To Our Pure Little Beauty

Their youth part 4

Lisa does not like Yeri, not only because she also likes Jungkook, but also because she’s pretty, smart, and can play the piano. At the New Year’s gala when they were in Senior Year 2, she played a piano duet together with Jungkook as their class representative on the school competition.

She could still remember how she was standing amongst the crowd of audience that day, watching the two of them sit side by side right in front of the piano. After their gazes met in tacit understanding, all 20 fingers of their four hands then began to flutter across the black and white keys of the piano. Even though they were wearing school uniforms, Lisa however, felt like they were wearing their wedding clothes, and under the blinding lights, this pair of newlyweds was playing their wedding song for their guests — the National Anthem of the People’s Republic of South Korea.

That presentation won the first prize, the reason being they played the piece well, their value for being ideal is high, and moreover, when the school’s principal conferred the award to them, he even made use of the sentence, “A good pair of golden boy and jade girl.” Tch.

The feeling of standing downstage and looking up at other people onstage was really awful. It was as though they were standing in a world filled with brightness, while she was standing in a world filled with darkness, where she could only look at them from afar, so far that she wouldn’t be able to reach them, really sad.

She didn’t go home together with Jungkook that day. In fact, she hasn’t been going home with Jungkook for a week or two now, the reason being Jungkook and Yeri had to practice the piano after classes. Lisa had waited for him once, they practised until the sky turned dark, she and Jungkook also had to send Yeri home. Along the way, both of them were discussing about where they made a mistake, which quarter of a beat they could let slip. Lisa was unable to make sense of what she was hearing, all she got was flyswatter, and it is used to swat flies as the name implies. Everyone who has been in a situation where they are stuck in the middle of other people’s conversation would know this feeling, and that kind of feeling was rather discomforting. Moreover, when Lisa got home after experiencing such uncomfortable situation, she was chased around the house by her mum for a beating as it was already late, this matter was even more double-edged than a double-edge sword. Hence, she just told Jungkook she had to go back home early for dinner, later on she really just went home early to have dinner.

As soon as Jungkook has received the award, he went straight back to their classroom. When he got there, the classroom was empty without a single soul in sight. Perhaps some of them already went home, and perhaps some of them were still watching the awarding ceremony in the auditorium. He casually shoved his award inside his drawer from under his desk, and then casually searched for his tutoring book and fished it out. As he turned a leaf over, it was as though a thought suddenly came to his mind, he lifted his head to look over at Lisa’s desk, her bag wasn’t there, so he carefully tried to search in his memories. When he was onstage just now, he seemed to have caught sight of her standing downstage with her backpack. Standing onstage, how was it possible that he was able to recognise that it was her when there were so many people? He also doesn’t know the answer to it. It has been going on for quite some time, he could quickly spot her in a crowd by just a mere glance, well, maybe not just a glance, but after a few glances he’d always be able to totally, accurately, and unmistakably pinpoint her position. Sporting a short hair that was a little bit messier than that of others, standing foolishly like a radish taking root within the crowd, she was very eye-catching. 

So the reason she went to the auditorium carrying her backpack was for her to return straight home as soon as she was done watching the awarding ceremony? He carefully tried to recall again, when the award was handed over to him by the principal, he swept his gaze across the crowd. At that point, he wasn’t able to find Lisa.