2 - The neighbors

“…to get to St Paul’s Cathedral, turn left at the corner of Queen Victoria Street, and walk straight ahead on the Friday Street and voilà, St Paul’s Cathedral is right before your nose. As long as you’re not retarded, you shouldn’t be able to miss it, dude.”

Sunny was really impressed. She was totally mesmerized by the boy’s pronunciation; it was so perfect, faultless and so… British. But how could the be so amazingly great in English, outshining the rest of the class? Sunny wondered in amazement as her eyes followed the tall and lean boy who walked casually back to his seat.

What was his name again? Sunny couldn’t remember; two school weeks weren’t enough for her to learn all the names.  The only name she could remember was her desk mate’s name, and some of the other girls’. She only remembered that the boy used to be in prison, has a tattoo on his back… oh and that he likes, no, loves girls.

She glanced at the girl sitting next to her, and her eyes grew wide at the girl’s expression. Why was Jessica pouting? It almost seemed like her desk mate was rather irritated, with her narrowed eyes and compressed lips. Oh, she must have been jealous of that boy’s talent in language, and Sunny couldn’t agree more, that boy really had something to be jealous of.

Mmm… Jessica must be really competitive, Sunny figured as she glanced once again at her class mate.

“Lee Sunny!” she heard the English teacher, Mr Johnson, calling her and she abruptly stood up.

“Yes, Mrs Johnson?” she asked as she looked timidly down, although she knew what she wanted.

“Come to the front please… so, I want to get to the Big Ben from London Film Museum, could you help me find the place, please?” Mrs Johnson asked and Sunny looked down at the map.

“Yes, I c-can. You takes buses to… ah, no, sorry mister oh no, miss, I w-was w-wrong.” she said as she nervously shook her head and looked at the map.

The teacher asked about the Big Ben, so why was she looking at the complete opposite side of the map? At the moment, she really wanted to disappear, this was so humiliating, she was sure about that everyone could see how much her entire body shook and she hated her pronunciation at the moment. She was so much better than this so why did she have to fail so miserably the very first time she ever talked English in front of her new class?

“Let me tries again. You going over the bridge and the Big Ben is in front of you.” She explained as fast as she could and hoped the teacher wouldn’t want a more detailed description.

“Alright, thank you, you can go back to your seat Miss Lee, but remember the next time that a married lady is a missis, M-r-s, ‘kay?” Mrs Johnson asked as she smiled reassuringly at the girl.

“Yes, yes, sorry Mrs Johnson, yes.” Sunny nodded and bowed shyly before she almost-sprinted back to her desk.

Ahh, this must have been the worst day of her life! She really hated how much Korean she just sounded, and now the whole class must have thought that she in English! How could the bad boy be so much better than her?

“Okay, now, we will have a miniproject. You together with your desk mate will choose a country that you will do a 5 minutes presentation of orally in front of the class. I give you two lessons to get information and practice, so next Tuesday is the presentation.” Mrs Johnson told the class.

“Great which country do you wanna take?” Jessica asked with a friendly smile.

“I don’t know… maybe Japan? Or China? India?” Sunny taught worriedly, she really didn’t want to decide which country. She was afraid she would choose a bad country that Jessica didn’t want, or that she would choose a nerd country.

“Nah, let us take a country we know nothing about.” Jessica suggested while looking at the world’s atlas. “We can’t take Sweden ‘cause Jae will probably take that.” She said thoughtfully and Sunny looked at her weirdly.

“How do you know that?”

“Oh, I know everything about him, we live in the same building, don’t you remember?”

“Yeah but why Sweden?”

“Jae has a for European music and one of his favorite bands ABBA come from Sweden so that’s why his favorite country is also Sweden.” Jessica explained. Sunny listened in amazement. So Jaejoong had a nerd side of him. She would never have guessed.

“Wow, you do know a lot about him.”

“Yeah, we live in the same building. Let’s take Norway.”

She ran after Jessica, the boxing girl seemed furious, so mad! The young girl didn’t really understand why. Sure, the bad boy vomiting in front of the school is bad but not as much as she reacted.

“Damn idiot Jae, I only asked one thing from you, one thing! Why couldn’t you respect it, huh? Why? I am so not going to take care of you. I mean, look at you!” she heard her shouting from the boys changing room. Omo, did she really walk in there? Should I go after her? To the boys room?

“Do you even understand what I’m saying Jae? Do you?” I heard her ask as I went in. I quietly watched her wash the boy’s face at a sink. He looked completely lost, like he wasn’t conscious of what was going on but his eyes were open.

“I know… leave me alone… I never asked you to do this, did I Jung Jessica, dear neighbor? F*uck off, I don’t need your help!” his weak voice said as he tried to push her away.

I almost felt sorry for the boy. I have never seen a drunken person before and I was surprised of how he looked. He, who always looked so tough and strong, was suddenly gone, replaced by this kid who tried to say those harsh words that didn’t convince anyone. The bad boy really was an interesting person… womanizer, nerd, drunkard… there were so many sides of him.

“Oh so now you’re giving me this ? Fine, Kim Jaejoong, neighbor, you can just rot here, in your own puke!” she said while she gave up the fight and turned around to leave.

“Sunny…” she looked frightened she discovered me standing behind her. “…don’t tell anyone, ok? I don’t want him to get expelled because of being drunk in school!” she asked me with pleading eyes before she kicked harshly into the boy’s body.

“Yes, of course, he just had a tough day.” I said although I didn’t know where the words came from. Tough day? I must have watched too many dramas.

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Here's the second chapter! Thank you so much for reading :) feel free to comment, i'd love to read about your opinions :)

shih-na and Kyusun: thanks for commenting and it's finally posted!