Chapter Seven: An Odd Feeling at Every Sight

          Lenses are made to enhance the vision of someone. It magnifies things so that the eyes could recognize the scene and the brain could translate these into images. Oddly, lenses somewhat made my eyes more blurry than before.

          After the trip to the ophthalmologist, Jun-hyung walked me back to the bus stop where we were earlier.

          “Hey, aren’t you going back to school?” I asked when I saw him back away as the bus stopped in front of us.

          “Nope,” Jun-hyung said, “I have some place else to visit.”

          “Oh,” I said, “Then take care.”

          “I will,” Jun-hyung waved a little and turned back, but then he faced me again after a second, “by the way…” I looked at him, and I could see that he had something to say.

          “Yes?”

          “The thing that happened in the instrument store,” he said, slightly scratching his nape. I knew he was awkward about it, so I told him what I thought to be the best answer I could come up to.

          “Don’t worry,” I said, “It didn’t happen. I promise.” Honestly, I thought Jun-hyung would be delighted to hear that from me, so when he started with his reply, I was shocked to hear that from him.

          “You know what? Just go home!” he yelled on my face before bolting away like a sprint athlete. Jun-hyung was really weird, I thought. I went home that day, a bit exhausted, but still I managed to have that energy to play with my new guitar strings.

          “Yah! Where were you ye–” Gette’s statement was cut as I cupped my hand on . It was the morning after. I jumped off the bus, and the voice of my friend was the first thing I heard. Of course, an over protective best friend just couldn’t stop the urge of being a nag, even when it was very early in the morning.

          “Shh! I just bought something!” I said. She stopped and looked at me directly before saying, “You ditched your eyeglasses! Good for you!”

          “Yeah,” I said, “but aside from that,” I showed her the huge black case slung on my back and she nodded, mouth hung wide.

          “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have gone with you and I could have chosen something that would look good on you!” she said.

          “I don’t need something to look good with, I just need something to practice with,” I said.

          “Right! So, does that mean you’re… getting along well with Jun-hyung?” Gette told me. I nodded and told her everything about what happened yesterday, except the part of the kiss promo.

          “You really did all of those? Together?” Gette said, astonished. We were already walking to our class room, the first class was about to start in ten minutes.

          “Yeah, why?” I was beginning to worry about her reaction. Something bothered her that time, and I could tell. Gette stopped walking, faced me and looked me in the eye. “Mae, why are you meeting Jun-hyung again?”

          “What? Why are you asking me that?”

          “Just answer me, why are you meeting Jun-hyung?”

          “I’m meeting him so that I could learn how to play guitar.”

          “Why do you have to play guitar?”

          “Huh?”

          “I said, why do you have to learn how to play guitar?”

          “So that I could play it with L,” I said. She breathed in deeply before holding my shoulder with both hands.

          “Mae, focus,” she said with much emphasis on the word ‘focus’. “L is your goal here. Don’t let other things tear you away from that.” That moment, I suddenly felt hurt by her words. Not for myself, but for Jun-hyung. Apparently, he’s just a thing for my best friend.

          “Thing?” I said. I didn’t know why but the feeling of protecting Jun-hyung just boiled from within. “You think of Jun-hyung as a thing?”

          “No,” Gette said, which put me to a halt. She doesn’t think of Jun-hyung as a thing? “Oh, he’s not what I meant. What I meant is the little crush you’re developing for him.”

          “What!?” I said. “What are you talking about?” I also didn’t understand why I suddenly felt nervous when Gette squinted her eyes.

          “Nothing,” she said. “Just forget about it. Let’s just go in.” Go in?  I didn’t even notice we were standing in front of our classroom door.

          “Wait!” I told her, “Tell me, please!” but a hand suddenly tapped my shoulder. “Good morning!” he greeted. I swore my heart stopped when I turned around and caught sight of my angel’s smile. “H-hello, L-sshi,” I managed to say.

          “Wow, it felt as if I haven’t seen you in a long time, huh,” L lifted his hand and tapped my head, which almost made my head spinning. “Let’s go in?” he said. I made him go first and followed shortly after. However, when I got inside the class room, a person made me feel both nervous and embarrassed at the same time. I just couldn’t understand why.

          Jun-hyung sat on his seat, the acoustic guitar case placed under his table. He was looking at me with his sleepy looking small eyes, with a small smirk-like smile on his lips. I bowed at him and he nodded his head.  I went to my seat and took out my book for my first class. Suddenly, a hand placed a note over my desk. I looked up and found Jun-hyung who was about to go out of the class room. I took the note, and read what it says:

Tune your guitar. I’ll teach you something cool later.

          His simple message made me smile. Maybe because at last I’ll learn a piece to play. Or maybe… Nah. Not even a chance.

          I looked back at my best friend, and her face made me lose a bit of my smile. I tried forcing it back, but it was quite impossible. I have never seen her like that before. She was looking blankly at me for a while, so hollow, before averting her eyes to L.

---o0o---

          “Yah, why are you late? Break time started five minutes ago!” Jun-hyung told me as soon as I walked out to the roof top. As expected, he was playing his new guitar on his hand. Without a word, I walked towards him and took off the guitar case before gently taking out my precious guitar. He must have noticed that something was bothering me since he asked, “What happened?”

          “Nothing,” I said, without looking at him.

          “Come on, quit lying,” he said. “I’m your teacher, right? You can tell me.” I looked at him after that, and for the first time I looked closely on every feature of his face. His hair wasn’t that messy at all. His eyes weren’t that small, maybe because he wasn’t sleepy and because he was paying attention. His lips were puffy, but after looking at it closely, I found it rather cute. “Hey, are you alright?” he said, which snapped me back to reality.

          “Yeah, I guess,” I said. He continued looking at me, and I knew he was waiting for an answer. “Let us start practicing already,” I said.

          “Nobody can focus on work with personal problems going on inside your head,” Jun-hyung said. “Come on, trust me.”

          I bit my lip before starting. I still thought it wasn’t right for me to share it to him. “Gette and I, were kind of… not in good terms right now.”

          “What happened?” he asked again.

          “It’s just a small promise, it wasn’t a promise actually. It was more like a goal. But she told me that I wasn’t focused on achieving that goal, so she’s a bit disappointed in me,” I said. Jun-hyung nodded slowly.

          “Is that goal something you really want?” he asked me. I didn’t know why he asked me so sudden, or why suddenly I felt unsure of what I would say.

          “Yeah,” I said, “of course.” Jun-hyung chuckled.

          “You don’t want it anymore,” he said.

          “What? No! Of course I want it,” I said, but he shook his head.

          “Is it a single thing?” he asked, “A one-in-a-million kind of thing?”

          It was L so… “Yeah, kind of,” I said.

          “Now I understand why your best friend is disappointed in you,” he said. “My theory is… both of you have the same goal…” He paused and looked at me. “Get it? She wanted to have the goal you wanted to have too, but because she’s your best friend, she let go of that goal and conceded so that you can reach it. Based on your story, I could also tell that she gave you all her support.”

          “Now that your fighting spirit is wavering,” he shrugged his shoulder, ending his psychological explanation. “Worst case scenario is when she started regretting that she gave up all her chances for you, and started to take them all back.” My mouth hung wide after that. Georgette? My best friend… Could it be that she really likes L?

          Suddenly I felt a hand that laid partially on my back, tapping me a little. “But of course it is just a theory. Maybe she’s just disappointed that you get distracted easily.”

          “Yes,” I said, “And I think she’s right.”