Chapter 21 - I'm sorry

I had checked my new class schedule for the third time already. How I hated it when they would suddenly change things. I finally gotten used to my last schedule and it’s precisely then that they decide to change everything.

‘’So PE now… and then History,’’ I yawned as I tried to make out if I was reading the paper correctly. It was the first period and I was still quite sleepy. Who wasn’t during first period? I practically just rolled out of bed.

I stood before my locker and opened it, looking for my gym clothes. I still hadn’t cleaned the tiny space and that was something I regretted every single day. Yet I didn’t do anything about it. Finding my clothes and shoes wasn’t hard today and so I - luckily - found them within an instant. I quickly made my way towards the gym that was located three minutes from the main building, only to meet with another PE class who was patiently waiting in front of the dressing room – probably waiting for their teacher to arrive. Chaerin’s, Yuna’s, Jea’s and Daehyun’s PE class to be precise. 

‘’Aerin what are you doing here?’’ Jea and Chaerin both exclaimed simultaneously as they noticed me. They were rather loud and it made a lot of their classmates turn their heads in our direction. That included the heads of Daehyun and Yuna. They were standing beside each other, next to another guy I recognized as Park Jimin – Jin’s friend. Daehyun eyed me once he took notice of me and I smiled sheepishly before I gave him an awkward little wave, greeting him. He only smiled and nodded in return and even that made me somehow feel awkward – and hot. And so I turned my head away immediately, focusing on both Jea and Chaerin again.

‘’I thought I had PE right now,’’ I muttered as I searched my bag for the paper schedule, being absolutely sure that I had PE. This is exactly why I hated the changes.

‘’Well not here, our class is scheduled here,’’ Jea stated the obvious sheepishly.

I finally found my schedule after a couple of seconds and tried to read it. Chaerin snatched it away from me however, watching it intently, before even I could.

‘’You’re scheduled in the other gym, dummy. Look it says it right here,’’ Chaerin pointed out for me. I took a look and groaned when I realized that she was right. Now I had to make my way into the main building again, I would surely be later than usual.

Just as I was about to bid goodbye to my friends I noticed Jin entering. His expression surprised, as he noticed that it wasn’t our class in here. His expression soon shifted when he laid his eyes on me. ‘’Aerin,’’ he spoke while skipping towards me, ‘’aren’t we scheduled here?’’ He scratched the back of his neck as he eyed all of the other students.

I shook my head. ‘’Nope, it has changed. We are in the main building now. I found out just now.’’ I motioned for Chaerin to give me my schedule back and showed it to him. He nodded in understanding. ‘’Shall we go then? We’ll probably make it,’’ Jin smiled at me.  

Both Chaerin and Jea were watching us in silence, exchanging this certain look, before they noticed that the door to the girl’s dressing room had miraculously been open all along. This was unlike the boy’s room, since they were still waiting outside of it. Chaerin bade goodbye and Jea only sheepishly waved before they jogged towards the door, them being the last girls to enter, leaving me and Jin somewhat alone.

I turned to Jin with a: should we go now then expression and he silently nodded before his gaze shifted towards something – or someone rather. It was his friend Park Jimin who had been standing with Yuna and Daehyun. Jimin only stood with Daehyun now since Yuna had already made her way into the opened dressing room.

‘’Aerin wait for me a bit please, just a moment,’’ he said before making his way towards his friend – and Daehyun. I stood there sheepishly not sure how to posture myself. He had already walked of before I could even give him an answer and I was tempted to just walk ahead already. I decided against that however, since Jin had asked me to wait for him.

I watched as Jin somewhat cockily skipped towards the two guys. He greeted Jimin with this sort of cool handshake, the same one I had seen him do at his party with Daehyun. Jimin eagerly went along and exclaimed things along the lines of hey man haven’t seen you around for a while.

Daehyun eyed the two, with this blank expression on his face, before he was greeted by Jin. He had nodded dryly in response. It really made me wonder what the deal between the two of them was, since Daehyun seemed somehow distant towards Jin. Jimin and Jin seemed to have this brief conversation while Daehyun had focused on me, not trying to stare subtle but instead rather obvious. We looked at each other from a distance, long enough to make me feel awkward. In order to break the eye contact I grabbed my phone and eyed the time wondering how long Jin was going to take.

I noticed Jimin poking Jin in his ribs before he nodded towards my direction and said something I couldn’t hear. He had said it with this signature smirk Jimin seemed to have and it, supposedly, made Daehyun turn his head towards the two guys, furrowing his brows. Jin shook his head, a slick smile plastered on his face as he waved and made his way towards me.

‘’Sorry you had to wait a bit, should we go?’’ He asked as he adjusted the strap of his backpack. I nodded in response. I glanced over at Daehyun for the last time and noticed that he was eyeing both me and Jin, still with furrowed brows. Honestly, I had felt kind of awkward with the way Jimin had nodded towards me as he spoke something I didn’t know of. I was curious what he had said, but shrugged it off eventually and quickly followed Jin towards the door.  

We talked some small talk and after four minutes we stood in front of our respective dressing rooms. He entered the boy’s room while I entered the other one.

The five girls present in here were having a quite intense conversation about something, since their voices were higher-pitched and I heard things along the lines of you’re so right in enthusiasm. I didn’t know what they were talking about though, and in all honesty I didn’t really care. It was probably lame gossip. They didn’t notice me coming in, partly because they were so engrossed in their conversation, partly because the spot where I usually changed was behind this sort of wall. The spot gave me just the privacy I needed.

One of the first few things I noticed was that Soojin wasn’t here which was quite odd in my experience. Usually I would always arrive quite early in the dressing room. Then I would quickly change before I would make my way towards the gym so I could do some exercises before the actual lesson would start. I was one of the few girls who actually did this, since most of the girls would either: enter the gym and sit on the bench watching the guys playing soccer, or chat and gossip away in the dressing room until the teacher would actually call them out. Often much to Mr. Lee’s frustration since he wanted the girls to be a little more active. It was actually why he took a liking to me.

Soojin was one of those girls to stay behind in the dressing room and that’s why it was odd that she wasn’t here. Especially considering that the girls she was usually having lunch with were here.

‘’You know what’s the most annoying thing about her? She’s such a try-hard, like seriously. Nobody actually likes her!’’

‘’Yeah, and you guys noticed how she used to try so hard to fit in with the popular crowd? Like last year during that tournament. She kept clinging into Yuna because they happened to be in the same team. Remember how she bragged to us how she and Yuna were getting along and were so called friends? Like… please don’t act like such a fangirl. Yuna is not a celebrity or something. She’s just a popular from our school, known because she screws the big shots such as Jung Daehyun. But yeah, I’m glad that her so called friendship with Yuna backfired on her,’’ another classmate named Lee Suji joined in with a mocking laugh.

The mention of Daehyun’s name made my heart stand still for a moment as it confirmed that he was indeed a well-known guy. It also confirmed that a majority of the students who talked about him were assuming that there was something going on between him and Yuna. Something quite intimate to be precise and the thought of that alone made me feel unpleasant.

The other girls started to laugh and nodded eagerly. Joining in with words along the lines of tell me about it!

I wondered if they really had no clue about them not being the only ones in here or if they just didn’t care about who might hear the hurtful things they were saying. I casually changed into my sport outfit as I kept eaves dropping on them, amazed with the malicious word they were spitting about someone. I knew that many girls liked a good old gossip but I had never really witnessed how evil that could become.

‘’She tends to be so clingy. That is until people stop putting up with her and she moves on to the next, because she’s that desperate. Honestly I find it so annoying that she sits with us, all she talks about is boys that are way out of her league. She isn’t even pretty. She looks like a ten year old and I bet she hasn’t even kissed a guy yet,’’ the girl that had spoken first laughed.

‘’Oh that’s so mean Hana! But it’s so true though. She has no one else now after that quarrel in the library. It’s really annoying how she keeps asking us to do things with her,’’ another girl who wasn’t in my homeroom but in the other homeroom class we shared PE with, named Kim Jiyeon, spoke.

Sit with them? Fight in the library? Were they talking about who I thought they were talking about? 

‘’Yeah but she won’t be doing that anymore I guess, or I hope so actually,’’ Suji shrugged.

‘’Huh, how come? What happened?’’

‘’Oh my God you don’t know? So Minji, Minah and I were talking about her in the restroom yesterday and suddenly she came out of the cubicle. She had heard everything! I felt so busted. Talk about awkward! I mean she wasn’t supposed to hear us. Oops. Sorry not sorry Soojin,’’ Suji laughed again.

Choi Minah and Lee Minji both laughed hysterically which made me realize how cruel they were being. All of them. If I were Soojin I surely would have felt miserable. It wasn’t any of my business, though. Soojin was shutting me out. Still, it would be a lie if I said that I didn’t feel for her now.

I was done changing and had heard enough. I was about to make my way towards the door. It was only then that the group of girls noticed me. Their eyes widened in surprise, all except Suji’s, whose confident posture was still evident.

‘’Aerin you are here. We all thought you were ill or something since you are always the early bird among us,’’ Suji laughed, in her eyes a glint of mischief. I had nothing against my classmates, but honestly if I were to point out the of the class it would have been this girl, Lee Suji. I wasn’t really fond of her. Not only because she liked to badmouth others like she was doing now, but also because there were certain things about how she treated, talked and acted towards others that just didn’t sit well with me. Fortunately she was quite friendly with me so there was no real reason for me to act cold or hateful towards her. I treated her quite friendly, I did with all my classmates as a matter of fact.

‘’Yeah I read the new schedule incorrectly,’’ I shrugged. Kim Jiyeon and Lee Hana were sheepishly gazing towards the ground, maybe scared that I would tell Soojin that they were badmouthing her. There are certain girls who love to talk bad about others, yet when all their sayings come out they get scared and don’t even want to admit - or even worse deny - their faults. These two girls were like that, while Suji was the type to openly admit her sayings and add fuel to the fire. She could be cruel if she wanted to and had no problem in humiliating others if she found that necessary. Luckily she was rarely that extreme. But if she was, hell could break lose and I found it quite amazing that she still had a good group of followers, despite her being a tyrant like that.

The girls were silent and avoided looking at me, all but Suji. ‘’I guess you have heard quite a lot, didn’t you?’’ She asked, a fake smile plastered on her face.

‘’You can say that,’’ I shrugged, my hand making its way to the door knob, ready to leave this room.

‘’I heard about your fight with Soojin. Just so you know, I’m totally on your side,’’ she spoke again. The other girls finally looked up and nodded eagerly in agreement.

‘’I’m not fighting with Soojin,’’ I stated.

‘’Really? I heard that she was calling you names because you were sharing a bedroom with some guy she happened to like.’’ She said it casually but I knew that she was trying to mock me so that I would feel this hatred towards Soojin for spreading rumors like that. Something that, maybe, would’ve worked if I didn’t have this dislike towards Suji. I knew better than to believe her, though I also knew better than to piss her off.

‘’Well,’’ I shrugged once again.

‘’She is such a for treating you like that Aerin. If I were you I wouldn’t take her . You’re such a softie,’’ she laughed that last part, acting as if it was a joke. Only I knew better. She was trying to provoke me in badmouthing Soojin and I actually wanted to tell her to shut up. I knew that wouldn’t be wise though. So instead I just sheepishly smiled before muttering a: ‘’Soojin doesn’t really concern me anymore, so I let her be.’’

I noticed Suji’s smirk before I walked out of the dressing room and that’s when I knew that I had given her an answer that she somewhat wanted to hear. My answer was a lie however, it wasn’t like I really didn’t care anymore. I just didn’t want to be Suji’s next gossip target because I had countered her. I was weak in that aspect. I couldn’t bring myself to stand up for Soojin – or anyone for that matter. I wasn’t courageous and so I didn’t open my mouth when those girls had talked bad about her. I’ve let it happen and somehow – even though I was ‘fighting’ Soojin – I was frustrated about not being able to speak up. Nobody had a right to talk that way about somebody, it was hurtful and could do a lot of damage to ones self-esteem.

I didn’t want trouble with anyone though, which was the main reason I always acted very friendly towards people. The only thing setting me apart from those girls is that I wasn’t the type to badmouth others: In the worst case I would only listen to what they had to say without speaking up. I never felt a dislike or jealously strong enough towards somebody to actually badmouth them.

Once inside the gym I noticed that the guys were passionately playing soccer - like they were always doing - while, as expected, most girls were sitting on the bench watching them. On the very end of the long bench sat Soojin, her arms resting on her knees. She looked sad and lonely and I almost felt the urge to sit down beside her. Only I figured that that was something she wouldn’t like right now.

‘’Aerin you are here! I told Mr. Lee that you were probably ill since you weren’t here early. I didn’t know and he had asked me where you were, that’s why,’’ Seo Joohyun said after she had skipped towards me with a girl from the other homeroom named Kang Maeri. Seo Joohyun was a nice girl that probably came in second - after Soojin, before the fight - in the rank of people I was more acquainted with in my class. I had been with her on the tournament and that’s when we sort of bonded, laughing because of our ridiculously dedicated captain. She was a little quiet but very friendly. Kang Maeri was a friend of Chaerin and therefore somewhat more of an acquaintance to me.

‘’Yeah I had trouble with the new schedule,’’ I answered as I scratched the back of my head sheepishly.

‘’That’s understandable,’’ Maeri chuckled.

‘’But hey you are here and the lesson hasn’t star-‘’ Joohyun tried to speak. Mr. Lee blew his whistle, indicating that the lesson would begin, as Joohyun tried to end her sentence. Both Joohyun and Maeri laughed faintly at the interruption before the three of us skipped towards the teacher. The remaining girls emerged from the dressing room and I noticed that Soojin avoided looking at them. Throughout the whole class.

It had been an intense lesson. First Mr. Lee had told us to make several fields, using the different benches as a border. Then he made us play basketball in mixed teams. With boys on your team you were bound to try your best, otherwise they wouldn’t try to hide their dissatisfaction with you – which in turn had made me exhausted, because I wanted to do well.

I had noticed how a few of the girls who had been talking about Soojin were purposely not passing her the ball and Suji actually went a step further when she threw the ball towards Soojin – hard. She pretended that it was an accident. Maybe it was, but with Suji you never knew. I couldn’t grasp why she would suddenly be this mean towards Soojin.

The class immediately returned to the dressing room once Mr. Lee blew his whistle again, indicating that PE was over. I was about to follow after them when he called me over.

‘’You were a little late Aerin, did something happen?’’ He asked concerned. I wasn’t really late, but I guess that I could be considered late for my doing. I appreciated it that Mr. Lee had been concerned about me though, it only proved that the teachers indeed liked me. Something Soojin had pointed out multiple times.

‘’No Mr. Lee. I was at the other building assuming that our class was there. But it turned out we are scheduled here now,’’ I answered politely.

He nodded as he scanned through the gym. A heavy sigh escaped his lips when he realized only a few of the students had put their basketballs back in the rack. Most of them were laying messily on the floor along with the benches that weren’t shoved back to their original spot – against the wall. And so I offered to help to tidy the gym up which may have scored me extra points in his book.

I was met with an empty dressing room after I was finally done with the gym. The girls were rather quick today, I thought. Or maybe I had taken long. I skipped towards my stuff when I heard some cries and sniffles coming from the cubicle that was located in the room. The sound made me frown. Was somebody from the next class already in here?

I quietly made my way over to my stuff. Almost tip toeing, not wanting the other person to feel ashamed, when I noticed the pair of shoes the person was wearing. It were the bright pink Nikes I recognized immediately as Soojin’s. The cries didn’t stop, in fact they were getting louder. I knocked on the door, not sure what I was supposed to do or say.

‘’Soojin?’’ I called quite worried. The sniffles immediately muffled after I had spoken and there fell a complete silence.  

‘’I know you’re in there, your shoes aren’t to miss,’’ I tried to joke. I really wasn’t good in handling these type of emotional situations. Especially not those situation where people were crying while I was having a fight with them. Even if this was only the first time such a scene actually occurred.

‘’Are you alright?’’ I tried one last time. Soojin kept quiet and that’s when I figured that, maybe, she was really done with me. To the point that she didn’t even wanted to be comforted by me. All because of a guy. How stupid was that? I walked towards my stuff and started to change, my eyes never leaving the now quiet cubicle.

A red eyed Soojin appeared after some time and I watched how she tried to hold in her tears, not wanting to show me that she was hurting for some kind of reason. The silence was suffocating and we were staring at each other, both not sure what to say.

‘’I’m sorry.’’

Soojin eyes widened in surprise, probably not grasping why I was the one apologizing. Actually I didn’t know why I was apologizing myself. I had no real reason to do so, I hadn’t been wrong. Yet somehow, I felt that I just had to overcome my pride and be the bigger person since Soojin obviously wasn’t the one to do that.

‘’W- what?’’ Soojin stuttered hoarsely, her eyes still filled with surprise.

‘’I’m sorry for whatever I did that made you mad at me. It was never my intention to actually hurt you in any kind of way and I’m sorry if I did. I just… I wished that you would’ve told me what was going on before you would just yell at me that day. We could have talked,’’ I muttered, still not quite sure why I was the one apologizing.

Soojin said nothing for a while, she was completely silent. That was before the tears started to stream over her face. Something I hadn’t expected – at all.

‘’Aerin. Why… why are you apologizing? It’s all my fault. Everything they say about me is true. Nobody likes me because-‘’ she was struggling as she was saying those words and it felt sad that she took the things that those girls had said about her to heart, ‘’because I’m not a nice person, like you,’’ she sniffed unable to stop herself.

‘’Everybody likes you Aerin. You’re so nice and friendly, even now.’’  

I didn’t know what to respond and so I just remained silent. Eyeing a struggling Soojin who tried to compose herself. She breathed in and out before she spoke again.

‘’I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m just so stupid Aerin. I hate myself,’’ she began to cry again and I didn’t know if I was supposed to hug her in comfort or something. I wasn’t really a big fan of hugging people out of nowhere and it also felt out of place so in the end I decided against it and just eyed her sheepishly.

‘’It’s… okay everybody makes mistakes I guess. No need to beat yourself up for it,’’ I chuckled awkwardly after a while, still not knowing how to act in this situation. I couldn’t really deal with sad atmospheres and so I, naturally, always tried to joke in order to light the mood. It was stupid, but it was me.

‘’It’s just that I feel so envious of you. I have always felt like that.’’

What? That was definitely the first time I heard that somebody was envious of me. What was there to be envious about?

‘’Envious of me?’’ I asked dumbfounded.

Soojin nodded as she was wiping a tear away with her thumb. ‘’You’re pretty and everyone likes you since you’re so nice. You are smart too, all the teachers like you and you easily make friends. Real friends who really like you. All unlike me. It was just… I was envious of you. When I saw you leaving that room with Daehyun I… I got jealous and I hated you in that moment. I hated you so much, because you were getting everything that I could never have,’’ she started to sniff again, though it seemed like she was trying her very best to hold it in, ‘’and one day I overheard Jea telling Daehyun your address and that’s when I really thought that there was something going on between the two of you and I got really jealous and hated you even more.’’

My expression was probably a mixture of confusion and surprise. I never, never would have thought that there was anybody that viewed me like this. This quite perfect way that absolutely didn’t add up to me – at all.

Pretty? I wasn’t bad looking, but I sure wasn’t as pretty as girls like Chaerin and Yuna.

Likeable? I tried to be friendly but I was also very awkward so I wasn’t as likeable and spontaneous as for example Chaerin was.

Smart? I was able to score high marks because I actually took the time to study, whereas many people didn’t. That doesn’t necessarily make you smart.

Now I finally understood why Soojin had ignored me only a month after the infamous party. It was because of that day that Daehyun had visited me. I had always found it weird how her ignoring me had happened so sudden.

‘’I’m really not as perfect as you make me seem and there isn’t really anything going on between Daehyun and I,’’ I spoke softly. It was half the truth: there wasn’t really anything going on, for him. For me it was a little different now.

‘’It doesn’t matter if there was or is something going on. I… shouldn’t have acted the way I did. It’s stupid, but I have always been so in love with him,’’ she laughed bitterly and it was quite saddening, ‘’it is pathetic right? It has been like that since one of the first days in high school and it’s pathetic since I don’t even know him. He doesn’t even acknowledge my existence.’’

I remained silent, not sure what to say. Honestly it did seem a bit stupid, but I wasn’t feeling what she was feeling and therefore I couldn’t really judge. Besides I had been quite envious of Yuna and that Kim Jinah solely for the reason that they had some - romantic - ties with Daehyun. I wasn’t quite any better than her, though - in my defense - I hadn’t picked a fight with those said girls.

‘’I try to look at other boys but they never compare, it doesn’t matter how much I talk about others to distract myself because in the end it’s still him that I like, which is so stupid. My talks about boys only annoys people too. People hate me for it but it’s only because I thought… I thought that that is what girls would like to talk about and… it distracts people from seeing through me.’’ Most of her tears were wiped away now and I did nothing but to stare at her. I didn’t say anything and I guess that she took that as a cue to silently leave since she started to grab her bag.

‘’Why were you crying?’’ I asked carefully as she was ready to head out the door. She turned around so she could face me.

‘’It’s nothing,’’ she forced a smile before walking out of the door, into the hallway. She turned around one last time, ‘’I’m really sorry, Aerin,’’ and with that she left.

She left me dumbfounded.

It is funny how you might think you’re not all too special while there can always be someone who thinks completely otherwise and could be admiring you, being envious of things you couldn’t have imagined. That had been the case with Soojin.

All this time her bubbly confident demeanor had been a façade. I had always thought that she was quite comfortable with who she was, hence her confidence to sometimes look down on people like she could. But I guess she wanted to come off as confident, she wanted to be cool and in that aspect she wasn’t any better than for example Jin whom she had pointed out herself. I figured that there was much more to Soojin’s actions that I initially would’ve thought.

And I actually felt pity towards her.

I, indeed, was a softie.