YEARS APART

Unexpected friend

Back To When The Art Class Ended

Athiee and Seungmin were gathering their things as the session ended. She left the room and Seungmin followed her.

"Wait Athiee !" He shouted and she stopped, he walked faster and stood in front of her.

"Where are you heading now ? Wanna grab lunch with me ?" He said hoping she'll accept his offer.
Athiee blinked few times and said

"You want to grab lunch with me ? Seungmin no one ever ate with me, i don't think it will be a good thing considering your reputation here". She said as she felt embarrassed.

"Reputation ? Where did that come from ? I just want to have a delightful meal with someone i find interesting, no reputation involved". He said while smiling.

"Seungmin i don't think it's a great idea, everyone is going to stare at us and i won't be comfortable".

"Then let's take our food and go somewhere else, i am not letting you go today". He said as he passed Athiee, going straight to the canteen to grab his food.

"Is he serious ?" Athiee thought to herself and followed him. They both took their food, and left the canteen.

"This is actually very exciting !" Seungmin said happily. She looked at him and giggled, he looked so adorable when he's excited.

"Actually, there's a place i usually go to, do you wanna go there ?" She suggested

"Lead the way". He said

The two went to the rooftop, and sat their.
"It's so beautiful in here, i never thought about coming up here". He said in appreciation.

"Yeah i know. This place is so beautiful and peaceful, i come here whenever i want to escape the world, i mean sometimes it gets so annoying". She said as she stared at her food.
Seungmin knew what she meant by that, he knew that faced bullies, and that she was always left alone. He didn't know her before, but noticed her. He wondered the reason, that made her accept all that harmful behaviour towards her, in short, he hated her weakness.
As he was thinking, he was eating silently.

Athiee wanted to speak to him, but ended up eating her food silently too. "Maybe he doesn't like speaking while eating ?" She thought.

"Athiee". She heard him saying her name and looked at him "humm ?"

"I want to ask you something but I'm hesitating, after all we just met, and you would feel as if i'm sticking my nose in things that doesn't concern me" he said. Athiee kept looking at him for a while, then said

"You can ask whatever you want Seungmin, it won't bother me".

"Why did you let those students bully you ?" He asked her directly.

"Gosh, you are straightforward ! I wasn't expecting that as a question tho " she said as she laughed awkwardly. Seungmin felt that she was embarrassed and didn't want to answer his question.

"It's okay if you don't want to answer, i don't want you to think that i'm being pushy" he said

"No it's okay. I knew you're gonna ask about this anyway. The thing is that I'm trying to avoid the extra problems, letting them bully me doesn't mean i'm okay with it, but i know that once i'll try to stand up for myself, the consequences will be worse". She said as she sounded sad.

"How do you know that when you never tried ?"

"I don't know but i can guess "

"Still, you can't decide that you failed when you never really tried your best. Athiee, keeping silent and not acting up will only lead to the worse, it's just like choosing to be the loser for the rest of your life".