promises | ahn sooho

[5]

Hours later, the bell rang, indicating the end of the school day. Harin, like the rest of her classmates, packed her things and rushed out of the room, joining her friends. A last glance to the back of the classroom made her snort as she caught a sleeping Sooho, who hadn't been disturbed by the noise around him.

Harin spent the next ten minutes walking to her hagwon, Mina and Nari by her sides. Eunhae and Jieun had signed up for another one near their houses, so it was only the three of them sauntering down the streets of Seoul, chitt-chating.

"Yeah, and so I looked up how much sunlight monsteras usually need. This page was talking about indirect sunlight. What does that even m-" Harin's rant was interrupted by a distracting vibration in her skirt pocket. She fished the phone out of her pocket while sending her friends an apologetic look.

An unknown series of numbers looked back at her from her screen, making Harin frown. Harin had a lot of bad experiences with unknown numbers, namely boys refusing to take no for an answer and harassing her in the name of 'winning her over'. She watched the ringing come to an end and was about to pocket her phone and resume talking to her friends when the same number called her a second time. This time, Harin answered the phone, feeling uneasy for some reason.

"Hello, who is this?" Heavy panting could be heard from the other end before she heard a familiar voice.

"Shin Harin? This is Shin Harin's number?" This made Harin stop in her tracks, her friends following her suit. Why was Oh Beomseok calling her?

"Oh Beomseok? Yes, it's me. How did you get my number?" Jieun and Mina exchanged worried looks, reminded of the situation a few months ago.

"That's not important right now." His usually weak voice sounded rushed and panicked now, making the pit in Harin's stomach grow larger.

"Jeong Yeongbin dragged Yeon Sieun away. There was this older guy who slapped him, I- I tried to get Sooho to help, but he went back to sleep." Harin's mouth dropped open as she listened to the scrawny boy.

"What? Are you sure? And Sooho's not helping?" Harin felt a wave of disappointment as she processed the new information when she heard said boy's voice in the background.

"Hey, are you seriously calling Harin right now?" He raised his voice for the next part, addressing her now. "Princess, stay right where you are, okay? Don't get involved." The next few broken words she could make out were something like Beomseok and Sooho making a deal, but Harin wasn't sure as she just hung up the call and texted Beomseok instead.

"Text me the location ASAP."

Then she started running. Back into the school's general direction.

•••

The metallic charms on her bag keychain kept clinking as Harin kept running, never stopping or slowing down until she turned into the big street Beomseok had texted her. The street was fairly deserted; only one car drove by as she made her way to the alley noted on her map app.

Sooho's motorcycle was the first indication that she was in the right place, and soon she saw Beomseok nervously pacing up and down a few steps. He looked up at her as she neared, her sneakers echoing on the asphalt.

Relief flooded his face and drowned out the nerves for a second before the concern reappeared. He tried to talk to her, pointing into the alley, but Harin barely listened to his words, taking in his pointed finger instead.

Again, without slowing down, the girl turned into the alley, her heart pumping with something she couldn't identify for the moment. Anger? Fear? Concern? Maybe it was a mixture of all three.