Seohyun

“Come now, we haven’t got all day!” the sixty-something-year-old man who was my uncle urged me to get inside his sleek, luxurious black sedan.

“Wait! I think I forgot something,” I said.

I hurried back inside the house before I could hear my uncle grunting. Ugh, how I hated being around him. When he came to me that day after the funeral, I barely recognized him. He was a distant relative whom I never met. My parents never took me to visit him. The closest I had ever been to him was when eomma and appa showed me the family photo album. And now, after they were gone, he was suddenly the only and closest thing I had for family.

I stormed inside my almost-empty bedroom and rummaged through the boxes containing my personal stuff. Moving out from this house—our own house—was hard. Because my parents were not there anymore, I had to leave Seoul and live with my uncle out of town. Well, at least I’ve convinced him to cut me some slack and allow me to live alone in an apartment close by, just within range of his place so he could keep an eye on me, which I highly doubt he will.

I found what I was looking for in one of the boxes. I took out the small rectangular piece and brushed my hand against the surface to wipe off the thin layer dust that was beginning to cover it. It was a framed photograph of me and my best friend, Yoona eonni. It was one of the most precious thing in my possession that I could never afford to lose, even though I had lost the very person in that photograph. It was the one thing that kept me together in my hard times.

I hastily pack the things back in their boxes except for the photograph. I put it inside my backpack and left for the front door.

“Seriously, Joohyun. If you must do anything else, do it now! Once we set off, there’s no going back,” My uncle raised his voice, almost yelling.

I quickly locked the front door and obediently hurried to the car. “No, uncle. That’d be all, uncle.”

“Good, now get in the car. We’d best be on our way now.”

Before we set off, I took another—probably the last—look at the house. After all that had happened, it just looked dull and gloomy. The white walls used to look bright, as if they smiled and laughed along the joy that once washed this residence. Now, there were only dust and mold, as if those walls were grieving over the passing of the ones that used to make them smile bright.

I kept my eyes on the white house that would soon no longer be mine as the car took me farther away, my heart heavier with every meter passed. My mind began to play all the joyful times I had in that house: Appa teaching me how to ride bike, eomma cooking me breakfast as I sat eagerly waiting for eomma’s world-famous pancake. And all my childhood I spent there with Yoona eonni, before she went missing. All of this was too much. I felt tears escaping the corner of my eye and quickly wiped it off with my hand. No, I won’t crumble here. Not in front of my uncle.

“So, I’ve arranged everything in your new home. There’s a small apartment that you could live in without having too much trouble. For now, I will handle all your financial problems, including the apartment and the school you’re going to. All of this, with your family’s savings, of course. I will hold on to it until you graduate or you are of age to be responsible enough to live on your own. By then, I will give you all that your parents have left for you. So until then, you’ll be living off monthly allowance from me. If you run into any problem, come to me and I’ll help you as long as it’s within my power. Oh, and my assistant have also arranged movers to move your things to your new home. He will see to it that your things arrive safely by tomorrow at your place. Are we clear?”

I could only nod and tried to be an obedient niece. “Yes, uncle. Thank you, uncle.”

Actually, in my honest eyes, my uncle was not all that bad. He cared, in his own way, a good deal about my life even though he didn’t give that much attention to me. Because if he didn’t, I don’t know where else I would end up by now.

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Just a day after I moved in, my new school already started. Uncle had bought me a decent bike for my main transportation to get to school. It was better than having to walk to school everyday, as there wasn’t many public transportation in the neighborhood. I thanked him for it and pedaled my way to school.

On the way, on a stop at a traffic light in a junction, I spotted a boy wearing the same uniform as me.  He was munching on a piece of sandwhich as he waited on his bike for the light to turn green. I couldn’t make out his face, but his short black hair was a mess, almost as if he just woke up. I took a glance at my uniform after looking at his, and then back at him. His uniform looked like it had been used for a few days and haven’t been washed or ironed. Not to mention the untucked parts of his shirt. It’s true that I may have (very) little tolerance to untidiness, but he was such a mess I couldn’t stand it. Gross. I just fought back the urge to come to him and fix him up for good.

When I arrived, I was warmly welcomed by the principal personally. She turn out to be a good friend of my uncle so that was how she knew my name before I even introduced myself. She immediately took me on a tour around the school. She gave me permission to start the class a little later because she said she must show me the whole school first so that I would not lose my way around on my first day. It was a pretty big school, even bigger than my old school back in the city. As I watched the students doing whatever they were doing before classes start, I felt relieve because all of them were well groomed. I was beginning to feel uneasy if the whole student body was as messy as the mess I witnessed back on the road.

The principal and I waited outside a class that I was going to be assigned to. As the teacher inside finished his morning speech, he signaled for the principal to enter the room with me. As we entered the room, all the noise and chatters that filled the class was replaced by silence. Even more so when the principal began to speak.

“Class, there is someone who have traveled far from Seoul to this small town to begin a new life. Please take good care of her and make her feel welcome in her new home.” She spoke to the class before giving me a gesture for me to introduce myself in front of the class. I braced myself and calmed myself down. I was never the confident one, even if it was only introducing myself in front of a class full of students.

“Annyeonghaseyo, Seo Joohyun-imnida. Nice to meet you. Please take care of me.”

There wasn’t much response from the students, only stares and murmurs, the typical response I have grown to expect every time I went to a new place. That was why I hated going to a new place. I just wanted to be where I could be myself without society telling me what’s good and what’s bad for me. And I always found such bliss in my solitary moments. I just hated crowded places.

Then, before the teacher assigned a seat for me, there was a hussle by the door. A nicely groomed boy then appeared through the door. When he noticed me in front of him, he stopped for a second and stared at me. At that brief moment, I noticed something. His stare was not like the others—full of judgment—but almost seemed out of admiration. Even with his hair fixed, his shirt tucked neatly, his face clearly visible, I knew he was the mess I saw at the junction this morning on the way to school. He looked like a different person, but I just knew it was him.

“Mr. Jung, you’re late. Why am I not surprised? So that makes ten this month,” The teacher said, interrupting the latecomer.

“Uh, yes. Sorry, seonsaengnim. This will be the last,” replied the boy.

“And so did what you said the first nine times. Just hurry along and get to your seat,”

The boy did obediently what he was told. I still found him odd with all the change from what I saw earlier on the way here as I watched him get to his seat. And then I finally noticed that the only empty seat in the class was the one next to his. Great, now I guess I’ll be seating beside the mess he was for the whole year.

“And now, Ms. Seo, you can sit on the back next to Mr. Jung,” He turned to the guy at the back of the class. “You be sure to make her feel welcome in this school. Okay, Mr. Jung?”

Jung-sshi—or what ever his name was—only nodded at the teacher’s request/order. As I walked to my seat, I glued my eyes on him, hoping to see some kind of reaction or anything. But I was left disappointed by the time I sat down. He didn’t show me anything as much as a glance. It was supposed to be a response I was too familiar with, but somehow I wanted him to give me just a little attention. A glance would be enough. I was never one to approach people, so I just wait it out until he approach me. But it didn’t happen the whole period, as we spent the time side by side, in complete silence.

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I was overly excited to see that the cafeteria served goguma for lunch. It was a once in a week thing, the cook said. Even so, I was so happy to finally find something that I can cherish in this alien neighborhood.

I didn’t spot my “seatmate” all the way from class to the cafeteria, not even once. Not that I was intentionally looking for him or anything. He got out of the class in a hurry as soon as the lunch break bell broke out. I could only wonder what made him that hasty. But then, speaking of the devil, when I was walking over to a vacant seat in the middle of the hassle and hussle of the cafeteria, I was accidentally knocked down by someone, making me spill my food and drink all over the floor. As I recovered from the sudden impact, the sight of the irresponsible man who knocked me over made my blood boil.

“I-I’m sorry,” he tried to apologize. He grabbed my arm and tried to help me up, but I yanked his hand off me and shrugged his gesture.

“Don’t touch me!”

He paused as I yelled at him. I got back down and tried to clean up the mess on the floor.

“I-I’m really sorry,” he tried once more while slowly backing up and took off. “I’ll make it up to you!”