The Less You Know, The Better [Choi Mujin - My Name Fanfiction]

The First Evening

22 years ago

Seventeen year old Hyejin was cycling home from her grandmother's house up in the hill, just behind the forest. She really loved going there on the weekends, sometimes after school, because her grandmother's house was very big and had a large patio at the backyard, overlooking the forest that stretched behind it. It was a very shady and pleasant place for Hyejin so she often lingered there, whether it was to study or write poetries or even taking notes of random ideas that came up, that might be useful for her future poetries and books. She had always wanted to be a writer and decided her grandmother's backyard was her comfort place to fill her bank of ideas. 

Her parents always worried about her being there alone and thought it was not safe and often forbid her to go there, like this morning, but Hyejin always could found excuses, although today her dad did not take it easy and they had heated arguments before she left. Whereas, there were guards planted by her aunt, who also lived there, surrounding the house so should be safe.

Hyejin was humming to her favorite song when suddenly her bicycle jerked, made her almost bounced. On reflex, she threw her body to the side, and while landing on the ground, she stretched her arms, trying to reduce the momentum of impact to her body with her hands, and intended to roll but she failed as her right foot was stuck on the bicycle. However, it did not hurt as much compared to the soles of her hands scraping the rough ground.

"Ouuuch," she whimpered. She tried to rub the dirt from her palm, only to find the massive sting from her opened wounds.

"Aish, what a day!" she grumbled. She tried to released her foot then put her bicycle up with her fingers, trying not to hurt her palms even more. "What just happened??" she bent down, scanning to figured out what when wrong.

"Your bike chain was off."

"Omo!" Hyejin was startled with a hoarse voice that suddenly came from behind. She almost dropped her bike again as she jumped and turned around quickly. She looked at the tall figure behind her with clear shock and fear, then looked up to a sour face staring down at her. She recognized him as one of her schoolmate. He was from a different class, but almost all of the pupils in her school knew who he was. Especially the girls.

"Choi Mujin!" she shrieked. "You startled me!"

"Yeah, I can see that. Sorry," then, with unbaffled voice he said, "You know my name."

"Of course. Our class are next to each other," she said, trying to sound indifferent and did not want to gave him the hint that he was actually well-known. He shrugged his shoulder on her answer. "Do you know my name?" Hyejin asked in return.

Mujin looked down at her. He was facing the sun that setting behind the forest so Hyejin could saw his eyes' color. They were brown and with the sun beam, it made them lighter and somehow softer, and they transfixed her for a moment. 

"The famous young poet in town, Sun Hyejin," his answer brought her back.

Mujin referred to the poetry competition award Hyejin recently won, which got her into the local newspaper, yet made it sound more like a mockery. "I hope you said it as compliment," she frowned.

Mujin grinned. "I did."

She doubted that but let it go. "What are you doing here anyway?" Hyejin asked. 

They were on a road at the edge of town, which led to a fairly remote area, and obviously far from their school and homes. Or maybe he lived around here. She realized she did not know anything about him except that he often gave teachers headache with his rebel acts and was pretty popular among the girls.