I’m sad.

Though I know what reason lies behind this burdening feeling in my heart, I still vehemently deny it, simply because acceptance, for me, is the least thing I want to do right now. It was back during those “dark days”, as I would have been accustomed to calling it lately, when I met her, but now how I wish I could restart time, and meet her all over again, so I could repossess my chances.

It’s already 9 o’clock and I am obviously hair-raisingly late for school. This day is two days from the deadline, and I don’t want the next hours and days to run, because this dread is winning over in my chest right now and I can’t handle it. I will not have an excuse to see her again. Sure I can always come there but without any real reason, I couldn’t imagine my coming there and tell her I want to see her, only for the given, literal reason.

I am a coward.

I can’t bring myself to tell her, to be truly honest with her, to open up myself to her and reveal what has been my little secret all this time. I feel disgusted with myself whenever I realize what kind of situation I am in, like I am those in-denial main characters in a chick-flick movie, but at the same time, I find myself trapped in this truth. Having seen her again and again on a frequent basis—I had liked her to the point of loving her. At the same time in this quagmire I feel happy, in a bliss I won’t ever want to end.

***

Damn it. I rolled my eyes but kept my hands steadily settled stop my thighs, internally preparing myself for the long lecture that await, as the consequence of yet again trouble—as how they would put it—I caused.

“How many times am I going to have to tell you on this? I am not even going to put on the tender kind of approach now. This is officially the second one but technically this is your sixth offense this school year!” the principal rapped a strong hand on the table in a high voice, infuriated by this.

I grunted, reclining on the chair’s back-rest in an even more relaxing position.

“And aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You’ve been suspended for so many times and yet you still haven’t learned anything?” he leaned forwards to me, the scowl still not vacating his face. “Where did we go wrong, Kim Yukwon? What is wrong with you?”

I just avoided his gaze, tugging one corner of my lips down in annoyance. “Look, it wasn’t my fault, okay?” I snapped. “I didn’t know Red Tiger was up to some mischief again!”

“’Up to some mischief’? Well then but you shouldn’t have been there in the first place!”

“Hey I wasn’t there!” I clenched my fists. “But Jihoon called me!”

“You expect me to believe that?” the old man sniggered. “Either way if you really had preserved sound judgment you shouldn’t have attended to that and hadn’t walked straight to trouble!”

I was internally yelling obscenities at him. I really want to justify my case right now but no matter what I’ll do, this butthole won’t listen so I might as well shut up.

“Now, since suspension won’t do you any good…” he took this really long drag of air and coolly took his seat. He posed his elbows on the arm-rests of his office chair and entwined his fingers in front of him. Looking at me straight, he said, “We’re going to inflict a punishment far worse than suspension. If you’re not going to comply with this then we might just have to expel you,”

This quite put me in unease. Suspension was the next worst thing to expulsion. So what could this be?

“You…”

I swallowed.

“…will work as a janitor in this school for three months,”