As Chen walked towards his class, he could hear students gossiping and running towards the main hall. He had been so focused on Misung that he forgot that the results from last tests were supposed to be posted that day. Curiosity took over him. He knew he did well but he still wanted to confirm it.

“Congrats!” one of his classmates patted him on the shoulder.

When Chen’s eyes landed on the papers with the results, he was surprised to see he had been ranked as the fifth. A wide smile spread on his lips but unfortunately, it didn’t shine too long as a certain rumour reached his ears.

“Have you seen how much she dropped?” a girl whispered but Chen could still hear her.

“Yeah. She got from 3^rd to the list of students who failed the test.” Another one nodded.

Chen frowned. The 3^rd student on the lists has always been Misung from what he could recall. When he looked to the list of the students who failed, his breathing stopped for a while. Her name was there. She had failed the test. Something was definitely wrong with her. First the incident with her empty eyes and now this. This was not like Misung at all.

For the rest of the day, Chen couldn’t quite focus on what the teacher were talking about. Misung has constantly been on his mind. Even though they weren’t too close, they weren’t strangers either. He had no reason to try and push back the worry he felt for her.

When the last bell rang, he dashed out of the door, to Misung’s class but the girl was nowhere to be found. Her classmates said she had left as soon as the first class ended. Ditching was another thing that indicated she was acting weird.

Chen ran all around the school yard and a few cafés in the neighbourhood yet he had no luck. He couldn’t find her. Two hours passed and he finally gave up searching. Maybe she was home. He was foolish enough to not check that one place that seemed pretty obvious.

As he was on his way back home, he passed by a park. Once or twice he had seen Misung going there alone. He was not a stalker. He just happened to notice her.

The park was almost not populated at all. There were just a few couples here and there enjoying the sunset. Just as he was going to give up, his eyes caught a glimpse of a girl laying on the grass. She was staring at the sky, eyes empty of all emotions once again.

“Damn it.” Chen mumbled to himself, not really prepared to be met by her cold side again. Slowly, he made his way to her. She didn’t hear or see him seating besides her. Her mind was elsewhere – somewhere far away. “Hey”

At that simple salute, her eyes focused again and she tilted her head to the side to see who the intruder was. A small smile graced her lips.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I can ask you the same thing. I heard you ditched classes today.”

Misung chuckled. “Am I not allowed to do that?”

“It not like that.” Chen shook his head as he sighed. He didn’t know how to tell her that he was worried about her weird behaviour. He had no idea what caused it so he didn’t want to take the risk of saying something that might triggered an even worse attitude.
But in the end, he let curiosity control him. “It’s just…you don’t seem like yourself.”

The smile never left Misung’s lips, even though the look in her eyes was now a sad one.

“I don’t feel that great.”

Her voice was normal, her smile was present, everything indicated she was acting normal yet Chen could say that this time, he saw through her act. How many times had she smiled when she didn’t meant to? How many times was she hurting and didn’t show it? How could she hide it so well?

“Do you…want to t-talk about it?” he asked, carefully.

Another chuckle left Misung’s lips. “Since when are you stuttering, Jongdae-shi? And who are you? My psychiatrist? I hate talking about my problems.”

“It always feels better after you talk about your problems. You don’t need to talk to me. You have friends or family for that.”

Misung bit her lower lip in frustration. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that?” she snorted. “What will change after I say what’s on my mind? Nothing. The problem won’t go away.”

“You’re just being stubborn.”

“No, it’s the truth. No matter who I say this to, it really won’t change a thing. And believe me when I said I tried but the moment I wanted to tell my best friend, words just refused to come out. It’s as if someone erased my memory, leaving my mind blank.”

“What about your family?”

Her smile twitched a little of the mention of her family. Chen knew then that he wasn’t going to bring up that matter for a second time.

After a short pause in which Misung seemed to recollect her thoughts, the girl mumbled a small “No way” and reverted her attention back to the sky.

Chen turned to look at what she was so immersed in. Damn, he couldn’t understand what was going on inside her head at all. He couldn’t even understand why she liked watching the sky. It was something so trivial for him. As he let the silence enveloping them linger a little longer, many different thoughts began to sink in deeper in his mind, to become clearer.

“You said words wouldn’t come out, right?” he asked as he looked back at Misung. Even though she showed no reaction to his question, the boy knew she was paying attention to his words. “How about writing them?”

“Writing them?” she asked, slightly amused. “How would that help, Jongdae? I hate diaries or anything of that kind. It’s the equal to talking to myself only that it’s in a written form.”

“Then call them letters and give them to the people you wanted to tell those things in the first place.” Chen shrugged.

Misung cringed. “Old-fashioned.”

“I was just giving you some ideas.”

“Thanks.” The girl smiled a little more honest this time.

Piles of books crashed on the floor as Misung angrily pushed them off of her desk. Nothing worked as she wanted. She couldn’t learn anymore. The pressure of always being in top 3 and now suddenly dropping so low ate her alive. She was just tired. Why couldn’t she rest for a little? Her mind seemed to not be able to handle the masses of new information that the teachers delivered them daily.

She ruffled her hair in frustration. There was nothing she could achieve if her morale was lower than the earth level. The things she learned were forgotten in less than 15 minutes. It seemed as if nothing could be assimilated anymore.

How about writing them?

His words sneaked in her subconscious. She didn’t know when her fingers wrapped around the pencil or when the empty notebook appeared in front of her eyes but that didn’t matter anymore. There was this urge that controlled each of her movements. An urge to let everything out. Every single thought, every single hidden secret.

When she was finished pouring her feelings on the paper, she blushed madly. Show it to someone else? How could she show that broken side to someone else? She couldn’t even imagine the look in her best friend’s face if she ever were to read it.

No!

That was simply impossible. She couldn’t do it.

Still…

It didn’t feel right to only write them and let them rot there. For once in her life she had been honest with herself. She wanted to be praised for it. She wanted to be comforted. She wanted to be understand. She wanted to be told that the way she was thinking was not wrong.

Chen sat down in his seat. The scowl on his face refused to go away. He had felt weird to say all those things to Misung the previous day but now that he didn’t get to meet her in the morning made things worse. His imagination made all those kind of plots where the girl felt crept out by his ideas or she was simply laughing her off at him. Even though he somehow knew she wasn’t that type of girl, he couldn’t stop his rich imagination.

Classes passed by rather slowly. A few scribbles here, a few scribbles there – that was everything he managed to write in his notebook. He wasn’t paying attention again and it was going to show later in his grades. Weren’t only people who were in love supposed to act like that? He knew for sure he wasn’t so why was he so concerned? What he felt for Misung was purely admiration. He just wanted to befriend her. Nothing more. But she was so complicated that even being friends with her took a lot of energy.

The last bell rang making Chen finally snap out of his daze. With a loud sigh, he took all his notebooks. He didn’t feel like carrying them home since he knew he wouldn’t be paying too much attention anyway so he went to his locker, ready to stuff them there. When he opened the metal door, a notebook dropped on the floor. The cover was a plain blue with a few sentences written with black marker. That surely wasn’t his. Even though he didn’t realised it, his fingers itched to flip through the pages and see what was inside.

Suffocating.

I feel like I want to run away and never come back. I feel suffocated at school, always smiling, scared to show how hard I’m struggling to keep up those ing good grades. What are they even for? It’s sickening to learn and be praised for trying so hard and being so smart. Everything is so fake. They put our progress on those ladders. I feel like a Guinea pig on the display. What is their purpose anyway? Turning us into monsters that only know how to learn? I can’t even understand what they are teaching us  lately. I’m tired of it all. I don’t even know what I want from this life…why is it that they seem to know better what I want?

Chen leaned on the locker next to his as he continued to read. There was no need to a note to tell him what he had in his hands at that moment. It was overwhelming to be the one Misung chose to send her thoughts to.

At home it’s even more suffocating. They always argue lately. Work is stressing them and they are taking it out on each other. I hate it.

And there’s the all too familiar question ‘How was school?’. Is there nothing else other than school? Isn’t she interested in anything else? A ‘How was your day?’ would have been so much better.

And why being in top 3 is not enough anymore? When have you began so greedy, mom? Can’t you see I’m slowly falling into depression? Out of all the people, I was expecting you to see my real self but you failed. You failed so miserably. I wanted to be pulled out yet you push me deeper into the darkness. It hurts.

But today I managed to put a more sincere smile on my lips. It felt strange somehow. My lips learned the movement of quirking up, even though I’m sad and have no intention of smiling. They just go upwards on their own. It feels like I forgot how to express all those other emotions. Has my face became so stiff?

A small chuckle escaped from Chen’s lips. When he flipped the page, that chuckle got stuck in his throat. The next words caught him completely off-guard.

Don’t think too highly of yourself, Kim Jongdae. I just happened to feel really frustrated yesterday and wrote those things. It seemed useless if they wouldn’t have been seen by anyone else besides me so I just let you be the one to read those ridiculous things.

Anyway, thank you.