Quinn & King

13 Storm

"I'll beat them up, of course."

Ji Woo stared at me like I had grown a second head. He didn't seem to be convinced. Heck, I wasn't sure myself if I would truly end up doing it. After all, my school records were at stake here. I had already had demerits for something I didn't do. I didn't need more all because of a school fight.

He scoffed at me, eyeing me up and down. "How are you supposed to do that?"

I arched an eyebrow at him. Did he really think I was weak compared to him? I mean, yeah, I don't have the brute strength and my hands were like sticks, but I could still fight.

"You'd be surprised," was all I said.

After that, we went back together. I didn't actually need to go back with him since my house was in a different direction. But I felt like I had to, seeing how he was shaking real bad even after we had long left the convention.

I didn't contact him or look for him after that day. And neither did Ji Woo made any effort to look for me. It was like all the time we spent together never happened, and we were back to the time when we never interacted with each other.

It annoyed me that things ended up this way. I had put in effort, and none of it worked. I was back to square one, and even Miss Yang was beginning to lose doubt of my innocence.

I sighed, slumping down in my seat after yet another useless counseling session with Miss Yang. For some reason, she kept trying to ask about my family situation at home. And I think she had gotten the wrong idea. I had accidentally flashed her some of the bruises on my arm at the start of the counseling session.

Long story short, I had another session with Uncle recently, and I was not in tiptop shape.

Miss Yang kept telling me that I could confide in her and that I shouldn't be alone in whatever problems I'm facing.

I couldn't help it. I let out an unladylike snort at the irony of the statement. I shouldn't be alone? Where the heck were the teachers when I told them I was indeed innocent and that it was all just a big misunderstanding? Even my own uncle didn't try to defend me and simply took the teachers' side.

In fact, everyone told me to prove it to them - all by myself - that I was innocent if I wanted the punishment lifted. How was any of this fair? Even Uncle had left it all up to me.

Of course, I needed to bring this to Miss Yang's attention. She listened carefully, not letting much emotion seep into her face. Then, she sighed and tried to justify why the teachers did what they did. I listened for a while before zoning out.

The sound of boisterous laughter pulled me in back to reality, reminding me that I was back in class. I looked towards the direction of the laughter. It was quite a big group I had occasionally seen around school. Usually, you could find a defenseless victim in the middle, Ji Woo. That was the only reason I knew of Ji Woo's existence. The irony of how him, a big guy like Ji Woo, was easily picked on by a group of slimmer ones stuck out to me. Ji Woo could've easily knocked them down with his size alone. But I doubt he had the experience to take them all at once.

Bad breath guy was among the group. He noticed me looking over and stared, eyebrow arched questioningly. I quickly looked away, breaking eye contact.

I had other things to worry about. Like how to deal with this entire mess with Ji Woo. It didn't help that I also couldn't find my Math textbook for a few days now. I suspected I might have left it in-

The sound of their guffaws broke my train of thought, irking me. Normally, I would've been able to tune them out. But today, I just kept getting easily distracted. And why the heck did they like hanging out in this class anyway? Couldn't they have hung out at the back of the school like the typical bad kids do?