༊*·˚ fools
"did you hear the news?!"
myunghee was all up in hyerin's face during lunch with kiya and dongmin right behind.
"calm down. what happened? what did i miss?" she looked at all of them.
"donghyuck and gina broke up!"
hyerin blinked. "what?"
myunghee rapidly nodded.
"jeno was talking about it with renjun during a short break we had between classes," kiya reported.
"you hadn't heard donghyuck say anything about that?" myunghee asked.
"to be honest, i'm not paying that much attention to him," she confessed.
"as you should."
"she's looking at you."
all three girls looked at dongmin who nodded his head to someone behind hyerin.
she peered over her shoulder and saw gina looking at her with tears running down her cheeks and hair blowing in the slight wind.
"do you think it was because of you?"
hyerin snapped her head back to myunghee. "obviously not. but i feel bad for her... what if donghyuck was being a dick?"
dongmin scoffed. "like the usual?"
"what are you going to do?" myunghee shouted as hyerin was walking off but she didn't get a reply and hyerin only ran quicker in gina's direction.
upon standing in front of her, gina looked away and wiped her tears on her arm.
"i heard about what happened."
she sniffed.
"and i know donghyuck's not the nicest of people so i was wondering if it was something he'd done?"
"why do you care? it's not like you're going to talk to him. he doesn't even like you!"
ouch...
"gina... i'm just trying to help you out," she cooed. "if you don't want me to you can tell me to go away."
she nodded and bit her lip. "go. go away. i don't want to speak to you."
before leaving, hyerin placed a packet of tissues on her lap then ran off back to the other three.
"so?"
she shrugged. "nothing."
myunghee scoffed. "go play football."
"not today. i need to save some energy to skate later on."
the group's eyes lit up – including kiya's.
"you're skating without us telling you to?!" dongmin exclaimed.
she smiled. "i spoke to my uncle about the competition and he said i should take the opportunity so i decided to follow his advice and today i'm meeting my trainer."
myunghee clapped her hands and squealed in excitement. "this is good! this is so good!" she wrapped hyerin in an embrace. "i'm so proud and happy for you!"
"i'd assist but i have to get some tutoring done," dongmin announced.
myunghee's head snapped in his direction. "tutoring for what?"
"physics."
"i could've helped you with that..." she mumbled.
he grinned. "what was that?"
"nothing!" she defended. "anyway, we should go. class starts soon."
the four of them headed upstairs and into their own classrooms.
hyerin's geography teacher arrived and, of course, told everyone to work in their pairs.
"why didn't you tell dongyoung yesterday that i was the one that got into a fight?" he muttered almost inaudibly.
quite frankly, hyerin was shocked that he'd even started a conversation first and that he wasn't attacking her in the first place.
"what happened to 'if it's none of your business then i don't have to answer?'" she quoted.
"it is my business if you were talking about me."
"but i didn't mention it was you."
he stopped what he was doing and looked right into her eyes. "yeah, why?"
her eyes flickered between his darker brown ones unsure of how to answer the question. "because i didn't want you to get into trouble with him because i know how much dongyoung cares about you. if he got mad at you then you'd blame me and have another reason to verbally abuse me," she replied with a sarcastic smile at the end.
he blinked once and went back to writing on the paper.
"why did you break up with gina?"
"that's none of your concern."
"she looked sad at lunch."
"she's not my problem anymore."
hyerin blinked then scoffed. "lee donghyuck what happened to you?"
"'me?! what happened to you?"
"i'm the exact same person i was when we met and when we were friends. i haven't changed. but you? you face might be the exact same as it always has been but whenever i look at old pictures and compare them to who you are today, you're unrecognisable."
donghyuck didn't say anything else and before he even could the teacher told everyone to go back to their original seats since he was going to do some teaching for the remainder of the lesson.
˗ˏˋ 'ˎ˗
"i'm so sorry i'm late! my friends were taking forever to get into the car and- mr ha!?" she slapped her hand across her mouth in shock when she saw him. "mr ha!" hyerin dropped everything and ran to him for a hug. "i thought you moved away to a different city to do something else?"
"i did after you stopped skating," he explained. "but your uncle called my number last night and said you were interested in skating again you just needed a mentor and i hopped onto the next train to seoul from ulsan."
she hugged him again. "i missed you so much!"
"and i missed you, too. now, your uncle spoke to me about some competition you want to join?"
she went to get another leaflet from the place where she'd gotten the one she showed her uncle last night and showed it to mr ha.
"six weeks' time..." he hummed. "hmm..." he looked back at her. "show me what you've got."
she put on the skates and mr ha put on some music. hyerin glided on the ice as if she were walking on concrete normally. she moved with such grace like an elegant swan paying attention to finer details like the positioning of her fingertips.
it brought tears to mr ha's eyes seeing her move so freely.
after she finished, she skated back to where he stood on the other side of the rink.
"you're rusty but i think it's something we can fix for six week's time however... it has been two years since you last skated you're going to need a lot of practice if you want a chance at succeeding in that competition. what do you say?"
"i say we get to work as quick as possible!"
the corner's of his lips upturned into a big, hopeful smile. "i'll need to pick a song for you to practice and i'll do it tonight. you still have my number, yes?"
she nodded.
"are you doing anything tomorrow after school?"
"not that i'm aware of." she shrugged.
"call me after school and i'll pick you up so we can do some practice then you can go home and do whatever. we'll start with an hour a day then close to the competition we'll move it to two hours?"
she nodded in agreement. "sounds good."
"for now, you can go home. in fact, i'll drop you off so i can say hi to your uncle. let's go."
˗ˏˋ 'ˎ˗
"can we attend?!" myunghee practically sprung up in excitement after asking the question.
hyerin chuckled. "sure, why not?"
myunghee bounced up and down even more.
"would you calm down? you're jumping around so much someone might mistake you for a rabbit or something," kiya joked and held onto myunghee so she could stop.
as kiya wrapped her gentle hands around myunghee's arm, she felt some sparks at the physical contact.
"we should get going." hyerin checked the time on her watch. "yeah, let's go. my trainer should be here soon."
"you're going in his car?" dongmin questioned.
she nodded.
"then me and the girls will go in mine."
"perfect."
mr ha was waiting outside and she pranced to the passenger door. "hey!"
her friends came up behind her and peeked into the window shouting a "hi" to the older man.
"my friends can come watch, right?"
he smiled. "of course!"
"we'll be right behind you, sir." dongmin ran off with the girls to get his car and hyerin hopped into the passenger seat.
"isn't that boy the one that used to come and watch you practice?" mr ha pointed to someone out her window and she followed his finger to see who he was pointing at.
donghyuck, obviously.
he'd always been there to drop her off at the practices and sometimes he'd stay if he didn't have anything more important to do other times he would drop her off and pick her up and watch the ending parts of when he would pick her up. at the competitions, he would cheer the loudest, too. sometimes, her uncle and donghyuck would turn it into a "who can cheer the loudest for hyerin" competition.
"yeah, donghyuck," she mumbled.
mr ha caught sight from her reaction that it was probably something he shouldn't have asked about so he kept quiet and drove off instead.
<3
new character introduced