Escaping

You could hear the raindrops fall onto the roof of his car. You close your eyes hoping to hear the rain louder.

Minhyun peeks over at you at a stop light and stares at the calm expression on your face. It wasn’t until a car behind him honked that he realized the light was no longer green.

Pink.

He attempts to hand you his coat, but you got out of his car as soon as he parked in the loading zone of your apartment building. “Drive safe.” You say as you close his car door. Smiling, of course.

You walk into the company building that day with a slightly runny nose. The employees routinely give you looks as you pass through security with a company card that Minhyun gave you that night.

The thing with marriages like your’s was they had to secure the business details then get on with the marriage formalities.

“Hwang Minhyun hasn’t arrived to his office.” His secretary scans you up and down as she moves her long black hair to one side on her shoulder.

It was a small declaration, but you weren’t sure yet. “I’ll just go wait in his office then.”

The secretary grits her teeth when she sees your smile.

You sit on the couch in his office. The tip of your nose was red from blowing your nose and your face was feeling warm.

The secretary walks in with warm tea and sets it down in front of you, “The rain has been on and off since last night.”

You nod your head and smile again.

“Are you Minhyun’s fiancé?”

You look up at her and finally notice that her clothes were a little pass the line of professionalism. You ignore the sudden informality and gave her a nod.

The secretary mirrors your smile except her’s was crooked, “Nice to meet you. I’m Hwang Minhyun’s secretary.”

“I am aware.”

“And his girlfriend.” The smile on her face is upturned and she crosses her arms.

“I see.” You take a sip of the tea and warm your fingers on the body of the cup. “Hwang Minhyun-sshi has great taste.”

Before she could continue, Minhyun walks in looking as neat and simple as he did yesterday, “What are you two doing in my office?” 

The secretary makes eye contact with Minhyun first as you continue to take sips.

Without a word, the secretary leaves and you put your tea cup down.

You take out the envelope filled with documents from your purse and hand it to him. With another smile, you say, “The CEO wanted these done first.”

Minhyun furrows his eyebrows. She calls her father formally. He nods his head and takes the envelope. He scans the contents and then looks up at you. Red ears, cheeks, and nose. You might as well have been an unripe tomato.

But that wasn’t his problem.

Red.

You are back at your apartment as you take the day off to get better from your small cold.

Please take a nap as soon as you get home.

Actually, eat something first and then go to sleep.

Eat. Take medicine. Go to sleep. In that order, okay?

Your phone is bombarded with text messages from your own secretary.

Ong Seongwoo is calling..

A sigh escapes your mouth as you answer it. If he was going to call, why did he send anything in the first place.

“Hello?”

“Your voice sounds hoarse.”

“Sore throat.”

You hear a deep sigh from the other line.

“Do you have something for that at home?”

“No.”

“I’ll be-”

Before Seongwoo continues, you hear your door bell go off.

“Hold on.” You walk to the screen that showed the front of your door and saw an unfamiliar man in uniform. “Who is it?” You say through intercom.

“Delivery service.”

You watch as the man points to his hat with the name of his delivery service, “I’ll be right out.”

Seongwoo patiently waits on the other line as he hears you open the door and exchange a few words with the delivery man. Only one word stood out to him. Or should he say one name: Hwang Minhyun.

“Seongwoo-sshi?”

“Yes, hello?”

“Are throat lozenges okay?”

“What?” He hears rustling in the background.

“Throat lozenges for my sore throat. Acetaminophen, ibuprofen. Do I take all of these?”

Seongwoo’s voice goes down one pitch lower, “Yeah. Those are fine.” They just met yesterday.

“All right. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

1:26PM Received. 

Minhyun closes his text messages and opens up his contact list. He opens your contact name as his thumb hovers over the call button. Instead, he opens a different contact. 

"Hello? Can we postpone the family meeting for this Thursday?" 

"Is anything wrong?" Unlike Minhyun's soft spoken and medium-toned voice, his father's voice is deep and rough. 

"My fiancé seems to be feeling under the weather today." 

"Are you taking care of her well? You know what this marriage means for the company." 

"I know." Minhyun wonders why he did not have his secretary call his father for him. 

Their first meeting was at a the heart Cheongdamdong in a famous sushi restaurant. She wore an empty smile on her face and it bothered him a little bit because he knew it was fake. 

“Our parents are engaging us to each other for the company.” He was not going to beat around the bush. Those were his first words. 

“You’re Hwang Minhyun, right?” She continued to smile and then introduced herself. “Although, you’re probably aware of my name-”

“I don’t, actually.” Anything to get her to stop smiling.

She let out a small laugh. “Good thing I introduced my self first.”

She already guessed Hwang Minhyun’s personality. He just needed to smile at someone and they were already at his feet. One visit to her future father-in-law’s company and the employee’s reaction to her confirmed everything. 

Workaholic. Wealthy. Womanizer. 

Whatever she thought didn’t matter, nor did she matter to anyone.

Minhyun had his own deductions from seeing her picture. They weren’t as accurate as her’s because she was not surprised at his distant attitude. Maybe she was on the same page as him.

This was merely business and he was going to live the way he wanted despite what she did. 

Her smile and his expressionless face, that was their first meeting and also the beginning of the long downpour.

Hansol flips back and forth from looking at Seungkwan then to you, “I understand.”

You grab Hansol’s wrist because you had a feeling he was about to walk away, “I’m sorry. But, it’s not that I don’t want to tell you.”

“What is it then.” His voice is lower and quieter than usual.

“I can’t..” You start. 

Hansol wiggles his wrist out of your grip and gives you a disappointed expression that shatters your heart.

Your world seemed to be slowing down as you watch his back as he leaves.

You watch until Hansol was no longer in your view. Tears start to well up in your eyes, but you look up to the sky to stop them. You felt guilty for not saying anything and simply disappointed because of the lack of communication. 

“Why won’t you just tell him.” You hear Seungkwan’s question from behind you.

You pondered his question. Why didn’t you just tell him? ‘There are girls in our class that are bullying me. They use to do this everyday until you came along.’ That was all you had to say. But, he would ask further. Why are they bullying you now? If he asked that you’d have to say they were bullying you because of him and the last thing you wanted was to introduce him to your problems. You wanted him to continue genuinely smiling.

Because you like Chwe Hansol.

When you finally come up with the answer in your head, you look straight at Seungkwan with a troubled look.

“Don’t even answer that.” Seungkwan laughs off his question and lazily wipes a tear that managed to escape from your eyes, “Transfer isn’t going to go anywhere, so don’t cry.”

You slowly nod and Seungkwan’s words manages to calm you down. It wasn’t what he said, but how he said it. His happy virus was contagious. A weary smile appears on your face, “Thanks, Seungkwan.” 

The next day at school, you didn’t dare to look at Hansol. His disappointed and angry expression from yesterday was still fresh in your mind. For the whole day, you were only looking at the lecture and your notes to get your mind off of him, but you weren’t understanding any of the new material. 

During break, someone had come visit you, but it was Seungkwan. He had gotten you strawberry milk, which only brought you back to thoughts of Hansol, but you drank it anyway. Seungkwan gladly drank his chocolate milk and you couldn’t help but compare Hansol’s mature taste buds from Seungkwan’s sweet tooth.

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom.” Seungkwan tells you.

You nod and when he leaves the classroom, you’re alone once again. You put your head down with the side of your head rested on your arms. Slowly, but steadily, you close your eyes and drift off to a light sleep.

Somewhere in your half conscious, half asleep state, you feel someone lightly blow on your face. You slightly open your eyes and see a blurry face, who resembled Hansol, only a few inches away from you. Your fallen hair is moved behind your ears and you’re sure this is a dream because the person’s touch was warm, just like Hansol’s. You close your eyes, ‘Stop dreaming about him.’ you tell yourself.

A few minutes later, the first warning bell wakes you up from your small nap and you look around. Seungkwan and a few students were already at their desk. You look to Hansol’s seat and, to your surprise, he was sitting in his chair not surrounded by people. He was quietly writing in his notebook, ‘Why is he alone?’ you think. Before you can think anymore of it, the final bell rings and almost all of your classmates have gathered in their seat. 

You take out your other notebook from your backpack and when you look up several people are looking at you. 'What are they looking at?’ A heavy atmosphere is in the class as it was quieter than usual and your bully is looking right at you with an intimidating stare. You have an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. Something was going to happen and you knew it.

When the lunch bell rang, you got up to quickly leave the classroom, but your bully had already got up from her chair and left the classroom. You tilt your head in surprise and confusion because you were sure she was going to do something. 

You were the last person to leave the classroom and as soon as you leave the classroom, he was there waiting for you next to the doorway to slow down time for you once more.

Without hesitation he says, “I’m sorry.” Hansol walks closer and closer and you take small steps back, worried if he came any closer he would hear the loud beating in your chest.

He wraps his arms around you and your heart races.

You try to push him off because your secret was going to be revealed, “Hansol.” You stutter his name.

“I was ignorant.” 

You stop trying to push him away, “What?” If it was ignorance, that was you. “Hansol-”

Hansol keeps you as close as he can and closes the space between your bodies. A small smile forms on his face when he smells a scent of strawberries. Strawberries were automatically linked to you in his mind.

Hansol told you he finally knew. Students in class were bullying you. You were completely isolated. One slip from a classmate’s mouth finally made him realize why you never hung out with people in class, why you stayed in the classroom during break, why you were by yourself for the whole day, and everything else fell into place.

The only thing he didn’t figure out was how far your bullies went to scar you, especially that time when you first met him. Your innocence almost crumbled that day, but he didn’t need to know that. You weren’t going tell him either. That was still the best day because that was when you first met him.

The next day, Hansol was back to hanging out with you and more. Again, you didn’t understand why people didn’t flock around him anymore, but you didn’t care or question it. From the start to the end of school, Hansol and you were together. 

The following day, Seungkwan joined the two of you. and from there your school life drastically changed.

As soon as you got to your locker, the two of them were waiting for you. During break, the three of you stayed in the classroom with your milk cartons joking and teasing each other. When lunch came around, the three of you sat under small a tree and ate your food. Hansol would play his, as Seungkwan would call it, hooligan music and Seungkwan would hum ballads during those days he got Hansol to turn off his music. You were satisfied with watching the two bicker and simply talking to them. It didn’t have to be anything important. 

No one could separate the three of you.

As expected, people around school were talking about the trio. The loner of that one class was hanging out with the popular transfer and the class clown. Students were making all sorts of assumptions just how you the three of you became friends. Maybe you seduced them, but they didn’t see you as attractive. Maybe you threatened them and the two were forced to hang out with you, but the three of you were always smiling. The most popular opinion, or fact as some people liked to think of it, was the two felt sorry for you.

You were bullied ever since school started and so the two felt pity for you. You heard this many times while walking through the halls, but you ignored it. Somewhere inside, you wanted to ask them why they became your friends, but you were afraid. Afraid that the rumor might be true.

Not only did you face the terrible rumors being made up, but your bullies took advantage of every chance they got to hurt you. Their effort wasn’t very rewarding because you didn’t care about them or their words. All they could do was hurt you physically. But, you returned it ten folds by smiling and laughing whenever you were with Hansol and Seungkwan.

The only thing you were worried about was the two boys seeing your bruises. But, your bullies didn’t openly bully you and you became good in hiding the fact you were being bullied, at least that’s what you thought.

Karma was catching up with everyone at a quicker pace.