“Hey!”

Jinri called me one day when I was sitting on a bench during break, secretly admiring Howon playing football with other classmates. He was good at every sports, but he’s the best in running, no one could beat him except Choi Minho.

“What are you looking at?”

Jinri sat down beside me, eyeing toward the boys’ direction.

“Ooooh! Don’t tell me you’re watching them! Are you interested in anyone?”

“No I didn’t, just got bored from reading this book so I looked up a bit.”

I lied, I felt bad for lying and I really wanted to tell her, I badly needed someone to share this silly crush secret with, but I was nowhere near Howon, I would just end up being a joke if anyone knew .

“So.. what did you call me for?”

I quickly changed subject.

“Ah!”

Jinri clapped her hands, as if remembered something.

“Just heard from our teachers, I was passing by the cafeteria and eavesdropped their conversation. Apparently, they are planning to make a school trip, it will be 2 days 1 night. I’m so excited Ara, have you ever heard about high school school trip?”

She looked at me excitedly, seeing my dumbfound face, she continued.

“Never mind, of course a bookworm like you don’t waste time for these kinds of things, but I will surely go, and you should to, Ara. It’s a great opportunity to make friends, you can even have some romantic moments.”

“Romantic?”

“Yes! Can’t you imagine it? We have a whole night without parents, without worrying if it’s time to go home, we are totally free to do whatever we want to..”

“You forgot teachers.”

I reminded her but Jinri just knocked my forehead with her knuckles.

“Babo, there’re only 10 or a bit more of them, and over 100 hundreds of us, if we want, we will have a way to sneak out. Think about it, we, and some boys out in the night, silently watch the moon and share things, isn’t it great?”

Jinri stopped and looked at me hopefully.

“You will go with me, right? Right?”

“I don’t know, I will think about it, beside I still have to ask my parents first.”

“You are no fun Ara, but if your parents allow, you must go.”

I just smiled, she always said I was no fun but she never left me.

I continued keeping my 1^st place in class and in top 10 of school in every month, all classmates knew me, even though I was not close to them, they often came to ask me to help with their homeworks. However, I think being the best student was some kind of wall distanced me from the others, except Jinri also. In my 12^th grade, when I became a part of popular group - I will tell you the reason why and how I turned from a bookworm to a popular kid later – Eunji said our classmates didn’t want to get close to me because I was too excellent, and they thought I would look down on them if they made mistakes, or if they asked some questions that I thought were too stupid.

Now that I think about it, I find it funny, we were all lack of self confidence . I had complex thinking I was not pretty enough to play with them. Meanwhile they thought I was too smart, too intelligent so it made them feel stupid. While I think “I’m not good enough for him”, others think the same for me.

Back to the school trip, Jinri was right. As a reward for our good results in the past few moths, the pricipal decided to give all 10^th grade students a trip to relax before our mid-term test.

To my surprise, my parents agreed immediately cause they wanted me to have fun and make more friends. They knew Jinri, and they also knew she was the only friend I have, despite I had been in high school for 4 months. So I joined the school trip, and found out that all of my class would go. That meant Howon did too.

Despite being not too much interested when Jinri first told me about this trip, now I was one of the most excited students, cause had a reason to look forward to it. I didn’t have much chances to talk to Howon, except those brief "hi" everyday.

But every night before drifting to dream land, I laid in bed, dreaming of me and Howon, sitting together under the moonlight.

I was completely foolish, I knew he had a girlfriend but I couldn’t stop myself from having a fantasy dream over him. Wasn’t in any dramas, the male leads always had girlfriends, even fiancees, but when they found the right girls who had good heart and pretty, they would fall for her?

I was not pretty, but I still had chance to make Howon know I was a good girl. Didn’t Jinri say his girlfriend wasn’t beautiful, and that everybody thought he could do so much better? Howon was not a boy who only looked at girls’ faces, he looked at their hearts. And that way, I dreamt of a chance with him.

Mid December, 2006

There were 30 students, all from my class and 1 teacher on that bus to Hongdae beach, where we had our camp for 2 days and 1 night.

As usual, I sat with Jinri, the atmosphere was extremely excited, we laughed, sang and played small games. For the first time in my life, I felt truly happy and found that my classmates were adorable. I saw no nerd, no cool kid, all were just kids excited for the trip ahead.

That day, I lost a game and had to receive a purnishment which earned a huge laugh from my classmates, but I was not sad nor felt embarrased, cause while wriggling my body to mimick a snake, I saw Howon's eyes on me when he smiled. Cause that moment I realized, maybe, he liked me a little more than just a random classmate whom he greeted in hallway.