♥ Day Ten ♥

“Stop smiling. You're being too obvious.”

“I can't help it.” Jaerim’s smile was brighter than the sun that had yet to peep from behind the clouds. “And you're smiling too…”

Soeun stopped in her tracks and tugged at Jaerim’s arm, then pointed to her lips. She pushed the corners of down to expose her neutral look. She tried to fix up Jaerim’s smile as well, but to no avail. It's like his smile was permanent, well, it had been permanent since their talk on the rooftop the previous day. They hadn't even been able to come up with a performance piece yet. Jaerim pursed his lips together and grabbed her hand, interlocking their fingers, urging Soeun to walk forward with him.

“What are you doing?”

He stopped them from walking again and tried his best to hide the smile that was erupting onto his face.

“If I can't smile then I'm going to hold your hand. In public. In front of everyone. Choose. Smile or hand holding?”

Soeun looked down at their hands. His hands were warm and she wanted to hold on to them, for as long as she wanted and as long as he would have her, but she was still shy to showcase any public displays of affections.

“It'll have to be the smile then…”

He let the smile he was holding to take over his face, but he didn't let go of her hand. She didn't squirm out of his grasp either. He leaned closer to her and whispered into her ear. “Smiling and holding hands. Best combo.” Jaerim winked. Her smile erupted too and they travelled together to school.

As thy reached the front gates, they met with Jaemyung who stepping out from his car. Soeun froze in her spot despite Jaerim squeezing her hand to signal for her to move forward. He made sure that Jaemyung was watching when he kissed the top of her head and whispered to her.

“He's not worth the time of day, Eun-ah. Let’s go…” Jaerim glared at Jaemyung for a brief moment, expecting the older guy to retaliate, but he didn't. In fact, Jaemyung wasn't even looking at Jaerim, he was looking at Soeun, while she was turning away. This prodded Jaerim to tighten his grasp on Soeun and steered her into the direction of school, pushing her gently by her shoulders.

“Soeun!”

She didn't turn around and walked even faster, while it was Jaerim’s turn to be frozen in his spot. He let Soeun go and motioned for her to go on without him in the meantime, and only turned back to Jaemyung when he saw her walk away with Sojung. Sojung could only link arms with her best friend and pleaded with her eyes for Jaerim not to do anything stupid. Jaerim mustered up his most aggressive and intimidating face.

“Don't talk to her anymore. Just leave her alone. And while you're at it, don't look at her, don't look at me, just stay away and we won't have a problem.”

Jaerim gritted his teeth and spat out the words. It was only for a millisecond, but he thought he saw Jaemyung flinch, and he could only feel proud of himself. When the older boy didn't make any move or utterance in return, Jaerim walked away, hoping that it was the last time that he would ever see Jaemyung’s face.

Jaerim walked into their classroom to find Sojung and Soeun almost huddled together. Sojung’s figure was blocking Soeun, but by the way her body didn't convulse when he heard loud coughing sounds, he knew that it came from Soeun. He moved closer and found that her cheeks were a visible shade of red, and it must have been from the cold, because even Sojung looked concerned. He placed the back of his hand on her forehead and compared it with his. She was warm, but so was he, and it wasn't a feverish type of temperature.

“Are you okay? Do you feel sick?”

“I'm fine. Just have a bit of a cough now. My nose isn't runny and I don't feel that bad. I'll tell you if I feel worse…”

Jaerim cupped her cheek and sent her a reassuring smile.

“So, I trust that you didn't try to rearrange that guy’s face?” Sojung inquired, and Soeun also looked at him, as if asking the same question, just realising that he had been out there with Jaemyung after she had gone inside.

“Don't worry. I don't plan on getting suspended again. Just told him to stay away from my girl…” Jaerim added a wink and coupled with Sojung’s high pitched squeal, Soeun felt embarassed, but in a good way. 

“Is it official? Are you two official? You know when you were all smiley when you came back into the room yesterday even though the two of you tried to hide it, I could still tell. And when Soeun said she was going home with you and didn't bother to call me, I knew that something must've happened! So, is a congratulations in order?”

When both of them didn't answer, Sojung began to shake Jaerim’s arm. He shrugged and pointed to Soeun. “Gotta ask the lady over here…”

“Soeun?”

Sojung raised her eyebrows at her best friend.

“Fine! Yes! We are…”

Sojung leaped in to hug her best friend, and Soeun pulled Jaerim down to join the hug. When they pulled away, Sojung looked as if she had just opened a Christmas present.

“I bet that your performance is gonna be so cute, am I right?”

Jaerim and Soeun looked at each other. He began to scratch his nape, and Soeun looked towards the floor.

“So you two were busy romancing each other that Soeun, the ever perfect student, forgot about school and following all of the teacher’s orders?” Sojung gasped dramatically. “Scandalous!”

And they erupted into a fit of laughter until Soeun started coughing.