Chapter 3: Love potion

As I was still pondering over what to do and considering all the what-ifs, I eventually thought back of the first time I had confessed to him. I had put quite a lot of effort and energy into it, because not only was it my first time confessing to someone but that someone was also an artist. I strongly believed that creativity would be the key to his heart, but being more on the scientific side of things I didn't really consider myself as creative. Hongbin on the other hand was the opposite of that so I had tried really hard to come up with something original.

It seemed like a great idea at the time, but looking back on it now, it was probably the dumbest thing ever —and Hongbin made sure to let me know. I had written him a cute love letter, if I can say so myself, with an equation that if worked out would reveal my confession to him. I was incredibly proud of it and thought he would be very impressed at how smart it was, but I was only getting ahead of myself. I had managed to pass it onto Hongbin through a friend of his. He'd been reluctant at first when I asked him for the favour, telling me to reconsider our differences, but at the time I didn't understand he was talking about the differences in social status and wealth. I thought it was about the difference in our personalities, but it didn't faze me since I was a firm believer of opposite attracts.

I went home with a lot of hopes that day and although I hadn't expected Hongbin to return my feelings, I sure wasn't expecting him to reject me in such a harsh way where I found copies of my love letter hung up all over the university walls with degrading comments. The only advantage I had at the time was that people didn't really know me because I was that invisible, but it still didn't make a difference in how it broke my heart and made me feel humiliated and little.

I had put a lot of effort into it because I hadn't been that good at it yet, so I had literally spent night after night trying to translate it and was quite proud at how unique and different it was from a regular confession.

The people who did manage to discover that it was me who had written the letter had bugged and tormented me for quite some time before things eventually died down. But, what upset me the most in all of it was that Hongbin had carried on as if nothing had happened. And even up until now he made it seem like he didn't know or remember.

But the truth was that I did have feelings for him and if this was really a sincere confession then that indeed would be great. And if not, I had nothing to lose anymore. As much as I tried not to, my mind began to find all sorts of excuses like this.

The day of the party was tomorrow, so it didn't leave me enough time to consider it any further anyway. I was afraid of regretting it later if I didn't go, so I made up my mind that I would attend the party.

The next day my room was a complete mess as I paced back and forth, trying to pick the right dress and accessories for the occasion. There were only a few hours left to go but I was still clueless on how to make myself look decent enough to even be there. After whirling through the dresses in my closet, I eventually picked a dark blue dress that I never really had the chance to wear before since I rarely attend any social events. I put in a lot of effort to look good and started feeling more and more giddy and excited, pushing aside all the negative thoughts on my mind. If he ended up breaking my heart again, I'd have plenty of time to cry over it later. For now this was the first time I could at least pretend I had someone to try and look good for.

It was really overwhelming when I finally arrived at the party, because the place was much larger, much grander and a lot more crowded than I had expected. For a moment I panicked and wondered if I had made the right decision to come here, because I felt incredibly out of place and small. After a few hesitant steps into the main hall, I eventually built up some confidence and convinced myself that it would be okay because this time Hongbin was really my friend and I didn't want to believe he'd let anyone hurt me here. I hung onto that hope really hard as I took a deep breath and attempted to mingle into the crowd, trying to find a comfortable space for myself. I couldn't see Hongbin anywhere, but I did catch sight of his friend who had helped me pass on the confession letter in the past. When our eyes met, I happily smiled and waved my hand at him, but got a reaction in return that made my smile fade away. He just looked away bluntly, making me wonder if he had actually really seen me or if I had mistaken it. Somehow I was sure he did though, because he was definitely looking straight at me and there was nothing else to look at in the corner I was stood in.

Shrugging it off, I just walked around the buffet table, unsure what to do anymore because I didn't really know anyone here whom I could socialize with and Hongbin was still nowhere in sight. Whilst I was picking up a chicken leg to put on my plate, Hongbin's friend whom I saw earlier came and stood next to me whilst also spooning up some salad onto his plate.

"What are you doing here?" his gaze was fixed on the food in front of him.

I looked at him in surprise when he suddenly talked and brightened up again, thankful that he wasn't ignoring me after all. Perhaps he hadn't really recognised me from afar earlier.

"I was invited by Hongbin," I answered with a smile.

"Do you know what kind of party this is?" he asked, confusing me a little. This friend of Hongbin always seemed a little blunt to me, but I assumed that was just the way he was.

"Um, I assumed it was just a house party. He didn't tell me specifically what it was actually," I admitted, now also curious.

Hongbin's friend scoffed before dropping the spoon and turning to look at me. He looked me up and down, a little too long for my comfort.

"You really are naive."

I frowned, not understanding what he meant because this no longer seemed like a friendly conversation anymore.

"Do you see that girl over there?" he nodded towards a girl in a long red dress near the front of the hall who seemed to be surrounded by a lot of people.

"Yes, I see her," I said, even though I was still unable to understand what his point was.

 "That’s my sister. Hongbin is going to get engaged to her today."

My whole body froze as I stared at him, feeling as though someone had just kicked my heart down to the pit of my stomach. Before I could even react, Hongbin's friend walked away, leaving me all on my own once again. The blood pulsing in my ears seemed to be louder than the music and suddenly I was beginning to feel almost nauseated. 

The shock of what I had just heard struggled to fade away as I looked all around me at all the rich and fancy people and scolded myself mentally for coming.

Mirae, what were you thinking?

I was sticking out like a sore thumb —completely underdressed and unwanted here. I decided to leave fast before Hongbin saw me, but as my bad luck would have it I started bumping into people as I tried to find my way out, feeling dizzy and uncomfortable. To make things worse I ended up walking into Hongbin's mother, who grimaced at me in irritation as soon as she saw me. I immediately bowed and apologised, feeling worse as she began to bombard me with harsh words and questions.

"Who let you in? I don't remember inviting any people from the gutter here," she said loudly, making a lot of people gather around us. "Today is my son's engagement to the heir of a high brand company. Would you stop clinging around him so shamelessly?! How old are you? Do you not have any sense or awareness about where you belong?"

Mortified by her ruthless words, I stood in the middle of the crowd like a fool feeling completely powerless and humiliated to the point that I felt myself shake with anxiety. I felt as if I had been reduced to dirt in front of all these people, and all I wanted right now was to get out of here. I wanted to go home again, lock the doors and stay behind the safe and comforting walls of my room. I should never have come here.

I pushed past the people around me, unable to stay there any longer. No matter where I turned people were glaring and making insults about me. It felt as if I had gone back to that time when I first confessed.

I ran past everyone, trying to drag my dress with me until I was finally out on the porch. Once I was away from the people I still needed a few moments to calm myself. I leaned forward against the white railing on the porch, taking deep breaths to get rid of the nauseous feeling in my stomach. 

"You came."

I was surprised when I saw Hongbin walk up in front of me on the other side of the porch, dressed amazingly dapper in a black suit.  He was looking up at me with a gentle smile on his face that would've normally made me smile too, but this time I felt nothing but anger erupting inside me. I couldn't believe that he could humiliate and hurt me twice and still smile at me like that. I had trusted him, but out of all the people inside this hostile place, he was the worst.

"I can't believe I let you do something like this to me twice," I mumbled, holding back tears that were threatening to fall out.

"What?" he frowned and looked confused.

Having had enough of this, I held onto my dress and headed down the steps hastily to leave without answering him.

"Mirae!" Hongbin called out, walking fast towards me before pulling his hand out from his pocket to grab hold of my arm. "What do you mean?"

I tried to yank it away from him, but his grip was strong as usual.

"What were you on about? Doing what to you?" he asked again a little more firmly as he cornered me against the railing behind me, "Why are you upset?"

I scoffed, wondering how pathetic and insignificant I must seem to people for them to play around with me like this and then have the nerves to ask me what's wrong. As his hold on my arm loosened a bit, I took the chance to slip it out of his hand.

"I shouldn't have come," I said, walking past him in a fast pace. It seemed like he wanted to stop me again, but this time I was saved by an elder man who was calling Hongbin to come inside. He seemed really bothered as he succumbed to the stranger's calls. I could only assume that was his father-in-law to-be.

On my way home, giving up on holding the dress and limping awkwardly with the heels that I was not used to, I finally broke down and cried. I was holding it in in front of Hongbin, because it was already bad enough that he thought he could push me around like this. If I also broke down completely in front of him, there would've been nothing left of me.

That night I had decided not to look at him, hear him or see him ever again after that. To be able to erase the constant aching in my chest since that night, I was desperate to make it go away by any means and ignoring his existence would probably be the first step to that.

I was working silently in a laboratory practical lesson the next day, when Hongbin suddenly stormed into the lab yelling things towards me to get my attention.

"Mirae, let me talk to you!" he said as he tried to walk towards me but was held back by the professor at the door for disturbing the class. "You got it wrong! Let me explain!"

I avoided eye contact by staring down at my desk throughout the whole thing, remaining unresponsive like the skeleton model beside me. Pretending not to hear or see anything was the best I could do at that moment, but a part of me wanted to look at him. I knew though that the moment I give in to this, I would be right back into his world all over again…as entertainment.

The following days I really didn't hear from him anymore and didn't catch any sight of him, not even the sound of the piano playing late in the evenings anymore. It did make me wonder what he was up to, but I assumed it was probably just because he must've gotten bored and gave up. It felt strange though, walking through the university and the grounds on my own again. Wherever I looked, there was a memory between me and Hongbin that lingered behind because he had constantly been together with me. I thought back on the oak tree where we would always sit together and he would play his guitar and sing for me, and how he would always wait outside for me. It really felt so strange without him, but I knew I was just going to have to get through this somehow. This time was a million times harder than how it had been the first time, and I wasn't quite sure I could recover again.

The next day I decided to go into university for an early start with the heart cell project. I was in the lab preparing the required materials to dissect a pig heart when I found a letter and a small glass bottle attached to it. It looked like a potion with pink liquid inside it and I had no clue what it was. I opened the letter to find some chemical equation in it that made absolutely no sense, but the solution to it read 'love potion'.

I raised an eyebrow, wondering what this was all about and then also read the tag on the potion glass which read, 'I made the equation up it’s just pink lemonade'.

I couldn’t help but chuckle, smiling like an idiot and looked up when I noticed someone walk into the lab. I tensed up when I realised it was Hongbin and watched him as he carefully and slowly walked up to me. He stood in front of me with a hint of timidity in his usually smug smile, something I had never seen before.

"Mirae—"

"Stop..." I fixed my gaze to the floor, "I don't want to hear anymore." I lied, because I knew that I wanted to know what all of this meant, but I was scared of getting hurt all over again. I didn't have the strength to raise my hopes and fall hard over and over.

There was a moment of hesitation in Hongbin, and I realised what I was scared of the most right now wasn't hearing what he had to say, but that he was really going to turn around and leave.

I nervously clenched my hands into fists by my sides as I listened to the clock on the wall ticking and painstakingly waited for the moment he would step away.

"Just leave…" I heard myself whisper in contrary to what my heart wanted. I was saying things that I didn't really want to say, because I was simply holding up a barrier of defence around me.

Instead of leaving, Hongbin suddenly pulled me into his arms and held me against his broad chest. I gasped as I stood motionless and flustered, still too shocked to realise what had just happened. His embrace was warm and gentle, yet firm enough so that I couldn't slip away again. My heart was racing insanely fast and I became paranoid that he would hear or feel it in such close proximity.

"W-what are you doing?!" I stammered and tried to pull back, "Hongbin, let—"

"I'm sorry."

I stopped moving when I heard those words, suddenly at a loss of words.

"I'm so sorry, Mirae," his arms tightened around me as if he was trying to stick all the broken pieces of me from these past few years back together. "I never got your letter. I never knew anything about what you went through."

I remained silent as I listened to him, still too shocked to respond. If he really didn't know about the letter, then it would mean that all these years I had misunderstood him.

"The guy you gave the letter to did all of that on his own, and I really only found out at the party."

"So…" I eventually mumbled into his shirt, "It wasn't that you were pretending not to remember, but you really didn't know?"

"Yeah," Hongbin answered, "Trust me, I would've found it quite awesome to be confessed to in some alien language. I would've called the Korean space agency and informed them that aliens were trying to communicate with me."

"Yah! It was an equation!" I scoffed, finally shoving him off myself as he chuckled at my reaction. Even though this was the umpteenth insult he was throwing at me, it still made me smile thinking what a dork he was. He even tried to copy my equation thing although he had no clue how to create it correctly.

"So I'm forgiven now, right? Are we good?" Hongbin grinned as he held out his arms, eager to hug me again.

"Wait, wait," I frowned and held my hands out to stop him, "What about your engagement to the girl in the red dress? What was that all about?"

"Oh," he sighed, dropping his arms to his sides again, "I didn't know about the girl either. It was just a way for my mom to try and secure the family business, since I'm mainly interested in music so she gets paranoid and sets up stupid things like that without telling me. I refused of course." he explained, looking a little serious now. It seemed like being in such a high rank wasn't always all amazing, because the way he looked right now showed he had been put under lots of pressure all his life.

"Everyone seems to want to decide whom I should hang out with or not, it bugs me too." he continued.

An uncomfortable feeling rushed through my chest as I watched him looking upset and I had an urge to cheer him up again.

"I have something special to give you too," I smiled and grabbed the tray that had the pig heart in it. I held it towards Hongbin suddenly, making him jump back in horror.

"Who did you kill?!" his eyes were wide as he stared at the fresh heart of a swine which was to be dissected soon. He held onto my shoulders and shook me, "Don't worry we can cover this up somehow."

I was trying not to laugh at his absurd reaction, but it just kept getting funnier.

"Brainiac, why did you do it though?!" he asked, looking serious as ever. "Although your present sure is creative, I'll give you that."

"Yah! Stop calling me Brainiac!" I glared, "I have a name!"

"Why, it's a befitting nickname! You can give me a cute one too if you want to," he shrugged.

"Tch," I huffed, "Sus scrofa," I said, since he asked for it.

"Yah, that better mean 'awesome' in your nerd language," he looked at me suspiciously.

"Mhmm, of course it does," I turned around to place the tray on a desk so that he wouldn't see me grinning to myself. If only he figured that Sus scrofa was the Latin binomial name for wild boar...

"That would make an awesome artist name," he continued to think out loud, "It has a good ring to it."

"Glad you like it," I chuckled, finding it cute how oblivious he was.

Since I had finished preparing all the material for the project, I checked the time on the wall and noticed it was almost time for lessons to start.

"Shouldn't you be going to your lesson?" I asked.

"I should…" he mused as he looked up at the clock too, "but can't we just make shampoo together again or something?"

I scoffed, "There is no shampoo today. We're dissecting a heart this lesson. Be my guest if you want to stay."

Hongbin looked down at the pig's heart on the desk and cringed a little. "Maybe next time…" he cleared his throat, trying to uphold his tough demeanour.

"Okay then," I smiled in amusement, "See y—"

Hongbin suddenly interrupted what I was going to say by leaning over the desk in front of me and kissing me briefly on the lips. It happened so unexpectedly that I stared at him speechlessly, forgetting how to breathe for a moment. I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks.

He smiled as he stepped back, "I'll see you by the oak tree."

I nodded silently and watched him turn around to leave, when he paused again and hesitated for a moment. I blinked at him questioningly when he turned back once more and kissed me again, this time just a few seconds longer.

"Okay, I’ll go now," he said with a smirk tugging at his lips and took a few steps back again. Then he turned around and walked out for real, leaving me dazed and feeling those strange butterflies in my tummy that everyone had always been on about.

Perhaps the long and agonizing wait as a single nerdy hermit had been worth it after all.

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That was the final chapter of Chemical Reaction, hope you enjoyed! :)

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