Chapter 3: Why Are You Always Angry?

“Can we be friends?”

Even when asking that dreadful question, he was still hiding behind YeJin’s tiny frame. 
What a scaredy cat!

“Can we, err, can we be friends?” he asked again, his voice was soft like a whisper; like he was terrified to even say it out loud.

“Hell, NO!” I said with disgust.

Just who in their right mind would like to befriend someone who had tried to murder them?

“ChaeRin, please,” YeJin was giving me this please-give-him-a-chance look.

I rolled my eyes. Nothing would make me change my decision.

Not a thing.

“ChaeRin, Lee ChaeRin,” her voice was more serious this time. 

I could sense a threat coming my way.

“What? I do have the right to say no whenever I ing want to, don’t I?” I said stubbornly. I sat down in fury and YeJin came to stand close in front of me, our knees touching, her hands crossed, and her eyes glaring. That timid little punk was still hiding behind her.

“Don’t make me do it,” she warned.
“Do what?!” I was on the verge of yelling. 
“Yeah, do what?” the timid little punk even had the gut to ask. 

YeJin turned to look at him and he immediately made the gesture of zipping his mouth with his hand. YeJin turned back to look-more like glare- at me. 

“Don’t make me call your Umma. Don’t let me make the SeungHyun Aftermath happen again,”

My eyes widened. 
 

Holy sh1t! 

I never ever thought that my best friend, the friend that had been with me for nearly 9 years would betray me for this stupid dumbo that she had just befriended for not even 9 hours. YeJin had definitely taken this whole Mother Theresa quest for way too far.

But the thing is that, there is nothing more terrifying to me than my Umma when it comes to these things and YeJin knows how much I had suffered, and how much I would rather die than go through the period we called the SeungHyun Aftermath ever again.



**Flashback to the SeungHyun Aftermath, 3rd Grade**------
 

“Umma, I can’t take it anymore. I have already learned my lesson. Please, just please, let me go,” I sobbed. The hands that I had put up for more than two hours were starting to bring unspeakable pain to my frail little hands.

“Shut up! Bring up your hands straight in front of you. Kneel properly!” the Hitler incarnation instructed.

Tears were already uncontrollably streaming down my cheeks. It was bad enough that I had to kneel down on the cold floor near the kitchen; my back was still sore from being caned by Hitler with the handle of the broom. Plus, I had not tasted food for nearly 16 hours and my stomach was hurting like hell.

I could see Appa shaking his head disapprovingly in the living room.

“Appa..” I tried to gain his sympathy. He was the head of the house so he definitely could overpower my Hitler-incarnation of a mother.

“Honey, don’t you think that she has learned her lesson? Let our daughter go, okay?” my father tried to plead on my behalf, his voice timid. Apparently, he knew that he was fighting for a lost cause.

“Don’t you dare plead for her,” Umma snapped, “It’s your fault that she’s so pampered. I didn’t raise her to become a bully and now she has to pay for her action. I’m so ashamed that she’d do such horrible thing to a fellow classmate just because he accidentally knocked into her. He even apologized! Lee ChaeRin, I am so disappointed with you,” Umma said while cleaning the stove.

Appa smiled apologetically at me and continued watching the television.

So I had to endure the punishment for nearly another hour before everything went pitch black.

I was in a beautiful garden. The flowers were blooming, the birds chirping, the river water sparkling under the bright sunshine.
I was roaming without direction when a group of people dressed in white - I figured they were angels - came near me.
One of them, a male angel, carried me on his shoulder and put me down on a comfortable white bed.
The angels then serve me food and massaged my sore body all over. They even put a warm towel on my wound. The angels then sang to me in a perfect harmony of voices.
It felt like I had died and gone to Heaven.
I was really contented with that kind of living. I didn't want to go back to my real life.

If this was death, I definitely prefer it over living.

That was exactly then that I awoke to my Umma’s loud voice.

Turned out I had fainted due to exhaustion and was taken to the hospital. My parents were questioned thoroughly because the doctor suspected I was being abused. Man, if it was up to me, I would ask the police to lock them up. That