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Putting his keys into the ignition, Donghyuck twists it. His car lights up for a split second before going completely black, a clicking noise reaching his ears. “Oh fuck. Please don’t be like this car…,” Donghyuck sighs. Hoping for the best, he tries it again. This time around, the car didn’t even light up at all. His car’s battery was dead. “Great..”
The wind is ruthless outside as tiny droplets of rain hammer against his windows. Most of his friends had complained about the storm that was rolling in tonight so they all left campus early to beat it. Donghyuck would have done the same if he hadn’t had to stay behind to finish his lab report. By the time that he had finished, there wasn’t a single soul left in the library and the parking lot was vacant.
Reaching for his phone, Donghyuck couldn’t help but groan loudly at the sight of the ‘no signal’ at right corner of his phone. “You have got to be fucking kidding me?” Banging his head against the steering wheel, he sat there contemplating his life decisions.
If he hadn’t gone out and partied with Renjun last weekend and stayed inside like he was planning to do, then his lab report would have been long finished. But no, he had to succumb to Renjun’s pleads and go out with the boy. Now, he’s stuck in the parking lot of the campus’s library with no way to go home in the middle of a raging storm. Just peachy.
Staring at the trails of rain drops on his windows, Donghyuck ran a tired hand through his hair. The only thing that he could do at this point is to wait around and hope for a kind soul to pop up and save the day. But seeing as to how the wind was picking up its strength outside and the rain droplets were beginning to grow in size, Donghyuck highly doubted that anyone in their right mind would be out and about on the roads right now.
But even if someone did happen to come around, he didn’t know a single thing about jumping a car. For crying out loud, the only thing he could do was pump gas into his car. He wasn’t even able to do that until just recently though, when his friends took pity on him and taught him how to do it. When it came to cars, he was completely clueless.
Donghyuck was so deep in his own self hatred that he didn’t even notice the figure standing right outside his car. So when they brought their hand up and knocked their knuckles against his window, Donghyuck nearly had a heart attack.
Grasping his heart, which was pounding frantically in his chest, he cussed out loud, “Oh my fucking god.” Then realizing that the person that knocked on his window was still waiting for him to answer, he scrambled to roll the window down. Pressing the button, he watched as the window rolled down, revealing a young man in a navy uniform.
“You doing okay?” The man asks, standing surprisingly strong against the raging storm that was rolling in. The umbrella didn’t even budge in his hands.
Donghyuck took in the man’s uniform once more and a sudden realization came upon him. The man was campus police. Praying to whoever that was up above in the heavens that heard his pleads and cries, Donghyuck hastily unbuckled his seatbelt and stumbled out the door. In his haste, he nearly tripped over his own two feet. But to his surprise, he felt a strong hand holding him steady and an umbrella now over his head, shielding him from the rain.
Clearing his throat to hide his embarrassment, Donghyuck pointed to his car. “My car’s battery kind of died…”
“Yeah, I can see.” The young man laughed. “I don’t think anyone would just be chilling in their car for almost an hour during this storm.”
Almost choking on his own spit, Donghyuck sputtered out, eyes wide. “Wait! You’ve been watching me this whole time?”
“Hey, you’re making it sound like I’m a stalker or something. But yeah, I have. I mean it’s kind of my job. It’s my turn to patrol around the library tonight.”
Donghyuck’s eyes catches the way that the officer’s name tag is gleaming under the moonlight, reading Officer Lee . Looking back up at the young man’s face, he wonders what is the name of said cute officer. But before he could ask that question out loud, the officer beats him to it, asking instead, “Do you know anything about jumping a car?”
Flushing bright red, Donghyuck coughs out, “No…”
Sighing heavily through his nose, the cute officer just gives throws a smile in his direction. “Well first things first. You can have this umbrella because you’re soaking wet.” At this, the officer tugs him in closer so that the rain is no longer drenching his back. Then reaching into the car to pop the hood, he motions for Donghyuck to follow him. “Second, come here, I’m going to show you how to do it so that next time you know how to.”
“Okay…”
Hands on the hood of his car, he pops the hood open with ease. Then throwing another smile in Donghyuck’s direction, the officer adds, “My name is Mark by the way.”
Stunned, Donghyuck grips onto the umbrella a little tighter. “H-how did you that I was thinking about that?”
Mark just laughs, his eyes twinkling in a knowing manner. “The question was written all over your pretty little face the whole time I was talking to you.”
Donghyuck turns an even deeper shade of red, making Mark laugh even harder.
Trying hard to divert the attention elsewhere, Donghyuck says, “So… how do you jump a car?”
“Oh, yeah! It’s very simple. Come closer, I’ll show you.”
And it was relatively pretty simple.
That was, after Donghyuck finally found out how to actually get the hood to open completely. Apparently just popping the hood itself didn’t mean that it was open, who would have thought? Then it was just a simple matching game, the red cable goes with the red notch and then the black one goes to the other notch at the top. Let the battery get charged for a few minutes and try to start the engine again.
As Donghyuck got back behind the wheel as Mark had instructed him to, his car roared to life without a single glitch. Giving him a thumbs up, Donghyuck got back out of his car again. “She is all good to go again.”
“Yeah, she is.” Mark replies as he unhooks all of the clips and shuts the hood of the car. Turning to face him, Mark adds, “But I would find a time soon and get your car’s battery checked out. It looks a little corroded, that might be why it’s not starting properly.”
Nodding, Donghyuck says, “Yeah, no, trust me. I’m getting it checked out the moment the car shop down the street from my place is opened.”
Mark laughs. “Yes, that would be a good idea.”
Once Mark has stored away all of his jump cables into the back of police cruiser, Donghyuck tries to hand back his umbrella, only to be rejected.
“Nah, you can keep it. It doesn’t look like you have one anyways.”
“You sure? It’s going to be raining a lot tonight… I mean I’m just going home.”
“I’m sure.” Mark smiles at him again, his eyes turning into little half moon crescents. “I have more in the back of my trunk too. So, I’m set.”
Rolling his eyes, Donghyuck teases. “What don’t you have in that car of yours? Are you Mary Poppins or what?”
“You can say that.” Mark counters, a smile still on his lips. Then pointing to Donghyuck’s car, Mark says, “Well you should be good to go. You might want to head home before the storm really hits.”
At the moment that Mark had said that, it was like the heavens above heard his comment and began to release the rain from the clouds. Before they knew it, the rain was coming down in buckets. It was so loud that Donghyuck could barely make out what Mark was saying to him until he saw him open the driver’s door, pushing him in.
“Drive safely!”
All buckled in his seat and the umbrella tucked away, Donghyuck nodded. “I will. Thank you for helping me out…”
“No problem, pretty face!”
Donghyuck swore that his face was permanently a deep shade of red the whole drive home.