Chapter 11 of Portrait
INDEX
Chapter 11
Dongjoo darted quick little glances at her once every few seconds, hoping for some reaction, any reaction. Usually Hyekyung couldn’t help herself from leaning over to fill Dongjoo’s ears with a running commentary about, well, anything and everything. Yet this morning, the teacher held all of Hyekyung’s attention and there hadn’t once been the need to reprimand Hyekyung for chattering. Hyekyung’s gaze remained set straight ahead and her mouth stayed closed for the longest time that he’d ever seen it closed.
During the breaks while the first teacher left and the second teacher arrived, Dongjoo once again looked at Hyekyung.
“Hye - Oh.”
In an instant, Hyekyung had put her book on her neck so that it covered her entire head. Dongjoo wasn’t sure if she was just feigning sleep; the loud snore that came from underneath Romantic Classics didn’t sound very realistic. Abashed, Dongjoo quietly rotated his body back towards the front and tried to ignore the giggles from Hyekyung’s other friends.
The start of the next class was also the beginning of a reversal in Hyekyung’s and Dongjoo’s roles. Dongjoo’s eyes never left the teacher and his gaze was so intense that the teacher faltered slightly when she passed back a paper to him. Hyekyung’s eyes, on the other hand, flickered to Dongjoo every few seconds. She couldn’t see enough in just one glance, and so it would be just a nanosecond before her eyes were on him again. Hyekyung began to feel that she would become cross-eyed because her left eye would be returning to the front as her right eye was already starting back to him.
She didn’t know for sure how she felt about him. It was just...weird. He was a great companion, yes, and he was the listener she needed. The only thing was that…well, it’s Dongjoo! Hyekyung couldn’t imagine being anything different than what they were, and she felt funny just thinking about the couple-y things they would be doing - holding hands, making goo-goo eyes at each other, and, gulp, kissing...
She couldn’t see him doing that kind of thing. He always acted like it pained his eyes to see any sort of PDA. She would see couples gazing into each other’s eyes, completely in love, and she would squeal about how beautiful it was. He would just make some indistinctive grumbling sound and she’d playfully slap him and say he was no fun. Come to think of it, there really never was that much fun coming from his end. It was Hyekyung that made their time together have any excitement at all - He was always just kinda there. But he did all those sweet things…And he’d known her since forever...
GAH, why is this so complicated?!
Hyekyung made a strange half-groaning, half-grunting noise as her chin hit the desk with a thud and her fingers yanked at her hair.
Alarmed, the teacher asked, “Hyekyung, is everything alright?”
Hyekyung embarrassedly patted her hair down and mumbled, “Umm, yes, ma’am. I just realized that I did this trig problem wrong.”
The teacher’s eyebrows rose and with a little shake of her head, she continued to teach. Seeing that the teacher wasn’t paying attention, Dongjoo completely turned to face Hyekyung. He chuckled at the landscape of hair in little hills on the top of her head. Dongjoo reached out and tenderly pulled Hyekyung’s hair back into place. Hyekyung’s chair teetered as she jumped in shock. Her eyes became almost as humongous as the face of her oversized watch and she blinked furiously to clear away the dust that must have been obscuring her vision.
Dongjoo merely smiled and whispered, “By the way, we’re in Literature class. Not Math class.”
Dongjoo watched Hyekyung in his peripheral vision as she knocked madly on her own head. She squinted one eye as she shook her head around and then paused, listening for any rattling to explain her messed-up brain.
The rest of the day, Hyekyung avoided Dongjoo as much as she could, and he ached for her company. As cliché as it sounded, he didn’t know what to do with himself without her. She really was one of the most important figures in his life and he cared about her more than anyone. She made him happy so often and she made him actually enjoy life, and he wanted to return the favor. She didn’t react to the picnic quite as he had planned...But he had more in store anyway. He had been saving up for something special.
It was finally the end of the day, and it was time where she HAD to be in his company as they walked home. He waited outside the classroom door for her and subconsciously smoothed out his uniform so that he could look his best for her.
She came out the door laughing, swinging her hips to push at some of her other friends. Hyekyung managed to extricate her arms from the chain of girls as she waved to Dongjoo as they passed by.
“Oh, by the way,” Hyekyung called back to Dongjoo, “I have an errand to do, so I can’t walk with you today. See you tomorrow!”
She beamed for a second and then turned back to the rambunctious chaos characteristic of a group of teenage girls. She let herself get immersed in the gossip and didn’t even look back once. One would think that she had completely forgotten about the lonely boy behind her. One would think so…except she had the tiniest bit of a triumphant gleam in her eye.
*~*~*
Hyekyung entrusted her Venetian Cappuccino to one of the girls in the group and got up to go the bathroom. When she came back, she found it off to the side and ignored…and she found her seat filled by some stranger.
He said in a fake deep voice, “So your name is Gyuri? That’s a pretty name...”
Gyuri giggled and tossed her hair behind her shoulder. Gyuri would have made a great horse; her laugh sounded exactly like a horse’s neigh, her hair was in a ponytail, and her teeth were a bit on the large side. A horse with blinders, in fact, as it seemed that Gyuri’s sight was limited to just the stranger.
Hyekyung stood awkwardly behind what had been her seat and tugged at one of her braids. She bit her lip fretfully and she opened and closed her mouth several times like a fish, as she considered and reconsidered whether to say anything.
The girl behind Gyuri coughed and said, “Excuse me, guys...”
The boy in Hyekyung’s seat interrupted the girl and said, “Oh, I understand. You want some lovin’, too. Well, there’s plenty of love to go around. And what’s your name?”
“Somin. But that’s not why I’m talking to you. I just wanted to let you know that you’re sitting in a seat that belongs to one of our friends.”
“Oh.” The boy got up, turned to brush off the seat, and looked up.
“Oh!”
“Well, look who it is! It’s Junho’s lover!”
The whole entire group of girls stopped gabbing, making the coffeehouse suddenly a lot quieter.
Then, in chorus, “WHAT?!”
What are the scariest animals out in the wilderness? Not lions, nor tigers, nor bears…Nope.
Most definitely hyenas.