If she were told what would happen on that cursed day earlier, Sarang would've locked herself up in her room and never come out.
Alas, no higher being ever took pity on her.
Her friend, Haneul, slides the door of the clubroom open and peeks her head in. Her face was nervous, and that alone should've been enough to tell Sarang that something bad was bound to happen.
"Sarang... Han Hyunseung is looking for you."
Han Hyunseung. Tall, blonde, allegedly handsome—and absolutely infuriating. A foreigner (half-Russian, for your information), one of the greatest orators she'd ever met, an a-list candidate for the school's "Most Academically Achieving" student award this year, and other things Sarang doesn't want to mention.
He's perfect. And the worst part? He knows.
She sighs. Turns to the club officers, promptly apologizes for the hitch in their daily wrap-up debriefing, and follows Haneul out the door.
Sarang hears Hyunseung before she sees him. His voice is smooth, not too loud but not too quiet, and has a nauseating charm dripping off his words. Haneul stays behind after she slides the door close, standing near it like a guardian of some sort.
"Han Hyunseung." Sarang calls out, even if he's just a few feet away, talking to a person she's seen around a few times but had never talked to. She's pretty sure he's in her homeroom.
He turns to her, and his smile is as wide as the sun was bright. In other words, too damn much.
"Oh, hey! Sarang, I've got something for you that you left behind."
Like she'd just been given the gift of forbidden and absolutely horrifying knowledge, Sarang just knows what Han Hyunseung is talking about.
He rummages through his bag, and pulls out an all-too familiar notebook—a pretty shade of yellow, a bit like butter, with no additional decoration. Just a plain old notebook that could be used by any student.
Han Hyunseung smiles like he's read through it.
Sarang is half-tempted to punch him.
She might, at this point.
"Since there's no name on the cover, I flipped through it looking for one. By the time I got to the end, I realized why it looked so familiar—it was your handwriting!"
Sarang forces herself to smile, though she's sure it looks more like she's about to kill him than any approximation of a pleasant expression.
"Is that so? Thank you, then, Han Hyunseung. I had been looking for it."
Cordial. Civil. Courteous.
He leans into her space, not so close that he invades it, but close enough that she takes a step back. Han Hyunseung whispers like he's sharing some grand old secret, "I read your stories, by the way. They're good."
Sarang can't recall when he went away and walked off to hopefully the place where he'd go trip and die, but she does remember one thing:
Dread.