I watched the days go by like they would never end. Most of the time, I observed the activities and the commotion happening in the house. It was extremely difficult to find the opportunity to go on with my plan.

   At last, there was a chance for me to begin when I realized that my mother liked gardening. She was always working on it. My goal was to try to make them miserable. Interfering with her hard work would be a great opening. And so I did. I felt like wonders when I saw her expression after she found the garden drowning in an ocean of water. She appeared petrified once she came home and found all her plants good and dead.  In the short time I lived here, I’ve never seen her that upset.

   The second opportunity came when my father left his home office room unlocked.  As I peeked my head through the crack of the wooden door, I could see his presentation boards lying around. At first, I wanted to personalize them with my artistic skills, but I then realized that it would be quite obvious if I left a bunch of drawings. Instead, I got a hold of a pair of scissors, allowing me to poke holes all around the edges, just like rat teeth. Just imagine how furious he was. I thought that my mom’s fury was scary...

   Surprisingly, I didn’t get blamed. Nobody did. To them, they were merely accidents. This was a simple introduction, and I was proud of it.

   I strolled down the school hallway thinking of my accomplishments. It felt good. I smiled like a fool, all by myself. Then I remembered someone I was forgetting, Joon. As much as I felt bad, I couldn’t leave him out of it. He remained my target. In the middle of my thought, my physical body hit a dead end to my blank march to class. It was a very built and well-shaped body that I ran into. I could tell this person worked out regularly just by that ‘one second contact’.

   Shooting my glare up, I found the person’s clothes and books covered in fresh coffee. My jaw dropped once I realized that it was my doing.

   “Mianhamnida. Are you okay?” I apologized with sincerity as I hoped it didn’t burn his skin.

   He seemed genuinely angry. His frown said it all. I hurriedly picked up his wet papers and attempted to air dry them. He grabbed them back and glared heavily.

   “Do you know how long it took me to write that report?” he began to question as he held up the damp piece of paper. I stared at it and immediately felt guilty.

   “I really didn’t intend for that to happen. I’m sorry for troubling you,” I went on without making eye contact. There was too much shame to bear.

   “Troubling me? This isn’t just a burden; you just declared the end of my life. My parents are going to kill me. This essay was my entire school year!”

  I officially felt bad. His raging voice struck me like lightning.

   “I can go see your teacher and explained everything. You won’t get in trouble.”

   “There’s no use. It’s either I give it in now, or I fail my year and class starts in 10 minutes. The teacher won’t accept any excuse.” His face came closer as his scolding gaze burned a hole in my face. He grasped my shoulders and squeezed them tightly. It even began to hurt.

   He grabbed my shirt and threw me on the ground. I fell on my back pretty hard, as tiny as I was.

   “Gikwang-ah!” shouted someone from behind. I lifted my head to find Joon coming over towards us. He leaned over and put my arm around his shoulder to ultimately get me back on my feet. I gazed at him in fright, without a word to explain myself. “What did you do to my sister?”

   “Since when do you have a sister?” questioned this guy, supposedly named Gikwang.

   “Since when do you hit girls?” Joon fought back hastily.

   “Joon’ah, get this. She destroyed hours of my time spent on this essay just to throw in down the dump and fail my school year,” explained the adversary, showing the essay I had totaled. “Do you know what I had to go through to make this? Your sister is a clumsy idiot who can’t walk straight. She’s plain stupid.”

   At this Joon started acting up. He threw an unexpected punch at Gikwang’s cheek, making him gawk backwards. I came forward and pulled my brother back from creating any more damage.

   “Oppa! Stop this. It’s my fault, don’t get angry with him.”

   He ignored me and leaned towards the teenager on the floor.

   “You don’t know the first thing about having your life ruined. You just lost some stupid essay. She lost everything,” went on Joon with a serious expression.

   “What?” Gikwang sat on the floor with an elbow supporting most of his weight. He quickly got back on his feet and stuck his face on front of Joon’s. They were in each other’s faces, with piercing glares shooting at one another.

   “Take back what you said about Minyoung!”

   “What? Her? Why would I take back a true fact? She can go screw herself for all I care.”

   I ignored his words, but Joon didn’t seem like he did. The duo got caught in a brawl. Fists flew from one side to another. I got a hold of myself and hurriedly intervened.

   “Stop it! Both of you!” This voice didn’t belong to me. It was the school principal. All of us suddenly stopped moving. I found myself in an awkward position. We shot our guards up to find the principal in fury.

***

   “So what’s the big fuss about?” questioned the school’s head staff member. All three of us sat on front of the office with our guards down. In the midst of the silence, I wanted to take the blame, but Joon beat me to it.

   “It’s my fault. I started the fight…” admitted Joon falsely. The middle aged principal frowned with her small eyes and wrinkled the little amount of lines on her forehead. 

   “And what exactly is your reason for behaving recklessly, Mr. Lee?”

   I wanted to in, but Joon, again covered my words.

   “I wanted to protect Minyoung,” he said with simplicity. I could feel his lovely eyes stare graciously on me. It felt warm. I was surprised however that Gikwang wasn’t saying anything.

   “Protect her from what exactly?”

   He drew his eyes away from me and towards Gikwang, who quietly wanted to make himself invisible. He read Joon’s eyes far too well.

   “From getting hurt anymore than she already is.”

   My heart fluttered. The odd sensations were coming back and I felt as if my body grew numb. At that moment, I only felt like I was wrongly punishing Joon.

   “I still don’t understand what’s going on between you three,” continued the principal. She turned towards Gikwang in confusion. “How about you, Gikwang? Why are you involved?”

   Once that question arose, I was expecting him to rub the coffee incident all over my face. I wasn’t wrong. He took the opportunity to make me feel worse to its maximum.

   “The whole thing is Minyoung’s fault to begin with.” He went on explaining the whole incident and how I was obviously responsible for the whole thing. I couldn’t protest given everything he said was correct. “Basically what I’m trying to say is that I was only trying to give in my paper. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

   “Shut up! You hit a girl, and that’s not excusable,” shouted my brother who sat properly beside him.

   “Enough!” The woman observed us for a moment and came to her conclusion after numerous sighs and shoe taps. “From what I see, Minyoung didn’t do anything wrong at all. I’m sure that the spilled coffee was an accident. As for the two of you…”

   “… You’ll be facing further consequences for your violence in school. Both of you will stay after school as your punishment will be determined throughout the day. As for your essay, Gikwang, we will be informing your teacher on this matter. Without wasting time, we’ll let all three of you back to class. I don’t want to hear about anymore trouble today. Understood?”

    I automatically bowed after the whole speech. I turned to see how the two boys were acting. Joon seemed indifferent. His serious idiom stunned me throughout this entire time. In the dark shadows behind him, Gikwang glared, giving me the shivers down my spine. I had never received that much wrath from a person before.

***

    I walked out of class from the last period of the day with a smile. The day was over and it felt good that way. I scanned the hallways as I always did. As I strolled towards my locker, something struck me.

   “Joon oppa!” I said out loud after seeing my brother stand in the side of the hallway with his arms up in the air. He seemed to resent an excessive amount of pain as his tired arms didn’t receive a lot of blood in the position they were in. A few students and some of his friends surrounded him, but didn’t dare say a word. Speaking to a punished student was forbidden after all.

    As I called him, he eyed me with the same warm feeling his eyes always gave out. He gave me a sign, pouting his lips, telling me to avoid him if I wanted to stay out of trouble. For awhile, I wasn’t sure what to do. I felt sorry for him. Trying to remind myself that this was what he deserved anyway, I gave up and walked by. But it was hard to lie to myself, it felt all wrong.

   Not too long after I finish packing my stuff, I waited at the door after all the students left. Joon was supposed to stay after school by my doing, so I hung around to wait for him. I decided to go inside the school once again out of curiosity, praying that his punishment wasn’t too harsh.

   It took several minutes looking inside classrooms in the hope to find him. Finally I did after a long and hard determination. I could spot him easily inside a ghetto classroom, writing characters on the chalkboard. Without even thinking about who would be watching, I barged my way inside and ran towards him.

   “Oppa! What are you doing?”

   He stared at me in astonishment.

   “Yah! What are you doing here? You’ll get in trouble if someone sees you!”  he warned with concern. I bit my lip and looked at the repeated sentence on the board that read: “I will better control my anger in the future, not using violence as an ally.”

   I could see him rubbing his arm in pain.

   “Does it hurt?” I knew the answer. He nodded in denial, even if he clearly appeared sore. “Liar. Quit acting macho and give that to me.”

   My body simply had it’s own mind as it led my hand towards the chalk in his hand. I snatched it away and continued the repetition he had begun on the board.

   “Aniya. If the principal sees you, you’ll get in so much trouble.”

   “I’m supposed to be the one doing this anyway.”

There was a moment of silence while I continued to write.

   “It wasn’t your fault. The coffee spill I mean…”

   “Of course it is. You don’t have to make me feel better about it.” My hands better gripped on the object I held. For some reason, I could feel his gaze on my back. I didn’t understand why I was still writing for him. My hands didn’t want to let go. Even my words came out on their own. “I don’t know why you still agreed on doing this. You really didn’t do anything wrong, Joon’ah.”

   I only had the chance to write two lines until he took the chalk away from me again. His long arms held it high out of my reach.

   “Yah! Give it. You’re tired and…” As he hid it behind his back, I reached for it with both arms. I found myself in an awkward position where it appeared as if I was hugging him. I lifted my head only to make it worse. Our noses were touching, practically rubbing on each other. With my arms around his body and my lips but inches away, we really looked like we were about to kiss.

   Both of us stood put for a few seconds. I couldn’t move away.  Joon swallowed his saliva and looked at my discomfited situation. His arms were still behind him, trying to nervously hold onto the chalk. Once my hand touched his, he immediately lost sense in himself and subconsciously dropped what he held.

   Coming back to ourselves, we both heard footsteps in the hallway. It was too late to move now.