Chapter 6 - Working butts off

I threw my bags on the ground and allowed myself to fall on my bed the moment I arrived in my room. It was Saturday evening which meant that I was supposed to go back to responsibilities. Such as work tomorrow and homework after that. I barely slept since we had chatted the whole night, or Chaerin did, which resulted in me being very tired right now.

‘’Aerin!’’ I heard my mother call for me from downstairs.

‘’Yes?’’ I yelled in response. I wasn’t feeling like walking all the way down to her, I was tired after all.

‘’Come down!’’ She yelled back. I got up from my bed with a groan and started to walk downstairs, annoyed.

I was greeted with the smell of cake in the kitchen. It was a hobby my mother had picked up when my dad got serious about his store. It was her way of occupying herself.

‘’I feel like I haven’t seen your face for weeks, come sit down and have a talk with me,’’ she said as she patted the chair next to her. She was obviously exaggerating, she had seen me Thursday evening after I got home from my little bike adventure, which meant she hasn’t seen me in two days. I knew she just wanted my company though since she was probably a little lonely.  

 ‘’I decided to live with Jea, that’s why,’’ I joked which in turn made her smile.

‘’How is she doing?’’ She asked genuine as she checked the oven.

‘’She is fine. She says adjusting was tough for her at first but she got used to it now. She is content.’’

My mother nodded. ‘’That’s good,’’ she said with a smile, ‘’i’m going to bake a cake for her soon, she likes Red Velvet right? You should give it to her, understand?’’

I just nodded sheepishly. My mother hardly baked a cake for me. Sometimes she would bake my favorite, which was cheesecake, but since she didn’t really like it herself she hardly baked it.

We talked for a bit. I know she, most likely, must have felt lonelier now that my dad isn’t around as much and I understood that, but right at this moment I just wanted to relax in my bed. I wasn’t really up for a long chat.

‘’Am I dismissed now? I’ve shown my face and I’m actually pretty tired,’’ I asked as I yawned.

My mother shook her head in disapproval. It was her way of silently telling me that it was my own fault for staying up that late. I would always come home tired after a traditional slumber party. I gave her a small smile before leaving her alone in the kitchen. I felt a little guilty, but was too focused on the thought of my bed to care.

When I entered my room I immediately dressed myself into comfortable clothes before lying down in my bed. I made myself comfortable as I snuggled under the covers. There is nothing better in this world than your own bed, I thought as I gripped my sheets. I grabbed my phone and started to look through the messages. One was from Chaerin and I had one invitation for some house party on Facebook. I didn’t even bother to click on it – to either accept or decline the invite. I opened Chaerin’s message at KakaoTalk. She had send it just recently.

Chaerin: What are you doing?

Aerin: Nothing much, you?

Chaerin: Socializing, obviously :)

Chaerin: Tell me something… I’m bored

Aerin:  What is there to tell?

Chaerin: Jung Daehyun

Aerin:  There is nothing to tell about him

Aerin:  I think you know more of him than I do

Chaerin: Don’t you find it strange that he suddenly wanted to join you to the store?

This was a typical trait of Chaerin. She could make a big deal out of anything. At first I thought she did it to boost my self-esteem, but I learned that she would truly think that there was something more to it if a boy were to be nice to me.

Still, I thought about this so called ‘strange’ behavior of him for a while. But to me it wasn’t that strange. He was most likely being nice, or he just wanted to pick out his own snacks. Or he just wanted fresh air. Or probably all of those reason listed.

Aerin: No, it is called being friendly Chaerin

Chaerin: Hmm...

Chaerin: Maybe he’s interested in you?

Aerin: You are kidding right?

Aerin: We’re talking about Jung Daehyun here

Chaerin: So?

Aerin: He is a popular guy right?

Aerin: I mean he could swim in girls if he wanted to, literally

Aerin: I don’t think he would be interested in me

Chaerin: Why in the hell not, Aerin?

Aerin: Because that is logical

Chaerin: That isn't logic, you insecure :)

I rolled my eyes. What was she trying to point out anyway?

Aerin: What are you trying to say anyway?

Chaerin: Nothing?

Chaerin: Just that you should chase after him

Aerin: Whut?

Chaerin: I mean that you should flirt with him and stuff, make him yours

Chaerin: He is cute

Chaerin: And popular

Chaerin: And he has nice manly legs, I've noticed during PE

Chaerin: A total catch, the whole package

Aerin: Why don't you date him then?

Chaerin: I have Yonggukkie~~!

Chaerin: He has all of that already and he is older, which is even better

Chaerin: So mature!

I laughed at her ridiculous statements and the nickname she had given Bang Yongguk. She made it seem like they were already dating. I guess mentally she was dating him. He would be her boyfriend very soon though, if Chaerin laid her eyes on someone it usually didn’t take long for her to win him over. Or at least, I predicted as much.

Aerin: Of course you do

I looked at the time, it was already 23:00 PM.

Aerin: I’m going to bed, I have work tomorrow and I’m tired

Chaerin: Hmm kay, sleep tight. Don't dream about Jung Daehyun. You might not be able to handle it.

I decided not to reply to her stupid comment. It did make me chuckle for a moment though. I grabbed my earplugs and started my sleep playlist. Me dreaming about Jung Daehyun, sure how random would that be? My phone buzzed once again but I ignored it, since it was the kind of buzz I would get from Facebook, which meant it wasn’t important. Or so I thought.

‘’Aerin? Aerin! Aerin wake up!’’ Someone shook me. I figured it was my mom but I was too sleepy to actually progress or care.

’’What is it? Five more minutes please...’’ I muttered into my pillow.

‘’Aerin wake up now. Your father was expecting you an hour ago!’’ She yelled frustrated. ‘’Don’t think of this job as a joke because your father happens to be your boss. Now get up!’’ She yelled one last time before she left my room, leaving me with a silence.

My eyes shot open. , why didn’t my alarm go off? I briefly looked at my phone and saw that my alarm wasn’t even on! I noticed some messages but I ignored it since I was late already.

I never prepared myself as fast as I did today. I quickly tied my hair into a ponytail and dressed myself in my skinny jeans, black Converse and white ‘convenient’ t-shirt. Yes, my father actually obligated me to wear that and yes the t-shirt literally said convenient right on my s. I rushed towards my bike and started cycling really hard.

‘’I’m here!’’ I panted when I entered the shop. The customers gave me this weird look so I slightly bowed to them mouthing a sorry.

‘’Good,’’ my father said, an amusing look in his eyes. ‘’I have enough of work for you to do, see it as your punishment.’’ He smirked by now and I predicted that it would be a long day.

Punishment was definitely an understatement. Never have I felt this exhausted from work before. I dropped myself on the couch the moment I got home. My mother chuckled, so did my father when he entered a little while after me.

‘’You didn’t go easy on her, did you?’’ my mother laughed amused. I rolled my eyes. They would always joke against me when together.

It was by far the toughest day in my whole working career and I have been working ever since I was sixteen. It didn’t help that I had tons of homework to do too. The only thing I was thankful for was that the hours had flown by rather quickly. It had been the usual workday though - except that it had been harder. I had seen some of my schoolmates. The store was located nearby the school after all, so students who lived nearby would buy some of their groceries at my dad’s shop. I remember how I used to feel so embarrassed whenever I would run into a familiar face. Especially with that t-shirt on. Now I’ve come to accept it though.

I hadn’t touched my phone the whole day I realized as I felt it poke through the fiber of my jeans. I guess it proved how engrossed I had been in the work my dad made me do. After all, I would never not pay attention to my phone. I decided to look at it whenever I was done with the loads of homework I still got to do. My phone was a great distraction after all.

It took me three hours to finish all of the week assignments. Or at least the ones I knew about right now. There would come more throughout the week, I was sure of that. I got my phone out, rewarding myself for the hard effort I put in today. I had two messages and one Facebook notification. One message was from Soojin, the other from Chaerin. I clicked on Soojin’s first.

Soojin: Hi! I don’t get the English assignment at all, help pls? :(

Aerin: Sure

Aerin: Where lies the problem?

Soojin: I'm not sure

I sighed, Soojin just wanted me to send her the answers. It was always like this. She was convenient in copying notes though so the teacher would never notice her copied work. She would change the answers in a very different way for example, almost to the point where I wouldn’t recognize it as my own work anymore.

Aerin You know what? I’ll send you my answers :)

Soojin: You’re the best! (:

And with that our conversation had ended. I opened Chaerin’s message. It was a funny meme photo, nothing more. It made me laugh for a good couple of seconds. The message didn’t really need a response though.

As I strolled towards my laptop I realized that I was way being too nice. A sigh escaped my mouth, thinking about how usual this routine had become. It really annoyed me to do this so often but I just wasn’t the type to nag. I rather kept everything to myself and tried to be as nice as possible.

After I’ve had done what I promised I dug into my bed again. I sure hoped Facebook would bring me something more interesting otherwise I would just sleep early. I scanned through the feeds of the other students and found out quite a lot of them were going to this party I was invited to earlier. I made a mental note that I should ask Chaerin about it. She was the social butterfly after all. My eyes caught the red ‘1’ notification and I remembered that I had seen it quickly before rushing to work. It meant that I had a friend request and I got quite surprised when I found out that the request was from none other than Jung Daehyun.

I opened his profile in curiosity. He didn’t have that much feeds of his own but he was tagged a lot, mostly by girls and mostly in photos. A lot of them were from Choi Yuna. They hung out often? I didn’t know, because I hardly paid attention to them. I scrolled through his feeds. He seemed like quite the party animal. I even saw some photo’s where he looked drunk. Bad boy.

It was weird that his profile didn’t match the thoughts I had about the Daehyun I thought to know. Sure he had this bad boy aura so somewhere I wasn’t surprised about these photos but still I didn’t imagine him like the type to stroll down party after party. I clicked on this photo of him with Choi Yuna. It was from some months ago around August. Her arm slung around his neck and she laughed happily, Daehyun smirked. I looked at the likes and got really surprised. It had about seventy of them! For me, that was a lot since the highest I got was around twenty and that was if I would post a photo regarding my grades. Not an actual photo of myself. My curiosity got the better of me and so I started to check the comments. There were three: hearteyes, that was some night ^^! and the last one from Yoo Youngjae: ^^

I scrolled some more before I noticed how much of a stalker I was actually being. I was at the feeds from a year ago, which was very stalker like. I accepted his friend request. It resulted in me seeing all of his feeds. Now I could see that he posted things once in a while. I also noticed how he was about to go to this party from earlier. Through Daehyun I came across Bang Yongguk’s Facebook. My curiosity got the better of me again and before I knew it I was scrolling through his feeds too. His Facebook wasn’t set private, I figured, because I could see a lot of posts from him. It was mostly art, fascinating quotes and photographs of random people. Hardly any pictures of himself. I was actually amazed when I saw a message on his wall from Chaerin. She had send him a black and white photograph with the words Check this one out! I knew Chaerin had this weak spot for black and white photography so it wasn’t that weird. She was clever for using that interest to interest him. Through Bang Yongguk’s Facebook I came across the rest of his friends I had seen that day at Jea’s. One of them I didn’t know of was apparently called Choi Junhong but nicknamed Zelo. I ‘researched’ the group of friends more before I realized I was really crossing the line of a stalker here. And so locked my phone. I felt really tired and the drowsiness was starting to kick in too. I snuggled into my blanket, set my alarm - before I would forget it again - and fell in a deep slumber.

A yawn escaped my mouth as I waited in the queue for the cafeteria food. Chaerin and Jea weren’t here yet so I thought about getting them something too, since it was kind of crowded in here right now. I hated it when they weren’t here yet. I hated it to be alone in crowded places, I would feel like a loner. It was weird, but I really couldn’t stand it. I got my phone out of my pocket to send them both a message to ask them about their whereabouts. We had this groups chat so it was more convenient to leave the message in there. Both would see it that way.

Aerin: Where are you guys

Aerin: I’m already going to get the food for us

I got no quick reply so I put my phone back in the pocket of my coat. I sighed, for both the wait for the food and the wait for my friends to arrive. My eyes wandered all over the place and for the first time I clearly noticed Daehyun’s table. It wasn’t like I’ve never seen him sitting there, because I did, but I noticed that I only took notice of him now, real notice. I, for example, took notice of his friends sitting at this table nearby the entry of the cafeteria and I found it amazing that it had never clicked that Daehyun and Himchan were friends - before I figured out at Jea's - and spend lunch break together.

It was finally my turn to order and after that I made my way to our usual spot. I sat there for a good couple of minutes, with three plates, when I noticed Chaerin and Jea entering the cafeteria. They headed towards Daehyun’s table though, which left me frowning. Jea seemed to be talking to Himchan about something while Chaerin would just stand there smiling and being pretty for Bang Yongguk. I saw the latter make a come sit here motion to Chaerin. She smiled shyly before mouthing something before she pointed towards my direction. The whole table turned their heads to check where Chaerin was pointing towards, which was me. I laughed sheepishly before turning my attention to my plate. It was awkward to take all of those stares.

Jea and Chaerin made their way towards me and I was glad that Chaerin had declined Bang Yongguk’s offer for me. I knew how much she wanted to sit with him. She, however, knew how much I hated sitting alone. Plus I had already bought food for them so it was only fair to decline.

‘’That took you guys long enough,’’ I said as the both of them were settling down.

‘’Yea, we had PE,’’ Chaerin simply answered. I shoved their plates towards their direction. They thanked me with a bright smile.

‘’You have PE with Bang Yongguk and Daehyun right? How come they were here this early then?’’ I asked with furrowed brows.

‘’Don’t call him by his surname it’s so distant for my soon to be boyfriend, you call Daehyun without surname too right?’’ Chaerin joked. She was right, I wasn’t calling Daehyun by his surname. Maybe because I slightly knew him, in contrast to Bang Yongguk, or Yongguk should I say now. ‘’I don’t have PE with Yongguk anymore, it was once remember? And regarding Daehyun, guys are quick with dressing up I guess. I really needed to fix my hair. It looked like a mess!’’

‘’Her hair was just fine. She just wanted it to be perfect for Yongguk,’’ Jea teased with a playful roll of the eyes.

We all started to laugh. I’ve thought and said it many times but Kim Chaerin was crazy. You need crazy friends though, to make your life more fun when it’s actually pretty dull.

‘’What is going on with this party I saw on Facebook,’’ Jea asked all of a sudden, her attention on Chaerin. She must know the answer.

‘’It’s this house party thrown by… what was his name again? He is in your class Aerin,’’ she as she thought very hard. Jea and I both looked at her with a confused expression. ‘’You know that handsome guy! What was his name again…’’ she tried again.

‘’Nam Joonhyun?’’ I tried. She in turn made a disgusted face. ‘’No not him! You find him handsome?’’ She asked in disbelieve. I shrugged, he wasn’t that bad…

‘’Kim Seokjin! Jin! That’s the guy!’’ She seemed very proud to recall his name. ‘’Anyway he is throwing this party next week, his parents are going overseas for business apparently. It’s on Friday. I heard a lot of people are attending. We should go too!’’

Jea seemed excited to go. I, however wasn’t very fond of parties such as these. It could be fun whenever you would actually be there. But deciding what to wear and figuring out how to go there was very tiring which resulted in me declining often. Chaerin and Jea attended a lot of parties so I got the inside scoop from them most of the time.

Apparently it could be read of my face that I didn’t feel like attending this party. ‘’Oh come on Aerin!’’ Jea nagged. ‘’You should go out more often, you know meet some nice boys too maybe!’’ What was this obsession with boys? I didn’t get it.

‘’Hmm,’’ I hummed unsurely.

‘’Please!’’ both Jea and Chaerin looked at me with those puppy eyes. I just couldn’t say no to those eyes.

‘’Alright, but only if you guys tell me what to wear and stuff. Oh yeah and don’t leave me alone!’’

They both nodded excitedly. ‘’Done!’’

That afternoon it was decided that I would attend Kim Seokjin's party.

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