~ Together by a String ~ (Jiyoo)

~3~

"Why do you care so much, though? I thought you two despise eachother to the point one prays the other gets expelled from school, even deported from the country if possible."

"I thought so too but.. I guess not anymore?"

"Interesting.. So, what did you tell her?"

"I told her that I don't want people to see us talking to eachother so they won't make bad comments or-"

"Now why would you say something like that?"

"Because I-"

"Because you care so much about your 'perfect student' reputation that you think people will immediately see you in a different lighting if they see you associating with her?"

"How did you know..?"

She put her lipstick inside her bag and gave me her eye shadow palette. She told me to look at it closely and examine it.

"What do you see?"

"I see a palette? I don't really get why you gave this to me-"

"Describe everything you see."

"*sigh* Well, it's an expensive palette with 9 different colors and shades, a lot of detail was put into the design and material of the box and the logo of the brand seems to be of high quality too."

"Oh, that was a good description. Now open it."

I did as she said and it's safe to say I was slightly not expecting what I saw.

"It's empty?"

"Exactly Yoohyeon. We are just like this pallete. We see an advertisement of a palette that looks good and we buy it, we use it, and while doing that, we slowly destroy it. And we're not any different towards people. Others see that you're pretty, you're smart, you're caring and because of that, they constantly use you. But what they don't know is that you have your limits too. You're slowly getting used more and more until you're mentally destroyed, just like this palette."

I listened to her words and didn't utter a single word. I just stood there, silently listening to Dami speak.

"Not a single person here truly cares about how you're feeling. If you're known as someone useful, people will see you like that until you're useful no more. And honestly, no one really cares if you're perfect or not. That's why a slightly bit of change and peculiarity can never hurt anyone. I know that, since it didn't hurt me~"

And with that, Dami flashed me a smile and gave me a note with her phone number that said "call me if you need advice again" and left the bathroom after waving her hand. I was left frozen in thought... and that woke up a side of me that should've woken up very long ago.

♪♪♪♪

12:56 PM / KYH

"I hope I won't fuck this up.."

I left the bathroom and now I was running in the hallways straight to Minji's classroom. I abruptly opened the door which startled everyone inside. The English teacher looked at me and didn't know what to say. Bora was also there and I swear it looked like she was almost going to faint. I looked around the classroom and noticed Minji sleeping on her desk. It was my one and only chance.