“Okay Sehun, I want you to only look at my fingers, don’t follow my feet, don’t look at my face, nothing but my fingers and tell me how many fingers you can see. Also turn your neck to where I'm going, not just your eye. Come on! tell me how many fingers.” Asa said and held up two fingers this time, she began moving side to side like a crab.
Sehun seemed to be having trouble at first, scrunching his brow, “Sehun, follow my moves with your neck, your neck Sehun.” Asa instructed again. Confident he would do it.
He eased the lines of his brow and started to follow her movements with his neck. He gasped and shouted, “2! 2! I can see them!” He jumped up and down and Asa just chuckled somewhat out of breath from the shimmying about in that goalpost.
“Now score!” Asa said, throwing Sehun the ball. He had a strong kick for such an age and she was too impressed by it, all he needed to do was aim.
He caught the rolling ball and placed it on his mark. Her interaction with Sehun had garnered some attention from the children that had since stopped playing and started watching Sehun.
There were some adults on the side lines looking keenly on and chatting with each other, she hadn’t noticed before but among them was Hana and standing beside her was Hoseok.
How long had he been there? how long had any of them been there, she didn’t give it another thought and watched for Sehun.
He revved himself up and took another killer shot, this time he turned his whole head in the direction of where he wanted the ball to go.
It was another powerful kick and the ball came flying past Asa’s head, if she had moved even an inch she would have been eating the ball, instead it brushed past her hair and sent wind through her ear.
Her eyes bulged out of their sockets for many reasons but mostly, Sehun had scored and she saw him running excitedly towards her. Everyone was cheering and Asa got out of her daze and ran the rest of the way to catch Sehun in her arms and spin him around as he hugged her around her neck.
Asa placed Sehun back on the ground and knelt before him, patting his short dark hair.
“You weren’t aiming for my head were you?” She laughed mostly asking it as a joke but when she saw the mischievous smile that played on Sehun’s lips Asa guffawed and laughed.
“Never.”
“Haha, very funny. Now go get your ball, but be careful don’t get too close to the main road.” Asa replied and patted his back for him to go, so he started running towards where the ball went.
Asa watched him go, Hana started to approach as people went back to what they were doing.
However before Hana could reach beside Asa, Asa took off running in the direction Sehun was going, gasping with bare feet scratching up on rocks.
Asa wasn’t entirely sure but she saw a truck parked along the road jerk backwards and no one was in it. She couldn’t see Sehun and that scared her, so she ran faster.
When she got to the main road Sehun was standing a few paces directly behind the teetering truck. The brakes must not have been fully engaged.
“Sehun-ah!” Asa shouted because the truck was not in his field of vision the way he stood picking up the ball. When she shouted in a panicked tone, Sehun whipped around to look at her in confusion and then the truck lost all grip and started careening backwards in Sehun’s direction.
Asa jumped for Sehun, adrenaline pushing her every movement. She caught him in her arms and wrapped him into herself as they rolled away from the oncoming truck and into the main road. She forced herself to keep rolling over the tarred road holding Sehun tightly close to her so he wouldn’t get hurt.
She was stopped by a poster sign to her back that knocked the air straight out of her lungs. Luckily there had been no oncoming traffic on the two lane road.
Sehun looked shocked when she let him go, before she could ask him he stuttered out in a frightened tone. “Are you okay?” he placed his small hands to her cheeks. His fingers came back with blood, she must have been bleeding and he looked scared.
She took his hands and wiped them with her dress. She sat up straight and hugged him.
“I’m just fine, it’s only a small cut, and healthy people bleed when they have a cut.It doesn’t even hurt. So don’t worry, your tiny little head.”
“It’s not tiny.” He replied immediately and she chuckled.
“You sure?” Asa asked, smiling softly.
“My head, my head is bigger than my ball cause I’m so smart.” Sehun replied almost back to himself. At the mention of his ball they both looked back to where it had fallen from his hands and saw the truck had crushed it.
Sehun looked mortified again and Asa brought his face to look at her. “You can always get another ball so don’t feel bad, but there’s nowhere I can find another you. Is there?”
Sehun nodded and sat in Asa’s lap. Asa had realised a few moments ago that she was in too much pain to stand but she wouldn’t let Sehun know that. Hana came up to them. She looked extremely worried but didn’t say a word.
“Here,” Asa started handing Sehun over to Hana, “Take him back, make sure he’s okay.” Hana nodded and said.
“I’ll come back for you.” Hana replied. Asa nodded and leaned her head against the pole.
Asa sat as people looked at her asking if they should call an ambulance she refused. She assured them she was alright and they went on to look for the owner of the truck.
“We should really stop meeting like this.” A voice spoke from above her. She looked up but the sun behind the tall person obscured their face, however, their voice sounded familiar.
The figure came closer and crouched down in front of her, he pulled out a white handkerchief from his suit pocket and dabbed her bleeding forehead. Asa took it from him and held it to her head while looking at him.
It had been more than a month since the last time they met and those things had happened. Their business was now being handled by their employees so there wasn’t much reason to meet.
Asa hadn’t gotten anywhere in her seduction plan considering she had travelled out of the country and only recently came back. She saw Hoseok was going to attend the event so she agreed to be a speaker irregardless of how the place made her feel.
Still she was starting to think this plan wasn’t going to work, she had no valuable experience with relationships with men, she could acknowledge she knew nothing about seduction and just went on a limb hoping he was an old lonely man and her looks would be enough. Clearly she didn’t anticipate all of these problems. But there was no other way and her time was running out.
Another problem with her plan was ever since what had happened between them, seeing him made her nervous so much so that she shifted uncomfortably in place as he stared intently at her.
“Don’t worry it’s new.” He replied misunderstanding her stare, she wouldn’t dare correct him. “Can you stand up?” He asked, giving her his hand. She took it quickly before she could have any more thoughts.
He stood up first and tried to guide her up slowly. Asa stood up flinching every now and again from pain,as they stood next to each other Asa stood at a height level only reaching Hoseok’s chest.
To be entirely honest Asa had experienced far worse wounds in her life and this was nothing in comparison. She even had scars littering her body. She wondered if he saw them that day, it was probably too dark since he never mentioned it. The scars on her torso were so glaringly apparent no one with functioning eyes would miss them.
Asa stumbled and looked at her feet and then up at Hoseok, her feet were bleeding and she was directing him to look at them. He did, and a small look of worry crossed his face before it turned serious again. Asa was surprised that he actually seemed to care.
“Hold onto me for a second.” Hoseok said and bent down to put her hand around the back of his shoulders. Then he picked her up like she was nothing.
She noticed some cameras coming up to take pictures as Hoseok walked back to the orphanage with her in his arms.
“Is this okay?”Asa asked.
Hoseok had seen the cameras and just ignored them, “You’re hurt, I’m just helping.”
“Remember the last time you helped.” Asa teased and his face flushed a bright red and Asa let a pleased grin cross her face.
“Why are you bringing that up?” He said.
“I thought it’d be funny.”
“It wasn’t.” He replied quickly and Asa laughed.
“What’s she like? Do you even like her?” Asa looked directly into Hoseok’s eyes and he didn’t avert his gaze when he replied.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Interesting you should say that, when your father in law has already sent out invitations to the engagement party.” Asa replied bitterly, she just couldn’t stand Park Soo Myun, even talking about him put a bad taste in her mouth. “Guess who was invited?” She said pointing at herself and then smiled.
“About that, you work for my mother? I thought you owned your own company.” Hoseok asked. Something about this woman made him suspicious and he couldn’t figure out what. She pops up in his life one day and suddenly she’s somehow connected to people he knows. It could have very well been a coincidence but it was still a curious one.
“Work for your mother? Well, yes and no, it’s complicated. No one in the organisation just works for the organisation.” Asa wondered how much was enough for him to know without giving anything away. Then again, Hoseok never seemed interested in anything his mother did, which was a blessing and problem at the same time.
“I don’t mind, as long as you stay away from me.” Hoseok said in a neutral tone, “You and anyone in any business relationship with my mother.”
“What? why?”
“My mother always intrudes on my dealings, frankly I don’t take too kindly to it so she’s been using more surreptitious means to help my company. I wish to avoid anything and anyone associated with her from infiltrating my work.”
He looked at Asa as though explaining any old mundane thing.
“That includes you.” Hoseok set her down backstage, finally back on the orphanage grounds at the stage where the speeches would happen.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Yes, our contract will be terminated by this evening, however we will transfer our progress to another company that will surely achieve the same results as we would have.” Hoseok finished and began to walk away before he completely left, he turned and said, “Take care of yourself.”
And he was gone.
Asa sat there a bit stunned by the turn of events, Hana was going to kill her. She rubbed her face exaggeratedly in frustration. Hoseok just cut her off and now she had no reason whatsoever to contact him.
Asa just sat there for a few moments not sure what to do next until Hana found her so she just waited for Kang YuRi’s speech to begin.
The announcements began thirty minutes later, people gathered to their seats near the stage, news reporters, donors and everyday people gathered to hear the speech of their guardian angel Kang YuRi. Whenever Asa heard that she wanted to gag.
The announcer introduced Kang YuRi and she walked onto the podium. Asa could only hear what was happening, not having moved from her spot backstage. Some medics had cleaned her wounds and bandaged them up but her white dress was dirty and she was still barefoot, not at all presentable.
She listened to Kang YuRi talk but after a few seconds started to drown her out with her own buzzing thoughts. She was suddenly snapped out of her thoughts by a scream coming from the crowd and sudden panicked voices talking one over the other.
Asa ran to the curtain in a rush to see what had happened only 5 minutes into Kang YuRi’s speech. She drew the curtain back quickly, anxiety building up sickeningly within her, when she saw it she gasped, clasping her hands to her mouth involuntarily.
Comments (0)
See all