Tuesday: getting up in bed is as hard as lifting an anchor with your index finger. Then being sought out by your teacher just before lunch that ended of your spot being taken over by another girl who refused to share her seat with you. Then a guy named Baekhyun, a friend of the most annoying man you ever met in the world offered the spot on their table for you to seat and thus ended up being in the same table with that annoying man and their friends noticing how your lunches are so alike. Boring classes, lectures, assignment, and staying with Kim Jongin for one and a half hour, listening to the blaring music that does nothing good to make you think clear and do your assignment.

What’s worse is going home to bed and knowing you’re gonna repeat the same process Wednesday morning; and on Thursday and Friday, then Monday again… until you finish that damn three weeks.

That was pretty much what happened last Tuesday and Wednesday. I tried to recollect in my mind.

By Thursday I was dozing off in Math class. Kim Jongin gave me a sideway glance and arched an eyebrow at me. I just gave him a blank face and looked ahead. But I did not exactly look ahead. I dozed off. When the bell rang, I jumped to my feet and find my teacher nudging me in the elbow.

The next thing I knew, her perfectly plucked eyebrows are knitted as she examines my current state right now.

“What happened?” she asked.

I blink, trying to process her question, “Nothing Ma’am,” I lied. Though I was damn sure it was nowhere near to nothing.

“You’ve been out of it these past few days,” she concluded.

Without thinking, “I’m helping someone out to study Ma’am. It’s draining the life force out of me,” I blurted.

Her eyes narrowed and I thought she was going to lash at me. But then her eyes softened, “So you finally decided to help, huh?”

I flushed. Remembering last year when she asked me to tutor one of my classmates and me, being the usual me, just don’t want to do it because I don’t want anyone getting better than me. I want the lesson to be understood by me and only me. I think nothing really changed.

“Yes ma’am,” I answered.

“That’s good then,” she started arranging her things. “I’ll let you off now but the next time, helping someone out or not, you’ll get detention if you ever doze off in my class, got it?”

Fair enough.

“Thanks Ma’am,” I said and then rushed out of the office to grab my lunch.

The cafeteria seemed to be oddly deserted. At this time of the hour, Byun Baekhyun (I learned that his family name is Byun) should have been calling me to come over their table because there are no seats left (not that I want to). But today, only a couple of freshmen are eating their lunch and I can pretty much choose a table I please, which is, very rare.

I was halfway into finishing my lunch when two sophomores crossed my path chatting silently about something I wish I had any idea off. I ran towards them.

“Hey,” I greeted.

The two sophomores, I recognized, are from the same club as mine last year. The taller girl with curly, brown hair looked around as if sensing danger, while the smaller girl clutched her arms nervously.

“Uhm,” the shorter girl started.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Why is the cafeteria deserted?”

The two girls looked at each other. The taller one nodded, “Apparently, Angel just got dumped.” The shorter girl answered looking anxious.

I stood with my mouth threatening to hang open. Angel -the girl whose name defines her precisely; the girl, who’s dubbed as the ‘school’s pride’ for winning beauty pageants and being featured on magazines a couple of times. She has the beauty a celebrity will kill to have, a beauty that every man will die for –well, except for the one who dumped her.

“Who dumped her?” I asked

“Kai,” the shorter girl whispered, tensed –as if the name itself was danger.

Kai, I repeated in my mind. Everyone calls Kim Jongin by that name –they think it’s cool; but honestly, I think the name itself is bull and so is the person. I scoffed. How small the world had been that I personally know the one that dumped the campus queen.

“Kai has been dumping three girls in a row this week now,” the shorter girl supplied. “And it has been rumored that –“

The taller girl elbowed at her friend and grimaced at her. “We should get going now, right?” she asked, her eyes wide as if in warning.

“Uhm, Bye Kyung-Soon-unnie,” she says apologetically then turns around when her friend slips an arm around hers.

***

I decided to ignore the rumor.  I am curious as to why Kim Jongin would reject a girl like her but I was never someone who feeds on gossips. The whole afternoon, like the previous ones, feels like a drag. Except, today, the atmosphere feels a little colder and I am all fidgety and restless when the dismissal bell rang. I don’t know if it’s me or if I have an undiagnosed paranoia, but I think everyone w