“Shut up for once, will you?” I said to him smiling slightly at his dorkiness\ of course without him seeing, turning my back to open the gate to my house.

I slowly walked without turning back to look at him until I reached the door. As I unlocked the white vintage front door of my house, I looked back to see the direction he was going in. To my surprise he was still standing there, looking at me. After he saw me looking back, he just waved at me with a big goofy smile on his face and walked down the street all alone, after a long day.

I couldn’t understand this guy, not one bit, but for a girl who couldn't even understand herself, I guess it was normal, so I told myself that it was okay to not understand sometimes. Maybe, even if I didn’t want to admit, I needed a support like him at that moment. And well, I shouldn’t have complained about his persistence. Though, think of telling that to the 18 year old Lia. She wouldn’t listen.

To say that me, Lia is a lonely, anti-social introvert would be an understatement in any of the parallel universes. Being a girl, hanging alone for the longest time, since childhood I would call it, made me lack in the act of conversing with ‘friends’. Every year in my high school, every year without a doubt, there would be one left out girl due coming later, being a little too quirky maybe, or weird in some way. Those people somehow would always collide with me. And in another, but this time predictable, way we would always drift apart as they 1. Got tired of my cold attitude 2. Found someone cooler and more talkative than me, and whine about me to them. Eventually, it would all come to an end, when two of us would start acting like complete strangers. What I had been comfortable from the very beginning.

Maybe because I was ice cold according to others, but somehow managed to feel bad about those left out in a twisted way, they always found me in the crowd to accept them. This year it was a two week fake ‘friend-ing’ with a girl called Min, whom I believe doesn’t even have any of my classes as I never see her anymore. Or most likely, doesn’t even want to see my face.

The worst part is that, when they see that ice cold façade of mine, they believe that I have no feelings. When one gets all my hopes up, making me think that finally, I’ll make a friend, and they will spare some effort on making me open up to them, not an easy task I must admit, and will finally have faith in someone other than just myself. But every year, someone comes and eventually, leaves. As if I’m a bus stop, a stop in which they can comfortably wait until the next bus of fun and unscarred friends can come and rescue her and all before her, from the boredom they are in, Lia.

That’s why, when Kim Myungsoo didn’t stop bugging me for longer than two weeks, after the ‘miserable fainting incident’. I thought he would leave me alone, and let me go back to my lonely, self assuring silence where I cried to myself at nights. But then he didn’t, and I felt a speck of hope I fought in, not wanting to crush it all in the end. Though after over two weeks of walking home with me and eating his lunch sitting with me, with me not uttering a single word to ease him, I got this feeling that he was in fact, keen on being my friend.

Friend.

But not yet possible.

You know that Lia, don’t you dare get your hopes up. No one wants to have a depressed, pessimistic, school crazed friend.

But, a friend, when did I last had one  really?

Maybe years ago I did, but for the longest time, I hadn’t had any friends. It was exciting having someone around, but I had a lifetime of experience in broken, dead or unsuccessful friendships. It was not just the friendships I failed in apparently, seeing the state Kai and I were in. It was such a long time since we last talked to each other and seeing his face at school every day alone was pure pain to my heart. I wanted to talk to him, even if he wanted to end it all, I wanted it to be clear, but I couldn’t get myself to do so.  It was a week and a half later after the fainting; when I was consumed by the same depressing thoughts about whether he loves me still or not, I got a not so mysterious text message.

UNKNOWN NUMBER (19:46): PAPERBALL TO TEXTBOOK, PLEASE SAVE MY NUMBER.

And well, I knew who it was right at that second.

LIA (19:51): HOW DID YOU GET MY NUMBER????

UNKNOWN NUMBER (19:51): I HAVE MY WAYS. (IT WASN’T EASY SO SAVE MY NUMBER ALREADY)

A laugh escaped my lips. He seemed to be a fun person to text. But then, I wasn’t supposed to talk to him, like I did the whole week. I didn’t need him, neither did I his stupid number.

LIA (19:53):  I DON’T NEED THE NUMBER, SO I’M NOT SAVING.

UNKNOWN NUMBER (19:54): OUCH, THAT HURT.

UNKNOWN NUMBER (19.58): LIA?

UNKNOWN NUMBER (20:06): I KNOW THAT YOU PROBABLY DON’T WANT ME AS A FRIEND, AND I UNDERSTAND YOU, BUT GIVE ME SOME CREDIT, I’M TRYING MY BEST HERE, SOMETHING I NEVER DO LIA. WHY WON’T YOU LET ME HELP YOU? I AM A FOOL, AND I ANNOY YOU SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR BUT IT IS ALL BECAUSE I WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND, EVEN IF YOU DON’T ACCEPT ME AS A FRIEND YET, IT’S ALRIGHT, I DON’T MIND, AT LEAST ACCEPT ME AS AN ACQUAINTANCE.

I felt something bubble inside me. Effort. He actually tried to be my friend. No one ever tried after her. It was the first time since and maybe, maybe the reason behind my walls softening was not who he was, how he looked, what his personality was like or how he smiled. It was because he actually tried to be my friend, and there was nothing more to appreciate than effort in this cruel world. And so I wrote back the next words:

LIA (20:09): YOU’RE GONNA WANT TO TAKE BACK WHAT YOU JUST SAID, JUST SO YOU KNOW. P.S: I DON’T NEED YOUR PITY.

UNKNOWN NUMBER (20:01): NOT GONNA HAPPEN. P.S: I DON’T PITY YOU FOR GODS SAKE.

LIA (20:03): I’M SAVING THE NUMBER SO SHUT YOUR MOUTH NOW.

KIM MYUNGSOO (20:04): SURE WILL, SEE YOU TMRRW.

*

On the next day, I had chemistry with Myungsoo. Despite all he wrote yesterday, nothing prevented him from throwing his infamous paper balls at me. When I was writing down what the teacher wrote on the chalkboard, I knew all he wanted by the secretly-thrown paper balls was to get my not-easily-parted-from-class attention. As one last hit my head from 12 and he cheered for himself, from the very back of the class, I could hear the inhumanly noises he made, he sounded more like a seal than anything. When I was startled 5 minutes later, hit by another paper ball again, and dropped my pencil on the floor, I finally decided to uncoil one paper to see if anything was written inside, I saw letters drawn by possibly a 5 year old kid, saying:

TEXTBOOK, NOTICE ME.

I smiled to myself secretly tucking in the ball of paper inside my pocket, wanting to read all the rest of paper ball messages, but I didn’t want to do so in front of him, so I just took my pencil, and kept listening to the teacher.

No other paper balls hit me for the rest of the class. And I knew that I gave him all he wanted, attention.

Attention given, acquaintance or rather, newly made possible friend.

*

Days kept passing, and I learnt more and more with every new day. I now knew.

I knew it, when I over reacted over our neighbors’ petty dog ruining my now grey white converses.

I knew it, when I realized that zoning out in an English class resulted in an unfinished homework I couldn’t muster enough energy in me to finish.

I knew it when mom’s looks got smoother instead of sharper on me; I knew it better when I could see the pity in her looks through her transparent eyes.

I knew it; from the way I couldn’t seem to handle loneliness anymore in spite of my perfectly stable ea