"I-I-I a-am l-late...late…" Chang Seol takes a step away from him. This is a disaster. She needs to escape.
"Little girl." Sin Jeong-Hyuk grabs the back of her collar and chuckles when he sees her flustered face. "Don't you think that you owe me an explanation?
"M-Mind your own business," She utters with a weak voice.
"You are one of my businesses from now on." He stares at her. "Your father doesn't know you are in Z city."
"I will look for a new place, Mister." Chang Seol meets his gaze. "I won't stay here for long."
Yeon-Sik is right. These girls would leave eventually. He watches her quietly for a long moment. Why does she pretend to stammer? Her voice is quite clear. It sounds familiar for some reasons. He lifts her upward until her face is in front of his face. He's sure that he has never seen her before. "Little girl, have we met before?"
"We met yesterday." She glares at him. Her feet are in the air. Is she a sack of potatoes or a dog? "I have never seen you before, Old Mister."
"Old Mister?" He looks at her with shock. "I am still in my twenties. Call me Oppa."
"I refuse." She crosses her hands in front of her face. "Unless you call me properly by my name."
He snorts. "Seol Ah?"
She makes a face. "Chang Seol. My name is Chang Seol. I am not a little girl."
"Okay, okay, you are not a little girl, Little girl." He puts her down. "Your voice sounds hoarse. Do you have a cold?"
"No." She knits her brows. "I will complain to Mr Park if you don't stop minding your business."
The corner of his lips curls up. She has forgotten to stammer again. "I just promised your father that I will look after you."
"Whatever!" She walks toward the exit. "I am late for university."
She makes the funniest faces. He laughs. "When is the first lecture?"
Chang Seol doesn't answer him. She doesn't even bother asking why he is laughing. He's a crazy and weird old man. "It's none of your business!"
He shakes his head and takes long strides toward her, grabbing her by her collar again.
"Old Mister, why are you always doing this to me?" She yells at him. "I am a human being."
"There, you have a loud voice now." Sin Jeong-Hyuk drags her along with him. "You are not stammering either. If I don't do this to you, I have to listen to your mumblings and stammerings."
"That is because…" She closes her mouth. She does that when she's nervous.
"Because of what?" Outside the house, he lets go of her collar. He unlocks the doors of his car. "Get in the car. I will drop you at university."
Chang Seol peers at him. "I can go alone."
"Aren't you late?" He curves his brow. "If you take the bus, you won't reach in time. I will do this only today."
She lets out a breath. What kind of sins did she commit in her past life? The colour of the car is black. She hates black. She gets into the passenger seat and stares out of the window. The trees are covered with snow.
"How much of a person's warmth is required to melt the snow in someone's heart?" She asks unconsciously, forgetting that she's in the car with the most annoying old man in the world.
"It depends on how much someone can accept. After all, people are born greedy. Even if someone gives away all of himself to that person, it might never be enough for that person."
She turns her head toward him, wrapping her arms around her bag. A person's heart can be that greedy?
"Old Mister, have you met such a greedy person before?" She asks him.
Sin Jeong-Hyuk turns on the music. "Pay attention to this song. The singer has done a good job."
Why should she pay attention? She frowns at him. "I am an architecture student. What does music get to do with me?"
"You have a good voice," He tells her. He can't help but feel a little familiarity with that voice. How would she sound if she sings? "Try singing along with this song."
"I hate singing." She turns it off. "I also hate music. Don't ask me to do useless things."
Shocked, he takes a glance at her. "You think that music is useless?"
"Yes." She looks away when she sees him glowering at her. "Old mister, music can't help me graduate from university."
He releases his breath. He won't get mad. He won't get mad. He won't get mad at this hamster. She's a little kid who doesn't understand the importance of music. "You have listened to Daydream's songs. You have enjoyed them, haven't you? Then, why do you think that music is useless?"
This ride is too long. She should have taken a bus or a cab. Her head hurts because of his loud voice. "I don't like her songs."
"You are lying." He says to her with a light tone, "If you didn't like her songs, you wouldn't have paid attention to the lyrics."
"I am not lying," She mutters under her breath. She is the one who wrote them. Of course, she would remember them. "You also said that she was clumsy."
"She needs some training." He sighs. "Kiddo, do you have any guesses what kind of person she would be?"
"I don't…" She furrows her brows. This is her chance, right? "Old Mister, I think that she's old. She must be thirty or forty. She might be older. She must have stopped singing because she got sick and lost her voice."
He presses the brake abruptly. "Why are you saying inauspicious things?"
"You are the one who asked." She pushes the door of the car and steps out. "Old Mister, thank you for the ride."
"This little…" He watches her run toward university building. "Is she a turtle? Even hamsters are faster."
Got sick and lost her voice? He scratches his chin. That is a possibility. He checks the app on his phone. When he taps on the page, it opens up to page with a message.
[Error: the page doesn't exist.]
"Huh?" He grimaces at his phone and taps again. The same page reappears on the screen. He curses under his breath. "Did you have to delete your account?"
How is he going to find her now?
***
After an hour, Chang Seol is standing in the backside of a building. She looks at the campus map on her phone. She's sure that she followed the directions. Then, where is she? This doesn't look like a lecture room.
She's too tired to move. She squats down and pokes the snow. It's so cold. And she misses home. She misses her mother and her little sister. She even misses her father. She misses the food that her mother made. She misses the familiarity of her city.
Chang Seol crushes the snow in her hand. She read somewhere that cold is just an absence of heat. It is just like the darkness which is nothing but the absence of light. According to the law of thermodynamics, heat always moves from something hotter object to something colder one.
Her hand is getting cold, but the snow is not melting.
"This snow is greedy." She drops it on the ground. She has already missed the first lecture. Maybe it's possible to make it to the second one. Straightening her back, she tells herself with a determined voice, "I can find the lecture room on my own."
She spends another thirty minutes wandering like a lost child. Finally, she reaches the room. The lecture has already started. She wipes her cold sweat. She doesn't want to go inside. If she goes in, all the eyes might turn to her. What if her professor gets angry? She contemplates her situation for another ten minutes.
Gathering her courage, she pushes the door slowly. She peeks inside the lecture room. Nobody is looking toward her. The lecturer is writing something on the board. She steps into the room without making any sound. She walks quickly toward the empty seat in the second last row.
"Aaaah!" She lets out a loud scream when her foot slips on the staircase. She falls on her side and rolls down to the fourth staircase. All eyes are on her. She pinches her lips together to stop herself from crying.
"Chang Seol, are you okay?" She feels someone's hand on her back. When she looks at the girl, she becomes still. The girl has shoulder-length long hair and monolid dark eyes. It's been a while since she saw this face. She didn't expect to see it here.
"Professor is watching." Lim Da-Bin whispers to her, "Get up."
Colour drains from her face when she looks at the man watching her with some concern in his eyes. It's none other than Namgung Yeon-Sik. He walks toward her and asks, "Are you hurt somewhere, Chang Seol?"
She bends her neck and shakes her head. Of all the people in the world, why him? Lim Da-Bin helps her get up.
"I will let this slide since it's the first day." Namgung Yeon-Sik could see that she's both shocked and embarrassed to face him. "Go to your seat."
Since it's the first day… Mun Soyoon, Old Mister, now this mister… All of them have been helping her. Still, Chang Seol wants to dig a hole and bury herself for a century. She could have never dreamt of this possibility that this mister is a professor instead of a student. She walks beside Lim Da-Bin and takes a seat.
She stares at Namgung Yeon-Sik who has resumed the lecture as if nothing has happened at all. She observes him quietly.
His voice is deep and resonating. She glances at his hand. It's the same hand that patted her head yesterday night.
She wonders why the strange feeling in her stomach is back. When he looks at her for a mere second, she looks down at her notebook.
But she can't keep looking away. She stares at him again, trying hard not to be caught while wondering why does she want to continue to watch him.
Time is moving slow and her heart is beating fast. Regardless of whatever is happening to her, she hasn't been able to take any notes at all.
***
After the lecture, she watches him leave. She looks at her notebook. The page is empty.
"Chang Seol, I didn't expect to see you here." Lim Da-Bin smiles at her. "I thought that you would go to a university in S City."
That was the original plan, but a runaway daughter doesn't have many options. She doesn't have the money to go there. "Why did you come here?"
"I didn't make it to any other place." Lim Da-Bin lets out a heavy sigh. "This place isn't bad. Where are you staying?"
"Nearby." Chang Seol packs her stuff. She gives her a polite bow. "Thanks for earlier."
"Wait, Chang Seol, I have something to ask." Lim Da-Bin raises her hand. "Do you know--"
She scurries away from Lim Da-Bin, pretending that she can't listen to Lim Da-Bin's voice. She must avoid this girl at any cost.
"Heol!" Lim Da-Bin puts her elbows on the desk. "She hasn't changed one bit. But can she avoid me for the next five years? She's not as pure as she seems."