A week passed by and thankfully my clumsiness had been left to a bare minimum. Hyun Joong continued to sit in the same row in the following two classes I’d had, even when I changed to a different one to sit with Maddie. It made several scenarios crop up in my mind, leaving me to my fantasies on what his closeness meant. I entertained the ideas far more than I should have, and by the time the weekend rolled around they had even infiltrated my dreams.

And it was because of one particular delicious dream that involved me, Hyun Joong and the beach, that made me late the following Tuesday morning. I had not only slept through my alarm, but had run out of time to attend my Japanese class. Feeling absolutely stupid, I hurried to get ready all the same, deciding I would attend a later stream of the language course during the day after my other class. The bus ride across town seemed to drag out as I bounced impatiently in my seat, hating that I was late. It was always in my nature to be early, and despite knowing I would be for my New Zealand History lecture, I was still angry with myself and on edge for not starting my day properly.

I managed to collect myself by the time I was seated in my lecture theatre and writing down quick notes on James Cook’s interactions with the indigenous people in my own country. The lecture went by all too fast, and I soon went off to enjoy some lunch at the café near the library before attending the afternoon Japanese class. I wondered if it would be difficult to take a different stream, knowing that groups of people all learnt in different ways. Deciding to read for the remainder of my lunch break, I pulled out the first book required of my literature studies, Moll Flanders, and tried to get interested in the text. I didn’t particularly enjoy the story at all; it was much like forcing an avid vegetarian to eat beef. Because of this, it took me longer than usual to read through a chapter, and when I was finally done, I glanced at my mobile phone to see time hadn’t slowed down. Cursing under my breath, I gathered my belongings and headed off to the room I took my class in, only to find a strange teacher writing in German on the white board. I hadn’t been aware the rooms changed depending on time, and in my easily panicked state, I hurried out of the language building to find internet service on my iPod Touch to check where the class was held. Finding the schedule, I gasped as the room was across campus and hurried before the remaining five minutes left ran out and I was late again.

I arrived in the Computer Science block with a couple of minutes to spare, although I had no clue where the room was situated, having never been in the complex before. Luckily it wasn’t too hard to decipher the room layout from a building map by the door, and quickly headed in the direction of the class. I found it and breathed out a sigh of relief as I opened the door. Everyone already seated glanced at my arrival and I blushed, lowering my head and finding an empty seat. I put my bag on the ground and pulled out my books, looking at the front of the room to where the Sensee beckoned me to see her. I got to my feet and quietly explained my original stream to her and she marked me down, getting prepared to begin the lesson. As I turned back to head to my desk, I froze, noticing who I had sat down next to. He was watching me back with an amused expression, and I chewed on my bottom lip, blinking rapidly to see whether or not I was daydreaming again.

“Rochelle-san, is there a problem?”

“Ah, iie,” I mumbled and moved slowly back to my seat, quietly sitting down and making sure not to look at Hyun Joong beside me. He chuckled softly before falling silent and listening to the teacher begin explaining the new katakana we’d be learning for the day. I managed to scribble down the characters to look somewhat legit, and anything else that sounded important, but my head was currently reeling with the fact that Hyun Joong was taking more than one class with me. For a split second I was thankful that I’d had slept in.

“Alright class, let’s practice dialogue two from the red book, in pairs. Instead of following what Mori-san, Yamamoto-san and Ropesu-san say, please change your names for the partner beside you and introduce them to a person. For example, Michael-san and could introduce Dana-san to Mori-san in the dialogue. Does everyone understand?”

“Hai,” the chorus of students agreed, and the room began to fill with voices. I chewed my lip again and then turned to face Hyun Joong, who was trying not to smile.

“Do you know my name?” I asked and he laughed, nodding once.

“I’m sure you remember who I am too Rochelle,” he replied cheekily and I didn’t know why my knees were shaking so much at the sound of his voice, but I gritted my teeth in hopes to calm myself.

“Yeah, okay so uh, let’s do this. I’ll introduce you to uh, Mori-san,” I babbled and then picked up my book, reading the Japanese faster than I usually did with my partner in my other class. I could tell Hyun Joong was looking at me as I struggled to pronounce a simple word, my face flaring up with colour.

“Ha-ji-mema-shi-te,” he said slowly, and I swallowed, nodding once and waited for him to continue. We ran through the dialogue both ways before putting down our books and I drummed my fingers against the text, waiting for the Sensee to continue. She was however preoccupied helping a pair in a row ahead.

“So uh, why are you taking Japanese?” I asked to fill the awkward void, still not glancing at the boy.

“To confuse myself,” he answered and I couldn’t help by look up at him then. He smiled warmly. “They say it’s easy for Koreans to learn Japanese, but I’m not so sure. There are many things that are closely related or kanji that I would say differently in Korean. But I’m going to Japan in summer, so I thought it might be best to learn the basics. What about you? I haven’t seen you in class before.”

“I attend the morning session.” I then looked away, not wanting to say the truth. It slipped out all the same. “Uh, the Korean paper was cancelled so I thought I’d try this.”

He seemed more intrigued now. “You wanted to learn Korean? Why?”

“Just something to fill a space in my schedule,” I replied with a weak laugh and tried not to hit myself at my statement. He nodded and then turned his focus back to the teacher who began to wrap up the session.

After class finished, I started packing my belongings up, hoping I could say a quick goodbye to Hyun Joong and not anything else humiliating. Instead he beat me to speak, smiling brightly at me a moment later. “I’ll see you in class tomorrow then.”

“Oh right, yes. See you tomorrow,” I stumbled, even lifting my hand in a small wave. He grinned and returned the gesture, then walked out of the room. I watched after his departure, slightly stunned. Shaking off my thoughts, I finished packing up my stuff and headed for the bus stop, away from my surreal afternoon.

__________

Words Used...

Sensee: teacher in Japanese

-San: suffix for Mr/Mrs/Miss etc, commonly added to all names, unless honorific, which is -Sama

Iie: no in Japanese

Yamamoto-San/Mori-San/Ropesu-San: people from the dialogue in the Japanese book.

Hai: yes in Japanese (also can be said as ‘ee’)

Hajimemae: ‘how do you do?’ In Japanese (when being introduced to someone new)