Chapter 4- A Child Around Him

Thea’s Pov

March 9, 2010

Rain drops softly collected on the classroom window as kids ran about the room socializing with others. They talked of topics about new idol scandals, next episode release dates, and student rumors which made me think of them as such odd creatures. As the were mumbling about nonsense that would soon pass with time, their blindness of popularity would keep them from seeing the true reality of what was going on presently.

In their eyes currently, they needed to prepare for the upcoming project and other needless things. But my observant eyes caught something else. I made the conclusion today that rain was a beautiful source of life. People may have a strong distaste with what the feeling of rain brought, but they failed to actually see what rain’s finishing touch on the world was. It washes away the dry hot dirt so it can nurture life to grow into something spectacular which I found astounding. It was like a healing power that could cool your thick breath, and whisk away any scent of doubt leaving you with a strong anchor that laid heavy on your heart.

So as I sat in the corner staring out the window at the water droplets falling in random order, I may have appeared to be unsocial, but was really trying to see a bigger picture of how life works. But this did not mean, I didn’t feel alone. The fact that I was the only one that saw the world this way made me feel sick. Secretly every once in awhile, envy would sprout at the fact that I couldn’t be dull and brainwashed like the others. I urged for the feeling of making a friend smile or laugh. In the end, I was still always alone. Was it better this way? Maybe if I was a brainwashed I wouldn’t like that life anymore than I liked this one. Pain struck in my head. Almost as if a lightning bolt had crackled over me. I had lost track of my calm thinking to a serious headache.

I stumbled getting up before making my way to the teacher. But before I could speak, she made an announcement to the class to take their seats. So I retreated back to my desk hoping that the headache would go away soon before anyone noticed.

“Everyone get into pairs of three or two. As I went over before, you will be doing a group report project over the Paleozoic Era.”

The classroom let out a groan in union. All of the students had been dreading this project since February since it required research cards, outlines, and presentations. I had started early knowing that I would be left out of a group once again. That was at least until the Valentine’s Day incident occurred. It was March now, and I had grown a lot closer to Taehyung. Overtime, people started talking less to Taehyung and seemed to start avoiding him more than usual. He kept trying to assure me it wasn’t my fault since it was his choice, but there was still guilt stirring at the pit of my stomach.

I quickly gathered my science book and folder from my desk out of anticipation. This would be the first time I did a project with another person, and that helped mask my guilt. Maybe I was being too worrisome. Or was Taehyung secretly mad at me for bringing down his status? These thoughts flew in and out of my head as I tried to convince myself that he wouldn’t lie to me which only made my headache even worse.

“Why so gloomy?” I heard a rough voice say.  

I looked up to see Namjoon, and Taehyung pulling two desks over to connect to mine. I managed a grin, I shook away the negativity.

“Umm….” I mumbled while trying to redirect my gaze anywhere that wasn’t on Taehyung knowing he might see through me. I didn’t want to go into my thoughts right now. Especially since all of my classmates were just an earshot away. If I was going to open up to anyone, it wouldn’t be to these people, excluding Taehyung.

Taehyung gave me a worried look as Namjoon waited for me to answer his question. I tapped my feet in sync trying to think of any excuses that might be slightly believable, but my mind was currently brain fried from all the studying I did last night. Luckily, Taehyung saw me struggling.

“So any ideas on where to start?” He looked to Namjoon who shrugged, and started shuffling through the assignment outline the teacher had given us.

My heart lept out of relief. Taehyung looked to me, and I weakly smiled at him in thanks for the help. He winked back, and then turned back to Namjoon. I took this chance at this change in the subject to break away from the last question.

“Actually I started early since I didn’t know I would be doing it with oth… umm,” my voice trailed off. “Anyways, I have the outline done since really the project is just a timeline summary of the paleozoic era, and which finding the research wasn’t that difficult so I have sources at the bottom of the outline so all you guys have to do is collect, and summarize the information. I also outlined the slides for the presentation so all we need to do is fill them in with information that we collect for our essay.”

Without thought I looked up to see Taehyung and Namjoon both staring at me with awe. Did I do something wrong? Maybe I forgot to do something… oH yea! I did forget something. Quickly I reached down for my backpack, and dug through it. Once I found what I was looking for, I set it down in front of me for them to see.

“I only made one copy for myself so I didn’t have any others prepared… sorry.” My eyes snapped back to life with the idea that might solve this situation. “But! You guys can share mine for now, and I’ll just print out another later.” I was glowing with happiness that I had fixed the situation. I knew this because my cheeks felt stiff, but the feeling of joy it brought override the odd stiffness.

Namjoon coughed abruptly as if he had been in shock, and Taehyung tilted his head while picking up the paper packet to read it. “But Thea… We have no idea what this is that you are talking about.” He flipped throughout the papers trying to see if he could decipher any of it.

I’m so stupid!! I didn’t even explain what it was. I only defended myself. Nice going idiot… “Oh yea… my bad. Well it’s all the sources I gathered printed out. I usually have free time during school so I thought to bring a packet of the sources so I could start highlighting the main points we might need for the project.”  

Namjoon’s jaw slightly dropped as he stared at me while Taehyung’s eyes widened as he realized what he was looking at. “Thea… when did you have the time to do this all?”

“Lunch,” I exclaimed proudly thinking back to all the times my father would scold me for using my precious time for eating so much when I could be learning more. A worried expression flashed on Taehyung’s face.

“Holy crap Thea. You’re amazing!!” Namjoon shouted while jumping up from his seat. He pranced around a few steps happily before sitting back down to examine the packet more.

“It’s really nothing…” a smile glided across my face with the joy of not disappointing someone.

Taehyung grumbled before snatching the paper out from Namjoon’s hands. “You should have just waited.” Once again, he started to flip throughout the pages studying the information.

I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion. His face looked stern with anger for some reason, but I knew of nothing that I did wrong.

“Aish,” Namjoon grabbed the packet back from Taehyung. “Stop being such a gloom. You should be thanking her not criticizing her for all the work she did.”

My eyes stayed glued to the laces of my shoes. I didn’t know what I did to upset Taehyung, but the fact was that he was angry with me. He won’t stop talking to me will he? Fear flashed in my eyes. I didn’t want to lose my first friend. I couldn’t. I lifted my head to apologize in hopes that it would fix everything when my head was struck with pain again. Usually headaches don’t hurt this much…

Wincing in pain, I placed my hand over my forehead trying to make the pain go away. Taehyung looked up from his book, and studied my odd position making the conclusion that something was wrong.

“Are you okay Thea?” I looked over to see him watching me with concern written across his face. Namjoon looked up, and noticed my pain as well.

“Yea you don’t look too well… Do you need to go to the nurse’s office?”

I weakly smiled to mask my pain. I didn’t want my friends to worry over something so needless. “ Yea, I’m okay. I’ll just head over to the nurse’s for some ibuprofen. Be right back.”

I slowly got up from my seat before remembering something that might help them while I was gone. I turned back around to see Taehyung still hadn’t taken his eyes off me which made me feel weird. I pushed the feeling away. “Hey if you guys turn to page 342 in the science book, you’ll find a timeline that might help you guys. Check it out while I’m gone.”

Namjoon looked up from the packet, and smiled softly in thanks. “Can do ma’am!” He made a salute to me before going back to the book in search for the timeline. Happiness spread throughout my body. I was helping someone. So I finally went back to making my way to the nurse’s office when I heard a chair move against the ground.

“I need to use the bathroom.”

Confusion touched me as I looked back to see Taehyung making his way to me. When he saw me watching him, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and cleared his throat.

“What are you looking at? I just need to use the restroom.” He was avoiding eye contact, but obviously didn’t seem mad anymore which brought a comforting smile to my face.

“Okay then,” I said with a curt laugh while putting my hands up in defense. “You just can’t leave me alone can’t you?” I laughed at his childish actions before walking off.

“Yah!! I don’t follow you everywhere, and I surely don’t have enough time to worry about you that much pig…” He grumbled before following me out of the classroom. There was something about that boy… Aish always making me feel emotions I didn’t know about. Just who was this kid?

Taehyung sped up his speed to walk beside me. As we passed the blue lockers down the hallway, out feet matched up in sync. I started to take notice, and tried to keep them that way out of boredom which wasn’t easy since Taehyung’s legs were longer than mine. I was too busy watching our feet to notice Taehyung dealing with the awkward silence.

“So what’s wrong with your head?” He said finally managing to find a topic to talk about, but he quickly noticed my attention wasn’t on him when he saw me concentrating on our steps.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a faint smile from Taehyung as he shook his head, in what seemed to be, disbelief. “You know Thea, despite your observant personality, you are very oblivious in a childish way sometimes,” he exclaimed while laughing to himself.

“Really?” My eyes pondered in confusion. Never have I once been called childish nor have I ever noticed any childish aspects about myself. Taehyung was still smiling to himself when I looked over to him making me wonder if he found me amusing. For some reason, my cheeks flared up causing me to instinctively put my palms over them in effort to cool them down. A tingling feeling lit my insides up making me want to laugh along with Taehyung. I wasn’t used to this new emotion, and didn’t know if I liked it or not. But what I did know was that my happiest moments had been with Taehyung so I was betting it was a good feeling.

I swung my arms back in forth while walking beside Taehyung. The hallways seemed to go on forever which I didn’t mind. Just walking next to him made me feel at ease. I wanted him to take me to the Nurse’s Office, but I couldn’t ask him that could I? My fear of doctors had not changed rather it evolved. It brought back bad memories…

“Tae...?”

“Yea, what’s up?” He said looking over at me wholeheartedly. My head throbbed making me lose concentration, but I ignored the pain as much as possible.

I cleared my throat before speaking. “Didn’t you already pass the Boy’s bathroom?” I said turning the corner to finally see the Nurse’s Office in eyesight. We both stopped and looked to the room. Internally, I sighed at the soon departure. Fear was yelling at me to run from just the sight of the door that led to the room. Biting my lip, I held my breath and looked up to Taehyung.

“Oh yea… well I thought that…” he shuffled his feet. “I mean… if you wanted…” He dipped his head down so that his bangs hid his eyes. In confusion, I leaned down and looked up at him so I could see his face not understanding why he was stuttering. But upon realizing how close I was too him, Tae’s eyes widened and his face blushed furiously. He quickly whipped his head away and covered his tomato colored face with the back of his hand in embarrassment.

“What’s the matter?” I tilted my head dumbfoundedly. Was he sick too? I reached up and put both of my palms on our foreheads. His was as hot as mine, but his quickly heated up as he spun around causing me to be caught off guard. Had I done something wrong? Maybe he didn’t want me to know he was sick too?

“Sorry, I can’t face you right now.” He said with his back turned to me not knowin I could still see his red ears. “I’m going to head to bathroom.” Quickly, he whisked off back toward our classroom. Didn’t he say he was going to do that in the first place… What an odd boy.

I laughed to myself before turning back around to realize I still had to face the Nurse’s Office. Wait… Taehyung come back. My fingers slightly trembled, but I used the same trick I had been using since a kid. Humming the theme song to Scooby-Doo, I proceeded toward the room with ease. Softly I tapped on the wooden door hoping nobody would answer and I could get the medicine myself, but to my disappointment it swung open to leave me facing an middle-aged man wearing a white coat with his hair pulled back in a bun. I had to force myself not to laugh because of all things, he had a floaty around his waist decorated with little ducklings print.

“Um… i’ll come back later?...” I took this chance to slowly back away acting as if I saw nothing.

“Wait!”He yelled after me. I clenched my teeth and stopped in my tracks. Darn it… I almost got away. “Sorry this looks weird. I know, but I have an explanation… haha I’m not some weird person. Well I am, but that’s not the case right now,” he informed me with self amusement in his tone.

I heard a struggle of taking off the floaty from behind me. Sighing, I turned around to meet his gaze which almost struck me down. He had blue brown eyes, and dark ashy hair that shaped his face perfectly. But even though he looked beautiful, that did not make it any less fearful for me to be talking to a doctor.

Cautiously, I made my way into the room and was flooded with the strong scent of burning cinnamon. Uneasily, I had been caught off guard. His room shouted vibrant colors, and had toy trinkets every other place I gazed. It was as if his inner personality was showing.

My fingers brushed the soft leather on the couch before I sat down, and I had to admit that this was one of the most comfortable mini couches I had ever sat on. As I was sitting down, the nurse was attempting to straighten up his work area to make him look productive, but my impression of him was already made.

Finally, he faced me and took a deep breath. “Okay, sorry. I was finishing up a Skype call with my 6 year old daughter,” he said breathlessly with a meek smile. “So what’s the problem today?”

I spoke the words, but no sound came from my mouth. I couldn’t get m