daybreak || minsung

Chapter 3

"Was that the guy sitting next to me in Biology?" I asked casually.

"Yeah," Mike said. "He looked petrified."

"I don't know." I pursed my lips. "I never spoke to him."

"He's a weird guy," Mike replied. "When you fell, he reached out like he wanted to catch you. Then he took his arms back and just sat there."

Mike sounded sour, but I couldn't really focus on that. Jisung had reached out to help me? Seriously, who was this guy?

Long story short, P.E. sucked. I was relatively good on my feet — as long as I wasn't distracted — but I'd never been one for sports. I couldn't find the intrigue in it. Everybody lives and dies the same, no matter whose ball ends up in whose hoop.

The final bell rang at last. I hurried out of my Gym clothes, got packed up, and sprinted out of the building. The rain had stopped, but it was colder now. I wrapped my arms around my middle.

I made it to the front office, where it was warm, but my teeth didn't stop clacking together. I looked down to get my paperwork in order — and when I looked up again, I rocked back on my heels.

Jisung stood at the counter, his back to me, talking to the front desk lady. It embarrassed me momentarily that I knew it was him as soon as I saw his flannel shirt and shiny black hair. My mind was suddenly running a mile a minute. I stepped back against the wall to wait for the receptionist to be free.

He was speaking in a low voice, and his tone was serious despite the sweet lilt that pulled at the end of his sentences. I could understand the basics of the their conversation pretty quickly. He was asking to be transferred from sixth-hour Biology to another time — any other time. 

And then I was mad. I felt my eyebrows knit together. I was a rather unobtrusive person, not too loud or talkative. Any opinion-worthy traits I had, I made sure to keep inside. How could someone develop such intense emotions toward me so quickly? And what were those emotions, anyway? He acted as if I was a creature straight from his nightmares.

We hadn't even spoken...

The door behind me opened, and a gust of cold wind blew into the building. It ruffled my hair. The person who'd entered walked by me and left a document in a little wire basket, then left again.

Jisung's posture tensed, and he quickly glanced at me with the same enigmatic dread behind his black eyes. His breath audibly hitched, and his hands started shaking.

He turned back to the receptionist. "You know, never mind," he said, and his voice was like honey, though there was a tension to it. "I guess it's not, um, necessary. Thanks for your help." He spun around — keeping a large gap between us — and left the building.

I stumbled forward to the counter and handed the receptionist the signed slip.

"How did your first day go, Minho?" she asked.

"Great." My voice cracked.

When I made it to my truck, the parking lot was nearly empty, and the sky was taking on a sort of greyish light. I climbed into the cab and let my mind scream at me for a few minutes. My teeth started to chatter again, so I turned the key in the ignition. My truck exploded to consciousness, and I drove back to Charlie's house, distracted the whole way there. 

~ * ~

The next day was better... and worse.

It was better because I knew what to expect of my day: Mike came to sit next to me in English, and then he walked with me to my next class. The kids at school didn't stare as much as they had the day before (or maybe I was just less concerned with it). At lunch, I sat with Jessica and a group of her friends, including Mike, Angela and several other people whose names and faces I now remembered.