Has to be healthy, strong and fit

--The Cinderella List #1

This had been the first thing I wrote in my Cinderella List. We were all gathered together shortly after Lina joined and decided to write out the things we looked out in a man. It was really funny though, some of those that we wrote were really strange like, ‘has to know how to serenade a girl’, or ‘willing to always come with me for shopping’ (that was Lina’s, being our fashionista). But my first was ‘has to be strong, healthy and fit’. The cancer situation had been quite scarring and I did not want to afford to lose my loved one if he was constantly sickly or had a high chance of contracting some life-changing disease. And so, that was the first on my list.

This is Claire here and I am currently sitting at my desk table in class writing in this journal. I’m 18 and in Class 3C with Lina. Seoyun is in Class 2A while Hyejin is in 1A. We are all in the same school, as you can tell. By the way, my hair’s all grown back now after I took up chemotherapy and recovered! We have a seating plan in our classroom so unfortunately, Lina is nowhere near me. A few girls looked at me and the journal curiously and I told them about it. They brightened up, saying that it was a magnificent idea and that they should try do that too. I recognise these girls. They were known as social butterflies but even though they laughed with everyone with smiles on their faces, I could see that they were not as happy as they were making themselves out to be. They could use the comfort of a journal to share their thoughts with.

As I sit here writing, an angel and an elf are walking into the classroom. That’s what they look like. Yep. An angel and an elf. They have friends too; an owl, chocolate boy, bubble tea guy and some eyeliner dude. And nobody asked for my opinion when the teacher put the elf next to me in the seating plan. Don’t get me wrong, I have no grudge against him. The elf is a prankster, and they say he targets mainly those sitting next to him. I do not want to spend the last year of school entertaining some person who is only interested in pranks. The angel, on the other hand, is the president of the school council and is pretty rich from what I heard.

“Hey, what’s that in your hands?” Elf guy asks.

“It’s a book. I didn’t know you had no eyes.” I shot back at him.

He rolled his eyes. He was pretty good looking and from the stories Seoyun told me, he was practically friends with the entire school. Except me of course. Hyejin mentioned that he was quite popular as the socialiser in her level as well.

“I know it’s a book,” he answered, “but what are you writing in it?”

“Our conversation. And my life.” I answered back shortly, the teacher was coming into the class and he stopped talking. Believe it or not, this prankster was a pretty serious student, he was top or around the top 10 students in most of his subjects. As the teacher goes on about the tragic case of Romeo and Juliet (it’s English), he suddenly decides to re-enact the scene. And who does he choose? Yep. Me and Mr Elf. The teacher tells us to make it creative. We stand there staring dumbly at each other.

“Alright, back to your seats,” as we file back to our seats, he added, “you will be preparing a scene of