I never wanted to be here in the first place..

Jeremy was in the schoolyard picking up his things, which was spread across the ground. He had just bend down do pick up his Math book, when he heard a voice.

“Jeremy ah! What happened?”

He turned around to see the face of his friend Yun Hee staring at him. Her black hair had loosened from her ponytail, and was hanging down her face. She had been running. He turned his head again to avoid her concerned eyes.

“Nothing.. I just.. dropped my bag.” He tried smiling, but it didn’t reach his eyes, and Yun Hee didn’t believe him.

“It was Dae Ho again, wasn’t it?” she said.

He could feel her eyes burning into his neck, but he wouldn’t turn around. He continued picking up his books, and avoided Yun Hee’s question.
She signed.
“You can’t just pretend nothing happens, Jeremy ah. He will keep bullying you, if you don’t do anything.” She tried, but Jeremy just looked at her.

“What can I do? I can’t tell the teacher that’s for sure. It would only make it worse.” He said.

“But it can’t just continue like this either? Maybe if..”

“I can’t do anything Yun Hee,” He cut her off. “I’ll just try to ignore it, and stay out of their way as much as possible.”
He looked at her, but her face didn’t show any sign of letting the topic go. He closed his eyes and signed, before looking back at her.
“I have to get this done, but you can leave now Yun Hee,” He smiled weak at her. “You have to get Chae Shi from preschool, right?”

She looked at her phone checking the clock. She looked up at him again, looking troubled whether she had time to stay a little longer or not.

“Aish, you’re right, but don’t think you can just distract me and think I’ll forget this Jeremy yah! We will talk about this later!” She sent him a look telling him, that she meant it, before turning around and running toward the school gate.

“See you tomorrow!” She yelled, while waving her arm over her head.

He waved at her, before turning back to his task of cleaning the area from his belongings.

He was about to put the last book into his bag, when he got a shock as a loud thunder suddenly sounded above him. He looked up just as the rain started pouring down.

“Oh great,” He said out load, “Why not?” 10 seconds had passed and he was already soaked. He zipped the bag and ran to the nearest building and went inside.
He took off his school jacket, not that it helped much since his shirt was just as wet.

He looked around since he hadn’t been to this part of the school before. He had started at the school a month ago, but he hadn’t seen much of it, because he spent most of his time in classes in the other end of the schoolyard. When there were no classes he was mostly in his room, reading or doing homework.

He didn’t really get along with his classmates, because.. well, for one thing, he couldn’t speak Korean, so he couldn’t really talk with the other students unless they spoke English, but then there was the second reason.. Dae Ho hated him. Jeremy didn’t really know why, but he did. Dae Ho was the one in class everyone listened to, and didn’t dare to talk back at, so if he hated him, the entire class did too.
So no one talked to him. Only in Korean so the others could laugh at him as he didn’t get what they said, but he was pretty sure, that it wasn’t pleasant things they said.

He never wanted to go to Korea in the first place. He had liked it in England, but his father had sent him to a boarding school in Korea, because ‘it would be a great experience for him’, as his father had said at the dinner table the night his parents had told him about it. His mother had been sitting and smiling down to her food without looking at Jeremy.
Jeremy knew better though. He knew his father just wanted him out of sight, so Jeremy wouldn’t cause any trouble for ham. The only reason Korea had been chosen, was that his father had connections in the school board.
So here he was in Korea with no friends except for Yun Hee. He liked Yun Hee. She was really nice, but sometimes a little scary as she wasn’t scared of yelling or talk her opinion openly. She wasn’t scared of Dae Ho, so she talked with Jeremy. He really appreciated that.

Achoo!

Jeremy sniffed as the sneeze brought him out of his thoughts. He looked out the window in the door. It didn’t look like the rain would stop anytime soon, so he decided to take a look around until he could go out again.  So he walked down the corridor as he looked into the classrooms where the doors stood open. He was, as far as he could tell, in the part of the school where the music classes took place. One room was filled with different kinds of drums, and the next had more wind instruments than Jeremy had ever seen before, and he was about to have a closer look when another room court his attention. It was across the hall, and the room was filled with everything from guitars to large bass guitars, and at the back of the room the wall had string instrument hanging all over it. He walked straight for the back wall, as his eyes had spotted something interesting.
He let his fingers run down the cold wood, as he smiled a little. In front of him was a violin. It was beautiful with its reddish and brown colors. It looked old, but well kept.
He looked around before taking it down from the wall. He placed it to his collarbone, and adjusted his fingers to lay comfortable on the violin’s neck. He took a deep breath before placing his jaw into the chinrest. Then he placed the bow on the strings, and tried playing a note. The tone shook a little, but it was not bad. Jeremy laughed a little to himself. It had been many years since he had had a violin in his hands and he had missed it, so he tried to remember where to hold his fingers to make the right sounds.

“This is.. A, and this is E, so this should be G.” He said out loud, as he moved his fingers from one string to another.

He tried moving the bow over the strings again, and this time he managed to play several chords without hitting a wrong note.

“Haha, I didn’t forget all of it then!” He smiled at the violin, as he lowered the bow.

He was about to place the bow onto the strings once again, when he heard something. He looked around and realized that what he was hearing was music. But classes had already ended for today, so who would be in the building now? He put the violin back on the wall, and led his fingers trace down the instrument once more, before leaving the room to search for the source of the music.

Jeremy went back out to the hall, turned right, and continued as the music turned louder as he walked. He spend the time looked around on the walls, which was filled with pictures of young people playing instruments on stages.
‘They look like students,’ he thought. ‘I didn’t know music was this important for the school.’
He stopped briefly to look at a picture of a girl dressed in a light yellow dress, and a high ponytail placed on the left side of her head with a bow in the same color as the dress. She was thin and a little short, but her large eyes were sparkling. She was playing a saxophone, and the instrument didn’t suit her appearance at all, but she looked like she was having the time of her life, and Jeremy couldn’t stop the smile forming on his lips.

He then realized he had reached the end of the hall, where a large door was blocking his further whereabouts. He could hear the music clearly now, and he knew someone was playing the piano on the other side of that door. It sounded really beautiful, and he wanted to know who made it! ‘Damn you curiosity.’ he thought to himself, as he went to the door trying to open it, without making any noise. The door wasn’t locked, and he opened it slowly, as he looked into the room. It was big and bright with windows covering the entire back wall from floor to ceiling, and the rain was lazily trailing down it on the outside. There was nothing in the room except for a few benches by the right wall, and a few plants near the left wall and in the middle of the room was a large, black piano. It was one of those you saw at concerts and things like that, and it looked really expensive. But what caught Jeremy’s attention was not the room or the piano. It was the person sitting by the piano. It was a young male. He looked older than Jeremy, so he was maybe about the twenties. He was slim, and Jeremy could tell he was rather tall even though he was sitting down. He was facing the windows, so he didn’t notice the door had been opened, which didn’t bother Jeremy at the moment. He was completely engrossed by the way the pianist’s fingers danced over the keys without missing a single note. The song went rather fast, but he played it like it was a child’s play to him. The melody was familiar to Jeremy, but he couldn’t remember at the moment where it was from.
He looked closer at the person. He had short, black hair, and from where Jeremy stood he could see a piercing on his left ear. He was wearing a greyish sweater with a low cut, exposing his neck. He wore skinny, black jeans along with white sneakers, and under the grey sweater there was a white t-shirt.
‘He looks quite.. fashionable.’ Jeremy thought as he stood there, realizing his mouth was open, which had caused him to drool. He quickly used his sleeve to wipe his mouth, and looked around to make sure no one had seen him standing there looking stupid like that. Then the music suddenly stopped, and he looked back at the piano and to see the other person looking back at him. Jeremy froze in his movement.

“Annyeonghaseyo?” He said, looking at Jeremy. His voice was deep, but he didn’t sound angry with Jeremy being there.

Jeremy tried to answer him back in Korean, but all that came from him was, “Eerm.. An.. h-hello..”
It came out almost as a whisper, and Jeremy mentally cursed himself and looked away. The other boy’s lips formed a wry smile, and he said,

“I couldn’t really hear that. Try again?” Jeremy looked at him.

“You speak English?” Which, Jeremy realized was a rather stupid question, as he had just did.

“Sounds like it?” He smiled, and Jeremy could feel his cheeks getting warmer. ‘Waah, Jeremy, don’t do that!’ he scolded himself,‘He, a boy, is just smiling at you, because you are behaving like an idiot!’

“How long have you been standing there?” He asked, and Jeremy looked at his shoes,

“Erm.. 10 minutes, I think. I didn’t mean to disturb you!” He said looking at the other person, who was just smiling like he was finding Jeremy really entertaining.

“You didn’t.” he said, “I was about to leave anyway, but I just wanted to play on more song first.”

He stood up, and as Jeremy had thought, he was really tall. He went over to a bench and picked up his jacket before walking towards the door where Jeremy was standing.

“Will you come back to play the piano again?” Jeremy asked, as the other person passed him. He turned and looked down on Jeremy, and first then Jeremy got the chance to get a closer look on his face.
He was really tall! A head taller than Jeremy, and Jeremy didn’t really consider himself as short, as he was 5.8 feet tall. The t-shirt’s deep V-neck showed off the chest muscles beneath, which, Jeremy noticed wasn’t too bad. He had a really good looking figure, and his abs was actually visible under his t-shirt, which made Jeremy pout in his mind, as his abs was nonexistent. It was easy to see the boy trained his body.
His eyebrows were a little thick, and his hair was styled in a messy way, but it showed off his face and made his eyes more prominent. His eyes were narrow and he had long lashes. His eyes were so dark that they almost seemed black, but Jeremy could see a hint of brown as the light hit them. The bridge of his nose was long and slim, but what caught his attention were his lips. His lips were rather slim as the rest of the owner, but his upper lip was just the slightest bit fuller, and the color was a dimmed pink, which looked perfect against his skin tone.
The lips suddenly turned into a smug smile, and Jeremy realized he had been staring. He turned his face away and could hear the amusement in the other persons voice, as he asked,

“Did you get it all?” Jeremy’s cheeks were burning.

“Erm. You.. You didn’t answer my question..” He tried, but the other led out a low laughter as he said,

“I actually did, but you weren’t paying attention. Not to my voice anyway.” Jeremy hadn’t thought his face could get any redder, but he was wrong. He was sure pretty sure his face could be compared to a tomato right now.

“But I’ll repeat it then.” He smiled. “I come here mostly every day, so to answer your question, yes, I’ll come back to play the piano.”

Jeremy glanced at him, as the other person looked at his watch.

“I really must go now, but I’ll see you around.” He said, smiling at Jeremy. “I’m Soo Hyun by the way.” He said before turning around going out the door.

“Erm, I’m Jeremy!” Jeremy shouted after his back, and Soo Hyun turned his head and waved at him before turning right for the exit to the parking lot.

Back in the room stood Jeremy and looked down the corridor, at the door Soo Hyun had just left through. Jeremy could feel his cheeks burning, and he was unable to make his heart beat normally.

‘What is wrong with me?’