Life (A Kiss Of Life Fanfiction)

Chapter II

Natty POV

To be completely honest: If somebody would've told me just a few days ago that I would start the day by waking up in a comfortable bed and end it over a delicious dinner with a whole new group of friends, I would've called them delusional. But Haneul kept her promise and invited all of us to a really nice restaurant, telling us to order whatever we wanted. And despite me being the hungriest of us, I was also the one who took the longest to pick a meal, simply being too overwhelmed by the choices. Usually, whenever I would get food, I would scan the menu for the cheapest item and pick that.

"Natty, come oooon. Have you never seen a menu before, just pick a food now before we all gonna starve." Belle playfully nudged me from the side, which caused me to blush a little. They still didn't know that I was homeless, and I didn't know how to tell them. Or if I should tell them.

"Okay, I'll have a large pizza then." I finally decided and closed the menu, much to the relief of the blonde next to me. "Thanks again for the invitation, Haneul."

The youngest one responded with an adorable smile. "I told you, its no biggie. You three quite literally saved me, after all."

"How did you even end up with such a horrible guy?" Julie asked as she sipped on her cocktail. Among the four of us, she was the only one with an alcoholic beverage, but she also was the oldest so I didn't think much of it.

To Julie's question, Haneul could only shrug her shoulders. Her gaze was directed down into her coke. It was like she was hypnotised by the little bubbles that rose to the surface one by one, where they eventually dispersed. Or maybe, she was still processing the events that occurred just hours ago. I could hardly imagine the fear she must've felt in that moment...

"We go to the same school..." She eventually replied. "I am... not the most extrovert person, to put it mildly. When I'm in my classroom, I'm often too shy to talk to people, unless I'm being spoken to first. But in actuality, I am a very fun and bright person. I just.. can't show it well. Unless I'm alone. Which is why I started to do little dance clips and post them on social media. They are not really complicated choreographies or anything like that, its just my way of bringing joy to the people. And I guess I collected quite the following by doing so. When my classmates found out about that, they approached me and at first, I feared that they would laugh at me or even bully me. But no, they even tried to copy my dance. That made me really happy and I became friends with some of them. And eventually, Samuel approached me as well and we exchanged numbers. We never spoke prior to that, but he seemed nice, so I guess I was a bit naive when he asked me out for this date..."

When Haneul's expression turned a little gloomy at the end of her explanation, Belle reached over the table and put her hand on the younger one's, trying to give her some comfort. "Don't blame yourself for what just happened. What he did was bad enough. But the fact that he tried to pull that in a public space... that takes a special kind of audacity. There's no way you could've predicted that."

"I still think we went to easy on him. At least you could've let me kick him in his balls." Julie added, and I couldn't help but laugh. This girl sugarcoated nothing, I loved how straightforward she was.

"I really appreciate that. But the situation is already bad enough. When I think about seeing Samuel at school again..."

"Well, at least you don't have to worry about that for a couple of weeks, since its summer break." Belle tried to cheer Haneul up. "And by the time school starts again, and especially after the lesson we taught him, I doubt he will try any funny business again."

"I hope you're right..." The blonde mumbled.

Now it was Belle's turn to share her story with us. "My mom was a professional ballet dancer. From what I've heard, and I had to hear a lot of that crap, she was really good. So of course, she wanted me to follow her footsteps. Except that I couldn't care less about starving myself to death and do silly spins in even sillier dresses. One day, we got into a fight about it and I ran away. That's where I bumped into Haneul and honestly, I can't say that I miss my parents." A shy smile and a blush broke out on Haneul's face at that last sentence, while Belle turned towards Julie and me. "What about you? How did you meet?"