This is all we've got

Chapter eleven: I'll run but you'll follow and that's all I need

When Sixteen opened her eyes, she was idling doing homework on the bleachers as students trained nearby on the big open field. Kyung may have been one of them. Haru, too.

Not far from her, Juda sat alone.

Sixteen let out a heavy breath, feeling tired. Then she blinked and was opening her eyes in the library. The crisp sound of pages being handled and the soft thud of footsteps soothed her. She got up and found an interesting book, choosing completely by random and hoping it would have nice pictures. It sounded a little childish, but no one around cared enough to judge.

When she sat down with the book, she didn't get any warning before she found herself not in the library anymore but seated at her desk in the classroom instead.

She slumped in her seat. The writer really abused these time skips of theirs.

Sixteen waited five minutes before warily relaxing, realising that maybe the writer was done with time skips for the moment.

The nameless teacher was up front, holding open a book while someone else read out loud. Sixteen couldn't bring herself to concentrate on the words spilling around the classroom and looked over at Haru before she could stop herself. He wasn't looking at her anyway so it didn't really matter.

She didn't look in Kyung's direction.

For once, Sixteen remained at her desk for the remainder of the class and even when it was over, she found herself free to walk out or stay as she pleased. No scene needed her for the moment, it seemed. With little reason to stay, she got up to leave.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Kyung get up too.

She made a beeline for the door and sensed him make his way in the same direction. Sixteen sped up and escaped out of the classroom. Kyung did the same.

She was practically speed walking down the hall when he finally called out to her.

"Why are you making me chase you? What is it now?"

Just as he asked her, the question also occurred to her. Why was she running?

Sixteen came to a sudden stop. Kyung, who had started to catch up with his long legs, almost crashed into her.

"Woah. What is it?"

She spun around to face him. "I... don't know, actually. I just got the urge. Strange."

Kyung looked down at her like she'd gone insane. "What's this? Have you started getting amnesia too? Why are you being weird all of a sudden?"

Sixteen snorted. "Hey, don't call me weird. If I'm weird, then you are too."

"Me? How am I weird? What have I done?" he asked, bewildered. It was funny to see him like that.

"You..." She thought about it. "You just are. Everyone is weird. You have to be weird to be a character in a manhwa."

He raised an eyebrow at that, clearly no less confused by her conclusion. Sixteen didn't mind. She just liked talking to him, even if it was a conversation that was utter nonsense and went nowhere.

"Well then." She waved awkwardly, avoiding his eyes. "Goodbye."

Kyung was so caught off-guard he almost let her get away but snapped out of it fast enough to stop her in her tracks.

"Oi, hang on."

Sixteen sheepishly turned back around to face him. Well, she'd tried. But running from Baek Kyung, she had long realised, was an impossible task. It didn't help that Sixteen didn't even really want to run. She just... didn't know what else to do.