Day: 2

As I am sitting down in my Honors, AP Philosophy class I can’t stop my mind from drifting away. In my mind, I am still analyzing the subject of fate and free will. Maybe, it was my fate to save Oh Sehun. Just maybe this was already predetermined. But perhaps this is a new fate that Death had placed upon me, but why me?

So I wonder for the past two hours if things are predetermined, then why do we even bother to address free will as fact rather than a statement? Maybe, because we like this concept since it makes us feel like we have some sort of control over our lives. Maybe this concept of free will is just all wishful thinking. However, one thing I was certain about was that Death knew way long before I did that I would be trying to save Oh Sehun. So maybe certain things are predetermined after all.

This all just made me question my sanity, not like this was the first time I did in these past few days.

As I made my way out through my final lecture of the day, I make my way towards the cafeteria. For some reason, I ended up ditching Jisoo once again, but frankly, I wasn’t starting to like her behavior. Kim Jisoo was just acting like the rest of the obnoxious girls on the cheerleading team, with of course the exception of Lisa. Lisa is really something else in a good sense, I just really hope she stays uncorrupted.

I ended up buying lunch for two again, this time I bought myself a grilled chicken salad and a natural fresh squeezed orange, carrot and beet juice. As for Sehun, I was still trying to figure out what he likes. So I ended up keeping it safe with a plain hamburger. Which I, of course, manage to pack some toppings on the side so he could fix his own burger, and I simply got him a natural fresh orange juice again. I mean he seemed to enjoy drinking it yesterday from what I was able to observe in my short time in the library.

As soon as I paid for the food I walked out of the cafeteria and made my way towards the library.

“Hello,” I said cheerfully.

Sehun didn’t really have to look up, I could tell by his annoyed expression that he already knew the voice belonged to me.

“And how can I possibly help you?” He said in a flat tone.

“Well, it is nice to see you too!”

“Look, Jennie, if you cannot tell I’m actually working right now, do not further irritate my mood. I already had enough with the number of morons in this school that I have to deal with.”

I could already tell that something or someone already triggered Sehun before I showed up. I really wanted to cheer him up, but quite frankly, I wasn’t even sure how to? I mean we are talking about Oh Sehun here.

“Well, if it makes you feel better I’m not here to bother you at all or annoy you as you like to say.” I paused and took a glance at my right side, I could tell the librarian Mrs. Lee was listening to our conversation. How do I know? You may ask. But I knew she was because she was giving me a soft encouraging smile, almost as if she was cheering me on for some unknown reason.

“You are not?” He asked, as he let out a mocking yet playful exaggerating sight of relief. Wow, this is a first! Sehun soon looked away from the computer screen in front of him and stared straight at me. “Then why are you here?” he asked in his usual flat tone.

And for the first time in a while, I find myself doing some kind of cute act. As much I hate doing aegyo, it comes out naturally for me. I couldn’t stop myself from giving him my best gummy smile and innocent eye stare.

“I’m here to simply give you this. Since I don’t want you to starve yourself, especially when you are working hard during the day.” I said honestly as I hand him the bag of food. I could tell Oh Sehun didn’t know what to say, the hard glare he has been giving me soften for just a bit then it quickly turned into his usual flat expression.

“Thanks, but I really don’t need your pity nor am I your charity case trophy. I let you give me the food and gift yesterday because you caught me quite off guard. However, this time I would gladly reject your charity work.” He said while looking back into his computer screen.

This time I lean closer to him and I found my self-grabbing his t-shirt, pulling him closer to my direction. And ultimately making him stare into my eyes.

“Look Oh Sehun, please listen well because I am only going to say this once. I don’t pity you and you are definitely not my charity case trophy. I just really want to get to know you and be your friend, is that so hard to understand?”

I let go of him. I knew well enough that I might have already surpassed my limits. I was expecting another rude remark of his, but he remained silent, almost like he was thinking too hard about something.  “I guess I should let you work in peace.” I said before leaving.

I had finished showering and getting ready, this time I was beyond glad I had worn a pair of warm clothing. I simply had on my white and a sky blue cheerleading varsity sweater. The sweater had black lettering that spelled out my name “JENNIE” on the back with my number “01” and the school cheerleading name in the front of the sweater. A black capital “C” was on my upper right side of my chest on the sweater indicating that I was the captain. I also wore a pair of black fitted sports leggings and my UGG’s boots. After applying my face toner and moisturizer, I brush my long straight hair not doing much with it since it was still wet. I grabbed my tote bag and gym bag as I rushed out of the girl’s locker room. Thank God that today was our final cheerleading practice for the upcoming two months, since Wednesday practice got cancelled because our football team lost the semifinal game. Eh. But I can’t complain this only meant that my vacation from cheerleading started earlier than expected.

I walked through the halls a bit in a hurry. As I was passing through the school library I suddenly bump into someone. However, I so happened to run into none other than Oh Sehun himself, and he was not amused. That clearly was not going to help my case. 

He quickly straightens himself up before looking straight at me. Sehun was soon giving me a look that if it had the chance it would kill. I swallowed hard, feeling the blush on my cheeks.

“Was there a reason you had to bump into me like that?” Sehun demanded to know. “Or are you so obsessed with me that you are following me around?”

Yep, jerk Oh Sehun was back.

“Clearly, I am not following you. I just got out of the girls' locker room, obviously, I was busy training before that. If you haven’t noticed I’m just as eager as you to get out of this school.”

“Yeah, you are right about being eager to leave.” He agreed. “So if you don’t mind, I’m leaving now.”

He left me standing there awkwardly on the side of the hall, as I was pulling myself together as I stared at him in amazement.

“Hey! Wait up!”

I was almost catching up to him despite me having short to average length legs, luckily for me I was athletic. He was already halfway the parking lot possibly heading towards the sidewalk, and most likely already ignoring me.

“Hey! I’m talking to you!” I said as I finally manage to grab his arm in order to stop him. I took a deep breath, as I came to realize that I was holding onto his arm tightly. I soon got this warm, surreal fuzzy feeling when I touched his arm. My stomach was feeling a weird sensation as if it was twisting and doing cartwheels, but the electrocuted sensation came back. Overall, it was surprisingly a really good feeling, if it made any sense at all.

Sehun turned around to face me and stared at me with narrowed eyes.

“What now?”

“Let’s hang out.” I blurted out.

Again, Sehun gave me his famous flat look, his lips were just in a tight line. “Our friendship barely started a day ago. Jennie, don’t push your luck.”

“Well friends hang out, don’t they?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t know would I? I’m not exactly the most popular guy around if you haven’t noticed.” He said a bit sarcastically, however an underlayer of emotion was clearly there.

I think all of the Seoul Elite High Academy already knew and pretty much right away label Oh Sehun as the living definition of “antisocial” and a “loner”.

“That’s why I like you as a friend Sehun because you are not like the rest.” I replied quite truthfully. However, my bluntness seemed to catch both Sehun and me off guard.

“Look, Jennie, it has just been a while, I don’t know exactly what friends are even supposed to do or how they should act at this point.” Sehun said straightforwardly.

“But you manage to act like a friend when you spoke to my mother and that proved to me that deep inside you do know how to be a friend.” I said.

“Jennie, all I was doing is being honest and it was part of my job.”

“Then I guess I’m going to have to teach you then, aren’t I?”

“Oh God, this should be interesting” He muttered while rolling his pretty dark eyes.

“So do you accept to hang out or not?”

“Sure. Whatever.”

It took me a moment to let Sehun’s words sink in. I mean the fact that Oh Sehun agreed to hang out without much chaos involved was really something to be grateful about. At first, I wanted to ask him if he was serious about hanging out, but I knew well enough that Oh Sehun doesn’t do joking. I highly doubted that Sehun had ever told a joke in his entire life. The solar system would probably go out of alignment if he ever told a joke. If anything his serious and flat expression always explains it all.

“Good.” I have said with my rare, yet famous cheerful gummy smile. “You can help me with my Honors, AP Calculus homework packet.” I joked.

“Oh, no.” He immediately refused with an alarmed look coming over his face. Clearly, he couldn’t take a hint that it was a joke. “I have little patience with the long formulas.”

Well, that made two of us.

I was about to open my mouth and ask him what we should do next. However, before I could get any words out I was interrupted by a loud yet familiar voice.

“JENNIE! HEY!”

I turned and saw Jisoo making her way towards us, and she did not look the slightest bit of her usual happy-preppy self.

“There you are.” She said while grabbing onto my shoulder tightly. “The girls and I, with the exception of Lisa of course, since she is stuck in the library, have been looking for you everywhere. We wanted to know if you wanted to go out and celebrate with us that our cheerleading break has started early?”

I automatically take a glance at Sehun and saw him giving Jisoo a rather uncomfortable look.

“No. Sorry, you know that hanging out, outside cheer obligations with the rest of the team with the exception of you and Lisa isn’t much for my liking. Plus, I can’t, Sehun and I are going to hang out.” I said.

All the color immediately vanished from Jisoo’s face as she looked over at Sehun and saw the expression on his face. Judging by the look she had in her eyes, Jisoo probably feared for her safety and she couldn’t believe I was actually standing next to him.

“Really?” She forced herself to say while not being able to look away from Sehun.

“Really-really” Sehun mocked brightly.

I let out a slight chuckle, but I shut up as soon as I saw the look on his face. Annoyance w