"We're back!" JiHye shouts as she walks towards us with ChaeMin and SooHyung following behind. I still looked at TaeHyung.

 

He was smiling at me, but as soon as he heard JiHye, he turned his face to her and then stood up and went to his little sister. She was smiling very big. She has the same smile as him.

 

"You're not going to stay?" ChaeMin says as she takes Taehyung's seat. He shook his head.

 

"No. We have to go straight home. I'd get in trouble if I kept her here for long with me." He says. The tone of his voice changed. It seemed a bit more serious and not even casual.

 

"What? Your parents don't trust you?" JiHye says. TaeHyung shakes his head and lets out a small chuckle.

 

"No. We just have to get home as soon as possible." He looks at his sister. "Come on SooHyung. Say bye to them" She shook her head.

 

"They're nice." She says, her smile slowly fading.

 

"I know but you know what Mom said." SooHyung nods. "Alright then. Let's go home now."

 

TaeHyung nodded his head towards us and then grabbed SooHyung's hand, heading out the door. SooHyung kept looking at us and she waved before TaeHyung carried her and walked out.

 

ChaeMin looked at me after he left. I raised my eyebrow.

 

"Why are you looking at me?" I ask her. JiHye joined in.

 

"What happened when you were alone with him?" She asks. I roll my eyes.

 

"You guys are really something." I say.

 

"What? He's pretty cute. I mean, he seems to be interested in you." She goes. ChaeMin chuckles and I shake my head.

 

"You guys saved me." I tell them. They both give me confused expressions.

 

"Before you came back with his sister, he told me that he liked me." I continued. Both of their eyes widen and ChaeMin's lip slowly formed into one huge smile.

 

"Wait, as in...like like you?" JiHye shouts. I shrugged.

 

"I don't know. He asked if I was a shy awkward person and I just said it's hard to tell since everyone hates me. Then he said Not everybody hates you. I like you. And I just sat there. He probably means as a friend though." I explained. JiHye sighed.

 

"I hope he doesn't. To be honest JaeEun, I haven't seen you so happy ever since you became friends with him." She says.

 

"What? He doesn't make me happy. Living with ChaeMin made me a lot happy." I say. ChaeMin chuckles.

 

"As flattered as I am by that, I believe JiHye. Whenever you see him you act different, but in a normal good way." She goes. I scoff and eat my ice cream.

 

 

 

I skipped my 6th period Physics class. I didn't want to start off a Monday with bullying or teasing. I actually skip that class whenever I just feel like it. Sometimes I wonder if I'd bump into TaeHyung, but I don't. He said he didn't have a 6th, maybe he goes home straight after.

 

But not today. Today I bumped into him. Again, literally. But I don't have food with me this time.

 

"Oh, sorry!" I say not looking at him. He chuckles.

 

"You're skipping class?" He asks. I nod my head.

 

"Why?" He continues.

 

"I don't want to deal with being picked on, on a Monday. This isn't the first time I've skipped this class." I say. He shakes his head.

 

"You shouldn't skip class just because of around 25 people. What's your grade in there?" He asks. I tell him it's a C+.

 

"How many times have you skipped that class?" He asks.

 

"Not much. Just this is my 4th time, including the time you found my crying." I say. He shakes his head again and chuckles.

 

"Are you going home right now?" I ask him, he looks at me. He shrugs and nods.

 

"I mean I don't want to, but I don't have anywhere else to go."

 

I look at him and want to ask him to stay for a while, or to walk around until school ends and drop me back to school to go home with ChaeMin. I don't know why but I kind of want him to stay.

 

"Let's go somewhere?" I ask. He looks at his phone after a text ringtone came on. He read it and quietly groaned. He texted back real quick and then looked back at me. He put a smile on.

 

"Sure. Like where?" He asks. I stayed quiet. No, all I was saying was "um". I didn't know where to go. I just panicked and quickly asked. He raises an eyebrow. I shrug.

 

"Do I have to chose again?" He chuckles. I glare at him. "How about the park?"

 

"Park sounds fine. But, do you mind dropping me back here when school finishes? I don't want ChaeMin to think I just left her." I tell him and he nods.

 

 

 

We reach the park and sit down face to face on a table bench. I look around. It was a bit empty today. I looked over at TaeHyung and he was already looking at me.

 

"What?" I go. He chuckles and shakes his head.

 

"You're never blank. You always seem to have something on your mind no matter what you're doing." He goes. "Is anything on your mind right now?"

 

"Well, did you mean what you said yesterday?" I ask.

 

"What?"

 

"What you said when I said nobody liked me." He gives me a blank face for a while and then nodded when he figured out what I meant.

 

"Oh yeah. I mean it." He answered.

 

"In what way?"

 

"What?"

 

"In what way did you mean it?" I ask. He just looks at me for a short while. Then he slightly smiles and looks down, and then back up but not looking at me.

 

"I have a slight crush on you." He says. My heart starts racing. I face away from him and it feels like he went back to looking at me.

 

"But I didn't want to say it because you have a lot on your mind. Also because you slightly hated me the first few days we met. But you're an interesting person and being with you is fun. Not to sound like I'm 7 years old but you're the first girl I've ever started hanging out with." I look at him.

 

"Wait what?"

 

"We have things in common JaeEun." He goes. "Your family and my family are both screwed up. Mine isn't as bad as yours but, our parents know how to hurt us."

 

I just look at him.

 

"But with mine, I don't have a father. Well, I do but he's not with my family. He's with another. I live with my mom, with my sister. I've only seen my father twice ever since they divorced, and that was about 4 years ago. My father cheated on my mom but he was a nice guy. He just didn't know how to be committed in a relationship. My mom never lets me hang out, just rarely because she feels bad at times."

 

"Did your mom text you at school before we left?" I asked him. He looked at me and nodded.

 

"She told me to go home immediately, but I didn't want to. My mom hurts me, but not the way your dad hurts you. She doesn't physically beat me, or my sister. More like she hurts us in the head. Verbal and mental abuse, you know?" He continued. I just stared at him. I was confused at him.

 

"My mom doesn't trust me as well. SooHyung wanted to see Dad again but my mom refused. The second time we met my dad was a few months after the divorce. I snuck out the house with SooHyung and my mom found out. Ever since then she's been going crazy. She thinks that whenever I take my sister out, we'll go and find my dad. She thinks when I'm out with my friends, we'll go and find my dad. Whenever I come home from hanging out, she gives me a long lecture and then completely goes off topic and insults me in personal ways."

 

I look away. I was completely confused. He seems like he has a normal life. Does his friends know about this?

 

"You're the first one that I've ever told this to. I feel like people would judge me for it. They'd say it up and be a man. She's just calling you names. There are people out there who actually get hit with wooden boards or an iron board. I mean I get it, people have it worse than me but you have no idea what she tells me."

 

I was curious to ask. I wanted to know what she'd say to him, or even his sister if so. I told him my personal life, I wanted to know his.

 

"But you're so normal." I say. He kind of chuckles.

 

"It's called faking a smile, JaeEun." He says. "But when I'm with you, I don't need to fake a smile. When you told me your problem, I thought to myself finally. She'll maybe understand me."

 

I look at him. He's still looking away.

 

"I'm sorry." I say. He shakes his head.

 

"Everyone has a war they're dealing with." He says. He gets another text, but he doesn't check it. Then, I get a text.

 

I open my phone and read it. It was ChaeMin.

 

ChaeMin: "Hey! Before your class ends, I want to tell you that I'm not at school. I forgot I had a dentist appointment and my dad took me out of school. I'm home right now so I'll see you in a few minutes!"

 

I chuckle and roll my eyes.

 

"TaeHyung, do you mind walking me home?" I ask. He finally looks at me.

 

"What about ChaeMin?"

 

"She's at home." I answer. "We can go now. School ends in about 5 minutes anyways."

 

He nods and stands up. I walk first and he stands right next to me, so close that our arms are touching. Oh yeah, he likes me.

 

 

 

We reach ChaeMin's house and her dad opens the door.

 

"Ah JaeEun! Sorry about this! I thought ChaeMin told you." Her dad says. I shake my head.

 

"It's fine!" I turn around and say goodbye to TaeHyung, and then ChaeMin's dad talks after.

 

"Ah, you are TaeHyung!" He goes. "These two mentioned your name a few times."

 

My eyes widened and it felt as if he was trying to embarrass me. Oh gosh I wish he was my actual dad. TaeHyung just chuckled.

 

"Really?" TaeHyung asks.

 

"Yeah! Yeah! Hey, my wife has food cooked out already. Join us! Let's get to know each other. You and JaeEun seem to be close so I'm assuming we'll be seeing you a lot." He says. He makes it sound as if TaeHyung and I are dating. He makes it sound as if he's my own father. I don't complain, it feels nice. But I'm embarrassed. TaeHyung accepts and we all walk in to the dining room.

 

 

 

I'm not going to lie, it was a fun time. TaeHyung acted very kind with ChaeMin's parents. I think they actually like him. I honestly feel as if her parents take me as their own child. It looked like they were watching TaeHyung's moves to see if he was an okay guy for me to hang out with. They even told ChaeMin that she should find a guy like him. I laughed at it.

 

The doorbell rang.

 

"Oh. I'll get it. You guys just wait here." ChaeMin's mom says. She gets up from the dining table and we all watch her leave to the front door. A few seconds later she comes back.

 

"JaeEun. It's your dad." She goes. My stomach started turning inside and fear builds up inside of me, fear that I haven't felt ever since I lived here. I slowly nodded and stood up, walking towards the front door.

 

"I'll walk with you JaeEun. I have to go home soon anyways. Thanks for the food!" TaeHyung says, quickly getting up and putting his dish in the sink.

 

I get to the front door and see my dad standing there. I walk out before TaeHyung could catch up to me.

 

"You're coming home now." My dad says, grabbing my wrist and pulling me out the house. I tried to pull my wrist out of his grip, but his grip tightened.

 

"Skipping class now? Huh? I got a call from your school that you've been skipping class. Your mother is depressed because of you. Do you see what you're doing to this family? Do you want us to break apart?" He shouts at me. I scoff in my head. Sure, I'm breaking us apart.

 

"You should stop." I hear TaeHyung say. I turn my head and he's down the front steps. I'm so glad to see the door closed. I don't want ChaeMin's family to find out, or ChaeMin to know it's happening again.

 

"Who are- Oh...it's you from the other day." My dad goes, throwing my wrist towards the car.

 

"Come on. Get in the car, we're going home." He says to me. I don't move. "JaeEun, I said get in the car."

 

My father turns his head towards TaeHyung. He looks back at me and scoffs.

 

"Is this what you've been doing this whole time? Have you been hanging out with him? Did you sneak out without me knowing just to be with him, huh?" My dad starts. "Are you skipping class just to hang out with him?"

 

He walks away from me and I watch him as he walks up to TaeHyung.

 

"Stay away from my daughter." My dad tells him. TaeHyung scoffs at him and walks towards me. He acts tough but I can see the fear in his eyes.

 

"You should do the same. I'm not allowing you to take JaeEun home." He says. I look at him and he's staring straight at my father. Arms crossed, stiff stance.

 

"I know what you've been doing to her. It's quite obvious when you leave bruises on her in obvious places." He continues. My eyes grow wide and I grab his arm, wanting to tell him to stop. But nothing comes out. He looks at me and tears start coming out of my eyes. He looks back at my father.

 

"If you take her home now, I'm calling the cops." He says. My father looses it.