18: THOSE RIDICULOUS THOUGHTS

"Island," by CAR, THE GARDEN (feat. Oh Hyuk)

                “So, if we have the natural log of sixty-eight on one side, and this whole side is multiplied by x squared minus nine, then we will—what? What will we do?”

                If the teacher wanted to distract Naeil from anything that had happened in the past two days, he was going to have to do better than this. Math just didn’t seem important compared to being chased by gun-swinging gangsters and trying to figure out what the heck was going on with all those weird guys living in the middle of nowhere (and even Hoseok was there—had they kidnapped and brainwashed him or what?).

                Besides all that, maybe it was her imagination, but…something about Jae-Dong High felt off today. Naeil liked to think of herself as a reasonable person. Reasonable, meaning, not the sort of person to think there were eyes on her all the time as she walked to class, sat at her desk, or wandered through the hallways.

                Maybe her conversation with the boys had made her unnecessarily neurotic. Namjoon, Yoongi, and basically all of those boys had pleaded with her the next morning not to go to school on Monday. “Out of the question,” she had answered. Namjoon was practically pulling his hair out by the end of the discussion, madly muttering to himself at the impossibility of Naeil’s pigheadedness and how everyone was going to die because of it.

                How ridiculous, thought Naeil, scoffing aloud.

                Her head turned back almost without thinking, reflexively responding to the rustle behind her. She locked eyes with a boy who looked vaguely familiar but whom she couldn’t remember speaking with before. He had tried to avert his eyes at first, but once he realized she noticed, he just stared back. Naeil raised an eyebrow, confused. He grinned.

                Naeil turned around again, tapping on her desk restlessly.

                Ridiculous.

                During lunch, Naeil ate alone, deciding to stay inside for today. It was weirdly quiet in their classroom. Some of the girls left after a few minutes. Then, three minutes later, the door slid open and two boys walked in, each eyeing her before taking a seat with the boy who sat behind her. They didn’t take out a lunch. They didn’t talk. They just sat there. Another agonizing minute passed until a few of her other classmates started to file out. Another boy was about to walk in. Naeil shot up from her seat and pushed past him, abandoning her lunch.

                Soon Naeil found herself wandering the hallways, looking for Hoseok instead of eating the rest of her meal. She got bewildered stares from his classmates when she flung their homeroom door open, just to realize Hoseok wasn’t there.

                “S-sorry,” muttered Naeil, turning around quickly.

                Ridiculous—

                She bumped into somebody and squeaked out loud. Embarrassed at the sound that had just come out of , she quickly slapped a hand over her lips.

                “Naeil-ah, are you okay?” asked a very confused Hoseok.

                Naeil pulled her hand down and laughed awkwardly. “No. No, I don’t think I’m okay at all.” She peered behind him. “Can we…go talk over there?”

                The two sat out in the hallway, shoulder to shoulder, as Naeil began to explain.

                “I don’t know if I’m going crazy…I mean maybe I’m just paranoid after what happened…because I’ve never seen people like that and…Sungchul…and Yoongi…”

                “Just tell me what it is that’s bothering you,” Hoseok said gently.

                Naeil looked up at him. She felt like she had never fully appreciated what a kind person Hoseok was until this moment.

                “I feel like there are people watching me.”

                Hoseok frowned.

                “Everywhere I go in this school, I can feel the eyes of all these random dudes just—glaring at me or something. Am I imagining it?”

                In response, Hoseok’s head drooped, a sigh escaping from his lips. “No, no you’re not. This is why we didn’t want you to come today—”

                The bell rang and Hoseok glanced around.

                “Yah, stay alert, okay, Naeil-ah?” he said, getting up. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you, so let me know if anything else happens.”

                “Okay.”

                “Really!” he shouted, backing toward his classroom door. “Keep me posted!”

-------------------

                Naeil’s eye had been glued to the clock on the wall throughout the last period. Her backpack was packed and ready to go. When the bell rang, Naeil leapt out of her seat so quickly her desk rattled. She needed to just get out of school. Good grief, is it going to be like this until I graduate?

                “Naeil-ah—” she heard someone call.

                “See you tomorrow!”

                Naeil was one of the first out of the building. She dashed across the courtyard and down the street to—wait at the bus stop.

                Her head drooped in defeat. She had forgotten about that one variable.

                “Come onnnnn….” pleaded Naeil, standing on her tip-toes to peer as far past the street as she could. She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, unconsciously grinding her teeth together.

                “Yah.”

                Naeil bit her tongue, eyes falling closed as she braced herself and turned slowly. Three tall boys stood just in front of her, tilting their heads in a casual, arrogant way. Their eyes were sparking with hostility. The foremost one was all too familiar by now: Shin Juyoung.

                “So, you’re hanging out with that bastard again, huh?” said Juyoung lowly. His voice was weirdly steady, but it made Naeil feel even more unsettled. Like he was holding back.

                “What are you—”

                Juyoung muttered something vile under his breath, but Naeil caught it. She couldn’t help it. She got angry.

                “Yah, what right do you have to come over and curse at me?! What have I done to you and all of your cowardly little minions? Just leave me alone, okay?”

                Juyoung took a step forward, jabbing an accusing finger in her direction.

                “This is your fault, girl. You messed with the wrong people. You shouldn’t have tried to pull one over on the Sa-Hyeo-Pa, because we don’t let people get away with that.”

                “I don’t even know what your talking about!”

                Students filing out of the school had reached the bus stop. Some stopped to stare, while others hurried away, but neither Naeil nor Juyoung seemed aware of their surroundings.

                “Fine! Play dumb! But if you don’t get smart within the next week…” He stepped closer to Naeil, who refused to back away. “I will kill—”

                The hiss of the bus drowned out the last part of his sentence, and faster than anyone could think, Naeil turned around and darted onto the bus.

                She fell into an empty seat, daring to look out the window.

                Juyoung was still standing there on the sidewalk, eyes locked in her direction.

Author’s Note

i DON't fEEl liKe puTting An auTHOr'S nOTE todaY hyuh hyuh