Chapter 3 - It started with that goddamn bike

It seemed like the longest walk in the history of walks; as if I was crossing a continent.

Jung Daehyun kept his fierce eyes on me as the gap between us shortened and I remember feeling very self-conscious about the entire thing. Normally a person would subtly stare at you and then, eventually, they would bring themselves to look away. However Jung Daehyun clearly did not belong to that normal group of people.

His intense eyes were not leaving me. Not even for a second.

I came to scan over his appearance quickly; simple denim jeans, a white t-shirt and a jacket. On his feet were the familiar looking Nike Air Blazers I had spotted earlier. For some inexplicable reason I felt really relieved that I wasn’t wearing mine at the moment. All in all, I suppose Jung Daehyun was dressed quite simple, but definitely simplicity at its finest. In fact, with such finesse that I actually started to appreciate that our school’s policy made school uniforms non-mandatory.

‘’Aerin!’’ Choi Yuna exclaimed excitedly once I stood next to her. I wanted to shout Yuna! in a equal lively fashion, however she didn’t give me the chance to and instead asked: ‘’You go to school on the bike right?’’

I sheepishly came to stare at my bike. The question was a rather stupid one. I was holding my bike right in that moment. I simply couldn’t refrain from responding with a sassy sarcastic reply and without even fully intending to do so, I heard myself bringing out a sarcastic sounding no.

There fell a three-second silence upon us and I noticed Jung Daehyun biting his lip in attempt to suppress his urge to laugh; something he ultimately failed. Choi Yuna grew the slightest bit embarrassed about the question and only managed to let out a dry chuckle in an attempt to laugh it off.

‘’I mean, yes,’’ I corrected apologetically, ‘’why?’’

I tried to meet eyes with Yuna, but only found her sheepishly staring at her own two feet. I hadn’t intended to make fun of her nor did I in any way wanted to make her feel uncomfortable, but fortunately for my conscious she recovered within in an instant. In fact, she didn’t even seem that taken aback, because she did a charismatic hair flip, looked up to me with an unfazed smile and said: ‘’well, I was wonderi–‘’

‘’She was wondering whether you could give me a ride on your bike,’’ Jung Daehyun shamelessly cut in her speech. I looked at Choi Yuna, a frown automatically gracing my features, but she didn’t seem to mind him interrupting her. As a matter of fact, she looked unbothered; like she was long used to it.

If there was one crucial thing I learned about Jung Daehyun in that moment – besides his obvious good taste in shoes and his evident handsome looks – it was that he was rather bold. After all, he didn’t even know me and yet here he was asking me to give him a ride on my bike to God knows where.

‘’Well?’’ He asked when I took too long with my conflicting thoughts. Admittedly, a part of me didn’t want to give him a ride. I barely knew this guy and on top of that I didn’t own him anything. The other part of me didn’t see anything particularly wrong with helping a fellow student of my year out. Especially since I would’ve appreciate it if someone were to give me a ride if I needed one too – even if I would never have the courage to actually ask such a favor of a mere stranger in the first place.

Apparently, my apprehension was clearly visible on my face. Jung Daehyun was about to open his mouth to say something else and I figured it was to explain to me why he needed a ride so badly in the first place. Truth to be told, I was anticipating a rather good story. ‘’I forgot my keys at home but there is no one there,’’ he looked up at me briefly. ‘’ I need to get the keys from my parents. They own this restaurant nearby.’’ I pursed my lips together, all the while thinking that his explanation was rather vague. Why couldn’t he walk if it was nearby in the first place? ‘’If I’m not there within the next ten minutes I will most likely miss my bus and if that happens I have to wait another sixty minutes until the next one,’’ he finished as if he could read my unspoken question.

In all the contemplativeness I sheepishly came to stare at Yuna for some sort of answer. She tightly kept shut, but the way her eyes were practically begging me to help him out surely didn’t go by unnoticed. I awkwardly pressed my lips together in a thin line and came to look at Daehyun instead. He was still very much waiting, though I could tell that his patience was running out. ‘’I will carry you?’’ he tried in his final attempt of convincing me. There was a faint smile on his face while those words left his mouth and it was the first smile I had actually ever seen of him.

‘’Okay, alright,’’ I caved in for a reason I couldn’t explain – though I suspected that a lot of it had to do with that smile. I watched Jung Daehyun’s mouth open slightly. He seemed rather surprised by my answer. As did Choi Yuna.

If they hadn’t expect me to say yes, why had they bothered me in the first place?

I nonchalantly passed Jung Daehyun my bike. He didn’t waste any second and immediately made himself comfortable on the saddle. ‘’Can you jump?’’ He asked as he slowly began to cycle. I nodded before I determinedly jumped on the back seat. I almost lost my balance when I did so and briefly took hold of Jung Daehyun's waist in order to settle myself. I noticed a smirk tugging on his lips and I immediately let go off him in response.

He turned his head to look at me for a brief moment, but then he clearly remembered something as he allowed his eyes to rest on something else and shouted: ‘’Oh yeah, right. Bye, Yuna. And thanks!’’

‘’No problem and thank you Aerin!’’ Choi Yuna shouted after us. I found it quite ironic how he had thanked Choi Yuna while it was obviously my bike he was riding; not hers. I managed to give Yuna a small responsive smile before Jung Daehyun started to cycle so hard that I lost sight of her within an instant.

The moment we were separated from Yuna, the awkwardness started to settle in. Only the sound of the wind rushing past us could be heard, besides that it was completely silent. ‘’So…’’ I began in an attempt to start a conversation, ‘’…your parents own a restaurant?’’

‘’Obviously. You think I would lie about that?’’ He brought out to say straight-forwardly. There was a hint of a laugh noticeable in his voice, but his choice of using the word obviously made his response seem a bit rude nonetheless and I felt offended for reasons I couldn’t specify.

I carelessly lifted my shoulders. The speed we were moving in made my hair fly in front of my face and I desperately attempted to tie it all together in what should have been the perfect messy bun. Needless to say that my hair wasn’t looking cute at all. ‘’I mean, I guess you could. To convince me.’’ 

With those words he reduced his speed. We rounded a corner but his steering was done so sloppily that I felt like I was going to fall off. I hurriedly grabbed him by his waist again and could barely prevent myself from falling. Frowning at his recklessness, I watched as Jung Daehyun turned his head to check on my state. Or at least, I had expected him to check whether I was still sitting behind him in one piece. But contrary to what I had expected, his expression didn’t seem the least bit concerned of anything. Instead he was looking at me rather neutrally. ‘’I’m not the type of person to lie,’’ he told me the moment I let go of his waist. I suppressed the urge to scoff; partly because he didn’t concern himself with my well-being, partly because he entirely brushed over the fact that I had almost fallen down in the first place.

‘’I wouldn’t know. I don’t know you,’’ I commented almost too quickly for even my own liking.

‘’Would you want to get to know me?’’ He asked, his smirk resurfacing simultaneously. I became startled by his sudden question and could in no way decipher whether he was truly being serious. I was glad he wasn’t looking at me at the moment, because he definitely took me of guard and that was definitely to be seen in the idiotic expression on my face.

‘’I’m joking,’’ he said after I hadn’t taken it upon myself to say something. He laughed to himself and in that moment all I could think about was how I found it almost endearing that he found himself so comical. I looked up to him and simply stared at the back of his head and his strangely prettily shaped ears, allowing another silence to loom over us.

That’s when Jung Daehyun basically caught me staring at him. Our eyes met as he had turned his head around again. He simply ignored the somewhat awkward eye-contact between us and urged me to look ahead of us. ‘’We are almost there. It’s there. Can you see it?’’ He pointed.

I blinked sheepishly and looked in the direction he was pointing at. We were indeed nearing a restaurant. Surprisingly, the restaurant wasn’t unfamiliar to me; I had known about its existence.

Only, I had never guessed that it was owned by Jung Daehyun’s parents.

‘’Hey, thanks a lot,’’ Jung Daehyun said as soon as both our feet were on solid ground. He handed my bike back to me and gave me a smile that was extremely wide. And not to mention charming.

‘’Oh, not a problem,’’ I tried to sound casual.

He nodded, his smile still very much apparent. But then he turned around and muttered something I didn’t quite catch as he made a quick sprint for the restaurant. He was gone within an instant and I frowned as I tried to figure out what he had tried to say to me. It had sounded like a sloppy formulated I’m going in really quickly and I didn’t quite know what to make of that sentence – if that was what he had said in the first place.

For a few seconds I stood fixed on the spot he left me standing. I tried to make sense of what had just happened, but it had happened so quick that I was completely clueless. Surely he hadn’t said goodbye properly and if what I thought I had heard was correct, that meant that he didn’t want me to leave just yet.

Or at least, I figured as much.

Jung Daehyun had managed to leave me behind like a conflicted mess, because If I were to leave while he was counting on my stay I would surely come across as rude. However if I would stay while he didn’t expect me to, I would look like a total dork. Admittedly, both options weren’t really alluring. Still I figured that the latter was the nicest thing to do.

I'd rather be a nice dork than a rude jerk.

I was waiting for a good two minutes when I found myself mindlessly looking at the bus stop. A mere ten seconds later I took notice of a bus in the distance and I found myself hoping that it wasn’t his bus, because if that had been his bus that would mean that he had just missed it; this whole thrilling adventure of us had been for catching that vehicle in the first place.

Three minutes later Jung Daehyun set foot outside the restaurant. In his hands he was carrying a pair of keys and I figured that he hadn’t been lying after all. He didn’t notice me at first, but he looked extremely surprised the moment he did. A crease appeared between his eyebrows and in that moment I realized that he hadn’t expected me to be here. I should have been gone.

I was most definitely the dork.

 ‘’What… are you still doing here?’’ he inquired as he scratched the back of his head in confusion. Words couldn’t possibly explain how stupid I felt in that moment. Why had he been so unclear to me in the first place?

‘’I… I…’’ I stuttered. I truly didn’t know what to say. How would I play off coolly that I sincerely thought that he had wanted me to stay? Even when, in retrospect, that had never made any sense in the first place? The realization made me feel more stupid than I had managed to feel before and I surely didn’t feel like sharing the truth with him. But then I suddenly remembered the bus that had come by minutes ago and I figured that I might as well use that as an excuse.

‘’I saw your bus leaving… so I wanted to tell you that,’’ I brought out dryly. It wasn’t the coolest answer to his question. Still, it sounded far better than an: I-waited-because-I-thought-you-wanted-me-to-although-there-would-be-absolutely-no-reason-for-you-to-want-me-here-since-we-don’t-know-each-other-at-all.

A restless frown settled itself on Jung Daehyun’s face upon hearing my words. He began to bite his lip in what seemed like building frustration and quickly asked me which bus stop I was referring to since there was the one on the other side and the one he was currently pointing at.

‘’The one you’re pointing at,’’ I responded with excessive blinking of the eye.

‘’! That goddamn bus always comes earlier than it should!’’ He cursed as his hand went through his hair, messing it up perfectly. Now I was the one that came to frown, partly because of his use of swearwords and partly because of his impatience. He would have to wait for sixty minutes it was by far not the end of the world. I stared at him for a while, not quite sure what to say.

That’s when he realized that I was still here too.

‘’I’m sorry…’’ he muttered as his eyes met mine, ‘’…you can—‘’

‘’Do you want me to wait with you?’’ The moment the offer left my mouth I regretted it. Especially as I took notice of the surprised expression on Jung Daehyun’s part. I had no idea why I had offered this. It was a mystery that always managed to stay in the back of my head; a question I couldn’t possibly find a fitting answer to. I wanted to take it back. I wanted to say no I’m sorry never mind. However I knew perfectly well that I couldn’t do that; the offer was standing. It was hanging in the air. Right above our heads.

‘’Don’t you have things to do of your own?’’ Jung Daehyun trailed suspiciously. It made me once again realize how stupid the offer actually was; how stupid I had been the entire time. I had only tried to be nice, but in reality Jung Daehyun took me for someone without an actual life to live and in a way that was saddening.

I wanted to laugh his comment off, but all I really did was looking troubled. Perhaps it was because of this, that Jung Daehyun’s softened up. He smiled somewhat apologetically, nodded and finally told me that he would very much appreciate it if I were to wait with him.

And so we were going to wait for his bus. Together. Complete strangers, our only connection being that we were attending the same high school.

Sixty minutes long.

I locked my bike at his parents’ restaurant before we walked towards the bus stop in silence. We sat down on the bench and I took my distance from him, not entirely sure why. My thoughts ran everywhere and I realized that this would become the longest hour ever.

‘’You know…’’ I brought out to say the moment I couldn’t take the suffocating silence between us anymore, ’’…I was trying to be nice with my offer.’’

He laughed. At first, he did so while he looked straight ahead of him, but then he turned his head, looking me directly in the eye before he said: ‘’I know. You are nice… for waiting with me.’’

There was something about the way his eyes were boring into mine while he had said that. Something about the way he had looked at me with that smile of his. Something about that smile in the first place. It was something that flustered me for reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I cleared my throat awkwardly and decided to ignore Jung Daehyun’s way of a compliment. ‘’Isn’t it unusual for busses to come once in an hour though, I mean this is nearby the city center after all.’’

He in a breath, probably wondering why I came up with this so randomly. ‘’They are working on some things on the road. Consequently, the bus schedules became irregular.’’

‘’Oh,’’ I responded dryly. There followed another silence and I didn’t know how I was supposed to act around Jung Daehyun. I had tried to be nice; nicer than I normally would be towards strangers, but he in turn had been rather straight-forward with me. Not knowing what to say next, I wisely decided to shut my mouth. It would be awkward, but only because he wouldn’t talk out of his own accord either.

But apparently I was wrong about him, because for the first time he started to engage an actual conversation with me. He asked me whether I always rode the bike to school and it made me wonder what the big deal about me riding a bike to school was in the first place.

‘’No,’’ I shook my head. ‘’I’m only doing that until recently. I mean, it’s healthy and fun and certainly cheaper and yet still, for some reason, my best friend hates it,’’ I laughed. But only after those words had left my mouth did I realize how surprising they were in the first place. Because why the heck was I saying something so irrelevant like this? Why was I involving myself in pointless chit chatting? What would Jung Daehyun care about Chaerin hating my way of coming to school? Why I had given him that extra unasked information didn’t make any sense to me, but yet I had still done it.

‘’Your friend is crazy.’’ Jung Daehyun told me with a serious face. For some reason I became the slightest bit offended by his words. I don’t know what is was with this guy, but somehow the things he said, and the way he would say it, would come off as insensitive to me.

Despite the insensitiveness, I tried to keep it cool and went along with him. ‘’Oh believe me, she is,’’ I told him with a careless lift of my shoulders.

‘’Well…’’ he laughed, ‘’…I got crazy friends too, so it’s okay. We all have to deal with it.’’ And right in that moment I started to figure Jung Daehyun out. Jung Daehyun was the funny guy. Or at least, he clearly wanted to be. I figured that he had never meant real harm with his statements and thinking about it in that way, I realized that he was quite alright. Especially when he came to smile everything off. I decided to lower my walls a little bit around him and genuinely came to laugh at his joke.

Right in that moment something changed in the way we acted towards each other. The certain tension and awkwardness that had been there from the start was suddenly gone and we actually found ourselves freely talking about small unimportant things. He asked me in which class I was and who my teachers were. Surprisingly, it was really nice to talk to him. He would come to imitate teachers such as Mr. Nam or Mrs. Kwon and he was insanely good at this so I cracked up every time. With time, I also got to know that he wasn’t originally from Seoul, but from Busan which might've explained why he had a certain rough and bold feeling to him. Or perhaps I was just having prejudices of people living in Busan, I don’t know. All I know was that the hour flew by within an instant and I was actually surprised when I took notice of his bus in the distance.

‘’Your bus is almost here,’’ I pointed out. He sighed and nodded before he got himself up from the bench, adjusting his jeans in the progress. Then he looked at me.

‘’Thanks for the ride and waiting with me.’’ He said it with this genuine handsome smile on his face. It was y and cute all at once and I felt flustered all over again. I therefore just nodded with a small smile, all the while doubting whether I should say the next thing that came into my mind. The bus was here now and he was about to board.

And leave.

‘’I…’’ I started out hesitantly, ‘’…I like your shoes by the way.’’ It were my actual last words to him and it was somewhat an unfortunate formulated goodbye. His signature smirk graced his features yet again and I figured that that was his unfortunate formulated goodbye. He disappeared further into the bus. Normally I would have been offended about someone leaving without replying at least a word to me. But the way our ‘relationship’ up to that point had worked was clearly different. Everything was quite different with Jung Daehyun.

I watched bus 470 disappear in the distance. I watched Jung Daehyun disappear in the distance. With a feeling I couldn’t yet explain, I made my way towards my bike. It took me less than a minute to unlock the vehicle. I searched my bag for my earpieces, all the while thinking that this whole encounter between Jung Daehyun and me had been a bit weird. And as I thought about it again, I couldn’t help but to chuckle to myself.

I tried to shrug the thoughts about Jung Daehyun off and hopped up my bike before I began to cycle.

But somehow I didn’t quite enjoy the ride like I had done earlier.