Chapter 15 

Insook walked through the school gates bright and early on Monday morning. She felt better than she had on Friday, considering that Soonja had spent the whole weekend hovering over her trying to cheer her up, but still wasn’t really looking forward to having to possibly interact with Rapmon after everything that had happened the week before. She knew he had a habit of strolling into school 5 minutes before the bell rang on most days, so she figured she’d at least be able to avoid him until she absolutely had to during chemistry class, which they didn’t even have today.

“Insook!”

She turned around at the sound of her name, and her face fell when she saw the blonde boy she’d been trying to avoid running up to her.

She just stood there stupidly, staring at him as he caught up, catching his breath. A few onlookers turned around, looking at them curiously.

“Do you have a minute?”

She kept staring, but didn’t say anything so he must’ve taken it as consent because he grabbed her wrist and led her away from the entrance.

“Where are we going?” she finally asked, as they turned the corner of the main building, but he didn’t answer and kept pulling on her arm, so she just tried to keep up with him.

Finally, he stopped behind the gym’s storage building; an area that was mostly tall trees, and usually completely devoid of students. It was a popular spot for girls to ask boys to meet when they wanted to confess to them. Insook wondered what the heck Rapmon wanted with her, and told herself that, if he was about to confess, she would smack him.

“Why did you drag me all the way here?” she asked, trying to sound annoyed, after he’d finally released her. Her heart was beating too fast in his presence still, and she cursed herself for it.

Namjoon looked away from her. He seemed embarrassed – no, ashamed – as he stared into the distance, wondering how to begin.

“Look, Insook, I…” he started, and then paused, trying to find the words.

“You know, I came here early exactly so I wouldn’t have to talk to you this morning, so if you don’t have anything to say I’m just gonna…” and she made to leave but he grabbed her arm again, making her stop.

“Insook, I’m sorry.”

She turned around and looked at him. His eyes seemed sincere, and devoid of any flirtatious spark, for once.

“Look, I dunno how you found out about the bet, but I know that you know.” He said, finishing his sentence quietly.

“Oh” only said Insook, looking at the ground.

“It was a horrible thing to do.” he said, risking a glance at her, but she wasn’t responding.

“Honestly, it’s just something that blew out of proportion, it had nothing to do with you it just…” he gave a big sigh before he went on, “it was just…” he didn’t seem to be able to find the words, “I didn’t think.”

“Yeah.” she whispered.

“I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry.”

He was waiting for some kind of response from her, but she still just stared at the ground, not looking at him. Of all the things he could have said, this was not what she had been expecting.

“I understand if you don’t ever want to see me again…” he added, letting his sentence trail off.

“Why are you acting like this?” she snapped suddenly, “it’s not like we were ever friends before. Why do act like you care if I ever talk to you again?” she said, mustering up some anger to cover the fact that her heart was breaking. It was one thing to know that Namjoon had been playing with her, but it was quite another to hear it coming from his own lips.

Rapmon looked at her, surprised by her outburst.

“I… well, maybe, but I know you now…” he fumbled for words, “even though it was under bad intentions, I did get to know you… I… I mean I don’t dislike you… urgh, I’m saying it wrong…”

She scoffed at him. “Oh, are you saying you want to be friends?” she added with a cynical little laugh.

“Well yes, I guess that’s what I was trying to say.”

She stared at him dumbfounded, and then, with a mean look, she scoffed again, looking away. She shook her head, turned around and walked off. Insook didn’t know how long she could hold off the tears and she didn’t want him to see her cry.

“Insook!” he chased after her.

“You’re just so full of crap!” she spun around to yell at him, surprising him, “why are you telling me? You wanna be friends?! Ha! Yeah right, you can’t even handle the thought of being seen with me! You have to drag me to this middle-of-nowhere place to have a talk… just save it, Namjoon. You said sorry, your pride is intact, just go.”

Rapmon looked at her, matching her intense gaze for a few seconds, and then she just seemed to deflate and looked down. They both stood there quietly for a few seconds.

“It’s ok. I understand why you don’t want to be seen with me…” and she turned around and started walking off.

Namjoon stared at her, completely confused, and then rolled his eyes and tromped after her. “You stupid girl…” he mumbled as he grabbed her wrist again, pulling her behind him, back towards the school entrance. She protested, but he neither answered nor let go of her until they’d crossed into the school, and made their way to the lockers. A lot of people were milling about, including J-Hope and Suga who were chilling by their own respective lockers, and looked up in interest when they stopped in front of hers.

“What class do you have next?” he asked, opening her locker, as she stared at him in wonder. His odd behaviour had been so surprising that her tears had been momentarily forgotten. She looked around awkwardly and noticed a lot of people whispering.

“Well..?”

“Korean…” she mumbled, and he took out a thick textbook from her locker and handed it to her. She accepted it silently, totally confused, and put it in her bag.

She mumbled some thanks, and they stood there, awkwardly not looking at each other for several seconds. The bell rang, saving them both from having to continue the conversation, and Insook mumbled “I should go…” before running off in the opposite direction.

“Later!!” Rapmon called out loudly, waving at her disappearing form and causing a lot of people to look up.

“Well, this was interesting” said a voice behind him, and he turned around to see his two best friends trotting over to him.

“I thought you’d given up?” asked J-Hope, genuinely confused.

“I have” shrugged the blonde boy.

“It’s rather unlike you to be this nice to a girl you just dissed, though.” stated his red-headed friend.

Rapmon shrugged again. “You remember that hot waitress from the other day?” he paused, waiting for them to nod, “well turns out the reason she hates me is cuz they’re friends…”

“Oooooooooh….” said Suga.

“Wait you’re not…” said Hoseok, “You’re not really…. I mean, you’re not really that stupid, are you?!” he added, giving his friend a completely baffled look, which made Suga crack up.

“Rapmon, man, you are an idiot.” said Suga, throwing an arm around his friend’s neck as they started walking to class.

“Hey!” called out the taller boy, resentfully.

“You are aware this is a major mess just waiting to happen, right?”

*

Insook entered her homeroom without looking at anyone and quietly made her way to her desk. Their homeroom teacher came in a few moments later and took her place at the lectern, ready to begin. Daeyoung, who was sitting behind her this term, slithered up to her and whispered,

“I heard you and a certain blonde bad-boy caused quite a stir this morning.”

She was saved from answering as the class leader started the morning greetings and they all stood up, bowing to the teacher. As they sat back down, he whispered again, “come on, what’s the deal?” but she refused to turn and look at him.

He poked her on the shoulder, but she shushed him, and since the teacher was giving him a pointed look, he smiled at her sheepishly and sat back down. The teacher started talking about how the school festival that was coming up and that every homeroom this week would be let free so they could prepare. The class president took over and Insook soon lost interest. They had decided a few weeks back that they would set up a café in the classroom, and Insook had signed up to the supplies group, which was the one that required the least amount of involvement, and she’d already provided the 3 cases of soft-drinks that she’d promised to bring, so as far as she was concerned, the festival was already an afterthought. She wasn’t very big on school spirit.

When the bell indicating the end of homeroom rang, she stood up, and grabbed her things, wanting to head to Korean class right away, but Daeyoung was faster and jumped right in front of her. She tried to go around him but he moved, blocking her path.

“So you’re really not gonna tell me what’s up with you and Kim Namjoon?” he said, giving her a dumbfounded look.

“There’s nothing between him and me, ok?” she said, loudly, aware that there were more than one pair of eyes surreptitiously looking at them.

“Oh please,” the pretty boy rolled his eyes, “a week ago he didn’t know who you were and now he’s walking you to your locker in front of everyone.”

“He’s just a weirdo, ok?” she said, shoving him aside.

“But a really attractive one, you must admit…” smirked the boy, catching up to her as she made her way out of the room.

Insook rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help smiling at him.

***

Soonja was already waiting for her when Insook exited the train station later that day. The rest of the day had been pretty uneventful – if she ignored the fact that lunchtime with Daeyoung & co. had been a pretty tense affair, and that most people seemed to be whispering about her whenever she stepped into a hallway, but it didn’t bother her that much. She skipped over to her friend, who looked up at her with a big smile as she pulled her headphones out of her ears and put her iPod away.

“Hey baby girl, how was your day?” she asked, ruffling the shorter girl’s hair as if she was a little kid.

“Fine” shrugged Insook, as they started walking towards their houses.

“Oh?” asked the taller girl, surprised by the lack of bitterness in her friend’s tone, “No Crapmonster?”

“Well… about that…” started Insook, casting a somewhat guilty glace at Soonja who stopped in her tracks for a second, saying “Sookie….” in a warning voice.

“No, no!” Insook shook her hands in front of her face defensively, and then she proceeded to tell her friend about Rapmon’s ambush in the morning, and his apology.

Soonja had a weird expression on her face after she was done with the story, like she was really annoyed or something. Insook thought it was just because she hated the guy by default, but actually, Soonja wasn’t happy because she had told Rapmon to stay the away, not to try and make friends.

“It’s dodgy…” she ended up saying after a long pause.

“Tell me about it…” sighed Insook. And they walked in silence for a few minutes, both contemplating the implications of Rapmon’s apology.

“He didn’t say how he knew you knew about the bet?” asked Soonja suddenly, breaking the silence.

Insook shook her head, “you know, I didn’t even think to ask. I was just so shocked…”

Soonja nodded pensively. ‘Well at least he kept ONE of his promises…’

“So what are you gonna do now?” asked the pretty girl.

“I have no idea…”