Chapter 4

~~

Shin Hye waved at Yong Hwa, although she couldn’t see him from the tinted windows, she continued doing it because she knows he sees her, only her.

With two cups of Iced Americano in her hands, she started crossing the distance between her and Yong Hwa’s car, she stepped one.

Then Pak! Pak!

She heard that awful sound near her, although she isn’t sure from which direction. All she knows is that, it was near her, almost like on her, and the striking pain on her back and chest made it more realistic to her. She looked down at her clothes, stained. Then she looked up, seeing the two laughing girls.

Shin Hye is still shocked, her body is still shaking. She remembered she was just happily waving at his boyfriend, smiling and excited to go back to him, but the next moment she knew, she is already receiving the hates and threats of the two girls, making fun of her. “What did I really do wrong?”, she murmured to herself.

Still pasted in front of the Coffee Shop floor, she feels her body shaking and her heart going wild. She tried to take a step forward to Yong Hwa’s car but she didn’t move, not at all. “Move!”, she commanded, but every cell of her body basically betrayed her, she can’t do anything, nothing. “I said move!”, she did it again, but even the coffee in her hands are stapled, she can’t move a finger away from them.

Then she heard the two girls laugh again at her scenario, making fun of her embarrassment.

She tried to look for help, she tilted her head a little bit forward, and stared at the tinted black Land Rover car, waiting. “Help me!”, she cried out with her eyes. “Yong Hwa~yah, help me!”.

But instead of him she called, she saw A man trying to push the two girls away from her, his face all so in fire. “Do you want to go to the police, you freakin’ antis? What’s wrong with you?”, she heard him shouted.

The two shoved girls answered him, guilt fractioned their expressions. “It’s her fault, why does Yong Hwa oppa need to work together with her? We are sure she’s the one who sticks to him always, she’s a bithc, isn’t she?”

Shin Hye felt the hate from their words. “Am I?”

The man shouted even more, but she never understood them anymore. All she heard are shouts and threats, words of hate and revenge, but her brain didn’t process them all. For her, they were just Words.

A minute after, she saw from her peripheral the two girls ran for their lives, fear on their knees as they try to shove their bodies through the crowd, unmindful of them hurting themselves or others. Then for another second, they were gone.

She took a deep breath, almost gasping.

Then the man, asked her. “Are you alright?”

She moved her fingers around the Iced Americano cup, assessing if they are still in function, then raised one of her legs slightly, taking a tiny step forward. She almost dropped the first try, her knees all sapped with energy.

Luckily, the man caught her up, levering her weight to his by wrapping his arms around her body. He pulled her up, stabilizing her balance.

Then Shin Hye, took a peek at him, the man who saved her. She smiled, feeling a hundred percent secured. “Gumawo~~ oppa!”

The next moment, the man dragged her to the familiar car beside Yong Hwa’s.

~~

Yong hwa stood still.

He didn’t dare to move at all, his hands still pasted in the handle of his car’s door. He tried to separate his pasted hands from the door but all that he could do was to continue standing there, hearing all the activities his heart has been doing all this time and . . .find all the guilt he could find in the worlds.

He was able to unbuckle his seatbelt, but he did nothing to save her. He was able to move his out of the driver’s seat, but he wasn’t able to shout at the two girls who made fun of her. He was able to almost got out of the car, but he was too late. . .soo late.

Instead, he saw some other man who did those things he is suppose to be doing.

He saw that other man save her from the cruel thing he started out in the first place.

And the biggest frustration he has is. . . no matter what he does on that moment, whether he saved her or not. . . Park Shin Hye will still get hurt.

Yong Hwa had his eyes all glued on her as the man made her a way towards the car. And all his frustrations piled up when the man ushered her not to the car she has been to but to the car behind his. His eyebrows couldn’t detach from each others ends as he tried to halt his breathing. He basically went insane from the happening.

He moved his gaze from left to right, as if unbelieving the decision the man made. “Why not here? All I want right now is to explain.”

He deeply breathes in and deeply breathes out.

Trying to loosen the tight nerve he had, he rethought everything.

His mistakes and his stupidity.

He thought the consequences of his greediness and the result of his impulsivity. He thought of the things that might happen if he would want Shin Hye on his side right now. He thought again, his mistake and his stupidity.
“Of course, I can’t let Shin Hye get in his car, especially after what happened. People will suspect. And everything will be ruined. We will be damned . . . for good.”, he thought to himself, unloading some of his jealousy.

He moved the stiffed fingers of his from the car’s door and proceeds to go back to driver’s seat he had been. With an assured heart, he started the engine on the lightest, trying to chant things on his mind. “For Her!” “For Her!”

Convoying the car where Shin Hye was shipped, he continued with his chant, making sure none of his Pandora’s thoughts will be released during their travel. He concentrated instead on the words he should say to explain things on Shin Hye. . .the reasons why he did and didn’t do these. He knows she’ll understand, but he just wants to say something to her, to show her his side, his side.

Then the car in front of him stopped. Intuitively, he pedaled the brake too.

He took a gaze on the house they are in front of. He was right. They are at Shin Hye’s home.

His heart went dugeun, dugeun at the realization that they are already home. . .at the realization that he will see another frightened, shocked, or worse, crying Shin Hye. He remembered those times. Those moments when he saw the most frightening look of her, she, shedding tears. He hated those, totally.

He tried to recall the phrases he memorized a while ago. To lay down his side of explanation, the intonation, the pitch, the tone and the words. . . but to his dismay, when Shin Hye finally got out of the car, all of those words and memory vanished out of the thin air, leaving only the expression “Sigh” on his head.

He took another glance at her, then panicked when she was about to open her gate. Without any unmeaningful thought, he rushed out of his car and went to her, almost unprepared. He grabbed her wrist, tight and long.

Shin Hye was startled at first, but she knew it was him all along. She has been longing to be hold tight by him, ever since. . .ever since that incident an hour ago. She wants this heat from his hand to fill h