Before You Go. |Lee Know

(Three)

Rain!

Is Seoul cursed or something? It's not usual to rain that much! It has to be spring.

Rona groaned in her bed as the rain didn't stop dripping. She hates rain. She hates the gloomy atmosphere. It creeps her.

As always, she was home alone without her family. She didn't go to her classes. She wanted to study as her exams were around the corner but she didn't feel like it. It must be the gloomy weather that makes her sulky.

She thought of making herself a warm cup of honey milk, with some chocolate chips, and then she would sit on the comfy sofa to watch her drama. Her eyes lightened at the thought so she ran to the kitchen.

Shit! There's no milk!

She looked through the window. The rain was almost stopping but the sun was still nowhere to be found.

"It won't be scary to go to the convenience store now. Right? It's not late, it's still 4 pm. It's just the stupid sun hiding."

Rona's mind was doing its calculations on whether to go to buy her milk or not. She really hates the gloomy atmosphere. She started hating it since that day. The coldness, the rain, the faint light, the clouds, the sound of water droplets hitting the solid ground, the smell of mud. It makes her feel like Dracula is getting out of his coffin.

She made her decision, put on her hoodie, tied her sneaker's double knot, plugged in her earphones, and set her song to the full volume. She's gonna make it real quick to the store and back to her safe house.

***

Rona arrived at the store, picked up whatever she wanted, and went to pay but the cashier boy wasn't by the desk. Who the hell leaves the store desk like that? Rona waited for ten good minutes before deciding to just leave some money on the desk and go. She knows the owner well anyways.

She was on her way back home, singing along with her song when she suddenly heard a loud strong beep in her ears that brought pain to her head and made her drop what she was having in her hands and then fall to the ground.

Rona kept squatting to the ground while holding her head with her two hands, squeezing her eyes as the pain was unbearable. The beep was getting louder and louder. She screamed out of pain but there was no one on the empty rainy streets. She felt like dying but a pair of hands reached her ears, covering them gently. The hands blocked the beep sound. The hands blocked all the sounds like the whole world lost all of its voices.

Rona was still squatting on the ground, her eyes were still squeezing but the pain was going away slowly. She opened her eyes and moved her hands to the warm hands covering her ears. She lifted her head and her eyes landed on the one who owned those warm hands.

"I told you, you are going to hear beeps!" The boy said, smiling at her warmly.

Rona looked at his face silently for a few seconds as she didn't realize how close they were to each other. The boy was squatting down in front of her, placing his two hands on her ears, bringing her face close to his. His warm smile showed his cute bunny teeth and his sparkling eyes. Again, she was staring at him. Her cold pale fingers were still on top of his hands.

"You are cold! You'd better go inside before you get really sick." He said bringing her back to reality. That's when she realized how close they were.

Rona's eyes widened and she snatched her hands away from his, pushing the boy quickly before jumping to her feet.

"Awww." The boy groaned. "That hurts!" He whined as he landed on his butt.

Rona quickly collected her belongings off the ground and started sprinting away from him.

"You are welcomed!" The boy said as he stood up and started following her.

She again covered her head with the hood and avoided looking into his eyes. The boy couldn't help but giggle at her flustered reaction.

"Why do you always hide your face like that?" He asked her as he tried to catch up with her fast steps. She kept sprinting. "Can't you slow down a bit? I can't run!"

Why can't he run?

"Okay, okay I give up." The boy yelled from behind as he bent down to rest his hands on his knees while panting.

That weak! She didn't even run!

Rona slowed down and looked back at the poor boy who was trying to catch his breath. The boy lifted his head. His face lightened up when he found that she was looking at him. He straightened up and walked towards her with a smile but still panting.

"I'm Lee Minho." He said, reaching his hand out for her.

Rona was taken aback by his friendly action. She looked at him suspiciously while hugging her belongings. "I won't shake hands with a stranger!" She talked to him for the first time which made the boy's smile widens.

"I'm not a stranger. I'm Lee Minho."

"Nice to meet you, Lee Minho and thank you for earlier but I hope you stop whatever you are doing."

"Which is?" The boy asked playfully shifting his legs as if he can't stand still.

"Being a creep!"

"I'm not a creep!"

"You are! You always show up when there is no one around. You just pop out of nowhere."

"Like your guardian angel." Minho joked. He smirked raising his eyebrows. He was right. If we can put an image for guardian angels, it would be definitely completely totally his image.

"You are too old to be a guardian angel." Rona snapped.

"I'm two years younger than you."

"And how the hell do you know how old I'm?" She asked suspiciously. Minho went silent and his smile faded away. Again he was looking at his feet. "Okay, don't answer. This is really creepy. You are not even supposed to be here! I'm leaving and you are not following." Rona said strictly pointing at him and left.

Minho didn't lift his head up and didn't follow her as she requested.

***

Rona's heartbeats finally got stable once she entered her house. Thinking of the weird encounter from earlier made her shiver again. She wasn't supposed to talk to him. This won't end well.

So, he was two years younger than her. He was a high school student who was never at school. Just like her brat little brother. Rona washed the thought of Minho off her mind quickly and headed to the kitchen to make her precious honey milk cup, not noticing that the rain totally stopped and the sun was up brightly in the sky.