Chapter 27 – What People Think

I’d been grading papers for 3 hours and I already wanted to kill myself. I’d plugged in my iPod to reduce distractions from the surrounding environment, but even so, I had only managed to finish one class. Two more to go.

I sighed and stretched loudly, taking my earphones off and contemplating going for a coffee break. I grabbed my phone and saw that I had 3 missed messages from Tae.

[Arrived in Korea! I miss you!] 13:23

[Came back to BH, already working. Miss you soooo much! Mwah!] 14:24

*kissy face sticker*

[Heeeeeeey… where are you? I miss youuuu!!!] 15:48

*selca of his enormous face in pretend wail*

I chuckled at the picture.

[I’m grading tests, babe… I was concentrating.] I wrote back.

It didn’t take 10 seconds before a reply came back, making me smile even more.

[Oh good. I was worried.]

[Work hard! Fighting!]

*little fighting bear sticker*

I chuckled again, grinning like an idiot.

“Weeeeelll… look at you smile like that…” I heard Ollie’s greasy voice from behind me and turned around to see him much closer than I expected, grinning at me like he’d caught me doing something bad. I immediately went bright red, putting my phone away and asking him if he needed something.

“You really did get a boyfriend, didn’t you?” he went on, teasing me.

“Hum, well…” I stuttered, “Yes…” I finally admitted. I dunno why I was being so embarrassed. If I had just said ‘yes’ with conviction, he would’ve probably stopped annoying me and carried on with his request; but seeing my embarrassment just made him wanna dig more.

“Oooooohhh…” he cooed, “So you did go on a date yesterday” he teased me.

“No, I told you!” I protested.

“No need to lie… you know, with us married old men, we need to get our excitement somewhere…” he went on, finding himself funny.

“I went to see a show…” I retorted, sulkily.

“Allan, did you know Emma’s got a boyfriend now? We can’t flirt with her anymore...” Ollie asked the older man, who had just walked back to his desk next to mine.

“Oh, that kid from the other night?” the Australian man asked casually.

“Hum… yeah.” I finally admitted, defeated.

Oliver was laughing but Allan made this awkward face before going “Oh.”

“What?”

“Nothing…” he said, waving a hand at me and starting to fuss with papers on his desk.

I stared at him with an annoyed face that said, ‘If you’ve got something to say, just say it.’

“No, no. I’m sorry. It’s not my business.” he went on, apologetically, sitting down.

“What?” I asked again, getting irritated. Ollie had stopped laughing and was watching us curiously.

“I just… I dunno, I thought he was one of our students at first…”

“WHAT?!” I exclaimed, horrified.

“Obviously not though, my mistake. He’s Korean right?”

“I can’t believe you think I would date a student!” I called out, trying to remain calm. I was fuming.

“I’m sorry! He just looked really young, that’s all!”

“Well he’s not a freakin’ student!” I exclaimed, bewildered.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… it’s just, he said something about his teachers so I thought…”

“His English is bad!” I was nearly shouting now and had to shake myself to calm down cuz people were looking. “He meant when he was in school.”

“Hey, it’s cool, her last boyfriend was really young too. As long as he’s legal… he is legal, right?” Ollie tried to -in with a joke, but he just ended up making everything worse. I rolled my eyes, wanting to die, dropping my head in my hands.

“Look, guys, can we please stop it? Yes, he’s younger than me, but he’s legal and it’s my private life, ok? I don’t intrude on yours…. Please?”

They both apologized and I went to get that coffee. I took the long way around too, but when I came back to my desk I was still stressed and couldn’t concentrate. I kept trying for nearly 45 minutes before finally giving up, asking them if it was ok to take papers home to grade.

“Yeah,” said Allan, “I always do that.”

So without another word I packed everything into a bag and headed on home.

*

I was so annoyed on the way back that I kept muttering to myself. So what if Tae was young? It wasn’t as if I looked like a creepy cradle-robber, was it? I mean, it was just because Allan knew how old I was, because otherwise… but then that was it, wasn’t it? It didn’t matter how old I looked; to the rest of the world, it just mattered how old I was. In everyone else’s eyes, I was just a creepy old lady taking advantage of a young boy – a “cougar”. It didn’t matter that he was the one who had pursued me endlessly, I was always going to be the bad guy.

I decided to stop by my favorite café and order my favorite latte to cheer me up, but it didn’t work. An hour later, I left heading back home still feeling incredibly glum. I bought dinner at the bento shop, and settled down to try grading my papers again, on my bed, after having slipped into my favorite pajamas.

There was a message from Tae but it was just a dorky cat picture, so I ignored it, shoving my phone under a pillow, and set to start grading class E. I did ok for the first 30 minute, before hearing the irritating sound of my phone buzzing from under its hiding place. I ignored it, trying to keep my focus, but 10 minutes later, it buzzed again. And again, and again, and again, and again…

“Ugh!” I snapped, putting my pile of papers aside and reaching under the pillow for my phone. “What?!” I called out to no one in particular, opening the chat.

I grew even more angry when I saw it was just a bunch of dumb pictures, he’d been spamming me with. I rolled my eyes and tossed the phone away again.

“Maybe everyone is right! Maybe I’m just dating a child!” I whined as the noise indicating another picture came to my ears and I sighed.

[I’m grading tests Tae, I told you!]

[Even now?]

[Yes, even now.]

[I’m sorry…]

I read his message and didn’t reply. I hated when people did that to me but I couldn’t help it. I looked at my pile of tests and knew I wasn’t gonna get any more done tonight, so I put it away back in its bag. I also looked at my bento and knew that I couldn’t stomach any of it either, so I just leaned back into the bed, throwing an arm over my head, wondering why things were always so unfair.

Later, I awoke to the buzzing sound of my phone. I hadn’t even realized I had fallen asleep; I must have been really tired. Groggily, I reached for it, bringing up the kkt window of the most recent message. I realized at the same time that I’d slept for nearly 2 hours.

[Noona, are you angry?]

I bit my lip reading the message. But then, what the heck could I tell him?

[No.] I replied, while I tried to think of something else.

[Not at you.] I added as an afterthought.

There was a long minute where he didn’t write anything else, so I put the phone down and sighed deeply, but then the screen flashed again.

[Noona, can we Skype?]

[Skype?] I wrote back, surprised.

[Yeah, it’s been a long time. And I’m home now. Are you home?]

[Yeah but Tae, I’m tired. And I look like crap.]

[I don’t care] he replied, like I knew he would.

[You always pretty to me.]

I grumbled a bit but finally agreed to his suggestion and, a moment later, my computer was on and his shiny face was reflected upon the screen. He was wearing just a red hoodie – about 3 sizes too big for him – and had a bandana wrapped around his forehead, pulling his hair out of his eyes. I could guess he’d just gotten out of the shower, but even without an ounce of makeup on, he was still so beautiful. I felt like a potato in front of him; with my smeared mascara and mangy old sweats.

He took one look at me and said, “Noona, what’s wrong?”

And before I knew it the story just unfolded out of me. Once I was done talking, I just looked down at my hands, trying not to cry, and he stared at me with a blank expression that soon turned disappointed.

“Noona, I thought you stopped this…” was the first thing out of his mouth.

“You don’t get it Tae…” I shook my head sadly, “you’re not the one being judged! It’s all me!" I realized I was shouting, so I toned it down a bit, knowing how thin the walls were, “I’m the weirdo. The cradle-robber…” I trailed off. “and this is only just my dumb coworker… What do you think would happen if your fans found out?! It would get crazy.”

“So that’s why we have to be secret.” he replied, annoyingly pragmatic.

“And then what?” I snapped back, “And until when? Forever?!” my voice was coming dangerously close to a shrill cry.

“No, not forever, but…” he couldn’t finish his sentence, looking at the ring on his finger and twirling it around.

“You never think about that stuff but I think about it all the time.” I told him, unable to keep the drama from my voice.

“Noona…” he cooed at me.

“Maybe it’s just cuz you don’t think I’m gonna be there in the future so you don’t have to worry about it…” I whispered, looking down and biting my lip to prevent from tearing up.

“Noona!!” he called, more harshly.

“This was a stupid idea right from the start…” I went on, not even hearing him. At that point, I was just talking to myself and voicing out all the stressful thoughts that had been plaguing me since the beginning.

I was pulled out of my depressive spiral by the sound of his voice shouting something in Korean. As I looked up in surprise, he added in the same tone “Will you stop that?!” making me go quiet.

Seeing the anger and hurt in his eyes, I suddenly felt guilty.

“Yes, I don’t think far in the future.” he admitted, “But it don’t mean I don’t want you in my future.” he went on, struggling to find the right words.

“Noona, I l love you.” he said simply, trying to appeal to me.

I didn’t say it back, I just sighed and looked away.

“Emma…” he begged while I was looking down at my keyboard.

I knew he was trying so hard. It was like that night back in August all over again. Me fighting with myself and him trying to pull me out of it.

“It’s just so hard Tae…” I choked the words out, “it shouldn’t have to be so hard…”

“I know…” he whispered, and his statement was followed by a long silence where neither of us looked at our screens.

“But, I love you.” he finally said, as if it was all that mattered. And maybe it was. But in that moment, I sincerely doubted it.

“And you love me and it’s enough.” he finished, hesitating before adding, “right?”

I didn’t answer right away, so he immediately repeated, “Right?” somewhat anxiously, a couple decibels higher.

Someone chose that unfortunate moment to come into the work room and start talking to him from behind. I’ve never seen Tae so angry in my life as he turned around to bark a few Korean words at the intruder, who quickly backed away out of the room; and then, as if the interruption had never happened, he asked again,

“Noona, you love me, right?” This time he sounded like a little lost child.

“Of course I love you.” I finally admitted, feeling defeated.

He closed his eyes, breathing a sigh of relief, and in an instant, the bright 10,000 watts smile was back on his lips, lighting up his whole face. Seeing it, I had a hard time not smiling back and I could tell he was instantly relieved; though I wasn’t.

“It was just a bad thing. Bad day. You don’t worry my noona. I’ll make you happy.”

The way he said it, so guileless and cute, and yet so sure of himself; it warmed my heart, and again, I wanted to cry. I didn’t deserve this boy.  

“I gotta go now.”  he announced abruptly, and I couldn’t believe that he actually thought that my saying I loved him solved everything, but I nodded, not wanting to hurt him any more, so we said goodbye and he quickly signed off.

As soon as the screen went white, I sighed. I doubted it was ever gonna be as easy as Tae seemed to think.