Chapter Three: 

[ the class clown ]

credits going out to the enchanted graphic shop

 ( past ) 

If there's one thing I despise the most, it's Winter.

My body does not accommodate to the cold. Every bone in my body has frozen up and each time I shiver from the chilly breeze, I wonder if hell is actually a icy realm of frost.

With my bottom lip violently trembling, I tighten the coat around my body and struggle further on past the gas station and then the local fruit store.

Despite the weather, the streets are bustling with people.

Friday night is when people are momentarily free from their routine life. School kids chatter excitedly, families dine out, drunks roam around and university students go out clubbing, ladies with their unforgivable short dresses, men with their overpowering scents of cologne.

As for me, I've just finished work.

I can smell the fried chicken in my hair. All I desperately want right now is to sink into a hot tub of water, soaking the grease out of my hair, warming up my body and draining away the tiresome week I’ve had. The thought invigorates me to stalk faster down the footpath, slicing through the throngs of people with a newfound eagerness.

Remembering the next side street isn't as busy, I duck towards my right. A droplet of water touches my nose and before I know it that one droplet turns into several. At least my jacket is waterproof, I note, as I see as a group of females squeal as their dresses get soaked with the rain.

I take out my red umbrella from my bag, press the release button and position it over my head. The sound of the rain drops pitter-patter against the plastic, but then it is soon joined with a different sound.

Music?

Through the heavy rain I can hear distant chords that soon begins to form traces of a song that I vaguely recall. Instead of rushing home, an invisible string tugs around my wrists, drawing me to where the melody is heard. And, to my surprise, I find myself staring straight at the busker.

Jonghoon!?

He's perched on top of two cube plastic crates, one leg on top of the other, supporting the acoustic guitar on his lap. The close to empty guitar case is gaping open below his dangling feet. If there wasn't a roof shelter over his head, he'd be drenched in water.

There's something about him that is different.

Jonghoon's not displaying his typical cocky persona. Instead, he is gently smiling. His fringe covers his eyes as he gazes down at the guitar, wary of each string he strums. He seems enchanted by the tune he's playing because of its mysteriously alluring and beautiful melody.

Moon River. That’s the song he’s performing. My grandparents used to play this song many times when they'd babysit me. It was an important song because it held a special memory as my grandparents had danced to this song the first time they had met. I may not be a romantic, but I always found that how my grandparents met was beyond cute.

When the song ends, Jonghoon looks up and sees me standing before him. His eyes widen slightly when he notices me, but his gentle grin soon fades away into an annoying smirk to disguise.

“What are you doing out late?” He asks me like I'm a five-year old even despite him knowing that we are the same age.

I reply to him, “Work.”

He nods. “Chicken?”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “How do you know?”

“I see you working,” Jonghoon tells me. “You work a block away from my house.”

I shrug. I don't want to speak more about my job and I hadn't expected Jonghoon to know that I worked at the chicken place. It's embarrassing.

“I didn't know you play,” I say, deciding to change the topic.

“Only recently. Thought I'd try it out because I got bored and it looked cool,” Jonghoon muttered.

He was saying such a generic reply, but I knew that playing the guitar meant much more to him than 'looking cool'. He hadn't looked like the Jonghoon I knew when I had seen him a few minutes ago. If anything, the guitar could pass as his adorned girlfriend from how delicately he had touched the instrument.

I stuff my freezing hands into the pockets of my coat. “It's raining, you should go home.”

“Why? Concerned about me, or do you fancy me?” He said with a mischievous glint in his eyes that made me want to punch him.

“Not many people pass this street. You're better off busking on Hyundoo road if you really want some  money, but my bet is that everybody is seeking to get away from this lousy weather right now,” I say, speaking a decibel louder as the sky has now began to shed its tears harder.

“It's not like I need too much money,” Jonghoon tells me. “I just need enough to buy a pack of cigarettes. I only need a few more wons...”

He indicates at the amount of money that he had somehow accumulated in his empty guitar case. When he smirks at me calculating the amount in my head, he asks me, “Care to donate?”

“Are you serious?” I groan. I accuse him, “Cigarettes?”

“I'm only joking.”

I don't think he is. Jonghoon may love playing music, but I'm not surprised that he has an ulterior motive to purchase a pack. There's no way I'm going to give him money. I work hard for my money, but then again he's sitting outside in the blistering cold for a smoke... Is he an idiot?

Somehow thinking about this sadistically muses me. My eyes start crinkling and I start laughing out loud and I see his lips stretch into a wide grin.

“Chaeri, you look pretty when you laugh.”

I stop laughing in a heartbeat. Jonghoon's all too familiar with sly pick-up lines and whenever he dishes out something like this to any girl, it bothers me. I don't understand how many girls can put up with him and do stupid things to seek his affection. He’s not that special and I don’t ever intend on falling for his ‘charms’.

He continues, “I wasn't kidding. You almost never laugh. You look like a different person-”

Like how he appeared to be a different person when he was playing the guitar...

Shaking off his flirting, I let my backpack slide off my shoulder and it to grab something. He looks curious, but his curiousness soon dissolves when I take something out that isn't my wallet.

“Have some chicken. Besides a smoke, I'm sure this will keep you warmer longer.” I hand over to him a plastic bag of leftover food from work. When he doesn’t accept it, I teasingly plop the bag into his guitar's suitcase and walk away. I lift a hand up to farewell him, not bothering to stare behind me. “See you at school, Choi!”

The last thing I hear is his chuckling that is soon overwhelmed by the sound of falling rain drops.

•••••••••••••••

After catching Jonghoon busking on the street the night before, Jonghoon decides that we're good friends.

I'm not the only one who notices when Jonghoon voluntarily chooses to take a seat next to me. I can feel the suspecting glances darting at our direction as he then leans towards my table, observing the squiggles I've drawn all over my notebook.

He leans closer, speaking so that only I can hear him. “So you do have something...”

“And what do you mean by that?” Ignoring him is harder than I thought.

“Everybody has their thing, their hobbies and talents. Sports, academics and other randomness. Like how I like the guitar and how lesbians like to scissor each other-”

“Excuse me?” I say out of shock. Out of all examples, trust Jonghoon to have quite a spontaneous comparison. I know he's joking, but sometimes I think he can be a bit too harsh.

It's not like he's done anything to offend me in the past. From afar, I see what he does. He's the class clown and, sometimes, he can quite the bully. Although I know that it's really all to do with attention seeking, occasionally he does take it a bit too far for my liking (for example the week beforehand I had witnessed him steal a student’s bag and hid it on the roof for the entire day). I mean, his pranks aren't too humiliating or too drastic, but it doesn't mean that what he's been doing is right either.

Jonghoon regards the scowl in my face and takes a stab at explaining what he's meaning to say. “What I meant is that you're a question mark.”

“A question mark?” I repeat. That's new. Nobody's described me as an unknown before.

“You're a mystery. You don't let anybody know anything about you,” Jonghoon chuckles. “Until now...at least now I know that you've got a talent for art.”

He's pointing at my rough sketch that I've drawn during this History class. I had been staring outside and suddenly had the urge to outline the antique lamp post because of its distinct shape. It’s a lazy sketch and quite thoughtless, but Jonghoon’s thinking it’s more than a scribble.

Jonghoon's eyes shift to the other sketch on the right side of the page. He then bursts out of laughter, causing not only the students to stare at us but also the teacher who has now stopped reading a tedious expert from the textbook.

“I know that the two of you haven't been paying attention since the start of the class.” The teacher states. He ambles towards us and before I can close my notebook, the teacher sweeps it from my desk looking at the sketches and then glaring back at me with a livid gaze.

“Mr. Choi, I do expect this from you. However, Miss Yoon...this is not appropriate. I'm disappointed in you.” He said, frowning. “How dare you mock my features and exaggerate certain parts of my anatomy.”

The teacher drops the notebook back onto my desk, seething and displeased with what he's seen. The students that surround my desk try to sit at the edge of their seats to get a good view of my sketch. I gulp, following their gazes and looking at what I had done.

I had drawn my History teacher absent-mindedly in cartoon form. Considering he had an abnormally big nose, I had drawn this feature large and out of proportion in contrast to the rest of his body.  This had been the obvious reason why it had stimulated Jonghoon to laugh.

...and he's still laughing.

I throw a glare at him, but it makes him chortle harder. Asides from the guitar, Jonghoon has a knack for laughing too much that it's almost irritable, adding another negative to his of a personality.

The teacher clears his throat and says one word to me.

“Detention.”

•••••••••••••••

There's a first for everything, and today is my first time to sit in detention. Just when getting through the day had been more than enough, I had to sit an extra hour. Nevertheless, my homework is spread across the desk. I might as well make use of this time because having time wasted has never been my motto. I tend to get things over and done whenever I can.

The teacher, who is scheduled to cast an eye over us, hasn't arrived yet.

Jonghoon flaunts into the room. He high-fives a person he passes. From how he's welcomed by the students, it appears that Jonghoon is a frequent flyer to this after-school punishment room of doom.

Why am I not surprised?

“What did you do this time?” A student I recognise from my maths class asks him.

Jonghoon's lips quirk upwards. “Kissed a girl in front of her boyfriend. The boyfriend didn't take it well and punched me in the gut. It's not my fault. It's not like she didn't kiss me back, you know?”

While I rolled my eyes, everybody in the room cracks into hysterics at Jonghoon's story.

I scowl when he takes a seat next to me. He's already earned me a detention, what else does he want to do?

“Can you pick somewhere else to sit?” I hiss, leering at him.

It's enough that girls are already talking about us. When I was delivered the detention in second period, the commotion had aroused a fire of gossip. People that I had never spoken to have been trying to speak to me, attempting to juice information if I've been sleeping with Jonghoon.

And I had thought I had done good at maintaining a silent reputation, yet now it's no longer exists...

One simple moment with Jonghoon had caused people to approach me. I hate it; I hate him. It's unnecessary attention that I don't need and I blame it all on him.

Luckily for Jonghoon, he doesn't get his opportunity to answer because the teacher has arrived. She's organising a load of essays on her desk to correct. When the top essay slips onto the ground, she bends down to pick it up.

Because most of the students in detention are male, I massage my head when I watch them gawk at her pick up the paper. It's not helping that she has nice long legs and is wearing a mini skirt to emphasise her best attribute. I snort when I catch Jonghoon stretching his arms. He's bending forward to most likely use it as an excuse to glimpse what colour her underwear is.

For the first half of an hour, the room is actually quiet. I had finished my mathematics homework and I'm now studying the current chemistry formula that was taught in today's lesson.

Before I'm about to try the formula out for myself, I see the teacher's legs walk past my desk. I sit up, suspicious as she turns to her right to speak to Jonghoon. Is detention a flirting service?

“Will you continue being in the Yearbook Committee this year, Mr. Choi?” She asks him. “Your photographs were magnificent in last years one.”

Jonghoon looks up with her with a lopsided grin. “Sure. I'm in.”

“Great. We're starting next week. The first meeting is Tuesday after school,” The teacher instructs him. “However it won't be the same...”

“How so?”

“Doohwa has graduated, which means we’re left without a designer! Do you know anybody who can  do-”

Jonghoon cut her off. “I know someone who will fit in perfectly to replace Doohwa's position. In fact, she's sitting in this very room.”

By now my eyes are staring anywhere but the conversing pair. I settle for the window, looking out of it intently. If Jonghoon's trying to be funny and drag me into this then I'd...no, he wouldn't. He won't do this to me, right?

“Her.”

“Who?”

From the corner of my vision I can see him directly pointing at me. The teacher looks thoughtfully at me.

“Chaeri,” Jonghoon smirks.

I groan, burying my head into my hands. Yes, Jonghoon officially wants to make my life a living hell.

•••••••••••••••

Last Edited: 22.03.16

27.03.14

(a/n)

 I thought this chapter (written all in the past) worked out together without the present scene. Therefore, I'll save it for the next chapter. Thanks for reading so far :)