How to Forget by Michael Verici

Ah, an iconic book for one of the darkest times for Ji Eun.

If it sounded cheesy, you didn't read wrong. It even made Ji Eun cringe at the dramatic tone she held for herself as she monologued mentally this sentence in her mind as she saw the thin paged but thick covered book to her left on the shelf.

The way the book hit her and made her bring up memories of the past made her determined to get over it, as ridiculous as it sounded. Not only was it ridiculous, but it was ironic and Ji Eun didn't like how much it bothered her and how she couldn't control her feelings.

It's already been a year. Get over it.

Ji Eun's eyes wavered over the book's title, neatly arranged serif typeface sitting calmly on the spine of the book. It seemed to pull her into it, persuading her to take a look for old times sake.

A time she didn't really want to go back to.

Irony, was the word that struck the cool genius as she almost saw herself in third person view.

A book lover such as herself, hating to read a book that was trying to teach her to forget, when in fact it was a cold burning stamp on the times she was trying to erase from her mind.

She snorted softly and reached out to the book, flipping it open with ease.

Opening and reading was the easy part.

Remembering was the hard part.

Step 1 : In order to forget, you must remember all the good times.

Ji Eun couldn't help letting out a snort again. She understood that in some way the book was trying to be poetic how it was supposed to teach good out of bad, but no matter what she couldn't see the reason of why she'd want to forget the good times if they were so good.

Though she was trying to feel confident as if the book wasn't meaningful, she couldn't hide the shakiness in her hands as she turned the pages. She could almost hear time ticking backwards and sound reversing like someone was playing with a recorder and going back back to the time she ever met him.

"My name is Lee Ji Eun. Nice to meet you."

The class clapped politely as small whispers were exchanged throughout the room, some words disappearing into air and some growing as it transferred from each student until sparking a bud of curiosity. Ji Eun adjusted her new glasses as she bowed politely to the teacher and followed the direction he motioned towards.

"Sorry we couldn't prepare a seat for you Ji Eun but I hope that you'll understand that we made room for you in the back." the teacher waved towards the direction and smacked his attendance book onto the desk.

Ji Eun nodded quietly as she took a quick unnoticed glance at the teacher.

In other words; deal with it.

She ignored giggles of curiosity and stares of challenges, some girls snickering at Ji Eun's uniform. Which was strange, since it was following the school rules perfectly. Ji Eun didn't really find reason in shortening her skirt to look more appealing, she didn't really understand why she would roll up her sleeves when the weather wasn't all that cold, and she didn't really understand why her shoes had to be the latest brand new item.

She was plain, she admit, but she didn't really find a problem in it.

Ji Eun put her head down, not because she was unconfident, but rather she didn't really care about small talk and decided to pull out her textbooks for the first class and immediately open to the page her teacher was shouting out.

She ignored the nervous glance from her sides.

They just feel like they need to talk to me to be polite.

The glances eventually faded away as the class continued, the students not feeling generous enough to make a conversation for the waste of their precious time with an unwilling and uncute girl.

Ji Eun silently sighed with relief.

She'd hope this would last until the end of the day, the end of the week, and the end of the month until in the end she would just be "that girl who is alone". She was polite enough not to be bullied, but she didn't do anything other than that. She would avoid making trouble. She would avoid making any type of noise for justice.

Ji Eun nibbled her bottom lip, her thoughts faltering at the word justice.

Maybe I'll do it quietly this time.

"Hey!"

Ji Eun jumped at the noise directed at her, turning slowly to the creator and looked up.

"Hi." The girl smiled, "I'm Jiyeon. That's cool, huh? Our names both start with Ji."

Ji Eun nodded, not particularly smiling.

A familiar sting struck her at the last comment, avoiding failure in keeping her expression calm and cool by a millisecond.

"You don't talk much do you?" Jiyeon tilted her head, "That's okay! I talk a lot, so my friends tell me to shut up most of the times."

Ji Eun let out a weak polite laugh, her eyes shifting from Jiyeon to the girls around her. She didn't mean to think it, but an automatic mental thought that popped into her head was;

I already don't like her.

They were smiling too, but they were doing a whole lot of bad acting compared to Jiyeon.

"So..." Jiyeon's smile faltered for a second, the burden showing in that flash of a moment. "It's lunch time! You want to go with us to the school store? Today they have spicy chicken salad and miyukgook."

"I personally recommend the miyukgook."

"She's saying that because it tastes that bad."

"I'm serious, Ji Eun! You need to try it out! You'll only ever taste that kind of disaster here."

The girls laughed, some of them peering out of the corner of their eye for Ji Eun's response. Ji Eun laughed along politely, her laugh on par with the sound of a couple of footstep. The laughter uncomfortably died down and the smile that seemed to be fixed onto Jiyeon started to wilt as her gauge of kindness started to wear down.

"Sorry." Her words cut through the air like a knife through cold bread. "I like eating alone."

Everyone let out small laughs, but Ji Eun could tell the annoyance behind the teeth seething out without them even realising it. Ji Eun held back an arrogant laugh since she knew it wasn't polite.

"Thanks for inviting me though." Ji Eun smiled, this a lot more kinder. She needed to end this conversation with a compliment or else her actions would come back to bite her. "That was really nice of you to even ask me."

The girls turned bashful at the sudden kindness and giggled with each other.

"No that's okay!" Jiyeon smiled, some other girls were already edging away from Ji Eun and urging their friend to follow. "Tell me if you want anything from the store, I'll buy it for you. My treat for your first day here."

Ji Eun smiled and nodded in a signal of accepting the empty offer.

Finally they were gone.

Ji Eun stopped herself from rolling her eyes, catching herself when she realized a boy staring at her with amusement in his eyes.

She let herself process why he was looking, who he was, since when he'd been looking at her, what was his problem and how she should deal with him. She decided to ignore him, not giving him the satisfaction of her attention and instead pulled out a triangle rice ball from her backpack with one of her favourite books.

It wasn't hard forgetting that he was looking at her since everyone was giving her pitiful glances; the new girl sitting and eating lunch alone. It was kind of meaningless thinking like that in the first place since no one would actually step up to save this new girl from her lonely place.

The classroom flooded with emptiness with the exchange of hungry students and Ji Eun was left alone.

"Hi!"

Ji Eun halted herself from wheezing out a groan as her eyes trailed over the last sentence of her book chapter, turning the page before looking up to the boy that had apparently not joined his friends for lunch. She set down her own lunch on the table, unwrapped and untouched, next to her opened book.

As the flip of the page echoed in Ji Eun's ears, her eyes involuntarily widened at the beaming boy in front of her.

What a sincere smile.

Much different from Jiyeon's, but similar at first look.

"I think we might be very alike." He said, still smiling widely, his eyes tracing Ji Eun from her rice ball, to the book, and to her eyes.

Ji Eun was irked and the patience for all the facades everyone was putting up finally pushed her over the edge. Not to mention that someone she'd met for the first time had so confidently said that they were alike. How would he know?

"I'm sorry?" Ji Eun managed, a brow raising in annoyance and confusion.

The boy grinned widely, his eyes curling beautifully, which was a strange reaction to Ji Eun's attitude.

"See! We're the same."

"Who are you?" Ji Eun gave a shake with her head in irritation and her lips scratched to a frown.

The boy smiled and pulled the chair that was next to Ji Eun and turned it backwards. He plopped him self down and gathered his arms together in front of him. His smile that radiated from him as he leaned against the back of the chair made only Ji Eun even more irritated, but her curiosity for the strange boy let her temper cool down.

The book lay open on a coincidental opening that Ji Eun would remember forever to mimic the scene that played that day with that boy.

"I'm..." He smiled softly, warmness seeping from his skin and into Ji Eun without her realisation.

"Nice to meet you." He started again.

Chapter 14 : A Wolf Appears

"I'm Taemin."

Me here!

I'm really sorry for the short amount of story, but recently I've been busy with a lot of school projects.

So please understand if I upload late or short chapters ><

Thank you for reading and feel free to leave a comment!

(Or ya know, subscribe)