The Last Miracle

IV

1 MONTH AGO...

What's best about the university campus is sitting on the green grass in the shade of multiple trees lined along the rows under the bright sunlight. It has already been a ritual for all the students to sit here at least once in a day for studying, gossiping or peace seeking, even acquiring the name of "Therapy Ground".

It's noon and I was sitting with my roommate Da Hyun and the one of the popular girls of the uni, Ji Won. Both are quite feisty in their own sense. While Ji Won have dated almost all the boys in the uni, Da Hyun's the seclusive type who is generally withdrawn from things except actual work.

Gathering here on the motives of group study didn't seem to be working at all because of the distractions Ji Won created, "Bros, you know that guy? Park Tae Sung?"

GODDD NOOO... not Him as the topic of our conversation.

"Did you start again?" Da Hyun didn't look up from her books.

Ji won was persistent, "Seriously? Haven't you noticed how much he is handsome? All the girls in the university wants to date him. Even the seniors are interested."

I sighed, "People really have no job, do they?" and resumed my work.

Ji won intertwined her arm with mine, "So what do you think about him?"

I snapped by book close, "He is annoying."

"Who?" That masculine voice made us jump out of our place.

"Speak of the devil", I muttered after turning around to see its proof.

Stood there was the devil in its finest attire that can attract any person to the horror of earth.

Putting his hands in the pockets of his white slim pants while his sky-blue shirt fluttered along the breeze, he mocked his head, "Yoon Seri. Are you perhaps here to waste your time without doing my work?"

"I have been in the process--"

"Not that. Did you find a place or do I have to look for it?" His interruption made me blink away my confusion several times.

"What place?" Crooking my eyebrows, I lifted my head up to meet his face.

Running his hand down his hair, he resumed, "We have a date, don't we?"

"WHHAAAAAATTTTT--------?!?!?!?!" My mouth almost fell off my face. Beside me, I detected the presence of two shocked creatures. 

Ji won had already started whining, "Heyyyy Yoon Seriii, were you dating him all along without telling us?"

"No that's not it Ji won." Half falling half collapsing I stood up to scream at him, "HEYYYYYY!!!"

He smiled shamelessly and swung his arm around my shoulder while people of the whole ground went into a severe state of seizure, "Baby, you shouldn't be forgetting our date, should you?"

I forced an awkward smile, grabbed his shirt and mumbled through my clenched teeth, "Do you have death wish? People are looking at us. Let. Go."

Pulling me close he whispered into my ear, "Play along" and smirked.

 While the whole ground stared at Ji won throwing a fit, Da Hyun heard my silent cries of asking for help to escape this whole craziness, "HEYYYYYY!!" She screamed, "Wont you get your butts in your classes?"

Seated in my own class while Da Hyun and Ji won went to attend theirs, I watched the creature coming to sit beside me. Park Tae Sung. 

I sighed. Today didn't really seemed to be my day, "So what happened there?"

"Wanted some solitude from the girls chasing me. Its tiring." He took out his books. While the faculty was late, I could still see girls peeking at the classroom door to get a look of him. 

I sighed again.

"What a golden life you have!", I turned towards him, "Therefore, to get away from those girls, you pretended I was your girlfriend?" 

He nodded making me more annoyed, "I don't think this was in the deal."

He smiled, "It is. The person signing the contract must do all the jobs that the dealer provides her/him without questions. You read it yourself."

My sighs outweighed their limits, "Aren't you embarrassed? Having me as your fake girlfriend?" I got hold of my water bottle.

As I gulped down water to provide me the strength that I have been losing, he says it, "What's embarrassing? You are pretty." The water threatens to burst open my chest with my desperate attempts of chugging it down to end up with ferocious unending coughs.

"Eheee" he claimed with a smile while he patted my back and passed me the handkerchief.

"Is it funny?" I inquired through my watery eyes to which he nodded, "Yess".

"Anyway, I will sleep. I didn't sleep one wink last night. Enough entertainment for one day." Putting his head down on the desk and using his right arm as a pillow, he covered the rest of his face with other arm so that his eyes are the only visible thing. The faculty enters, thus starting the class.

During the class I took a peek at him as he continued to sleep. He looked so serene and peaceful, so different from the Park Tae Sung we all know. As if he hides this part of himself from all the people that is revealed only in his sleep. Like he has let his guards down, finally and is relieved from the burdens he is holding onto with the assurance that he is safe.

The sunlight from the windows shined on his eyelashes, leaving me pondering over how his brown eyes would glimmer in the moonlight and the sunshine. He looked like any other normal student withdrawn from the worldly splendor and the fame that he usually carried around with him. 

I leaned down to take a closer look and couldn't bring myself not to say it, "So pretty and calm." He flinched, making me fall in the moment of great fear that he heard it.

 But he didn't open his eyes.

Hours later after our classes when we returned to our room, Kim Da Hyun asked me, "Yoon Seri. You are not really dating Park Tae Sung, are you?"

I laughed, "Do you believe in that too?"

"No right? Then good. Don't date him even in the future,"

Da Hyun did her laundry as I spoke up, "Why?"

She stopped for a moment, "Well, you know how people have their own set of burdens. But Tae Sung is different. Even Ji Won didn't approach him. The weight of their own self will pull them to the ground, screaming at them to get out and deal with their shit. The pain broken people feel inside themselves is so strong that they need to be alone to tend to it."

She got up and came towards me,

"Which makes them incapable of saving the people they love at the end."