» chapter one: what? «

The annoying sound of an alarm rang through the room. Hyejin groaned, knowing there was no time for her to try and get some rest. She had yet another sleepless night.

How long had it been since she let herself fall to the arms of her tempting dreams? How many nights had she gone through without a blink of sleep, only drowning herself with the thoughts playing inside her head? How much times did she stare at the darkness to the point where she knew it like the back of her pale hand?

Countless, really. But Hyejin knew she didn’t have a choice.

She turned the machine that was blaring that irritating sound and grabbed a towel, stepping into the bathroom. She came out 10 minutes later wearing her school uniform, her dripping wet hair as they created dark spots on her blazer. She wrapped it lazily around a towel before she ran down stairs and started up the coffee machine. She popped slices of toast into the toaster before running down another flight of stairs to her father's workplace.

"Appa?" she called out, eyes scanning soundless area, "Appa, do you want coffee or something?" She walked inside one room and saw her father drowned in a pile of books and scrolled up blue prints, a dimly lit lamp shade the only source of light as even breaths slipped through his lips. His hair was messily placed, the sleeves of his shirt carelessly rolled up, holes evident in the sides of his trousers and a sock hanging from his toes. His face was clearly exhausted; dark circles ringing his eyes, dry, colourless lips and his skin paler than usual. A sigh escaped Hyejin's lips seeing her father like that.

Taking quiet steps, she tidied up the area around him, piling up the books in a neat pile. A bit too high for her reach, she stood on the balls of her feet to place the books in the shelves above, accidently knocking a few blueprints off the table as she did so. With her sleeping father in mind, she let out a not-so-silent groan before crouching down to clean up her accident. One by one, she rolled them up tightly before placing them back on the desk until one caught her eye. It was just slightly unfolded but she could see the age difference from the others because of the surface of the paper. She slowly unrolled the prints and ignored the discomfort growing in the pit of her stomach of invading her father's privacy.

Her eyebrows furrowed. It was a sketch of a large house, erased measurements still quite evident on the sides and small smudges of lead on the corners. It was a normal looking blue print but with one really big, and apparent, difference. From one corner to another, a large x was scribbled in black marker multiple times, covering parts of the sketch. The damage made looked like it was done harshly, almost creating holes in the hard paper and Hyejin wondered if her father was the one who did such. She shook the thoughts away and started rolling up the paper, knowing it wasn't her business. Before she could fully roll the blue print up, a thin sheet of paper fell to the floor, almost looking like it came from inside the material of the blue print. She hurriedly put away the blue print before picking up the paper, squinting her eyes to read the faded handwriting.

"Hyejin?"

She flinched at the voice of her father, quickly slipping the note in the pocket of her blazer. She casually turned around, keeping both her hands by her sides.

"Hyejin, what are you doing here?" he asked, sitting up from his chair only to groan in pain. Hyejin reached out and stabled her father, feeling a little disappointment as she knew he was truly exhausted.

"Appa, how long did you stay up last night?" she asked him, frustrated, "I told you it's not good for your health to work until your body collapses in exhaustion!" Her father sighed, knowing his daughter was tired of what he kept doing, "I know. It's just that…" He trailed off and Hyejin understood, letting out a shaky breath.

"I'll get your breakfast ready. Come upstairs when you feel hungry." Hyejin told him, turning around.

"Hyejin, I-"

"I'll be off to school soon. Goodbye." Hyejin cut him off, proceeding to leave the room.

She walked up the flight of stairs and did what she had told him. She prepared his breakfast carefully, only placing a tiny amount since she knew he barely ate a lot. Covering the meal with a net, she quickly scribbled a message on a sticky note before placing it on the table beside the food. Giving the basement one last glance, she sighed and left the house for another day of school.

She pushed through the crowd piling in the halls of Bangtan Academy, basically pressed against the metal lockers. Students were rushing from place to place, some even having the time to play basketball in the crowd of people. She hissed in pain when a especially hard push made her head make contact with the side of a locker, her sight blurring for a few seconds. Hearing a deep chuckle from beside her, she knew what was about to come.

"Whoops. Look who we accidently pushed here." the boys spoke, sarcasm dripping from every syllable that came out from his mouth, "I'm sorry. I never knew nerds could be camouflaged to look like lockers." His group let out a burst of laughter, giving each other high fives at their leader's insult. Hyejin didn’t even have to wait for her sight to get back to know who was continuously throwing comments at her.

Block B.

Zico, as he would like to be called, gave her his usual lopsided smirk before spinning the basketball on the tip of his fingers, "Yah, speak, why don’t you? At least an acknowledgement for giving up my ego and saying sorry." Hyejin just stared at him, knowing it wasn’t worth saying anything. Zico nudged Hyejin harshly, making her collide with the lockers once again.

"You really aren't going to speak?!" he shouted before slamming the ball to the floor, the object making an echoing sound as it bounced. Students eventually noticed the event and started crowding around, whispering and mumbling their opinions to each other.

"Heol... She really isn't going to say anything, hyung." a red haired, deep voiced boy who went by the name P.O shook his head in amazement.

Hyejin crossed her eyebrows, giving the boy in front of her a hard stare before finally speaking, "What do you want now?"

"Oh my god," he faked a surprise look, hands covering his mouth, "Who knew she had a voice?" His friends behind him snickered.

Hyejin in a breath, trying not to release the built up anger she had for this guy. Her nails dug into her pale skin, enough to break through the skin.

Zico didn’t miss the small action and a smirk grew on his lips, looking down at the fragile figure under him, "What? Is our little nerd finally showing her true colours? Huh?" he mocked, inching his face closer to hers. Hyejin bit her lip, wanting so badly to punch this guy in the face but she knew that it'll only cause her more attention in this wretched school. Before anything else could happen, the oh-so-sweet sound of the bell rang through the halls, catching the attention of the students, including Block B and Hyejin.

"Well, aren’t you saved by the bell again." Zico taunted, patting Hyejin's shoulder mockingly before turning away, his friends soon following him after. Hyejin sighed, half in relief and the rest in frustration. There wasn’t one day where the group of seven didn’t bully her and her anger was quickly building up each day they did.

Hyejin ran a hand through her hair before walking to her locker, knowing she was already late as it was.

"Alright, class. Next week is your next performance, as you all know, so every lesson we have from now on is free rehearsal. Remember, this is the first assessment you have for this year so it counts as 40% of your final grade. You know, no pressure."

The teacher let out a teasing shrug as the entire class rolled their eyes at his childish sarcasm. Nam Woohyun, being a 25 year old teacher, the students were expectedly close to him. He was very well known around the school despite only teaching there for a year.

Complaints were heard throughout the room but the young teacher just turned around, not taking any of it. "Class, don’t even try to persuade me into doing anything. The date is final so get off your butts and get to work." he turned his head slightly, scrunching up a piece of scrap paper before throwing it directly at Hyejin's head. Hyejin swiftly caught it in her hand before giving her teacher a look, although knowing why he did so. She guessed that using a few words were too much for him since throwing a scrunched up paper was what he used to call students up.

Hyejin mentally rolled her eyes. How could a 25 year old adult act like such a kid? She unwillingly stood up from her seat, stuffing her hands into her pocket before waking to the teachers desk.

"Hyejin-sshi, you probably know why I called you up here." Mr Nam told her in almost a sophisticated way, making the latter snort mentally in amusement, "This is 40% of your final grade. Are you going to skip performing again?" That took the amusement out of her in an instant.

Music was something she didn’t like. She didn’t like performing in front of others because that meant attention and attention, to her, was nothing but trouble. That was the reason why she purposely skipped large performances in class. It seemed like Mr Nam caught on.

Hyejin kept silent, staring at the oh-so-interesting floor beneath her. Mr Nam let out a small sigh, taking out a few sheets of paper from his drawer, "Here, take these." Hyejin took the music sheets he handed her before looking back up at him.

"They're easy to play and sing." he told her, "Just try to learn them, hm?" He heard a sigh escape her lips and he smiled. "Go ahead now," as soon as the words rolled through his tongue, Hyejin turned around and walked back only to hear the last words of her music teacher echo through the classroom,

"I'll be looking forward to your performance next week, Miss Jung."

Hyejin groaned and slammed the door close as she stepped into the house. She carelessly dropped her bag to the floor, letting out an even louder groan as she kicked it away. She waited. And waited. Only to straighten in confusion.

Usually her father would come into the room chuckling before saying his usual words, "Well, I guess my daughter had fun at school." but there was nothing of the sort. Hyejin walked towards the basement, eyebrows crossed in puzzlement. Was her father not here?

"Appa?" she called out, quickly walking down the steps, "Appa? Appa, are you here?" Hyejin looked towards his workplace and saw that there was no light seeping through the gaps, indicating her father's absence. She walked back up the stairs and towards the kitchen, thinking of reasons why his father would've left the house when she saw a small sticky note stuck above one of the doors. She reached up and took it off the wall, reading the short message written in neat handwriting.

I'll be back late, Hyejin. Eat properly and don’t stay up for me.

- Appa

Hyejin stuck the note to the fridge, the idea that her dad left the house still filling her thoughts. Why would her dad, who stayed inside 24/7, suddenly leave the house? And for what reason?

She grabbed a juice box from the fridge and stuck the straw inside, sipping on the apple flavoured drink as she walked upstairs. She quickly changed out of her clothes and into basketball shorts and a t-shirt. Hyejin plugged her headphones on, scrolled through her list of playlists, before playing the soothing songs. Finishing the drink, she lay on her bed, letting herself fall into the world of her and her music.

Hyejin jolted awake, her eyes instantly searching her surroundings. It was dark. The closed curtains didn’t help as nothing but black was around her. Rubbing her eyes  conscious and combing her hair with her fingers, Hyejin suddenly realized something.

She fell asleep. She actually fell asleep.

Her eyes moved to the green light of her digital clock and she grasped the fact that it was already three in the morning. A fresh and relieved filled her and she stood up from her bed, careful of the steps she took until she felt the handle of the door brush her fingertips. She opened it and walked cautiously down the stairs, switching on the lights on the way.

The first thing she saw was the house keys on the kitchen countertop and she knew her father had come home from wherever he had gone to. She sighed and reached up to grab and glass cup before pouring cold water inside to drink. She turned around and leaned against the counter only to let out a loud scream when she saw a tall, strange looking boy staring sharply at her. He let out a shrill scream at her reaction, making Hyejin loose grip in her hands, the glass cup falling to the ground and into a hundred pieces.

The glass pieces cut the skin on her legs and probably drew blood but Hyejin didn’t feel it. Who would when a stranger was in your house at three in the morning looking scared yet frightening at the same time?

"W-Who are you?" she involuntarily stuttered. The boy seemed to calm down with the question and he straightened, eyebrows crossing before a smile formed on the edges of his lips.

"Annyeong! I am 951230."

...What?

»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»

A/N: First chapter is finally up! Sorry for the long wait. XP Subscribe and comment please~ <3