[SJFF] Real Face - Chapter 10
Title: Real Face
Characters: Donghae, Heechul, OC
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance, Drama, Angst
Type: Novel
Summary: She finally managed to escape from the one place that she hates the most in order to begin a new life in Seoul, but is still unable to get over the hatred for the male species. Would her heart be softened eventually?
~ * ~
10
Sitting on his bed as he waited for the sleep to claim him, Donghae's mind slowly wandered off to the incident that he had came across last week at the front gates of the school. No matter how much he tried to ignore it, he was still feeling extremely curious about the identity of the person who was almost literally manhandling his classmate the other day. Even from afar, Donghae could see that Sanghee really wanted to get away from him - whatever her reasons were - to the extent that even the fear was blindingly obvious on her face.
Usually, Donghae would pay heed to his mother's advice so as to not get himself involved in any trouble at school, especially when he had specifically promised her to do so. It was all done in exchange for her agreement to let him stay away from home and to get a part time job, even though his family was well-to-do enough to support him through his high school education at Neulparan and to pay for all of his living expenses. He merely wanted to live independently on his own, to prove that he didn't require a large amount of money at his disposal in order to be happy with his own life. Above all, he wanted to get away from the stereotype that "rich kids are like leeches living off their parents' money".
This time, he surprised even himself at how readily he went forward and forcefully pulled Sanghee away from the other guy, although he knew nothing about the stranger. The consequences of his action didn't even hit him until he got home after his part-time job at the bookstore, whereby he realised that he could have earned himself a nasty bruise somewhere on his cheek and a badly cut-up lip from his intervention. If anything, Donghae was actually thankful that the man didn't even lay a finger on him, otherwise he might have been retained at his old home by his parents again.
Nonetheless, there was something else that bothered him more. It seemed to Donghae that the person with Sanghee the other day was about to call her by something else which started with an 'Ae', but stopped himself short after shooting Donghae an odd glance, then flashed a smirk at Sanghee before he took his leave. It was definitely odd, but he couldn't get himself to put forth the question to his classmate, especially when she seemed as though she really wanted to put the incident behind her and forget everything that had happened the other day. And if Donghae wasn't overanalysing things, she also seemed to be particularly edgy after leaving the school compounds, always checking her surroundings carefully before setting foot for her apartment.
All in all, he could conclude that Kwon Sanghee intrigued him a lot.
* * * * *
Sanghee was fully absorbed in the mathematical problem presented on the table in front of her in the form of vectors, trying her best to understand and solve the question that their teacher had thrown at them before he left them alone in the class. Once she had enough of cracking her brains open for the day, she stretched lazily and looked around at her classmates, feeling amazed that they were this quiet even though there was no teacher in the room. Nonetheless, she understood the situation completely - their Math teacher had a reputation of sneaking in on the students after doing such a thing, and giving them detentions which lasted for the entire week if he found them slacking off from their work.
Just as she was about to work on an easier question, something soft landed abruptly on her head, causing Sanghee's head to snap up abruptly in surprise. Annoyed, she scanned through every single student in the room in an attempt to catch someone snickering - because then it would mean that they were the culprit - but found no one who fitted the description. However, another name popped up in her mind, and Sanghee automatically turned to look at her seat mate who was leisurely leaning back in his chair, apparently already done with his work - since when?
"That's very mature of you, Lee Donghae. Don't you have anything better to do?" Sanghee quietly snapped at said person, whom turned to look at her with a confused expression on his face. When he pointed at himself, silently asking whether she was talking to him, she held up the ball of paper, which was the offensive projectile, and quirked the corner of her mouth in an annoyed manner.
"Am I automatically the bad person here whenever you get picked on, Kwon Sanghee? I wasn't even doing anything but staring at the ceiling," he replied curtly, though his mind silently added 'while thinking about what you're actually hiding' behind his sentence. He mentally rolled his eyes at himself for still being hung over that measly point.
"If it wasn't you, then who would it be?" said Sanghee, the annoyance still thick in her voice. However, when Donghae pointed inconspicuously to the front of the class, she followed the imaginary line, a blush slowly creeping across her cheeks when she realised that Hyesu was actually waving frantically in her direction, then pointing at the paper in Sanghee's hand before re-enacting the action of someone opening a book. It took Sanghee quite some time to understand what Hyesu was actually trying to tell her, and she immediately unrolled the paper and read through its contents carefully.
I'm sorry for not being around you these days, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around the entire matter. It might take me quite some time more to get over it, but your secret's safe with me even though I don't know why you're trying to hide it.
Sanghee shot a wry smile back at Hyesu moments later, showing her a thumbs up to indicate that she understood the message completely and asking her not to worry. Nonetheless, when she felt someone's gaze being focused on her, Sanghee quickly crumpled the letter which was hurled at her by Hyesu, and turned around to look at her seat mate irately.
"That was supposed to be a private letter. Stop poking your nose into where it doesn't belong," she concluded bluntly, flashing him a tight smile that was full of sarcasm. This time, he rolled his eyes at her and scoffed at her words.
"I do believe that an apology is due from you, especially after what you've accused me of doing," Donghae snidely remarked, enjoying the change in Sanghee's expression as the words sank in. "You're not that ungrateful are you?" he prompted further, trying to subtly force an apology from his seat mate. He knew that he shouldn't be enjoying this too much, but he couldn't help it; not when Sanghee had been showing quite a drastic change in the way she talks to him after what he had done a week ago.
Donghae quickly shrugged off the thought when his mind pushed him to ask her the lingering question again, having a mental battle with himself that he should allow her to talk about it at her own pace. He didn't like to force someone into talking about something when they were obviously bothered by the topic after all.
"Sorry, then, if that's going to inflate your ego further," Sanghee finally said, rolling her eyes incredulously when he performed a short victory dance at the sound of it. It didn't change her opinion that he was rather childish, yes, but Sanghee thought that Donghae could be quite reliable when the situation calls for it.
She could really see herself being sort-of friends with Donghae.
* * * * *
"What is it with you and your gang members coming to talk to me one after the other?" Sanghee commented offhandedly when she saw Hyukjae slipping into the empty seat next to her from the corner of her eyes, at the park where she had first met Heechul. The lanky boy whose hair was now in a chestnut brown shade instead of his previous flaming red appeared rather surprised that his classmate actually noticed him, because she seemed rather absorbed in the book she was reading. When he thought about it, she was very frequently seen with a book as well, and started wondering if she ever parted with those objects before.
Pushing those thoughts aside, Hyukjae made sure he regained his composure before coming up with a proper answer. "Even though we may be seen together all the time, it doesn't mean that we're a gang, you know," said Hyukjae, the annoyance thick in his voice. "And besides, I merely stumbled upon this place. Don't think too highly of yourself that I came here to look for you on purpose," he then snorted, feeling a little snappier that he ever meant to be.
"Hmm, I think you're mistaking something here. I did not imply that you're all coming to talk to me with an objective in mind, but just plainly stating that I find it odd that no one else comes to talk to me apart from the people of your group," she repeated, changing the final word so that she wouldn't rile him up further. While it may be true that Hyukjae wasn't her friend - far from that, in fact - but Sanghee didn't want to turn him into an enemy either.
"Whatever you say," he snorted, deciding to lean back and support the weight of his body by pushing his arms against the bench instead of wasting more energy arguing with his classmate. In actuality, he did want to find out the type of person Sanghee was, especially after he heard Sungmin agreeing with Donghae that she was quite easy to get along with when she gets into the comfort zone. Hyukjae figured out that if someone was able to attract the interest of two of his friends, then that particular person must be special enough. His group of friends weren't known to be the ones to open up to the rest that easily in the first place - for their own reasons. Only they knew each others' secrets, and even Youngwoon's ex-girlfriend couldn't really break through the wall. To say that he didn't feel threatened by the possibility that Sanghee might be accepted into their fold easily would be a lie.
"So, are you going to keep quiet and sit there while I read like Hyesu always does, or do you actually plan to keep talking to me to force something out of like mouth like Donghae and Sungmin did?" Sanghee said again, shooting a saccharine sweet smile in Hyukjae's direction which made his blood freeze. She was far too perceptive for his liking.
"I really don't get why Donghae and Sungmin keeps saying that you're nice," Hyukjae muttered under his breath, only realising what he had just said when he felt a pair of eyes gazing at him in an odd manner.
"Ah-hah! I knew you were all talking about me behind my back," she announced suddenly, smirking when she saw the change in Hyukjae's expression. "Do I really intrigue all of you that much?" Sanghee wondered out loud, finally snapping her book shut and depositing it in her bag. Even though she was at a really interesting part of her novel, the current conversation topic which she was having with Hyukjae was too much fun to be ignored. Besides, Sanghee thought that while Hyukjae might look all cool on the outer surface, he was actually quite awkward in real life.
Finally heaving a resigned sigh, Hyukjae turned his attention to the trees above them, staring at nothing in particular. "You act as though you have no idea that at least half of the student population is wondering who you are," he commented as-a-matter-of-factly, turning slightly to look at his classmate from the corner of his eye. Surely he would have noticed that people have been talking about him behind his back, he thought.
Nonetheless, the next sentence which came out of Sanghee's mouth surprised him further. "Oh, are you talking about those annoying whispers following me whenever I go? Of course I noticed that; do you really think I'm that dense? But I might as well ignore it because there simply isn't a point to stop them from saying what they want. It's not like I don't know that they're wondering about how was it possible for me to talk to both Heechul sunbae and Donghae when I'm just a nobody," she shrugged nonchalantly, reporting every single thing she had noticed for the past few months while strolling down the hallways of Neulparan. The amount of gossip was sickening, and she had no intention to be embroiled in it.
"Well, most of them are wondering about your true gender, but I guess you're not that far off from the other contents of their gossips," Hyukjae replied, finally doing it good-naturedly.
"Do you rich people seriously have nothing else to talk about apart from guessing a person's gender or wondering why someone's seen with the most popular kids around school even though they're a transfer student?" she asked again, turning to the side to flash a grimace at no one in particular when she accidentally let slip that she wasn't someone who had a high social status. All she could hope was for Hyukjae to completely miss that point - and thankfully, he did.
"That's the whole point of being a transfer student here, Sanghee-sshi. You automatically become the conversation topic of everyone else in the school," he commented, wondering why did she not know about the norms of the school even though she had been around for about half a year by now.
"Wow, you guys really need to find something to do. Maybe I should suggest some activities to the student body president. Jungsoo sunbae… was it?" she commented, tapping her chin in deep thoughts as she tried to recall the things Heechul had told her - which was a lot. However, she had the shock of her life when Hyukjae suddenly grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her in the direction of God-knows-where, with her yelling "where the hell are you taking me to?" at the back of Hyukjae's head.
Only a simple "I'm taking you to the student body's office, that's where" came as a reply from the boy, and Sanghee could only stared wide-eyed at him, completely numbed by the sudden confusion. Did he just take my words seriously?!
Characters: Donghae, Heechul, OC
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance, Drama, Angst
Type: Novel
Summary: She finally managed to escape from the one place that she hates the most in order to begin a new life in Seoul, but is still unable to get over the hatred for the male species. Would her heart be softened eventually?
~ * ~
10
Sitting on his bed as he waited for the sleep to claim him, Donghae's mind slowly wandered off to the incident that he had came across last week at the front gates of the school. No matter how much he tried to ignore it, he was still feeling extremely curious about the identity of the person who was almost literally manhandling his classmate the other day. Even from afar, Donghae could see that Sanghee really wanted to get away from him - whatever her reasons were - to the extent that even the fear was blindingly obvious on her face.
Usually, Donghae would pay heed to his mother's advice so as to not get himself involved in any trouble at school, especially when he had specifically promised her to do so. It was all done in exchange for her agreement to let him stay away from home and to get a part time job, even though his family was well-to-do enough to support him through his high school education at Neulparan and to pay for all of his living expenses. He merely wanted to live independently on his own, to prove that he didn't require a large amount of money at his disposal in order to be happy with his own life. Above all, he wanted to get away from the stereotype that "rich kids are like leeches living off their parents' money".
This time, he surprised even himself at how readily he went forward and forcefully pulled Sanghee away from the other guy, although he knew nothing about the stranger. The consequences of his action didn't even hit him until he got home after his part-time job at the bookstore, whereby he realised that he could have earned himself a nasty bruise somewhere on his cheek and a badly cut-up lip from his intervention. If anything, Donghae was actually thankful that the man didn't even lay a finger on him, otherwise he might have been retained at his old home by his parents again.
Nonetheless, there was something else that bothered him more. It seemed to Donghae that the person with Sanghee the other day was about to call her by something else which started with an 'Ae', but stopped himself short after shooting Donghae an odd glance, then flashed a smirk at Sanghee before he took his leave. It was definitely odd, but he couldn't get himself to put forth the question to his classmate, especially when she seemed as though she really wanted to put the incident behind her and forget everything that had happened the other day. And if Donghae wasn't overanalysing things, she also seemed to be particularly edgy after leaving the school compounds, always checking her surroundings carefully before setting foot for her apartment.
All in all, he could conclude that Kwon Sanghee intrigued him a lot.
* * * * *
Sanghee was fully absorbed in the mathematical problem presented on the table in front of her in the form of vectors, trying her best to understand and solve the question that their teacher had thrown at them before he left them alone in the class. Once she had enough of cracking her brains open for the day, she stretched lazily and looked around at her classmates, feeling amazed that they were this quiet even though there was no teacher in the room. Nonetheless, she understood the situation completely - their Math teacher had a reputation of sneaking in on the students after doing such a thing, and giving them detentions which lasted for the entire week if he found them slacking off from their work.
Just as she was about to work on an easier question, something soft landed abruptly on her head, causing Sanghee's head to snap up abruptly in surprise. Annoyed, she scanned through every single student in the room in an attempt to catch someone snickering - because then it would mean that they were the culprit - but found no one who fitted the description. However, another name popped up in her mind, and Sanghee automatically turned to look at her seat mate who was leisurely leaning back in his chair, apparently already done with his work - since when?
"That's very mature of you, Lee Donghae. Don't you have anything better to do?" Sanghee quietly snapped at said person, whom turned to look at her with a confused expression on his face. When he pointed at himself, silently asking whether she was talking to him, she held up the ball of paper, which was the offensive projectile, and quirked the corner of her mouth in an annoyed manner.
"Am I automatically the bad person here whenever you get picked on, Kwon Sanghee? I wasn't even doing anything but staring at the ceiling," he replied curtly, though his mind silently added 'while thinking about what you're actually hiding' behind his sentence. He mentally rolled his eyes at himself for still being hung over that measly point.
"If it wasn't you, then who would it be?" said Sanghee, the annoyance still thick in her voice. However, when Donghae pointed inconspicuously to the front of the class, she followed the imaginary line, a blush slowly creeping across her cheeks when she realised that Hyesu was actually waving frantically in her direction, then pointing at the paper in Sanghee's hand before re-enacting the action of someone opening a book. It took Sanghee quite some time to understand what Hyesu was actually trying to tell her, and she immediately unrolled the paper and read through its contents carefully.
I'm sorry for not being around you these days, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around the entire matter. It might take me quite some time more to get over it, but your secret's safe with me even though I don't know why you're trying to hide it.
Sanghee shot a wry smile back at Hyesu moments later, showing her a thumbs up to indicate that she understood the message completely and asking her not to worry. Nonetheless, when she felt someone's gaze being focused on her, Sanghee quickly crumpled the letter which was hurled at her by Hyesu, and turned around to look at her seat mate irately.
"That was supposed to be a private letter. Stop poking your nose into where it doesn't belong," she concluded bluntly, flashing him a tight smile that was full of sarcasm. This time, he rolled his eyes at her and scoffed at her words.
"I do believe that an apology is due from you, especially after what you've accused me of doing," Donghae snidely remarked, enjoying the change in Sanghee's expression as the words sank in. "You're not that ungrateful are you?" he prompted further, trying to subtly force an apology from his seat mate. He knew that he shouldn't be enjoying this too much, but he couldn't help it; not when Sanghee had been showing quite a drastic change in the way she talks to him after what he had done a week ago.
Donghae quickly shrugged off the thought when his mind pushed him to ask her the lingering question again, having a mental battle with himself that he should allow her to talk about it at her own pace. He didn't like to force someone into talking about something when they were obviously bothered by the topic after all.
"Sorry, then, if that's going to inflate your ego further," Sanghee finally said, rolling her eyes incredulously when he performed a short victory dance at the sound of it. It didn't change her opinion that he was rather childish, yes, but Sanghee thought that Donghae could be quite reliable when the situation calls for it.
She could really see herself being sort-of friends with Donghae.
* * * * *
"What is it with you and your gang members coming to talk to me one after the other?" Sanghee commented offhandedly when she saw Hyukjae slipping into the empty seat next to her from the corner of her eyes, at the park where she had first met Heechul. The lanky boy whose hair was now in a chestnut brown shade instead of his previous flaming red appeared rather surprised that his classmate actually noticed him, because she seemed rather absorbed in the book she was reading. When he thought about it, she was very frequently seen with a book as well, and started wondering if she ever parted with those objects before.
Pushing those thoughts aside, Hyukjae made sure he regained his composure before coming up with a proper answer. "Even though we may be seen together all the time, it doesn't mean that we're a gang, you know," said Hyukjae, the annoyance thick in his voice. "And besides, I merely stumbled upon this place. Don't think too highly of yourself that I came here to look for you on purpose," he then snorted, feeling a little snappier that he ever meant to be.
"Hmm, I think you're mistaking something here. I did not imply that you're all coming to talk to me with an objective in mind, but just plainly stating that I find it odd that no one else comes to talk to me apart from the people of your group," she repeated, changing the final word so that she wouldn't rile him up further. While it may be true that Hyukjae wasn't her friend - far from that, in fact - but Sanghee didn't want to turn him into an enemy either.
"Whatever you say," he snorted, deciding to lean back and support the weight of his body by pushing his arms against the bench instead of wasting more energy arguing with his classmate. In actuality, he did want to find out the type of person Sanghee was, especially after he heard Sungmin agreeing with Donghae that she was quite easy to get along with when she gets into the comfort zone. Hyukjae figured out that if someone was able to attract the interest of two of his friends, then that particular person must be special enough. His group of friends weren't known to be the ones to open up to the rest that easily in the first place - for their own reasons. Only they knew each others' secrets, and even Youngwoon's ex-girlfriend couldn't really break through the wall. To say that he didn't feel threatened by the possibility that Sanghee might be accepted into their fold easily would be a lie.
"So, are you going to keep quiet and sit there while I read like Hyesu always does, or do you actually plan to keep talking to me to force something out of like mouth like Donghae and Sungmin did?" Sanghee said again, shooting a saccharine sweet smile in Hyukjae's direction which made his blood freeze. She was far too perceptive for his liking.
"I really don't get why Donghae and Sungmin keeps saying that you're nice," Hyukjae muttered under his breath, only realising what he had just said when he felt a pair of eyes gazing at him in an odd manner.
"Ah-hah! I knew you were all talking about me behind my back," she announced suddenly, smirking when she saw the change in Hyukjae's expression. "Do I really intrigue all of you that much?" Sanghee wondered out loud, finally snapping her book shut and depositing it in her bag. Even though she was at a really interesting part of her novel, the current conversation topic which she was having with Hyukjae was too much fun to be ignored. Besides, Sanghee thought that while Hyukjae might look all cool on the outer surface, he was actually quite awkward in real life.
Finally heaving a resigned sigh, Hyukjae turned his attention to the trees above them, staring at nothing in particular. "You act as though you have no idea that at least half of the student population is wondering who you are," he commented as-a-matter-of-factly, turning slightly to look at his classmate from the corner of his eye. Surely he would have noticed that people have been talking about him behind his back, he thought.
Nonetheless, the next sentence which came out of Sanghee's mouth surprised him further. "Oh, are you talking about those annoying whispers following me whenever I go? Of course I noticed that; do you really think I'm that dense? But I might as well ignore it because there simply isn't a point to stop them from saying what they want. It's not like I don't know that they're wondering about how was it possible for me to talk to both Heechul sunbae and Donghae when I'm just a nobody," she shrugged nonchalantly, reporting every single thing she had noticed for the past few months while strolling down the hallways of Neulparan. The amount of gossip was sickening, and she had no intention to be embroiled in it.
"Well, most of them are wondering about your true gender, but I guess you're not that far off from the other contents of their gossips," Hyukjae replied, finally doing it good-naturedly.
"Do you rich people seriously have nothing else to talk about apart from guessing a person's gender or wondering why someone's seen with the most popular kids around school even though they're a transfer student?" she asked again, turning to the side to flash a grimace at no one in particular when she accidentally let slip that she wasn't someone who had a high social status. All she could hope was for Hyukjae to completely miss that point - and thankfully, he did.
"That's the whole point of being a transfer student here, Sanghee-sshi. You automatically become the conversation topic of everyone else in the school," he commented, wondering why did she not know about the norms of the school even though she had been around for about half a year by now.
"Wow, you guys really need to find something to do. Maybe I should suggest some activities to the student body president. Jungsoo sunbae… was it?" she commented, tapping her chin in deep thoughts as she tried to recall the things Heechul had told her - which was a lot. However, she had the shock of her life when Hyukjae suddenly grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her in the direction of God-knows-where, with her yelling "where the hell are you taking me to?" at the back of Hyukjae's head.
Only a simple "I'm taking you to the student body's office, that's where" came as a reply from the boy, and Sanghee could only stared wide-eyed at him, completely numbed by the sudden confusion. Did he just take my words seriously?!