I couldn’t exactly pinpoint when—or how—it became a norm for Hanbin to walk next to me whenever he saw me in school. Perhaps I was too tired to quarrel that day, so I just continued walking side by side with him in the hallways. Everyone’s eyes were on us, that I knew. I knew, too, that I should have been shocked, or at least had told Hanbin to stop following me and tried to keep my distance. But I didn’t, and that was the surprising thing. I just let Hanbin walk next to me like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“…so,” Hanbin said, as we sat opposite each other in the cafeteria, munching the peanuts that he bought earlier. “That’s why I want to move to Seoul.”

“To look for fame, huh?”

“Weren’t you listening? Not just that—there’s so much more opportunities there, that’s for sure. I just think that I was born for the big cities. There’s lights—and people. Lots of them!”

“You barely have any friends in this school. How can you even like people?”

That made him laugh. “Everyone’s so boring here, though.”

“And what if they’re boring in the city, too?”

“They won’t be,” he said, as if to say it was definite. “I’ve been to the city, y’know. It was amazing. The buildings were so tall—so if people are boring there, I’ll just talk to the buildings.”

“You’ll look like a weirdo.”

He threw a peanut into the air and caught it with his mouth, before flashing a smile. “I don’t mind.”

. . .

I was surprised when Hanbin joined me in the library, one afternoon, with revision books on his side of the pile and a pen in his hand. Hanbin wasn’t dumb, but apart from being labelled a thug, he’d also been known for getting one of the lowest grades in our class every year.

“I don’t want to go to summer school this year,” he simply explained.

And that term, he got a higher grade than me, placing 4^th in the whole class.

Not only was Hanbin scarily surprising sometimes, he throws you off balance as well.

. . .

It was one of those days that I didn't mind missing school because it was raining, so in the morning, I brought a copy of Catcher in the Rye and ambled down the road to my favourite café.

“Hey Hayi! You haven’t been here in ages,” said Jinhwan, upon seeing me. Jinhwan’s family ran the café, so he worked there from time to time. “Don’t tell me you’ve started skipping classes again!”

“Just for today,” I told him. “It’s fine.”

He shook his head. “Your sister’s just like you, after all.”

“What do you mean?”

Jinhwan could only look at me with nervousness in his eyes. “Well,” he said hesitantly, “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to tell you this. But you won’t tell her, right?”

“I won’t.”

“She’s been coming here a lot lately. Last week she came here four times. I told her that she shouldn’t skip school so often, and she just got mad at me,” Jinhwan explained, and then laughed timidly. “I’m just worried about her. She’s usually a cheerful girl.” He scratched the back of his head and smiled.

“Usually,” I said.

“Well, I need to do some work now, call me over if you want anything. You know, Hayi, you look prettier every time I see you.”

I laughed. “See you later, Jinhwan.”

As I sat there reading my book by the window, a group of three students came in, all guys, and two were from my school. One was Kim Jiwon, a boy from my class. They took the table near the door, spent some time looking over the menu and discussing their options, until one of them reported their choices to the waitress.

Before long I noticed that Jiwon kept glancing in my direction. He soon slipped out of his seat and came over to where I was sitting. With one hand on the edge of my table, he said, “Never thought I’d see someone like you playing hooky. Mind if I sit down, Hayi?”

Still uncertain why he was talking to me, I nodded my head. See, Jiwon was one of the ‘popular kids’ in school, captain of the basketball team, someone who girls go crazy for. And, ultimately, the guy who was admitted to the hospital because of Hanbin. “Go ahead.”

“I’m not being rude, am I? Were you expecting someone?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Do you come here often?”

“I used to,” I replied, nervousness kicking in, I said it much quieter than I wanted it to sound.

“No need to be nervous around me, Hayi. I’m not a bad guy,” Jiwon said, smiling.

“I know.”

“Are you close to Hanbin?”

“He’s my friend.” That word came out so easily, it even caught me by surprise.

“Ah, so I was right. I actually think that you’re the reason he has started coming to school again. He’s stubborn as hell, but he’s not a bad guy. I don’t know why everyone’s so scared of him.”

“Right…” Jiwon talking to me was one strange thing, Jiwon talking about Hanbin as if they were friends was another. “So you two have already made up?”

He just stared at me. “Made up? We never fought in the first place.”

“Wasn’t he expelled because—?”

“Oh that,” Jiwon said, cutting me midway. “I guess he hasn’t told you yet.”

“What?”

“I tried to do something stupid, Hayi. Hanbin stopped me by throwing six punches.” Jiwon smiled. Wrinkles formed around the corner of his eyes whenever he did that, I noticed. “I tried to tell the teachers what really happened, and he just told me to leave it. I regret that.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, a friend of Hanbin’s is a friend of mine,” he said, pushing out his hand in front of me. I shook it. “I won’t interrupt you any longer. I’ll go back now,” he told me, indicating his two companions. “See you at school, Hayi.”

“See you.”

. . .

Usually, on Thursday afternoons, Soohyun and I would be left alone in the house. Mom and dad went to work, and Chanhyuk had his guitar practice. On that unforgettable Thursday afternoon, I came home to Soohyun collapsed on her bedroom floor, with an empty bottle of mom’s sleeping pills under her hand.

Trying to stay calm as possible, I phoned an ambulance, and when we got to the hospital I called my parents. Everything else that came after was a blur. Mom was crying next to me, and dad was telling her to calm down. “She’s not dead, honey. She’s not dead,” he kept repeating. Chanhyuk came almost an hour later, and he just sat there and cried. He cried and cried and cried. Mom cried. I wanted to. Dad didn’t.

I suddenly remembered the day our grandpa died. I asked my dad why he wasn’t crying at the funeral and he told me that it was his job to stay strong for us.

“Dad, you can cry,” I said. “I’ll stay strong for us now.”

On that Thursday afternoon, I saw my father cry for the first time in a long time, if not ever.

Soohyun was half a bottle of sleeping pills away from dying. Luckily, she woke up on a Monday morning and the first person she saw was me. She couldn’t speak yet, but I told her that I missed her. I stayed next to her hospital bed for hours. And mainly, I talked, and kept on talking, because I knew she liked it when I told her things. I told her that I knew about her crush on Jinhwan, and she smiled, blushing. I told her various stories about my classmates. I told her about this rumour of our teacher dating a student. Then, I told her how my studies were going.

This went on for roughly two weeks, and when I finally ran out of things to talk about, the only thing left to bring up was Kim Hanbin.

How I had to give him all those folders, how he came 4^th in the midterm exam when he only studied once, how everyone thinks he’s a thug when in fact, he was just crazy about music and big cities, his scarily honest nature, his good taste in music, his radio show, and how I was his only friend at school even though he says he loves people.

The first words that Soohyun said to me when she was able to speak again were, “I want to meet him.”

. . .

betting everything // "my life was black and white but you came and coloured in my everything"

i do try to update as often as i can, sorry i haven't done so in a while as exams have been so stressful. your comments were encouraging. thank you ♡