There. There they are. Her eyes glared directly towards the group of three girls sitting at a table in the school cafeteria. One blonde girl sat across from two other brunettes who just couldn’t stop touching each other. The blonde girl rolled her eyes engrossed at the sight in front of her then looked around the cafeteria in hopes of searching for something, or possibly someone. None of the three were aware a group of bystanders has been watching them for the past 30 seconds. 

“Victoria jie jie, what are you thinking?” Asked a girl with long dark hair who also stood by Victoria the previous day. She turned her attention back to Victoria from watching the group of three girls waiting for her leader’s response. 
*jie jie = equivalent of “unnie” in Mandarin

Victoria’s glare was still on the three girls, especially towards the blonde girl who sat by herself. She slowly placed her right hand against her cheek then remembered the pain she received from Yuri just the day before. The physical pain had long eased but the insult to her superior status still stung her pride. She squinted her eyes as anger arose once again as she continued to glare at the group of girls. 

After she stood there with her two “followers” for long enough, she looked down at the cup of latte in her hand. She could feel the heat irradiating from the boiling liquid through the foam cup and see slight smokes waving above the surface. It was then that she thought of a plan for a small revenge. An evil smile crept up her face and she began to walk towards the girls from the direction their backs were facing. The smile widened as she enclosed the distance between the blonde girl and the cup of latte. 

Suddenly, she felt a brute force against her arm, then her chest soon afterwards causing her to step a few steps back. By the time she realized what has just happened, her chest was already in great pain caused by the splash of boiling latte from her cup. She screamed in pain then quickly used her fingers to pull the shirt away to keep the drenched fabric from her skin. She blew on herself repeatedly but it offered little comfort. 

“Victoria jie jie, let us take you to the nurse’s office!” Said the girl that spoke earlier. She too, was helping Victoria by wiping the latte away with the napkins she had found nearby. 

“Oh…oops. I’m sorry.” A voice apologized sarcastically. 

“You!” Victoria yelled and glared at the culprit who has caused her to be in pain for the second time that week. “Kwon Yuri. You will regret this!” She screamed even louder as the burning sensation of her chest increased. At that very moment, she wished she could kill Yuri for what she has done. Not only has she insulted her the previous day, but now has caused her skin to burn from boiling latte. Victoria has never felt so angry till that day. 

Soon enough, Victoria realized that arguing with Yuri wasn’t going to ease her pain and quickly left the scene to seek medical attention with the assistance of her two followers. Yuri stood there watching and smirked. 

“Yuri-ah, what just happened?” Jessica asked as she stood next to Yuri and wrapped her arm around the latter’s. 

“Oh nothing, some girl was trying to burn my beautiful girlfriend with a hot latte so I thought I’d do the same to her.” Yuri responded and smiled again. “It’s really nothing.” She assured Jessica and used her free hand to tap the latter’s hand. The two then took their seats next to each other across Taeyeon and Tiffany.

“She sounded like she was in a lot of pain.” Tiffany commented. “Yuri-yah, you shouldn’t have done that. What if she gets a really bad burn because of what you did? A scar on a girl is pretty serious you know?” 

“If that happens then she deserves it.” Yuri responded coldly. “Let’s move on and just eat breakfast quickly so we can head to class.” She instructed and started to dig in on the food she had just bought. Although acting like a heartless person, Tiffany’s words did strike her sense of guilt. Well she would’ve done it to Jessica if I hadn’t stopped her. She reasoned to her conscience. Well you’ve just stopped her from doing so without hurting her. Her conscience replied. 

***

The bell rang and only seconds after were the hallways of the school filled with students exiting from their classes. Some by themselves threaded their ways through the hallways in hopes of being able to reach their next class on time while other students walked slowly amongst their group of friends. 

“Someone told me Victoria received a really bad burn on her chest from what you did last week.” Tiffany spoke as she stepped next to the person whom she was speaking to. The group had just exited the building their previous classroom located and was headed towards the gym locker rooms to change into their tennis practice outfits. 

“Oh really.” Yuri commented nonchalantly. “My Jessica would’ve received a really bad burn on her face hadn’t I stopped her.” Although sounding as cold as she did, Yuri did feel a sense of guilt rising up in her chest. But being proud of herself, she didn’t want to show any sign of guilt or concern for the girl that tried to harm her girlfriend. She needed to convince herself that she did the right thing. 

“But you didn’t have to…” Tiffany once again tried to convince Yuri that what she did was wrong. However before she was allowed to finish her sentence, she paused as she witnessed crowds of students rushing towards them, screaming and yelling. “What’s…going on?” She asked then quickly switched her position to stand next to Taeyeon. Withing moments later, she was able to grab and hold on to her lover’s hand. 

“Shooting!”

“Police!”

“Robber!”

“On campus!”

“Guns!”

The crowds of students continued to run towards them screaming such words, all looked pale and terrorized. It was chaotic, so chaotic that they tore the group of four girls apart from each other.

“Jessica!” Yuri screamed as soon as her hand felt the absence of Jessica’s warmth. She looked around to see if she could find her or the other two girls but there were just too many people around her. She struggled to push her way through against the crowds but eventually was pushed along the path the students were running forward. Her heart raced, she didn’t know what to do. And even if she wanted to look for the others, she wasn’t strong enough to fight the current of students. 

She thought of her cell phone and quickly reached into her pocket but only to find that it was not there. “Ah, crap. I left it in the room this morning.” She cursed herself and her bad luck. Jessica and the other girls were still nowhere in sight. 

Despite the chaotic scene, a group of three girls watched from the side. They witnessed the separation of the group ofthose Korean girls. They witnessed the blonde, the short, and the American making their ways safely back into the building they had just exited. And they also witnessed the b!tch being stranded and lost in the midst of the chaos. Revengeful eyes and an evil smirk crept upon the face of the leader of the group. She whispered into the ears of her followers and they quickly dashed off to fulfill their commands. 

With one last smirk, the leader started to make her way towards the lost girl. She threaded through the crowds of student and grabbed onto Yuri’s hand. Soon, she was able to pull Yuri with her out of the stream of students towards the side. 

“Jessica?” Yuri asked hopefully but her smile quickly turned sour when she was able to identify the owner of the hand that is holding onto hers. She quickly pulled her hand away from the girl’s grip. “You…what do you want?” She asked coldly at the girl in front of her, unsure of her intentions. 

“You look for Jessica? I can take you her.” The girl spoke, struggling with her limited Korean. 

“You know where she is?” Yuri inquired with untrusting expression. The girl nodded. “Why would you help me? After I gave you a burn.”

“Because…I realized I wrong. And I want make it up.” She struggled again with her broken Korean. “Come, we don’t have much time.” She stated then grabbed Yuri’s hand again to drag her along with her far from where they were standing, far from where Jessica actually was. 

“Yah, where are you dragging me?!” 

Yuri did not trust Victoria completely. She was slightly moved by what the girl had just told her but she did not trust her. The only things that kept her from snapping her hand out of Victoria’s were her helplessness on finding Jessica on her own as well at the guilt that had been building up inside of her for what she did to her. This might be a trap but there was a small chance Victoria was sincere. 

However, Yuri immediately questioned her decision and cursed herself for being gullible when she noticed her surroundings. Victoria has dragged her to an empty corner of the university, the tennis court. On usual days, this court would be filled with students practicing but because of whatever happened earlier, the court was deserted. 

“Where is Jessica?” Yuri had to ask, giving Victoria the benefit of the doubt. 

Victoria smirked. And Yuri knew she had been fooled. Within seconds, a big black trash bag was raised over Yuri’s head and quickly covered her entire body. Victoria’s two followers were seen behind Yuri, pinning her down on the ground with the trash bag still covering her body. 

“No one dared to raise their voice to me, how dare you!” Victoria screamed in Mandarin, a language which Yuri was not familiar with. In fact, besides “Ni Hao” and “Wo-men se ___,” Yuri knew nothing of the language. So she just lie there without a clue of what Victoria was screamimg to her ears about. 

“And you also dared to hurt me!” Victoria yelled again. This time her voice wasn’t the only thing going at the clueless girl pinned on the ground. Her two-inch heels dug their ways into Yuri’s stomach causing the girl to cry painfully. 

“After I get out, I won’t let this by!” 

“What’s that?” Victoria asked sarcastically then continued to kick Yuri repeatedly without care where or how hard the kicks were. She hated Yuri with all her guts. It was true. No one has ever treated her as badly as Yuri did. All her life, people spoke and behaved according to her mood because of the power and money her dad had. She was able to get away with anything and everything. This time was no exception. 

When her legs became tired and she had lost the excitement in kicking Yuri, Victoria came to a stop. However when she took a look at her surroundings, she noticed that her two followers were nowhere in sight. She had been too busy kicking Yuri to notice that they had secretly ran away after seeing the shadow that was standing behind Victoria.

“Raise your hands!” A sudden rough, coarse voice yelled causing Victoria to stiff up. 

Victoria eventually turned around and was faced with a man. He was rugged looking with unshaven beard, mustache, and sideburns. Totally unattractive. She thought. He wore a white t-shirt on the inside with a gray vest on the outside and some unattractive old-fashion jeans that people used to wear in the 80s. He also wore a cap that managed to cover part of his face, which Victoria was glad for because that way she didn’t have to look at his face. But the most important fact about the man was that he had a gun in his hand, and it was pointing directly at her. She quickly raised her hands in the air. 

After the beating halted, Yuri began to tear the trash bag apart using her nails, not that she had much left since most of them broke when she struggled to break free from being pinned down on the ground earlier. But soon enough, she was able to break free. Her hair was messy, her clothes were wrinkled but not too dirty since she was wrapped in a trash bag. Her face filled with red bruises from all the kicking, and under the fabric of the clothes her body filled with cuts and even more bruises. It ached her to even stand up on her feet. 

“Yah, I am so going to kill you!” Yuri threatened, still unaware of the current situation. 

“You too! Raise your hands!” 

Hearing the voice of the man, Yuri quickly looked up and was finally aware of the situation. She obeyed her orders and raised her hand. Her heart panicked slightly, she had never been in a situation like this. “See Victoria, when people run for their lives, you should too.” She still managed to put it to Victoria sarcastically. 

“Shut up.” Victoria answered back. 

The two were at lost as to what was going to happen but within moments later, police officers with guns appeared from all directions and surrounded the man and two girls. And just when the two girls thought they’d be safe, the man quickly grabbed Victoria, turned her around, held her against his body, then pointed his gun at her head. 

“Freeze!” 

“If you do anything, I will kill her!” The man demanded and tightened his grip on Victoria as well as the gun against her head. 

“You’re surrounded!” A police officer stated. “You can’t escape. So just surrender.”

“Yeah, just surrender, please?” Victoria asked in the midst of helplessness. 

“Shut up or I’ll shoot you!” The man screamed and once again put pressure on the gun ahead her skull causing the girl to scream in terror. 

The sudden burst of fear pushed Victoria towards bravery as she bit into the hand of the man as hard as she could and used the heels that tortured Yuri to step on the man’s right foot. When she heard the man yelped from the pain she’d caused, she quickly broke free of his grip and jumped towards Yuri, the person closest in distance to her at the moment. 

Luckily, Yuri was able to catch Victoria after the sudden move, preventing her from hitting the ground. However, she also noticed that the man quickly regained his awareness and was pointing his gun towards them. She was scared. She didn’t know what to do. Then finally, throwing all hatred for the girl in her arms aside, Yuri chose heroism and quickly spun their bodies around, leaving her back open to be fired upon. 

After two shots were heard, the man quickly fell down the ground with a visible bullet straight into his head and the police officers quickly ran over to confirm his death. 

“Yuri! Yuri!” Victoria screamed. She stood there and witnessed Yuri’s body slowly sliding down against her own. Yuri did not say a word or made any noise, she just slid down. “Yuri!” 

***

“Yuri-yah! You have to be okay!” The voice of her beloved yelled for her. She felt her hand being held onto by another hand. She recognized the touch, it was her touch, it was Jessica’s tough. Yuri tried as hard as she could and managed to open her eyes. Finally, after those hectic times, she was able to see the face she’s been looking for all day. She smiled looking at her. All worries gone.

“Don’t worry. She only got shot near her thigh, she won’t die.” Said one of the emergency crew members as he and another member pushed Yuri’s body to the ambulance from the tennis court. 

“Babo, why are you smiling?” Jessica asked. She was worried to death when she heard the news that Yuri had been shot. Tears began to fill up her eyes when she saw the emergency crew pushing the latter’s body on the rolling bed. But seeing Yuri’s silly smile, she couldn’t help but to also smile, making the tears in her eyes to finally escape and roll down her cheeks.

“Babo, why are you crying?” Yuri smiled again and used her hands to wipe away the tears. “And I’m smiling because you’re not the one lying here right now. That you’re safe and unharmed.”