Proven Wrong

Chapter 15

Minjeong was walking around. With trays balanced in her arms skillfully. I knew she noticed when I walked back in because she paused and I could see her eyes move to my direction before looking back to her customer again from a few feet away. Sighing, I quickly made my way to her.

She didn't acknowledge me, the people on the table looked at me but I just smiled briefly at them. "You ready to go?" I asked the busy woman but she just turned to face me before facing away just as quickly.

"No, I think you should go home first, it's busy here, I'll catch a cab later."

I frowned but she still refused to face me, instead, she walked away and I followed her. "Minjeong, don't be like this, I'm sorry it was a misunderstanding, I was just talking to Hyunjin, I'm sorry if I did something that hurts you."

"It's fine, I understand, you should be friends with, um, your friends." She walked into the kitchen with her empty trays and I followed her inside.

"It doesn't look like it's fine." She tripped on her feet and I quickly grabbed her arm to steady her. She looked down at my hand, looked up at me and quickly brushed my hand away. She started to walk again, taking a big cake out of the refrigerator and grabbing a knife to cut them into pieces. I watched her carefully with a frown. "Please talk to me, don't be like this, and please be careful, I don't think you should be cutting a cake with that."

"It's fine, Jimin," She sighed. "You should go home, or hang out with your friends."

"I don't want to, I wanna take you home." I whined and traced her elbow with my finger before she pulled away. She gasped sharply before clutching her finger and my eyes widened. "Oh, my God, I'm sorry." I looked around and found the tissue in another kitchen counter, pulled some layers in panic before forcing Minjeong to face me and wrapped her bleeding finger with them. "God, I'm so sorry, are you okay?" I tapped at her finger softly while inspecting them for any other cuts.

"It's fine Jimin, it's just a cut." She tried to pull her hand away but I tightened my grip. "Jimin, it's fine." She repeated, just as softly but I was too worried to care about her being upset with me touching her without permission rather than her getting hurt. "I have some bandaids–" Without staying for her to finish her words, I made my way to the coat hanger and grabbed the purse that I saw this morning. Giving her the purse as I tried to steal glances at her finger, I bit my lip in worry. "Thank you, it's fine, it happened all the time." She reassured me and I looked at her, she was still not looking at me, there was a frown on her face and I felt my heart sink. "You really should go, I–" she glanced at me as she ripped open the bandage with her hand. "I don't want you here."

Then there it was. Why my heart was clenching tightly. I was afraid that she would avoid me to the point that the usually quiet woman would say this. I didn't know what would happen but I guess, inside, I already anticipated it. "Okay." I nodded and she made a quick glance at me so I tried to smile a little. "I'll– um, I'll go, yeah." I nodded and looked around, hoping nobody was watching us and thankfully, everyone was too busy. "I'll go, you, um be careful, don't use that knife again." I walked backwards, still not ready to see the woman who was now busying herself again, but still glancing at me. "Bye." 

I said before pushing the door open and quickly made my way out.

Sighing to myself, I looked up to the dark sky. "I'm terrible at this." I whispered to myself. I started to walk to the parking lot direction, but stopped just at the end of the building wall and looked back. My legs felt wobbly so I took the empty chair on the table and looked inside from the big window. I couldn't really see anything beside the people that were sitting next to it, so I lowered my head, and rested my chin in my arms on the table.