High Maintenance 👑 h.zt

15

~Min-hee~

She should have asked for his number. That was cliché, and dumb, but she should have asked for it, because now all she was doing was staring at the price of milk. She'd figured on the way home she'd pick some up so she could engorge herself with cereal or chocolate milk. But she wanted to get home and call Tao to ask if he was alright, but he hadn't given her his number.

And he might do something stupid, he was scared, he was being stalked by a gang that expected him to commit cold-blooded murder. What if he caved? He wasn't that type of person, she was sure, but that other guy, the Messenger, he might push Tao too hard, hard enough for him to break under the pressure like a toothpick trying to hold back the ocean. Min-hee had gotten the hint that he was trying to give her, he was trying to keep her out of this. It made her skin turn icy cold, whoever he was working for wouldn't hesitate to have someone kill her, not even for a second.

She bit her lip, staring at the milk. It scared her too, the gang, she could feel herself shaking, everything seemed too real all at once. It was as if before she was living some fantasy where everything was good and fine and no one had problems, death wasn't a very real thing, no one fought. What a fool she'd been.

She finally opened the glass door to get the milk, deciding on a full gallon after figuring she'd just be back her two days from now if she didn't. The cold air from the refrigerated shelves didn't help her shivering, sending said shiver straight down her spine like someone was touching her. She knew there wasn't anyone there, that she was one of the only people in the store besides a handful of elderly people, but it made her look over her shoulder anyway.

She was being paranoid, the most paranoid she'd been in a while, she hadn't been this way since way back when her mom and dad were still part of her life, back when every second she wondered if this recent fight would lead to a divorce.

Having got her milk, she went down the cereal aisle, searching for something with chocolate, she thought maybe that would fix the almost permanent queasy feeling in her stomach. She knew the knot was from all this gang business, but chocolate was supposed to fix everything. She saw just the cereal she wanted on one of the higher shelves, so she went up to it, reaching for it, but not quite reaching high enough to actually reach it.

She put one foot on the shelf below it, sighing inwardly. This not reaching things sucked.

"Need some help?" She heard someone ask, taking the box of cereal down for her.

She was surprised, turning around to face him while he handed her the cereal. It was that guy with the eyeliner, one of Tao's friends. Baekhyun. He smiled at her showing an almost uncomfortable amount of teeth. His smile almost turning square in shape he was grinning so wide. He had a box of cookies under his arm, obviously not here for any sort of actual grocery shopping.

"Hey, I know you!" He said, then he put a finger to his chin. "Damn, I can't remember your name....uh, Michelle?"

"Min-hee." She corrected. "Thank you." She said, then bowed.

Baekhyun blinked, but with the eyeliner, it looked like he had batted his eyelashes at her. "It's not a big deal, just couldn't let you bring the whole shelf down. It was teetering, by the way, so you really shouldn't stand on it."

Min-hee nodded. Not one of her better ideas, she had to admit, but she wasn't thinking terribly clearly, her thoughts still on Tao and the gang or whatever it was he worked for, on Chanyeol who must be some kind of middle-man for them, on that name on that paper, on the fact that she could be a target now.

"Don't space out, it's alright." He laughed. "But, hey, have you seen Tao lately?" He rubbed his neck with his free hand. "I don't know if you guys are friends or enemies or whatever, but I haven't seen him since the party, and he won't answer my calls, or anyone's calls for that matter."