The Rejected

Scene 4:  Something close to friends

The school cafeteria is noisy. Min talks to you about SHINee while she eats her lunch box, and you listen while you chew on your sandwich. To be honest, you just started to like KPOP so you’re really not that interested in what Min is saying. However, seeing her so happy talking about what she loves makes you warm inside. Min’s expression changes and that make you follow her gaze. Your eyes widen a bit as you see Tao walking in the aisle of tables followed by two other guys. Your eyes meet for a moment, and he nods at you.

“Hi.” Hs voice is deep.

Tao’s dark eyes look at you, and the energy in them makes you sigh with relief. He was beaten badly the other day, but it doesn’t seem to have affected his spirit.  His usually pale skin is still purple-ish and blue, and students are staring not-so-discreetly at him.

Rumors are already spreading.

“Hello.” You answer a bit awkwardly with a hint of a smile on your lips.

A surprised gasp leaves Min’s lips. The three young men walk by your table.

“Do you know her?” You hear one of his friends, the cute looking blond guy, ask Tao.

Tao spares him a glance but you can’t hear his answer as the three of them walks away to their usual table. The other guy, shorter than the others but with a manly face, says something as he looks at Min and you over his shoulder for a moment.

Min looks at you with a cunning smile. “That’s Luhan and Chen… I think...” She tells you.

“Ah.” Is all that leaves your lips.

“So…”Min leans over the table. “You and Tao are…friends?”

You flinch a bit, and turn to look at her. “I guess we’re something close to…friends?”

“Be careful. The three of them has a really bad reputation.”

School work is starting to get hectic, so you´re spending more and more time at your favorite spot in the library. You don’t have a part time job, or a family waiting for you at home since you moved away to study, so you can stay at school until sunset without feeling guilty. With a sigh, you lean back in your chair to rest your aching back after having been leaning over your thick book of English poems. Your stomach grumbles loudly.

“Ah…” You groan.

For a moment, you just want to escape your studies and go to the coffee shop for a break. You touch your stomach. Your head feels funny because you haven’t eaten. Another groan leaves your lips as you give up, leans down to grab your bag to leave. That’s when you see that you are not alone.

Tao’s friend, Luhan, is standing there leaning against a bookshelf with hands in his pockets looking straight at you. Eyes widen for a moment, you blink, before you try to leave just thinking it’s a coincidence that he’s there. However, he breaks the silence as you’re about to pass him.

“So, you´re that girl.”

You stop and turn around to look at him with a frown at your face. A strange, uncomfortable silence surrounds the two of you for a long moment before Luhan sighs deeply, and pushes himself away from the bookshelf to take some steps towards you.

“What do you mean?” You ask him, feeling a bit intimidated.

“You haven’t eaten, right?” He looks at you with an indifferent face. “Let’s talk over a meal.”

He has a very pretty face, but to you, he isn’t cute at all. He scares you. You’re now sure that Tao is a good person but you don’t know what kind of people his friends are. You didn’t pay attention to him or his group of friends before yesterday when you say them for the first in the cafeteria.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know you and I have dinner plans.” You lie.

Luhan stares at you for a moment before he laughs. The indifference is gone, and he looks a bit amused and maybe… a bit relieved.

“I’m Tao’s friend, and I won’t hurt you.” He chuckles. “I just want to talk.”

The breath you didn’t know you were holding leaves your lips. “Alright.”

After a deadly silent walk to a crowded fast food restaurant near campus, you sit down across from Luhan at a table in the middle of the room. He orders a large meal for himself before you order, and you find yourself wondering how a guy so skinny can eat that much. You feel a bit envious for a moment.

“So… why do you want to talk about me?” You ask.

He looks up at you, cheeks are covered with salt from his French fries.

“I’ve heard about you from Tao.” He tells you while eating. “That guy never calls us when he’s in trouble, although Chen nags about it all the time. You know, friends need to stick together right?”

You frown at his story. It feels like they’re apart of some kind of gang, and it makes you a bit uncomfortable. You know so little about them.

“I just wanted to find out what kind of person the girl who saved my friend twice is.” And he smiles at you for the first time.

He makes it sound as if you are some kind of hero and it makes you embarrassed, “I didn’t do much.” You shrug, as you take a sip of your coke. They must have been talking about you. You wonder what Tao told them.

Luhan doesn’t say anything but you can see that he doesn’t agree with you about that. He’s smiling to himself for some reason.

“Is Tao doing ok?” You ask.

Luhan seem a bit surprised over the question for a moment. “Uh, yeah. He’s fine. It just looks worse because he’s pale.”

You nod and lean back in your chair. After that, Luhan asked simple questions and although your chat first felt like an interrogation it turns to a friendly conversation. Whatever you said must have been what Luhan wanted to hear.

“I’ll see you around.” He tells you as you part ways after the meal.

You simply nod your head, wondering what he meant.

Although it’s supposed to be warmer inside, it feels like it’s just as cold as outside as you enter your apartment. You jump into your bed and crawl under the cover, as you check your cell phone. Since you has been busy all day, you haven’t checked it until now. Your stomach still turns as you see that Kris has sent you a text.

“Haven’t seen you around lately. Let’s hang out tomorrow, I miss my best buddy.”

You put your phone down, as you just lay there absorbing the warmth from your blankets for a while. The sudden meeting with Luhan made you tired, and the fact that you’re still not ready to meet up with your old crush makes you squirm. Your life used to be really boring and dull, and there were times you wished there was more drama, but now you just want to escape it all.

You look at your phone again, and write Kris a short reply.

You force a smile to your lips as you try to look interested in what Gina is talking about. She and Kris are sitting across from you, holding hands, as she tells you about what she did last weekend with her girl friends. Kris smiles at her tenderly, and your find yourself staring at him. You bite your lip, as you turn your eyes to Gina.

“Next time, you should join us!” She tells you suddenly, with an all too bright smile.

“Thank you, but to be honest, I’m not a party person.”

Kris laughs at this and nods, then he tell Gina about an embarrassing memory from the time you actually tried to join the parties Kris attended before you realized it wasn’t your thing. You force another laugh, trying to act like it doesn’t hurt that he makes you look even tinier to Gina. You haven’t felt more awkward in your life. You thought you’d just meet Kris today, and seeing his girl made your mood turn bad.

“Oh I see!” She laughs a bit.

I wish Min was here, you think to yourself. You want to make up an excuse so you can leave, so bad, but you just can’t. Kris asked you to come, and he still means a lot to you so you’ll stay. You’re currently sitting at a fancy café and you feel a bit out of place. Gina crosses her skinny leg over the other, and her shining high heels taps the floor rhythmically. She looks like one of those KPOP idols Min likes. You can’t help but feel bad about yourself, and you wish you had dressed up.

“Toilet break.” Kris comments as he gets up.

Gina looks at him lovingly as he does so. My eyes follow Kris as he disappears from out of sight and I flinch as I realize Gina has been staring at me.

“Listen to me carefully.” Her eyes turn ice-cold.

Your heart drops.

“…you better stay away from Kris from now on.”

It’s snowing heavily outside. You’re on your way home from your meeting with Kris and Gina, and you´re a bit depressed. She bluntly told you that Kris is his and that you’re in the way. Your heart drops. Maybe I should keep my distance for my own sake as well. You wrap your newly bought muffler around your neck.

You’re heading home and the sky gets darker for every passing minute. The sky is a beautiful sight this winter night. Without a warning, tears start falling down your cheeks. It makes your skin itch. Wiping them of almost violently, you simply continues walking down the road. I hate myself for feeling like this. You grit your teeth.

Suddenly, someone from behind calls out to you. You stop, wipe away the last traces of your tears, and turn around. Eyes widen as you see Tao standing there in the doorway, with his barista apron tied around his waist.

“It’s late.” He comments.

You look at him in surprise. That’s when you realize that you´re outside the café Tao works at. He must have spotted you through the window as you were about to walk by.

 “Yeah?” You´re a bit confused, and cold.  

He looks at you in a loss for words for a moment. He must have noticed that you have been crying. You try to hide your face with your muffler, and your look towards the other side of the road.

Bad timing.

“I’m closing the café. Come in and wait for a few minutes, and I’ll walk you home.” He suggests, breaking the silence.

His suggestion surprises you and at first, you thought of declining, but the cold outside convinced you that going inside would be a good idea. Tao smiles at you as you enter.

“Sit down, I just need to clean up a bit more.”

“Okay.” You nod.

And Tao disappears. The warmth of the coffee shop makes you able to relax and calm down a bit. The place is really comfy, and it makes you a bit sleepy. You wake up by Tao gently touching your shoulder. You jump a bit, and Tao moves away from you.

“Sorry, you nodded off.”

“Ah, it seems like it.” You laugh a bit at yourself.

Tao grins a bit at you as he puts on his jacket. You get up and rub your eyes a bit, yawning. The cold air hit you in the face as Tao closes the coffee shop. It has stopped snowing, but it’s still freezing cold. Tao asks you to take the lead and he follows you silently.

“I’m sorry about Luhan.” He tells you out of the blue.        

“Oh, he surprised me.” You laugh. “He sneaked up on me.”

“He’s good on that.” Tao grins, as he glances at you from under his fringe. “You don’t have to worry though, Luhan is a good guy.”

“You seem to be close.”

“We’ve been friends since kindergarten.”

You nod his direction.

“But why did he seek me out?” You ask him.

Tao turns silent for a moment.

“Luhan has trust issues.” He starts hesitantly. “You should know by now that I… have a bad reputation.”

He doesn’t look at you as he speaks. It seems that he’s concerned about how you view him. You’ve found him all beaten up twice. You’ve heard the rumors.

“Because of that reputation, people want to challenge and hurt me. Hurt us.”He must refer to Luhan and Chen, you assume. “Lately, people have been using… all kinds of methods to try to get to us. Luhan was just making sure…”

You´re not a fool. You know that Tao is telling you far from everything, and what he told you scares you. But you know he isn’t a bad person.

“Making sure that I wasn’t a threat?” You finish his sentence for him.

“Yeah.”

“Did I pass the test?” You ask him in a playful voice.

“Yes, with an A+ according to him.” Tao meets your gaze, and for some reason, you feel strangely warm inside.

Tao’s gaze is warm as he looks at you. It’s the first time you two really talked, and he told something about himself he must have been hesitant to share. You smile wholeheartedly at this. He’s opening up to you, and it feels like you’re getting closer.

“I hope I’ll able to keep that score during test week.” You joke.

Tao laughs. A comfortable silence spread between you. It’ll take a bit more before you reach your place. The two of you talk about random stuff and you realize it’s easy to talk with him. He seems to listen to what you say intensively and answer just as if he has carefully picked out just the right words. You can’t help but smile. You´re not used to that.

“I won’t ask what happened…” Tao suddenly tells you. “…but are you okay?”

He did see you cry.  

“…I’ll be ok.” You answer him hesitantly, looking at everything but him.

“Is it him?” He asks you although Tao said he wouldn’t ask. “…is it Kris?”

You turn to stare at him and he stares back silently: observing you. Your chest tightens and you can’t stop the tears. Your vision turns misty, but you can see Tao there in front of you. No words are needed, Tao knows everything already. A pair of strong arms encircles you, and your find your cheek pressed against his black leather jacket. You can feel his chin touching the top of your head, and that he lets out a deep breath of warm air. He smells like metal and coffee, you notice, as you cry.

“Do you k-know the feeling of liking someone so much, and being forced to see that being happy with someone… else… while faking a smile?”

Tao doesn’t answer, but he holds you more tightly in his arms.

“I can’t take it any longer…”