2009 . 04 . 13 – 11:03am

A sigh was heard through the minimum chatter in the classroom as the teacher continued to lecture through his lesson plan.  Few students continued to pay attention to the lesson while the others dosed off into their own worlds or were talking amongst themselves at their desks in groups.  Given it was only 10 minutes left into the period, the teacher gave up in trying to capture everyone’s attention as he too was starting to feel spring fever.

Can this week go by any slower? the one who sighed thought.  She gave out another sigh as she continued to draw circles with her right index finger on her desk while leaning on her left palm, elbow on the desk.

“Krystal.”

The girl by the name wasn’t paying attention and continued to look blankly into whatever was in front of her without particularly seeing it.

“Krystal,” her friend said a little louder as she shook her arm.

Krystal blinked multiple times at the sudden touch and sat up straight looking straight at the perpetrator behind it. “What, Silvia?”

“The bell rung,” Silvia replied.

“Oh,” Krystal said.  She rushed to put her books into her bag and stood up and they started to walk out of the classroom.  They said goodbye to their teacher and was met with more noise from the hallway; students passing by and greeting one another.  She ran her fingers through her hair, moving the strands that was in her face away.  “I’m sorry.  I’m just—“

“A little out of it today?” Silvia asked, interrupting the girl’s poor statement.

Krystal nodded.  She shrugged, “I don’t know why, either.”

They reached Silvia’s locker and Krystal leaned against a locker next to her as she faced her best friend.  “Well, you have been doing a lot lately,” Silvia suggested.  She traded her math textbook for a history textbook which was for their next class.  Krystal already had her history textbook in her hand.  She began to fiddle her fingers around it.  “You just need sleep,” Silvia said with a smile as she closed her locker and locked it.

“Yeah, probably,” the other girl said.  She let out another sigh, another one of many which she had lost count on both hands.  She briefly looked down as they walked down the hall passing other students, completely ignoring a few bumps in the shoulders here and there and the loud jeers and greets all around her to friends who haven’t seen each other throughout the day; others who were just excited to go to lunch.  She and Silvia on the other hand had one more period to go.

“Hey, Joanne!” Silvia called out.

Krystal looked up and gave out the best smile she could to her friend, as well and the girl responded the same.  She closed her locker and walked towards her pair of friends.  Once she caught up to them, she turned back around and followed suit, the three of them walking to class.  Silvia began to talk about her weekend, letting Joanne catch up on the details Krystal had already known about.  She kept to herself, more than usual today and it began to frustrate her.  She couldn’t quite grip why she was in a flunk.  Maybe I’m getting my period.  She rolled her eyes to herself for the lame thought.  Her period ended a week ago, which obviously had slipped her mind.

“How was your day?” Silvia asked, interrupting Krystal’s thoughts.  Joanne gave out a small sigh and shook her head.  “Not well, actually,” she replied.

The three of them reached their class and walked in.  Krystal walked to her desk, Silvia and Joanne following behind her.  Joanne sat in the desk on Krystal’s right side while Silvia sat in front of her.  “Why?  What happened?” Silvia asked as the three of them got their books out ready before class started.  They had a few minutes to spare.

“You know that upper class-men you hang out with, Krys?” Joanne said.

Krystal’s ears perked up.  She looked at Joanne, “Yeah?”

“Aiden told me that he saw him holding hands with some girl in their group.  But I don’t recognize her,” she replied.  Her expression worsened imagining her crush with someone else.  “He told me that she’s new and came like two months ago.  His girlfriend is on the volleyball team with her,” Joanne concluded before leaning on her palm, dejected.

Whatever expression Krystal brought out after hearing Joanne’s statement, she knew it was a seriously interesting one because Joanne’s face suddenly changed into a confused one—one looking for answers from the friend in the middle between the two of them.  Krystal couldn’t help whatever her face formed the minute Joanne had said what she had said.  Vanessa and… Amber?  She furrowed her eye brows together, trying her best to cover up whatever could give away any sign of hurt on her face.  She feigned a thinking expression, “Are you sure it was him?  I mean, Aiden is sort of blind and he never wears his glasses.”

Silvia looked at Krystal, “Why do you seem surprised?”

Joanne nodded sulkily, “They were in the hallway and the two of them were with your friend; the guy with the spikey blonde hair.”

Eros, Krystal thought to herself.  “Hello,” Silvia called, stopping Krystal’s train of thought.  The girl looked at her.  “You still didn’t answer my question.  Why do you seem surprised?  You didn’t know?”

Krystal shook her head slowly.  “I really… didn’t know…” she muttered.  She turned to Joanne, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Krystal.  It happens, right?”

“How come you didn’t know?”  Silvia asked curiously.

Krystal scoffed sarcastically, “I guess I wasn’t too important enough to know.”

The two girls who heard the response fell silent at the blunt response.  They looked at each other then back at Krystal who began to fiddle with her cellphone.  “Ouch,” Silvia whispered with her eye brows raised.  With the sound of their teacher calling the room to attention, Silvia turned back around in her seat, followed by Joanne still taking a peak at the somewhat seemed, angry girl to her left.

Krystal sat back in her seat and began to play with her phone, using Silvia in front of her as a cover up to make sure the teacher didn’t see the electronic device.  She couldn’t focus on the Brick Breaker game she was playing and was starting to grow frustrated as her thoughts continued to run.

She wasn’t at Jay’s house that night, she thought to herself.  It was always an assumption.  It was fishy.  Amber’s statement about staying the night over at her friend’s house just didn’t seem right; she was never a great liar.  Krystal grew close enough to Amber to know when something was wrong and when something was up.  And it’s been bothering the younger girl ever since.  It bothered her so much she took the random opportunity to find out if it was the truth or not when she ran into Jay himself at the store on Saturday.  Krystal winced at reliving the moment.

“I don’t…drink, haha,” Jay replied.  Krystal blinked.  “But…”

Jay shook his head as he grabbed the bag of groceries from the local mart they were in and they began to walk out, Krystal totally forgetting why she had walked in there to begin with.  “Yeah,” he said.  “I don’t drink.  My uncle died from over-dosing and got alcohol poisoning.  So I don’t like it.”

Krystal tried to keep a poker face over the growing anger and frustration inside her.  She was interrupted by Jay’s hand on her shoulder and the sound of his laugh.  “Amber hasn’t been to my house since January, Krys,” he revealed.  “She’s probably playing some stupid prank on you, haha.”

Krystal feigned a smile and gave out the worst realistic laugh alive, but she gave herself an A for effort.  “Yeah,” she said.  “Probably.”

Jay smiled as a response.  He then bid her farewell and walked away, “I’ll see you at school!” he screamed out with a hand in the air, his back to her.

She wiped her face with both hands and gave out a deep sigh.  Krystal couldn’t fathom why Amber would lie to her about anything.  It just didn’t seem like her to do so.  And then she thought about it.  Amber’s…gay?  Sure, Amber was indeed a tomboy, Krystal had gotten that fact right.  But while tomboys in Korea was deemed a rare species amongst their people, they were never… lesbians.  She tried to understand how Amber felt or could have been feeling, but her emotions were too pre-occupied with just frustration and anger all over again.  Was she mad because her best friend had lied to her or was she mad, but also disgusted at the fact that she likes girls?

No, Krystal thought, that’s just discrimination.

The teacher’s lecture about the Korean War was cut short with the raise of Krystal’s hand out of nowhere.  “Yes, Ms. Jung?” he called out.

“Can I go to the bathroom?” she asked.

The teacher grabbed the pass without a response, irritated at the fact that any student would dare use the bathroom during his lesson.  He muttered something inaudible to himself as Krystal walked passed him, taking the pass into her hands and walking out, not caring how many curse words he said about her using the bathroom.

She walked aimlessly around the hallway, not knowing what else to do—or how to cope with how frustrated she felt.  So Amber was gay, big deal.  Krystal didn’t care.  Or did she?  “Ugh!” she screamed out flailing her hands to her head and messing up her hair.

“Whoa, hey, are you okay?”

Krystal turned around to the elegant voice, her expression slightly darkening.  Vanessa smiled at seeing the sight of her acquaintance.  She swallowed, stopping in her tracks as she watched her walk up to her, “Krystal, right?” she asked.

Krystal nodded and kept walking.  Vanessa followed, “Yeah, I just wanted to make sure it was you, haha, sorry.”

“Do you know where Amber is?” Krystal asked subconsciously without thinking.  Sh*t.

The older girl smiled, “Yeah, I have class with her right now.  Come by, I’ll give the pass to her or something.”

Vanessa walked ahead and Krystal followed, rolling her eyes at how hopelessly happy Amber’s girlfriend was.  She tried to fight the negative emotions running through her since she couldn’t pin point why she didn’t like the girl all of a sudden or even why she couldn’t just accept the fact that she was so nice.

“Just wait out here,” Vanessa said as they reached the classroom door.  Krystal took a peak into the door as she walked in.  Vanessa sat back down in her seat, which was right behind Amber’s and whispered something into her ear.  She did her best to make sure that her expression didn’t reflect how she was feeling and with luck, Amber looked through the door’s window and smiled.  Subconsciously, Krystal smiled back.  She couldn’t help it.  Amber got up from her seat and Krystal could hear Amber say something to the teacher.  She was greeted by the tomboy with the pass in her hands and they began to walk down the hall.

“What’s up?” Amber said giving her friend a one-arm hug.

“Nothing.”

Amber chuckled, “Sheesh, cold much?”

“You weren’t at Jay’s house,” Krystal asserted firmly stopping in her tracks.  She turned to the tomboy who also stopped and looked down at the younger girl with weird eyes.

“I was.”

“You weren’t.”

“Krystal, listen I—“

“You weren’t, okay?!” Krystal screamed.  Amber did a double take at what just occurred in front of her, her eyes a little wide, eye brows raised and slightly agape.  “I spoke to him on Saturday.  We ran into each other at the local mart, Amber,” she said.  She exhaled her frustration out and it was heard by the girl in front of her.  All Amber could do was stay silent.

Krystal continued to pour out the evidence.  “Jay doesn’t drink.  His uncle died from drinking too much which caused him to not like it either.”

Amber put her free hand in her pocket.  She raised her occupied hand with the pass and looked into Krystal’s eyes.  “Okay,” she began.  “So I wasn’t at Jay’s house that night.  Big deal.”

If Krystal’s frustration escaped earlier, a whole new unit of that army just pre-occupied her entire body one more time.  She scoffed, “It is a big deal.  Do you know how worried—“

“I can take care of myself, Krystal.  Just stop it,” Amber interrupted, raising her voice.  She took a step towards the younger girl, getting in her face.  “Why is it such a huge issue if I made one stupid white lie?”

“I just don’t understand why you had to lie in the first place!” Krystal yelled.

Amber looked away and sighed.  She took her hand out of her pocket and grabbed Krystal’s arm and led them into a staircase.  It was better to scream in there than in the hallways.  She was surprised no one even noticed.  Krystal knew what she was thinking and did not resist.

“Where were you, Amber?  Just tell—“

“I was at Vanessa’s!  There!  You happy?”

Krystal blinked.  So it is true?

Amber gave out another sigh and ran her hand through her hair.  “Her friends came over from LA.  We were showing them around.  Okay?  I fell asleep on her couch watching movies and the time just passed by,” she looked away one more time, biting the inside of —the side that wasn’t visible to Krystal.  Another lie, Amber thought to herself.  She really didn’t like lying.  Especially to Krystal.  But she was too innocent to know what Amber was really doing—hell, she wouldn’t tell her unless she was on her death bed.

After five grueling seconds of silence, “My friends think that you’re dating her,” Krystal confessed looking down at her shoes.

Amber turned her head to face Krystal with shock.  She recovered quickly, “Why would they say that?”

“One of them saw you holding hands with her in the hallway,” the younger girl responded.

Amber rolled her eyes, “Please,” she said, grabbing Krystal’s eyes on her’s.  “People hold hands all of the time in Korea, Krystal and you know it.  You and I have held hands plenty of times and we’re not dating.”

Krystal took a second to reiterate what was said to her in her head.  She broke the eye contact with the androgynous girl in front of her, making eye contact with a crack in the wall not too far from them.  She couldn’t grasp why that stung.  She swallowed the lump forming in and started thinking of something to say.  Krystal began to feel bad and couldn’t formulate a proper apology for making Amber so angry.  It was the last thing she wanted to see and it was actually the first time she’s seen this side of her.

“Sorry…” Krystal muttered quietly.  As silent as she tried to make it, the probability of Amber hearing it was relatively high due to the amount of volume surrounding them was considered non-existent.

“No, I’m sorry,” Amber said with a sigh.  “I didn’t mean to raise my voice.”

Krystal continued to look away, trying to find more words to say but wasn’t budging.  “Listen,” she heard Amber say.  “Just drop it, okay?  We don’t need this stress.  I won’t do it, again.  I promise.  Just please, drop it.  Okay?”

Krystal looked up at the girl.  She couldn’t read her expression and feel her frustration side of her fight with the side that was upset.  She couldn’t tell which one she wanted to be, or which one was taking over her mind at the moment.  Her eyes wandered back down to the floor.

“Okay.”