2009 . 01 . 05 – 12:05PM

“Dude, can you focus, please?  I’m desperate here.”

If daydreaming became a common epidemic across teenagers, Amber was one to agree with it.  She blinked twice before coming back to reality and looked to her friend, who was looking up at her with a hopeful look.  It was one of those days where Amber decided to spend some of her time during lunch to help out her friend with his homework.

She looked down at the answer in his notebook that was laid out in front of her.  She smiled.  “Good job, Jay.  You got it.”

Jay grinned to himself and nodded.  He gave out a loud sigh and closed his notebook followed by putting it back into his school bag.  He stretched.  "Thanks. I can never understand Choi when she explains it.  I still don't see why you're in a senior class for math."

"How?  She's one of the best math teachers here.  And I don't know why, actually — I just like numbers, haha."

"To me she isn't; feeling like I'm getting murdered slowly by trigonometry."

Amber chuckled and also put her books inside her bag.  "Wait til’ you get to pre-calculus; that'll be a joyride." 

Jay shuddered at the thought.  He wasn't one to dwell on his hatred for numbers, formulas, triangles that didn't need-to-be-proven when it sure looked like a three-sided-figure, and variables for so long.  He stood up.  “Let’s go to lunch.  The others are probably looking for us and I’m starving.”  Without much of a debate, Amber got up and they walked to the librarian sitting calmly at her desk. 

Another day, another pass needed to walk the halls of Korea Kent Foreign School without getting in trouble. 

"How's trainin' been for ya?" Jay asked as they headed towards the lunchroom quickly breaking Amber’s thoughts.

"Fine," the tomboy replied, not much emotion shown.  Continuing to saunter through the silent hallway that signified classes in session and another lunch period going on, Amber stifled a yawn as she took out her iPod.  She stuck the earphones under her grey Element hooded sweater and made it come out through the collar, putting one earphone in the left ear.  Despite all the things the semi-dictators have said to their students, Amber and her friends didn't necessarily care about having "forbidden electronic devices" out in the open.  They were too sly in knowing how to hide it, and they knew what to do in situations they caught themselves in.  

"Headphones off." Amber rolled her eyes at the statement made by a teacher that passed them as they reached the cafeteria.  She took the headphone out and allowed it to dangle with the other.  

Jay laughed and shook his head.  "Good going, dufus."

"Whatever, Janus," she emphasized sarcastically, causing the latter to scrunch his lips from hearing his full first name being used. 

That's how it's always been with the two of them.  Sure, some may have seen it as a bit of a harsh friendship, but Jay treated Amber as a little sister he never had.  Amber could say the same.  She was jealous of him for having a Greek god name, Janus; the god of openings, beginnings, endings, closings, doors, etc.  It went well with his name, too; Janus Park Jintae.  Then again, Amber liked things simple, so it was best for her to just stick to the things she was God given by hand in life — and she was alright with it.  He was taller than Amber, had short brown styled spikey hair that most of the K-Pop idols portrayed and wore black framed rectangle glasses.  Janus was the first person who befriended Amber when she first came to Kent; all because of being mistaken for a boy and wanting her to join the basketball team.

Once they got through the lunch aid standing at the entrance of the semi-big cafeteria, the pair found their friends at the table they usually sat at and went over to greet them.  They hugged and high-fived the girls and guys and gradually carried on a common group discussion: gossip. 

Of course, most of the, he said-she said events made Amber bored, especially in the mood that she was in — she didn't really care about what was happening.  She wanted to relax, wishing that training wasn't continuously rough as the debut stage of the group she was in neared.  She stuck both her headphones in her ears, completely forgetting about the sandwich she packed for lunch and the outside world.  She laid her head down on the table, forehead first, boosting the volume of the music.  

As Jay munched on his food and chatted with his friends, he noticed a familiar girl walking towards them. He nodded towards her and gave out a small smile, which the latter returned. 

"Amber," the girl called out as she tapped the tomboy.  Of course, Amber ignored it, thinking it was one of her stupid friends wanting to make a teasing joke about a girl in the school wanting to go out with her.  She always shook off the jokes her friends would press on her.  Amber wasn’t one to judge someone else’s uality—or to just someone in general for that matter.  Even if it did become a common nuisance to deal with, she just dealt with it; always giving the same answer and reacted the same way to the teasing.  She just didn’t have time for all of that.  And by “all of that”—she strongly insisted she means “dating.”

Jay laughed, along with the other friends who were watching.  "You know that she can't hear you, right?"

The girl tilted her head to the side and saw the earphones stuck in the older girls' ear sockets.  She released a chuckle-sigh and shook Amber harder, hoping that she would — at least — make some reaction.  Obliging to the girls' silent request, Amber looked up as she took out one of her headphones.  This better not be a teacher... ugh.  And to her surprise, it wasn't.  "Krystal?"

The girl with the delicate, jewel name, smiled and sat down next to Amber.  "Gosh, it's nice to see you, too," she joked. 

The tomboy chuckled.  "Sorry, but what are you doing here?  Aren't the eighth graders' lunch fifth period?"

"Looks like you didn't get the memo, dude," Eros, another good friend of Amber's, chimed in.  Eros Lee Jihoo; tall, broad shoulders — a typical Asian guy, from a first glance, who happened to dye his hair blonde.  She was jealous of how he was named after a Greek god, which was in fact, Cupid. But she loved him, just as much as she loved Janus and the rest of her "crew".  It was an interesting story to tell her friends; how her and Eros' friendship began.  Amber just happened to love Kingdom Hearts 2 and she told them that he strikingly resembled Roxas. 

"Do you really think Amber pays attention in class these days?" Erika, one of Amber's top-secret-hidden-undercover-lesbian friend, capered in with a light cackle.

Krystal pouted in disapproval at the bad fact she learned and glared at her best friend, to which, Amber rolled her eyes.  "I do pay attention in class; I just happened to fall asleep at the time of when Mr. Bates was lecturing on and on about how we're going to have so much fun reading some British literature," she lazily excused.  She made a face. "Does he honestly expect us to care about this when he knows that the proportion of teenagers at the age of fifteen to eighteen, tend to not give a fluff about anything, anymore?" Amber asked with a dallying hand ploying in the air, along with an eye brow raised.  The others chuckled. 

"Well, to cut in with your complaints, to which by the way — I've realized that it's a result of you not getting enough sleep," Krystal paused briefly and punched Amber in the arm with a giggle. "There are so many eighth graders now, so some of us were moved to the upper grade's lunch periods." She feigned an annoyed look and stared at the older girl. "Ironically, I'm stuck with you."

Amber gave out a small laugh and shook her head.  The others around the pair were enjoying the sight in front of them — thoughts creeping into their minds without notice or warning.

"Oh yeah, practice is canceled today, by the way," Krystal added.

"Why?" 

Krystal shrugged and looked around the lunch room.  It caught Amber's eye.  Who's she looking for?   "One of our instructors told me when I went to the building before school this morning to get something.  There's some accident leakage and they don't want to risk us getting hurt from any random explosion until it's fixed."

"Krys, who are you looking for?" Amber piped in, now switching her focus on the younger girl's wandering eyes.  Krystal slightly jumped from the sudden question and smiled as a cover up.  "Don't worry, Sherlock.  It's not what you think."  She finally met eyes with Amber.  "My friend likes this junior and she's too shy to talk to him.  So I'm looking for him so I can try and hook them up or something."

Amber scoffed.  "Since when you were Cupid?" 

Eros rolled his eyes at the acrid question that related to him.  Amber saw it and laughed, followed by Krystal.  "Never; but I'm only trying to help.  Hm, he's probably not here."

"Maybe I know him; his name?" the tomboy asked. 

Krystal thought for a minute, then scratched her head in embarrassment.  "I don't know, actually."

Amber shook her head, but couldn't help the smirk developing on her face.  Fail. 

"Anyways, I'm gonna go back to my friends.  You promised that we'd hang out, remember?" Krystal stood up and straightened herself out. 

Amber nodded and got up briefly to hug her friend a short goodbye.  "Yup, I'll pick you up at your locker."

“Alright; see you til’ then,” Krystal replied.  Amber sat back down and looked to the floor, releasing a sigh as she scratched the back of her neck.  “You guys can stop looking at me like that, now.”

“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Michelle, another addition to their group added with a stupid grin on her face.

“Why is it that, whenever Krystal and I have some type of interaction, all of you guys start to have weird accusations?”

“We can’t help it,” Nick answered.  He smiled and put his arm around Michelle, kissing her cheek.  Of course, Amber thought.  That couple over there always have creepy thoughts in their minds.  Amber scrunched her face at the sight.  She never really liked PDA.  “Go get a room, while you’re at it.”

Eros chuckled.  “I don’t get it, Amber.  Why won’t you just try and go for her?”

She blinked, feeling her annoyance level rise.  “Krystal isn’t even like that.  And how many times do I have to tell you that—“

“You don’t role that way,” some of them chorused with unnecessary hand motions.  Amber rolled her eyes.

“For now,” Erika cooed, which earned her a glare from the latter.

“Yo, you wanna chill later?” Jay called, not paying attention to the situation.  Amber shook her head.  “Didn’t you hear the conversation I had with Krystal earlier?  I’m hanging—“

“They’re going on a lovey dovey date,” Michelle teased, causing laughter to occur.  Amber groaned and flailed her arms at them.  “Will you guys just stop gnawing me about that?”

They all chuckled, some holding their hands up in mockery defense, finally stopping.  Amber could feel a grey hair form in her head.  She was alright when it came to the jiving, but when it went too far, especially on Krystal — she couldn’t bare with it for so long.  It was one of those moments where Amber didn’t know why her emotions got to the best of her.  She didn’t know why she got so angry easily when a situation like that happened.

Jay shook his head and transferred over to sit next to the dying victim.  He put his hand on her shoulder.  “Sorry, haha.  But hey, bring her.  The more the merrier, right?”

The tomboy looked to her friend, who apparently, couldn’t help but have a small, indecipherable grin on his face.  Amber knew that he wasn’t trying to go for Krystal — psh, knowing what everyone else knew, she was pretty sure that no one would try to go for the younger girl.  With everyone rambling on about how Amber and her looked so great together, Amber knew that they wouldn’t even think about touching her.  At all. 

She heaved a sigh.  “Why do I have the feeling that you’re going to do something?” Amber asked apathetically.

“Hm,” Jay feigned a thinking process.  He shrugged, “Women’s intuition, I suppose?”  He laughed at his not-so-funny-joke, and slapped Amber on the back playfully.  “Oh, lighten up, man.”

Amber raised an eye brow to the statement.  Him telling her to lighten up?  Lighten up to what?  The world is crumbling slowly in global warming, she’s barely passing in English, not to mention that Jay keeps complaining to her about not having a girlfriend and wanting her to hook him up with a senior, and he wants HER to lighten up?  He must be out of his mind.

She saw him smirk.  “It’s not like I’m gonna bite or anything.”

“Mhm… sure.”