His Cinderella | Choi Soobin

Twenty ♚

|| HYEWON ||

"You three are HIGH SCHOOLERS! What business do you have on a middle school campus?"

The old teacher roars from his desk, glaring at us three with raging eyes that I'm pretty sure I saw fire in. My hands were trembling on my lap as I feared that they would call my mom for causing trouble. Because if they called my mom... Yikes.

"In our defence, sir, those middle schoolers of yours are little brats who don't know how to fucking beha-" Yeji starts but Soobin claps his hand over her mouth before she can say something that would get us in deeper shit than we already are.

"What she's trying to say is that your middle schoolers were bullying a bunch of elementary children so we decided to talk to them about it. One of the girls slapped my..." Soobin turns towards me. "...Friend. And so we hit them back in self-defence."

Friend. I haven't heard someone call me that in a while. But I doubt he meant it. What else was he supposed to say? Acquaintance? Girlfriend's sister? Random girl who acts weirdly shy around me?

The teacher scoffs, slamming the ruler in his hands on my desk, making me flinch. "Hah! Bullying? Don't be ridiculous! I teach my students about morals, so I know they would never do that. They were probably teasing, that's all."

I turn to glance at the middle schoolers, who most of them sat in a fake sombre silence with their faces bruised. The girl whose hair I cut was quietly sobbing to herself. Wow, she sort of reminds me of someone.

"S-She cut my hair because I asked them what they were doing here! I didn't even start the fight..." The girl cries, stopping in between to sniffle. The lady teacher turns to me. "How could you cut her hair?! Do you have no shame or remorse?!"

I opened my mouth, but no words rolled off my tongue. I think if I even try to say one word, I'll end up crying. And I hate crying, especially in front of other people. Usually, I can contain my emotions until I reach home, but today I can't.

"U-Um... Ms? Can I say something?" Cameron steps forward. The teacher's faces soften at the child's appearance. "Of course dear. Tell us what those monsters did." She turns to the other teacher. "We might have to call the police if it gets too bad. You never know what high schoolers these days are up to."

Cameron starts to speak. "The thing is... Those middle schoolers have been bullying me and my friends for a long time now. They come to our school during lunch and beat us, ridicule us and throw away our toys. It's not my sister and her friend's fault."

Sister. I hate it when Aaron's kids refer to me as their siblings. I always thought that we're just mere (future) step-siblings, nothing else. But my stomach felt happy when he referred to me as his sister. I should start doing the same.

The teacher looks taken aback. She's about to say something but Yeji interrupts her. "And, when we found them, they were vandalizing the school property." Yeji signals for me to take out my phone and show the picture, which I do.

My eyes turn to the middle schoolers who were obviously scared for their lives. The girl's tears stopped crying as her eyes widened. The teachers copy her actions as they stare at the photo. "Is this... Real?" The male teacher turns to the middle schoolers.

And the rest was a blur. The teachers suspended them and set us free from the school. we all leave the school, but Yeji soon departed from us because her home was in a different neighbourhood from Soobin and mines.

Cameron walks in front of us with a large stick in his hands as Soobin and I awkwardly walk next to each other. As if I already wasn't awkward enough around him, I don't think we've ever been alone together for a long period of time (except for the party. But that doesn't count because he thinks the person he was with was Hanjin, not me).

"Hey, I know this might sound crazy... But were you ever at my party from like a month ago?" He suddenly asks. I stop in my tracks. He definitely knew. There was no way he didn't. Or, he at least suspected it.

A smile was about to appear on my lips, but I stop myself. I thought he figured it out, I thought that maybe he would realize the truth. And then Hanjin crosses my mind. If I tell him that I was the girl from the party, he would never forgive her. And Hanjin deserves to be with him. She would be heartbroken if I betrayed her like this.

Stop being so selfish all the time! I can hear her voice telling me in my head. "N-No, I wasn't. Sorry." I say, looking at his face to see how he would react. For some reason, he looked a little relieved.

"Alright, that was what I was expecting." He sounds like he's trying to tell himself that. "You don't seem like the party type, anyways. You know, Hanjin and you are pretty much polar opposites."

"Tell me about it." This wasn't the first time I've heard this. Actually, it's happened many times before. You get used to it after a while.

"Your brother's really cute." He says to ease the tension. I hum in agreement with him. "Yeah, he is. Do you have any siblings?"

He shakes his head, kicking a small stone his feet come across. "Nope, no siblings. That's fine I guess, I like being alone. And I have my friends to be with." He says. "I think you and my friend Taehyun would get along, you're both quiet."

He continues. "Speaking of friends, I don't think I've met any of yours." He turns to me, and then I realized that he wanted me to name some of them. Oh my god, it's literally my worst nightmares coming to life.

"Oh! Actually... I don't really have any friends. Except for-" I stop myself. I was going to say Yeji, but does she even consider me her friend? And the things that I feel for her are definitely not something you feel towards a 'friend'. "Nope, no friends..."

"Seriously?" He asks, his voice turned pissed. I turn around to see him looking at me annoyed. "What about me? Are we not friends anymore?!" Then I saw him smile, so I knew he was only joking.

"I didn't think you wanted me as a friend."

"Are you kidding? I'm literally walking you home right now, what else does that make me?" He laughs, but I don't do the same. Oh, who's going to tell him?

That makes you someone who drives me crazy, Soobin.