It had been just a few days since I got Eunji’s number and I already began to cultivate an unhealthy habit of texting her incessantly whenever I got bored with class. My eyelids grew heavy again as the math teacher explained the same question over and over.

Eunji!

Do you already get the question? Can I talk to you??

I typed with my phone on my lap, hidden by the opened textbook which leaned against the table frame. I figured that that way, the teacher would think I’m just reading my textbook. I looked up occasionally as well to avoid suspicion. She replied about a minute later.

Lee Howon =_= You woke me up from my nap again. I don’t know what the teacher is talking about.

It’s okay I’ll explain it to you later!!

What do you want to talk about?

I don’t know, it’s boring –

I was in the midst of typing the message when I heard a loud tapping sound on my table. I froze and looked up to see our math teacher glaring sternly at me. It then struck me – I was so engrossed in texting Eunji that I had forgotten to keep a lookout.

I received a ten minutes-long lecture on how I should pay attention in class and not be complacent just because I was smart, that I should spare a thought for my classmates who needed to learn too. I nodded and nodded, keeping a sorry look on my face, in hope that she would let me go sooner. From the side of my vision, I could see Eunji waiting by the door, and I felt bad for keeping her back. Ever since that incident, she didn’t have lunch with that group of friends anymore. I didn’t know if they still hung out together, either.

When I was finally released, I lightly ran to the door, but Eunji wasn’t there anymore. My heart began to sink, but then she ran over from the neighbouring class and tapped me on the shoulder before I could leave.

“Yah! Are you going to leave without me when I waited a whole ten minutes for you?” she exclaimed.

“Where did you go?” I asked, glancing curiously at the class she returned from.

“I just dropped off a little birthday gift for my friend,” she said, “Let’s hurry! The queues must be really long by now!”

“Which friend?” I blurted out.

Eunji (pretended that she) didn’t hear my question and went on saying, “By the way, I didn’t give you my number for you to text me in class. If you carry on like that, you could really get your scholarship revoked, Lee Howon.”

I opened my mouth to rebut her, but Eunji already ran off before I had a chance to speak.

When we reached the canteen, there was a crowd gathered in a circle beside one of the tables. The situation seemed tense, but we couldn’t see what was happening in the middle of that crowd.

“What is it?” I said with a frown as we looked at the crowd for a while. The canteen was so quiet it was almost a pin-drop silence.

Eunji shrugged. “Come on, we should get some food first; there’s only fifteen minutes left of lunch. Aren’t you hungry?” With that, she began to head towards the queue.

Suddenly, a tight slap sounded from the core of the crowd. Eunji flinched and halted her steps.

“Jung Soojung!” a loud voice bellowed and I had an impression that it was Shinyoung’s.

I could see Eunji’s body stiffen as I stood rooted to the ground, confused about what to do. My eyes flicked to and fro, at the crowd and at Eunji.

At that moment, Shinyoung began hollering at Soojung again. “, how dare you lie to us? You said your father was just looking for new places to invest in, when in fact his business venture failed and got your whole family in deep debt! I can’t believe we trusted you so much!” The agitated speech was followed by significant noises of slaps and punches. People surrounding them gasped and exchanged sympathetic looks.

I heard a heavy sigh coming from Eunji’s direction and when I turned around, she was already heading towards the crowd. “Eunji!” I called out to her in a hushed voice. Don’t interfere, it’s dangerous. My extended hand froze in mid-air as I watched her push herself through the crowd. The extravagant noises of violence ensued but nobody had the courage to step out and help Soojung. Nobody but one girl who cared more about following her heart than to bother about logic and sense.

“Yah, Kim Shinyoung!” Eunji shouted, “Do you throw your friends away when they no longer have anything to offer you? Is that how you treat your friends?” Her voice got louder and louder, but I knew she was just trying to boost her courage and cover the sounds of her thumping heart with the volume of her voice. I was dying to see the situation and I couldn’t care so much anymore. I needed to protect Eunji. My feet began moving in the direction of the crowd too.

“Jung Eunji!” There was a hint of shock in Shinyoung’s voice as she exclaimed. “Was the previous hit not enough? You want to take this ’s portion too? Don’t you know she was the one who gave us information on your past and prompted that whole saga? Why would you stand up for someone like that? Now move off before I –”

I got to the middle of the crowd just in time to see Eunji land a tough slap on Shinyoung’s right cheek. “After all that you’ve done to us, this shall be the only time I’m hitting you. You’re too much, Shinyoung. Stop now, before it’s too late.”

There were spilled soup and noodles on the ground right next to Soojung, and I figured that was Shinyoung’s doing.

“What nonsense is she even saying?” Shinyoung scoffed and continued throwing punches towards Soojung. Eunji stood in front of Soojung with her hands raised by her side to take the hit instead and I felt like a strong vacuum in my heart was causing it to constrict in pain. I rashly jumped in to stand between Eunji and Shinyoung. My quiet academic life was all gone.

“Stop,” I said in the calmest voice that I could muster as I looked straight into Shinyoung’s eyes. I could vaguely see my own face reflected in her orbs.

“Howon!” Eunji exclaimed behind me.

Shinyoung clapped loudly once as a signal for her crew to stop. “What is this? The situation is getting too messy with all you irrelevant people cutting in. What business is it of yours?”

My anger got to my head as I lost all rationality and gave Shinyoung a hard kick on her side. She leaned over in hurt and Eunji pulled my arms back. “Stop it, Lee Howon!” she cried.

I turned around to look at her. She was shaking her head with pleading eyes. Don’t do this, Howon. I could almost hear her voice, and my eyes softened.

Just then, Soojung got up shakily, pushed her way out of the crowd and ran off.

“What is this commotion?” the discipline master’s assertive voice rang clearly through the canteen.

The crowd dispersed and the discipline master called Eunji and I to the office, along with Shinyoung and the group who followed her.

As we left the office, on the way back to class (supposedly), Eunji glared at me and said, “Don’t ever do anything like that again. Look, you got yourself a warning. What if you get yourself a bad record and lose your scholarship? It’d almost be a waste of your four years here.”

“Then what should I have done?” I spouted, “I couldn’t leave you to get beaten up. You shouldn’t have gone there in the first place.”

She remained silent for a few moments and then said in a soft voice, “I couldn’t leave Soojung to get bullied.”

I realized that we had stopped walking.

“Don’t you harbour any resentment towards Soojung for betraying you?”

“How could I… when I betrayed her before, too? Besides, the five years of friendship didn’t amount to nothing. You were right. It still means something to me. Soojung… she must feel so alone now.” Eunji’s eyes began filling up with tears as she choked out the last few words.

I placed a hand over her shoulder and gave her a little squeeze on the arm. She then turned around and slowly laid on my chest, her tears wetting the white shirt I was wearing. “I’m sorry, I’ll be fine in a moment,” she muttered in such close proximity I could feel her warm breath against me. It all happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to respond. I raised my other arm which was trembling slightly, and awkwardly patted her on the back.

“It’s Soojung’s birthday, isn’t it?” I said.

She gave a small nod but didn’t look up. For some reason, I liked that feeling – her depending on me.

“Let’s skip the rest of the lessons and celebrate Soojung’s birthday with her. What do you say?” I suggested.

She finally looked up, her face in a mess of tears, and pulled away from me. She wiped her tears away, then shook her head and mused, “You’ve been badly influenced by me.”

I let slip a small chuckle and replied, “No, you taught me how to live apart from studying. You’ve made me more human.”

“Hmm?” she sounded. I turned to see her fiddling around with a piece of tissue. She finally regained interest in my words and urged, “What did you say? I didn’t catch it.”

“It’s alright. It’s nothing important. Let’s go find Soojung,” I said and then began walking away.

“What? You said something alright,” she nagged, while following closely behind me.

I continued walking briskly without a word, until Eunji said, “Lee Howon! Do you even know where Soojung is?”

“Her class?” I said and the last syllable faded away in doubt.

Eunji shook her head. “Follow me,” she said and turned around on her heels.

“Soojung likes to eat at a particular ice cream parlour whenever she’s feeling down,” she explained as we walked away from the school, successfully deceiving the security guard that we didn’t have any more classes.

“How sure are you that she’s there?” I asked a little doubtfully.

“Ninety five percent,” she said, b with confidence, “I’ve seen her there a few times.”

“You still care so much about her although you guys stopped being friends for so long,” I pointed out.

“We never stopped, at least to me. We’re just having a major cold war, but I believe it’ll end really soon.”

As she said that, I realized that we had just reached a bakery shop. Eunji picked out a small cake and requested for candles. For strange reasons unknown to me, my heart began to make somersaults within my chest. My heart was beginning to have a mind of its own that I couldn’t grasp. For Lee Howon who only knew how to study hard, it was all too foreign.

Eunji snapped her fingers in front of my face, bringing me back to reality. I shook my head hard, as if I’d just emerged from a pool which were my thoughts and was trying to get rid of every little droplet. Eunji smiled lightly as she said, “What were you thinking so deeply about?”

“Nothing,” I denied again.

“Beginning to keep secrets from me huh? Okay,” she joked, and then continued on the way to the ice cream parlour. Or perhaps she was serious. I didn’t really know which it was, but I felt guilt struck anyway.

We reached the place pretty soon, and true to Eunji’s words, there Soojung was sitting in a corner on her own, back facing the entrance.

Quietly, we set up the small cake with lighted candles and walked into the parlour. When we were about a table away from Soojung, Eunji began singing the birthday song and I joined in the following verse. Soojung turned around and then simply stared us, a stunned and clueless expression painting her face. Another thing I picked up was that she wasn’t taking the surprise event very well. Halfway through the song, she turned away from us and looked down. Eunji persisted in singing the song with a joyful tone of voice and uncontrollably, I turned to face her. Her expression was happy to suit the song but her eyes were watery.

Once we had finished the song, Eunji placed the cake down on the table and sat herself down beside Soojung. I looked blankly at her and she pointed to the seat in front of me, gesturing for me to sit down too.

Soojung spoke up first, with a straight face. “What are you doing? Have you forgotten that we’re not friends anymore? Get out; you’re interrupting my personal time.”

“Soojung-ah,” Eunji said in a gentle voice, “Don’t be like that. We can be friends again if we want to.” She reached one hand out to grab hold of Soojung’s.

Soojung retracted her hands from Eunji’s touch and looked at her. “How?” she said sincerely, “After all the things that have happened. After the three years of separation. I cannot treat you like the way I did when we were kids. I cannot feel the same way anymore.”

At that point, I left the table on the context of buying drinks. I thought I should give them some time together, just the two of them. After I bought a drink, I sat down at another table away from them, but I could still hear their conversation.

“We can start our friendship anew,” Eunji said with a tinge of urgency in her voice, “Of course it won’t be like before, and it won’t be easy, but I mean it when I say I want to make up with you. Soojung, I’ve never given up on our friendship.”

“I don’t know. For the longest time, I hated you for what you did, for the person that you were before, but now I don’t know anymore – what I feel, that is. You seem like a changed person now, and that confuses me.”

“I am. I don’t exactly hate who I used to be, but I can say I like the ‘me’ now better. In that case… why don’t we start by introducing ourselves to each other again? Just pretend I’m another Eunji whom you never knew.”

Soojung looked at Eunji like she’s wondering if she was serious, when Eunji extended her hand to Soojung.

“Hello!” she quipped with her trademark smile hanging brightly on her face, “My name is Jung Eunji. What about you?”

Inevitably, I smiled as well. I’d swear that there’s nobody else like Jung Eunji on this planet (and maybe the rest of the universe too). She is that special.

Soojung hesitated for a moment before taking Eunji’s hand and exchanging a handshake.

“I’m Jung Soojung…” she said and paused, gazing downwards. “Let’s…” she murmured and sniffed before continuing, “L-let’s be friends.” Once she’d finished her sentence, Soojung broke down into the waterworks. Eunji cupped Soojung’s hands in hers and gave them a reassuring squeeze. Even though Eunji was trying to appear strong yet again, her emerging tears and increasingly red nose gave her away. Eunji didn’t look the part, but she turned out to be someone who kept a big capacity of tears. It was interesting, seeing the different sides of her.

Eunji excused herself to visit the restroom before her tears spilled out completely, leaving just Soojung and I in the parlour.  Soojung had calmed down much more, but I could still hear her faint sobs. I pulled out a packet of tissue from my trousers pocket and offered it to her. She mumbled a soft “thank you” and delicately cleaned her tear-stained face. After she was done, she turned to me to make conversation.

I thought she would just talk about something casual, but apparently Soojung wasn’t a typical girl either.

“You like Eunji, don’t you?” That was her first question to someone she had barely met for a couple of times. I was taken aback by her straightforwardness.

“What –” I began but then she cut in to explain herself.

“I’m sensitive about these things,” she said, “Of course, I can’t be so sure about this, because I haven’t seen very much of your interactions. It’s just a feeling.”

I stared into blank space like I usually do when I think hard, and I didn’t answer her.

“It was just a casual question!” she exclaimed, “I hope you don’t mind. I can be quite open about such matters.”

I felt a little like I was drowning, and her words became a muffled sound from above. Soojung had just pushed me back into the pool I struggled to get out of. And this time, I felt the need to empty and clean the pool. I needed to find answers to the questions my heart was asking, or I’d just keep falling back into the pool, again and again.

A/N: I'm sorry for the long intervals between updates OTL I'll try to update more frequently and end the story quickly because it's supposed to ^^"