I guess I didn’t have it so bad in high school. High school was easy, it was all about doing the things that people wanted you to do, whether it was drinking alcohol or saying things that they wanted to hear. Mostly, high school was about pretending.

For me, pretending was an easy thing to do.

It's fair to say that I was a normal seventeen year old girl. I mostly spent my free time studying. I had a loving family with a decent income; meaning we were not poor but we were not rich either. No tragic backstory. Okay grades. Okay friends. Okay part-time job.

As simple as that, everything came easy to me.

I wake up, go to school, eat, study, and sleep. 

Maybe when you live your whole life this way you’d finally come to realize that life was all about structure. And in the end, perhaps we all lived to die.

. . .

“In the end, we all lived to die. Is that really what you think, Hayi?” asked Mrs Choi. She was a lovely woman in her early thirties. Divorced. Probably still single, and I could never seem to work out why. Mrs Choi had everything from smarts to beauty after all. “Is that really your outlook on life?”

“Our assessment was creative writing for a small piece,” I answered. “Of course it’s not my outlook on life.” Sadly, it was. “Is that why you wanted to speak to me, ma’am?”

She nodded, uncertainty still lingering on her expression. “It just worried me. You’re such a cheerful student.” She seemed deep in thought. “Your writing reminded me of one of my students about five years ago. Happy on the outside, and the next thing you know, she’s found in the woods, hanging from a tree with a rope tied around her neck.”

“That’s scary.”

“What’s scarier is how she hid it so well.”

It wasn’t that she hid it well. People just didn’t focus enough, is what I wanted to tell her. But, of course, I left it at that.

. . .

“Hayi,” Yerin started. “Are you free today?”

“I think so.”

“Ah, really? Thank god,” she said, pulling out a blue folder from her bag. It was a folder that our high school gave to the sick students—or in some cases the ‘bad’ ones. It had the lesson summaries in pure note form. “Since I’m class representative and all, it’s my job to drop this off for someone. My boyfriend’s in town today, you see, so can you please do it for me?”

I hesitated for a moment, thinking about how much workload I would have had to catch up with if I did that favour. Soon enough I gave my answer, anyway. A quiet, “Sure.” 

“You really will?”

“I’m free today.” I took the folder.

“You’re the best! I’ll treat you to lunch this weekend, okay?”

That never happened. 

. . . 

I went to the address straight after school. I stood outside apartment number twenty two, nervous to ring the doorbell.

The folder belonged to Kim Hanbin.

And all the information I possessed about Kim Hanbin I’d gotten from a distance. Like that he was tall and muscular, with broad shoulders and thick biceps. And he always wore shoes with thick rubber soles that made him seem even taller, his steps heavier. His hair was bright red and cut short, spiking up a bit at the top, and I’d never once seen him without his phone and earphones, which he wore inside, outside, in class, out of class. Also, while I knew he had to have friends, I’d never seen him talk to anyone in school.

Perhaps it was because of that day where he came into class, with bruises on his face, on the same day that Kim Jiwon was admitted to the hospital. Something must’ve happened, the whole class concluded, as Hanbin was expelled for two weeks after that incident. He never came to class even after the two weeks were over.

I rang the doorbell. Waited for ten seconds, and then Hanbin opened the door. He was just standing there, a red T-shirt, drumming his fingers on his knee and listening to music through his earphones. He seemed well enough to attend school, and the bruises on his face were no more.

Up close, he didn’t really look like a monster. 

“’Sup?” Hanbin greeted, taking his earphones out. 

“I came to give you this.” I handed him the blue folder.

He chuckled lightly. “Why did they send you?”

“Yerin’s busy.”

“Bull!” he laughed loudly.

“What was that supposed to mean?”

“I’m guessing that she told you that she had a wedding to attend tonight?”

I shook my head. “Her boyfriend’s in town.”

Hanbin laughed. “That’s an even better excuse.”

“What?”

“I scared her off last time,” he explained to me. “I’ll have to say, you give the best reaction from the other ones that she sent. Am I really that scary, Lee Hayi?”

“I’m not scared of you.”

“And I’m not saying you are,” he said with an amused smile. 

“I’ll be going, then.”

“Bye-bye! Tell me the next excuse and maybe we can laugh about it together!”

I certainly hoped there was no next time, there was something about the thought of laughing with Kim Hanbin which made me feel uneasy.

. . . 

time and fallen leaves // (づ￣ ³￣)づ