“Are you sure you can find your way home again?” Eunji asks. It’s the following afternoon and Tarian is packing up her things to go back home.

She gives her friend a flat look. “I got myself here, didn’t I? I’m not that directionally challenged.”

Eunji chuckles, playing with a pink stuffed teddy bear. “Okay, okay. I just worry about you. That blonde hair and those blue eyes stand out a mile. Don’t want you to attract any unwanted attention.”

“All attention is unwanted,” Tarian retorts, slinging her overnight bag over her shoulder. “Especially from that no-good brother of yours.”

“Step-brother,” Eunji corrects. “I’ve learned to ignore his bad attitude most of the time.”

Tarian gives her a brief smile as Eunji walks her to the front door, where she puts on her shoes. “Easier said than done. See you at school tomorrow.”

It’s a nice day. So nice, in fact, that Tarian decides to walk all of the way home. It’s not that much further than the trek she makes to and from school every day, and she figures she could use the extra exercise. Physical education classes aren’t mandatory here like they were back in her old school.

She realizes that it’s a mistake the second she turns the corner and sees Himchan, chatting to a girl in the shortest miniskirt ever made who can’t be more than fourteen or fifteen. She turns on her heel to go back the way she came, to catch the bus and bypass the oily ert completely, but he looks up and catches sight of her.

“Oi! Love!” he shouts, leaving behind the startled adolescent girl to chase after Tarian. She picks up her speed – almost running – but Himchan’s long legs easily catch up with her. He grabs her arm and drags her to a stop. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”

“Away from you,” Tarian answers in annoyance, jerking her arm free.

The slight doesn’t seem to bother the overly-confident Himchan in the least. “So you’re friends with Daehyunnie’s sister, huh? Guess that means we’ll be seeing a lot of you are the Jung’s house now.”

“No, you definitely will not be,” Tarian snaps. “Eunji and I are only going to hang out at my place from now on.”

“Guess I better figure out where you live then,” Himchan jokes.

She rolls her eyes. “If you so much as come within ten meters of my house, I’ll call the ing cops on you.”

Himchan chuckles, the way he always does when she mentions the police. “Good luck with that, love.” He easily falls into step beside her. “So where are you heading? For real?”

“Home,” Tarian mutters, feeling that it’s pretty obvious considering she’s just come from a sleepover at Eunji and Daehyun’s house. Then, against her better judgment, she says, “And where are you going? To desecrate a cemetery or graffiti a shopping mall or something like that?”

Himchan chuckles. “Nah, not today. Cemeteries gives me the creeps and we don’t stoop so low as to graffiti buildings.”

“Just how low do you and your little friends stoop then?” Tarian can’t stop herself from asking.

He smirks, looking down at her with something that she might mistake for admiration if she didn’t already know that he’s incapable of anything similar to human emotions. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” he teases.

She opens to retort but stops suddenly when a guy wearing ripped jeans and a beanie appears in front of him. “Himchan,” the boy purrs in an altogether unpleasant tone, smiling and showing perfect white teeth. “Just the man I was looking for.”

“Not today,” Himchan says. His tone is light, relaxed, joking even; only the sudden tenseness of his body, pressed close against Tarian’s, gives away how serious this sudden and unexpected situation is. He throws an arm around Tarian’s shoulder and flashes a cheeky grin. “Can’t you see I’m on a date?”

“We’re not-” Tarian begins, but she may as well be invisible for all the attention they’re paying to what she says.

The boy in the beanie, who’s tall and lean, gives her a lewd onceover, his lips in an almost obscene manner. “What a pretty little thing,” the boy says. “I didn’t know you were into foreign chicks.” He chuckles darkly and reaches out to curl a lock of Tarian’s blonde hair around his finger. “So do the curtains match the drapes?”

Himchan easily pulls Tarian out of the boy’s grasp with a wicked grin. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Unfortunately, it’s time for us to be going.”

The boy cuts off their escape path with an arm. “Don’t even think about it, Himchan. We’ve got some unfinished business.”

Himchan’s arms tighten around Tarian’s shoulders, locking her in place directly in front of him. “You wouldn’t hurt this pretty girl now, would you?”

The boy’s lip pulls up in a sneer. “You’ll be able to her just as well with a broken nose.” And he pulls back his fist and throws a punch as hard as he can.

Using Himchan’s hold around her for leverage, Tarian leans back and kicks her feet up. She catches the boy’s punch with the sole of her combat boot head on. It sends an agonizing jolt up her leg, but it hurts a hell of a lot less than it would’ve if she’d taken the hit on the nose.

The boy jumps back, shaking his hand in pain. Those combat boots are pretty sturdy, after all. Himchan, surprised, loosens his hold on Tarian enough that she can step away.

“You were using me as a human shield?” she shrieks, pulling back her fist and throwing a punch of her own. Himchan manages to block it, but just barely. He still stumbles back with the force of it. “You’re the lowest of the low! off and don’t come near me again!” And she storms off.

She’s still fuming by the time she reaches her father’s apartment, letting herself in and slamming the front door behind her. Naeun appears from the kitchen, wearing a floral-print apron and brandishing a wooden spoon. “How was your sleepover, unnie?” she begins, but then she sees Tarian’s smoldering expression and stops short. “Not too good, I take it.”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Tarian snaps. And then she storms into her bedroom and slams that door too. 

Sorry it took me so long to update. Things have been reaaaaalllly busy lately.