A couple weeks later, Key and I walked home together, like every day, and at the fork in our usual path, we would separate ways and meet up in the morning again. We stopped by the convenience store and got a little snack after such a long day. Key being the motherly like type that he was, bought me a tiny bottle of vitamin juice, in case I caught a cold.

“So how are you guys?” Key was looking ahead as we were walking.

“Good. Mom and Dad went through the rest of the stuff the other day. The only things we kept were his favorites and things that he worked hard on. But the room is being turned into a music room. Mom said it’d be a great idea, so she could teach piano part time again in there and I could use the room to practice too.” I looked down, still holding my unopened bottle.

“I’m really proud of you Jae” giving me a smile and hugging me, “you’ve really gotten a lot stronger. It was time that you started moving on.”

“But is it a bad thing that sometimes I still think of him and still want to cry?” I nuzzled my face into his neck more.

“Never! It just means that you loved him and still do. I’m just glad you aren’t all beat up every time something reminds you of him. You’ve just been smiling a lot Jae… Well with the exception of today.” I laughed and pulled away from him.

“So when’s the plan for our graduation party?” He shook his head, and held my hand as we continued to walk our route.

“depends, are we gonna get trashed?” before I could say something back someone had interrupted us.

“Yah! Stop! You yes you!” we both turned around to see Lee Donghae chasing after us. Finally he caught up to us, and was panting.

“Here.” He handed over a wad of money to me, and I just stared at it blankly.

“Sorry, although we’d make a hot pair for a we’re off shift right now” Key smirked when he saw Donghae’s eyes become saucers.

“N-no, I uh didn’t mean it like that… I mean what you do is your business but uh… here it’s for new shoes.” He tried handing me over the money again.

“And here I was thinking that someone wanted to tap this fine of mine” I smacked Key’s arm and looked at Donghae again. I closed his hand around the money and pushed it back towards him.

“I don’t need your pity or money. Just forget that I ever spoke with you, and I’ll be fine” I grabbed Key’s hand and started walking again, while dragging Key.

“Hey wait! Please, I feel horrible for what she did to you. I scolded her for that, saying that she went to far with your shoes. Please, I know they aren’t cheap. I’ve bought shoes for Jess before. Just take the money, and all problems will be solved” he offered me the money again.

“Do you really want to help me?” both of them gave me surprised looks.

“Excuse me?” I cleared my throat and spoke clearly.

“I asked if you wanted to help me?”

“I… of course…” I shook my head gently.

“you have two options. Either hate me or forget me, you’d be doing me a favor by doing either one.” I started walking with Key, leaving a flustered Donghae behind us.

*

I felt the cold pavement make contact with my body again, it was the start of another day… I got up and dusted off my uniform, while Key fussed around me making sure I didn’t get cut or anything. He carefully dusted me off, and then turned to the girls.

“What? You leaking blood today? The did we do now?!” They stopped laughing, looking very appalled. Jessica just shook her head and turned away, her other friends going with her. Key scoffed and turned back to me. “Jesus, someone forgot to take a this morning” I couldn’t help but laugh.

“I seriously don’t understand how half the things you say come out” He smiled back at me and took my hand. He dragged me to the school, but then stopped abruptly getting me to slam right into him. “Key, what’s wrong? Why’d you… s-stop…”

Someone had decided that it’d be funny to post a defaced picture of his memorial wreath on my locker with ‘CLUMSY’ plastered on it. Key ripped it off right away and threw it somewhere, and held my hands. I couldn’t hear a single thing he said, as memories starting filling up my mind. Tears started to fall from my eyes and Key tried to wipe them away, but they kept coming. I heard laughing in the distance as my head whipped over to the source of the sound. My death glare reached the famous group of girls and immediately they stopped laughing. Their expressions became more frightened the longer that I started at them.  I left Key, and could still feel him trying to hold me back, but my eyes were on tunnel vision. I could only see them. I could tell who was a part of this as they recognized that they’d gone too far and one of them couldn’t look me in the eye. Hwang Tiffany. She had lost her mother, and knew what it was like. She had a very apologetic face on, that showed that she was ashamed for what happened. I made eye contact with Tiffany for a split second before she turned her back on them, walking away. I heard another girl snicker and a bit of a laugh and lost it. I took her down to the floor and started beating the crap out of her in blind rage.