As I walked toward this year’s very first lesson, murmurs and pondering gazes that scrapes just above the line before fear was given to me in courtesy of this tragic hell hole’s attendees. My smile never left my face and I liked how I can maintain that to rub it on their faces. On normal days, I would be deemed cocky. But it’s not a normal day, it would never be normal anymore.

“Say, you were better off hanging around with when you were unpopular” Sehun slung his arm over my shoulder while his other arm clutched onto his shoulder bag’s strap on the other shoulder, “because then I wouldn’t have to face so much pressure from these judgemental, hormonal heads just by walking with you.” I rolled my eyes at his snappy snide.

I was given the privilege to meet Sehun when I was clad only in my diaper and a pacifier stuffed between my lips and he, well he was clad in a million dollar baby suit with a gold diaper beneath it and a silver spoon placed  between his lips. My hyperbole seems a little too much but perhaps it was true; he was the golden child and I was the pauper – The prince and the pauper.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Sehun tightened his arms around me and pulled me so that I was bowed rather uncomfortably. By instinct, I attempted to pry him off.

Finally, when I managed to, I immediately sent glares toward his direction at the same time I tried fixing my hair and straightening my attire. Sehun responded with a grin and ruffled my hair, earning yet another set of glare and a frustrated scoff from me.

“I was trying not to breathe in your horrible stench.” I spat out.

He frowned and raised his arm which was previously reached out to me then he sniffed his pits. “I do not stink!” Sehun bellowed.

I rolled my eyes and let them search for the nearest escape route. My eyes landed on the bin by the door inside my destination: my biology room.

“Oh my god- I need to puke!” I feigned held back belching noises and bee-lined my way to the bin I found. I didn’t have to look to know of Sehun’s irritated face.

In a rush to get away from Sehun’s presence, I bumped to a torso on my way to the bin. Since the owner of the torso is seemingly a member of some sort of hard core sport based on the feel of his body, I recoiled to the floor first.

“Ow, !” Pain surged up from both of my elbows and my strangely felt numb. I was in a situation where pain and public humiliation both met, but I ignored the latter and paid full attention to the physical pain I just crashed onto.

From a distance, I could hear Sehun snigger before making his way to me. I looked up to see the owner of the firm torso and met the eyes of a stranger. His hair was bleached to a platinum tone of blonde and his eyes lured me to a different dimension. Sehun’s abrupt ‘helping’ hands (pulling me up frantically and dusting my to rid of the non-existent dust – because he’s a ing ert) dragged me back to the embarrassing reality, however.

“I’m sorry, she’s not normally this clumsy.” Sehun apologised on my behalf while I stood beside him, instilled with the cluster of attractiveness before me. “She was just shunned by my handsomeness.” He added and I snapped out of it.

I elbowed Sehun by his ribs and grabbed my bag off his arm as he doubled in pain. I could feel the blood rushing up to my cheeks so I looked down in order to lessen their exposure. Embarrassed, I passed the strangely alluring man I bumped into without a decent apology and headed straight to the classroom, specifically at the very back seat beside the other entrance door.

I swept a glance to the door and I was presented the sight of the hot Blondie I bumped into and behind him was Sehun waving so enthusiastically.

“Wait for me during lunch!” He yelled and grinned, in response I propped an elbow on my chosen desk and slapped my palm against my face. I do not know that child.

A shadow loomed over me, assuming it was just one of the people who just entered the class I ignored it. But the shadow never left and I was forced to look up to see who the shadow belonged to. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply in attempt to conceal every string of frustration and embarrassment scattered on my face.

I wouldn’t say my previous action was useless because it wouldn’t have been if the owner of the shadow wasn’t the platinum hottie- I mean- the platinum blonde hottie. I cleared my throat and averted my eyes to the clear white board a few feet away from me.

“What is it?” Underneath my desk both of my hands were rounded to a fist, something I only do when I’m bursting of some sort of emotion.

At the sound of his amused scoffed, my head snapped toward his direction yet again. His smile was biased to one side yet his eyes remained settled on me.

“I deserve an apology, don’t you think?” Rather than a question, it came off as if he was demanding for an apology. No, he is demanding for an apology.

I was aware of the rising temperature I felt around my cheek and neck area as well as on the base of both my palms, but his set of eyes has rendered me speechless and breathing at the same time looking at him seemed impossible, let alone speaking while looking at him.

There’s something about his pair of dark brown orbs which rounded my thoughts and nullified every sense I had apart from vision, but my vision would only be on him so it was technically nullified. Every blink was delayed in order to let my eyes ponder on him a little bit longer; Every breath was dragged out coming out as pants for the sake of breathing; Every second which ticked by felt like minutes. I was in deep hallucination and I don’t know how to snap out of it.

The bell interrupted our silent interaction thankfully. He pulled away first and set himself down on the seat to my right. Why he did that is a question that would perhaps remain unanswered until I can finally speak and look at him at the same time.

People piled inside the room from both entrances and filled the remaining spare seats. The whole time, my eyes travelled back and forth from blondie’s face to somewhere else. I wanted to look more and I will, and I’m eager to do so.

Until he looked at me.

My eyes scattered back to the front of the room and I shifted on my seat. What the hell is going on with me?

“Miss Kwon? Kwon Sora?” Mr Lee repeated my name for the unknown amount of time already.

“Present.” I replied loud enough to be heard at the same time quiet enough to be far from yelling, then he moved onto the next name.

Mr Lee took a while to finish the register before he could finally introduce this year’s starting topic in Biology. I grabbed onto my pen and fumbled with the tip, clicking it to retract the ball point, then clicking on it once again to pull it back.

A few seconds after he closed the registration book, Mr Lee turned to the board with a pen board and wrote ‘Reproduction’ with a very large writing to indicate that will be the main topic for this term.

Giggles spread around the room within a breath. I risked the chance to see blondie’s grin, but when I looked he was already looking with a pleasant grin and I was lured into yet another hallucination.

I’m not sure how long I was looking at him, but when I was snapped back to reality the whole class was looking at me and Mr Lee had his eyes set on me.

“And that is a good example of attraction within animals, including us. Thank you Miss Kwon for setting a good example, but I would prefer if you refrain from looking at Mr Kim while I’m lecturing.”

The altitude of public humiliation I’m aware of multiplied and I shrank in my seat. Perhaps my face was as red as a ripe apple by now, but it wasn’t that which caused me to shrink in my seat. It was due to the fact that blondie was staring at me with amusement yet again.

I spent the remaining 45 minutes of Biology trying to take down notes, refraining myself from embracing public humiliation yet again.

Just before the bell rang, Mr Lee was nice enough to announce that we had starter homework gaining groans from everyone, including me.

“To warm you guys up for the up-coming coursework, I’d like you to do a small re-search which variable intensifies the growth rate of the plant when photosynthesising. By variable I mean natural variables, fertiliser and gibberellins are out of the picture!” He explained.

Midway his explanation, I already concluded my answer as it was obvious: it was light. Light energy enables the water to react with the carbon dioxide in the environment in order to produce oxygen and glucose.

“Sir, you mentioned the word ‘coursework’, so does that mean we can work in pairs?” Someone asked.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that variable. I sighed and yet another realisation hit me: Sehun is not in my class, he’s part of the nerds in the more advanced class, meaning I’ll be forced to find another partner. That’s just great.

Mr Lee nodded, “That will come later on after the homework but yes, you’ll be working in pairs and no, you won’t be able to choose your pairs since I found that chosen pairs usually evaluates to ridiculously low grades.”

Another series of groans came from the class, including me.

“Well, if you want to work with your friends that bad then I suggest you start working on your relationship with the person after your name in the register. Namely, Miss Kwon will be working with Mr Kim whom she was previously eyeing with extreme attraction, fortunately for her.” And that got the whole class to laugh at me- not with me. That is not a fortunate situation for me because I can tell now that I’ll be doing more staring rather than the project itself.

Oh, this is turning out to be so great.

 

Lunch came around after a 50-minute lesson about the difference between difference styles of poems in English. Anyone could probably tell how much driven I am to dive onto the floor and sprawl for the rest of the day.

I stood by my locker and waited for Sehun to come. As usual, he’s minutes late. I clutched onto my stomach as it rumbled, frowning at my phone as I used my other hand to scroll through its contents.

“SORA!” The only person who would childishly yell my name at such a public name and elongate the very last vowel would be Sehun.

Aware it was him, I started my way toward the canteen without looking up from my phone to underline the fact that I am very much irritated by his tardiness.

Suddenly, I bumped into another torso and I caught a whiff of a very familiar scent. Luckily, Sehun had already caught up and he managed to catch my fall. Again, my eyes fell into blondie’s trap yet again and I was victimized right there and then on the spot.

But the trance lasted for less the time he usually traps me in as he motioned downwards to pick up my phone by the tip of his shoes. Sehun gave ne a nudge and hastily whispered, “I forgot to say, crush alert.”

I ignored his teasing remark and cleared my throat, casting my gaze on the floor as I accepted my phone from blondie. I didn’t even bother checking it – my baby: my phone – for any scratches or cracks and clutched on it so tightly.

“Hey, you’re in my English class.” Sehun chirped. I questioningly side-looked at Sehun for his motives, but he continued making conversation with blondie.

“Yeah, Sehun right?” Blondie’s voice was gruff and a tone deeper than Sehun’s, actually, it was just about the same however Blondie’s voice sounded of a cold man’s whereas Sehun is – well – Sehun, I guess.

“Yeah, and you’re Jong-Min? Jong-Shin? Jong…In?” At the sound of his name, I looked at him. Thankfully, his eyes were settled on Sehun so the trance was altitudes weaker.

“Jong-In.” He confirmed his name and then exchanged a shake of hands with Sehun.

Unexpectedly, he moved his eyes to me and offered me a handshake. Sehun looked at me with a wide grin and introduced me, one of his hand placed on the small of my back, pushing me inch by inch toward Blondie’s – Jong-In’s – hand.

I cleared my throat and raised my arm. Should I shake his hand?

“Uh, yeah… my name’s Sora.” I diverted the direction of my hand and waved while grinning. God, help me.

Jong-In dropped his arm and slipped it back in the comfort of his dark acid-washed jeans’ pocket. Awkward was on the verge of spreading if it wasn’t for Sehun’s chatty nature.

“Do you want to join us for lunch?” I forgot about his inviting nature as well, or perhaps I should say taunting nature? This kid loves to annoy me and he knows how to do it. He has plucked every single string of nerve I have within me and all he’s doing now is just counting down the days till I murder him in his sleep.

Jong-In thankfully rejected, and relief flooded me like a soothing balm.

“Oh, well if you change your mind we’ll be outside underneath the bleachers. “ Sehun grinned for the last time and I was the first one to take a step away from Jong-In followed by Sehun.

 

We arrived in our usual spot underneath the outdoor bleachers and settled on the grass with a plastic bag of food each.

Sehun sprawled on the ground with his back against the grass and his hands occupied with his phone, most likely searching up the latest gossip.

“I will confiscate that goddamn phone if you keep on ignoring me.” I threatened, biting on my recently opened sandwich.

Like a child Sehun whined and dropped his phone, snatching the other half of my sandwich which was left untouched in its container. He harshly bit onto the sandwich as if throwing a tantrum, but a piece of ham was left hanging stuck between his teeth and the sandwich. I couldn’t help but chuckle.

I couldn’t help but notice the observant silence which proceeded as I chuckled. As I predicted, Sehun was staring at me with a rather mellow expression and I’m right, I could see a tinge of sympathy. I’m aware of the reason why he could possibly pull a look in the middle of nowhere, and now’s not the time for it.

His sincere eyes reminded me of his’ and it wasn’t because they were free of harsh, but because they were filled with sympathy. I should have known then of the existence of those sympathy in his eyes because they were always there.

Instantly, my mood dropped. It wasn’t right of me to remember such memories with a hard impact on me and it wasn’t right of Sehun to encourage me to remember, unintentionally or not.

“I’m not hungry anymore.” It wasn’t lie, or maybe just partially. I am hungry but honestly, who could possibly have the appetite with a sour mood. Processing food is out of the list of my capabilities right now with tears eager to break free and sobs stuck in my throat, ready to be choked out.

“I need some time alone.” And with that, I left Sehun in order to disperse such heavy sorrow on my own. I don’t want to burden him any more by having to comfort me when he needed to be comforted as well, besides I burden him enough by being his friend.

Of course I was concerned when I caught a gist of Sehun’s wariness as I left him to be by him, but for the better good, I’ll leave him alone for now.

I’m sorry Sehun.

I’m sorry every day, actually.