Or at least that's what I wish I heard around me. But that's not what I'm getting. I hear whispers and laughter. I can also feel eyes staring my way whenever I pass by. If you went up to any student in this school and asked them, "Do you know a girl named Park JaeEun?" they'd all reply with a yes. But I'm not popular. Yeah, yeah, everyone knows who I am. Shouldn't that make me popular? No. Everyone knows who I am, but not in a good way. I'm bullied, teased on, picked on, rumored about. There's not a day my name isn't said from someone's mouth.

 

Why am I being teased on? Honestly, I don't know. It's the guys who tease me the most though. Maybe it's because during the second month of school, we were doing a lab in physics class and I accidentally messed up this "popular" guy's work. And by messing it up, I mean tripping on his stool making it lean and his project fly out his hand, breaking on the floor. We were building radios.

 

"JaeEun!" I hear someone shout my name. My heart didn't tighten up, so I knew it was a friend. I turned around only to see ChaeMin running towards me in the hall.

 

"Let's go to the mall today! JiHye's already in the car waiting for us." She says.

 

I stayed silent.

 

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me that you rather go home instead. Not with what, you know who, can be doing right now. And you know JiHye doesn't like to wait so come on." She continues. She was right; I don't want to go home. Not with that you know who that I call my father.

 

I hate going home right after school. ChaeMin tries her best to take me out but if I go out too much and come home, my father gets angry. The last thing you want him to be, is angry.

 

"Alright. Let's go to the mall." I say with the most sarcastic enthusiastic tone. She rolled her eyes and grabbed my hand. Off to the mall we go.

 

 

 

"JaeEun, you need to wear skirts. Your legs are too skinny and beautiful to not wear one." JiHye says. "Oh, and you don't need to worry about your undies showing. There's this thing called spandex. It's like an underwear covering an underwear, but people aren't disgusted seeing them." She smiles and I roll my eyes at her.

 

"Come on. At least one skirt?" She whines at me. She goes over to the skirt rack and grabs one labeled "small".

 

I roll my eyes and take it, giving in to her pretty puppy dog eyes.

 

"Yay! Wait!" She shouts, running to the other side of the store. Both ChaeMin and I just watch her, wondering what she's doing. A few seconds later she came back with a shirt that looks like it won't cover my belly button, well maybe...if I pull it down.

 

"This crop tee will look so good on you. You're skinny enough for it and I'm jealous at how you have no belly fat. Well, do you like tight shirts? It seems like you like loose tees instead." She asks me. I chuckle and just take the shirt. I go into the fitting room.

 

I change into both the skirt and crop tee and look into the mirror. I froze. I look down at my body, my face disappearing. It's stereotypically beautiful. If you lift up the skirt, you can see my slight thigh gap. But, they still touch at times. But when you look at the bottom half of my legs, they're slim. They're what you see people call "beautiful" on the internet.

 

I look higher at my stomach and chest. I have a slight belly, but it's no food baby belly. My s aren't big so there's nothing to stare even higher. I don't have curves, as much. I'm not a straight stick, that's for sure. If you were to stare at just my body, you'd probably find me attractive (in this outfit only). No, I don't do diets. I don't exercise. I don't even starve myself. It's that I have fast metabolism. Or at least I think it's that, but I hate the fact I'm this skinny honestly. I want meat on my body.

 

But I look up back at my face, and it's horrifying. I mean, it's not ugly horrifying. It's just...horrifying. When I look at it, I can see pain. Ha. Well, I am in pain. I wish I could go just as beautiful as this but, you know those sayings "They bully you because they're jealous of you." and honestly, I don't feel like having girls bully me. Anyways, I like my loose tee's and skinny jeans. I have tons of shirts that i can just throw on with any denim jean. I don't need to try and look beautiful. With the teasing I get now, even if I tried like this I probably won't even be beautiful.

 

"Oh my gosh." Both my friends gasp as I walk out the fitting room. I stand there feeling awkward in the outfit; I'm not used to clothes like this.

 

"You have to buy this outfit." ChaeMin says. I'm surprised it came from her.

 

"Okay." I say. They both look at me weird.

 

"Okay?" Both of them go.

 

"Yeah. Okay. Why?"

 

"You don't usually agree fast with stuff you don't want to do." JiHye responds. I couldn't help but laugh. She's telling the truth.

 

"One day with nice clothes won't hurt right?" I say, walking back into the fitting room. I can hear them chuckle.

 

 

 

We walked out the store after I purchased the outfit and went straight to the food court. Shopping makes JiHye hungry, even though if it was only one store. JiHye and ChaeMin sit at a table while I go and order food for us.

 

I wait besides the little court for Korean meat after I ordered. It takes about 10 minutes for it to be ready. Maybe more since I ordered three meals.

 

"Number 91!" the cashier calls. I walk over and show her my number. She takes it as I turn around and wave for one of my friends to come over and help me. There's three trays for goodness sakes.

 

ChaeMin came over and grabbed hers and JiHye's. She left me to only handle my own food. She walked faster that I did. I don't know how she could do that while holding two trays filled with meat, soup in a little bowl, kimchi, and a bowl full of rice as well.

 

I hold my tray with both my hands and slowly start walking towards the table. As I'm walking, I'm focused on the soup. I don't like it when it spills over, even if it's a slight spill onto my tray. It annoys me for some reason.

 

 

I look at where my soup spilled and see that it flew onto the shirt of the person I bumped into. It wasn't a big soup stain, but it did get on his shirt. Gosh, I wish I payed more attention to my path besides the damn soup.

 

"I'm so sorry!" I say, looking up to see who I bumped into. My eyes grew wide when I don't even know who he is. He looks familiar. Maybe we go to the same school. He looks my age as well. Ah , if we go to the same school he might know me, and not in a good way.

 

"It's okay." He says, a chuckle coming out. I slightly bow as I see him his thumb and try to clean the soup off his shirt.

 

"You look familiar." He says, looking back at me after failing to clean the small stain. I stayed silent. He furrowed his eyebrows and grinned a little.

 

"Do we go to the same school?" He asks. I shrug and hear JiHye call my name. I look around his body and see her waving for me to come and sit.

 

"Sorry, again. Haha. I have to go now. My friends are calling." I say. I didn't see if he nodded or even heard that I said that I needed to go. After I finished that sentence, I quickly maneuvered myself around him to get to my friends.

 

Instead, I got to his friends.

 

"Hey. Who's this TaeHyung?" I hear them say. TaeHyung, that's a nice name.

 

"No one. We just bumped into each other." TaeHyung replies. I see someone spot the stain on his shirt. How can they? It's not even that huge.

 

"Did she do that to you?" One of his friends say chuckling. TaeHyung nodded.

 

"Yeah, but it was an accident. I didn't see where I was going. I was too busy staring at the menu ahead." He tells him.

 

"But still." His friend continues. I look over at him and he walks up to me and grabs my small bowl of soup.

 

"Hey. Come on. Leave her alone. I said it's okay." TaeHyung shouts from behind him. His friend stared at me a bit longer.

 

"Hey. I know you." he says. Now I stare at him a bit longer. Of course, it's him. That guy whose radio I broke. That guy who sits near me in Physics class.

 

"Because of you, my grade is a C- right now and I have to wait a few weeks to make it up." He tells me.

 

"You're still passing." I regretfully say. He just annoyed me with his presence after I figured out who he was.

 

"Hey you shut your mouth-" He gets interrupted by TaeHyung grabbing his arm with the hand holding my soup. Bad idea TaeHyung. Slight spill. This time on my face, just a tiny bit though. It wasn't bad.

 

"Seriously dude. Come on." TaeHyung says, grabbing the soup from his friend's hand. I sadly don't know his name. I don't slightly care.

 

I didn't even wait for him to give me back my soup. I turned myself around and walked straight to my friends at the table. I sit myself down and wipe some soup off my face.

 

"What happened?" ChaeMin asks.

 

"Nothing. Just accidentally bumped into someone." I answered. Gosh, that guy is still looking at me.