JEON Jungkook stared at the small flimsy paper. It was a rectangle. But it had not been a perfect one. They must have used a ruler to cut out the small pieces. He twiddled the sides with his index finger and thumb, and felt them lightly prickle his skin.

Unwittingly, the numbers on it swirled something distasteful in him. Everything that day seemed to. He watched the hall dispassionately. It was filled with students like him. And it buzzed with something warm and exciting. Some fingers flew nervously over their phone screens, dialling the respective numbers given to them over torn pieces of paper. Most others already had their phones close to their ears, and the cacophony of conversations painted the hall a wild marketplace. Loud and boisterous.

Jungkook could not bring himself to share the sentiments. But he should. Because it was orientation for college after all. But this reminded him that he could have experienced all these two years ago. He was accepted then, too. He had even gotten the scholarship then. But of course, it had been too good to be true. They had revised the scholarship right before the first term started. Unsurprising. He was denied. He could not have afforded school and had to drop out before it even began. He had found out later, that it had been given to another student whose father was the college’s gracious donor. It was easy to piece the puzzles together. Best college? ‘Bull,’ he called it.

He had run far from that ridiculousness, but he still could not change that most of his batchmates were two years younger than him now.

He hated it.

“Well, Jungkook...aren’t you calling?”

“I am,” Not if he could help it.

“It's cool; don’t you think? To have an excuse to be friends with someone you otherwise won’t know. Well, someone in our year anyways. Did you know that they made sure it’s across different schools? It must have been a pain to organise it.”

“Why aren’t you calling then?” Jungkook asked, non-committal.

“Unfortunately, I am not the caller. See? I don’t have the paper,” He made a show of his empty hands. Then, eyeing the slip in Jungkook’s hand, he said, “You should call. Who knows? It might be a girl.”

Jungkook fiddled with the paper that contained a stranger’s phone number. It was stupid. What could be said between strangers? Nonetheless, he nodded. If only to thwart the new boy his nosiness.

Yet, his inquisitive attention was heavy on him. Still, if not more. Jungkook pretended to glance at the paper as he pressed numbers on his phone. He did not need to. Because he was calling Yein. And because he knew them by memory.

It rang and he waited. His fingers drummed restlessly against his thigh, although he resisted the urge to shake his legs with them.

No one picked up on the first try. Not on the second. Or even on the third.

“Not picking up?”

“No,” Jungkook reluctantly confirmed. Yein must have been busy, he reasoned. She always was. But in his selfishness, he thought that she had wronged him.

“Give me that,” the boy took both the paper and his phone, “No one ever not answers my calls,” he claimed proudly.

There was no time for protest as the call went through on loudspeaker.

“Hello?” The question from an unfamiliar voice spurned Jungkook to quickly snatch the phone back and switched it off speaker.

“A girl,” As if the information a laden weight, the guy had remained seated, unmoving. Then, as if respecting the girl’s sensibilities, he had mouthed the crude words, ‘You lucky bastard.’

Jungkook pointedly ignored the comment. He weaved out of the hall, dodging excited students pacing the floors, talking animatedly with smiles permanently etched on their faces. This…was making them happy.

He was suddenly desperate to leave them all behind. When he finally stepped out the threshold, glass doors swinging slowly shut behind him, his breaths were short. Jungkook realised that he had been running.

Unbiddenly, he let out a silent laugh. This was ridiculous. He was ridiculous. His eyes strayed to the phone screen in his hand.

She had not hung up.

He hesitantly brought it up to his ears, not speaking a word, and in turn, she had kept hers. So, the wordlessness between them stretched. He looked in at the chaos through the doors, blissfully deaf to it, worlds away from his reality.  

“Funny, isn’t it?” He started.

“How we ended here?” She guessed.

“Yes,” He deliberated over his worn white shoes as the girl pondered over her next words. It was his only pair. He washed them religiously, but you could never hide age. The threads were frayed ever so slightly over the right toe, his dominant side, at the start of a worming hole. It was time to buy a new pair.

“It is,” She started, and it took him a while to remember what had been said, “One moment you’re here and the next everything you knew is no longer there. Nothing is yours.”

There was nothing particularly wrong with what she had said. But she had sounded so agreeable with her lot in life, and he needed to disagree, “But you shouldn’t be okay with it.”

“Maybe,” she acquiesced. He heard the smile in her voice, “But sometimes kicking and screaming would drown you faster than if you let the current sweep you. Sitting back doesn’t mean you’re weak, you might just be smarter. Pick a battle you can win and don’t die before then.”

She had sounded as if life had pulled her down. Was she like him? Disadvantaged and spat at? He was suddenly curious about her. A perfect stranger. A someone who had kept her words and let him keep his.

“Why didn’t you hang up?” He asked.

“Why did you call?” It was her subtle challenge. A truth she was sure he would avoid. So, he would not ask for hers.

Instead, he said, “Play with me?”

“Play?”

He heard rustling and he liked to imagine that he had surprised her past her collected secrecy.

“One truth and one lie,” he offered.

Pause.

She had not wanted a private conversation. He had not either. But he could not hate himself for breaking a supposed unsaid agreement.

“One truth and one lie,” She agreed.

Her earlier observation rang true, it was funny how they got here. From their silence then there had been their careful exchange and now... Now it felt intimate.

“My name is Dahyun, and...” The silence stretched as she tried to call out her words, “I don’t want to know yours?” She ended with a question.

The corners of his mouth had tugged in all the wrong direction. A start of a smile. She was horrible at this.

“Your name is Dahyun, and you want to know mine. I got two truths.”

“Unimportant truth,” she defended. Unlike him, she let out a warm short laugh, “Your turn. I’d like to see you try. This is harder than you think.”  

“My name is Jung—” Something stopped him from giving his name freely, “Jungwoo,” Jungkook corrected, “And I need to buy a new pair of shoes.”

“So, did I get two truths too?”

“I lied. Maybe,” he said simply.

“You don’t need a new pair of shoes?” She questioned. Jungkook wondered the reason people always held his lies like it was the truth.

“You can’t ask that,” He did not let himself feel too bad. It was not as if they would cross paths again. The explanation he held back made that decidedly clear.

So, there was no reason to drag this, “It’s nice talking to you,” he said.

She understood, “It really is.”

It had been their cue: the conversation had ended. Strangely, they had let the seconds leap into minutes of quiet thoughtfulness that was ironically disconcerting yet comfortable.

He knew she had hung up when the static silence turned dead. His finger hovered over the save button as if in a daze.  

Who was she?

He did not know.

Sighing, Jungkook exited the screen and pocketed his phone. He crumpled the little white rectangle paper and then threw it in the bin on his way back into the hall.