Chapter 6:

The pain in the morning was excruciating. No, I wasn’t used to it and yes, it was my first time taking a beating. I didn’t have abusive parents. I didn’t suffer from bullying in the past. The eruption of pain the moment I woke up was definitely a first.

“Damn…” I sighed, rolling out of bed.

I’d had better Saturday mornings than this. In fact, I was beginning to wonder how people in movies dealt with this. Their bruises lasted for a day or two, never more than three days. The nasty bits of black and purple on my face and stomach and other random parts of my body looked like they’d last months to me.

In the back of the freezer, I discovered one of my long lost ice packs. It was back from the time when I had sprained my ankle. Alright, I wasn’t one of the most coordinated people to walk on the face of the Earth. 

Unfortunately, the ice pack wasn’t going to cover all of my bruises. And unless I had some unreal plan of taking super scissors and cutting it to pieces that could individually cover all the black and blue spots, I was just going to have to choose the worst area.

I examined my body in the mirror, taking note all of the spots that looked the worst. However, once I found one that looked bad, another worse one seemed to pop out. One on the back of my leg, where I was initially kicked and brought to my knees, stuck out to me. It was an unusual spot in the first place to have a bruise. It was looking so bad to me that I was about to put the ice pack on it.

But then I saw the bruise on my stomach when my shirt slightly lifted. That was a place where the pain was most extreme but I never figured there to be a mark actually there. However, I watched myself in the mirror and saw the bruise glare back at me in all its purplish glory.

Even looking at it made me feel sick.

“Dear god…” was all I could manage as I put the ice pack over my warm and bothered stomach, hissing in a breath instead of crying out in pain.

I was gripping the counter, standing there with the ice pack, unable to move. And then the phone rang, causing me to shake as I removed the ice pack and scrambled over to the kitchen counter, picking up my cell.

“Y-Yeoboseyo!” I greeted a little too loudly.

“Yah!” Chanyeol’s voice made me hold the phone away from my face. “Where the hell are you?!”

Normally Chanyeol was overly happy about everything in his life, finding a joke to make about every possible situation, no matter how serious. So hearing him like this, I wondered what was wrong.

But then I remembered before he even said anything.

“You’re l-“

“LATE FOR WORK!” I cried. “Oh …”

“Yeah!” Chanyeol responded, snapping. “You’re lucky I’m covering for you but you know the manager stops by soon!”

His desperate voice rang loudly through the speaker of the phone.

I was in so much pain before that I had gone to sleep carelessly, forgetting about my alarm. It was late at night anyway. I had totally forgotten that I worked from ten to three.

I was scrambling around my apartment while he yelled at me.

“, Kyungsoo!” Chanyeol said. “I’m going to get in trouble for this too!”

I rolled my eyes at his drama.

“You are not,” I growled through the phone, still searching everywhere for a change of clothes, wincing at every painful step.

“Oh and by the way,” Chanyeol added. “There’s an American chick here asking for you. She wants only you.”

I stopped suddenly in thought. She came back. That girl. I was wondering if she was starting to like my presence a little too much for her own good.

Then I shook my head and was about to head out when I spotted the Yankees baseball cap from the principal. I was about to leave it when I remembered the ‘un-beautiful’ state of my face at the moment.

Stuffing the cap on my head and pushing it forward to put a shadow of the bruises, I strutted out the door, realizing that walking as fast as I could wasn’t a good idea.

The bus was moving too slow in my opinion. It was going the speed limit yet I felt like killing someone because of the painstakingly slowness it possessed.

When I got off at my stop and rounded a few corners, I spotted my managers car parking by the shop. It was just my luck.

“Oh crap,” I muttered, sneaking around the side of the building, pressing myself tightly against the wall, the cars parked in front of me shielding the manager and I from viewing each other.

Ignoring the searing pain in my stomach and just about everywhere else in my body, I sprinted across the street quickly to the back of the building. There was a window in the back that led to the storage room. If I was lucky, it would be open.

But of course I was not a lucky person today. It was closed and locked.

I knocked furiously on the glass, hoping the big guy Chanyeol would hear it but from what I could barely see, through a cracked door, he seemed to be chatting it up with the foreigner girl. This was bad. The manager was going to be inside any moment.

I heard a muffled sound of a bell as the door opened. It had to be the manager. Dammit. Dammit.

“A-Ah…a-annyeonghaseo!” I heard Chanyeol’s low and loud, dopey voice through the glass.

“Chanyeol…” I moaned. “Please turn around…”

“Where’s Kyungsoo?” The manager wondered. Or at least that was what I heard. It could’ve actually been “Where’s Kyungsoo so I can kill him?”

“U-Uh…he is…” Chanyeol began to look around. “Geez, that guy where’d he disappear to?”

Just a little more…

Eye contact was made.

“Oh um the storage room!” Chanyeol suddenly exclaimed. “Lemme, uh, go get him!”

I would’ve applauded the guy had he not said ‘uh’ every five seconds. Or maybe if he hadn’t sounded like such a liar.

Or possibly if he didn’t slam the storage door shut suspiciously.

“Yah!” His voice got clearer the moment he opened the window, allowing me in.

I stumbled in, collapsing on top of him and covering his mouth.

“You can’t scold me here,” I whispered. “Or the manager’s going to hear you. We’ll talk later.”

“Okay but-“ Chanyeol stopped immediately and pulled the cap off my face. “Oh god! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I remarked, trying to stand, wincing in the process.

But Chanyeol kept exploring my face with his hands, over every bruise. The innocent guy couldn’t bring himself to understand.

“What is this?” He demanded. “Who-“

I cut him off again and pointed to the door, reminding him of who was outside.

“We’ll talk later,” I repeated.

I started to look around. The storage room was pretty dark because the lights were out, however, the window did provide some light, which lit up the many shelves that went high up with assortments of different coffee beans, some blended and some unblended.

With the cap back on my head, I walked out .

“Manager Hyung,” I whined. “I tried to reach the top shelf but I fell!” I whimpered a little more, revealing my bruises slightly.

“Oh god!” Our manager exclaimed. “Kyungsoo-yah! Be more careful! You know you should let Chanyeol get these things for you! Aish, you’re so short!”

I pretended to look down in embarrassment but I was actually looking down in triumph.

“Ah! Kyungsoo-yah!” A bad accented voice break through my thoughts. “You’re here.”

The foreigner girl was staring at me, leaning on the counter. I was less worried about her presence and more worried about the fact that she said “You’re here” in Korean.

The manager looked at me, confused.

“A-ah!” I suddenly said. “No I was in storage the whole time.”

She was looking at me confused too.

“Sorry,” I quickly added. “I know you missed me, but now I’m back.”

She said nothing though and stared at my face. I knew she was looking at the injuries but I decided not to say anything about it and just faked a smile to Manager Hyung.

After the manager left, Chanyeol began the interrogation.

“Sit,” He immediately ordered, uncaring of the girl at the counter, still watching. “You must be in pain.”

I took in a shaky breath, suddenly remembering the whole experience from yesterday. It took a night for my bruises to develop but now they were fully matured and Chanyeol was seeing them clearly.

“I got beaten up,” I breathed.

“No !”

I’d never seen Chanyeol freak out so much. I didn’t want to even know what would happen if this had happened to Baekhyun.

“I don’t know …it was that guy and his friends,” I answered Chanyeol, referring to the article. “I think they thought I was getting too close to Kai.”

My fists started to clench by my sides.

“I don’t know why,” I continued. “I can’t even have a normal conversation with the kid without having thoughts of maliciously killing him one way or another.”

The dark clouds and cool air that surrounded the coffee shop didn’t help the mood and even the redheaded foreigner wasn’t wearing a smile.

Before Chanyeol responded, I went on, “I don’t get it. He saved me. He saved me yet he hates me. Why is the world so confusing?”

My head was down and I couldn’t tell if it was in shame, sadness or just pure confusion.

Chanyeol was once again cut off. But this time it was by the opening of a door.

“Um…” he said nervously.

My head was still lowered.

“What?” I moaned. “Please don’t give me a lecture about accepting Kai because I’m seriously debating taking his perfect hair and ripping it piece by piece, follicle by follicle.”

“Really now?” The arrogant, calm voice widened my eyes and made my head shoot up.

I now knew why Chanyeol was so nervous.

Kim. Jongin. Right there.

“G-God!” I cried, bolting upwards in surprise and walking back a few steps, clutching my aching stomach.

Jongin watched me, blandly, one earphone in his ears. I also realized that he, too, had his baseball cap on from yesterday. But the tanned boy had no bruises.

“Follicle by follicle,” He repeated. “That sounds like it would take a long time.”

I felt like I was being burned alive under his stare and for a moment, I forgot about the immense pain that had engulfed my stomach.

I stumbled forward to the counter, cracking my neck.

“Can I…” I trailed off as Kai reached out, with a blank expression, and touched my face, causing me to shiver.

“This makes you look uglier.” He said emotionlessly.

My face starting to burn red, I slapped his hand away furiously, realizing that the girl had gone back to the corner. I wondered if she was ever going to leave.

I noticed that he didn’t look that great either. His eyes had the worst bags I’d ever seen, there was a small burn on his arm and his hair was messier than usual. He looked tired.

“Just give me your order,” I hissed, biting my lip while making sure to glare at him.

“I would like an iced coffee,” Jongin’s cold voice drawled. “With three shots of expresso.”

Without even looking at Chanyeol, I reached my arm out and he handed me the apron we were required to wear. I slipped it over my head, still watching the handsome boy in front of me.

“So, you would like a v-“

“How many times to I have to tell you,” Kai interrupted. “I really do not ing care about the name of the drink that probably has no relation to any of the ingredients actually in it. Please just get it.”

I moved my lips, mocking. He seemed angry but his expression remained the same. I noticed that Chanyeol and the girl were watching us in shock. They were watching me with a look that read why-are-you-going-against-that-guy.

“Yes, sir,” I answered, turning around to concoct it and making a face at Chanyeol, who was slightly smiling now, a look that replaced his shock well.

Once I reached the counter behind me though, I doubled over in pain for a few seconds, and then regained my stance. I couldn’t show Kai this weakness. Not after he saved me. While a part of me hated his cold, laid back and arrogant attitude, I still had to be thankful for his presence yesterday.

If it wasn’t for him, I could’ve ended up in the hospital.

I made him the coffee flawlessly and handed it to him.

When our fingers brushed, I felt myself look at him with more sincerity for some reason. This was actually the first time he had my coffee. That last encounter his shirt consumed more coffee than he did.

“Not gonna slip up and spill it on me, are you?” Jongin challenged.

I realized there was something different about him today. He seemed less scary. I mean, I still felt like running him over with a bus that was set ablaze with fire, but now it was like I kept a fire extinguisher with me, just in case. Just in case…

“Are you a machine or something?” I wondered, as he stirred the ice around with his straw.

Kai looked at me, almost pissed but his expression was more confused.

“Excuse me?” He wondered. “A machine? Do I ing look like I’m made of metal?” For his harsh choice of words, he said them rather calmly and at a normal tone.

“Well,” I answered, enjoying Chanyeol’s amused look. “It seems as if sleep isn’t a part of your normal twenty four hour routine at all is it?”

Jongin scoffed stirring his coffee more before taking a sip.

“What are you, a psychologist now?” He breathed, raising an annoyed eyebrow.

I walked over to the counter so I was closer to him and touched one of the bags under his eyes.

“This makes you look uglier.” I said in a fake sweet tone, with a phony smile.

Kai’s eyes narrowed and he brushed my hand away but I realized the gesture was soft, unlike his normal roughness.

Was it because of yesterday after he pushed me? But it wasn’t that hard.

“Please,” he said, rolling his eyes, preparing to leave.

“Get some sleep, !” I called to him. “I heard it helps people smile!”

And as he walked out the door he flipped me off. I pretended not to notice and turned to Chanyeol who seemed like he was dying in amusement.

“God you guys were funny,” He said.

“Hey, who was that?” The foreigner finally got her chance to speak to me.

“Uh…” I racked my brain for a few seconds. “Not friend…” was all I could come up with. I was about to say Kai was my friend but friend’s didn’t act like we did.

“Chingu…aniya?” She furrowed her brows, trying to concentrate.

I gave her a thumbs up.

She finally smiled, showing her pearly white teeth.

I realized that she knew my name but I didn’t know hers.

“Your name…is what?” I asked her.

“Maggie Ann,” She replied excitedly. “But just call me Maggie.”

I nodded, not knowing whether to call her Maggie or Maggie Ann. I was pretty sure she just said something about it but I didn’t really have time to process.

“What M- does Maggie Ann want?” I wondered.

“Just Maggie,” She said in a reminding tone, but I still knew I wasn’t going to remember that. I liked saying Maggie Ann better.

“What I had yesterday.” Maggie Ann replied watching my expression. “Yesterday,” She repeated and I understood, getting back to work.

Chanyeol nudged my ribs.

“You got two people after you now!” He said, giggling.

“Two?” I questioned.

“Yeah,” Chanyeol remarked. “This Maggie Ann…and Kim Jongin!”