Chapter 27

Normal POV

“If you’re willing to get involved in her problems then protect her till the very end. That means staying by her side, no matter what, Yuri.”

Yuri paused at his teacher’s words. He kept still to think about what was said to him. One of the things he never understood was how people take their time to look into others’ life when they, themselves do not have everything figured out in their own.

“Jessica is not that fragile. If anything, I’m the one who needs her to stay with me.” Yuri says as he turns himself around to face Sun Hee again.

“…After what I’ve told her about me, I’m appalled that she has the mental stability to deal with me and even going as far as helping me. And it really is stupid for the people around here to talk about her like they know everything because I don’t but even I know that there is absolutely no way for her to be a bad person. That’s a lot to say, especially coming from a person like me who never sees anything good about anything. Ever.” Yuri continued.

This was what Sun Hee was waiting for and after hearing what Yuri had to say she was more than convinced about the way he felt about Yuri. He was a genuine person of goodness, she thought. Sun Hee knew that there were no other words needed following what she had heard and so she just kept silent and let Yuri go back inside the room.

Jessica was still answering her quiz when Yuri got back. Like the latter, Sun Hee also went back to her table and sat down. She took out her pen and decided to check Yuri’s paper. All of Yuri’s answer were on point although she wasn’t surprised that Yuri did well on the quiz, she still felt proud. After all, Yuri was still her student. Time passed and one by one, Sun Hee’s class started passing their papers. When everyone was done she let the whole class discuss with their partners about the specifics of the sky lantern they were to make for the culture festival.

Each person started to go to their partners to talk while Yuri was completely ignorant about the things that were happening inside the classroom after he sat back down. His eyes were fixated on the view of the buildings that the windows allowed him to see. There was absolutely nothing interesting to see and at some point he started to drift as far as his mind allowed him to.

--

Jessica’s POV

Ms. Sun Hee allowed to us to talk amongst ourselves in light of the upcoming culture festival. Everyone started to approach their respective partners for the sky-lantern making project. I looked at the back of classroom and saw Yuri not moving from his seat. He was looking at the windows or rather what was beyond the windows. There’s really not much to see but the other buildings of Whimoon. I guess it’s one of his eccentric habits.

I stood up from my seat and went at the back to where Yuri was. When I reached his place at the back, I sat myself down at the empty chair beside him. He didn’t look at me but instead kept his eyes on the same direction he had before I got beside him. He wore his usual expression of absolute nothingness. The more I look at him, the more I find myself wanting to know what goes on in that head of his.

Kwon Yuri is smart, charming, eccentric and I could honestly go on but I’m not good with words but he is so add that the list of what makes my Kwon Yuri. The Kwon Yuri that I hopefully would know more about. I really want to help him get himself together. It’s one thing to be just existing but to be doing the same and not really knowing yourself, that’s just too much.

“Yuri?” I softy call his name. When he looks like this, it’s almost as if he doesn’t want to be disturbed but we really need to start talking about the lantern project. I slowly reach for his shoulder and to my surprise he actually let me put my hand on him. He shifted his gaze and turned it towards me. Yuri smiled but didn’t say anything. It was as if his eyes were asking me what I wanted. Yes, that’s how powerful his gaze was.

“Uhm… Hi... so uhh about the lantern project… we should probably start talking about the design we’ll do…” I said as I retracted my hand from his shoulder. I pursed my lips. I sounded so awkward and I don’t even know why.

Yuri nodded then asked “Do you have anything in mind?”

“Not really. Do you?” I returned the question. I’m not that versed in the arts department. I mean I’m decent but not really enough to be actually good at it. Hopefully, my so called skills wouldn’t pull down Yuri’s grade. This is a project after all so if I mess up he’ll suffer too.

Note to self: practice drawing!

While my thoughts scattered here and there, Yuri grabbed something from his bag and placed it on the table. It was a fairly large drawing notebook. There was one page sticking out from the corners. I figured it was something he tore from the notebook then just left it inside.

“We could plan out our design here.” Yuri says. He then noticed the paper sticking out from the corners and then his expression changed.

“Ah. I almost forgot….” Yuri carefully opens the notebook and frees the page that was sticking out and handed it over to me. I looked at it and instantly got stunned. It was a drawing of a girl standing near the school gate. Everything was captured perfectly, including the little details of the buildings of Whimoon and the trees. My eyes landed once again on the drawing of the girl. Her hair was slightly messy, I’m guessing it was windy that day when Yuri drew this. My eyes landed at the features of the girl herself. I stared at her long enough for me to realize that the girl wasn’t just anyone. It was me.

“I’ve been meaning to give you that but at some point I forgot all about it.” He says casually like this was just nothing, like this was the most casual thing anyone would give anyone. Besides being shocked by the fact that he took the time to draw me, the whole drawing itself caught me off guard.

Note to self: Add artistic to my list

“When was this?” I ask still staring down at this perfectly captured moment instilled inside a piece of paper.

“When you asked for my number.” He replied, still maintaining that casual tone. For a second or two, I got stuck reliving that moment, that extremely embarrassing moment. I don’t know why I asked for his number that day. Asking some guy’s number isn’t really my thing. Actually, asking anyone’s number is not my thing. I only have 3 people on my contact list who aren’t related to me. Tiffany being the first one,Yuri being the second and Taeyeon being the last one. She asked for my number this morning because she wanted to hang out sometime next week. Going back to Yuri, when we first talked, I felt this different vibe from him. And staying true to that vibe, Kwon Yuri is indeed different. He’s one of a kind really.

“This is really beautiful. Thank you.”  I turned to look at him and smiled. This is by far the most unique thing anyone has ever given me.

I set aside his drawing and instead focused on the notebook he brought out earlier. Yuri flipped through its pages. Inside those pages were more drawings while other pages had words written on them. I don’t know what he wrote down since I didn’t really get a good look at them. I wonder if this notebook acts as his diary of some sort.

Yuri turned more pages until he reached the next empty ones. He laid down the notebook once again in front of me and brought out his own mechanical pencil and like the former, placed it down as well.

“Ladies first.” He says as he turned his body towards me and propped himself on his elbow with his hand placed under his chin.

“After seeing your work, anything I could possibly make would be trash next to yours.” I said in an attempt to save myself from future embarrassment.

“I’m not asking you to draw. Well, not yet at least. I was planning to jot down our ideas then decide from there.” Of course that’s what he meant. What the hell was I thinking? Get it together, Jessica Jung.

“Right. I knew that.” I whispered to the thick air of shame that enveloped me.

He continued to wordlessly stare at me with this slight smile on his face. I chose to realign myself towards the goal here and not get distracted by this guy’s antics. I picked up his pencil and wrote down the first things that came to my mind which are basically things that I like.

IDEAS

1. Music
2. Night Sky
3. Skyscrapers
4. Books
5. Flowers

I stopped writing at number 5 and pushed the notebook towards him. He looked at it and gave me a nod.

“Interesting top 5, Ms. Jung.” Yuri says again in this casual tone that I’m starting to like. This laid back feel in his voice is quite nice to the ears, well my ears. I gave him his pencil back and then he starts writing his own ideas. While he thought about his, my eyes wandered around the room. As expected some had their eyes on us while others diligently did what we were supposed to do. While I looked around, I saw Taecyeon staring back at me or was he looking at Yuri? I’m not really sure but the general idea is he was looking towards our direction. He didn’t seem to notice that I was looking at him as well so I just shrugged it off and checked back on Yuri. He was just finishing up when I got back to him. Yuri slid back his notebook to me and I read what he wrote.

1. Music (didn’t copy this from you, I happen to really like music as well)
2. Ocean waves
3. Tall trees
4. Books (Still didn’t copy this from you)
5. Jessica Jung

I got confused seeing my name so naturally I asked him about it.

“Care to explain, Mr. Kwon?” I asked pointing at where my name was written

“I wrote the things I like. That’s what you wrote too right?” Yuri bluntly said

For the nth time, his words got to me. I don’t think I have ever met anyone who makes simple words like “I like you” sound so refreshing and new even though they’re just another set of common words anyone can say to anyone. Somehow in his own way, Kwon Yuri makes me feel like I’m the only one who can hear those words from him.

“Too bad you’re not in my list.” I decided to play along even though right at that moment my insides melted and turned into this puddle of feelings that I can’t quite describe.

“I’ll work on that later. For now we should decide what to do.” He gives me a smile then continued “Since we both listed music as number one, how do you feel about doing a music themed lantern?”

The idea made sense so I agreed then soon after we started talking more about how we want it to look like. Our ideas complemented each other almost like it was the most natural thing for us to work together. The whole thing wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I had this feeling before that we would have a hard time because I didn’t think Yuri would like the things I had in mind but again I was wrong.

“I don’t have field trainings for the rest of the week. We can do this whenever you’re free.”

“After school’s fine for me and uhm if you’re okay with it, we could do it at my place.” I suggested.

I didn’t intend to sound weird but I did. Well at least to me, I did. I’ve never invited anyone except Tiffany to our place but she’s already like family to me and Kris so technically she doesn’t count. So I guess I’ve never really invited anyone to our place, let alone a boy. Not just any boy but this boy right beside me whom I have very complicated feelings for. This shouldn’t end without me embarrassing myself in front of him. If I’m already claiming it this early then something should definitely happen.

Yuri nods in agreement then says “Only if Kris is okay with it.”

There he goes again. He has this thing about Kris. It’s like he’s scared of him but even I know that’s not it. I wonder why. I’ll never know if I don’t ask right?

“Are you like...uhm…scared of Kris or something?”

“No but seeing that you’re important to him and he’s important to you too, it would be better if I get on his good side don’t you think?”

I look away from his eyes and looked for my cousin. He was sitting at the middle row beside his partner. Kris is an easy guy to get along with. Despite his cold front, he’s surprisingly all warm and nice. Kris had a lot of friends back in Daewon and he left all that for me. It’d be a lie if I said that I didn’t care about Kris’ opinion about Yuri, if anything his is one of the most important to me. That’s why I’m hoping from the bottom of my heart that Yuri and Kris get along because if I had to choose I don’t think I’ll ever have the heart to betray Kris.

“Kris gets along with everybody pretty well.” I say turning my attention back to him

“I see that but I don’t think he has a taste for crazy people like me.” The word crazy slipped out from his lips so easily that anyone who heard it would really believe him.

“So… you’re saying I have a taste for crazy people?”

“Well you were the one who talked to me first and even after finding out certain things, you’re still here, talking to me as if I’m normal.”

Yuri’s different but that doesn’t mean he’s not normal. I wish he could see himself like that.

“You’re normal, Yuri, just different like how everybody is different.”

Yuri’s eyes grew soft and I saw what I think is a hint of sadness.

“You might want to save that. At least until I tell you everything.” He says his voice sounding firm and serious, all of a sudden, leaving no trace of the ‘casual’ voice I just started to like.

--

Normal POV

Whimoon’s bell rang signaling the start of their break. As per usual, Yuri left the room before anyone else could. As he walked along the hall, he grabbed his phone and sent a text to Jessica.

To: Uncoordinated Jung

Let’s talk later. After school, if that’s okay with you. I’ll be under the oak tree if you need me.

After sending the text, Yuri went on his way. Meanwhile, Jessica had just told Taeyeon that she won’t be joining them for lunch. She had another activity on mind. Jessica went through the halls as quickly as she can. Eventually she got to where she wanted to be, the administration office. With her luck, she got there just in time before they close up for their lunch break.

“May I help you?” one of the personnel said, a woman to be specific.

Jessica didn’t say anything for a good minute or two. First of all, she didn’t know what to say. She wanted to gain access to Whimoon’s student database to scroll through and find the mysterious girl she saw yesterday. There wasn’t exactly a good reason for the woman to give her that access but she had to try.

“Uhm… you see I bumped into this girl yesterday and we got our notebooks switched. Hers doesn’t have a name on it so I was wondering if I could take a look at the database to get her name. I remember her face pretty well.” Jessica tried her to sound as convincing as she could to avoid any suspicion.

“Well that’s gonna be hard. Do you at least know her year-level?”

“I think she’s a senior like me. I bumped into her near my classroom.” Jessica wasn’t really sure of this. For all she knew, that girl could be in the year below her but she had feeling that they were in the same year level. If she really knows everything about Jessica’s incident then there’s more chances that they were in the same level.

The woman nodded and went to the back the office. Jessica stood there for a couple of minutes before the woman appeared again, this time with a metal ring bind book in hand.

“I can’t give you access to the database since those have sensitive information but I can give you this. It has the pictures and names of the senior students. It’s format guide for the year book. When you’re done just leave it there on the table.” The woman then handed over the ring bind book to Jessica and went back inside her office to start her lunch break.

Jessica sat down on one of the couches and laid down the book on the coffee table in front of her. She began to skim through each senior student of Whimoon. She recognized faces here and there but they weren’t the one she was looking for. Jessica was about halfway through with the book when she finally saw the mysterious girl’s picture. She paused for a second to get a good look at the girl’s face. Something she wasn’t able to do when they had their encounter yesterday. The first thing you’ll notice is her big round eyes. It’ll draw you in much like a spell casted by a person of magic. Her cheeks are greatly pronounced. Her nose isn’t sharp or pointy but it wasn’t flat either, it was somewhere in the middle. The corners of formed a small toothless smile for the picture. If you stared at it long enough, you’ll start to think her smile was unnatural and somewhat forced.

“Park Choa…” Jessica says as she traces the name under the picture with her index finger.

Jessica repeated the name mentally, hoping something in her would be triggered but nothing happened. Park Choa was a stranger to Jessica but not entirely. She held a vital piece of her past, a piece that explained why Jessica was the way she was now. A piece that was never meant to be shared to anyone without her ever knowing.

After getting what she came there for, Jessica left the admin. office and wandered around the campus. All that’s left is for her to find her. Whimoon was a big school, lunch break wouldn’t be enough for Jessica to cover every inch of this school. She then decided to go to the canteen and ask Taeyeon about this girl. She was the only one Jessica could rely on.

“Jess! You should get lunch! They’re serving this awesome bimbimbap specia!” Kris said as she saw Jessica approach their table.

“Oh hey. Changed your mind?” Taeyeon greeted Jessica. The rest of the gang were stuffing their mouths with today’s lunch. It was a special one after all.

“Uhm no. I’m not hungry anyways. I actually came here to ask you something.” Jessica starts off as she sat down on free spot next to Taeyeon.

“Yeah? Go ahead!” Taeyeon smiled at Jessica and waited for her question.

“Uhm… do you know Park Choa?” Jessica’s voice was toned down, making sure that it was only audible to Taeyeon.

Taeyeon’s expression changed, the minute she heard the name. Yes, she was familiar with her. Everyone in Whimoon knows who Park Choa is. Everyone.

“Yeah. What about her?” Taeyeon was more curious as to why Jessica, a new student, would be concerned with Park Choa.

“Do you know where I could find her?” Being too focused on finding this girl, Jessica failed to notice the uncomfortableness painted across Taeyeon’s face at the mention of this name.

“Can I ask why you’re trying to find her?”

“We kind of bumped into each other yesterday and we got our notebooks switched.” Jessica lied again for the second time today.

“You can just ask Ms. Sun Hee to give the notebook to her. She handles all the seniors anyway.” Taeyeon suggested.

By this time, the anxiousness on Taeyeon’s face was too hard to hide anymore. Jessica was able to catch on. She realized that the only way to get Taeyeon to speak was to tell her the truth.

“Can we talk outside?” Taeyeon was stunned by Jessica’s request but nevertheless she followed her out of the canteen.

“Taeyeon… I really need to find this girl, okay? She may or may not have some sort of connection to Yuri’s fainting incident.” Jessica pleaded with her voice. At the back of her mind, she didn’t quite understand why Taeyeon acted strange when she mentioned Park Choa but that wasn’t her concern. At least not at that moment.

Taeyeon heaved a sigh and took a good hard look at Jessica. She saw how important this was for Jessica. Jessica cares about Yuri a lot, Taeyeon realized.

“Okay but at least let me come with you? Choa is not really that sociable and several other things could happen… so promise me you’ll let me go with you?” Taeyeon wasn’t gonna take no for answer. It was either Jessica brought her along or she wouldn’t say a word.

“What do you mean other things could happen?”

Taeyeon bit her lip and contemplated on whether to tell Jessica the surrounding stories around the name of Park Choa. In the end she gave up and told Jessica everything. Everything about the name Park Choa and why everyone knows her.

“It was around the end of the first term when Choa had a mental breakdown. She wasn’t always like that. She had a lot of friends and she was practically a walking cloud of happiness. No one knows what happened but one day she went up to the bell tower and stood over the edge. Everyone watched her from the ground. No one dared to go up and get her because she threatened to jump if anyone did. And she almost did, you know? She could’ve died that day… if it wasn’t for…” Taeyeon trailed. It was a really heavy memory to recall, that particular day. Especially when another person was involved, someone who Taeyeon considered as a friend.

Jessica waited for Taeyeon to continue and when she did, she understood why Taeyeon was hesitant to tell her this story in the first place.

“If it wasn’t for Yuri. He was there before Choa and no one knows why either.”

--

Hello dear readers! Sorry for the wait! Life has been keeping me busy :( 

Sorry for the delay! 

Hehe the bell tower scene was supposed to be a rooftop scene but then again I read this book that involved bell towers and I couldn't get it out of my head so I decided to incorporate it here! Can you guys guess what book that is? 

Thank you to all the new (and old) subscribers! 

It's Yoona's birthday today so hooray! (It's also my birthday tomorrow) HAHA 

Anyways, go greet our doe-eyed girl, a happy birthday! 

Also tell me what you think about this update! 

Till the next update! PEACE! -ymllama