My high school life wasn’t as grand as it was in Boys Over Flowers, but I just figured that I share it before I start writing my journal. Words just exploded out of me, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t mind.

My group of so-called friends didn’t actually give a damn about me. I knew it from the start. All they were interested in was the popularity they envied so much, so they probably just hitched to share the spotlight. I wasn’t angry at them. I felt nothing, actually.

I wasn’t a femme fatale or anything like that, but guys chronically stuffed my desk with rose-scented letters. I never read them in school. But I collected them. I have this basket for the unopened letters, you see. Sometimes, if I had nothing to do, I would random select one and read it to myself. I couldn’t finish reading them though. It was something private for the writer, something they reserved for a perception of me. Still, I was only me, not a perception.

If I was famous, then I must be some kind of chic right? Not really. I was just a plain girl who is quiet and has a book . I spend most of my day not talking and keeping my head bowed down, deeply engrossed in an academic book or a work of fiction. I don’t feel thrilled reading. I just read…because. Just because.

People wouldn’t usually bother me, however when my “friends’” crush came to talk flirtingly with me, they would flock around my desk. That annoyed me. I always needed my space. But I couldn’t complain. I wasn’t the complaining type of girl.

I usually aced my exams and was placed on the Top 1 spot. Guys would praise me, but unsurprisingly, girls which I think included my ‘friends’ would now remove all the rose-scented letters and replace them with papers drenched in mud and rampant curses. I collected those too, and had another basket for those. Wait, I have already 4 baskets of that. Fortunately, no one bullied me physically (I think it’s because of this classroom jock, I think his name was Minho? I wasn’t sure.)

Rumors about my mysterious personality circulated through the whole high school. If I go to the girl’s bathroom, I would even hear about myself being abused as a child, that’s the reason why I was this mute. Some imaginations people have. I thought that it was completely normal. I didn’t give it much thought. They always dissed my lack of talkativeness. I didn’t really want to talk to anyone, knowing that it won’t get anywhere anyway. People only talked to me when they needed something. So I treated them the same way. I didn’t need anything from them, so I wouldn’t have the need to talk to them.

I never really cared about my own or other people’s emotions. I just thought that I was born this way: robotic and impassive. I wasn’t hurt by any of their words or actions. I only accepted them and threw them away because I felt life would be better if I did. Taking it all to heart—that’s what they expect me to. Some girls taunted me that one time after they were caught vandalizing my desk, saying, “Are you mad, now? Huh?” I wasn’t really. They were forcing me to feel things I don’t. Same thing goes when I win a competition or achieve something, they would say, “Don’t you feel proud? Aren’t you going to brag about your win?” I wasn’t. I didn’t have any feeling of happiness or fulfillment. If I fail, they would laugh at me and say, “Really? What happened to the Goddess of Study?” I was supposed to feel embarrassment, they kept reminding me. Yet, I didn’t. Maybe, I just couldn’t.

Even if some students hated me, teachers constantly commended me for my hard work. I never really deserved them, though I’m very grateful to the teachers. They were the only people who made my life in school remarkable even though I knew they really didn’t care about me. They talked to me when I needed to be talked to, and left me to myself when I wanted to be. On some days, I secretly wished that all my classmates would disappear and only the teachers and I were left behind. It would be simpler that way.

In retrospect, I was just some overrated, boring honor student. People tend to exaggerate. They said I was this pretty girl who had it all without even trying. First of all, I wasn’t pretty. They only thought I was. Second, I don’t have it all. Third, I do try—not becoming pretty, but doing something sensible— and maybe they should too. They shouldn’t care about my life and start caring about theirs.

After my continuous absence, they really did learn to stop paying attention to me. This time, they probably forgot that I even existed.

I tried to feel bad for myself,

but then, I just couldn't.