight to dusk in hopes of eradicating her anxiety faster, and then gradually skipped 10 seconds at a time but made sure to observe thoroughly.
After a few minutes of browsing, the footage finally shows a cab stopping in front of the bakery. Right then and there, Seungwan knew it was the cab she was expecting because the chance of a cab stopping in front of her home was nearly at zero.
From there came out the woman she was most expecting to see.
Sooyoung…
You actually came… that night…
But followed by the cab that brought Sooyoung to her place was another car more than familiar to Seungwan. She knew the car so well that her heart wouldn’t stop pounding just by the sight of it.
“The loansharks?!”
A/N: Well... Let's unravel things one by one :) What do you think happened on the 29th of March? ㅋㅋ
We're still at a point where the story is kind of confusing, but we'll get there ^^
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