About 3 weeks later, Harin's classmates were chatting amongst themselves as usual. Jisung was teaching Harin on what will be tested for the upcoming Chemistry mock exam, which was one of Harin's weaknesses.
"At this rate, you'll most likely have to attend Ms Jeon's remedial class. You don't even know the method to obtain salt by precipitation and titration. Even worse, alkanes and alkenes." Jisung sighed after seeing his friend letting out the occasional 'huh?' and the prolonged scratching of her head whenever he gives a question related to the topics they were studying. Harin let out a sigh as she threw her pen on the table and leaned on her chair.
"I'll fail this chemistry mock exam." She cried out for a few seconds, before adjusting her posture and taking out her textbooks for the next lesson. "Let's take a short break Harin. We should get some food to refill your energy. You were yawning almost every single minute." Jisung said as he chuckles.
"That's because I'm literally studying. I wouldn't yawn nonstop if I were on my phone, or do Art related work." Harin fought back. Jisung shook his head as he got up from his seat and let his hand out to Harin as usual. Harin took his hand and got up from her seat and followed him behind to the vending machine located in the open space on the floor they were at. They both then walked back to the classroom and took a 15 minutes break, drinking what they had purchased from the vending machine and also chatting about nonsensical stuff.
"Ok, so to find out if we need to use precipitation or titration method, we need to..." Jisung explained to Harin as he uses his pen to circle out the main point of the question, plus the figure shown in Harin's question paper. Harin hummed in response, finally able to understand after grabbing her favourite drink from the vending machine.
—— "See you tomorrow in class." Jisung said as he waved towards Harin and followed Chenle who is already a few meters away from him. As she was walking in the corridor, she felt her bag being pulled. Not a few seconds of her wanting to see who was pulling her back when she was dragged to an open space and pinned to the wall.
"Look, I don't know what sort of relationship you have with Jisung, but I'm going to say this once. Stay. Away. From. Jisung." The girl said as she glared at Harin. Her features and the tone of her voice were somewhat similar to that of Hana.
"Do I know you?" Harin asked, wanting to confirm her assumptions.
"That is none of your business. But know that, I, Hana, have had a crush on Jisung since the moment he and I were in the same middle school. I bet you probably met him just a few weeks before the start of high school, so I know him more than you do. Now, stay away from him as far as possible while I make a move on him." Hana said, not realising she had literally said her name to her.
Harin chuckled at Hana's stupidity and also cringed at what she had heard from Hana. Hana looked confused upon hearing Harin laughed at her statement. "What are you laughing at?" She asked.
"With your stupidity, I don't think he'd want to accept your confession. You literally just introduced your name to me by the way." Harin said as she pushed Hana away from her. Brushing off her uniform to make it look neat, Harin looked at her and smile before leaning towards her.
"I'm Harin, Jisung's childhood friend since kindergarten. Clearly, I know him more than you do. Nice to meet you, Hana." Harin said as she pulled Hana's hand out and shook it. Hana swung her arm back, making Harin lose her grip on Hana's hand. Almost immediately, Hana walked away from Harin.
Confirming Hana had gone away, Harin's legs started becoming jelly and she leaned against the wall, slowly collapsing to the floor as she breathe incoherently. The traumatic memories upon seeing Hana were all running towards her all in one go, making her feel timid. She couldn't even figure out how she managed to stand up to Hana.
"Harin? What happened to you?" Jisung's voice spoke up. Still weakened from encountering Haru, she didn't even look at Jisung but instead looked onto the ground whilst breathing abnormally. "Hold on, I'll get something for you." Jisung said as he takes off his jacket and covered her back, seeing she was rubbing her arms as if she was shivering.
A few minutes later, Jisung came back with a water bottle in hand and slowly pulled Harin up. Helping her to the bench nearby, he took off her schoolbag and placed it beside her as he gave the water bottle to her. Harin took the bottle from his hand and slowly drank it, while Jisung is slowly patting her back.
—— "Better now?" Jisung asked a few minutes after Harin had calmed down. The girl nodded her head. It took at least a few seconds, close to a minute, for her to finally spoke up. "I just met Hana." She said.
Jisung somehow felt a rage filling him the moment Hana's name was mentioned. However, seeing the condition Harin was in, Jisung calmed himself down. "At least you defended yourself." He said.
"That's not the case. I- it just feels like all those memories are coming at me, like tons of it coming at me at once." Harin quickly said. Without realising it, a tear streamed down her cheeks. She then felt a finger rubbing her cheeks. Facing up, she made eye contact with Jisung who was wiping her tears away with his finger. Just then, Jisung pulled her into a hug. "It's alright... calm down now, you're still shaken up by it." He whispered to her.
"Are you feeling alright now?" Jisung asked again, a few minutes after calming Harin down by hugging her. She nodded, and immediately Jisung got up from the bench and pulled his hand out to her. Harin took his hand and got up from the bench, taking her schoolbag as they both started walking back to their home instead of taking the transport.
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tmi - i'm having my mock test in a few days and i am so not ready
