Chapter Text
It was a beautiful day, with sunshine, cloudless, and clear blue sky. Exact the type of weather would encourage HanDong to get out of the car, although the comfort temperature set inside the car, to emerge herself in the air of a rarely wonderful spring day.
But anyway. Inside the car wasn’t so bad, and her father was playing some Korean songs from his radio, which surprisingly suited her music taste.
Everything was perfect.
If only she didn’t have to go to school today.
A Korean Elite High School, to be exact.
HanDong was, not that she exaggerated, a natural survivor. She could quickly adapt to whatever happened around. Her first impression of Korea after moving here was pretty neutral. The language was hard, of course, extremely difficult even, if she had to admit, but other than that, the culture, although affected quite heavily by the Western one, was pretty much similar to her hometown in Wuhan. Work ethics. Family hierarchy. The way people talked. The way people walked. The way people hung out after work. The way they smiled, but they didn’t mean it. The stress. The pressure.
The way people survived.
Two weeks after her flight landed, and she was able to notice. Pretty similar. It was gonna be easy to blend in. Or at least, that was what she’d thought before standing in front of this building.
It wasn’t the first time she had been here. Last week, she and her parents had come to complete some of her school transfer forms and paperwork, and an assigned student had showed them the way around her new school. Not a detailed tour, but enough to form an impression.
So, today was her second time. Standing here. In awe.
Yet, she still shuddered. Secretly, of course. But she knew it was there, in her spine, in her vein.
The building was well designed. Brick-built, steady, well insulated to stand against the rough winter in South Korea. Western style, a smaller version of a castle in any toddler dreams and fairies. A little too showy for a high school, which was acceptable considering how much money her parents had to paid for her tuition fee per semester.
But it was cold in grey color. Its steadiness gave out a, what was the word? Cramped? Confined? She wasn’t sure, but whatever. Sunlight couldn’t give it warmth. A clear blue sky couldn’t light it up.
Something seemed off, and she couldn’t help but wondering why.
“Is everything ok, darling?”
HanDong was pulled back to reality. It seemed like her mind had been wandering around way too long, enough for her mother to notice her hesitation. She turned around, only to face her parents’ worries and concerns, even though they were well hidden. So HanDong lips just automatically curled, painting out an assuring smile.
“Everything was great, mama.”
“Are you sure, honey?”
Her mother sounded uncertain. She knew her father must have the same feeling. They didn’t really want her to leave her friends behind because of their work. Moving to a new country, no matter how similar it was to their child’s hometown, was a challenge not every kid at her age might be able to confront. But they couldn’t leave her, their one and only daughter behind. They’d asked for her opinion. And although she had decided to move along with them on her own, they kept apologizing for obliging her to leave her old life in Wuhan behind.
Which wasn’t necessary. To be honest, she didn’t mind. Moving was a problem, yes, but not too big to be concerned about.
“I’m sure.” HanDong re-confirmed, kicked her shudder to the back of her head before giggling. “Ok, just a little nervous, maybe…”
Her mother’s features loosened up a little bit. “Yeah, I figured. Couldn’t forget how nervous I was in my first day at High School…”
“Just do your best, little apple.” Her father gave her a smile, a genuine one, but somehow it felt… sad. “Be yourself. And tell us if thing’s gone wrong, will you? We’ll be here for you.”
HanDong returned his smile, and nodded with warmth swirling in her chest. Sometimes she even wondered if her father was really born and raised in China. He was different, in a good way, from other men she had met. He cared, and showed that he cared. So was his support. Sometimes, he might not understand her feelings and stuffs, but at least, he was trying, and she knew it.
That was more than enough.
Being a husband and a father wasn’t easy. Being a decent man wasn’t, either. And being different definitely didn’t make the expectations on his shoulders less harsh, and she admired her father for acing it excellently.
Didn’t mean she would tell him everything, though. And he didn’t need to know that she wouldn’t, either.
“Good luck, sweetheart.” Encouragingly, her mother waved her hand for a goodbye. “You’re sure you don’t want us to pick you up after school?”
HanDong threw a glance around her before firmly nodding her head. Her father’s car wasn’t the most expensive one. She wouldn’t stand out. Most of the kids going to this school were being picked up all the time anyway.
“Just to get a hang of this city, you know.” She shrugged, and explained. “What’s a better way to explore than trying to be a local?”
“Right.” Her mother suppressed a sigh. “Text me when you get on the bus then.”
“I will.”
“And have a good day.”
“I will.” She gave out another smile, then gently waved her hand. “Bye mom. Bye dad.”
And turned away. Facing the small sign in which the school name was elegantly carved.
Jung Dok High School.
It was HanDong’s turn to suppress a sigh before getting inside that cold grey building.
Her parents were watching. She didn’t want them to be worried because of a small hunch coming from her own imagination.
It could be nothing, after all.
-----------------------------------------------
Her hunch turned out to be… not so right. But it wasn’t totally wrong, either.
The bright side was, despite the language barrier, she could keep up quite well with the lessons taught on classes. Spending time on studying, listening to K-pop, watching K-Drama, and imitating Korean actresses' accent wasn’t a waste. At least she could understand around seventy percent of what the teacher was teaching, which was already more than her own expectation.
And…
Well, there was no ‘and’. Unfortunately, maybe, but not unexpectedly.
“This is HanDong. She’s from Wuhan, and just moved to Korea recently. She will be joining our class from today.” Her teacher gave out a brief introduction. “I hope you guys could get along well.” Then turned to her with a near expressionless smile. “If you need any help, don’t hesitate to ask your friends, ok?”
She couldn’t imagine calling anybody in this room ‘friend’. “Yes sir.” She simply nodded; eyes scanned through her class one more time.
HanDong hated being the centre of attention, but it couldn’t be helped anyway. It was similar to some kind of weird baptism or ritual that every new student had to endure. Her case just appeared to be a little worse than the other, that was all.
Yeah. If she could consider these glares ‘a little worse’. Amusing, evaluating, considering, questioning, wondering, underestimating, she was able to spot a few, not all, and yet, their stares stung her nape pretty badly. Heat crawled up to her cheek and skin. A string of cold sweat started to condense, and it took her quite an effort to keep her voice in a neutral tone and to pronounce her formal greet most local-likely as possible.
“Nice to meet you all. Please take good care of me.”
She politely bowed, refused to express her true uneasiness, and when she stood up again, at least, few faces had loosened up a bit. And she didn’t have to suffer from that attention too long. Her teacher just assigned her a seat, and started the lesson right after recognising that she didn’t intend to say anything else.
He didn’t really look at her. But that was fine by her, too. Her attention to whatever happened around could finally fade. The first class was literature, which she wasn’t quite ready yet, and it was a good thing. At least she could be distracted from the quiet gossips behind her back to concentrate, hard, to follow the content, and temporarily kick her worries to the back of her head.
Of course, it didn’t vanish just by being ignored. It was there, she acknowledged its existence. She just didn’t really know why, but to be honest, she wasn't really keen on understanding it either.
But she knew. Right in her very first fifteen-minute break.
“My, that’s was some really good hand writing.” Turning around, the girl sitting right in front of her exclaimed with a hint of… What? Disappointment? “And you managed to note all the important points, too. You must have work hard, mustn’t you? Is Korean easy to learn?”
HanDong forced her lips to curl up a bit. She was no expert at reading people, but she couldn’t misinterpret her words. I didn’t think someone like you could be this good. Nothing more, nothing less. It might be unintentional, but that was something she wasn’t too sure.
“Thank you.” Swallowing down a sarcastic comment, she mannerly replied with a nearly perfect Korean accent. “I still need to learn a lot more, though. It’s really hard, but I’ll do my best.”
The other girl looked at her, as if she was hoping to find any hint of fakeness or displeasure in her voice and gesture. But she failed. Of course. Then followed by a humph, an either I-guess-so or you-better-be shrug, before finally leaving her alone.
Some of the other classmates waiting for a drama scene were now back to their chit-chats, jokes, and gossips, clearly disheartened. Only until then, feeling that she was no longer attracting more unnecessary attention, HanDong allowed herself to secretly release a sigh of relief.
Luckily, she had prepared herself beforehand. After all, sometimes, rumours could also be facts.
Even though her classmates weren’t too obvious, discrimination did exist. Just like a brand-new string of spider web lingering around. Not too noticeable, but it was there, and definitely not easy to get rid of.
And she doubted if it was just because she was a foreigner. It was hard to tell. Her class wasn’t on top in terms of study achievements, but still. She did everything she could in the entrance test. Her top score at the old high school in Wuhan could only help her to land in the average rank class in a Korean school.
Which was okay. To her, it was okay. Not to the headmaster, nor to her teacher, though. Not that she minded, either, but she couldn’t help but noticing how different the atmosphere had turned into once classes started. An intense quietness, and amazing focus abilities had perfectly covered hidden competitive spirits boiling beneath.
So she wasn’t sure if the other girl’s attitude was because of her nationality, or just because she was afraid of having to bear a burden dragging the whole class ranking down.
And it tired HanDong more quickly than she thought.
But it wouldn’t be long until the self-study period. And there was lunchtime, too. She could quickly go to somewhere else, recharged, refreshed, and be back on track in the afternoon. It would be alright. At least now she knew what to expect for this time.
“Hey new girl.”
HanDong turned to her left to face the girl just calling out loud. She was good looking, no point in denying that. Smooth hair. Healthy skin. Small face. Bright eyes. Straight nose. And seductive pair of lips. She possessed a type of beauty that could easy attract people’s gazes, attention, and maybe, admiration too, no doubt.
Her eyes fell on the name tag pinned on the other girl’s left chest. Kim ChanMi, it read. Based on the number of people gossiping while pretending to mind their own business, it seemed like Miss Popular of the class, no, of the whole school even, would like something more than just to say hi.
“Wanna come studying with us?”
Her lips smiled, so did her eyes, and yet, it still got on HanDong’s nerves somehow. Maybe because she didn’t like the flatness in her voice tone. Or how she hadn’t called her by her name. Or the way her eyes scrutinising her, and assuming that she didn’t notice.
Beautiful. Yet arrogant. A combination the Chinese was never fond of.
So HanDong simply shook her head with a shy (or so she hoped) smile. “I’m good, thank you. Need to go to the library for some books, so maybe next time?”
Kim ChanMi’s eyes squinted in displease, so lightly that she thought she was just imagining things. Seriously, it was hard to say. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was. This uncertainty didn’t make her feel any better, but to be honest, it might not matter that much.
Time would tell. No one could hide their true colour forever anyway.
“Oh, okay.” Kim ChanMi nodded with a friendly smile, and stood up to join the other two girls waiting for her near the class door. “Next time then. See ya.”
HanDong’s gaze followed her until the girl’s back was out of her sight. Then, she quietly sighed, before standing up and heading to the library, even though she didn’t really plan on doing it. But yeah. She didn’t know what to do in this self-study period. Library did seem like a good place to have a break from facing human being in general, and she needed to study too, so why not?
So there she went; her legs were moving, but for some reasons, her brain kept rewinding the last brief conversation she had with that girl.
Kim ChanMi.
Actually, it didn’t hurt to join a group study, especially when she was still a new comer. But there was something triggering her awareness. HanDong, after all, was a nobody. Her grades weren’t that good, and even if it’d been good enough, Kim ChanMi wouldn’t have known. And she was completely new, too. Why would an appeared-to-be-queen-bee specifically ask for her to join her group?
Purely thanks to her kindness? For no reasons, that sounded weird even to her own ears.
Besides, she didn’t want to stand out that much. Being near a popular figure wasn’t her cup of tea any…
“Out! Out! Out of my way please!”
HanDong’s mind was brutally pulled back to reality, but not fast enough for her to react. The next thing she knew, her chest was crashed by a hell of force, knocking her down to the tile floor on her ass, and her face was hit by something like a one-ton carton box, painfully hard.
Then yet, that wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was that she was reluctantly turned into a cushion for someone to fall right on. Now she was buried under a damn heavy box, and a fifty-kilogram sack of bones, flesh, and organs. Moving wasn’t an available choice, since no one seemed to have any intention to heave the weigh off her slim body, and laughs started to reach her eardrums even before her brain could process what the heck was going on.
“Oh my god, I’m so, so sorry…”
She heard a female voice gasping in guilt. She didn’t want to be rude, but honestly… Her backside was sore. Her back screamed in pain. Her face, her front, in fact, her whole body was protesting against the sudden hurt. Could she care about anything else? Of course not. She didn’t think anyone can, either.
“Oh God, oh my God…” Apologizing non-stop, the girl falling on top of her struggled, accidently pressed her hand on HanDong’s poor shoulders to get up, made her blurt out a hurtful grunt. “Oh God, I’m really sorry… I’m so, so, so, sorry… I didn’t mean to… I’m just… Someone’s leg… I stumbled… I’m really sorry…”
HanDong almost rolled her eyes, if she was capable of. Instead of saying something useless as apologies, can this girl just get the fu…, no, don’t swear, off?
“Hey, are you hurt?” You need to ask? “Are you ok?” Yeah, fine as fu… HanDong silently replied to her stupid questions, wanted nothing more than being free from this weigh, so she could breathe in something rather than the other’s floral scent, which, in this case, was suffocating her even harder.
Then about two-thousand years later (or so she thought), air got its way to HanDong’s lungs when the culprit finally managed to get both herself and her carton box off. Was it how it felt like when two main characters of a stupid movies met, and fell for each other later on? Every inch of her body was throbbing, and it wasn’t pleasant, not one bit, even when she realised the culprit was fairly pretty and cute to her taste. How could the two main characters fall in love in this kind of cliché scenario by the way? Was that because the director asked them to?
Cursed those stupid movies. Cursed her luck. And cursed her overthinking mind as well.
“Hey, are you ok? Can you stand up? Should I take you to the infirmary?”
Maybe she should.
“No, I’m fine.” She said, slightly shook her head before standing up with the other’s help. “It’s alright. You didn’t do it on purpose.” Maybe not, but she wasn’t interested in finding out if it was unintentional or not. “I didn’t p…”
“Nice acrobatic, YooHyeonnie.” A whistling male voice cut her off. “I really should’ve filmed that hell of a fall. Are you sure you don’t want to join the circus?”
“To make them go bankrupt in less than a heartbeat?” Rolling her eyes, the other girl drily responded with a hint of suppressed hurry. “No, I’m not that cruel, thank you. Now…” Her attention went back to HanDong, who was observing the whole situation, and started to understand what was going on. “Are you sure you’re ok?”
HanDong nodded; eyes landed on the huge carton box lying on the floor, then switched to the other girl. Now she realised that this girl was tall, so tall that not noticing her was actually out of question. “I’m fine.” She murmured, mostly to herself. “Should have seen you and your box coming in.”
The taller girl stared at her, her puppy eyes full of questions, uncertainties, guiltiness, and worries, but she didn’t oppose to what HanDong had said.
“Look, I’m really, really sorry.” Seemed to decide to believe in what she’d been told earlier, YooHyeon bent down, struggled quite a lot to pick up the box, and when she could get back up, she looked her in the eyes, her gaze sparkled with genuine guilt. “But if you’re fine… I mean, I’m in a hurry now…” She didn’t let her to respond to any of her talk. “Are you going to the library?”
The Chinese’s eyebrows frowned in an obvious surprise. Did she say anything about it before?
“Yeah… But how…?”
“Okay, cool.” Ignoring her question, the taller girl hastily interrupted. “So… Entrance, to the left, third row, number seven. And maybe, right-hand side of the entrance, second row, number three.”
HanDong eyebrows was now knitted into a straight line. Was she supposed to know what that mean?
“What are you…?”
“I’d love to make it up to you, but I’m kinda late already.” The taller girl said, now firmly held the box in her hand, shot another sorry smile to her. “So maybe next time then. See you around.”
And without any further explanations, she fled in a rush, left HanDong’s stupor, as well as a thousand questions running in her overloaded brain behind.
What in the world…?
----------------------------------------------
“So… let me try re-telling it in a shorter version. Your morning consists of self-introducing, which is terrible but explainable, meeting some might-be-mean classmates, bumping into someone, being hit by a huge-and-heavy box in the head, and now having a fucking big bruise on your elegant forehead?”
Lee GaHyeon, the girl was assigned to give her a detour of this school in day one, whom she coincidently met in the library, who had been kind enough to ask how her day had been, sarcastically concluded. HanDong just nodded, gently rolled the ice pack against her skin to soothe the pain. That’d summed up pretty much everything.
“Un-fucking-believable.” Shaking her head, the younger girl muttered in disbelief. “Your lifetime lucks must have decided to expire in just one-single-morning.”
“Tell me something I don’t know, but thanks for pointing it out anyway.”
HanDong drily replied, kinda enjoyed the way GaHyeon’s eyes rolling at her nonchalant comment. To be honest, she didn’t expect this conversation to be this amusing. Of course, it was just casual and carefree rantings to colleagues or classmates, like, oh, you know, shit happens, but not something I couldn’t handle, blah blah blah, but her reactions were surprisingly funny.
She had expected a gasp when someone seeing a bruise on her face. GaHyeon had gasped, not too dramatically though.
She had expected a “Gosh, are you ok? You need to go and check it asap. I mean, it must hurt so much. It's so sad, and I’m really sorry.” with caring tone, not-so-sorry yet polite smile, and ignorant pair of eyes before leaving to care for their own business.
Yet, GaHyeon’d been like. “What the fuck just happened to you?” while actually getting closer to her and attentively examining her forehead. “Damn, it’s swollen already. Wait here. I’ll be right back.” then left, and returned in five minutes, with a small plastic bag of ice, and a fresh cleaned towel.
“It’ll help ease the pain somehow, and hopefully, the swelling as well.”
She’d said, and while applying the ice pack on her head, despite the cold on her skin, HanDong couldn’t help but feeling warmth swelling in her chest. At least, this friendly little girl didn’t just say and do nothing. In fact, it was complete contrary. And even though the Chinese didn’t tell her everything, her thoughts included, and GaHyeon’s swearing was kind of too much to her normal liking, she still enjoyed the younger girl’s companion anyway.
Enough to not want to leave and be alone somewhere else.
“I’ve never met anyone having luck that’s half as bad as yours, but at least, lunchtime is close, so nothing should happen for now.” GaHyeon loudly yawned, didn’t even attempt to cover her wide opened mouth. “I hope.” She quietly added before raising her sharp eyebrows and smoothly changed the subject. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Do you want to, like, join some kind of music club in our school? I remember your mom said something about you wanting to pursuit singing career?”
HanDong was surprised that she remembered. Her mother had mentioned that (once), but it was quite nonchalant though. Or so she thought. Yet, she nodded. Nothing to hide about it, and that was partly why her parents had tried so hard to help her applying for this school in particular. In a country that values academic study like South Korea, Jung Dok High School was different from most of the other high schools. It was focusing on teaching and training not only academics, but also music, art, and sports. Which was quite odd, but, well… It suited her goal, and that was all she needed.
And its reputation for all aspects was, amazingly and unrealistically, no joke.
“I’m still thinking about it.” Leaning on the back of her chair, HanDong simply replied. “Haven’t decided yet.”
“Your mom did say you liked singing though.”
“Yeah, but I do like playing violin too.” She quickly added when noticing the younger’s interested eyes. “And no, I’m not good at it. Practiced a lot, but my violin was just coughing out some sound like a whining cat, and scared my real pet cat away whenever I play.”
GaHyeon let out a soft chuckle. “And you have to choose to most difficult one to like.” Then, she patted her shoulders, empathetically nodded her head. “But yeah. That damn thing does sound great. It can flow, yet it can also drift, all depends on how talented the violinist is. If getting rid of the fact that it’s hard like hell to play, violin’s kinda like the best of both worlds, eh?”
HanDong could only nod in agreement.
“But singing’s cool, too.” The younger girl started to spin the pen she was holing for quite a while without writing anything down to her note. “So why are you hesitating if you’ve already crossed out one of the two choices you have?”
The Chinese girl remained silent. Not because she didn’t want to answer, but because she didn’t actually know the answer. Why was she hesitating? The choice should be obvious, shouldn’t it?
But yeah. This was one of a rare moment when she didn’t really know what she wanted. Damn. What everyone considered life-changing choices, moving, for example, were way easier for her to make.
“But well, take your time.” GaHyeon, despite being younger than her, was sensitive enough to notice her discomfort. “It’s your first day anyway. You’d better focus on healing your bruise first.”
The amused smirk on her lips lightened HanDong's mood, and it was her turn to let out a giggle this time.
“Or studying more Korean.” She said, half-jokingly. “Speaking of it, your language’s pretty much like violin, don’t you think?”
“Never thought of that before.” The younger girl shrugged with a smile. "I'll agree with the hard like hell part, but I don’t think you’ll like the language as much as violin. By the way, you’re kidding, right? I wouldn’t even think you’re a foreigner if I didn’t know beforehand, and I really, really…” She emphasized on this word when seeing HanDong’s protesting face. “… mean it. Don’t you dare denying me.”
Pride suddenly invaded HanDong’s chest in form of swelling heat, but she tried her best not to let it show up to her face. And no, she’d never doubted GaHyeon’s words, even though she hadn’t known her for a long time. This girl was the type of people saying whatever she was thinking out loud. No need to read any further into her actual intention, because this girl would just show her, literally, everything lingering in her mind.
Which was good.
“That was kind and exaggerating.” She shook her head in a pretended disagreement. “But you know, speaking might be ok, but grammar and formality…”
GaHyeon opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came out. Her eyebrows were amazing. Her eyes were also amazing. They could literally show every kind of expressions and feeling of their owner, clearly, obviously, and therefore, genuinely. So, it wasn’t hard for HanDong to notice her retorting mode had changed into reluctantly defeated mode through her shrinking eyes and a pouting pair of lips in just a few seconds.
“Welcome to my dream world.” She tiredly grunted, her head now leaning on her stretched arm on the table. “Now you’ve mentioned it, it’s such a pain in the ass in the beginning…”
“Just the beginning?”
Her blurted-out double-meaning question made the younger raise her eyebrows; her eyes slightly squinted, as if she had noticed something…
“Oh I see.” Then a devilish smile suddenly bloomed on her delicate thin lips. “We have a hidden savage in the house.”
HanDong gave her a wink, and both of them burst out into laughter at the same time; their laughs only died down when someone loudly shooed toward their direction, as a reminder for them to shut up. Well, the Chinese girl couldn’t say anything but blurting out an apology. They were in the library, the most quietness-desired in a whole wide world after all.
“But you do have a point.” GaHyeon finally admitted. “My essays suck, my Literature grades are a total disaster, and I’m not very good with wording either.”
That was something HanDong couldn’t agree on, but unlike her hopefully-to-be-new friend, she couldn’t say whatever she thought out loud, even to comfort, and give her some sort of empathy and support.
“Anyway.” The younger girl voice cheered up all in a sudden. “If you want to find some extra books about Korean, just go straight ahead to the entrance, then when you reach it, just count. Third row, shelf number seven. You’ll find heaps of them over there…”
GaHyeon's words froze HanDong right on her spot. Wait, what?
“Is it on the left-hand side? Of the entrance, I mean?”
The Chinese unsurely asked, completely forgot about lifting GaHyeon’s mood up; her own newly lifted mood threatened to vanish in no time. And to her disappointment, GaHyeon just nodded, confirming exactly what she was doubting.
“Entrance, to the left, third row, number seven…”
She had heard those words less than an hour ago. Definitely not long enough for someone with good memory like her to easily forget. But... It wasn't the only part that tall girl had mentioned, was it?
“Hey, GaHyeon?”
The little girl just hummed in response, and HanDong had to try her best to keep her voice at a neutral tone.
“What kind of books are stored on the right-hand side of the entrance, second row, shelf number three?”
The girl frowned a bit, maybe confused by her weird question, or maybe she was just focused to remember what was kept on that specific shelf. Or maybe both. Because less than ten seconds after being asked, she was able to give out an answer.
“Music books and sheets, I think. For stringed instruments…”
She continued to say something else, but HanDong’s brain had stopped taking her words in. Stringed instruments? Violin was definitely a stringed instrument.
“Maybe, right-hand side of the entrance, second row, number three.”
And not to mention the first half of those strange words…
“Entrance, to the left, third row, number seven.”
“… Just go straight ahead to the entrance, then count. Third row, shelf number seven…”
Korean grammar textbooks were what she’d just thought of needing to read a few minutes ago.
The face of the other girl advising her way before she even needed it popped back to her head. And a bunch of unanswered questions, too. What the hell…? How on earth did she know that? How could she tell what HanDong needed even before she could realise?
And one of the most important question was…
Who the hell was she?
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Meanwhile, somewhere in the backstage.
Kim YooHyeon’d just loudly sneezed non-stop; her eyebrows furrowed, deeply.
A cold? But how could a healthy person like her catch a cold? Or did someone just gossip behind her back? Nah, she shrugged that thought off. She was too kind and invisible to be gossiped about.
Then she continued to do her job, totally carefree.
It didn’t matter anyway.