Ever since that night, I had been coming to the library everyday. 

Hoping for the chance to see that girl again, she never did tell me her name. Picking up my cup of coffee and finishing the last of the contents, I pushed through the cheap wooden door and I hastily close my jacket cursing myself for not dressing more suiting for the winter weather. The scenery was coated with a thin layer of snow, resembling sugar at it's sweetest. But like a tiny speck of garbage, one tossed ever so carelessly on the ground, was the girl. The little girl I had been waiting for looking for, but she wasn't anything like how I had last seen her.

She was broken. She was a doll, a toy for a spoiled child. Once broken, was useless. She was useless. But I could fix her. Fix her so that I could be that spoiled child, but I wouldn't ever throw her in the rubbish. She was far too beautiful for that. She was a child, one I intended to care for. I slowly picked up her small body, her weight that of a feather and her frame far to fragile to be handled in such a harse way. As weak as she was, I could still feel the pressure of her little hand desperately trying to hold on to me. 

Cold. Everything about that day was cold. From the weather, the looks from the people who saw me carrying her when I passed and her. As I arrived to my apartment, I rang the door. My thoughts to preoccupied on the girl's condition and how she came about this condition. I shooed the nagging from Hongki, which immediately ceased as soon as he laid eyes on the poor child. Hongki left for another room, frantically searching for what looked like the first aid kit. I put her down on the couch, her blood staining the velvet white couch. 

Tears threatening to fall. Why was this girl so important to me? Until this morning, my mind fabricated on this girl. I thought of her as an ignorant child, who needed to be disciplined. But I saw the horro this girl had to face, her body being evidence. Abuse.

Hongki returned with the first aid kit in hand, as serious as I have ever seen him. My body froze, my blood drained from my face with the scene in front of me. As Hongki lifted her shirt off, in order to clean the wound that already seemed to be infected, her body covered in bruises was exposed to the ever so clueless Hongki and shocked the both of us. We quickly returned to cleaning her wounds. There were small thin cuts all over her body, and one huge gash across her stomach. 

By the time we had finished cleaning and bandaging her body. We were beyond exhausted, we sat in the kitchen directly parallel towards the couch she was lying on. With both of our eyes on her, we eyed the small girl's frame and the amount of trauma that was done to it. The obvious was stated, she was abused. We didn't know by who or by what. But she needed help. 

We looked eachother in the eyes. Anger and confusion clear in our eyes.

Without words, we knew.

We understood.

We were once abused, too.