July 2008

I didn’t understand why suddenly Sunhwa and Hana asked people to join our little group. Now, our group consisted of nine people and honestly saying, it was uncomfortable. Unlike before, now I had additionally six people who were curious about what I was doing or what I liked. Whenever we gathered for lunch time, it was a lot noisier than usual.

The other six people were my classmates. However, I had never really got the chance to know them better as I usually only went along with Hana and Sunhwa. I could recognize HyunA as she was the most popular student in our class. Then there was Nana who competed with HyunA in term of popularity and along with her was her best friend, Hyorin. The rest three were unfamiliar to me as I had never cared about them. They were Nicole, Gina, and the last one was Eunji.

The first time we gathered for lunch, Hana and Sunhwa discussed things well with the others and I was left in confusion as I didn’t understand what they were talking about. There were times when I just stared at my food as I didn’t get involved in the conversation.

But that changed in a few weeks as Gina had encouraged me to talk more. She tried to involve me in their conversation and I took the chance to become closer with them. Gina was probably the one I trusted the most in the group although I still couldn’t let go of Hana and Sunhwa. We usually chatted until midnight, discussing things we thought interesting and it bound us together.

On the other sides, although I had known the rest five better, I only thought of them as ‘just friends’ and nothing else. I still felt distanced from them but, they were good resources for gossips and that was why I could hold myself back for them.

Hana and Sunhwa had changed a lot and now they only attracted into talking about people or the trend or the idols. In short, they had transformed themselves into people I tended to distinct myself from.

Lately, I had listened to a bunch of nonsenses about girls dating bad boys and how they gave away their ity or how they were during the school time and after that. I didn’t do anything—sadly. No matter how many chances I had on changing my friends’ perspective of a topic, I just didn’t know where to warn them about the bad effects it would bring to us and sat there, listening to the same empty gossips again.

But somehow, I got used to it and became numb. It reached the point where I just followed along with the flow. Now, I had more knowledge about people’s rumors instead of subjects.

Although it might sound very negative, at least I got a small benefit from it. From those talks the girls usually did, I had known who would never fit my friend’s criteria and who to avoid for their bad behavior. When I was in elementary school, I had no knowledge about this kind of people. It made me to just nod and like everyone when in fact; they had affected in a wrong way. Mom warned me a lot about this, but of course, as someone who thought of herself so highly, I tended to ignore Mom’s warnings.  

Among our ‘small’ group, I also learned to be more vocal on what I thought as no one seemed to take this role. I would lead someone into a topic and when I thought it was enough, I would tell them to stop. That surprised me a little as I remembered for being the outcast girl in the group.

The first thing I realized that these girls were nothing but a bunch of ‘fake’ girls was when I had to talk to Eunji. The other girls had thought of her as a disturbance. They thought of her as someone who thought of her appearance too much – which I had never really observed. They thought of her as a cheap girl for dating Adam, the only white boy in our class.

There were a lot of white boys in our school as we all attended a quite famous private school. It had never occurred to me that these white boys would be something ordinary in my life. Those white boys got recognized not for their different race but because they were known to be handsome and talented in sports— I had seen them playing some sports and they were just awesome. Some were just really good in academic, which had been the public’s knowledge and I didn’t really believe it until I saw it by myself. The smartest student in our school would be a white girl or white boy. No one could catch up with them—although I had been told that the trend was changing in our year.

And, that was how Adam got himself known in my class. As a white boy who was good in basketball. I had to admit that I fell for him at first but then, when he announced his relationship with Eunji, my heart chose to bury the feeling and acted as an ordinary friend instead.

However, his relationship with Eunji somehow affected our group as the other girls seemed to dislike their relationship. I didn’t get their logic at all. How could they hate her for having Adam fallen in love with her? 

Turned out that, they believed Eunji had given away the most important thing for a girl to Adam—which was quite confusing, how did they know this? I was unsure about this and why should we care about that when suddenly they shoved the fact that Nicole had always had her eyes on Adam as well.

At the time, everyone was always so open about who they liked. I had told the girls – and literally showed them my real reactions– about my crush on a boy named Frans from a different class with us. As far as I could remember, we had never talked about Nicole had a crush on Adam and thus, I believed that Eunji accepted Adam’s confession because she thought that no one liked him.

The girls pointed me to have a talk with her, which was very surprising. I had to tell you that it was the very first time for me to actually harass someone in middle school since I had been careful with my image not to be mixed up with the one I had at home and school. I had to admit that my temper was something I could hardly control and that was why I had always tried to hide this in middle school.

It was the last day of July when I – for the very first time – acted like I knew all of Eunji’s bad sides and talked to her about them. Along with my talk, I warned Eunji for not talking with any of us as she had been forbidden to get closer to us.

“But why?” Was Eunji’s only question as she stared at me—totally broken from my “talk” to her.

“I don’t really understand why I joined this group,” Gina once told me—long before Eunji got kicked out from the group.

“It’s because you’re looking for some people to be your friends,” I replied as I dragged her to the canteen.

“No,” Gina smiled to me as she matched her pace with me. “I could easily find friends. But I don’t know if they are good enough to be with me,” She said.

“It’s not like you’re looking for a boyfriend!” I told her that. We laughed at my statement, agreeing that her words were ridiculous.

Now that after I talked to Eunji and watched how her face changed, the only thing in my head was the conversation I had with Gina. Why did I even bother to join this group?

August 2008

I was slow in realizing things, it seemed. Lately, I got to hear some people talked about Nicole’s bad attitudes. Everyone jumped on the ship, clearly taking the chance to hate on someone. People – especially the girls in my group— had gone around, telling my classmates about Nicole ‘y’ attitudes.

They would tell how Nicole had clearly got too much confidence in herself. She also had lost their respect when they discovered that Nicole still liked Adam even though Eunji and Adam were still in a relationship—or so I thought. Sunhwa pointed this as something that unacceptable to like someone who was already taken.

Something that I regretted during this time was that I had crossed my line by hating on Nicole. Since the first day of school, I just knew I would never like Nicole. There would be some cases where you just couldn’t bring yourself to like someone, no matter how nice they were to you or when they did nothing on you. That also happened to me and on top of that, I had waited for a long time to witch-hunt Nicole and her so called ‘y’ attitudes.

I took the chance to hate her blindly when it passed by me. However, Gina strongly disagreed with this idea as she supported Nicole and said that nothing was wrong with her. This only burnt me with anger as whenever I talked to Gina about Nicole, she would support her and scold me back for talking bad about someone.

I almost threw a fit to Gina and cornered her for supporting Nicole but not Eunji who had been kicked out from our little group. That would be a great thing to corner Gina. If only I could think of the future by that time, I would know how deep my regret towards Nicole would be much later in my life.

Gina had never been heard of our group, however. She had always lost in the discussion and the only time she was heard when she finally decided to switch side to hate Nicole. It took me by surprise—as I had known how loyal Gina was to Nicole. By the time the realization hit her, she told me that she regretted it a lot.

As if it was not enough, those girls, who were too coward to talk by themselves, told me to talk Nicole and kicked her out from the group. I didn’t even get surprised when I suddenly got the job to talk to Nicole. I knew my role well and I didn’t wish to change it. Those girls even told me what to do and say —something that I didn’t know would hurt someone so bad.

They wanted to humiliate her in front of the whole group and class by forbidding her to join our group’s discussion. This would attract the class’ attention of course and this was what they wanted.

I swore I would never change how pale Nicole’s face at the time. She didn’t say anything aside from looking at me with her pleading eyes. However, anger quickly took control of my brain as I yelled at her, clearly ignoring how her eyes were already moist.

Nicole heaved a deep sigh when I stopped talking. Our classmates clearly had their eyes set on us—wondering what would happen next in this unfair battle. I thought Nicole would run away from where she was. However, she proved that I was wrong when she silently went back to her seat. It was a dangerous move from her. Her current seat was right next to Sunhwa. We watched in amusement as Nicole ignored Sunhwa’s annoyed face and sat quietly on her seat.

“Some people obviously have no shame at all,” Sunhwa said in a loud voice.

Nicole pretended to play on her phone—trying to avoid Sunhwa’s sharp glare on her side. I decided not to give a damn about the scene anymore. Gina had waited for me with a disgusted look on our seat.

I gave her my “what?” expression and settled next to her. If there was anyone who looked at me as if I was the one who caused Nicole to get kicked from the group, I would stare at them long enough and raise my eyebrow, challenging them to say something.

I guess I had failed to differentiate my life at home with school now. Gina, however, had not said anything since I talked to Nicole. And, honestly, I didn’t know if I should ask her first or let her talk later. After drowning in people’s stares, I decided to go with the second option.

‘It’s not going to hurt me,’ I thought.

I was definitely way too naïve at that time. I thought I was the “untouchable” in the class when I was just another dirt to the people I called “friends”. I was… nothing. I wasn’t as important as I thought. It was just a little phase I had to get through before what would come next.

I remembered how I wanted to believe in these “friends” so badly. Sure, nowadays, we would think of it as a lesson. But, really, when you were only thirteen-year-old and somehow you got no friends to back you up, that was a mess.

If it wasn’t for that important moment of ‘friendship’, I would never be able to have a mask of how to act outside of your home. I would probably still be that temperamental girl who wouldn’t hesitate to throw things at people who made her mad.

If anything, that moment of me being kicked out from the ‘squad’ was what taught me things. I remembered vividly how we hung out together and someone said, “Let’s promise not to leave each other behind.”

Everyone agreed on the statement, saying that such thing wouldn’t happen. I knew it sounded ridiculous to think of it seriously-- especially as it came from children who still had no idea of what would come out as a result of their talks.

But, I learned, that your promise could hurt someone so badly that it would leave scars. Maybe I was too stupid at the time, to believe them when they said that no one was going to be left behind. Even if it meant that we were going to buy snacks in the canteen in a group.

I took it to heart. Whenever we went to the canteen to buy snacks, everyone waited until the squad was complete before moving on. Or, should I say, everyone waited for everyone except me to get back together. Oh, if I was done and someone else hadn’t, I would wait for them—together with the others.

It wasn’t in my case, though. I remembered one time, we went to buy snacks and it was that time when I realized their ‘no-one-is-going-to-be-left-behind’ was just a nonsense. I hadn’t finished purchasing when they left me behind. I yelled to them, asking to wait for me. All they did was glancing back at me. I hurriedly finished my purchase and chased them.

If you had ever watched or seen when someone had to tail behind a walking group, that would describe what I did. I tailed them from behind, trying to catch them but they fastened their pace. And, yes, I could hear them saying that they should hurry and leave me behind. It still hit me hard until this day.

It hadn’t been that long since they declared that stupid statement and yet, here I was, trying to catch them when they blurted out that I should be left behind. Without even a proper talk.

I stopped talking to them shortly after that. Not even to Gina who was my closest friend in the group.

I guess that was how my trust issue started.