Chapter Four

Punishment

“Mrs. Park” he said silently, his eyes wide with surprise and dread as he looked at the petite woman standing in front of him with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

“Now Mr. Kwon, I think you do need to give me a decent explanation on what you are doing here, hitting school property” she said “Or better yet, explain what exactly is happening here in the first place.”

He gulped nervously and tried his best to stand straight, finding somewhere in himself to bring his calm act out. He racked his brain for a good explanation, and just ended up deciding on saying the truth, it was not like it was his fault, and he could already practically evision those four crazy girls holding their breaths as he spoke every single detail of what happened.

“Mrs. Park, I understand you are confused here, and trust me, so am I, but I assure you I have a good reason to—“ he cleared his throat when he saw the woman narrowing her eyes at him, daring him to actually say he had a good reason to beat the innocent library’s door up with his fists “Um, not that there is any good reason for doing that, I know it was immature, but please just hear me out”

He paused and waited for her to signal him to preceed, and so she did.

“Okay, so uh, it starts with these girls who just came running towards me” he started nervously, wondering if the woman would believe him.

Meanwhile, at the other side of the door, four girls pressed their ears tightly against the wooden door, trying to listen to the conversation happening outside.

“What is he saying?” The short haired girl asked though was quickly shushed by the other three girls.

“Minzy, you have to be silent or we won’t hear” The blonde whispered.

“I think I need a glass” The redhead said as she tried leaning closer to the door, if that was even posible, and strained to hear the conversation happening just at the other side of the door.

“I don’t think now’s the time to try strategies you see on movies Bom” The brunette said, avoiding the sudden punch that came her way “Geez, and I used to think CL was the most violent here”

“Oh shut up!” CL said irritatedly glaring at both the older girls.

“How can you say I’m more violent?! CL’s always so grumpy!” Bom whined, ignoring CL’s death glares.

“What? No I’m not!”

“Well it was because of your temper that all this happened!” Bom whispered.

“Wha-? That’s not true!” CL said indignantly, forgetting about the conversation outside completely “I’ll tell you what happened; Minzy’s love for dogs, that’s what!”

“Well Dara did end up with the idea though…” Minzy said to defend herself.

“Why did you bring that guy here, anyway?” CL asked.

“Things happened” Dara said sheepishly “I panicked, alright?”

“Yeah, and now you got us in more trouble than before”

“We got ourselves here from the start though” Dara said quietly, and then paused “Wait, I think they stopped talking”

Click.

“Wait, was that a click?”

“No, it’s just your imagination”

“I heard it too!”

“Come on, you’re just imagining things, right?”

“There was a click!”

“You think they found us?”

“Guys, I’m telling you—“

“Well look who we got here?” And what they feared had come true; they had found them. Mrs. Park looked at the girls tapping her foot on the floor impatiently with an irritated Jiyong behind her. “Hello girls, I’m guessing you caused all this trouble…again?”

They could only smile innocently at her.

So…

Jiyong looked down at his lap, glancing from the corner of his eye at the three girls sitting to his right, and then looked at the other one, the crazy brunette, sitting to his left. In fact, he glared at her. It was all her fault, why should he be here sitting in the music faculty dean’s office when he had not done anything? Not only that, but he wasn’t even officially a student here yet!

For all he knew, this would totally eliminate his chance in entering this college! He cringed at that thought. That would ruin his record, it would no longer be impecable, it would make him look as a trouble-maker, and one who couldn’t get into his first choice of a college.

His glare intensified, digging holes on the brunette’s head.

I hate you, you crazy woman. He thought.

The brunette however, was too busy trying not to glare at Mrs. Park to notice his own insulting gaze on her.

“It was an accident” She said firmly as she balled her fists around the fabric of her long loose shirt.

“I’ve already heard that one a couple too many times” Mrs. Park said tiredly as she slumped on her chair across Jiyong and the four girls, a wooden table in between them.

“It’s true, though.” The girl said. Jiyong raised his head and glanced at her, seeing her serious and restrained expresion, wondering what really irritated her, since it was clear they had caused quite a mess with what they did.

Really, whoever kidnapped dogs from an animal shelter and hid them at a school classroom?

“You kidnapped six dogs from an animal shelter” Mrs. Park said disbelievingly, her eyes wide and her hands lying flat on the table stiffly.

“Correction; we saved them” The blonde said confidently with a frown on her face, the purple haired girl nodded in agreement.

“They were treated so badly! Barely had any food, and those cages were dirty!” The red head intervened, and the other two nodded.

“They were suffering” The brunette said as well.

Jiyong sighed. It’s not like the reason was wrong, he guessed, still this had all caused him losing time; he should be celebrating his new success at this moment, not seeing it fall in front of his eyes.

“And you hid them at an art classroom” Mrs. Park continued skeptically, the girls looked down guiltily “Girls, do you even know how much pieces of art, works students had taken so long to make had gotten ruined because of those dogs? Did you know that that classroom you left those dogs in had also a lot of important materials for the classes, and that a lot of those had enough toxic chemicals to kill them if they even tried tasting it?”

“Sorry” the four of them said.

“We didn’t realize that Mrs. Park, we’re truly sorry” The blonde spoke for the girls and stood up to bow “It had been an impulsive decision, and I promise you it won’t happen again. We’ll take whatever punishment you think is fair for us”

Jiyong rolled his eyes. Says the girl who kicked me just to get away from this whole dilema.

From the corner of his eye, he could see that the brunette rolled her eyes as well.

Huh, what a rude girl.

“Very well” Mrs. Park said with a sigh and looked at them with sharp eyes before standing up and smiling sweetly at them. “Since the arts exhibition those artworks would be exhibited in was moved after vacation thanks to today’s incident I’ll have you girls help that mob of angry people waiting outside”

“What? They’ll kill us!” The redhead looked up with fear in her eyes. The blonde though, who appeared to be the leader of the group, shut her up by hitting her on the head and forcing her to bow her head “We’ll do as we’re told” The red head said in a painful tone.

“I’m sure you’ll do Bom-ssi” Mrs. Park said in an almost amused tone before she composed herself. “Helping them might make them lose their anger on you. You don’t want them to complain to the Principal, do you?”

“No Ma’am” The three girls to his right said in unison, while the brunette to his left staid quiet.

“Well now that we’ve agreed…” she trailed off and then sat again on her chair “I’ll wait for you here tomorrow morning at eight, then I’ll asign you your tasks”

“Yes Ma’am” again the three girls except for the brunette said.

“We’ll see what we can do with the dogs then, for now though, I think it’s wiser to return them to the animal shelter, then act against their bad treatments on their animals, legallly” The dean said with a warm smile, the three girls nodded and then stood up, understanding they could leave the office now.

Jiyong frowned and opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by one of the girls’ voice.

“Come on, Dara” The blonde said, urging the still seated brunette to stand up. She did not though.

“What about that guy?” The brunnette who apparently was called Dara asked as she pointed a finger at him. He wanted to nod since he was about to ask that. Why was he still here?

“Oh, Mr. Kwon” Mrs. Park said with a shocked expresion, as if surprised he was still here.

“Yes?” he looked up at the older woman and saw her smile.

“You’ll also help the arts students” she said easily.

His eyes widened and his mouth opened to be left hanging dumbly like that.

What?!

“But Mrs. Park, I did not contribute to anything they did!”

“You are seen as an acomplice in the eyes of the arts faculty student body, though” She explained “They’ll reognize you, and you’ll earn yourself haters here” She sighed and he frowned. This didn’t make sense. “I do not think this is appropiate of me to say, but I’ll just go ahead here. I do not think it’s in your best interest to earn any haters on what will most probably be your college Mr. Kwon. You’re a musician, you should know that you have to have all the help you can get when the time comes that you may have to use it, and having a whole faculty as an enemy won’t help you any, so it’s bettter to just help them”

He gaped at her and almost wanted to shake his head to clear out his head. He wasn’t sure what he was most surprised about, the fact that she admited he’d most likely be acepted to enter this college, or her piece of advice.

“Just hear her out, she doesn’t tend to help new potential students” he heard a small sweet voice somewhere, and he was suprised when he realized it came from the girl named Dara, still sitting beside him. It was a little wierd though, even though her voice just sounded sweet, her face was still serious or rather, emotionless.

“Just take it as practice” Mrs. Park added “You like writing, this might inspire you”

He stared at them both and huffed a frustrated sigh. But...on vacation? His last vacation before he entered college? And there was more than a month left until then!

“I still have five more weeks in school” he reasoned “I won’t be able to help”

“That’s okay, you’ll help a few days a week after school and on the weekends” Mrs. Park said “After you graduate, you’ll help only on weekdays, then. That way you’ll end sooner”

He wanted to protest, but couldn’t seem to find a good enough argument, not only that, but the annoying Dara girl spoke again.

“Just say yes!” The girl said, suddenly cheerful “Say yes, okay? Maybe we’ll even work together and be the best of friends!” she exclaimed with an innocent almost sickenly sweet expression on her face…he almost gagged.

“Was that aegyo?” He heard one of the girls still standing behind them whisper.

“If it was, it was one sorry excuse”

“Pfft!” another almost laughed but seemed to have gotten hit because she then squealed painfully.

“Girls” he turned around and saw the blonde looking warningly at the other two.

He shook his head and returned to look at Mrs. Park. These girls were distracting him.

“So, what is your decision Mr. Kwon?” Mrs. Park asked.

He looked around and stared at the three girls standing and Dara sitting on the chair beside him and almost wanted to scream ‘No!’, but then guessed it wasn’t the most appropiate answer. They would surely drive him nuts though.

He then saw the brunette glaring at him with fierce eyes with much more emotion he had seen on her these past few minutes, though it wasn’t threatening at all. It was goofy really, he almost wanted to laugh.

Oh well, he was the best at everything, right? He could always take up on a good challenge.

So he nodded and smiled at the dean.

“Yes, I’ll do it then” he said.

Mrs. Park chuckled “That’s good to hear”

“So…”

“You can all go” Mrs. Park said, and the girls breathed in relief while Jiyong stood up, exhaling a bit as well. “Oh, except for Dara”

He looked down at the girl with curiosity and slightly wondered why Mrs. Park hadn’t used any honorifics on her.

He saw Dara sigh frustratedly and cross her arms in front of her chest.

Jiyong didn’t pay any mind to it though, so he exited the room after shrugging it off.

“So” he heard as he closed the door behind him “What do you want?”

His brows furrowed.

Huh, what a girl, speaking to the Music Faculty’s dean like that.

So this chapter is quite introductory to what will happen next, I’m glad I finally finished this part of the story, now I can play with the characters more (Yay!).

I’m seriously sorry that it took me so long to update (Almost six months? Oh God). I’m sorry, I actually was planning to delete this story because I felt that it wasn’t that well written or interesting, plus I had lost the ‘storymap’ (which is literally a map I do to plan how the story will go) and I was kinda frustrated about it since I could barely remember what I’d be doing in the next few chapters or so. But then a few months ago I started reading what I already had and inspiration hit me again, so trust me when I say that I’ll definetely post at least one chapter every one or two weeks, I swear.

Anyway, thank you to my most recent subscribers! RachelAmabel11, abya01, loverC14,nanaISyeoni ,lucyl5 ,JAESHI and sandaragon. And obviously to my reviewers; Sandaragon and gubuchanchan. I’ll try answering your reviews from no won! Oh, and please look forward to the poster I’m making for this story :) It’s a drawing!