Empty – Chapter 2

Oh my God!

Yoona couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw the person holding onto her fancy envelope. It was Kwon Yuri, the leader of the trio that went around terrorizing people in school.

“Hey babe, are you looking for this?” Yuri asked lazily, taking the half-eaten lollipop out from her mouth while waving the envelope with her other free hand.

“Err…no. Bye, got to go!” Yoona said nervously. She turned around and planned to run away when she was stopped by two shorties, Yuri’s sidekicks. Both of them stuck their arms sideways, forming a barrier and preventing her from escaping. Reluctantly, Yoona slowly turned back to face Yuri.

“Do I need to repeat myself?” Yuri chewed on the remaining bit of lollipop with loud crunching noises. Her gaze was intense and unnerving.

“Yes.. it’s mine.” Yoona tried not to stutter.

How did the envelope end up with her??  Yoona screamed out loud in her head.

Yuri walked towards Yoona in big strides, waving the envelope in front of her.

“I believe this was meant for a certain Jung?” Now Yuri was chewing the plastic stick when she stopped right in front of Yoona.

“Yes. How…how did it…,” Yoona was too stunned to complete her question.

Yuri cleared her throat and recited a few lines from the letter in a loud and dramatic voice.

“Your hair is as smooth as silk and your complexion is as fair as the first snow. If you were the new burger at McDonalds you would be McGorgeous!”

“Stop!” Yoona yelled, trying her best to snatch the envelope from Yuri but Yuri stuffed it into her jacket pocket and threw her jacket to one of her sidekicks.

“The person who gave you her locker number must have decided that I am bored and needed some fun.” Yuri flicked the stick from her hand and it landed perfectly into the dustbin nearby.

“And gave you my locker number instead.”

Yoona’s jaw almost dropped to the floor.

Seohyunnie wouldn’t get me into trouble. It must be her source that gave her the wrong info. Sheessh!

“Thank you for informing me. If you don’t mind, I would like to have the envelope back,” Yoona said politely yet firmly.

“So that you can put it into that Jung’s locker? I can do it for you, if you want,” Yuri offered with a half-smile. She brushed her hand through her hair and let the dark strands settle on her shoulders.

“Really?” Yoona asked, surprised at the sudden generosity of the school bully.

The two shorter girls were sniggering behind, trying to contain their laughter. Yuri shot them a look and their laughter ceased immediately.

Yuri turned her attention back on Yoona and grinned. “In fact, I would help you profess your love for that Jung over the school’s public announcement system. I’m sure that way, she’ll definitely get your message. Loud and clear.”

Yuri turned around to walk away, smiling to herself. A new victim on her list.

“Please stop,” Yoona pleaded.

Yuri didn’t care and continued walking. She stopped when she felt someone pulling her arm and holding her back. No one dared to touch Yuri, much less stop her from leaving, including the teachers at school.

“Please…don’t do it.”

This time, the voice sounded more desperate.

Irritation was building up in Yuri as she turned around to face her new victim. However, she wasn’t prepared for the sight that greeted her.

It wasn’t unusual that Yuri’s victims were either sobbing or turning pale with fear. Yoona wasn’t any different. Her eyes were beginning to water though she wasn’t crying. Her fists were clenched and her lips were quivering.

However, Yuri’s heart did a little somersault when she saw Yoona’s exasperated face, coupled with tears welling up in her doe-like eyes.  The girl seemed so different from her other victims so far. Yuri never knew that a person could look so beautiful with tears gleaming in her eyes.

“What do I have to do in order for you to return the letter to me and not broadcast it over the PA system?”

Yuri brushed Yoona’s hand away from her arm.

“I won’t do it, for now. I’ll keep the letter with me. Meet me at the courtyard at 4pm next Monday and I’ll let you know your fate,” Yuri said in a firm and deep voice.

Yuri quickly walked away with her sidekicks following close behind. Yoona was left standing at the same spot, praying hard that Yuri wouldn’t go back on her words.

~*~*~*~

 

Seohyun was very apologetic that her informant gave her incorrect information and that she would ensure that person would be dealt with seriously. Yoona could only bury her head in her hands as she recalled the encounter with the bully.

“I should complain to Mrs Lee. How can she go around terrorizing people like that?” Yoona said, slamming her fist on the table. She rose from her seat but was held back by Seohyun.

“Don’t be silly. Complaining to Mrs Lee wouldn’t help a single bit. Kwon Yuri’s father donated half a million dollars to build the new wing for the arts and is on the board of directors. You think Mrs Lee or any other teachers would dare to kick her out of school no matter how terrible she is?” Seohyun reasoned.

“Then what should I do?” Yoona exclaimed in an exasperated tone.

“Meet her. See what she wants. From what I know, she just enjoys seeing her victims tremble at the sight of her. The most obvious answer is not to give her what she enjoys most and she’ll probably let you off very soon.”

“That sounds like a good plan, for the moment,” Yoona sighed.

~*~*~*~

Yoona appeared at the appointed time and place. She was fifteen minutes early. It was truly not Seohyun’s fault for giving Yoona the wrong locker number. Seohyun’s team mate at the library was the one who gave her the incorrect locker number, resulting in Yoona’s current state. Yoona could only blame herself for not verifying the locker number before she dropped the envelope in.

Yoona sat down on one of the benches and waited patiently. To idle time away, Yoona browsed the internet on her phone. At the stroke of 4pm, Yoona saw two shadows looming over her. She looked up and saw Yuri’s sidekicks.

“Boss has something on and she can’t make it today. She asks you to go home and come back here on Wednesday at 4pm instead,” the shorty with the blonde mop of hair said.

Yoona rose from the bench and looked down at the both of them.  She loomed over them like a giant. “Wait a minute. Does she think I’m a fool? Asking me to come yet she doesn’t turn up personally and now she sends her dwarves to pass a message to me?”

“Excuse me, it’s obvious that we aren’t dwarves but human beings,” the blonde mop retorted.

“And we do have names. She’s Hyoyeon and I’m Sunny. Our boss is Kwon Yuri, the most respected girl in school,” Sunny, the girl with the pink mob of hair, proclaimed.

Yoona was trying her best not to laugh out loud.

Most respected, my foot! Yoona thought to herself.

“If your boss doesn’t appear on Wednesday, I’m going to dump her worksheets into the bin!” Yoona threatened before walking off.

As Yoona walked away, she let out a long sigh of relief. She was trembling when she was faced with the two of them but she managed to keep her composure and even sent them a threat. She was proud of herself of her accomplishment.

~*~*~*~

Yoona studied the person sitting across her at the study table. The person looked quite battered and worn out. There was a plaster on her left cheek near her jaw line and there was a hint of a freshly healed cut on her lower lip.

“You got into a fight?” Yoona asked, raising an eyebrow. This was her second time seeing Yuri up close and she was sure there wasn’t a cut on her lip the first time they met. She remembered her face had a glow radiating from the bronze skin.

“I fell,” Yuri answered bluntly.

“It must have been quite a bad fall. Is that why you couldn’t make it on Monday?” Yoona’s tone softened, worried about her schoolmate.

“It’s none of your concern,” Yuri replied in a low grunt. The look of concern in Yoona’s eyes made Yuri look away. It made her uncomfortable that a fellow schoolmate was worried about her well-being. People were supposed to be afraid of her, not sympathize with her.

“I am trying to be nice to someone who demanded me to meet her at this spot two days ago but didn’t turn up. So where is my letter?” Yoona was a little frustrated. She was trying to be nice yet she was given such a rude reply.

“At home,” came a cold reply. Yuri stretched one leg out and looked at her shoelaces.

“What?!” Yoona’s voice went up a pitch.

“I left it in the other jacket,” Yuri said nonchalantly, bending down to tie her shoelaces on her Converse.

“Excuse,” Yoona said sharply. She stood akimbo and glared at Yuri.

“Anyway, you think I would hand the letter to you so easily? I would have made copies of it by now, don’t you think?” Yuri said in a matter of fact tone while turning her attention back on Yoona.

Yoona paused for a moment. What Yuri said was quite true. She wanted to scream at herself for being so silly for believing the bully.

“What do you want me to do then?”

“Do my Mathematics homework for the rest of the semester,” Yuri said plainly, placing her hands at the back of her head and stretched herself for a bit. That was about six weeks’ worth of homework.

Yoona was taken aback. She had expected something worse than doing someone else’s Mathematics homework. She heard that one of Yuri’s earlier victims had to wash the school toilet for two weeks while another had to pay for Yuri’s lunch for a month. The most unfortunate victim had to carry a sign that contained a notice of apology to Yuri and proclaimed how great Yuri was during lunch time for a month.

“That’s all?” Yoona asked, thinking there was a catch to it. Mathematics was one of her best subjects and she had no problems getting a distinction for it.

Yuri stuck her hand into her bag, unwrapped a red lollipop and sucked it into her mouth. She looked at Yoona and nodded her head slowly.

“I already have people doing my English, Literature and Chemistry homework. You can volunteer for Geography if you want,” Yuri said lazily, sucking on her red lollipop.  Her breath smelled of strawberries. It was sweet, unlike the person who was sucking on it.

“Mathematics it shall be. Nothing else.”

“Great. You can start right now. I need to determine your ability before I finalise my decision on the subject you would be doing.” Yuri pulled out her Mathematics workbook and threw it onto the table. She flipped to the relevant page and pushed the book towards Yoona.

Yoona took out her pencil from her pencil case and started working on two of the problems on that page. Yuri was sucking on her lollipop in silence while watching her victim complete the questions.

For Yuri, it was amusing to see Yoona’s furrowed brows as she tapped the side of her head while trying to solve the Mathematical problem. There was a point in time when Yoona was stumbled by the workings. She bit her lips and thought hard of an alternative solution to the problem. Never did Yoona know that that lip biting caused Yuri’s heart to flip.

Yuri looked away, turning her back on Yoona while she waited for the girl to finish. That little heart flip caused warmth to slowly spread through the said organ. It was a feeling that Yuri hadn’t experienced in a long while, specifically since her parents started neglecting each other. She pushed that negative thought out of her head and looked around for something to distract her while waiting for Yoona to finish. She spotted an interesting object on the table from the corner of her eye and decided to have some fun with it.

“Done.” Yuri heard Yoona slamming the pencil onto the table and the sound of her workbook sliding across the table. She turned around and stared at the solutions. They were correct.

“You can complete the rest of the questions on the next few marked pages,” Yuri commanded.

Yuri pointed to Sunny and Hyoyeon, both of whom were standing two tables away, and said, “One of them will pick it up from you at lunch tomorrow.”

Yuri rose from her seat, grabbed her bag and left.

As Yoona watched Yuri disappear into the building with her sidekicks, she noticed that the tanned girl was walking a little awkwardly. She was sure there was a bruise hidden behind the long sock which Yuri wore.

I’m sure she has gotten into a fight. Anyway, it’s none of my concern as she aptly puts it to me.

The next moment, Yoona’s phone started ringing. The caller-id showed an unfamiliar number but Yoona answered the call anyway.

“Hello babe, I forgotten to remind you that the work should be error free and completed in time,” came a husky voice at the end of the line.

Yoona was shocked when she heard Yuri’s voice. Before she could say anything, Yuri interjected. “Next time, remember to use a password for your phone.”

Yoona turned her head in Yuri’s direction and saw the tanned girl ending a call and stuffing the phone into her jacket pocket. She berated herself for being so careless for leaving her phone on the table earlier on and not realizing that Yuri had used it to call her own mobile phone in order to get Yoona’s number.

~*~*~*~

The next day, Sunny was waiting outside Yoona’s classroom at the stroke of lunch time. Yoona wasn’t fazed by how Sunny knew which class she was in. The trio could easily threaten any unknowing suspect and demanded to know Yoona’s timetable.

Yoona handed the homework to Sunny and in return was given new ones to fill in. This went on for a few more days before Yoona decided that she wouldn’t be doing Yuri’s homework anymore. Yuri wasn’t going to learn anything at all if this went on.

When Sunny came by to pick up Yuri’s homework, Yoona refused to give it to her.

“She’s never going to learn if she doesn’t do the homework herself. How is she going to pass the final exam at the end of the year?” Yoona reasoned to Sunny.

“I’m told to pick up Boss’ homework and I need to return with it. Don’t give me any crap. Just hand it over, now!” Sunny stuck one hand out, waiting for Yoona to hand over the completed homework.

“Ask your Boss to come and get it from me personally. I’ll tell it straight to her face,” Yoona said defiantly.

They continued arguing with Yoona refusing to budge. In the end, Sunny left the classroom reluctantly empty-handed.

Later that afternoon, Yoona was at her locker, taking her gym clothes out so that she could jog around the track before going home. She tried to exercise at least twice a week in order to keep fit. When she closed her locker door, she came face to face with Yuri, who was leaning on the locker door next to hers.

Yuri was sucking on a lollipop and had a lazy smile on her face. Her tousled dark hair, coupled with her wide open school blouse that revealed her collarbones, made her look exceptionally sexy. Her school jacket was draped over one shoulder and her backpack on the other. She swiftly turned around and trapped Yoona against her own locker by placing two hands on either side of the fair skinned girl.

Yoona felt her heart beating a little faster.

“You missed me? I heard you are looking for me?” Yuri said in a deep husky voice.

The slightly surprised looking girl had her hair tied up in a neat ponytail, different from when they met for the first time. There was an air of innocence around Yoona. Though she didn’t have any makeup on, there was a glow from within her that made her look attractive.

Was this what they termed as natural beauty?  Yuri wondered.

“Y-yes…why…why aren’y you picking up your homework from me and getting your dwarves to do it instead?” Yoona stuttered a little. Yuri was making her nervous all of a sudden and it was definitely not out of fear. There was a twinkle of playfulness in Yuri’s dark brown eyes as she met them eye-to-eye.

“Awww…if I had known you missed seeing me, i would have gladly picked it up from you personally.” Yuri inched closer, her face was mere inches from Yoona’s.

Yoona could smell the peppermint flavoured lollipop from Yuri’s breath. Yuri’s dark brown eyes were boring into hers. She felt a little uncomfortable with the close proximity and tilted her head to the side to avoid the pair of piercing eyes.

Yuri sniggered as she took a step backwards. Yoona was an interesting victim so far, someone who dared to defy her and was definitely attractive though she had no makeup or perfume on, unlike some of the other girls in school.

“Where’s my homework?” Yuri asked, the lazy smile still plastered on her face.

Yoona fumbled with her school bag and pulled out a few sheets of paper. Yuri wasted no time in snatching it from Yoona and stuffing the papers into her bag.

“Your handwriting’s pretty neat. Copy the notes at the English lecture for me tomorrow. I’ll pick it up from you two days later.”

“I thought we only agreed on Mathematics?”

“Things can change. Would you rather copy the notes for me tomorrow or wait for the whole school to know about your love for McGorgeous?” Yuri sneered.

Seeing Yoona’s exasperated look, Yuri knew that she had won the battle. She flashed a wink before walking away, leaving Yoona standing by her locker.

Yoona watched the tanned figure disappear round the corner. All the things she wanted to reprimand Yuri about for not doing her homework and not gaining new knowledge were thrown out of the window the moment they met. She let out a sigh and made a mental note to tell Yuri about it the next time they met.