Sandara Park.

How she irks me.

She’s really a strange girl. Quiet and keeps things to herself. Never shows any emotions whatsoever. Because of her infamous cold attitude, she doesn’t have any friends in school. Who would befriend a girl who rarely speaks and never smiles? Trust me, I had tried to talk to her before; hoping to make her smile because… hey, I’m Kwon Jiyong and I make girls giddy.

But when I talked to her, it was nothing but epic failure.

“You’re really cute.” I smiled at her as she poured some chemical liquid thingy in the flask. The two of us were chosen as lab partners but I wasn’t paying much attention to our lesson since I was thinking of a way to get her to talking. She looked up at me once I gave her a compliment but she didn’t react. She just looked back down at what she was doing.

“Thank you.” She simply said.

Not exactly the reaction I was expecting. I looked around to see that most of our classmates, most are Filipino, were watching us. Seriously, these Filipino people should really mind their own business. This is honestly one of the reasons why I don’t hang out with them despite living in their country. I prefer hanging out with Koreans since I don’t really trust Filipinos.

They’re nothing but a bunch of monkey thieves.

But I shouldn’t be thinking about those people right now. My goal for today is to make Dara converse with me! “So…” I began, watching her do our schoolwork. “Do you have any plans today? I mean, if you want, we can go have lunch together.”

“You are supplicating me for regalement because I am Korean, correct?” She asked, not taking her eyes off her work.

I blinked. “What?”

She looked up at me emotionlessly and pointed a finger at me. “Racism disgusts me.” She then returned to her work while I just stared at her, jaw dropped.

After that, I didn’t bother talking to her again. That was already her chance to have a friend and she wasted it. That’s her loss, not mine.

“Dara, pwede ba patulong dito?” (“Dara, can you help me here?”) At the corner of my eye, I spotted one of our Filipino classmates sitting down beside Dara and placing her textbook on her desk. Dara set aside the book she was reading and looked down at the textbook, nodding from time to time while her classmate explained her troubles.

Huh, she’ll never gain a friend by just tutoring them. She needs to hang out and act like a teenager, not a kill-joy teacher.

“It’s weird to see that Dara girl helping out those monkeys.” Seungri smirked, watching the two girls in amusement. “I can’t believe she could even speak their language. I pity her, you know. She had to help them with their lessons while worrying if they’re going to steal something from her bag while doing so.” I just chuckled and nodded my head in agreement.

Here in the Philippines, Koreans rarely spend time with Filipinos.

All the Koreans in our school never hang out with Filipinos because… our reason is quite simple; we don’t trust them. We’re just here to learn English and that’s it. We’re not obliged to befriend these monkeys. Just the thought of talking to them disgusts me but of course, I have a reputation to hold. Despite disliking them, there are still a few Filipino girls who admit they like me.

Well, they don’t admit it to me but I hear it from other people so yeah, I have to act kind towards them.

I leaned my crossed arms on my desk as I observed Dara who had her glasses on as she explained their lesson to our classmate, using their language. Wow, she actually wasted her time in learning Filipino? Why bother when she’ll leave this country once she graduated? All Koreans do. We study here in the Philippines and once we graduate, we’re out of here to get a real job.

But why is Dara wasting her time understanding these… things?

I shook my head in disbelief as I continued to watch her.

This girl sure is something.