“Kyungsoo, why are you so late?!” the English teacher yelled at me as I entered the classroom - becoming the sole object of interest of my classmates. Shin Tae smirked at me - that bastard.  
“Miss, I wasn’t feeling well; I had to go to the hospital.” I said guiltily. I hated lies but sometimes it was necessary. I looked down at my shoes since I couldn’t bare to meet her eyes.
“Ah,” Miss Kim breathed out and went back to writing English phrases on the board, “After class I’m going to have to speak to you, for now go take your seat.” she said nonchalantly.
Thank God it was our homeroom teacher, Miss Kim, she was never made fun of you in front of the class. In fact she was a great teacher; nice, pretty and a good listener. The only fault in her was that she was too nosy.

My seat was furthest away from the blackboard in the corner next to the window. We got to do a lottery to determine who will seat where on the first of day of school and that’s the seat I got. It was the loneliest seat of the room - I was the only one who didn’t have a bench mate. Miss Kim started reading a poem out of our thick English book. It was some cheesy, romantic poem about a star-crossed love. You’d think a teacher would have more sense than to read that to bunch of immature 16 year olds; soon the ones intelligent enough to understand -or bored enough to pay attention- were trying to stifle their laughter, hiding behind the huge English book, not that I blame them, I mean who the hell compliments someone’s “rosy bosom”.

The teacher got mad and then made us continue reading the poem one by one. That’s when I decided to block out my classmates stuttering and struggle with English words just stared out of the window. It was a beautiful fall day - the sun was shining but there was a certain weakness in its rays as if it decided to take a vacation from all that hard work it did during the summer. The clouds spread across the sky, quicker than the usual, following along the chilly autumn wind. Golden leaves fell of the trees as it shook violently - as the janitor attempted to keep the fallen leaves in one huge pile, working against the wind. To his dismay the leaves kept riding the cool breeze - scattering all over the place.   

“Kyungsoo.”
“Y-yes?” It took a few seconds to come back to Miss Kim’s English lesson.       
“It’s your turn to read.”
I looked at the poem trying to quickly calculate where the last person could have left it off. It was no use though, I was too out of it. I sheepishly stared at Miss Kim and she opened to tell me off, however the bell rang to my rescue. It’s pretty amazing how noisy it gets after the bell rings, everyone, and I do mean everyone, starts talking at the same time. Miss Kim looked annoyed and just wrote the homework on the board, it was easier than trying to quiet down a class of thirty students. Then she gathered all her stuff and gestured at me. I followed her to the office holding her folders. She sat on her office chair and told me to take a seat too. I didn’t need psychic powers to know this was going to be a long lecture.

“Kyungsoo, now tell me what really happened in the morning.” she inquired.
“Miss, you already know I don’t have the healthiest body.” I joked slightly. It was true though.
“I know, but I’m asking you what is this” she asked as she turned my shirt’s collar. I was kind of shocked, I mean teachers are usually never touchy-touchy and I myself wasn’t too fond of physical contact either. However I saw what she meant, there was drips of blood on the underside of my collar. It wasn’t wet but it wasn’t dry either, either way it was pretty obvious on a white material. I looked away and fumbled with my thumbs. I hated staring directly at Miss Kim’s eyes. I swear, her eyes always seemed to want to stare right through you.
     
“This isn’t the first time.” Miss Kim said gently and I - without even looking at her- knew her eyes would be swimming in a sea of pity. The moment I opened my mouth to reply the words got lost and I didn’t know what to say.

“You know you can talk to me, right?”
I really didn’t want to listen to this. Instead I started to count the amount of pens and pencils she had in her pencil stand. One, two, three... twenty, twenty one, twenty tw-
“Kyungsoo?” to my surprise she lightly touched my hands, causing my to divert my attention back to her.
“Let me help you.” her eyes were determined.
“Miss Kim, it’s really nothing.” I tried to brush it off with a fake laugh. She genuinely looked worried for me but I was really tired. Too tired to put up a fight, too tired to go through all that again.
“This is how we guys solve our disagreements” I said holding my collar, “nothing to fuss about. Miss Kim, my next class is about to start so I must go now.”
I stood up before she could say anything and left.

The rest of the school day went slow but was uneventful. Uneventful meant good, it meant no fists banging upon my face. When the bell rang and the day was over, I sighed knowing it was about to get eventful. For the whole day I could feel Shin Tae’s glares puncturing my back.
“Let’s walk home together, Kuyngsoo~”

To make a long story short they brought me to a secluded park and took their turns practicing their Tae Kwon Do on me, they only left when I out.
“Did you try to rat us out to the English teacher, eh?”
*Punch*
“Hey don’t punch his face too much idiot, you’re gonna give him a black eye, do this instead”
*Jab* *Jab*
“Don’t you think we went too far, Shin Tae? The poor bastard is not even responding anymore. Hehe.”
*Kick*
“No seriously I think he has fainted!”
*Slap*
“It’s no fun if there is no reaction, should we just leave him?”
“Damn joykiller, can’t even take a few hits man. Let’s go.”

***

“Kyungsoo, hey, Kyungsoo wake up!” a voice cut through the darkness. I didn’t want to wake up, it was much more comfortable this way.
“Kyungsoo, come on dude, wake up. You look like , we gotta get you to the hospital.” I reluctantly opened my eyes; my left eye was swollen and felt hot. The dim light made me realize I must have been out of it for hours; the sun was already starting to set. I tried to sit up but my whole body was in agony, it hurt no matter in what way I positioned myself. My mind was sluggish and foggy, I just felt like going back to sleep.
“I feel like .” My voice sounded weak and fragile contrasted to the autumn breeze shuffling through the trees.
“Well on the bright side it seems you have no broken bones! A miracle really.” the voice got closer as a silhouette crouched down next to me. I turned my head -the pain was unbearable- slightly to look at my company. Oh great, it was him.
“So are you having second thoughts about my offer?” he flashed his white pearls at me.
“What do you want from me?” I tried to sound intimidating but I sounded like a whiny little girl instead.
“No Kyungsoo that is the wrong question, the question is what I can do for you.”
He really was like those people on advertisements trying to convince you to buy something really useless like a inflatable dart board.
“I used to be bullied too, believed it or not and seeing you reminds me of my old self.” His voice lowered.
“Bullies like them deserve to die, don’t you think?” he smiled mischievously but his eyes were cruel.
“What is it do you want in return?” I was too tired and hurt to argue with him. I just wanted him to go away.
“It’s simple really, you just need to act as a messenger.” He stood up.
“For something illegal or?” I raised my eyebrow; over my dead was I going to go around as a drug dealer for some spoiled rich boys.
The guy burst out laughing and as he struggled to catch his breath he shook his head.
“Oh god, no! How do you even come up with that?”
“For how long then?”
To this he scrunched up his eyebrows and looked up - guess he hadn’t thought that far.
“Let’s say three months at the most. Deal?” He offered me his hand.
“Deal.” I grabbed his hand and as he helped me to stand up I realized something. His hand, his touch, it felt so wrong. It was almost as if he was - oh god, oh no, what have I done?
As realization flickered through my mind, he stood there smirking at my dismay. I made a deal with a ghost. A ghost!