So guys, this is my first book on Wattpad and I decided to post it here because I didn't want to let all my planning go to waste! The setting of this book is South Korea, so a lot of you may be unfamiliar with the character's names and the cities. The story is centered around two main characters by the names of Hyuna and Jaehwan, but other trivial characters may have a POV somewhere in the book.
The first few chapters (thus, Part 1) will be mostly the introduction to the characters and their stories. The main start of the mysteries and incidents will happen a bit further into the book, so please hang around until then to read when things start to get interesting!
Thank you for reading!!!
When I look back on the day my life drove down a very bumpy road, all I remember is that i was dreaming.
Dreaming of a fantasyland full of unicorns and rainbows, all the while aware of the stuffy library air around me, the roughness of the wooden table beneath my elbow. The twinkle of a pair of silver earrings caught between the black hair of the girl beside me, the deafening silence that filled the room, and that if one is ever caught in the middle of such silence, one would very much like to stand up and-
"I need that highlighter."
I blinked. A black ballpoint pen hovered between my eyes, as if threatening to write on my face. I jumped back a second too late, the chair dragging noisily beneath my feet. Yerin rolled her eyes.
"Pay attention, Hyuna. We're never going to get this done if you keep dreaming on me."
"I wasn't dreaming." I scowled. "I was daydreaming."
Across the table, my best friend sat like a queen on the moldy yellow chair, earphones stuck in her ears, elegantly twirling her pen between her long fingers. She was studying me curiously, with the casual air of someone dissecting a dead body, with concentration and mild amusement.
She popped her gum, Harley-Quinn style. "I need that highlighter." she repeated, pointing her pen at the orange highlighter sitting next to my elbow. "I'm waiting." I rolled it to her and she pinned it neatly to the table with her hand.
It was a burning hot day in the middle of July, the kind of day that could make anyone believe in global warming. Me and my best buddy Yerin were at the town library, drowning under a mound of homework. The library was a perfect air-conditioned place for us to study in peace until the sun went down and the world became appropriate for human inhabitance.
It did not help our already dangerously low concentration however, that every other middle schooler in the area seemed to have had the same idea. Wherever we went, we would meet some guy or girl from school, and we were forced to make meaningless conversation for 15 minutes or so, and that was enough time for some idiot to steal out god-blessed seats directly under the AC. Then we would have to either 1) ask the nice guy to please go away as we had gotten there first or 2) sit nearby and whisper rudely until he or she got uncomfortable and left. Studying at the library was rather tiresome business.
I stared down at my nearly blank book report (I had scrawled down my name. That was definitely something) and sighed, hoping that it would disappear in a sprinkle of fairy dust. Writing 20 book reports was mandatory for all the kids at our school, as the school had to ensure that we do something other than hibernate during vacation.
Yerin, who had been rummaging through the mountain of books she had picked out of the shelves, looked up at my mournful sigh.
"Do you have anything you want to write about?" she asked.
Regardless of my love for books, I had none. I eyed the pile warily and said "You do realize these books have to be on the booklist, right?"
Yerin waved a copy of Jane Eyre at my face. "Of course I do. I double-checked. Do you want me to triple-check?"
"It's fine." I picked up a moth-eaten old book from the pile and blew off the sheen of dust. "Woah, most of these look old. Nothing earlier than the 20th century."
"That's the deal with classics, isn't it?" Yerin made air quotes at the word 'classics', and rolled her eyes. "This whole damn booklist gives me depression."
"All books give you depression, sis." I said. "I've known you long enough to know that."
We had known each other for approximately 11 years. We had met at day care when we had gotten into a huge hair-pulling fight over the rights to a barbie play house. After that we had quickly moved on the becoming best friends, and as far as I remember, there had never been a second in my life that didn't include my bestie after that. We were inseparable.
"This is stupid." Yerin said, shaking her head. "Stupid, I tell you. Being holed up in a freakin' library when there's much fun to have outside."
"Well it's either this or heatstroke." I glared at my report as if it had said something insulting.
Yerin leaned forward on her elbows. "Why are you having so much trouble writing this anyway?" she asked. "You've practically read the whole library. I was counting on you to give me some ideas."
I twirled my pencil in my hand. "I don't remember every single book I've read. Wish I could though."
Yerin stood up abruptly with a scrape of her chair. "I'm off to find me a decent book that looks less depressing than this lot. Back in a sec." She flounced away.
I turned back to my report. I was just about to jot down a sentence when my phone gave a sudden cry like a siren. I slapped my hand over it instinctively, a whimper escaping my lips. The girl with silver earrings shot me an evil look.
"Sorry, sorry." I checked the caller ID and frowned when I saw MOM flashing on the screen. Was there something wrong?
I stood up as quietly as possible and rushed out of the library doors.
There were only ever two reasons my mom ever called me; one was to tell me to drop by the store and grab a six-pack of diet coke, and the other was to randomly warn me of the stray child-abducters and pedophiles lurking in the dark corners of Seoul. Why she would be worried about that in the outskirts of one of the most boring parts of the city was a mystery to me, but I assumed she had her reasons.
A dry blast of hot air hit my face as I opened the glass library door. I caught my breath and sat down at the bottom of the marble steps, which felt like sitting on an open oven. I suddenly had a very realistic image of my ass smoking under my jeans, baked by the heated stone. Stupid global warming.
I accepted the call and raise the phone to my ear. "Hey mom."
"Hyuna, where are you?" She was in the office. Her voice was hushed, and I could hear the faint clicking noise of keyboards.
I shifted around in my seat. "I'm at the library, why?"
"With who? Yerin?"
"Bingo."
"I thought you were meeting Eunbi today."
"That was yesterday, mom."
"You do realize you've spent more time with Yerin than you did with me this summer? Your own loving mother, whose name was the first word that came out of your infantile mouth?"
"Hmm." I said. "I believe you are lying."
"Nonsense." she said in a mock-hurt voice. "Anyway, what are you up to today? After the library?"
"Got a movie at six." I replied, glancing down at my watch. "I'll be back by eight. Like I always do."
"What movie?"
"Holy helicopter parenting, mom." I said, scowling. "It's that horror movie I told you about. You know, the one with a lot of blood."
"Approved." said my mom in a satisfied tone. My mom loved horror movies and always told me to hold a healthy respect for them. "Come straight home after the movie, okay sweetie? I have a very important announcement to make."
"You can, you know, just announce it over the phone."
"I know. But that wouldn't be as awesome." I could hear the grin in her voice. My mom was all about exaggeration. "Just come home right after the movie, and skip the dinner with Yerin."
"She's going to kill me."
There was the unmistakable sound of a chair being scraped across the floor, followed by the deep voice of a man swearing fluently. My mom yelled something at the man, and he quieted. She was good at yelling at people. She had a voice that rivaled that spoken through a megaphone.
"Sorry sweetie. Some idiot just spilled coffee over the new printer and his girlfriend's white blazer."
"Ouch." I winced, feeling sorry for the poor guy.
"Yeah, ouch. I wouldn't waste my sympathy on him." My mom said. "You better be at home when I get there, okay? Or there shall be consequences!"
I threw up my hands. "Fine."
"Love you, sweetheart." She made a kissing sound over the phone and hung up.
When I returned, I found Yerin staring determinedly at something on the table, her chair pulled back as far as the wall allowed it in a rather awkward position. As I drew closer, I saw that it was a large and incredibly hairy spider.
"I heard that if you stare at those long enough, they'll bite." I offered.
"As if having eight legs isn't bad enough. Just get that thing away from me." Yerin whimpered faintly.
Yerin detested spiders. It was probably at the top of her list of hated things, and that was several steps up from from her toxic ex-boyfriend. She was known to have fainted once when someone had shown her a video of a tarantula crawling out of a person's mouth.
I picked the spider up by its hairy leg. It wriggled helplessly in my grasp. I carried it over to the window and placed it on the windowsill, where it promptly scuttle away.
"I ran into the librarian." Yerin said when I got back.
"The Bald Eagle?" Our local librarian was an old, balding man, who definitely did bore the resemblance to a giant bald eagle. It wasn't his appearance that had won him the title though. The Bald Eagle had an unnerving tendency to swoop in and out of the shelves when you were least expecting an attack, like a bird at prey. He was actually a nice old man if you knew him. If you didn't know him, you would only see an overgrown man with an overgrown temper who looked like he was suffering from a meth withdrawal.
"The one and only." Yerin said with a small frown. "He came at me out of nowhere and I freaked out. Now I have to apologize that i didn't mean to fracture his kneecap."
I raised my eyebrows in amusement. "Which knee?"
"Left. I think it was left."
"Damn." I winced. "That's the knee he got surgery on last month. Good call, Yerin. Now we're going to get a lifelong ban from the library."
"Oh come on. It wasn't completely my fault." said Yerin helplessly. "It was self defense. He should have known better than to sneak up on a taekwondo black belt."
I laughed and ran a hand through my hair. "I have bad news." I said seriously. "Mom wants me to come home right after the movie."
"What?" she exclaimed with a look of horror on her face. "You promised pizza, and pizza I shall have!"
"If you want to talk her out of it, be my guest." I shrugged.
Yerin made a face. "Oh, well. I like your mom. I probably shouldn't say no to her." she sighed. "Let's have dinner next time, then. On you."
"Sure thing, sis." I supposed it was only fair.
Even as I smile at my friend's disappointed expression, I felt a slight twinge beside my heart. The fact that my mom had called me back early reminded me of another day, on another summer many years back, when I had been told things I regretted ever hearing. Things about our family, and how my life would never be the same now that my dad was gone.
I learned not to care too much, though. It wasn't like I wanted that asshole back anyway.
I gathered up my stuff and stood up. "Let's go, spider girl. We have an assignation with a certain movie theater."