Amelioration || Choi Jiung

6

Tuesday

As we had to go downstairs for PE lessons, everyone started leaving the classroom.

It took me some time to find my water bottle. And by the time I'm done, my friends already left without waiting for me. I was left alone in the empty classroom with all the lights off.

I sighed, feeling a bit hurt. It's always like this. And if I show that I'm upset, they'll say that I'm overreacting. Not with the literal words, but they'll hint that.

After rushing downstairs, I caught up with them and joined their group again.

"Yah! You guys forgot about me." I kept a smile on my face and my tone as bright as possible.

"Oh, oops, sorry we didn't notice." We are a large group. Some noticed me and turned around, apologizing, while the others just kept chatting on their own.

Lesson started. The boys all came down early just to play soccer so they're in a middle of a match, while the girls would follow the normal lesson process and warm up by jogging around the field.

Actually, I could've just sat aside because of my leg injury, but I didn't want to be left alone so I endured the pain to join my friends.

"God damn it," I thought to myself as my shoelaces loosened while I was running.

Originally, I wanted to keep running, but I don't want to fall, so I decided to tie them.

"I'll tie my shoelaces," I said to one of my friends running next to me before going aside and kneeling down.

And after I got up... they're gone, again.

I took a deep breath. I can't let this ruin my day. I'll be hanging out with Keeho and Shota later.

"Guysss," I started jogging again, "wai-"

Before I could finish speaking, someone pulled me from behind and I got dragged off the running track.

At first I was terrified, and then I sighed in relief to see who it was.

"Don't grab me like that, I'm not a cat."

"Oh, sorry." Intak realized and his hand stopped grabbing the back collar of my jacket.

"Do you have something to say?" I asked, "and don't you have to play soccer with the others?"

Intak was wearing what he would usually wear for playing soccer, but the only difference from usual was he's not sweating as much. Normally, he sweats a lot.

"I'm taking a break," he replied, laughing a bit, "earlier the ball hit me right in the face."

"Holy shit, that must hurt a lot. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. The other guys were worried though, for almost ruining my perfect face."

"Oh my god." I rolled my eyes.

"Anyways," Intak's smile suddenly disappeared, "are you going to tolerate this? The way your friends treat you?"

"Uh... you saw?"

He nodded.

"M-maybe it was me who didn't make it clear enough to ask them to wait for me..."

"What about this morning when your squad was chatting and you were completely outside the circle?"

Fuck, he saw that too? Why did he notice so much? Was it obvious that I'm an outsider?

"Look, I'm pretty sure they didn't do this on purpose. They wouldn't do such thing to hurt me. Everyone knows that they're super nice and unproblematic." At this point, I don't even know whether I'm defending my friends to Intak or to myself.