Days come like a running train, and in the blink of an eye, it’s now Tuesday. Time surely flies fast without we realize.

Jinri, Naeun and I settle at the regular food court during lunchtime. Luna is not with us because she’s absent today. We just had our Language Awareness class before coming here, by the way.

“It feels different that Luna’s not here, doesn’t it?” Jinri says after the waiter stalks off.

“It surely does,” Naeun replies. “She’s like the voice of our group. It’s weird that she’s absent today.”

“She’s under the weather, isn’t she?” I drop a question.

“Yeah, she told me this morning. She said she’d go to the clinic with her mother, but I’m not sure whether or not she’s gone. I’ll text her later.” Naeun rises from the seat. “Guys, I’ll go get my food first, okay?”

Jinri and I nod.

“I’ve been keeping a keen eye on you ever since the start of our class and I’d have to say you look a bit off today,” Jinri comments. “Why? Is there anything bothering you?”

“It’s nothing.” I muster a weak smile. “I’m fine. Thanks for worrying about me, Jinri.”

“Are you sure?” She rolls her eyes. “Because you look terrible.”

“Do I?” I haven’t noticed it. I grab a mini mirror in my tote bag and take a thorough look of myself. Damn. I really look terrible. I haven’t had enough sleep ever since the crushing night. It has been three days, though. I don’t know why it still bothers me until now.

“You’ve never had dark circles before, Soojung,” enlightens Jinri. “I’m sure there’s something you didn’t tell me. What is it? Tell me now, Soojung. I’m sure I can lend you a hand—or at least, listen to your story.”

I shake my head helplessly. How can I tell her about it that I went out with the hottest guy in the campus and he kissed me and I slapped him hard? That’s just impossible and hard for me. It still lingers in my head to begin with. Kai always appears out of nowhere almost every hour. It’s suffocating I feel like dying, really.

The waiter who appears at our table to serve drinks, interrupts our conversation.

“Come to think of it.” I ignite the conversation before she gets to start, “why haven’t you told me about you and Taemin sunbae-nim? I heard you two are a thing now.”

She blushes hard. Oh God, is this really Choi Jinri that I’ve known for the longest time I can remember?

“How do you know?” she says bashfully. God, seriously, that tone of hers annoys the hell out of me. “It hasn’t been official yet. No, I mean, we’re keeping it a secret for this time being.”

“I read your tweets,” I say, biting the straw after a small sip. “Apparently you paid no heed to my advice, Jinri. You accepted him without questioning him about his seriousness to you.”

“I was about to, but changed my mind because, he, uhm, looked rather serious that I felt bad to reject him. I told myself I’d give him a chance and apparently he was serious, after all.”

“Tell me more about it.”

“I’ll tell you later.” Jinri notices Naeun’s on the way here. “Privately and with full details.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. I’ll drop by your house this evening. Make sure you’d be at home, okay?”

“Okay.”

///

It turns out that our meeting place has to be changed all of a sudden because Sooyeon unnie’s close friends are coming to our house at 4. They are all pretty boisterous people, so I texted Jinri as soon as I got home after lunch.

The latter reaches the same playground we went last week on time—she’s rather strict about punctuality and that’s one of the reasons I love her.

Our conversation basically revolves around her new, blooming love life—that was why we met up this evening. I am finally enlightened about Taemin sunbae-nim. Listening to what she just told me, it seems like he’s really serious about dating Jinri.

A sudden thought occurs to me; I should have never doubted his sincerity. Just because someone you barely know confessed to you on a whim does not mean he’s messing around. He might be a timid person who’s afraid of being rejected to begin with.

“Why were you absent yesterday?” Her question catches me off guard. I stop swinging my feet and dart her a sideways glance.

Her eyebrows knit together. “You weren’t there during Reading & Study Skills class, were you?”

There is a beat of silence.

I purse my lips tight. I knew this was going to occur. “I woke up late,” I say.

“Did you?” She seems wary. “The class started at 11, as usual. To think you woke up late didn’t make sense at all, Soojung. You’ve never been late to any class before, have you?”

. This is just getting worse. Come to think of it, sometimes it’d be a pain in the neck to have someone you are so close to that she knows all of your secrets—even the darkest ones. You cannot bluff; she’d sense it right off the bat.

“I really woke up late,” I repeat, my voice rising in volume. “I watched Sherlock until 1 a.m. because it was so good to stop.”

“Sherlock?” she says, befuddled. “You mean that British TV series that has three episodes in every series?”

“Right. That one.” It’s a lie; I have never watched Sherlock in my entire life, let alone British TV shows. I just happened to know the series because Sooyeon unnie was watching it last night.

By the way, how does Jinri know about Sherlock? Don’t tell me she’s into that kind of stuff. Please, don’t.

“Anyway, you were lucky that you missed the class.”

“Why?” I ask, scooting a tad closer to her. “Did something great happen?”

“Not that great.” She pulls a face. “It was just she did a spontaneous check of our assignment. Everyone was really taken aback because they wasn’t expecting it to come. You know, a lot of us haven’t even read the novel.”

“So what happened, then?” I am getting curious. I wished I was there. It would have been fun to see those lazy guys getting told off by the grumpy Mrs. Jo.

“Fortunately she just checked the first three rows. I was too lucky that Naeun, Luna and I sat on the fourth row.”

“I see.” Then I watch kids start to fill the playground. It would get really rowdy with the noise they make during evening. I have no idea why kids these days are into swings, slides and other childish stuff. If I was still around their age, I would just stay at home and play with Barbie. But too bad I don’t like girly stuff.

“You know, that posh guy came to us during that class.”

“Posh guy?” I raise an eyebrow, cautious. “Who was he?”

“The one that those girls are fawning over,” she says, her voice suddenly shrinking, “Kai.”

I feel a loud thud in my heart. The name sends a chill down my spine. What was the reason Kai came to my friends? What did he want?

“Why, uhm, was he there?” I try my best not to sound so curious.

“He didn’t literally come to us. He just stood close to us like he was searching for someone.”

There’s like a big lump stuck in my throat, and when I swallow hard, it feels bile. That was why I did not want to come to class yesterday, though I really hate the idea of skipping classes. I wanted to avoid him. As a matter of fact, ever since the night he kissed me, I have started to avoid him. I don’t want to see him at all and as a result, I had screwed my perfect attendance on that class—just because he was in the same class as me.

We did come across each other at times, though. However, I just ran away as soon as we met eye to eye. I’m positive he knew that I’ve been avoiding him for days, and to say he wouldn’t feel bad, it would be a huge lie.