1 Triple Encounters

Music blasts through the headphones of a young man. He's holding a walking stick but he's very carelessly swinging his arms and stick around, unaware of his surroundings. The ugly yellow lights of the subway shine down on him as he hums along to the song.

He walks closer to the edge of the platform, slowly moving. There seemed to be a crowd around him, they didn't want to disturb him but they also didn't want to interfere.

Bright big lights appeared from one end of the subway, a train was coming. The man was still oblivious to this fact, moving his way closer and closer to the end of the platform, nearing the train tracks.

"Hey! Watch out!" A young woman emerged from the crowd, dressed in the same uniform as the man. She pulls on the man's tie and drags him in, towards her but accidentally causes him to fall on his face. The young woman groans as her hand hurts.

"What the hell lady?" The man took off his headphones and looked at her. "That hurt!"

"You nearly died!" The young woman's hair gets blown in the air from the wind generated by the train. The sound of the trains wheels clashing against the rusty train tracks proved her points.

"Oh." The man touched around, feeling for his stick. It's as if he's not relying on his sight to find his stick, instead his touch.

The crowd around them had seemingly started to move, entering the train and walking away. Most of them were just there to see what the commotion was about.

"You mean this?" The woman kicks the stick over to the man, hitting his thigh on accident.

"Oh! Yes!" The man grabs the stick on the wrong end but flips it over, holding the handle. "Thank you." He stands up and bows to the woman, but not directly at her, slightly left to her.

"What's your name? You and I have the same school uniform." The woman asks the man. "It's quite dirty." The man's shirt was covered in blotches of blue, red, yellow and green stuff.

"Oh, my name?" The man hesitates a bit before saying. "My name is Jae-Neung." He scratches his head in embarassment.

"Your parents have got a lot of nerve to name their kid 'Talent'." The woman laughs.

"You're Korean?" Jae Neung asks in amazement.

"Do I look American?" The woman points to her face. "My name is Ha-Eun." She extended her arm out, ready for Jae-Neung to shake her hand back. "You can call me Jenny."

"Well, it's been a pleasure Ha-Eun, hopefully we'll get to see each other more." Jae-Neung is blushing but he turns his head around, right before Ha-Eun could see his face. "See you." Jae-Neung whispered before putting his headphones back on and walked to the other end of the platform, quickly getting onto the train.

"Bye!" Ha-Eun waves at Jae-Neung but he doesn't wave back. "He's weird." Ha-Eun is carrying a bag, but it feels awfully light. She takes off her bag and unzips it, revealing tons of cosmetics and make up items inside. "I took the wrong bag!"

"What's wrong Jenny?" Another girl approaches Ha-Eun, wearing the same clothes as her. She has a wolf cut and short bangs, piercings on her ear and several scrunchies on her wrist.

"I left my waterbottle at home!" Ha-Eun is practically having a public breakdown in the middle of a subway platform at seven in the morning.

The girl sighs in disapproval as she drags Ha-Eun into the train. "Let's just go." She has a disappointed look on her face.

xxxxx

"She was..." Jae-Neung stood in the middle of the train, panting and breathing heavily. He laid his stick gently next to a seat. "Her voice... it was... elegant." His heart starts to throb uncontrollably.

"Young man, do you want a seat?" An older woman stands up and offered her seat to Jae-Neung. Jae-Neung bows at the old woman as he picks up his cane and moves it slowly in front of him. He hits the seat with his stick and its empty, he walks over and sits down.

"Hey, that's my seat!" A young boy screams at Jae-Neung as he hits his knees.

"Hey!" Jae-Neung, panicking, swings his stick in front and hits the young child.

"AH!" The child cries as he held his knee. "Bully!"

"How dare you hit my child with a stick!" Another woman comes to Jae-Neung, grabbing his stick out of his hand and snapping it in half.

"My walking stick!" Jae-Neung tried to grab the stick but it was already broken in half.

"I apologise mam!" Jae-Neung bowed down to the woman.

"You imbecile!" The old woman who offered Jae-Neung a seat screamed.

"I'm really s-" Jae-Neung thought she was screaming at him.

"Can't you see that he's blind! He has a walking stick for a reason!" The old woman pointed out to the lady.

Jae-Neung was surprisingly shocked.

"Oh, you are?" The woman immediately sounded empathetic, she squat down and pulled out her wallet. "I'm really sorry!" She pulled out a 2 ten dollar notes. "Please, buy yourself a new walking stick! If I had known you were blind I wouldn't have done that to you!"

"No, no, it's okay." Jae-Neung pointed vaguely downwards. "Is the child okay?"

"You worry about yourself young man." The old lady tells Jae-Neung.

Jae-Neung smiles back.

Another man was standing at the front of the cart, he was wearing the same uniform as Jae-Neung. He had a menacing aura around him.

xxxxx

"Welcome everyone to GreenField High School!" The school president was presenting on stage in a full auditorium of students. They were all seated neatly in rows of chairs next to one another. Ha-Eun was sitting by herself, both chairs next to her were empty. "Where's Byeol?" Ha-Eun looked around, the doors to the auditorium was open but no one was entering. She took out her phone and opened up 'WeMessage', a messaging app.

'where are you?' Ha-Eun messaged her.

'wait I aent to the toilet' Byeol replied.

'went*'

'well come fast, about to end' Ha-Eun messaged back and closed her phone.

"Thus, I would just like to say, congratulations on getting into GreenField High School!" The president ended the speech as everyone started clapping.

Ha-Eun felt obligated to clap, so she clapped while her phone was still in her hand.

'hey where are you???' A message popped up on her phone.

Ha-Eun opened up the message and replied back.

'just go to class. will meet you after class at 2.'

She placed her phone into her pocket and she picked her back up from underneath her seat.

In front of her was another student, he had scruffy black hair and was holding a massive canvass in one of his hand. "He's cute." Ha-Eun thinks to herself.

"Where's class 1-E?" The man talks to himself.

Ha-Eun recognises that voice, its Jae-Neung's.