Once Miss Lee is out of the classroom, Seulong has already shifted his chair in my direction.

“What is it Seulong?”

“Want to play cards?”

“Is it legal?” Poker cards are always illegal in the school compound as it supposedly breeds gambling.

“UNO cards should be fine.”

“What are we playing?”

“I don’t know. Depends on who else wants to play cards.”

The three boys come back with a stack of games to occupy our time with. There are some which are intellectual, like tangrams, chess and rush hour. But there are more normal games that most people are familiar with. Of course, the intellectual games are ignored for now.

“To answer your question, us.” He points to himself, Taecyeon and vomit boy.

“Okay, on. What are we playing?”
“It’s UNO cards, so we’ll play UNO. I guess?” Taecyeon decides for the rest of us.

We retire to a corner of the classroom, sit in a circle and play UNO. Taecyeon is the dealer, leaving the three of us to sit around awkwardly while he deals. I am tight with Seulong and Taecyeon. Vomit boy however, I have barely exchanged more than fifteen lines with him throughout the year. Of course, I agreed to play since I know two of them, and I have no interest to play chess.

“Come on, can you’ll stop this really strange silence! We’re all friends right?” Coaxes Taecyeon as he deals the cards.

Yup, I’m friends with you and Seulong, but the last one over there, he’s like a classmate and no more to me.

“How about you just deal the cards faster. It’s even more awkward now that you’ve just pointed out that it’s awkward.” Seulong shoots back, hurrying Taecyeon.

“Okay, okay! Done! Make sure to count your cards.”

“Even though there aren’t that many cards to count in the first place,” I drawl in amusement.

“Can you stop hijacking my attempts to introduce some noise,” Taecyeon snarls, but ultimately in a friendly manner.
“Your insisting that there needs to be noise is really making things worse,” asserts vomit boy as he arranges his cards.

“You see even he agrees with me!”

Taecyeon rolls his eyes, “What do you expect him to do? Disagree with you?”

“Why not?”

“What are you trying to say?” Vomit boy challenges Taecyeon.

“I don’t know, that you can get away with disagreeing with Taecyeon, but not with Ga In over there.”

“No seriously, three of us agree with each other. You’re just weird by yourself.”

“Okay, okay, stop bickering. I’ll start!”

Seulong puts down a green five, which I match with a red five. Vomit boy then puts a red skip down.

“How could you skip my turn! You did it on purpose didn’t you?”

Vomit boy shrugs at Taecyeon’s outburst, “Sorry, I’d have to draw if I didn’t skip your turn.”
“Irritating.”

Seulong verbally contemplates his next move, “Should I put down a reverse or not.”

“The red reverse, of course!” Taecyeon eggs him on.

“Perhaps not,” Seulong declares as he puts down a red seven