Tough Princess

I jolt awake to the sound of shouting and loud music. Every morning. Every morning, they woke me up like this. Not even bothering to try to sleep, I get up and wash up, pulling on comfortable clothes and going out to the dining room. The boys surrounded the table and were loud as the food is passed around the table. “Oh, Sanha’s awake!” Jooheon exclaims through a mouthful of rice. I sit down and a bowl of rice is immediately passed to me. “Can you guys should up for like five minutes?” I grumble and that just makes them talk louder. “Hey kids, who wants to go beat up the Yamato group today?” Dad appears in the doorway and the boys immediately stop talking, looking over at him. “Can we real-“Minhyuk is cut off by Hyungwon. “Yes! Let’s go. I’m so ready!” Dad looks over at me with questioning eyes. “Nope. I’m good. I’d rather stick to my life of not existing.” My appetite gone, I set down the uneaten bowl of rice and go back to my room. Changing again, I’m in my street clothes and grab my bag, shoving my things into it. It always made my mood go from okay, to worse whenever I saw my dad. I’d been living just fine with mom until he decided to sue her and he got custody. Now that I’ve become of age, he won’t let me leave. Swinging my bag over my shoulder, I open my window and jump out onto the humongous tree that stood next to it. Landing on one of the sturdier branches, I carefully go to the trunk and inch around to the other side. Getting to a spot where the wood starts to creak, I look down at the street below. There wasn’t anyone who would recognize me. Sitting down on the branch, I swing myself down and land on the street, shocks going up my ankles. Falling back, I sit against the brick wall that ran around dad’s house, rolling my ankles to get feeling back into them. Laughing draws my eyes up and to a group of boys coming out of ahjumma’s shop ten feet away. A line of curse words leave my mouth as a recognize half of them. Two of them were kids from my high school and the other three that I knew have classes with me. Starting to get up, I bite my lip as my ankles protest. I lean on the wall to lessen the weight and jump as I hear “Are you okay? Did you trip?” Jinyoung looks down at me with worry and BamBam comes to stand next to him. “Sanha noona?” He asks, leaning down to look closer. I lean back until my head hits the brick wall, BamBam’s face inches from mine. “Ya, ya, ya, too close. One foot at least!” I immediately gasp and he grins. “It is you! What’s wrong with skinship?” He draws out the last word before taking my hand and stepping back, helping me stand up. It was a question he asked every time he got too close and I yelled at him for it. “But seriously, did you trip or something?” The kid asks, watching as I brushed myself off. “Well, I kinda… fell.” I say lamely and the kid bursts out laughing. “You fell?” I notice the others get up to see what the younger is doing and my eyes catch on the old clock perched on the wall behind them. “Oh, my god. I have to go or else I’ll be late for work. Um,” Reaching into my backpack, I pull out a pen and grab anyone’s arm, scribbling my number and name on their skin before shoving the pen in my pocket and bolting down the street. The coffee shop wasn’t far from home, but it wasn’t the closest. I jump through the back door just as the clock hits ten. “Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?” My coworker Daehyun asks from where he’s standing and taking stock. “I got here on time, didn’t I?” I ask back, tossing my things in my locker and pulling on my apron. Working at this coffee shop was one of the things that dad deemed wasn’t worth my time. Why get a job when you had all the money you could ask for. Why? Because it was blood money. I didn’t want any of that. Going out to work, Minae, my manager smiles a little in relief. The morning rush had just left, but the lunchtime rush would be even busier. “Can you put some more of the pastries in the case?” She asks as she finishes the last drink she has. “Yeah, of course.” Going into the back, I’m met with the pastry boxes already sitting in front of the door. “I figured she’d ask you to do it. I just finished counting those, tell me how many you put out so I can write it down.” Daehyun waves off whatever I’m about to say to thank him and I sigh in fake annoyance. He always acted like he didn’t need help with anything. Picking up the boxes, I go out to the front and blink at the group of boys standing in front of the glass case. “We just met after what, two years? You ran off and there’s no way that I wasn’t going to follow you.” BamBam grins cheerfully and Yugyeom finally sees me. “Oh, noona! Are you the person that BamBam was talking to earlier?” I nod and start to put the pastries in the case. “And I don’t think Mark hyung liked having his arm written on.” I look over at Mark, he was in my math class. “I’m really sorry.” I quickly apologize. I didn’t know him well enough to write my number on his arm. “I thought I’d grabbed BamBam’s arm.” I apologize again and he shakes his head. “Its fine, it washes off. BamBam, don’t feed her lies.” I glance over at Minae, but instead of staring at me, she’s staring at one of the boys with a dreamy look in her eyes. I conceal a smile. It was good that she was taking interest in someone after years of being single. “Aish, BamBam. Okay, if you want to talk to me, come back when my shift is over, at eight. I’ll hang out with you guys.” BamBam and Yugyeom high five and I roll my eyes. “I’m working now,” I shoo them away and they leave the shop. I’m immediately tackled by Minae. “Introduce me!” “To which one?” She starts describing him, talking way faster than I could comprehend. Holding my hands up, I say “I’ll ask him and see.” She pauses before nodding enthusiastically. I always forgot that she was younger than me, but had more experience in the shop. “Sanha, how many did you put out?” Daehyun yells from the back, breaking the moment and Minae can’t help but roll her eyes, going back to the register. Finishing putting out the pastries, I count them and yell them back. Work today won’t be too bad.

Tossing my apron in my locker, I grab my bag and wave at Minae. “See you in a few of days!” Usually I worked every day, but dad had wanted me to take off the next few days for The Assembly. It was a meeting of all the syndicates in Seoul to figure out territories and heirs. It also doubled as a party for the syndicate members. They just got to mess around and let the heads do their thing. Pulling out my phone, I turn it on and notice three missed calls. All from an unknown number and the person had left voice mails. It was probably BamBam. Clicking on the first one, I listen to it. “Noona~ we’re going to come pick you up from work. Don’t go anywhere!” I click on the next one. “Never mind, Mark and Jinyoung hyung will pick you up.” I tap on the last one. “Can’t wait to see you, we’ll spend a lot of time together today! Okay noona?” Yugyeom’s voice is in the last one and I giggle before looking around for Mark and Jinyoung. I see Jinyoung leaning back on the hood of a sleek black convertible, looking down at his phone. A pair of feet dangled out from the backseat of the car. Getting closer, I can see Mark with his arm thrown over his face to block out the light. “Hi, sorry for making you guys wait.” I cautiously call. Jinyoung stands up and smiles at me. “It’s okay. We have a lot of time to kill anyway, there aren’t any classes this week.” He opens the car door for me and I thank him, sitting down. He gets in the driver’s seat before turning around and pulling Mark’s arm off of his face. “Wake up, we’re going. If you don’t wake up, I’m going to drive and you’re not going to have a seat belt on.” Looking back at Mark, I poke Jinyoung’s shoulder, drawing his attention. “Let’s just do this.” I grab the seatbelts and fasten them, making Jinyoung laugh at how Mark’s body was restrained. “I guess that works too.” He can’t stop laughing and I sit back down, putting on my seatbelt. “Where are we going?” “The boys are at a Karaoke room. Yugyeom and BamBam said that your voice was good and wanted to hear you sing again.” “Sing?” I ask in disbelief. It’d been forever since I’d been out with anyone to sing. “If you ask me, it’s better than dancing.” I nod and Jinyoung realizes he should have turned and turns the steering wheel as hard as he can, earning a grunt from Mark in the back. “What the-“I look back and see his bleached head pop up. “What is this?” He nearly screams before realizing I’m staring at him. “Did you do this?” “Well, we can’t have you being catapulted out of the car, can we?” I ask him before turning back to the front of laughing. “And, we’re here.” Jinyoung says, parking in an empty spot in a parking garage. Unbuckling myself, I turn to the back and help Mark out of his web of seatbelts. We get out and follow Jinyoung into a building and into a karaoke room. The moment the door opens, I flinch at the loud soundtrack of APink’s No No No. “Oh no, don’t make me go in there.” I immediately turn around but Jinyoung grabs my shoulders pushing me in. “Sanha noona is here!” The boys cheer and the music stops. “I’ll pick the song you picked in high school, okay?” Yugyeom calls, but doesn’t wait for an answer and starts it. One of the boys hands me a mic and the music starts to play. Taking a deep breath, I do as BamBam wanted, I sing. At first, the boys were singing along, but then the notes went a little too high and my voice echoes. Holding the last note, the boys suddenly cheer, applauding and the two kids give me hugs. “Ya, ya, ya, go play Sistar or something and dance.” I gently push them away and sit down. Looking at the boys on both sides of me, I don’t even know their names. “Youngjae.” “Jackson.” They introduce themselves and I smile, bowing my head a little. “Jung Sanha.” Watching the boys dance to girl group songs, I look at the drink menu and order a few bottles of soju. As soon as we get them, I open a bottle, not bothering to pour it into a glass and chug it straight. Setting the empty bottle down, I realize the boys are staring at me. “What?” I ask, going to open another bottle. Jaebum takes it from my hands and sets it down, farther away from me. “Let that set in first.”

Notes

So new story. I'm gonna post like every hour today. Cause I'm leaving to go overseas for a month and won't be able to touch a computer. I love comments!