Hanbin

                It was crazy to see how people changed from their actions to their feelings. Hayi, the girl and I were looking at each other and got lost into our own minds. Didn’t even know where I got the guts to say that kind of thing to Hayi, the girl whom I’ve never seen this close yet I’ve been admiring ever since. Though there were no regrets because her reaction was unexpected. I almost thought she would go mad, but confessing her true intention on keeping this room as her escape place had changed my perspective towards her. Honestly, I’ve never thought anything worse of her than that she was just as spoiled as her friends, but it was pretty insane how she changed my opinions about her just in a few words. Now that she wondered how things were going on inside the kind of world I was in, and I too wondered if the popular and glamorous life was really the kind of world that she was in.

 We were locked in this gaze that has been on for so long, I finally caught her eyes staring right into mine but not in the way that I wanted. She must’ve pitied me, she stayed because she knew I needed someone to hold on, but I didn’t wish it to go like this. The next time we had a moment like this, I wanted her to look at me in a different way. The kind of way she always did to her boyfriend and the people she cared about. I wanted to be around her, but then again, our worlds were different.

My world was too harsh and too difficult for someone like Hayi, I would never reveal the truth behind the burden I’ve been holding to her. Even only by imagining it I bet she would run away from me, because I knew she’d think I was a bad person. I wasn’t a bad person though, my world made me so. But she made me feel like a different person, I didn’t know how she did it but she really made me feel that way.  I never had the chance to see her as close as right now, I didn’t want this moment to end, I wanted her to be here next to me, I wanted to feel her presence forever because it felt so good to see her through the eyes. Her round eyes and the sweet smell of her made me feel calm and save. We were sitting inside this room, staring at each other like it was the last thing we need to do and suddenly I had to fight the urge of kissing her. I wanted to close the distance between us and hold her as my own, I would never let her go once I got her wrapped inside my arms and protect her from whatever brings her down. But I couldn’t, no matter how much I craved for her love I still couldn’t have it. Thinking about her boyfriend, her family, her friends and her world that I personally disliked, and that was when i realized we were standing on two opposite worlds.

The more I looked at her face the more I felt a deep pain inside my heart, so I turned away, breaking the precious moment that I knew would never happen again in the future. The precious moment turned into an awkwardness, she turned her head away too as she coughed.

“I-I should probably go” she said.

                I awkwardly watched her as she stood up and gathered her stuff. As she was ready to say goodbye to me she accidentally bumped into a chair and dropped all of her stuff to the floor. I was about to laugh seeing her clumsiness in our awkward moment but I held it as I didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable.

“Uh-oh! Sorry! My bad!” she said as she bent down and gathered her stuff all over again.

“You clumsy head” I muttered.

                Despite the cuteness on her act I had no choice but to help her gathering her stuff, she must’ve been bumbling after what we just did and I liked to see her that way. Her comb, her notebooks, her phones were scattered on the floor. I took a few of her notebooks and her phone and gave it to her right away.

“S-see you later” she said as she walked to the door.

“Later? So there will be a next time for us?” I playfully said.

                She went panicking after I played with her words. I really enjoyed the moment where I could and play with her words, not because I want to annoy her but because she looked cute when she’s irritated like this. I laughed as I watched her turning back at me with her back against the door.

“N-no! I don’t mean like that! I-I mean…ugh, God! Ouch!” she said after accidentally bumping into Junhoe and Bobby who suddenly showed up from behind the door.

“Uh, easy there” Bobby said as he grabbed both of her shoulders.

“Don’t touch me!” she said and she stormed off to the downstairs.

                Both Bobby and Junhoe watched her storming off as they closed the door behind them and the lights. Now the room had a little lightning, I could see things clearer than before but it was too bad Hayi had gone away.

“Did I see a ghost? Or It was just Lee Hayi on the fourth floor?” Junhoe said as he was being clueless. “Wait…she was with you all along, wasn’t she? Both of you, alone, in this dark room.” He pointed his finger at me with his shocked face. “Ya! What did you do with her? Did you do something nasty?!” he yelled. “And look at what she did to my outfit!”

“Ya! Koo Junhoe! Relax! It’s just a scratch, it will be gone once you ignore it” Bobby said. “And you, Kim Hanbin! I believe you have something to tell us?”

                Yes I needed to explain the whole thing to them because they were my best friends. But I had an uneasy feeling about telling them the entire story. They didn’t need to know that, I would keep it to myself until I felt ready to let them know about it.

“What?” I said trying to avoid the subject. Bobby walked towards me as he pointed at the door.

“Tha-That’s Lee Hayi coming out of this room. Hanbin, Lee Hayi The Princess, we found her in this room. "How could she know about this place? How did she get here?” Bobby questioned.

“Well she found it by herself” I said.

“And you didn’t try to keep her away?”

“W-well I did, but she came back” I said which was true though.

                Bobby grabbed both of my shoulders and patted it gently and his face looked like he was giving up with my answers. I had nothing to talk about though, that was all they needed to know about Hayi.

“Woah, you really like her, don’t you?” he said. I quickly get his hands off my shoulder as I turned around and grabbed my stuff avoiding his eye gaze. He would know if I lie when he sees through my eyes, which explained how long we have been together as best friends, we knew too much about each other.

“Oooh, did you see that? He ignored the question! He must have been doing naughty things with Hayi!” Junhoe said.

I turned back at them as I put my backpack on my right shoulder and my jacket on my left shoulder. Junhoe was awfully sassy. He would say anything that came to his mind without even thinking that would be offensive and I sometimes wanted to tape his mouth so badly, even just for a minute.

“Junhoe-yah, if I did naughty things with Lee freaking Hayi, I’d tell you every little detail about it and I’d brag it to the whole Korea. Okay?” I sarcastically said as I turned off the lights and walked out of the room. Bobby and Junhoe followed me soon after but I was stopped by Junhoe right away.

“Dude, people are scared of this place because we made it so. Girls are terrified to go to this floor especially girls like Hayi, explain to me how the hell did she get here if it’s not you who brought her here?” Junhoe said.

“Junhoe, he didn’t bring her here. Have you forgotten? Our Kim Hanbin extremely hates people like Hayi. He is also inexperienced when it comes to girls, how can you possibly think he will be brave enough to talk to her and bring her up here? He is the unbeatable single man!” Bobby said jokingly as he laughed. He brought that case up again, how many times did I tell him to keep it shut?

“Ya Kimbab!” I said to him as I playfully punched his arm.

“Then why? Why is she here? How did she get here? What is she doing here? A girl can’t just go to our place and scratch my outfit like that” Junhoe said.

He just couldn’t get enough with it, I knew he sometimes overreact about things but maybe this one really shocked him but I didn’t see where the shocking part was. Or he really just loved to make things bigger. What should I say to him? Was it the fact that Lee Hayi somehow had the same problem as mine? Or the fact that I had the feeling of wanting to kiss her when we were inside?

“Well, she is different” I simply said. “How did you find me there anyway?”

“We have something to tell you actually” Bobby said in a serious intonation. This got me thinking, if it was not about school then it was about them. When it came to them nothing ever came out good.

“What is it?” I asked without looking back at them as I stopped walking.

“They came back” Junhoe said.

                It felt like a knife had struck me right on my chest and that was it, my burden had grown to be much bigger and better. They came back, three simple words but yet totally succeed to make my head spinning around. The people I avoided for years had finally came back and they were absolutely going after me and my boys, choking us for the sake of revenge after the things we didn’t do. I gasped as I stopped walking and they did too.

 “All of them?” I asked without looking back.

“No. Just the three of them, but there is an additional member among them” Bobby said. “A high school boy, the rich one, they’re probably just using him for mone-“

“You’re wrong.” I said

“What?” Both of Junhoe and Bobby asked.

“They’re not using him for money.” I said. “He is their real leader”

“You know him?” Bobby asked.

“Yes. I know him very well”

Hayi

                Hayi, you stupid girl! I haven’t stopped cursing at myself ever since I went out of the room, too many regrets and too much embarrassment. My day could have been much better if I didn’t do strange things like I did this morning. What was I thinking when I stepped inside that room for the second time? I was crazy. I was completely not myself. Maybe I had to come back and straight things out but that would be even more stupid. God, never in my entire life a boy could get me insane like this and cursing at myself this much. I ran to the downstairs as I kept messing with my hair, I couldn’t help with the embarrassment and how I really wanted to turn back in times.

                We were exactly alone in that empty room, just the two of us, sitting on the floor, face to face, eye to eye and heart to heart. I didn’t even know his name or who he was; all I knew about him was that he was a student in our school whom I have never met before. I was simply asking that but things had gone way too far beyond my imagination. What made me gone even crazier was I started to think he was attractive. Boys were my weakness but I had never thought he would be one of them. His words were absolutely overwhelming but who knew it might be one of his tricks to get me down, to open up all of me, screw it over and spread it to the whole world. Definitely, he was an evil person, and I absolutely believed it.

                The picture of his dark tired eyes, his face and his words kept running on my mind like it wanted to be in there forever. I must not think of him, not his face, his words, his voice, everything about him! I needed to avoid him and who the hell I bumped into anyway? Were they his friends? He had friends? Well that was a new thing I learned about him. God! What did I tell myself?

I must not think of him

I must not think of him

I must not think of him

And I bumped into a person, again

“Sorry! I’m really sorry” I said as I got up. I didn’t see him at first but when I finally stood still and was about to apologize properly, i saw the other face that I planned to avoid today standing in front of me.

                Mino looked as surprised as I was but neither of us started to say a word. We were just too surprised to see each other, not that we weren’t used to be surprised to another, this time the surprise feeling came in a different way and I could see he agreed too. He was about to say something but he kept it inside, I wondered what he was about to say and I was curious of it. I wanted to wait but then again I didn’t need his explanation or anything. The only thing I wanted was not seeing a single piece of him today, and it failed.

                I couldn’t read his face this time as I was half wanting to go and half wanting to stay. In the end I chose to go, the anger inside of me had completely controlled my mind that I didn’t even care if he was sorry or not. I didn’t want to see him and that was it. I walked away from him and a few seconds later he ran and stopped me.

“Wait! Hayi!” he said as he blocked my way. I stopped and stared at him furiously, I thought it was obvious enough that I didn’t want to meet him today but probably he had a few things to say to me and I just somehow had to stay to listen. He looked down as he gasped until he started to speak.

“Look, what happened last night wa-“ he suddenly stopped as he looked down. “It was a mistake” he carefully said. I didn’t say a word as I waited for him to say more.

“It was a huge mistake. I should’ve not done that in the first place” he paused. “And I’m sorry. I am really sorry for what I did. I should’ve not accu-“

“What? You want to see my phone? You want to check it yourself? Go ahead” I said. He went panicking to see me being fearless of him, it was almost like he didn’t want to lose me too.

“No, I don’t need that. I don’t have to. I believe in you” he said, trying to convince me.

“But you didn’t” I said as I was about to cry myself out. I held the tears and the anger that were about to go out of me as hard as I could, although he expressed his sorry it was still difficult for me to accept the fact that we almost lose our relationship because of a speculation like that. “You didn’t believe me” I said.

“I know, and I’m sorry” he said as he grabbed both of my hands. “Please, forgive me. I can’t lose you Hayi, I don’t want to lose you because of that kind of problem. It was my fault, I admit it. I’m sorry” he pleaded.

                Apologizing could never be easy and neither forgiving. I stare at him in mixed feelings between anger and sadness, was not certain what I should say to him because in a side I was angry at him and in the other side I wanted to forgive him and continue our relationship like nothing had happened. I wanted to be that simple but things were kind of heavy between me and him. Both of my hands were wrapped inside his hands tightly as if he would die if he let it go. But somehow that feeling did not exist anymore deep inside both of my heart and my mind.

“Okay. I get it” he said as he let my hands go. “You need time? There, you have it. You need space? I’ll give you as wide as you want” he stepped away from me a little. “But don’t forget to give me an answer” he said.

“Taehyun's family is having a party for his parents new business expansion. He invited me to go and i'm taking you as my date, if I knock at your door and you don’t show up.” He paused. “I’ll consider your answer is a no” he said as he stared at me for one last time and walked away. Tears were finally going down my face as I watched him disappeared.

                The more I think about it the more I got a deep pain inside my heart, he needed an answer but I did not know what I should say as i was drowned in a confusion between yes and no, between being with him or without him tomorrow. But all I had to do was showing up and give him a try, just one night, one party, one dance. I didn’t want to lose him anyway, but why did it still confuse me? The answer would definitely be a yes, but why was it hard for me to say it?

Maybe because his face kept appearing on my mind, because the moment we had in the music room kept rewinding inside my mind, and I could not focus on Mino because he simply blocked him from my sight, and the worst part was that I let him did it.