To say I was touched was an understatement. I felt my Cheeks go red and hot as I saw him walk back and sit by the window on the last seat of the Bus, without glancing back at me even once, unbothered.

My cheeks burnt at the thought of having to make him listen to such complains a few seconds back, only to have him throw me a compliment right after. I've never been called pretty by anyone, or not atleast anyone I could remember. 

Hate to admit but, it was a pretty good feeling to hear it. I sat back down quieter than usual with just a storm of arguments in mind. 

This one incident was in my mind for the entire Bus Ride when I half-heartedly convinced myself how clicking a picture of anyone without their consent is a mannerless act and I shouldn't let a single compliment melt me.

.....

"I'm Home..," I said with absolutely no enthusiam as I walked in my gloomy House. To start off with, I'm an only child. The only person that is truely dear to me in this entire world is my mother. I don't have anyone other than her.

But she does. Four years ago, when I was merely 13, my mother married this one man who lead for our destiny to go down the road of Fate.

I would never dare to call him my Father because he surely was not one.

My mother was a single mother when she gave birth to me, I don't know who my real father is and she refuses to tell me why she's not married to my real dad. In fact, she refuses to tell me anything related to her life before I was born.

She believes it's none of my business. All I know is she's now married to someone she met 4 years back.

Turns out, this man she thought was her true soulmate is, pardon my language, a complete douchebag.

I understand how loneliness can drive Human Beings into making desperate decisions, such as my mother falling head over heels in love with someone who is not even worth it.

She's so much in love that she can hardly see his true colours. He doesn't have a job, all he does is spend my mother's earned money. He's never at Home either, he arrives at midnight all drunk. I don't even know what he does the entire day. 

All I know is that my mother fears to feel loneliness.

To fill those broken gaps of being alone over the years, she takes up all this as long as she feels he's there. Which by the way, he isn't.

I am quite sick of facing these consequences at home so I just keep myself silent to all the pain. 

So, that sums up my life.

I wake up to my mother, wrinkled with all sadness within her, making me breakfast. I leave for School, relieved to not have to face the man and to not look at my mother any longer. 

Being in school although doesn't help, since I hardly talk to anyone. I rather choose to stay quiet to give myself time to heal from all the monsterous thoughts that eat me up. Being alone doesn't scare me. 

Wounded with all my demons does.

While I caged myself in agony everyday of school, I hardly realised things had started to change at the time I least expected it to.

I was started to get noticed my the new guy in the middle of the few classes I shared with him. I hardly budged, but his thought process lingered towards me a lot more often than it should.

There were a few moments of school when I'd look up from the work I was doing to lay my eyes on Baekhyun.

I've had a soft spot for him since childhood for his kind acts and soft-hearted personality which I haven't been exposed to much in my lifetime.

He's the only one who has ever been that kind to me, even if it's something as small as sharing crayons. It speaks quite a lot.

Even though he mustn't have noticed what a huge impact he made on me, I'd never fail to notice how brightly he shone amongst all hearts of cold.

I could never make myself to speak to him. His environment was very different from mine. I'd always see him smilying. There were just a few times I'd wish I'd be a reason behind that smile. 

.......

The ultimate turn to this story started around this day. After all the quiet staring and observing that Jin had done from his side, there was a chance to change it. And this was it.

As I walked in the hall for this day, I witnessed a slight change in the atmosphere. More excited chatter than usual which has to have a cause, of course. Everyone seemed to be jumping all around the place.

I walked over to my locker all silently when I noticed Baekhyun had been leaning his back over my locker, which he does a lot often since his friend, Kai, has his locker right beside mine.

Whenever this happens, I just silently stand in front of him and cough, signalling that he has done it again: blocked my locker.

To which he always laughs and says, "You've caught me again. I'm so sorry I don't know why I always seem to forget," with his cute genuine eye smile standing out from all the fake smiles teenages nowadays seem to shine.

I can't help smile back. This pretty much includes all the conversations I've ever had with him.

"So who are you going with?" Kai asks, resuming the conversation they were having before I walked in.

"For?" Baekhyun asked, remembering what part of the conversation they had stopped at.

"The Annual Welcome-Back Prom. Didn't you read the poster stuck on the Notice Board?" Kai remarked to which my eyes lit up. No wonder everyone seemed so excited. So this was the cause?

"Oh man, I hate all this drama of 'who's going with who'." Baekhyun said, rubbing his hair in annoyance. I couldn't agree with him any less at this.

Since we're in second year of High School now, School hosts a welcome-back from Summer party every year for students of second-year only.

Hardly anyone joins in the middle of 3 years of High school, everyone is 'welcomed back'. But this case could be ironical for Jin who's the only student in the history of Paran High School to have joined in the middle.

So for him it's going to more like a freshers' party than a welcome-back one.

"I don't wanna take anyone to Prom with me this year, maybe we can all just go as a group, you know." Baekhyun said.

Ultimately Baekhyun and Kai, just ended up talking about the little party and drifted off slowly while I still stood by my locker picking my books up when I turned around just once to watch Baekhyun go as I slowly whispered.

"Take me..," even though secretly I knew who Baekhyun might end up going with.

.......

Kai has a very outgoing personality which attracts a lot of people to become his friends. One of these friends is this girl called Irene who's extremely close to him.

I don't know much about Irene. All I know is she has a secret crush on Baekhyun. The entire school ships the two of them together being aware of her feelings for him.

Except me. Because in my head I could only picture him with me.

Since Kai and Baekhyun are best friends, Irene tags along with Kai a lot to hang out and initiate conversations with Baekhyun. Much to my annoyance, I can do nothing about this.

I know how everybody would force the two to go together for Prom eventually. I just secretly wished I could prove to Baekhyun how much I wanted him.

I sat in class with my eyes wandering off to the constant trio sitting on the first row: Kai-Irene-Baekhyun. All that envy burnt inside me when a paper ball chose to hit me right on my face.

I would've thought it were just another of those bullies trying to annoy me so I chose to not look at the direction from where this ball came from.

But the teacher thought otherwise when she came to my seat and picked up that paper ball. And suddenly all the students looked at me, including Baekhyun.

I didn't know whether I should look back at him as his eyes followed the teacher to me.

"Jin, I saw that," the teacher said grumpily as she picked up the rolled paper ball and held it up. I looked at Jin who watched with wide eyes as the teacher unrolled the paper as her next move.

He didn't turn out to be any different than most people. He's a bully who throws paper balls. I wanted to throw up after having to think he was a nice guy after what he told me yesterday. But meh, he's a spoilt brat.