CH 14 ;

"Chunji?"

"Oh my goodness," Chunji dramatically brought a hand to his chest as he tried to breathe in deeply, "Did anti-social guy just call my name?" He mouthed to himself.

"Yes?" Chunji put his phone down and looked at Byunghun.

"Uhm... Do you play the guitar?" Byunghun fiddled with his pen, feeling awkward as he rarely conversed with his roommate.

"Uhh... Nope." Chunji scratched his neck, "But I have a friend that plays the guitar. Why are you asking such a question..."

Byunghun thought hard for a while and continued looking at the ground as he spun the pen around his fingertip.

"I would like to borrow a guitar..." Byunghun trailed off.

Chunji cringed at his roommate talking so formally to him. He was not used to such formal speech with someone of the same age as him.

"He has a guitar collection. I can help you borrow one from him!"

"Really?"

Chunji saw a smile tug at his lips and wondered why this guy with such a beautiful smile never smiles much. It's such a pity, he thought as he flung his phone towards his pillow and got up to wear his slippers.

"Of course! I'll go get it right now! He's only two rooms away!"

Before Byunghun could tell him that there was no need for such a rush, Chunji was out of sight already.

Byunghun looked at the ceiling and started to feel guilty for treating Chunji and his clique so coldly. They were nice people, willing to help at once without the slightest bit of hesitation. They were a bonded group of people. Playful, mischievous, and really loved to quarrel with each other in a joking manner. He wished that he could tear down his walls himself. He wondered how it was like to live such a life like them.

However the barriers he had built up over the years needed someone that had the heart and patience to reach into him. He knew that he was hard and deep to reach into, seeing how closed up his personality and character is. He had constantly told himself that moving to this school is a brand new start and beginning for him and reminded himself countless times that these people knew nothing of his past.

Nevertheless, it did not help much.

His reverie was interrupted by the slamming of the door and the shuffling of feet.

"Here you go," Chunji passed the guitar to Byunghun, "He said this is the second best guitar in his collection."

Chunji fell onto his bed as though he had just completed a marathon, "Are you learning how to play the guitar?"

Byunghun nodded in reply as he looked at the guitar.

"Oh by the way, I borrowed this from Jonghwan. He's in the same homeroom as us so if you have anything regarding his guitar or guitar in general, just go look for him." Chunji continued, "And, the guys are coming over later to have lunch and do some work. You wanna join us?"

Byunghun's eyes were glued to the wooden ground. He carefully leaned the guitar on his study table and thought over Chunji's question. He had just done him a favour without hesitation. He had always been informing Byunghun of when his group of friends will be coming over and inviting him to join them to study or have meals together, but the said guy would always shake his head slightly and return to doing his own things. He saw a slight improvement in his interactions with his room mate, though. Slight improvements, but significant ones. His room mate had never given up on trying to start off conversations with him and breaking down the walls that he had built up around himself. Given that Chunji had just done a big favour for him by borrowing a guitar for him, he nodded his head slightly.

"Really?!" Chunji broke into a grin and sat upright, "I promise you they're fun people to hang around with!"

Byunghun smiled a little smile and returned to completing his assignment, the corners of his eyes catching sight of the guitar leaning on his desk as he did so.

Unconsciously, his attention left his assignment and he looked up at the ceiling.

"Your eyes are pretty..."

An image of the petite girl popped into his head and he fell deeper into thoughts. From time to time, that sentence of a supposed compliment would cross his mind. The more he spent time with her, the more he would regret having snapped at her that day in reply. All the more, she would not have known that he was once deprived of seeing. What for would she use sarcasm on his eyes?

That girl was really innocent and ignorant at times, it seemed almost impossible for her to pass a remark of sarcasm to someone like him, who she barely knew. She had a pretty smile, and an outgoing personality. She was a girl that had her own set of admirers as well, seeing that guys would bashfully walk up to her and ask her out for a meal. Her locker would have a few candies fixed on it with scotchtape in the morning and during breaktimes. She was-

"Heeeyyy!" A bunch of voices boomed into the room, rudely interrupting Byunghun's reverie. He snapped out of his thoughts and watched as Ricky sprawl himself out on Chunji's bed whilst the others flung their bags to a corner in the room.

"We brought chicken~ Chicken chicken ohhhhhhh~" Niel sang as he unpacked the boxes of chicken from the carrier.

Byunghun felt his stomach churn and grind the moment the aroma entered his nostrils. He capped his pen and walked over, sitting together with the group in the formation of a circle.

"He's joining us today," Chunji grinned at his friends as he slung a hand over Byunghun's right shoulder.

"Finally you're joining us! We've been waiting for this day for aeons! I'm Ricky, by the way!" He pushed a disposable plastic plate into Byunghun's hands and started devouring a drumstick.

"Eat up!" Minsoo smiled and placed a drumstick on Byunghun's plate.

"Thanks..." Byunghun muttered upon receiving such warm treatment from the clique. Somewhere inside, he felt sorry for the cold-guy treatment he had given them ever since the first day he stepped onto school grounds.

"You're so skinny, gosh. Eat more!" Chunji poured a pile of french fries onto his plate before returning to joke around with his friends.

Byunghun stared at the french fries on his plate before taking a small bite off his drumstick.

Mum, you don't have to worry about me being bullied anymore... I'm doing fine here... There are great people here... Great people like Chunji and Haneul...

... Whom I have been unconsciously pushing away these few weeks...

I'll try to open up more... I'll tear down that wall of mine...