Help || Hwang Hyunjin

EIGHTEEN

Why was everything going downhill again?

I hadn't even tried but just being alongside a certain someone, things had healed on their own. There was no reason to not be devastated when I learnt that the way I had depended on Hyunjin for emotional support was such that when he wasn't there, right by my side, it felt like everything was on the verge of shattering to pieces.

He had flown to the US for a week, for his dad's constant pleading and I wasn't a fool to persuade him to go but now that I was alone, rethinking was all I could do. I was prone to do so from the very beginning. I should've known myself better.

What was I expecting? That Hyunjin would take me with him to Las Vegas? Not exactly but now that that thought came to my mind, I felt worse.

How dependent was I?

But what had even happened? Well, two days back, due to the absence of Hyunjin in the city, during the time when we would usually hang out, I was walking down the fifth main street in attempts of dwindling my desire to go have a reunion with my buddy, which was only impossible. The street got very empty by the time a house that was nearly forty meters away from Hyunjin's was crossed. Now that Hyunjin had deserted his cabin too, that entire portion of the street was probably left untouched, with this uncanny thickness that sat on it. I was, in fact, the only living organism, visible to the naked eye, that entered the unruled territory other than the bird that had laid its nest on a huge tree, growing on the side, opposite to the cabin. 

It felt a little fishy, going there. There was not one breath I could hear and that time, I guessed that the bird too had left to get its prey. I was that person who was scared of her own shadow but I was acclimatized to this entire area, especially after the coming of Hyunjin in my tiny world.

I feared my premonitions would come true when I heard a foreign breath. It wasn't mine. Someone was there, someone who didn't radiate the friendliest aura. 

It was worse when I realized that  Hyunjin's house was literally sharing a wall with the compound of the dead-end.

I was jammed. I didn't want to turn back but I did, only because I had to. Ah, the perks of being just about weakest girl my age...

And, as expected, when I turned around, I was welcomed by an extremely unwelcoming face.

He just stared at me. He stared and stared and stared till I thought his eyes were eating me up alive. He definitely didn't seem safe.

Like always, the first thing I tried to do was ignore. I tried walking past him, but he caught my bony wrist. There was no way of escaping his grip. He was naturally strong and I was naturally weak.

I was terrified as my eyes looked into his and spoke for themselves.

He was a completer stranger. I had always imagined people like this to come with masks and other props to cover their face and identity in general, but this man was utterly bare-faced.

I couldn't call out the first name that came to my mind. It was useless. He wasn't here. He could obviously not hear me from basically an entire continent away.

I did what any other average human would do. I panicked.

"M-my friend; he lives here," I said through the short breathes that I somehow managed to pull out, while pointing at Hyunjin's house that stood next to me who at the moments, was trapped between the two arms of the frightening man, who held his palms against the compound wall.

At my words, the guy seemed to be rather disappointed. He spared a glance toward the cabin before turning back at me, bringing his face closer to mine.