They ran through the trees trying to stay hidden under the canopy of pine needles. Neither of them was used to running on such rugged and rocky terrain and soon they were both panting hard.
The metallic cube followed behind, high in the sky. It was large, larger than any of the ones Ji Hye had seen this past month. It floated high overhead, but she could have sworn it just barely skimming over the tops of the tree. It was weathered and scarred, but its edges were no less sharp. She had a sudden moment of Deja vu and the memories of the first day rushed back to her. This was the mothership.
Her blood ran cold as she tried to keep from looking back at the immense cube. Instead, trying to focus on the path in front of her, or lack of in this case. Branches whipped at her face, her arms, her legs, and she felt a particularly spiny branch whip across her face, snagging on her lip and cutting her cheek, causing her to gasp in pain.
Her legs began to falter. She was a runner, she was fast and had good stamina, but she had never been forced to run on terrain like this. Having to navigate around or leap over the rugged crags in the earth as the little pebbles and dead leaves all shifted under foot was not only physically taxing but mentally draining as well. She would be lucky if she didn't break an ankle after all this.
At this point the damn cat has a better chance of surviving than we do, she thought annoyed. And that annoyance was quickly overcome by anger.
Why did a cat have a better chance of survival than them? When they had fought tooth and nail to survive. When they were just trying to make a life for themselves. This past week it seemed they had accepted their fate and decided to make the best of what they had. So why was the world trying to tear that apart again?
She hit a particularly slippery stone, and she went down, rolling, hitting hard enough to knock the breath from her, taking the anger with it.
She was tired. So tired. Tired of running. Tired of fearing for her life. Tired of feeling helpless.
Ye Joon stumbled to a stop; his voice filled with worry as he said her name.
She couldn't hear him over the pounding of her heart. Her chest heaved as she gasped for air. Lying there on the ground, she stared into the blue sky where she knew the cube would be fast approaching. But she didn't care.
The ground it seemed hadn't only knocked the breath out of her. It had done much more damage than that. It had knocked out her will to keep going and she didn't mind.
Maybe it'd be best to just give up, to stop fighting. That seemed to be what the world wanted them to do anyways. Why fight what seemed to be such an inevitable fate?
The answer filled her view. Ye Joon's face was mere inches from hers, his eyes filled with determination as a bead of sweat trickled down his forehead.
"Ji Hye, get up," he was saying, "we have to go."
She didn't move. She just stared blankly up at him, the question of "why bother" filling her mind but having no energy to utter the words.
Ye Joon saw it in her, though, her desire to give up and let go. She knew he did. He could always read her better than anyone else.
"Oh no," he said, shaking his head, "I am not letting you give up. You didn't leave me when I could barely run a mile and I'm not leaving you now." She smiled wearily at the memories from what seemed like a millennium ago, their runs along the river and her physically having to shove Ye Joon to make him keep going.
"You didn't let me give up and I'm not going to let you give up. And if your stubborn ass wants to stay and die then so will this stubborn ass," he glanced up to the sky where the cube flew steadily closer and his face turned even paler, "but I'd really rather not."
Grabbing her arm, he tried lifting her up, "please, you have to get up, Ji Hye. We have to go home," his voice cracking on the last word.
She took a ragged breath in. There was a reason to keep fighting. As long as he was there, there would always be a reason to keep fighting. And she knew he was stubborn enough to keep his word and lay down and die with her if she truly refused to get up.
"Idiot," she groaned but got to her feet. She took a few hesitant steps forward regaining her balance.
"Okay," she said, "let's go." And they again took off into the forest.
1 year 10 months before the invasion
"Now Ms. Ji Hye, I think we had a really good session today. We made a lot of progress," said Dr. Han, Ji Hye's therapist, "I look forward to seeing you next week." She held open the heavy oak door of her small office with a placid smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, or maybe that was just because of the botox.
Ji Hye gave a small bow of thanks, shallow enough it could have almost been interpreted as disrespectful, but her therapist never said anything about it. These sessions were a requirement for Ji Hye if she wanted to keep attending her university. It was a top university that had one of the best engineering programs in the country, but she had only been accepted due to a scholarship that was handed out every year to a select group of lower income communities. The university claimed it was to help diversity the students and provide a golden opportunity to the "less fortunate". Although she hated all that propaganda shit, when presented with the scholarship she immediately accepted no questions asked. She was cynical, not an idiot.
Despite the school's program being everything she had hoped for, the people were just as bad as she imagined they would be. She had immediately been ostracized when she had shown up the first day without a single article of designer clothing. Most of the students had bought their way into the university being the children of owners of big time companies and politicians. Those who had actually been accepted for merit did what they could to blend in with the rich, knowing that life was more about connections rather than actual knowledge. After everyone learned that she was a scholarship student and had no desire to suck up to the rich, she simply became invisible. She didnt mind, though. It left her more time to study, without all the worries of fitting into a social convention she had no desire to be a part of.
It had all been going as well as expected, until the end of her sophomore year. It had been a couple years since she had been home, the university was too far for a convenient weekend trip. Finals were fast approaching and she had been working a part time job the moment she stepped into the big city, because scholarship or not she would still be in loads of debt by the time she graduated.
She had no one to share the burden and exhaustion of her life. She had left her friends back home and although they texted every day, she couldn't complain about the hardships to them, having been chosen for the scholarship over them.
At first, it wasn't hard to feign how happy she was here, pushing the little frustrations and annoyances down, but as time wore on she became like a rock in the sea slowly being beaten down by the waves of life.
She was exhausted and needed a break.
It was deep into the early hours of the morning, where the warm spring air had turned chilly with the last remnants of winter. Taking a break from her late night studying, she was laying on the rooftop of her school building, long hair fanned out around her. The night sky was a dark murky gray, the moon hiding away behind a grouping of clouds. The light pollution dotting out any star that dared shine. The cold of the concrete bit into her even through her baggy sweater. If there was ever a time the city slept, it was now. Closing her eyes, she let her emotions roll over her.
She laid there for sometime lost in her thoughts, until something hot and wet seared her chilled face. She lifted her hand to wipe at the tears forming at the corner of her eyes. Standing, she walked to the edge of the roof and climbed atop the parapet wall. She stood, staring at the sleeping city below and felt so alone. Tears came hot and fast now and she didn't even bother to wipe them away. She stood there, arms outstretched, wind whipping around her blowing her hair every which way. She let out a deep sigh, all the anxiety and frustration and exhaustion with it. Breathing in the brisk morning air, she felt at peace.
A scream shattered the calm morning. She whirled around to find a girl, hair up in a messy bun offsetting the elegance of the sun dress, standing at the entrance of the stairs. A lighter and cigarette pack fell from her hands as she saw Ji Hye standing on the edge.
Before Ji Hye had a chance to tell the girl she had misunderstood the situation, the girl fled back inside. At the time Ji Hye hadn't thought much of it, figuring no one knew or cared enough about her to do anything. But the next morning, she had been called to the Dean's office and was told that an anonymous tip had notified him that she was a potential suicide risk. The university's policy was the student would have to start seeing a therapist if she were to remain in school.
So here she was, half a year later standing in front of a therapist that barely tolerated her existence.
Dr. Han, Ji Hye was able to deduce, had fallen out of favor with her boss. Her boss, who was friends with the chairman of the college, had assigned her to take Ji Hye as a charity case to remain in the good graces with their loyal client and friend. Either Dr. Han accepted Ji Hye as a patient, or Dr. Han would need to start job searching. So, on their first ever therapy session, they had struck up an understanding that neither liked each other, but would at least tolerate each other for as long as it was necessary.
As Ji Hye walked out the door, Dr. Han looked down at her patient chart, "Kim Ye Joon?"
A guy who looked about Ji Hye's own age, stood up.
"Oh, good," Dr. Han said, "I was hoping you'd be here. I've been wanting to introduce you to each other. With your schedule always shifting, Ye Joon, it's been hard to get you two to overlap. You both go to the same school. Isn't that lovely? I thought you could help each other out. You probably even share some of the same classes or possibly will in the future."
"What happened to patient confidentiality?" Ji Hye muttered under her breath, not really caring if Dr. Han and this random guy heard.
Having not heard her, or quite possibly just ignoring her, Dr. Han said, "Kim Ye Joon?" She gestured to Ji Hye, "this is Lee Ji Hye." Ye Joon bowed lower than any normal person would upon meeting someone new while saying a soft hello. Ignoring him, Ji Hye glared up at her therapist. The doctor's placid smile had turned into one more attuned to a smirk.
Fine, two can play at this game, Ji Hye thought.
"Lee Ji Hye," her therapist continued to smile at her, "this is Kim Ye Joon." Ji Hye bowed back to him, low enough to match the bow he had given her, and far lower than anything she had given Dr. Han.
She turned to Dr. Han, whose face had turned a faint shade of pink, which Ji Hye could only assume was from anger, but again the botox really made it hard to tell any kind of expression on the woman's face. "I will see you next week," Ji Hye said, again with the barest of bows before leaving the small waiting room.
She was half way down the corridor when she heard the loud footsteps of someone coming up behind her.
"Excuse me," she turned to find the kid–Tae Yeon? Tae Kyung? Tae something… eh, if it was important she would learn it–jogging up to her. He stopped in front of her, panting slightly. "Dr. Han said my therapy lesson was canceled this week. Instead she told me it would be more beneficial for me to try to get to know you right now."
"Um, what?" she asked. Not because she was taken aback by his request, but because he was so soft spoken she could barely hear him.
"She, uh," he paused and held up a piece of paper, and mumbled, "she gave me a worksheet."
The paper was jagged and torn on one edge like it had been hastily ripped from a book. On the top of the page were a line of cartoon children all holding hands and underneath it read "let's be friends!" The page was filled with questions with rows of wide blank lines underneath to accommodate a child's blocky handwriting.
Surely, he must be joking.
She surveyed the kid then, standing there shifting from foot to foot. In all honesty, calling him a kid wasn't even that far off the mark. Although around her age, he had a square jaw and soft cheeks that gave him a boyish charm. Hidden behind his shaggy hair were dark brown eyes slightly downturned at the corners giving him a perpetually sadden look. In those eyes, however, she could still see the spark of life hidden in them. The one that she had seen slowly leaving her own these past two years.
He was wearing a loose beige shirt tucked into brown pants that cut off at the ankle with brown socks and brown dress shoes. Over the top, he wore a beige and black striped cardigan that hit around his hip. He wasn't overly tall, so the short cardigan must have been a fashion choice by him. Not her style, but who was she to judge.
Under her scrutiny, Ye Joon dropped his hand, his eyes darting away as his hands began to worry at the corner of the paper.
She shook her head.
Poor boy, she thought. Probably has to see Dr. Han for anxiety issues and inability to make friends most likely due to traumatic bullying in the past.
Was this Dr. Han's way of trying to make him open up? Have him talk to the least social girl who hated everyone and everything? Or maybe it was Dr. Han's final snub to Ji Hye for today.
She stood there, staring at him, in his brown paint sample outfit. She realized, then, that the corridor, which had always been so cold and uninviting, with its sanitized white walls and cool LED lights, suddenly seemed warmer, like a candle on a cold winter night.
Scoffing at the ridiculousness of the situation, she said, "this has to be illegal," but held her hand out for the paper. He looked up, hope in his eyes, as he handed over the paper.
As she skimmed through it, she asked, "scholarship student?"
"Uh, yeah. How'd you know?" Ji Hye looked up at him in surprise. His voice had gotten louder, no longer a barely audible mumble. It was much deeper than she imagined with his youthful face. He even stood a little taller now, not so hunched in on himself.
She looked back down at the paper trying to hide her surprise. She hadn't realized the simple act of taking the paper would bolster his confidence so much.
"Because Dr. Han never would have introduced us otherwise. She doesn't mix the wealthy and poor."
"How do you know?"
"There's a kid that goes right before me, every week for the last six months, for the same reason you see her. But he's the son of a CEO of some big conglomeration or something," she waved her hand around, "we even have some of the same classes, but she's never introduced him to me like she did with you today."
"What do you mean the same reason I see her? How do you know why I see her?"
Sighing, she looked up at him, "You are so full of questions. I don't know. I guessed." She shrugged and began ticking off her list on her fingers, "Probably anxiety, antisocial, confidence issues, hard time making friends, past trauma of bullying, sound about right?"
He stared at her, dumbfounded and for the first time during this conversation he had gone wholly still; no shifting from foot to foot or wringing of his hands. Those dark eyes looked down at her, meeting her own, and it somehow felt like he was the one that could see into her despite the fact that she had been the one to guess at his psychosis.
It was her who looked away first this time, finding refuge in the paper.
She needed to reinforce the walls she had built that had begun to waver under his open and honest gaze, so she changed the topic.
"Seems easy enough," she said to herself, despite the obvious fact that it was a children's worksheet. "Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if she assigned this to you just because she doesn't like me and hoped this would piss me off."
"You know she doesn't like you? How?" he said with startled curiosity, "I can't read any of her emotions under all that botox. I'm pretty sure Barbie shows more emotion and she's literally plastic."
It was Ji Hye's turn to stare at him dumbfounded. Had he just cracked a joke?
There was a twinkle in his eyes that had been hidden only moments before as the corners of his mouth twitched up into a small shy smile.
She let out a loud peal of laughter, the sound foreign in her ears. It had been so long since she let herself laugh. Not the polite controlled laughter, but the belly aching laughter that could release a pent up soul.
Once she had gotten herself under control, she held out her hand to him and smiled, "Nice to meet you, you can call me Ji Hye."
He took her outstretched hand with his own. His fingers were long and elegant, but his grip on her hand was strong and warm.
"Nice to meet you," he said like he didn't quite believe what was going on, " you can call me Ye Joon." He returned her smile, small and timid, but she could tell that when he smiled, truly smiled, it would be one that could light up a room.
"Now," she said, turning towards the exit, "let's go fill out this paper."