A badass gangster now demoted to a level of janitor.

I am embarrassed, enraged, uneasy, all at once, but I had to deal with this, so I had no choice but to suffer, suffer, and suffer. I didn’t know how I did it but I still managed to walk across the corridor with my chin up and striding as if no punishment was being weighed on my back.

“What are you looking at?” I sneered at one student, and he bowed several times, and along with his friends, they hurried off to their next class. I kept on looking-daggers at the other students, shooing them away with my glares, putting on a hard shell of toughness around this faltering pride. Just by walking across the floor I make students dashing to their next classes; maybe they’re afraid that they be sent straight to grave if they meet my eyes.

I walked ahead to the janitor’s closet. Upon reaching it, I stared at the wide, worn surface of what should be its door, dreading something unnamed and unknown. My pride was broken down to a billion irreversible pieces, and here was I, even having to undergo a hardship I didn’t deserve. I put my hand on the doorknob and pushed it open.

Creak…

That was most probably the worst sound in my life.

But instead of finding dirty and dilapidated cleaning materials I found myself face to face with something—no, I meant, someone—who had long curly brown hair and huge glasses, apparently the stereotype of nerd. What even proved that point was she was busily perusing a book. Finally, after maybe a three-second delay she noticed my presence and abruptly stood, shooting up straight from her position. “Oh my gosh!” she gasped.

I absolutely didn’t know her but I asked, “What are you doing here?”

She blinked several times, and eyed me from head to toe. Then she got it. I myself was a student, so what was I doing there? “I…was reading a book…” then from my peripheral vision I saw that she was indeed holding one, and was sandwiching her index finger between the pages she was reading. Though her answer was plain, the questioning look in her eyes could not be concealed. What are you doing here?

“Kim Yukwon,” I introduced myself, quite obviously pointing a finger at me.

The girl stared down at me with horror in her eyes, as if I were some ghastly foreign object she had but a first encounter of. I even saw her recoiling clandestinely a little pace, backing away like I had trouble written all on my forehead. “K…Kim Yukwon…?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

She met my eyes, fear ostensibly lurking in them. “Kim Yukwon. The Kim Yukwon of Black Dragon?” she didn’t even wait for me to nod. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry for being here!” she bowed several times in embarrassment, and from her voice I knew she was on the brink of crying. Hurryingly walking past me she resolved to go out of the room, apologetic for being in existence. “I’m very sorry! I didn’t mean to intrude into your personal matters!”

“Hey—wait!” I grabbed her wrist before she could completely get out of the room.

“Sorry! P-please don’t hurt me!” she shielded herself, her voice shaky, whimpering like a begging child. “I’m very sorry!”

Oh my god. This is startling.  “Hey—wait—uh—no, I’m not going to hurt you!”

Her whining stopped. Slowly, slowly, I put my hand on her chin and lifted her face so I could look at her in the eyes.

“I…well, I am Kim Yukwon, but I’m not going to hurt you,”

Her troubled face was now mingled with confusion.

“I was…sent here for a punishment,” I looked to one side, my face warming up in shame. “Old Man—I mean, the principal said suspension wouldn’t do me any good, so they had to inflict a punishment far worse than that,” sighing, I continued, “I know this will seem like I’ve fallen out of character, but honestly I’m trying to be better now,”

The nerd merely looked at me with curious eyes.

I finally let go of her, and then backed away, signaling her that she could go now. “Pardon; I’ve just been really stressed. I didn’t mean to tell you my entire life story,” I was already expecting her to dash off but surprisingly, she didn’t.

“Oh,” she muttered, still careful. “Kim-ssi…?”

“Just call me Yukwon,” I chuckled.

“Yu…Yukwon-ssi...” softly. “Sorry for being here. I didn’t know you were coming. If I knew, I shouldn’t have been here,”

“Hey, no—it’s not like that,” other guys getting scared of me had always been a lovely idea, but this harmless innocent girl is quite another matter. For some reason, she seemed really fragile.

“So…you’re not going to punish me?” Jihoon once tried using puppy eyes on me but that didn’t even say a thing to this one.

I shook my head. “No!” I added a little laugh to ease her. “I only hurt guys who go against me. On top of that I don’t hurt girls,”

Putting her hand on her chest she heaved this relieved sigh. “Th-thank you…”

I seem really that bad to them? “Um. Sorry,”

She blinked many a time.

“I…I didn’t mean to scare you,”

A pleasant smile broke out her face, almost lovely—and then she shyly shook her head. “No, Yukwon-ssi! I…I was just startled. Besides it was my fault; my coming here was a mistake,”

No, not that again. “Hey, come on—you did nothing wrong. And the way I see it actually I feel like I’m the one intruding. Ah, no, I am the intruder,”

She bowed her head again.

“You frequent here, don’t you?”

Timidly, “Y-yes…”

I couldn’t find any other good reaction to this so I just smiled. “You know, because you’re really sorry and I also offended you, why don’t we have a deal?”

She looked up, surprise evinced by her mien quite perfectly.

“Come here everyday at this time. This is my time schedule in cleaning the hallways. You’d be free during that, right?”

“Um…except on Tuesdays…”

I bobbed my head. “Well then. I don’t want to steal your little haven so I’ll just borrow it once in a while,”

Nerdy girl cracked up a pleasant smile. “No problem…”

“It’s a deal then,” I offered my hand for a shake, so as to seal the contract. After a while of staring down at it with flummoxed eyes, she took it.

And as it had been stated, we did act upon that arrangement. Everyday, except for Tuesdays, I would get to see her, and for more than once we had violated that by seeing each other even on times not according to plan. Truly, I learned a lot from her—and slowly, slowly, she learned something from me too—the lesson of not getting scared of me. I had made a friend out of her before I even knew it—hence the many times we had bonded while I was cleaning the hallways, with her helping hand. It started to get weird though—she became my morning motivation to go to school, and this janitor thing seemed more like a blessing than a punishment. After an excruciating stage of denial, I admitted to myself—dammit—that I like her.

But I guess I was a little late.