WORDS. |Kim Seungmin

Seventeen.

"How is the project going?" Changbin asked.

"It's okay. We didn't start well but we are catching up. We are almost done with the first phase and soon we'll be working on the articles thing." Aria answered.

She was cleaning a table. The café was already closed and the two friends were wrapping up while chatting. Changbin was curious about what Aria was doing lately since she was busy with the project. Instead of spending time together as always, she was spending her time with Seungmin. They would work in the library in the morning, at the café by lunch, and at her house in the evening. The two partners were quickly growing close that you can now call them friends.

"You are going to work tonight too?" Changbin asked. He was already done with his tasks. He took off his apron and hung it on the hanger by the door labeled with 'Authorized personnel only'.

"No. We'll resume tomorrow morning." Aria said, making her way to behind the counter. Soon she was taking off her apron too.

"Tomorrow? It's the weekend, Aria!"

"So?"

"Take a break!"

"We have to hand the pa-"

"Aria!" Changbin called, cutting her words. His voice was a little louder and solid. Aria looked at him with confusion. The boy sighed. "Don't you think you are taking this project thing way too serious than normal? It's not your graduation project, though."

"What's wrong with working hard?"

"If you are working!" He snapped.

"What does that supposed to mean?" Aria squinted her eyes at him.

"Just be honest with me, Aria. You don't give a shit about the project. You didn't from the start. You didn't care about the grades or whatever. You just were trying to come up with a reason to be around him. You said it before. You were curious." Changbin stated.

He was right. He knew his friend well. Aria started the whole thing because of her curiosity about the boy. She wanted to find answers to her questions but instead, she was having more questions which made her more curious. Little by little, she started feeling attached to the boy somehow. It wasn't just her curiosity that kept her around him, there was something else. Something that she couldn't point out.

"What if I was trying to come up with a reason? What's wrong with that?" She questioned.

"We don't know him, Aria! I told you before, he might be a Punish-"

"Yeah, yeah! A punished." She interrupted. "So what?"

"So what?" Changbin almost yelled. He walked up to where she was standing, only leaving the counter to separate them. "Are you serious? What if he's a bad guy? What if he hurts you?"

"What if he's not?" Aria yelled back. "Why are you assuming that he's a bad guy?"

"Cause not all Punished are innocent like your brother!"

"And not all of them committed crimes like your ex!" Aria snapped.

It was just a few seconds before she realizes what she said. She wasn't supposed to be that mean. She wasn't supposed to bring that back on him. For years, that topic was never mentioned.

It was their senior year at high school when Changbin fell for a new girl that was a beauty goddess. It didn't take him long till he confessed and asked her out. Soon, they started dating and Changbin was the happiest ever. The girl loved him too, or maybe she faked that. She was totally normal with nothing odd about her except that she never agreed to meet him any time after sunset. He never suspected it. No one ever did.

It wasn't even a few months till Aria found out that the girl was a Punished and that all her beauty magically gets replaced by ugly, very ugly, burn scars after the sun goes down and till it comes up again the following day. When Changbin confronted her, she cried saying that it was an accident when she was a little kid that led to people losing their lives. And that's how Changbin forgave her saying that he didn't care if she was a Punished or not and that he loved her.

The poor boy wanted to help her so, he started looking for her Healer. During the process, he had to search her past in order to find a clue about him/her. That was when Changbin found out that she wasn't innocent at all and that she committed a cruel crime. She set her house on fire, on purpose, with her parents in. It wasn't an accident or a mistake.

Changbin's world turned upside down. He was hurt and broken to the extent of locking himself in his house for weeks. Since that day, he started building walls between himself and whoever tried to approach him, especially the Punished.

And that's why he never liked the idea of Aria getting close to Seungmin. He was afraid that she might fall for him and get hurt too. He tried many times not to be judgmental, especially when he noticed how her eyes look at him, but he couldn't hold his worried self back.

"You should've not mentioned that." Changbin said in a raspy voice.

"Changbin, I didn-"

Aria had no time to apologize as the boy rushed out of the café, leaving her alone with her guilty thoughts. She sighed to herself knowing that there was no use in following him. He was angry and no one can talk to Changbin when he's angry. She huffed in frustration and dropped her head down.

This time, she was wrong. She crossed the line.