The Breakout Project - Hwang Hyunjin

Chapter 20

I didn't tell my dad about the shadow last night. Why? I don't know. Some small part of me thought it was better not to get him involved. I was planning to clear everything today with Yura and that would hopefully answer my questions about the shadow man.

He could be one of the interns. Or of course, someone entirely different. That's why I decided to wait until I had spoken to her before doing anything outrageous like calling the cops again. They might feel threatened by that and attack us, who knows. The only thing I knew was that I wasn't feeling like tempting our luck, especially when my father stayed home alone for the whole day.

What I didn't expect was for the short-haired girl to ignore me as soon as I stepped inside the classroom. Now, it wasn't that I was thinking of talking to her in the middle of the class but she likely stared at me as I entered and then boringly looked away.

Politics science was boring and I didn't have the slightest sense of will to pay attention, so it's an understanding to say I couldn't keep my head from straying back a couple times to try and catch the girl's eyes. Yet after the third time, I noticed she had placed her head down on the table, completely crushing all my hopes of seeing her.

The bell rang and signalled the next period, which was P.E. class. In the blink of an eye, Yura had grabbed her stuff and dashed out of the room, forcing me to run after her through the hall. The small place was crowded with students exiting their classrooms and I almost gave up finding her until I saw her standing in front of her locker, which was at the end of the corridor. I pushed through the mass of people, earning glares from a few of them but ignored them.

The girl slammed shut her locker door when she saw me standing next to her and raised an inquisitive brow.

"Can I help you with anything?" she mocked me and I remembered the words as the ones I had spoken to her that day on the chemistry lab.

"Yes, you can." I pretended not to catch her joke. "Could you give me a minute?"

Her eyes scanned my face for a few seconds, trying to see through my words. But today I was doing a very good job at keeping my face expressionless, much to her disappointment. I waited until she could give me an answer and she finally sighed.

"I have nothing to say to you, Hyunjin." She arranged the strap of her bag and disposed to leave. Before she could do it, I grabbed her wrist, pulling her back to face me.

"But I do."

She stared at me impatiently. "Well I don't talk to people unless I have something to say," she answered rather stubbornly and snatched back her wrist, "therefore you might have to wait until then, I'm afraid."

What the hell was going on?

I shook my head, not understanding a thing. "Why are you acting like this all of a sudden?" I stopped her from leaving again, this time grabbing her from her sleeve. I'm sure she could see the confusion written on my face because this time I wasn't trying to hide it.

I was genuinely puzzled. A few days ago, we had spoken normally like any other day and now she seemed to have changed personas with Jiwon. There was a slight tug of irritation to her voice, like she couldn't be bothered with me. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel somehow hurt.

A sigh left her lips. "I have a lot of things to worry about right now. Find someone else to bother because I don't have time for you today."

Her words were like a slap to the face. They made me loosen my grip unconsciously and the next time she tried to pull her hand away, she managed it. Turning on her heels, she walked amongst the other students and it wasn't hard to lose her after that.