His Cinderella | Choi Soobin

Eleven ♚

|| HYEWON ||

I hate school.

I could be in my room, catching up on the chapters of another fairytale book or sipping on some green tea, but no. I'm stuck in a library, studying for a group assignment. To make matters worse, non of my group members even showed up today.

It's something that I have to deal with all the time. People automatically leave me to do all the work on projects and then force me to put their names on the finishing product. I don't know why, because I'm not even smart. I'm lowering their grades, actually.

But yet I'm still here, grumbling in frustration at the impossible work in front of me. It doesn't make it better than it's for physics class, the subject that I'm absolutely the worst at. Seriously, I know that Ivan Newton (if that's even his name) invented gravity and that's literally it.

Overwhelmed by the insane amount of papers in front of me, I attempt to manage through the confusing sheets. No teachers can help me at this point. I'm doomed. I say to myself, flopping my head against the table as I lay there, completely given up.

"Need help?" A voice chirps over my depressive state. That can only be one person.

"Taeyoung?"

Finally, a little bit of happiness in the midst of my life being terrible. But he looked different. His usual suspenders and typical nerd glasses were long gone, and he wore a leather jacket with his hair slightly gelled back. He looked like a college student.

And there was a new companion clinging around his arm.

"Who's she?" She girl whispered to Taeyoung, which I most definitely heard but pretended that I didn't. Seriously, people need to realize that they're a lot louder than they actually seem.

"Oh, this is a friend of mine, Ahn Hyewon," Taeyoung says. "Hyewon, this is Nayoung, my girlfriend."

My eyes widen in shock. Taeyoung was never the one to be interested in girls, so now that he suddenly has a girlfriend and a whole new persona in just a month is pretty surprising. But hey, if he's happy then I'm happy.

"Girlfriend? Seems like you've been busy." I snicker, moving a chair so that Taeoyung can sit down. He does, but not without Nayoung still attached to him. And she doesn't miss the opportunity to scoff at me.

"Yeah, I have. I met Nayoung while I was volunteering at the recreation centre and we slowly started to get to know each other better. Gosh, I was such a loser before I met her." He boops her nose. "I used to be so obsessed over chess, can you believe that?!"

My pen stops moving against the paper as I look up to meet his eyes. I thought he might have been joking, but he wasn't. "But you love chess, Taeyoung. Didn't you say you were almost eligible for the chess Olympiad?"

He scoffs. "And you seriously let me almost get to that point! Trust me, chess is only for dweebs."

"I think chess is quite cool, actually," I say, smiling softly at the boy on the outside. But my heart wasn't smiling at all. In fact, it was slowly cracking even more than before.

"Well, of course, you do. Your kind of people loves that sort of stuff." Taeyoung says, making Nayoung laugh humorously, smacking his shoulder. "Gosh, babe! You're so funny."

"Wait, what do you mean by 'your kind of people?" I ask, my smile completely disappearing as I start to get a little bit defensive. I don't know who this new Taeyoung is, but I don't like him one bit. He's allowed to change hobbies, but calling people losers for it? That's too far.

"You know, people that-" He starts, but gets interrupted by Nayoung. "People that are social rejects." Nayoung fires at me, not even batting an eye while saying it.

My shoulders drop as my tongue slowly but indefinitely becomes dryer. She only smirks at me, showing no signs of remorse or regret. And Taeyoung didn't even say anything about it. He only sat there, staying quiet as his eyes were glued to the floor.

"Is that what you think, Taeyoung?" My voice shakingly asks, coming out as quiet as a mouse. I wasn't ready for the answer, but his silence gave away everything I needed to know. "You should leave," I say, turning away to not let them see my tears.

He doesn't say anything, only the noise of his chair creaking was what I heard. "What a crybaby." Nayoung chuckles mockingly before I hear the two walk away from me, making me even more emotionally sad than before.

It had only been a month. Actually, less than a month. Taeyoung was a goofy guy who loved chess and numbers and now he's this total stranger that acts like he doesn't even know me.

But she was right. I am a social reject. Especially since Taeyoung left me, I'm truly alone this time. Even other loners of the school refuse to be seen with me. I'm just a burden to everyone around me.

Think about it. I really don't have any good redeeming traits about me. I'm not smart, nor someone that fits Korean beauty standards, and I can't socialize. That's probably why mom likes Hanjin better, anyways.

I open my phone, opening my messages to see distract myself. The only new text that I saw was from Cameron, telling me that he needed my help on a science project after my studying. Heh, I guess I always have him when I'm feeling down.

I struggle a bit before opening Taeyoung and I's text box. The last text was from a week ago, which he left me on read. I decided that maybe I should just send him something. 'What your girlfriend said was really mean'.

My heart drops when the text sends out as green, different from my other texts that were blue. No way he did that... I reassure myself as I try to call his number, quietly praying that he would pick up.

But, the call immediately ended after I started it. Wow, he really did block my number.

I close my phone, the inside of my mouth getting salty as tears slowly fall down my cheek. It's the first time I've talked to him in literal weeks and it ended in my number being blocked. What do I do now?

I'm officially friendless.