008
CHAPTER EIGHT

---

I jog to school that morning for History, taking my time basking in the morning sun as I happily walked the streets of Seoul with my bag slung over my shoulder. I am happy, I tell myself as I bring my hand closer to my face and open my fist to reveal the slightly crumpled piece of paper that I found waiting for me this morning on my desk. It was a short–somewhat, unnecessary– message written on a neon yellow sticky note. Before even reading, I could tell whose writing it was. And I laugh knowing the note was a work of art from none   other than the infamous Park Chanyeol.

 

---

THANK YOU ^^
Next time it’ll be better for sure.
Be careful on your way to Uni tomorrow.

-C.

---

 

I half-smile as I enter the school gates, rereading it for the umpteenth time before finally stuffing it my pocket. The neon yellow edges of the paper were sticking out in stark contrast against my black jeans. I could'nt help but think neon yellow was the perfect color for him. It was bright and cheery like his smile and his personality. It stood out against dark backgrounds like he did in a sea of pretentious, miserable people. It wasn’t very hard to find, you’d always see it because it caught so much attention. And that is exactly how he was.

 

Park Chanyeol was also a very nice person, as he did things that weren’t really asked of him. And a normal person wouldn’t do that without asking for compensation. I recall the night before, when we were in his dorm room and I fell asleep. I guess he was the one who had brought me back to my bed (because Eunna probably didn’t know where I was, unless Chanyeol told her). Taking out my phone, I punch in a thank you message for that kind act thinking that I might forget to thank him for it personally later on.

 

This boy– he’s really something.

 

I scrunch my forehead when I realize I am thinking too much about Park Chanyeol. I’ve always had a habit of comparing and contrasting people and inanimate objects. I thought I had stopped, because someone back then in Japan told me it was a sign that I was too worried about everything. I think I still am.

 

I try to focus on something else, pushing my thoughts of Park Chanyeol and the neon yellow sticky note to the side, but find myself worrying about the message instead. I remember he told me to be careful on the way to school this morning, and suddenly thoughts of bad luck were hovering above my head. Thinking about last night at the restaurant and on the way to the dorms, there was also the issue of Lee Minhyuk following us–I hope that was not done intentionally– and it makes me wonder if this is what Chanyeol was telling me to be careful about.

 

Not that I think Minhyuk is a bad person. I am giving him the benefit of the doubt.

 

I don’t think I would like to see him immediately after what happened last night. God, good thing I don’t have any subjects with him. There was something about the way Chanyeol talked about him– despite the tall boy not really knowing much about Minhyuk himself– that made me feel wary of my surroundings. It’s like he’s telling me I’m being followed. Stalked. It could be possible that Lee Minhyuk would want something from me. I just hope he doesn’t like me. Gosh that would be the worst thing in the world.

 

I never really knew how to deal with men who liked me.

 

There was a long list of people in Japan… and let’s say there was this public confession and I ended up embarrassing both me and the poor boy because of something I said. Which is why I never really interact with men. I don’t really like being with people in general.

 

The bell for my history class rings and I walk up the stairs slowly and down the hallway. I am about to enter the room, acting pretty chill since the teacher said he never really arrived on time, when I see Lu Han zoom past me at top speed with a bunch of folders in his hand. I laugh, obviously because he looks so silly and it looks like he’s never learned to manage his time properly. Then I think of all the things I know about his past from what Eunna told me. Still, I believe he is a nice person.

 

As I walk into the classroom, I am reminded of my heart-to-heart with Eunna last night. I really hope the two of them get to talk it out. There is something in the way Lu Han looks at Eunna that tells me he really wants her back; But it’s a look that says he’ll accept whatever decision she makes.

 

It looks like he won’t be getting an answer soon, though.

 

I slide into my seat at the front of the room and I take my things out of my bag. I begin to write random poems at the back of my binder and drawing people as I wait for the professor. My mind was overflowing with thoughts.

 

Lee Minhyuk,

Park Eunna,

 

And most surprisingly,

 

Park Chanyeol and his neon yellow colored sticky.

 

* * *

 

The class ends after a painful two hours of lecturing and a pop quiz.

 

I immediately decide that this will not be one of my favourite classes, thanks but no thanks to Mr. Lee. Sighing, I walk down the nearly empty corridors of the school. It was only eleven, and our class was having a break earlier than everyone else, so basically I was a loner.

 

I walk to the library and decide to just wait for Chanyeol there, sending him a text to let him know I was in between the fiction shelves. I wander around my favourite section aimlessly, marveling at the sight of the hundreds of book surrounding me. I found myself thinking about how I never realized how big our library was. Moving from aisle to aisle, I dance around as I browse through the vast collection of novels. I could feel the carpet under my shoes when my feet touched the floor, and I stop. My hand glides down the spine of a book that catches my eye and I gently retrieve it from the shelf. That done, I walk to the couches and position myself comfortably before I start reading.

 

* * *

 

More than sixty minutes into the book and I am engrossed, unable to return to reality as my mind becomes slave to the novel. I am always like this when I read a book, and usually I would get mad when somebody interrupted me, but....

 

"Haneul-sshi?" A familiar voice whispers to me from the side. My eyebrow twitches at the sudden interruption and I note down the page number before slamming the book shut as loud as I can. The few number of heads that were in the library turn to me and I apologize before focusing my attention to the man beside me. I shoot him a surprised look when I realize who he is.

 

"Minhyuk-sshi?"

 

"Hello," he smiles a genuine smile, bright but again not as bright as Chanyeol's- God, why do I keep comparing- and somehow giving the feeling of holding back. I give him a bow and send an awkwardly bright smile flying in his direction. He chuckles.

 

"Do you need something?" I say.

 

He moves a little closer to me, and the distance between us was way too short for two people who barely knew each other. Completely feeling uncomfortable, I scoot over a little to my left and restate my question.

 

“Do you need something?”

 

He is obviously disappointed that I moved a bit farther away from him, but he smiles and tells me, “Well, I was hoping you could give me a tour of the campus for a bit?”

 

I give him a look, as if to say what? In return he gives me an expectant one.

 

“B- But, I don’t know the campus that well either since I just got here a few days ago-“

 

“Really? Then why don’t we come see it together?” He smiles.

 

“I’m waiting for someone here,” I say.

 

Minhyuk’s mouth forms into an ‘o’ shape. “Then maybe later after class? I’m sure your mom and dad won’t mind that you get home a little later than the usual?”

 

I almost choke when he mentions my parents. That was a completely unnecessary statement. I barely stopped myself from telling him,‘oh it’s okay, my dad doesn’t give a about me. Maybe we can tour the goddamn campus until midnight and meet my dead mother there.’

 

“Look, Minhyuk-sshi-”

 

“Ah? Are your parents not here? Are they living in the states as well? But wait, aren’t Kris’s parents-”

 

“Excuse me.”

 

He asks his questions in such a soft voice, yet his intentions are leaking through his words all the same. This was definitely more than just getting to know. Somehow I get this feeling that he may be more dangerous than I thought, that maybe Chanyeol was right last night. And there is also this side of me that’s trying to say Lee Minhyuk is an okay guy, that it was just my trust issues and lack of people contact that make me think this way.

 

But somehow the former side seems to be winning me over.

 

“Yah yah yah, If you want to see the campus that bad, you should’ve just asked me.”

 

Baekhyun winks, surprising the both of us with his sudden appearance,and he forces himself in between me and Minhyuk, swinging his arm around the latter. Eunna then appears on Minhyuk’s other side and smiles at him.

 

“Yah, you know you should’ve approached one of the council representatives,” she tells Minhyuk in a scolding tone and wiggles her eyebrows at me. “Come, now, new boy. Byun Baekhyun and I, Park Eunna, will take you.”

 

She and Baekhyun pull him up and drag him over to the library exit. I sigh in relief, making a mental note to shower them with all the love I can give the next time I see them. Now that Minhyuk is (most likely, temporarily) gone, I can go back to what I was doing before he came. However, when I open the book, I realize that I’ve lost the drive to read now and I’m completely out of my mood. That guy just had to ruin it all.

 

Eunna runs back a few seconds later. “Stop hanging out with this fishy man,” she whispers. “Oh, and can you tell Chanyeol that Naeun’s ba-“

 

“I told you that guy was weird.”

 

Somehow I am not surprised that he’s here.

 

“Chanyeol,” I smile.  “Hey.”

 

“Hi,” he greets me, then my roommate.

 

Eunna raises her eyebrows. “Hello there...”

 

And we hear Baekhyun calling for her a few feet away.

 

“Oh yeah,” she says. “I gotta go. Haneul,” she turns to me. “Stop hanging out with weird men.” And she looks at Chanyeol.

 

“Naeun’s back,” she says. And she runs off. He tenses up for a second and then tries to relax again as he sinks into the space beside me.

 

“Who’s Naeun?” I ask him.

 

“My stalker,” he sighs. “Forget her. She’s not important.”

 

And I do.

* * *

 

Chanyeol and I find that there aren’t really things to talk about, since both of us have english lit on Tuesdays and Thursdays only. We find ourselves talking about each other again, this time about more basic things: favourite color, favourite movies, favourite food– that kind of stuff. It was personal, yet not so personal.

 

And of course, this meeting wouldn’t be complete without the lunch he promised to buy me for the rest of the semester.

 

“Your favourite color is red?” he says as he hands me a cup of banana bubble tea, which makes me smile. “Why?”

 

I puff my cheeks and pretend to think. Truthfully, I like answering questions like these. Simple things about people, I believe, always have deep meanings. It’s like how a person’s favourite color can tell a lot of things about them. Like how a mark on your body has stories to tell. Like how one single person could mean so many things to someone. Talking about these things, it’s like revealing and hiding something all at the same time. It’s like showing a small part of yourself to someone, and it’s up to them to make guesses about the rest of you. People who make the right guesses are usually those who, to me, should be kept closer to your heart.

 

There are just so many untold stories.

 

“Well,” I say. “Just because red can represent a lot of things.”

 

“Anger…” towards my father. “Tenacity, and Passion,” for success.“…and Love.”Love, that I hope I can be reminded of. Because in all my years of being alone, I thought I had forgotten the feeling of what it felt like to be loved.

 

“And because it looks good on me,” I laugh.

 

Chanyeol laughs too. “I think it would.”

 

And as he smiles that familiar toothy smile, the aura around us brightens. Instantly, I feel comfortable and before I know it a smile starts creeping up my face as well.

 

I chuckle.

 

“Well then, how about you, Chanyeol. What’s your favourite color?”

 

He his chin with his thumb and his forefinger as he taps his foot to his unknown thinking beat.

 

“Now that I think about it, no one has ever asked me that question since second grade,” he laughs.

 

And he looks at me.

 

“I think I don’t have a favourite color, Haneul.”

 

I scrunch my eyebrows together and squint at him. I was a bit surprised that he said he had nothing. I was pretty sure he would’ve said something like yellow, orange, mint green or all the colors of the freaking rainbow.

 

It makes me think there was something nobody knew about him.

 

Maybe he wasn’t just all smiles.

 

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because there are so many good colors that can describe a person. There’re different shades of red for different meanings. There’re different shades of blue for that as well. And then there are those shades of gray for different intensities of empty. Do you get me?” He turns to me and I nod.

 

And almost instantly, I am drawn in by his words.

 

“You probably think I’m yellow or orange, right?” he laughs. “A lot of people said that. Or blue. Just because I’m a guy.”

 

I smile.

 

“Well I’m not just yellow. I’m every color.” He grins. “Besides, It’s not like you’d wanna paint your life in one color, right?”

 

And as we talk about these seemingly shallow but not so shallow things, I've been thinking there was actually more to Park Chanyeol than what he revealed on the surface.

 

The way he speaks and the things he speaks about will me to listen intently, and that's all I find myself doing. That's all I find myself wanting to do, to learn about him, to listen to him, to tread the deeper waters of his person.

 

And he leaves me with no words.

 

* * *

 

Chanyeol is walking me to college algebra because he doesn’t have class for another half hour, and we walk in silence– probably due to the fact that we’ve exhausted all our words in the library. At least, I have, because still he talks about random things that pop into his mind like the last horror movie he and Baekhyun had seen.

 

I, on the other hand, am paying him zero attention because I find myself thinking about something else.

 

Earlier, he and I were talking about the things we liked as children, and I can’t help but feel like I’ve had a conversation like this before. Maybe I knew him in the past, but that’s impossible. It could have been a long time ago. I couldn’t have remembered if it were from as long as my early childhood years, having forced myself to forget everything regarding that past except for my late mother.

 

I turn to Chanyeol, who was talking about this video game he beat his neighbor Yixing at, and cut through his sentence.

 

“Chanyeol,” I say and he stops blabbering.

 

“What?” His head snaps towards my direction and I look at him wide curious eyes.

 

“Have we met before this?”

 

He seemed confused at her question.

 

“We’ve met a lot of times before thi-“

 

“No, I mean even before the time you stole my coffee…stole,” I raise my eyebrows.

 

“Can you let that go…” he laughs as he nudges my side.

 

“No,” I say flatly but with a mocking expression on my face. “Well have we met?”

 

Chanyeol scrunches his eyebrows together and runs a hand through his hair.

 

“I don’t think we have,” he says.

 

“Oh…” was my response. “Well we’re here at my room, so I guess… tomorrow?” I laugh. “If I survive this subject…”

 

I look at him and then at the open door where my algebra class is held. Oh Sehun walks into the room with his hands in his pockets and gives me and Chanyeol a small wave before calling out to someone else inside the room. I look back at my companion.

 

“Okay,” he says. “Tomorrow?”

 

“Okay,” I laugh. “Have fun with whatever,” I say as I walk into the room.

 

“You too!” I hear him call back just before the door closes.

 

* * *

 

I drag myself to the pool that afternoon for the last subject of the day, Physical Education. I detest P.E. and the guts of whoever required such a stupid subject in the curriculum. Let’s just say this is not my best subject, and it has never been. It will never be my best subject and I have given up on it a long long time ago. I walk through the doors leading to the indoor pool. I am on the right side where I can see the width of the pool very clearly. I think you can fit more than ten classrooms inside it. I look around and see that most of the students in the class are seated on the floor at the far end of the pool facing a whiteboard. I take my shoes off and rush there quickly and I sit down as well. The instructor has not arrived yet.

 

I can feel a tap on my shoulder.

 

I turn around to find a girl, probably in my year, smiling (somewhat fakely) at me. Her long, black hair is tied up in a high ponytail and she is wearing a black long-sleeved shirt (which has a very tight grip on her curves) and a short, white, skater skirt. Her long legs greeted me as she tapped the left foot on the floor. Propped up on it and swinging forward and back, was the right leg. I had to look up to get a better view of her face, because while most of us were seated on the floor, she sat on an elevated part of the tiling near the water.

 

“Jung Haneul, right?”

 

I nod as the words escape smoothly from her lips which were coated with a bit of lip balm. Her thick eyeliner outlines her almond-shaped eyes perfectly and she bats her fake eyelashes at me before smiling. I stare at her and all I can think about is I hope she ditches all that make-up when we're actually going to go into the water.

 

She chuckles and extends her hand forward.

 

“Lee Naeun,” she smiles. “Nice to meet you.”

 

My eyes widen. This woman is Lee Naeun? Wasn’t she the person Chanyeol and Eunna were talking about earlier today?

 

“I’ve heard a lot about you from… the people around here,” the corners of pull up once again as I take her hand and shake it firmly.

 

“Jung Haneul,” I repeat after her.

 

But you already know that, don’t you?

 

“Nice to meet you too.”

 

I wish I meant that, but somehow this meeting seemed like the start of a bad relationship with her.

 

She runs a hand through her ponytail and she looks at me as if she were scrutinizing me, studying me. And then she says,

 

“I hope we become great friends.”

 

I don’t know if I can agree with that.

 

---

 pstd. 150720