Chapter 2

“You’re not bleeding… right?”

The familiar conversation makes me smile with my face perking up in delight. It is like déjà vu all over again.

“Hey,” I try to speak up but before I could continue he came up with the same question.

“Are you bleeding?”

And this time I laugh out loud as I could picture him giving me a weird look. I clear my throat after laughing for half a minute.

“Aren’t you going to help me up first?”

He did not reply. Instead, he continues to stand at the same position, not moving. It is as if he is scared, he is frightened and he is still waiting for me to answer his first question.

“I’m fine, no blood, no worries.” It was then the sunlight slowly subsides and for the first time I could his face – clearly.

For a split-second I thought my breath is taken away. He’s looking at me. His eyes are focused on me. The look in his eyes, that look, I can’t look away.

I shift my eyes and it goes down to his nose. He has a sharp nose, a sculptured-like one. He has a perfect nose. His clear milky-like complexion and his lovable lips. His features are flawless.

“I can’t.” he bit down his lip with his brows creased. And with that, I watch him spin around and walk off.

I don’t understand. I’m confused. Everything he says and does did not make any sense. It feels strange yet he seems to be in so much pain. That expression he had on his face, I can’t comprehend. But it definitely is a look of someone agonized.

There’s something up with him, I know. My mind, my heart, my instinct, every part of my body tells me that something’s up, this person has some sort of story that I’m dying to know. Something about him makes me unable to take my eyes off him. Something about him seems to trigger something within me and now I’m dying to read the story off this person.

❧

The second bell has ringed long ago but I couldn’t care less. The mysterious guy is still occupying my brain and I refuse to let him go until I know why he was acting like that. He doesn’t seem like a squeamish person to be though. I thought of a thousand and one stories but still none of them could beat the idea of hearing the story from the person itself.

I walk in boldly through the backdoor of the classroom. Call me lucky, the teacher was back facing the class while writing horrendously long solution on the board. I plop down onto my chair with much pride and made a peace with my left hand when Minki snorts at me for being too upright even when I’m obviously in the wrong. But hell do I care.

“Ouch!” I wince softly as I close one of my eyes upon getting hit. Annoyed, I turn around only to find Sanghyun signaling me to open the paper he used to hit me. I roll my eyes; turn my head back to the whiteboard and pretend to not get the hint. I open my textbook and try to focus on the chemistry lesson. But to my dismay, Sanghyun does not give up easily and he seems determine to keep throwing things at me until I start doing what he wants.

“What?!” I mouth exaggeratedly to show my annoyance. Again, he uses both his hands to signal me to open the paper. Reluctantly, I pick up one of them and open it forcefully.

“You’re late.”

And that was what he wrote.

I look back at him again with an unbelievable look on my face. I press my lips together and snicker while staring at his satisfied expression. After all the paper throwing efforts, that was all he wanted to say? If he wants to mock me, there certainly should have been a better way to do it. I sigh at his immatureness helplessly and shake my head before going back to trying-to-focus-on-lessons state.

Not long later, I could feel a sudden pat on my back. I spin myself around with great irritation. To my surprise, Minki simply shovels me a piece of little note before slapping my shoulder to get me to turn back to the front. Confused, I open the little note and notice the ever so familiar handwriting.

“Why are you late?”

Sanghyun has always been the nosy-parker. And he couldn’t stand to see a moment with me not being irritated. It has always been like this – him irking me practically the whole time. Well, maybe he doesn’t do it on purpose. Or even worse, maybe he doesn’t even know how much pain he is. But it always gets on my nerves. It simply felt like humiliation. Without knowing what he did, he just always succeeds to humiliate me. It’s as if he is born with it, the natural talent, in the easiest, in the most effortless ways, he irks me, to death.

I take a deep breath and writes back in my messiest handwriting, “no dinner for you tonight”.

❧

“Lee Jieun!” Sanghyun runs to my desk while he watches me packing my bag. “Wow, you’re slow” he mumbles loud enough as he shifts his eyes around the room. Almost everyone has left and I am the only one still packing.

“Go away,” I retort harshly. He could always find the right words to irritate me. Besides, I’m still a little pissed with what he did in the afternoon – throwing tons of paper at me.

“Lets’ go home together!”

“Are you sure you’re going to join me to walk the long route back home?” I raise an eyebrow and swing the bag on my back. “The spooky and quiet route…?” I purposely ask in a low husky voice.

Well, I learn quite a few things about Sanghyun while growing up together with him. Behind his boyish good looks, he is actually a whiny scaredy-cat.

“Eh…” he hesitates a bit before continuing, “you can walk the normal route with me right?”

“So you’re trying to say that I’m a weirdo who takes the abnormal route home?” I retaliate in much annoyance. “Alright then, you’re a normal person and I am an abnormal one.” I speak with much sarcasm while emphasizing those two words. Before he could reply I turn around and point my finger at him, “I’m warning you, stop following me!”

With that, I run out to the gate and start giggling along the way. Though Sanghyun always manage to bug me, but I know that he never does that on purpose. It is really in his blood to irritate me and being harsh to him is in my blood. Being harsh to him is actually something I love to do. And it is definitely a way to express my love for my easy childhood friend.

After leaving school, I saw a gorgeous black car parked near the route that I always take. Not to waste a single second of beauty, I stare at it. It’s strange that how this beautiful car decided to park somewhere so unnoticeable when it should be at somewhere that everyone could admire. I mean, usually people with cars like this are very proud and boastful of them right? I stand at the same spot for as long as 10 minutes. And when I am about to leave, I got a huge surprise from the scene. The mysterious transferee sneaks up to the car, took out his gloved-on hand, opens the car door and enters it. Without a second delaying, the car vroom off and left the spot clean.

I am beyond tangled. I couldn’t fathom. Why did he take a ride home instead of cycling his bicycle? Why didn’t he ride his bicycle home?

Without even realizing, I spend that entire night thinking about him, and only him.