; 

The sun hides behind the skyscrapers and the North star is right above her head. The sky is undergoing that beautiful, colorful change from a mix of red, pink and orange to hues of blues and violets to indicate that it's getting late.

Sooyoung looks up, trying to marvel at the sight but even the beautifully colored sky cannot seem to amplify her mood or make her feel any better. She wonders how long she had been sitting there on the hilltop on their neighborhood park, overlooking the east side of the city. Perhaps a few hours or so now.

Sooyoung begins to like parks; it's the only place where she's left alone, unbothered and at peace.

Footsteps can be heard from her right a little while later, and her ears perk up at the sound of grunting. She turns her head to the source and find out that it's Hanbin who's trudging up the small hill to get to her.

They make eye contact and Hanbin smiles. "Hey, there you are."

"You say that as if you've been looking for me all afternoon."

"In which, I have." he says, nodding. He doesn't have his board with him, so he grabs hers and sits on top of it rather than on the dewy grass. Sooyoung probably thinks her pants are wet and the grass underneath her is all warm now, but she doesn't quite care about that at the moment. "I have been looking for you. You just kinda didn't show up after lunch, what happened?" 

Sooyoung thinks back to several hours ago, around 12 noon. The shouting, the fights, the vulgar words, the red in their eyes, the anger in their voices - she couldn't escape it. The front door was locked and they were arguing again about who's cheating on who and who has the right to keep the house  and who has the right to keep her.

Neither of them does, actually. They're not her biological parents, and as she digs into her brain, the thought of them being parents number six presents itself to her, reminding her this isn't the first time or the second she got adopted and ran away after a few months or years. 

It's been so tiring in that household, she can do it now. She wants to do it now.

She wants to runaway again. 

She could runaway again. 

"Hey," Hanbin bumps his knee against her's. "What are you thinking about?" 

She likes her lips because it's gotten unbelievable dry at the thoughts circling around her head. Sooyoung looks at Hanbin and tilts her head. She has never been that blunt, but she wants to try. "They fight a lot, Yuna and Jun."

His eyes widen because this is news to him. Sooyoung never really did share anything too personal to anyone, not even to Kim Hanbin. He knew the things she wanted him to know, and they were puny, useless things that were far from the big picture. "O-okay?" he says, unsure. "Really? They don't seem like it. Mrs. Song always seemed so lovely, and hey - why aren't you calling your parents 'mom' or 'dad'?"

"Uhh, because they're not?" she snorts. "Before I can call them that, they have to be one. I don't think they deserve it."

Hanbin frowns, she can see it from the corner of her eyes. His frown is as dark as the night sky, and the lamp posts around the park light up in unison, illuminating the place and lighting up their faces. "But you've been there for over a year. Don't you -"

"I don't think I can survive another month there." Sooyoung cuts him off, scowling at the thought. "I can't, I don't - it's all too much. I don't want to hear them fight all the time, one more straw and I swear he's going to hit her next time."

Hanbin wraps an arm around her and gently, she places her head onto his shoulder as she lets out a sigh. Even in her ears, it sounds tired and defeated. She inhales, exhales, inhales, exhales and Hanbin is there, rubbing her arm to comfort her. 

"You can't run away, not all the time. You know that right?"

"I know that better than you,"

"Exactly. So stop,"

"But - "

"Tell me you won't run." He's insistent, as if he actually cares. And maybe, Sooyoung tells herself, he does. A year of friendship and of course they'd care for each other. She was there to comfort him during his bad times, when he got rejected, when he got dump, when he got the last place in their class, when he fell over a rail while trying to create a new trick - she's always nursed his broken state, now it was his turn.

Sooyoung lets out a sigh again. "I can't make any promises." she whispers. "The orphanage is the only place that can tolerate me. Sister Park has always been so kind, and I -" 

"You can think about that later, it's okay." 

She tries to believe him, but it's just so hard.

The table is empty, which is unusual. It's already ten in the morning and by now, Yuna would've already cooked something up for herself and just leave the leftovers for Sooyoung to eat. A pancake or two, or even some kimchi. 

This morning, her foster mother is nowhere to be found and there's nonexistent food in the fridge. Sooyoung thinks she might be out shopping or at the market to stock up the fridge, and so with no other choice of food, she marches to the cabinets and pulls out some noodles for herself. 

Sooyoung cooks two, just because. She thinks of making herself coffee but decides against it since there were no creamers and it wouldn't blend in with the broth of the noodles. 

She doesn't set up the table, she doesn't even grab a bowl. She eats directly from the pot and finishes it all fifteen minutes later. By then, Jun comes in and mutters  incoherent things Sooyoung can't hear or pick up but she knows he's in a bad mood, as usual.

"Are you going out?" he grumbles, opening the fridge and checking the contents. "God, that woman didn't even - Ugh!" he slams it shut and turns to Sooyoung, aboely livid now. "If you're going to stay here, lock up. I'm going somewhere and your mother -" she flinches  "- won't be here until late."

"I'm going out," she says as she grabs her toothbrush and place toothpaste on it, suddenly finding the label very interesting. "I can eat outside too,"

"Oh, good. Here," she turns around and her toothbrush is stick in between her teeth as she stares at the wad of money he throws on the table. She sees a lot of five thousand won bills. "You know where the key will be if you decide to come early."

She does, it will be under the 'welcome home' mat in the front door. A typical place for a key. 

She tries to be grateful for the money, but is finding it hard to feel anything towards her foster parents these days. She takes it, mumbles thanks before walking to her room and closing it shut. 

When he knocks on her door and tells her he's leaving, Sooyoung has already packed her bags.

She doesn't want to go to the hectic skating park today, so she just wanders around the city on her board, and rather than going fast, she cruises down streets in a slow and steady pace telling people that she's in no particular rush. 

The unspent money is still in her back pocket, and since she doesn't have a decent wallet, her pocket is bulging with the contents of the paper bills that she really feels like weighing down some bills for, of course, food.

But Sooyoung doesn't want anything else other than soft, delicious ice cream so she buys two popsicles and when that wasn't enough, she buys another one. 

She hands change from earlier to the cashier and he happily tells her to go on and get another one. Sooyoung steps out of the store, board under her arm, and smiles despite herself. 

When she looks down, a familiar figure is crouched with half it's body basically plunging down to the depths of the freezer to retrieve the ice cream he'd want. Sooyoung stares at him as he stands up straight to his full height, a single ice cream cone in his hand and a small smile on his face. 

Sooyoung blinks, then feels her features harden as she glares. 

"You again," this kid, this Choi Junhong, has the nerve to roll his eyes at him as if it's her fault that they keep running into each other like this. "Can't you show any other emotion rather than annoyance?"

She huffs and pushes him aside, from the corner of her eye, he's shaking his head at her before he goes in the store, ducking to avoid getting his head hit by the door. Sooyoung crouches down to get another popsicle, this time vanilla-flavored with some chocolate in it. She tears off the wrapper and throws it in the trash before placing her board down, ready to leave. 

"Nice board," 

She sighs, rolls her eyes then turns her head to his direction. He's unwinding the wrapper off of his cone, and is leisurely standing there in front of her. "Yeah," her eyes are down on the board under his arm, and she can tell it's a good one. And it's new; the wheels barely look like they've touched anything. "Likewise," she says, hoping she sounded snotty and bratty about it. 

"Wanna race?"

Again, she sighs, rolls her eyes, and looks back at him. "Don't you have anything better to do?"

"Don't you?" he places his board down and she watches him. She notices how he has to crouch down really low for everything. He's just that tall. "And hey, why are you talking to me so informally? For all you know, I could be older than you." he says, near to the finish of his cone.

Sooyoung looks away from him to eat her own but she can't savor it like the last two with this guy present. "Unlikely. You're tall, not old."

"I'm eighteen,"

She looks at him, then smirks. "Yeah? So am I."

It was her cue to leave, so she places her other foot on her board and starts skating down the street and away from him. Her eyes are trained in front of her and so she lifts a hand up and mockingly waves 'bye' without looking back.

He catches up to her a little while later, and he caught her so offguard that she almost swerved her board to the right. He's pushing his foot and pedalling himself faster so he can catch up, and Sooyoung glares at him but her glares aren't so effective with Junhong as it is to the other boys, because he only smiles back in a mocking way.

"Go away!" she says over the rush of their boards. They pass by narrow roads of the neighborhood and avoid bumping into cars or stray cats.

"Let's race!" he says back, looking genuinely excited over the idea.

Sooyoung rolls her eyes. "Oh please," she mutters before intentionally going faster, trying to escape from him. The day looks like it's going to be a good one, but Junhong sticks out like grey cloud to her bright day. All she wants is to be left alone, give time to herself and no one else.

"Come on, don't be so sour!" Junhong is beside her again and the top of his hair is flowing with the wind as they speed up. Sooyoung looks at him, and he has a challenging smile on. To race or not to race, there wasn't even an option in it.

Sooyoung looks away and starts to really kick herself forward as fast and as strong as she can. She hears him laugh, and then he's right beside her again, side by side the race down the streets, the sound of their board's wheels breaking the silence of the neighborhood. 

Sooyoung finds herself feeling competitive when he catches up, the tail of his board a little ahead to the nose of her's. The go down a slightly steep road and Sooyoung almost loses her balance but regains it quickly when she turns to the right and Junhong is right there, behind her tail. She thinks he's slowing down on purpose, but that wouldn't do good to his pride.

"That all you got, kid?" she mocks, looking back at him with a smirk.

He rolls his eyes and kicks faster. "No way, I - "

One moment his face was there, and the next it wasn't. He trips over garbage cans and his board goes flying over his head. Sooyoung stops immediately and gets off her's to run to him, sprawled on the ground with the contents of that garbage bin spilled along the road. 

"Ughhhhh."

Sooyoung can't help but laugh.

"Oh my God, are you okay?"

There's a convenience store nearby and the old lady was kind enough to give them a discount for the things they bought, even though Sooyoung insisted to pay. 

"It's fine, dear," she had said, handing her the betadine, cotton buds, gauze and band-aids she requested for. "Go fix him up, it looked like a nasty fall."

It wasn't all that bad, really. He just had a few scratches on his pretty boy face and had a wound on his arm. His lower body seemed to be fine, and the fall didn't do much damage other than those scratches and open wounds.

He's sitting on the bench outside the shop and Sooyoung sits down, placing the supplies in between them. Junhong looks pale, the only thing standing out from his face are the red lines and the white hair. She takes a good look at him, staring, he turns to her.

He has a wound on his chin, and it's the size of a fingernail. a few thin lines of red - scratches, on his left cheek mostly but there are two on his forehead and one on his right cheek. Her eyes travel down to the wound on his arm that grazed the concrete, it's still bleeding but not that much like a few minutes ago. He might have bruises later on his knees and legs, she's sure of it. 

He's frowning at her, and Sooyoung shakes her head. 

"What?"

"You look fine," She pulls his arm and grabs a cotton bud from the pack. She dips it in the betadine and twirls it once before pulling it out. "This might sting."

"I'm a skater. It's not like I haven't had any inju - ow!" 

Sooyoung snorts. "Yeah. Right," she says, spreading the rusty-looking substance on top his wound to clean and disinfect it. As she holds on to his arm with her other hand, she can feel his skin tremble due to the contact.

"Don't press it so hard."

"I'm not."

"It's so cold."

She rolls her eyes, but goes to work. Her hands move towards the other supplies after she cleans all the big wounds and places gauze on them. She puts band-aids on the scratches, but he says not to overdo it with them. He's very still as she does her work, and for once, they don't bicker. 

"Did you get a lot of injuries too?" he asks her when she cleans up the bench and gathers the supply in a plastic bag. 

She only glances up at him. "Me? No, not really. The boys got into a lot of them, and I'm usually the one who acts as nurse."

"You're really good."

"hmm? Um, thanks. Just.." She looks up, and he's already looking at her with squinted eyes. And she means really looking. His look is so focused, so hard that Sooyoung avoids his stare and leans back. "No more races next time."

He breaks into a grin and the focus and concentration is gone from his eyes, as if he's momentarily distracted. "Yeah, sure." he leans back a little too and when Sooyoung stands up, he stands up as well. "You're really the one who organizes the fundraisers?"

She nods, taken aback by this sudden question. "Well, yeah. I thought it would be good, because we could get sponsors for gear and maybe even get commercial deals. But we have a long way to go as a crew and I just thought fundraisers would get us more known."

Junhong doesn't say anything, which is weird because ever since they met; when Sooyoung says something, he always has something to say back. This time, he just looks and smiles. 

Sooyoung drops her skateboard to the ground, showcasing a tight smile and a stiff nod. "See you around."

"See you."

It's silent all around when she's fully dressed in a hoodie, jeans and worn-out sneakers from all the running. This time, she's running again and it seems as though she's very good at it, or maybe she's gotten better; maybe.. The night is quiet, dead and the only thing Sooyoung can hear is the ticking of the old grandfather clock in the living room and the beat of her nervous heart. 

thump, thump, thump, it goes.

Her closet is bare but some of the things, like her textbooks and pencil cases and lamp and all that are left behind. Her bed isn't made, so by later around ten, they'd assume she just went out and she hopes they won't find out about her absence right away. 

But what is she worrying about? They don't even bother to fix themselves for her; if they can't bother with each other, why would they to her? 

Sooyoung's chest tightens, so she opens her desk's single draw and digs through the contents. 

She pulls out a lighter and a cigarette box with three cigarettes left in it ever since she bought it three months ago.  She pulls one out because her emotions call for one and throws the box into her backpack, the nuns wouldn't like it but the chances of getting caught with the Songs is higher so she takes it with her.

She lights one up and blows smoke into the cool, summer air. 

With the deadly stick in between her fingers, she flings her bag to her shoulder and opens her bedroom window. 

Inhale, exhale.

She puffs out more smoke and the overpowering scent lingers into the late night air as her feet dangles out of the window. It's only a two-feet drop, and when she lands on her feet, she wastes no time in running. 

x. 

i'm on a roll here, apparently.  comment, as usual.