Warning: Small number of vulgarities used in this chapter :D (Not that it matters anyway....)

5

The click of shoes resulted in a hush to fall upon the class. The teacher announced her arrival with a solemn ‘good morning’ before the whole class even had the time to stand up. She was replied with murmurs: the voices lacking of enthusiasm. As soon as her students settled down, she snatched out a file out of her bag and began to take the attendance.

“She is different today eh? All grumpy and angry,” Sunggyu whispered to his seatmate.

Myungsoo shrugged. He could distinguish no sort of variation of her mood or anything about her apart from the fact that she was wearing a whole different outfit from yesterday.

“You know, someone told me that she just had a divorce. I heard that her hus…” refusing to listen anymore of his crappy babbles, he took out his phone and began busying himself with it: knowing well that his buddy would confirm his attendance to the teacher for him.

“Kim Myungsoo?”

And sure enough- “He is here,” -he did.

The teacher continued to call out names and tick the attendance after the confirmation from the students of their presence in school alternately. But the rhythm of it was disrupted when a student had failed to reply.

“Park Jiyeon?!” the teacher called for the third time, impatience etched to her voice.

It took quite a long time before a reply came from a frightened voice of a female student.

“She’s absent ma’am,”

Sunggyu leaned over and nudged Myungsoo, snapping him out of his own world.

“Wow, that’s different. She had never been absent from school since the beginning of the year. I wonder what happened to her.”

Myungsoo stared at him blankly.

“Oh right. Silly me. I’m talking about Park Jiyeon.”

Myungsoo frowned at the mention of the name. Where exactly had he heard it before?

--------

The lessons stretched on and when Myungsoo thought that the day could not get any more boring, it did. He stared at the teacher but soon boredom hit him and the fact that he was sitting on the corner next to a window on the last row was not helping. And so he ended up sleeping while resting his head on his fist during math period which happened to be the last lesson on that day. And to avoid being caught he had resolved on sleeping while holding his pencil and opening his book. He had done that since the beginning of the year and while others were caught and were given detention he had remained anonymous. Even now it had proven to be effective. The teacher only spared him a mere glance before going on with her lesson.

“You, Dongmin! Come here and solve this.” Her voice boomed across the classroom causing most of her student to jump at her sudden outburst.

She had came into the class with enthusiasm but the indifferent attitude of the students had left her more and more exasperated as the lesson went on. And even for her, who had the sweetest temper, had limits to her patience.

The boy whom she was referring to turned his head to the left and to the right wanting confirmation if it was indeed him that the teacher had referred to earlier.

“Me?” he asked while pointing to himself.

His voice had come out squeaky. And why wouldn’t it? He had not paid any attention to the teacher or her teaching.  He had no notion; no idea of the thing that was taught. And he was expected to solve the question?

“Yes, you!” the teacher was obviously irritated.

Heck, he was in deep trouble. He tentatively stood up and started making his way to the front awkwardly.  The teacher the chalk into his hand. He looked at the question. Weird placement of operations, illogical alphabets mixing with numbers? What in the world was that? He seriously had no idea.

Everyone in the class was wide awake by now, straightening their back. Well, everyone except for Myungsoo.

 Dongmin tightened his grip around the white cylindrical object in his hand. The force exerted was so great, he accidentally broke it. If embarrassment had not overpowered his fear, he would have peed in his pants right then. He stared worriedly at the board, the numbers meaning nothing to him.

The teacher let out a sigh, and shook her head. She looked at his students and asked if anyone wanted to help him solve the question. When silence replied her question, she raised her voice.

“Anyone wants to help him?!”

Most of the students lowered their gaze, as if that would avoid the teacher from calling them out to solve the question. Others stared blankly in front of them, none meeting their teacher’s eye. Hastily, Sunggyu nudged his sleeping friend.

Myungsoo’s eyelids fluttered open, his peace disturbed by his agitated friend. He blinked and looked at what was scribbled on the board. Trigonometrical Geometry already eh? The progress was quite fast for a class as slow as this one. He stared out of the window: the sky was overcast, a perfect day to sleep. He rested his head on his fist and closed his eyes, all prepared to doze off again.

Unfortunately, he did not escape his teacher’s vigilant eye. Seeing him waking up from his slumber and continuing to sleep again, he was singled out.

“Kim Myungsoo,” The voice was firm, yet anger was clearly expressed. “Why don’t you solve the question?”

It was not a question. It was an order. And so, Myungsoo pushed his chair back and stood up lazily. All eyes were on him as he walked down the aisle. If he noticed the intense gazes on him, he did not show it. He took the broken chalk from Dongmin’s hand and moved towards the board.

Express cos4A in terms of a. Sin A=a and 90°< A < 180°.

He smirked after seeing the question. Can it get any easier? His hand moved swiftly across the board at a controlled and constant speed. In a couple of minutes and with the help of his magical friend(the calculator), he was done. He turned and placed the chalk in the Dongmin’s hand before going back to his seat.

Disbelief and rage clouded the teacher’s face as soon he reached his seat. The teacher exploded before he even had the time to sit down.

“You knew the answer all along, yet you did not come out to answer it?”

“You didn’t ask—“ he was cut off by the enraged teacher.

“I asked if anyone wants to help Dongmin to answer the question.”

“You asked if anyone wants to help,” He paused, “I don’t.”

Chuckles erupted from the students but it soon died down when the teacher glared arrows at them. Before the teacher had the time to answer, the bell rang, announcing the end of school. Myungsoo picked up his bag, gathered his things and left with Sunggyu on his heels.

“Dude, that was so cool man! Did you see the look on her face?” Sunggyu said as he picked up his things that fell on the floor upon the hurry in trying to catch up. Myungsoo ignored him and strode on.

“I should have recorded it and post it on YouTube,” He continued, dissatisfaction clear in his voice. After putting his things neatly in his locker, he looked at Myungsoo, who dumped all his books into his as if they meant nothing to him.

Myungsoo turned to his friend and threw him a look that read ‘Why are you staring at me like that?’ and closed his locker. He altered his bag position and continued walking. Sunggyu must have rambled on some more on the latest gossip but he did not hear partly because he chose not to and because a familiar voice suddenly rang in his ears.

“Oh My god, that bag is so pretty! Is that a genuine Salvatore Ferragamo product?” It was a female voice, high pitched and tinkling, and inflected in a way that was so familiar. He turned around and the feminine figure that his gaze fell on confirmed his thoughts. She was the bully from yesterday.

But as he scrutinized her features: those dark eyes that held something beneath their surface, her lifted chin, her wavy hair, he knew he had met this girl from before. But where?

Myungsoo felt a nudge in his ribs. Why does Sunggyu love to nudge people? He turned to see a huge grin plastered on his friend’s face.

“Remember her? Choi Ye seul, the one who tried to confess to you that day. Quite charming ain’t she?” Sunggyu mocked. “Didn’t I tell you that you just blew—“

“Ah, you guys. It’s so nice to see you here, isn’t it?” Sunggyu’s sentence was cut short on the arrival of the head master who suddenly included himself in the conversation.

He was a middle aged man, with jet black hair that was cut short, framing his wide forehead. He wore circular glasses that rimmed around his big eyes and a yellow and orange polka-dotted bow. He smiled, revealing a line of perfectly white teeth.  

 “Now tell me, you guys are free, am I right? Good, now I need some help,” he didn’t even give them the chance to protest before continuing on.

“Can you go and collect some student profiles on the discipline master’s table in the teacher office and move it to the main office? Just find some place to put it as you see I hadn’t had the time to you know, clean up,” The head master gave the two boys a tight smile, after clucking his tongue.

Then, his expression instantly changed. Gone was the freaky, too big of his smile. His mouth was pressed into a thin line and his eyes narrowed.

“Just don’t go opening everyone’s profile,” he leaned and whispered into the boys’ ears, as if telling a secret, “it’s confidential.

“And if I ever catch you browsing, scanning, opening or anything of that nature, I am going to make sure you’ll regret ever breathing.” He hissed and pulled himself away from them.

Then, he laughed, amused at his students’ tensed expression and patted their shoulders.

“Now, there’s nothing to worry about. There’s a reason why I chose you guys to help me. I know I can trust you boys,” He stalked away before they even had the time to react.

Sunggyu was the first to recover from the confusion and shock of the encounter had found a way to excuse himself from doing the job.

“Now buddy, you know I have soccer practice after this. Good luck!” Sunggyu shouted while running towards the school field and continuously making good luck hand gestures.

Stupid old man. How can he trust a student with confidential things? Myungsoo thought to himself after being left alone. Wanting to finish the job as soon as he could, he started making his way towards the teacher’s office.

Yes, indeed it was some student profiles. There were a lot. But it was against his character to ask for help and he ended up bringing the whole pile that covered part of his view by himself. But he already knew the way to the main office by heart so the fact that he could not see that well did not really matter.

He had somehow managed to open the office door with all those loads in his hand. He lowered down the pile of student profile until he had a full view of the room. He scanned the room for a suitable place to put the documents.

It was a real mess. Crumpled tissues on the floor, empty cups of coffee overflowing the bin, papers were literally everywhere. He could hardly believe he was in the main office. And at last he found a spot just enough to put the thing: on the corner of the table.

 He began walking but something caught his foot and he stumbled. He was quick enough to regain his balance but almost half of the pile he was carrying fell.

“Damn,” he cursed under his breath.

He put of what remained in his hand on the table and began picking the fallen ones up. In a matter of minutes the floor was free of folders, he turned around to head towards the door but on the corner of his eye he caught something under the table. He turned around and saw a student’s folder. He took it out under the table but it was opened. The picture on the profile, he would have known her anywhere.

‘Park Jiyeon’

So that was her name. Curiosity loomed over him and he couldn’t help but to browse her profile. But when his eyes scanned this one word, his breath was caught on his throat. He came back to that one particular report and he could hardly believe what he saw.

After reading it again and again for God knows how many times, he was then able to fully absorb the weight of the statement.

Now it all made sense to him. The first encounter, when he had asked her question that night. She had kept mum. She had looked into his eyes frightened. Then what had happened yesterday made even more sense to him. When they had surrounded her, she did not fight; defend herself, instead she had completely gave up.

It was not that she had chosen to keep quiet; to put herself at the mercy of those girls. He had understood right then that there was nothing she could do about it.  He had found the last piece of puzzle that had perfected the picture. Everything made sense to him.

The memory of the account of the girl in her folder jammed back into his head again.

She was mute.

A/N: I have always been unsatisfied with the length of my chapters, and now I can finally say I am proud of the length of it. :D There are some things that I wanted to point out:

1)      I do not know what they(Koreans) are learning in high schools and I am not even sure if they are learning the topic that I stated in this chapter, and so I resorted into using what I had learnt in school. *CoughCough*

2)      If you are still not sure, yes in my story Jiyeon is mute.

(Please do not hate me, this is pure fiction.)

I was writing this and it seemed quite long, so dear readers I hope I don’t strain your eyes. And please tell if the length is ok for you.Oh, and I want to thank you guys for your awesome comments! ^^

-Faith