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Hyeori started packing her bag quite early that morning. It was 3 AM when she decided to take a bath, then she sat on her bed for maybe half an hour, her eyes fixed on the jacket hanging next to her uniform.
The red, black, and white colors added a splash of vibrancy to the white wall behind her. Sooho’s jacket, the jacket she loved so much and said brought him luck because she had given it to him for his fifteenth birthday, even though it had been quite big on him back then.
But he wore it with pride and cherished it with all his being, not even letting her wash it with the rest of the clothes because he said it might lose its color or get stained. And even when he wasn’t around, Hyeori would put that garment in the washing machine by herself.
“When he wakes up, he might ask for it.”
Her thoughts suddenly stopped, as if reminding her that she had something to do, so without further ado, she got ready, put on her neatly ironed and tidy uniform, and slung her perfectly organized backpack over her shoulder.
Sooho had always liked how organized she was.
“Today…” Hyeori checked her notes, wondering if she had anything special that day or just nothing. “Doctor’s appointment…” she muttered, cursing under her breath knowing her mother would scold her if she didn’t go. “3:30… Uhm, after school…”
The girl walked out of the room and stopped in front of the mirror near the entrance, looking at herself one last time, observing the small photo of her and Sooho that was stuck in a corner of it. Her smile trembled a little, but still, she touched the photo paper, right where the boy was laughing heartily at something.
“Uhm, see you later, wish me luck, love,” she murmured, letting her fingernail caress the young man’s image. When she heard her alarm, she looked away, stopping the sound, and walked towards the exit, putting on her shoes.
With a sigh, she left the apartment, jumping when she saw Seungje standing there, leaning against the railing in front of her door, his hands playing with his phone until he heard her open the door.
“Oh, Seungje-ah, what are you doing here?” she asked, earning a smile from him as he handed her a small white bag. “Huh?” Her eyes landed on a small apple and oat cookie, a banana milk, and some mint candies.
“I figured you didn’t have breakfast,” he said, starting to walk beside her. “You have a habit of going to school very early.”
Hyeori tensed up. Of course, she had that habit. She used to arrive early to wake Sooho up so they could eat together a little before classes, or simply to make sure he was okay.
“They used to drop me off at school very early,” she shrugged. “But thank you very much, I’ll eat it all,” she nodded with a smile, earning one back from the boy. “You, why so early? You’re usually late.”
“Ah…” he sighed, stretching his arms as if remembering his tiredness. “It’s a new year, means a new me.” The girl chuckled softly, shaking her head, causing him to laugh too and look at her with a touch of offense. “What’s so funny?”
“I bet you’ll be late again tomorrow.”
Seungje narrowed his eyes, running his tongue over his cheek. “How would you know?”
“Uhm… I know everything,” she shrugged, relieved that the bus was just arriving as they reached the stop.
She wanted to lie down at her desk for a while, maybe she could sleep a little.
The bus dropped them off right at the stop where they said goodbye. It had been a routine for almost a year, although he always found her on her way home. Sometimes he would go to her apartment to wait for her like that morning, although she didn’t understand why he always had poor attendance.
It was what she had seen in his trash can of notes a few months ago. He had forgotten it on the last day of the semester at her apartment when she invited him to eat, celebrating that they didn’t have to study anymore for a few months, and because Sieun had refused since he did have to go to the academy.
Besides, Seungje never seemed to have anything to do. He always said yes to everything.
“Be careful. Don’t be late.”
“I’ll try not to,” he said, shrugging. “Go on, remember, don’t go through the tunnel, it’s early but there are always crazy people…”
“Okay, see you,” she said goodbye with a wave and a slight smile, starting to walk towards the school. She usually met Sieun at the entrance, however, she knew that now she might not find him because he had changed classrooms.
Not because he wanted to, but because the administration had decided so. Hyeori hated not being able to be with the boy in class; somehow, she felt calmer.
There were many rumors surrounding them. Some said they had killed someone and that’s why they had been transferred, others said they had crippled someone, or even left them in a coma. That last one in particular put Hyeori in an overly sensitive mental state.
She could never do something like that. Even if it were someone else in that place, even if it had been Wooyoung or Bumseok, she would never have collaborated in that.
Sieun had told her not to pay attention to the rumors, but it wasn’t that easy, not when some friends and former gym buddies of Wooyoung were in her class. Those guys didn’t make her life impossible, but they had made sure to tell everyone what had happened between them a few years ago.
She knew little about Wooyoung. She knew he had had to quit martial arts, although he still practiced boxing. She had also heard from one of his friends that he wasn’t as detestable as the others, that he had moved, although she hadn’t received the specific location.
Deep down, she was glad he was okay.
Hyeori was one of those people who knew how to accept her mistakes, although she didn’t consider what she did to be a mistake, she did understand that perhaps doing it impulsively was foolish. But if anyone confronted her about it, she would get furious.
Sooho had gone to that gym, had beaten up every one of those guys, even taking a beating himself and ending up in that state just so they would apologize to her.
Wasn’t breaking the leg of one of the culprits the least she could have done?
Hyeori didn’t think she should apologize to those people, not to Wooyoung, much less to Bumseok. However, she knew they weren’t the only ones to blame.
She had to be guilty too.
When she entered the classroom, there were already some people, although she didn’t know their names yet. Wooyoung’s friends were already there, joking and laughing right next to her seat. Hyeori always sat in the back; she liked it because she could sleep peacefully, unless one of her classmates decided to bother her and make irritating noises with their pens or even by chewing gum.
“Oh, Crack! Good morning!”
Hyeori just moved her head, not wanting to talk to them that day. “Crack” was the nickname they knew her by. At first, it was quite confusing for her, but later, they themselves had told her the reason.
“That’s how Wooyoung’s ankle went when you broke it.”
Stupid reason, according to her, but she preferred it to them calling her a murderer or something else.
Her hand went to her cell phone, moving to the messaging app, which was quite empty. Only four numbers appeared in that chat list.
Baby. It was Sieun.
Seung-i. It was Seungje.
Kimikim. It was her cousin, Kim.
And lastly, pinned above all, was that number that she refused to delete, which she refused to even archive.
Soo <3
Sooho’s chat room had been her refuge during that whole year and a half that had already passed. That chat room was full of almost daily messages, all telling him about her day and how it felt without him by her side. Although she tried not to write daily, it was what the psychologist had told her.
“Let it go. Don’t do it all at once, because I know your heart won’t be able to handle it, but if you can do it, even a little, that’s progress.”
That’s why the last message had been exactly a week ago, the day after she had gone to visit him. Her fingers moved across that chat almost immediately, robotically, reading the last message she had sent him.
“Today is Wednesday. In another situation, maybe I would still be accompanying you on deliveries, just to go home afterward and eat two bowls of ramen each, hug our babies, and watch TV until we fell asleep. But instead, today I’m here, sitting on a bench near a highway. There’s a very beautiful, bright bridge, almost no cars pass by, at least not at this hour. There’s a huge river, the water is so calm, I’m envious. Envious because since I haven’t had you by my side, my heart hasn’t been able to feel peace.
You don’t hate me, do you? Even in your dreams, do you still ask me to cook you some soup for lunch? Because in my dreams, when I can have them, I still hear your voice asking us to watch another movie, asking us to go for a walk with our babies, asking us to go bother our baby… I miss you… Don’t you miss me, Sooho-yah? I hope you do, maybe that way, only that way, your eyes will open and you can tell me you love me again… I want to hear it… I want to hear you tell me you love me one more time… Please, when you wake up, I wish that’s the first thing you tell me. Today is Wednesday, but for me, it’s still Monday afternoon in my room in Canada when I was ten, looking at your Batman doll, wondering if I’ll ever be able to see you again.”
Sent: Wednesday, 02:37 AM
Hyeori wished that “Sent” would someday turn into “Read.” She wished she could wake up, and that one day, the words “Read” would make her get out of bed and go look for her boy, be able to hug him again and scold him for leaving her alone for so long.
But she knew that wishing for something like that was like making a wish to a genie, it was difficult, so she simply tried to find an excuse, an excuse for every message she sent him. Like at that moment, her excuse would be to text Sieun, asking him if he would buy her something for lunch or if he would finally dare to eat in the cafeteria.
They hadn’t done that in a long time.
“Hey, Craky-crak.” One of the guys, whom they called Nakyung, although that wasn’t his name, sat down in front of her, making her look up, but not lift her head, looking at him almost wearily. “Wooyoung sends his regards.”
“Uhm, so?”
“For some strange reason, he asked for your number,” he said, to which she frowned, looking at his whole expression, wondering if he was joking or not. “I gave it to him, I guess he wants to get back at you for not letting him compete in major leagues… or any other league.”
“And how do you have my number?” she asked, even more disgusted. The boy leaned closer, she leaned back, still looking at him with disdain.
“I know everything here,” he said, reaching out and lightly touching her hair. “See you.”
Hyeori watched him walk away until he was out of her peripheral vision, looking back at her cell phone, confused. Of course, she hadn’t expected Wooyoung to ask for her number, not after everything that had happened. Closing her eyes for a moment as those images began to play in her head, she squeezed the phone between her fingers before opening her eyelids again, seeing Sieun start typing in the chat room.
She smiled a little. Sieun was the only person who kept her sane in moments like those.
Baby: I’ll stop by your classroom at lunch. Let’s buy something and eat in the classroom.
Hyeori dropped her head on her desk when class ended and the lunch bell rang. Her eyes closed, the sound of voices and murmurs making her mind feel a bit tired, shutting down for just a second.
One that was very short.
When a kick to her ankles made her knee hit the table leg, banging against the cold metal, her head shot up, frowning. Hyeori looked at the perpetrators of that event.
Her eyes rolled slightly when she saw that familiar brown hair, a bit dry and damaged to be honest, but she could expect that from that girl. She seemed so careless about herself that it surprised her she didn’t stink. “Hello, cracky.”
“Leave,” Hyeori said simply. She couldn’t stand her voice. It was so nasal that it sounded like she always had a cold or something.
“Yah, you’re so rude, you know? Ah, it doesn’t surprise me that your boyfriend prefers not to wake up rather than listen to your hateful tone.”
Hyeori looked at her notebook, which was next to her history book. Her mind began to formulate ways to hit the girl in the face with it, maybe break a tooth and thus make her not open her mouth again out of embarrassment for being toothless.
“I heard about that guy… Ahm… I don’t know his name, the one who beat up the vegetable… I mean, your boyfriend…” The girl smiled, seeing how Hyeori just stared at her. “Poor thing, he was quite famous, they say he was good at fighting… And look at him now, he can’t even move a finger.”
Hyeori’s hand moved without thinking, placing it on the thick history book to her right. Her eyes remained fixed on that disheveled brunette as she talked nonsense.
“Hey, what are you going to do if he doesn’t wake up anymore? I mean, you’re not going to stay talking to his grave forever, are you?” The girl leaned closer. “Although I admit that would be quite romantic.”
She nodded and stepped back, looking at her again with an almost tender smile, but one that Hyeori knew wasn’t real. “Look on the bright side, at least he can’t cheat on you. Although… he also can’t hug you, or look at you, or tell you he loves you.” Hyeori’s hand tightened even more on the book, gripping it firmly. “How do you manage not to go crazy waiting for someone who is probably already dead inside?”
Enough.
Hyeori took the book, swinging her arm before hitting the girl’s head hard, making her fall off the chair she was in. The eyes of the people who were still in the room widened, murmuring as the pretty-eyed girl got up, her eyelids wide open as she walked towards the girl on the floor.
“Listen to me carefully,” she began. “Don’t mention my boyfriend with your disgusting mouth, because next time… This…” She pointed to the book in her hand. “…is going to make it so you never close your mouth again.”
“Yah! How dare you, bitch?!”
Hyeori felt her grab the collar of her shirt, landing the first slap, and she just counted them mentally, as well as the shoves. Three, if it wasn’t three shoves, it was three slaps, but she wouldn’t allow more than three.
“How dare you talk to me like that?!” The group of students was already surrounding the classroom, and Hyeori just smiled a little, as if it all amused her, which made the girl in front of her even angrier. “What the hell are you laughing at?!”
“You have a snot bubble,” she said, tilting her head towards her.
“What? Where?”
“There.” Hyeori raised her arm, the book tightly gripped in her hands. When she was about to slam it into the girl’s face, a deep voice stopped her.
“Hyeori. Put that down.”
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