EXO™

#17 Trust (D.O.)

Trust
G

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"Look who's here."

As soon as D.O. walked in class, people muttered about the delinquent. He hated the fact that his parents let him grow up like this. He also wanted to be perfect. He also wanted to be normal. He also wanted to be just like the others.

Kyungsoo took a seat at the back of the room quietly and wore his earphones. The bell rang throughout the school and made everyone go to their proper seats.

___

"MR. DO!" The teacher shouted. Kyungsoo continued on listening to music while flipping through the science book boredly. "MR. DO!"

His classmate slapped his shoulder hard, snapping him out of his trance.

"What is it?" He asked while standing up. "Since you think you're so good Mr. Do, why don't you scientifically explain to me why an elephant is not closely related to a rat."

D.O. mentally cursed at the teacher for actually thinking of him as a dumb twelfth-grader.

"You see Mrs. Kim, classifying living things is harder than classifying non-living things, but thanks to Carolus Linnaeus, it was made easier. He created the Linnaean System of Classification in order to classify living things correctly. From kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. To answer your question Mrs. Kim, scientists used this system in order to prove that elephants are not closely related to rats."

He sat down, amused with himself as half of the class' jaws went down together with the teacher's.

"I'm not all bad luck here, I'm not some dumb loser with no life. No one is."

"Very good then Mr. Do." Mrs. Kim complimented. "You should use that mind more often."

___

Soonkyu was awestruck at Kyungsoo's response to Mrs.Kim. It was probably the first time people saw him fight for his dignity. She expected him to get all smug after what happened but he only continued on scanning through his book.

"I want everyone to partner up for the project. I don't care how you do it, as long as you finish it."

Soonkyu stood up and automatically went to Kyungsoo. She had no choice anyways. Everyone was either taken or busy forcing other people to hear her.

"Kyungsoo?" D.O. looked up and saw her looking down on him. "What is it?" He responded.

"Is it okay if we partner up for this project?" She asked. He stopped flipping the pages of his book with eyes wide open. "And why would Soonkyu want that?"

The way her name rolled out of the delinquent's tongue sent shivers down her spine. "Why not? You seem like someone trustworthy in projects." She replied.

He looked at her eyes closely, trying to see if she was joking. Trustworthy

"I never heard someone call me that in my life." He replied while lightly chuckling.

"Well you should, after what you said earlier." She replied while taking a seat beside him.

"If we're going to be partners then you should start calling me D.O. instead."

"Arraseo, D.O.-ah" Soonkyu said with a smile.

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"That's not it!" D.O. said while harshly erasing the contents of the paper. "Yah! It's not because I complimented you about your brain a couple of weeks ago, you can go all pushy on me." She replied.

"Mianhe, but this one goes first before the other one." He explained. "Arraseo, arraseo, now concentrate on your own work, D.O."

They continued on making the papers while making the powerpoint presentation for the project.

"Ahhhh I'm so tired." She moaned. "What? You think I'm not tired." Kyungsoo scolded.

"Ehh shut up!" She replied. "I'm still going to do these anyways."

"How about you type and I'll write. It'd be easier for the both of us." He offered. Soonkyu grabbed the laptop from him and passed the papers to him.

She swiftly finished the third page he started with and went onto the fourth page. "You're fast." He complimented.

"You're slow." She joked. "This is tiring." He said.

"And you told me to shut up."

"Soonkyu, just shut it."

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A+

"You two did well on the project. The cell reproduction was explained well. The classification by Linnaeus was expalined well further and so was Linnaeus himself." Mrs. Kim said. "Kyungsoo, you should maintain these kind of grades. Soonkyu, just keep it up."

The two sat back down at the back of the room, beside each other this time. "Gomawo, Soonkyu-ah." He whispered in her ear.

"Wae?" She whispered back. "For trusting me." He smiled back.

"That's nothing Kyungsoo. Everyone deserves to be trusted by their neighbors. How else would they improve if no one wants to believe they can?" She explained.

Kyungsoo smiled at her and returned his attention to the next presentation in class.

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