metal straw | ast. cha eunwoo

fourteen

Have you seen Cha Eunwoo?

Such simple words and yet they have no intention of escaping Soyeon's lips. Some thoughts were running through her head, attempting to convince her to suck it up and ask the students passing by. However, the other side of her head was telling her to resist herself from socialising and taking a step closer to her death. Despite being loud and very optimistic most of the time, her social skills were close to two and no, she has no intention of changing that.

Soyeon continued to walk down the hallway as she tried to compel herself to do exactly what she wanted to do in the first place. She suddenly felt her hands twitching as they were held together. Her heart beating faster, increasing each time she took a step. Her mind was suddenly racing to all kinds of scenarios she would get into when she meets Eunwoo.

"No, stop it!" she screamed at herself, after realising how far her imagination was heading.

She dragged her feet, feeling pathetic until she reached the end of the hallway and the furthest staircase to her class. As it was the furthest, no one used them often as the cleaning closets and emergency exits were the closest things that staircase led to. So she moved to sit by the staircase and tried to think as well as trying to calm down her butterflies.

It was only a day since she and Eunwoo were back to normal, and she already had a breakdown in class, just figuring out how to make eye contact with a boy. All she wanted was to get her metal straw back from Eunwoo.

"Kim Soyeon, you coward!" she yelled herself, whining as she stomped her feet.

"Cha Eunwoo!"

Soyeon suddenly felt herself melting down the stairs at his name being called out. She immediately held onto the bar railings beside her and stopped herself from falling any further. Once she regained her balance and sat up straight, the girl looked around her to find the culprit to that voice.

Soyeon looked down below the stairs saw a couple of guys with their backs facing her. One, however, was standing right in front of them, as if they were against each other. She gasped once she recognised them. The air was tense and continued to be like that as the two parties kept exchanging glares at each other.

"Is it true you're paying us?" one asked as he stood way behind the others.

Soyeon watched as Eunwoo replied by taking out a sealed envelope from his pocket. He didn't hesitate to give it straight to him. He didn't make any direct eye contact as he did, seeming as if he wanted to get everything over with.

"You're interesting," Heesung said, opening the envelope to find a few cash. "Thirty dollars? That's all?" he scoffed in disbelief.

"Give it back then."

"What? I-I didn't say that!"

Eunwoo calmed himself, watching the group in front of him taking turns to touch a piece of the cash, not believing it was real.

"We had a deal, you swore—"

"Add another ten then we won't disturb your little girlfriend," Heesung smirked, cutting Eunwoo mid-sentence. The others cackled behind him, suddenly feeling anticipated at the thought of having more than what was given.

Eunwoo sighed, "You're asking for more? How pathetic. Just keep to your word, sunbae."

With that said, Eunwoo lowered his head down for a small bow before walking away.

Though it was between Eunwoo and Heesung's group, Soyeon couldn't help but feel her throat being clogged by Eunwoo's words. It was as if a gust of wind blew past them, giving everyone shivers. He called Heesung 'sunbae' as he should to a senior but why did it make him feel threatening? It was a first for him to be called other than dumbass or asshole by Eunwoo. She figured it might only to very well creep Heesung and possibly his group out but the entire situation was causing an explosion of butterflies too, or maybe more of penguins trying to fly in her stomach.

Cha Eunwoo paid Heesung so she won't get hurt?

Heesung called her Eunwoo's girlfriend and he didn't bother about it?!