Chapter Four: One Day Before

"Students, assemble." Through a megaphone, the director's voice remains commanding and stern. He stands with his -out posture in front of the whole batch of senior students, lined up in a disorganized manner. He gestures, drawing straight lines with his hands and then gapes at every student who are out of line. He then marches off the platform and signals a fairly handsome young man to stand up and go in front to introduce himself. He coolly pulls himself up and walks towards the microphone before tapping it gently.

He clears his throat and voices out, "Good morning, I'm Kim Junmyeon and I'm going to be one of your proctors for the trip. Let's get along well."

Did the words come out too seriously? He doesn’t think so, because he knows he had certainly tried his best when he gentled down his tone, unlike how he uses during informal conversations and squabbles. Did he speak too gently, perhaps? He has no clue himself, and therefore, it scares him because he might have played a fool out of himself earlier.

He closes his eyes for a short second before looking up again and scanning the audience. There are eyes staring back at him, and, aside from that, distinct sounds he can make out from the roaring of students all of a sudden: whistles from flamboyant girls and loud claps from timid ones and deep sighs from boys.

Mi Ja hysterically laughs at the back of the crowd though, because rather than an assembly, it seems like a fan-meet event with a self-proclaimed celebrity, Junmyeon featuring the Bald Director (or as Junmyeon already entitles him as Baldirector after just meeting for few discussions).

Taehyung’s attention isn’t caught by Junmyeon’s hypocritical introduction of himself nor by Mi Ja’s madwoman guffaw. He doesn’t seem to mind anything at all, not even the person standing beside him while nagging him endlessly, because his fingers nervously tap on the side of his thighs as he grows impatient waiting for his cellphone to vibrate inside his pocket. And not like there’s something he has to be disappointed about, there came no alert nor vibration after seconds. He heaves out a dismayed sigh as he fishes out his phone out from his pocket, only to reread the latest message from Jinri, saying, "Can't wait!" In which he replied, “Me, too. Really.”

Taehyung hardly smiles, and silently encourages himself to man up. He has to pretend that he’s excited to go to the trip; he has to. Even though in all honesty, he's not. He's skeptical about this trip, completely vexed and unsteady about the possible mischances that may arise. Call him paranoid or antisocial but the word school excursion doesn’t seem to get into him. It's like he's about to break down out of misery; but then the mere thought of her attracts all the shards nearly breaking off from each other. He has to see Jinri, and confess his totally-not-obvious feelings. He just has to desperately see her.

The announcements went on and on and on until the proctors finally come to a halt as they feel exhaustion just by explaining the guidelines and rules the students must abide to during the whole field trip. No sleeping in opposite es’ room, no stealing of objects, and other things of the like. Mi Ja thinks it was nonsense, believing that not all those rules would be followed especially now that they’re actually dictating those to senior high school students, few months from graduation and completely aware of love…and other things better left unsaid.

Now, sitting on the bus, Mi Ja hoists up her legs and rests them on the backrest grounded in front of her. Beside her sits the most beautiful girl in their school, and the coldest too and also the meanest, and also the girl whom Mi Ja had once thrown a spoon at. Jung Soojung. Out of the, I don’t know, 89 people in their whole batch, fate twists their seating arrangement and ‘partnership’ into the worst combination. They’ve been bugging each other since the moment it was announced that Soojung and Mi Ja were partners, mentally pulling out each other’s eyeballs from their sockets and shaving off their hairs. Or maybe it was just Soojung’s explicitly morbid imagination that brought that thought up.

Soojung and Mi Ja literally had to scramble over the seat beside the window. There was no physical fight but Mi Ja debated with her, just like how she usually does with Junmyeon. And because it was that kind of their battle, which Mi Ja unluckily mastered out of pure coincidence and experience under Junmyeon’s cooperation, Soojung lost to her and ended up scurrying to her seat near the center. Speaking of Junmyeon, he sat with Taehyung on another bus because of the excuse he lamely authored. The excuse of Taehyung having motion sickness, which has been said to not be completely false but also not completely factual, actually drove both of their fate into their favors; unlike the two ladies, who secretly kicked each other’s ankles and stepped on each other’s feet.

Mi Ja pulls out a bottle of water from her bag and then twists the cap open. And because fate is as playful as Taehyung and as annoying like Junmyeon, the bus stops in haste and makes Mi Ja pull away her bottle from spilling water into the floor. And somehow, the water makes its way to Soojung’s clothes and she ends up being drenched. Mi Ja’s eyes widen at the sight of Soojung feistily glaring at her, and she receives a very pricking response, “Moronic uneducated woman.”

Mi Ja feels her temperature rise up as her blood boils for Soojung especially. Although a part of her convinces herself that it’s all because of her carelessness anyways, there’s a larger portion of her that boosts up her anger by reminding her of Soojung’s y attitude back then. Mi Ja then remembers that the day after tomorrow, it’s going to be her birthday. She’s going to turn 18, and going to age. And just like that, her mood lightens up and she suddenly whistles her boiling temper away. To Soojung’s surprise, Mi Ja doesn’t talk back. To even add up to Soojung’s surprise, Mi Ja even whistles happily. But that doesn’t do anything to their ‘relationship’. It somehow just worsens it.

Soojung assumes that Mi Ja was actually intending to do that, and therefore implied that she doesn’t care about what Soojung had just said. But that wasn’t it. When it comes to fights or battle of the prides, Mi Ja will always be the most competitive. And somehow, even if they weren’t the best of friends nor were they friends, Soojung knew that there must have been something. To sum it all, they just let it off. Even if Soojung was soaking wet. But she gets her revenge later that night when she steals Mi Ja’s pillow and blanket and leaves Mi Ja shivering to the extreme blowing of the air conditioner.

But even with the wintriness ruptured within the air that night, Taehyung just couldn’t sleep. Partly because he was extremely exasperated and regretting why he’s here, and partly because he’s itching to text Jinri; what does he have to do to catch her attention and not look like trying to wag his tail in front of her out of forlorn? Junmyeon watches him from a distance and he crinkles his nose before snatching his phone away. Taehyung stands up and knees him in the loins, but Junmyeon only slightly affected doesn’t waver. He hushes down the almost-yelling Taehyung and says gently, “You know what? You should take care of yourself before you take care of your business. Sleep.”

“Why are you here, anyways?” Taehyung gives a stop to the dispute and slams his back on the backrest of the seat. He slides down and covers half of his body with blanket and nuzzles closely the pillow, waiting for the older one to reply.

Junmyeon chuckles, “I thought you would know.” And Junmyeon really thinks that he would, but maybe Taehyung doesn’t get what the other one really means because the moment Junmyeon gazes over his shoulder to check him, Taehyung’s eyes are already half closed. And when Taehyung’s eyes are like this, it practically means that he’s already sleeping. Which is a really, really, really embarrassing thing for him; making him a bit thankful that Junmyeon’s the one who was assigned to be his partner. Even if he looked like a babysat child.

“First stop, the Shrine of Hwang Du,” the tour guide, who stayed with Mi Ja’s group, smiles tiresomely as she points out the surroundings with her lousy arms. Soojung ticks her tongue as Mi Ja keeps on bumping to her, accidentally at first but gets to the other’s nerves quickly and they end up looking like a pendulum for no exact reason. They bump into each other’s shoulders occasionally to piss each other off; but they always end up being the ones irritated.

The Shrine shines even without the sun’s light glistening on its borders. The place is just breathtaking and makes Mi Ja forget about the pest existing beside her. She pulls out her camera and starts capturing photographs of everyone. Her body slowly rotates after she takes a picture of different angles from this side to another side. She’s almost stationary, except that her feet are the only ones glued stationary on the ground neither her arms nor her mind. Her mind’s clouded with thoughts of the place, the beauty etched within every sculpture that projected the history’