After being discharged from the hospital, I moved to Seoul to live with my grandparents. They were the only family I had left after my parents passed away. However, because of the move, I had to enrol in a new school to continue my education. Chunguk High. My grandparents told me it was one of the most prestigious schools in the city.
Starting at a new school mid-year as the new kid is never easy. People wanted to know why I had moved, and they would ask me questions that I didn't know how to answer. I didn't want to talk about it, but I also didn't want to be rude. It was like I was constantly under a microscope, and I couldn't escape the constant scrutiny. I only heard bits and pieces of their whispers -
"Did you hear what she did - "
"What a loser."
" - killed her parents - "
"Psycho!"
"What's an arsonist doing here?"
"Shouldn't we, like, call the police?"
No one talked to me. Everyone stared. I cried in the toilets. I ate lunch alone on the rooftops. Teachers would whisper behind my back. Students would laugh at me. I hated being at school more than I had hated being in the hospital. It was a constant reminder that I didn't fit in, and I didn't belong.
I found comfort in an abandoned church, even though it was a lonely place. The silence and beauty gave me peace of mind. However, everything changed when I met Huh Yunjin.
Although I recognized her from my classes, we had never spoken before. But there she was, as breathtakingly beautiful as an angel that had descended from the heavens, staring at me through the bathroom mirrors. I instinctively hid my lunch behind me and began to back away, intending to leave. But then, she spoke up and asked, "You're Kazu, right?" and that stopped me in my tracks.
She spoke to me without any trace of judgement in her eyes. "Want to have lunch together?"
Her words had a certain charm that made me agree without hesitation. Her kindness was angelic and it was probably what drew me to her. After that day, we sat beside each other during classes, shared lunches, and hung out after school. We became inseparable.
When Yunjin introduced me to Hong Eunchae, I was immediately drawn to her lively personality. Her eyes were as big as the moon, and her laughter was infectious. Eunchae was the kind of person who could light up a room, and I knew right away that she was someone special. She was the type of friend who you could always count on, no matter what. Whether you were having a good day or a bad day, Eunchae was always there to make things better.
To me, Eunchae was more than just a friend. She was someone who I truly admired and respected. Even when others were quick to judge me and spread rumours, Eunchae always stood by my side. She refused to believe the lies that others told her, and she always had my back.
Meeting them both was fate, but it was a stroke of luck the day I met Park Sunghoon. I was struggling to carry everyone's homework to the teacher's office when Sunghoon walked towards me with a friendly smile and offered to help, like a scene from a romance novel. We discovered we had a lot in common and started running into each other more often. We would have small conversations in the hallways, and even started sitting next to each other in classes and the library. Eventually, we started making plans to hang out outside of school. And one day, on the way home, he confessed his feelings to me.
I'm grateful to him, even before he confessed, and the girls for treating me well. Because they were the reasons why school got better.
Well, them,
and Sim Jaeyun.