Melting Ice

Chapter 8

Im pulled, hard. Breathes were held in unconsciously, as everyone clearly saw how much strength the girl had put into pulling Jesslia's 'hair'.

But to everyone's astonishment, it was as if the hair had split into two, one thick layer in Im's hands and the other still on Jesslia's head itself. Only, the two layers were completely different. The one in Im's hands was almost black, the strands of hair splitting right in the middle while Jesslia's was ambre, bunned up.

The crowd continued staring, the fact still unable to process in their heads, and it was only after a while that the students finally realised that the 'layer' in Im's hands was actually a wig that Jesslia had been wearing since forever.

They turned to Jesslia straight away, their eyes trying to pierce holes into the poor girl that was busy glaring at her friend.

"Why did you even do that for?" Jesslia pulled Im nearer towards her, hissing out every word in anger. Im only chuckled awkwardly, "Well... it was for your good anyway. Didn't you promise your brother to start changing back? I'm only helping you to start!"

"But still!" Jesslia could only feel her anger and frustration rising by the moment, only to be stroked calmly by her brother in an attempt to calm her down. Yun sat down by her, attempting to make her feel better, "Come on Jessi. Think of it this way, its better for your hair plus you can continue your promise to me right?"

"But I-" She just could not find the correct words. Having struggled to get a reply out for a few minutes, Jesslia sighed in surrender to her close friend and brother and the two celebrated right away at their victory.

"Haha~~ Now let us let this down..." and Im reached for Jesslia's hair once again, this time not pulling but taking out the rubber band from her bunned hair, revealing perfect curls that everyone would be, no, they are, jealous of.

Jesslia frowned harder, throwing a simple "Stop this!" as she walked away, her steps heavy with everyone's stare latched onto her.

She was used to the stares honestly, of the people and their superficial method of viewing people, but the new stares she was getting from the students, that made her uncomfortable. Maybe it was due to the fact that it had been so long since she had stood as herself in front of the crowd; maybe it was due to the fact that she felt exposed, after such a long period of hiding underneath that layer of ice in her heart.

That was the reason why she had chosen to run away instead, because she was just not used to these and partly because she was not ready yet.

Jesslia replayed the scene that took place over a few minutes in her head, only to realise that her brother, and maybe Im, had misunderstood her over what she did that morning. Groaning, she swore that it was just an accident, a careless accident of her revealing the aura she would usually carry around her parents' friends thanks to the ugly remarks that group of people made. She too, had realised how the news had spread like fire, not that she cared, and how her brother, including Im had probably caught news of it as well, thinking that she was trying to change.

Talking about change, Jesslia sighed once more. She did thought of it before, when her brother made her promise, but she was honestly just agreeing perfunctorily. If she had care, or wanted to change at least, she would have gotten the chance a long time ago, but she did not. She had not, for the people here were not worth the effort, nor did she care about them.

Nevertheless, Yun and Im had still misinterpreted her actions, resulting in all those that had just happened, the pulling off of her wig and revealing her actual hair, which was a huge contrast to the usual centre-parting rough wig that she wore. And almost immediately, she could feel the change in attitude of people to her.

Sighing once more, Jesslia looked around, finding out that her feet had brought her to the school's ice rink, the ice rink that she had not dared or bothered to use at all. Then she sat down by one of the bleachers, staring at the huge area of frozen water before her.

~~

Lucion stared at his best friend and younger cousin, "Are you two serious? You shouldn't have done that Im."

Im pouted, unhappy at her cousin's comment, but she knew he was right. Lucion was always right, the people around him had either learnt that fact the hard way or the easy way, and Im, unfortunately, learnt it the first way.

"I'm sorry Lu..." Im surrendered after receiving a short glare from her older cousin who sighed, "You shouldn't be saying that to me."

"I know..."

Lucion sighed, his thoughts having all flown to the girl that had just left, "I'll go look for her." And he stood up, promptly adding a "Don't follow me." as his best friend and cousin stood up as well, wanting to accompany him in seeking the girl that the two of them were so apologetic too.

The two, Im and Yun, nodded unwillingly, yet they too, understood the space and time the girl needed to recover from what they had done to her, and showing their faces in front of her immediately probably was not the best idea.

Lucion left without looking back, leaving all the questions he knew the students would have to the two that had caused all the trouble. Now he was frozen, grasping the fact that he did not know where the girl went to, and he did not had her phone number as well to contact her.

Slapping himself innerly, he thought hard about where the girl would be, only to sigh again as he realise that he did not know the girl well enough and the only place that popped out in his mind was the ice rink.

"Wait, the ice rink..." and Lucion took off, making his way to the school's rink as fast as his legs could take him.

Author's Note: WEEEWWWW~~ :3 1k reads!!! Imma happy fruit xD hahas, MANY THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO'VE READ, COMMENTED AND VOTED FOR THIS BOOK! ^-^ I know this book still has a lot of improvements, like the length of the chapters (but I'm trying hard to make them longer now xD) D: I promise I'll continue working harder to make reading this as enjoyable as ever!! ^-^ So please do continue supporting this book~~

사랑해~~ <3