“Pain is such an uncomfortable feeling that even a tiny amount of it is enough to ruin every enjoyment.”

-Will Rogers -

12 | Lessons in Love

This is certainly not happening. It’s a joke right?

God, please tell me that this is just a joke. Please!

Or a dream!—A dream that I had just woken up from. I hadn't really met this HyunJoong guy. I wasn't that stupid to think that he was a dirt poor, struggling, pretty boy musician.

He was just a pretty boy nobody whom I hadn't even met.

Then, I glanced down at the piece of paper on my desk—the reminder of the reality facing me—and groaned loudly. I glanced at his way and saw that he was looking at me, smiling widely. I averted my gaze, sank my head in my hands and groaned.

From beside me, MinYoung threw me a curious glance before she took the piece of paper off the table and read it to herself. Then, I heard her soft gasp.

“KHJ?” MinYoung inquired, a slight frown on her face. Then, her eyes widened as she briefly glanced at pretty boy. “Kim HyunJoong? You know him, Bommie?” she asked and I found myself groaning even louder. “But how? When? I thought he’s just arrived in Seoul?”

So I hurriedly began to tell MinYoung about last night without missing any detail. Heck, I even told her about his ‘dead wife’ story, the story that I had made up in my mind. What the heck was I thinking? I mean, he was probably thinking that I was such a lunatic for having a storyline for his presumed sad love life when all he did was told me about how he once made a girl happy.

I was the biggest idiot in the whole world!

And now, as if life wasn’t mocking me enough for my stupidity, he just had to enrol in my school and of all classes, of course he had to enter mine because like I said, my life was a big fat joke!

All of a sudden, I had the itch to run towards the headmaster’s room and begged profusely for him to let me enrol in SeungHyun’s class. At least, I wouldn’t be as embarrassed. Plus, I get to see SeungHyun for the whole day. I started to think about what the future holds for me— constant running from HyunJoong while he will mock me non-stop for my stupidity. It’s not a good sight and I cringed at the thought.

“Park Bom and Park MinYoung! Care to share your exciting stories to the rest of the class?” Mr. Kim bellowed loudly, sending chills up my spine.

We stood up to bow and muttered our apologies.

I couldn’t resist looking at HyunJoong. He was hiding his quiet laughter behind his hand, his body shaking all over.

Frustrated, I sank low in my seat.

This is so not happening.

********************

Finally, the lunch bell rang and I grabbed my lunch pack and had practically dragged MinYoung out of the classroom towards the cafeteria. She didn’t have the time to protest. I heard him calling for my name and I ignored him completely. Instead, I was already dragging MinYoung out of the classroom. I noticed some of my classmates were looking at us—or me— like we were crazy but I pretended to be oblivious. I was walking at full speed and MinYoung had to fasten her pace to match my fast strides. Once we have reached the cafeteria, I halted my steps and looked around me like a paranoid person.

“He’s not here,” I said in satisfaction. I let go of my grip on MinYoung’s arm and a satisfied smile began to curve up on my lips, “We’ve lost him.”

However, MinYoung decided to damper my mood. “It’s the cafeteria,” she pointed out, “Every student will come to the cafeteria during lunch break.”

I always hated it whenever MinYoung was being right.

Groaning inwardly, I then straightened my posture, trying my best to look rather unaffected by what she had just said. Instead, I flashed a smile at her. I had to keep my optimism if I wanted to remain sane. “He’s new here,” I reminded her, “He must be busy exploring the school. Besides, he won’t know where this cafeteria is if he’s lost his way.”

I mentally patted my back for that awesome comeback. However, MinYoung didn’t look too convinced.

“Bommie, it’s hard getting lost here when the whole population of the school are heading this way,” she said, pointing towards everyone around us, “I mean, he can’t be that stupid. Why are you so worried about him seeing you anyways? It’s not like he won’t see you in class!”

With that, I let out a loud gasp and gave her a disapproving look.

“If he finds me here, I’m blaming you for it,” I said, “You have a black tongue!”

If someone has a black tongue, it means that whatever he/she says will come true. I, for one, hoped that MinYoung doesn’t have one.

MinYoung rolled her eyes from behind her glasses. “Black tongue?!” she exclaimed, “You and your weird superstitions! I’m just saying that it’s not impossible for him to find us here you know. He’s new, not stupid.”

I decided that for this exact moment, ignorance is bliss. Thus, I listened to the growl of my stomach and began heading towards an empty table at a spot at the far end of the cafeteria, quite secluded from others to see—especially pretty boy—if he had finally found his way to the cafeteria, that is.

I sat at the chair and MinYoung joined me a bit later, occupying the vacant seat opposite from mine. She put down her tray of the gruesome cafeteria food on the table and I opened my lunch pack, ready to indulge in the sweet corns that I had brought from home. I inhaled the sweet aroma of corns, said a little prayer and ate a spoonful of the corns. The heavenly taste of sweet corns inside my mouth was pure bliss and I closed my eyes for a second to savour the taste.

What will happen to this world if we have no corns to eat?

I had once pondered upon that scary thought. If there were no more corns left in the world, I seriously think that I would die. It was really a frightening thought. A world with no corns to me is like a world with no ice-cream, or a world with no cakes, or BOTH!

I shuddered at the thought.

I was blissfully shoving another spoonful of sweet corns inside my mouth when a voice interrupted my moment of bliss.

“Mind if I join you guys?” a boy’s voice said out of nowhere. It sounded familiar so I turned around and choked on my corns.

Pretty boy HyunJoong was holding a tray, grinning widely at us.

“Nffff. Tfs shf eef tfeeen!” I said with my mouth full of corn. It actually meant ‘No, this seat is taken’ but of course HyunJoong couldn’t understand me—no other human being on the planet could.

HyunJoong chuckled in amusement, like he was watching some comedic show and took the seat next to me.

“Nff! Tfhsh ehhs tffen!” I yelled again.

HyunJoong turned sideways to look at me. “You shouldn’t talk with your mouth full, Park Bom,” he said, “It’s not nice for a girl.”

All of a sudden, he sounded like my late Umma. My eyes darted across the table towards MinYoung for support—hoping that she’d make up some lame excuse to make HyunJoong leave—but she didn’t utter anything. Her lips were parted as she looked back and forth between me and HyunJoong. There was a frown on her forehead, as if trying to figure everything out.

What a help she was!

I quickly munched on the corns and gulped it down hastily. After making sure that my mouth was clear of corns, I turned sideways so that I could face his handsome side profile and gave him my deadliest glare. HyunJoong acted oblivious to my glare and was eating his fried kimchi rice slowly, like he was savouring the taste. His eating etiquette reminded me that he was really a rich guy.

Finally, after quite some time, he looked up and ever so slowly, turned his head to face me and gave me a warm toothy smile, showing off his brilliant white teeth. “Do you have anything you want to say to me?” he said.

“Why are you here?” I asked, “Why are you in my school? Why are you in my class? Why? There are around 50 high school in Seoul so why did you have to come to this school? WHY?!” I asked, my voice on the verge of shouting.

Park Bom, you need to keep calm.

Breathe in, breathe out.

The way HyunJoong flashed me another killer smile irritated the hell out of me. “Why not?” he asked back. Obviously, his main purpose in life was to annoy me. “Is it forbidden for me to come here?”

“Well, no! But—”

“Does your father own the school?”

“No, but— but—”

“Do you hate me?”

“No, but—”

HyunJoong flashed me another killer smile. “So I can’t think of any reason why I can’t be here, can you?” he said calmly.

If he didn’t sound so calm, I would have poked his eyeballs with MinYoung’s chopsticks. I looked at MinYoung for support again but saw that she was busy texting on her cellphone. My so-called best friend didn’t even care that her friend was being bullied by a newbie.

Frustrated, I gave up on my quest to make him leave and instead tried to resume my moment of bliss with my corns. I shoved a spoonful of corns inside my mouth and munched in anger, imagining myself to munch his head off instead.

Finally, MinYoung decided to speak up. “HyunJoong-shi,” she stopped to briefly glance at me in uncertainty before continuing, “Do you like Bommie?”

That question from her made me choked on my corns, and a few pieces of corns escaped from my mouth and landed on MinYoung’s face.

“Eww!” MinYoung wiped off the bits of corns with the back of her hand and looked at me in disgust.

Serves her right for asking that ridiculous question!

I bet she would not dare to ask any more ridiculous question after this.

I gave MinYoung a deadly glare while handing her a tissue. She took it without a word and quickly wiped off the corn residue on her face. From beside me, I heard HyunJoong’s chuckles. Everything was funny to this pretty boy, even when nothing was even close to being funny. I bet he was the weird type who laughs at funerals.

HyunJoong didn’t answer MinYoung’s ridiculous question and in a way I was glad because it meant he wouldn’t be mocking me for all the ridiculous things that came out of my mouth yesterday. Instead, he glanced at me and said, “You’ve got some corns on your face.”

Before I could even react, he reached out to gently wipe the side of my lips with his thumb. I blinked rapidly, shocked at his surprise ‘skinship.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Even without turning my head, I knew whose voice it was. It was the same deep, y voice that had been appearing in my sweet dreams nowadays.

Out of reflex, I quickly slapped HyunJoong’s hand away from my face and got up from my seat.

“Ouch,” I heard HyunJoong’s moan of pain but I decided to ignore him. Instead, I looked up to the handsome boy in front of me.

SeungHyun was looking at me with those gorgeous brown eyes and I swear I saw that flick of anger in his eyes. He folded his arms in front of his chest, waiting for my explanation.

I didn’t know why I said the things that I said next. Maybe it was because I was nervous or was on the verge of a panic attack; I didn’t want SeungHyun to misunderstand. I didn’t want him to think that there was anything going on between me and the pretty boy.

“SeungHyun,” I started, “He—he— HE STOLE MY CORNS!”

***************

“He did what?!” SeungHyun’s voice was of disbelief and he turned his head to eye HyunJoong up and down. “What did this douche do?”

HyunJoong wiped his mouth with a tissue and stood up. “The name’s HyunJoong, pal,” he said, giving SeungHyun a stiff smile, “It’s not nice to call people a ‘douche’.”

SeungHyun gave HyunJoong a look that said, ‘Is he for real?’ He turned his head to look at me. “Who is he, corn girl? Is he new?”

Before I could even answer, HyunJoong cut me off by laughing out loud. “Corn girl?” he laughed, “You let him call you that?”

I turned to glare at HyunJoong. “Well, yes! I sell corns so I’m corn girl, get it? Get it?”

Apparently HyunJoong didn’t get it as he laughed even louder. “Corn girl?” he scoffed, “Don’t you find that degrading?”