When Akira left the house, hastily pulling on her shoes and straightening her skirt, she noted her father sitting peacefully in the living room chair, sipping on a steaming hot cup of coffee and reading the paper. The sight made Akira feel strange. She wasn’t particularly sure as to why, but she thought it was due to the odd sense of déjà vu that accompanied it.
Upon stepping outside, she saw that her mother’s car was still in the driveway, but somehow the bright yellow seemed duller today.
Probably needs to be washed, Akira thought, but she didn’t think much more of it. Instead, she shoved some earbuds in her ears and pulled out her phone, tuning into the same radio station as she always did. She didn’t understand much of what the hosts said, but they played good music and on the rare occurrences that Akira could understand, she was overjoyed. The bus ride was uneventful, although the man sitting beside her wouldn’t stop asking for her phone number. She asked for him to put his number into her phone instead, just to get him to stop, but deleted it the second she stepped off the bus. She had always been told by her mother that, as a woman, she should feel flattered that men were interested in her, but somehow it just made her feel filthy. She remembered the way her mother used to toss her hair when she passed by men who would hit on her, even though she was married. Akira was only young at the time, but she remembered vividly the many times that men had followed her and her mother home, and the many law suits and restraining orders that accompanied these episodes. Akira’s mother was still proud, and she still continued on with it, but it was just something that Akira could not understand nor come to terms with.  

When she stepped off of the bus, the familiar feeling welled up in her chest one more. She tried to supress the feeling as she looked up at the thick brick walls that surrounded her school – prison-like. It didn’t work. Instead, she swallowed the lump in , trying her best to bury the anxiety in her chest and to cease the shaking of her hands as she walked inside.

And so, the day began.

~~~

Not many people had made the effort to befriend Akira. And by ‘not many’, what was really meant was ‘nobody’. She wasn’t normal to them.
She wasn’t from Korea, and she didn’t speak Korean – or at least not very well. She felt judged constantly by her peers for her appearance, for her stuttered ‘good morning’ to the teachers in an obvious accent, pronounced in a way that made her sound like she had no idea what she was doing – and she didn’t, most of the time, because it was a simple enough phrase and she still managed to get it wrong every time; for a teacher or a peer to correct her pronunciation with a muffled snicker or confused look as to why she couldn’t get something so easy correct. She felt judged for her obvious cultural differences; though they were small. What was most discouraging about it was that she was trying. She was trying so desperately to fit in. To say the right things and to smile at the students who stared at her with such cold looks. She tried her best in classes, but she didn’t understand anything her teachers told her. The students were sick of having to translate for her, sick of having to attempt to explain to her in broken English. But the truth was, Akira was sick of having to speak in broken Korean, sick of not understanding the rumours that were spoken behind her back, why her peers were snickering at her. She was sick of not knowing how to answer her teachers, or how to tell her peers anything about herself, or how to answer roll call in the morning.

Her mother worried about her making friends, although she didn’t do well to show it. She never asked directly about how Akira was finding school, but she’d always ask why she wasn’t with her friends, or why she never got any phone calls. Akira lied well. She wasn’t proud of this skill of hers, and each time she lied to her mother, her heart would ache. But it was easier this way. It meant her mother worried less, because eventually, she stopped asking.

And, on this particular day, she found herself in the same classroom as she always did during fifth period, the class she dreaded the most; Korean.
And it just so happened that on this day, rather than sitting alone beside the window as she always did, somebody sat beside her.

Excited, Akira turned towards the student who had dared to take the seat beside her; she was the new kid, the foreigner, the outcast, after all. But maybe she would make her first friend today. Maybe her luck was turning around. Maybe, just maybe, her life here wouldn’t be as bad as she had thought it would be.

The palace of hope she had built within seconds came crashing down upon seeing his face. Oh Sehun, of all people, had been the one to sit beside her.

She felt guilty in the way she responded upon seeing his face. She scowled, just a little, and subconsciously shifted away from him. It’s not his fault, she reminded herself, but somehow, she couldn’t keep herself from thinking ill of him and from the look on his face when he looked at her, she figured he wasn’t too fond of her either.

“Don’t worry,” he growls, brown eyes flickering down to look at her in disgust, “It’s not like I wanted to sit next to you.”