SpartAce I: School Love Affair

the Second Lead

"What is pissing you off, Kim Jong Kook? ", she asks, as direct as always.

"Nothing."

"Liar."

"I told you---! "

"Ahh. I think I just had a clue of what you're being annoyed about.", she suddenly cuts him off, her gaze not at him but somewhere pass them.

He follows her gaze and instantly feels worser.

Why do they always pop up wherever I go?!, he thinks.

He looks back to the girl next to her when he hears a chuckle.

"What's funny? ", he asks, his brows growing furrower by the second.

"Kang Gary beat you to it? "

"What? ", he blurts out, his irritation finally getting into him.

She nods her head to the direction of Gary and Ji Hyo, who are walking along the hallways with Gary trying to poke Ji Hyo's sides for her to laugh.

"What about that? ", he asks innocently.

Eun Hye rolls her eyes. "I can't believe I'm seeing this. ", she says, her eyes judging.

Her gaze is making him too uncomfortable that his hand moves before he can think about it. He reaches out and covers Eun Hye's face with it.

"Yaaaahhh! ", she complains, too loud that her voice echoes down the hallway.

They both freeze when Gary and Ji Hyo turns to them, a smile breaking out from Gary's face as he waves at them.

But Jong Kook's eyes are on Ji Hyo's, whose gaze are too unreadable for him, but he is sure they are staring back at him.

And all he wants to do is get away from Eun Hye as far as possible.

But he just stands there, unable to move from her gaze.

"Seems like you're doing good, Song Ji Hyo.", Eun Hye says.

But Ji Hyo's face remains blank as her gaze turns to Eun Hye. Then she continues to walk as if she heard nothing.

Gary immediately follows, leaving him with Eun Hye again.

Eun Hye scoffs in disbelief. "Just look at the attitude of that girl! ", she says to him. "She's too cold! "

He just gives her a shrug and continues walking.

"Yah, Kim Jong Kook! ", she yells after him.

The unexplainable, puzzling silence between them went on for days, with Jong Kook just staring from afar to Ji Hyo, who seems to be growing closer and closer to Gary every single day that passes.

Even this weird change between the two is noticed by the others, and they begun teasing them, joking them to just start dating...

which made it worse for Jong Kook's temper.

Everytime they joke around about that, his scowl starts surfacing in his face despite his effort to somehow ignore the sinking feeling in his gut. And then that sinking feeling comes along with irritation, that he mostly vents out to Kwang Soo, or Dong Hoon, whoever talks first between the two.

There are days that he just dreads being with Gary and Ji Hyo that he deliberately skip lunch in the cafeteria, and sneaks home early while the others hang around in the bench at the back of the school.

Then here comes Friday, he has just came out of the Tae Kwon Do room when he suddenly stops to a halt when he sees who is coming his way.

He makes a sudden u-turn back to the room he comes from and presses his back against the wall, leaving the door open.