KIM MINJOO

I nervously held onto my phone tightly, muttering a constant prayer to myself.You can do this. It’s not such a big deal. Besides, you’re dating Kim Chaewon. It’s not such a big deal. I think.

“Well here goes nothing,” I nervously fumbled with the letters on my keyboard before typing out a message.

Hey, could you give me Yena’s number?

Yuri asked for it.

Was it too formal? Should I have added a smiley emoji at the end. Wait, no it’ll make it seem as if I’m trying to send her some signals. I mean I wish I could but I’m tied to a loser called Kim Chaewon. Well, it looks like I have to wait considering she had blocked me. Hell did she even unblock me yet? Well there’s only one way to find out and that is if she sent back a reply. If she would-

One new notification from the love of life( Ahn puppy)

. That was pretty ing fast. Did she not block me after all this time?

I better send her a reply soon to end this conversation as soon as possible so we can move on with our lives as ex-lovers. That ‘title’ of our relationship still hurts me till this present day.

93XX-XX39

Thank you.

Just a monotonous ‘Thank you.’? I should have put ‘Thank you and have a good night’. At least, it’ll make it seem friendlier. Wait, but I can’t just do that. She might take it the wrong way though(I sure hope she does and snatch me away from the loser). Okay hold on get a grip of your own senses, Kim Minjoo. You nearly gave yourself away twice today. The first time with her being entrapped in the arms of that arrogant bunny which made me feel a slight tinge of disappointment that I could be the same usual hero that saved her from her teammates' antics. The second time was when I saw you standing at the foyer waiting for someone. Judging by the extra stick and gear you were carrying, you must have been waiting for Yena. I wanted to reject Chaewon’s offer of riding me home, knowing how well the tension between us is slowly becoming unbearable. I wanted to walk to you who was waiting like an obedient puppy. It reminded me of the days when I had theatre practice but you had a day off from floorball practice and you would choose to wait for me, patiently like an obedient puppy. Pity I wasn’t that patient enough in letting you get over the shock of my kiss with Kim Chaewon. I just tried every single way to get back to you through messages or forced talks but your faithful friends decided to cut off your relationship with me, preventing me from explaining my side of the situation. 

I went back to reality and realised I had to send Yuri,her soon to-be girlfriend's number.

Hey, you

What ??

Did you manage to get her number?

93XX-XX39

Holy

Thank you so much. I owe you one :)

No prob.

Good night and sweet dreams about your lovely date with Yena

Pft. As I if would that quickly

I switched off my phone and immediately went to bed, praying that I would not be able to have the same recurring dream about her ignoring me, time and time again in various scenarios each one ending with her saying the unspoken “let’s break up”. 

____________________________________________________________________________________

I woke up to the smell of pancakes burning. Knowing my parents had already left for the work, it seemed rather suspicious. Wait, hold on did a robber break into my house and decide to cook me a nice breakfast before robbing the place clean?

I immediately racked my brains not while taking my prop which happened to be a fake cast. Who could it be that had broken into my house? Is it Yuri? Wait, but she can’t wake up this early just to prepare pancakes? 

I braced myself for who the intruder might be as I stealthily walked to the kitchen. I smelt a familiar coconut scent. Oh is it that loser, Kim Chaewon? Why the hell did she even manage to get in the house? Oh yeah, I gave her a set of spare keys so that she could come in and cuddle, correction, more like force each other into a make out session. Yeah, she may give me slightly more affection compared to Yujin, but it just doesn’t help the fact that I am merely using her as a toy to vent all the emotions of regret and disappointment in myself. For purposely breaking off the relationship with her. Ahn Yujin.

I went over to her and hugged her lovingly, imagining that it was Ahn Yujin, instead of Kim Chaewon. 

“You know, instead of trying to break into the house like the cute little robber you are, why don’t you try to order breakfast from Macs. You can steal two things, my heart and my stomach.” I said it with so much love, that I felt puking right there and then.

“Well you see, I once read up a quote, a way to to a girl’s heart is through her stomach. So I’m trying to be a lovely girlfriend by trying to cook her a lovely breakfast. Well, it just so happens that I can’t seem to work my magic with your cooking pan” she quipped.

“Silly cheetah, you needn’t have done that. Look, I’ll throw this into the trash cause it seems a bit too hazardous to eat” 

I pecked her cheek and told her to leave the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and to get the car ready to go over to the nearest MacDonald’s before I got finished with my morning routine. 

She obediently nodded her head and asked whether we could have a ‘quick make-up session’ after I was done .

I replied with a lazy ’sure’, making a mental note in my head to bring the concealer to hide the nasty hickeys.

I immediately ran upstairs to finish with my routine so that I could get done with her morning needs as soon as possible. It was only when I settled to wear one of Yujin’s hoodies that she had left behind so that I could be comforted in her scent. I seriously lamented to myself for the nth time in that relationship whether I should not have given into my feelings right there and then and not have kissed Chaewon. How would things be different right now?

It could have been you who had made me breakfast and us laughing after your failed attempt in cooking. Even if both of you were bad chefs, I would always make an attempt to finish the less than edible food you cooked for me compared to how I dumped Chaewon’s pathetic pancake down the trash can. We would have finished our morning routine, sharing a chaste kiss over MacDonald’s breakfast on the way to school. Instead, I have to spend my time with Chaewon.

I broke out of my thoughts, realising how little time we had left to fetch breakfast from MacDonald’s and rush to school. I immediately got into Chaewon’s cobalt Toyota Prius and told her I would promise a good make up session for her unless she wouldn’t rush our asses to pick up our breakfast.

After one hell of a quiet ride, I finally managed to get my breakfast and digged into it as Chaewon rushed to school. At least I managed to settle my hunger for the morning, as I would have to handle her incoming rains of attacks on my neck and collarbones before school started. She skillfully parked her car and proceeded to attack my neck relentlessly. I edged her in at the right times, each time with ‘Ahn Yujin’s various facial expressions’ appearing in my brain. First with her dimpled smiles, followed by her eyes which curved into the cute small crescents or the way how her eyes sparkled with little stars whenever she found something enjoyable. It slowly evolved into her fierce, furrowed eyebrows on her face when her team was on the losing end at any match. Suddenly, her face of confusion which slowly morphed into disappointment, another emotion which I can’t seem to unpack. Was it perhaps the feeling of being heartbroken? I’m not really sure as tears clouded my vision as Chaewon was busy with putting marks of possession on me. I felt disgusted and horrible at whatever I was doing.  Submitting my own self, to Chaewon, toying with her own feelings just to satiate my own anger and disappointment at not being the best person I could have been for Yujin.

In the heat of the moment, just as she was about to leave a rather impressionable hickey that was bound to last for a couple of days on my neck, I pulled away. 

“Sorry”, was all I could muster with my own courage after all the turmoil of conflicting emotion I was currently experiencing. 

I unlocked the car door and immediately ran to the nearest washroom, feeling my breakfast to make their appearance. I hastily locked myself in the last stall so that at least my cries would be muffled. Fortunately, for me I have the privilege to cry my pitiful till assembly starts which is roughly in about five minutes. Ahn Yujin. , why does she have to come up in every corner of my thoughts, every single week, day and second. I can’t believe that I am crying over the fact that Ahn Yujin had broken up with me despite it being over a month ago. It should have been plenty of time for me to get over the loss of a wonderful person in my life since I have Kim Chaewon. So why the hell does it hurt so much for someone who had deliberately chosen to have her own feelings take over her own conscience? I would pray to any deities to have her right beside me, just to comfort my own pitiful. Just to have this past month to be a bloody, horrible nightmare which I would never want to repeat again. Please, why can’t just have her beside me for once?

My thoughts were interrupted when I heard people enter the room. I held my breath, praying to myself that would not have heard the muffled sobs coming from the last stall of the washroom.

I heard a familiar voice bickering with her partner-in-crime which I could tell was Yena owing to her unique, husky tone. Did perhaps God had actually listened to my prayers and sent Ahn Yujin as my angel?

It was confirmed when I heard her scolding Yena for putting a cup of strawberry milk on Yuri's table and having Yena’s uniform stained out of Yuri’s shock of being woken up from her dream and the sound of the tap running.

Damn, it’s only been the first day they had been unofficially together and Yuri had made quite an impression on her crush.

I snickered silently to myself as Yujin told Yena to go to the general office to request for a change of clothes as the stain seemed to be rather stubborn.

Yena sarcastically shouted, “ What a good idea, Ahn Idiot. If only you had said this earlier and I would have been able to go to the general office not being completely soaked from this water and strawberry milk”

I hear the door to the washroom close. Did Yujin perhaps leave together with Yena?

It seems so, judging from the eerie silence of the bathroom

I opened my stall door, expecting to see my reddish,blotchy nose and puffy eyes staring back at me in the mirror.

What I had least expected to see were the dark, chocolate brown eyes of Ahn Yujin to be staring back at me.

I walked to the sink trying my very best not to turn my head and make any form of eye contact with her. Just wash up your face and fix your hair and get out of the place as soon as possible.

“Rough morning, eh Kim Minjoo” That was probably the most soothing thing to hear after experiencing so much turmoil of emotions this morning regarding the person who had just spoken to me. Also, I think I may need to ask her some of the liquid courage she may have taken just to speak to a cheater like me. But, I can’t considering our relationship as ‘ex-lovers’ 

“Yeah, haha”, I nervously laughed trying my best to focus on washing up my face and stare back at the eyes I had longed to catch a glimpse of for the past month. Her eyes furrowing into slits when she caught me kissing Chaewon.

“Oh yeah, you might want to cover those nasty hickeys that Kim Chaewon had left on you”

Oh , I forgot to bring my own concealer. I am gonna be murdered by my form teacher, Mr Lim

“Here, I’ll leave you my own concealer. You don’t have to return it, if you don’t want to”, it's as if she had read my own sincerely panicking state of mind.

“Huh. Oh, thank you so much. I’ll make sure I will return it to you as soon as possible.” I muttered gratefully to Yujin and perhaps to all the deities for gifting me with her presence.

“Nah, it’s fine. Considering how much you make out with her on a daily basis” she commented.

A blush slowly crept up my neck making my face slowly morph into a tomato. Was the hickeys that Chaewon gave too obvious, besides she must have really sharp eyes despite my concealer doing its job of covering the ‘nasty hickeys’.

“Anyways, uhm we should get going or like Mr Lim would make us stand outside the hall for assembly” she nodded her head in the direction of the exit.

I nodded in return and ensured that I looked presentable and not as if I had cried the entire Pacific Ocean.

She held the door open like the gentle woman she was, was it perhaps old habits of hers that never died. How she usually lets me be protected from any incoming danger owing to her own history of being a clumsy person. It’s a pity that the only gentlewoman trait that Chaewon possesses is asking if I was okay after every session. But it only comes out when she senses that I had a rough day. But other than that she had just been using me as a toy, the same way I am doing to her.

I muttered a simple ‘thanks’ and she nodded her head as acknowledgement.

“Come on, we only have a solid minute to run up to the hall. Ready, set, go!” , her dimpled smile appearing after the last sentence which left me in a daze. But I quickly got a hold of myself and tried to catch up with the floorballer who was going way faster than I had expected.

Luckily for us, we had managed to reach in time just as our class chairperson was taking down the attendance.

“Girls, let’s try to be a bit more punctual next time, shall we?” Mr Lim commented before proceeding to assist our chairperson on attendance.

Ahn Yujin showed another dimpled smile towards before mouthing ‘Have a good day ahead, Minjoo’

She skipped happily to take her place beside Yena, who had been clad in a rather crumpled, and stinky shirt from the lost and found box of the general office.

As I hurriedly took my place besides a rather sleepy Yuri. It made me recall the days when ‘we ran up to the hall after being extremely slow on the bicycle that Yujin had insisted on bringing me to school on, saying that ’it was good warm up for her and slowed down global warming’. Well needless to say, I truly missed those days, as I am stuck with a loser that drives her Toyota Prius which in my opinion does not slow down global warming.’

The national anthem soon began, but I felt that someone was trying to burn holes into my back.

It persisted till we were done with our pledge taking and had to go back to class for form teacher time. It just seemed rather weird. 

Who do you think that the mystery person is??? I'm sorry if I'm not really updating real quickly considering how Home based learning is taking up quite a bit of my time. But feel free to drop a comment or send me a message for this story. Have a good night or morning & stay safe during this pandemic.