"She tells me that I have stars on my cheeks, but she has no idea how she has them in her eyes."
~~~~~
Two souls from two completely different worlds collide when the universe conspires for them to meet. Their fire burns to set each others' worlds...
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"Connect the dots, and perhaps you'll draw the constellation in my heart."
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There are times in life when we inwardly know what to speak and how to react, but at the given moment, we lose all traces of sense. We forget how to react, how to speak, move.
That's what happened with Lee Felix at that moment.
He hadn't seen that coming.
"Uh..." he anxiously let out, his brows creasing in confusion. Confusion as to what he should say.
Chaeri gave him a tight-lipped smile, presuming that he was judging her too. After all, who wasn't? So she turned back to her notebook, managing to draw another star in her already filled-to-the-brim page.
True, she felt pained that he turned out to be someone who judged her way too quickly too. She was half-expecting him to turn out to be different; someone who would try to understand her silence, read from between the lines, just be a friend.
But no, Lee Felix was just another boy who didn't make an effort.
And just as the thought registered in her mind, Felix coughed, and in his deep voice, he then muttered out, "I'm sorry, I didn't know that..."
She turned the page and penned down: You don't need to apologize. I can understand.
She didn't. She couldn't understand why people either treated her as a misfit, or ended up pitying her. They didn't treat her as a normal person, and that's what fixated the thought of her being an outcast in her mind.
"Can I sit with you?" he suddenly asked, and Chaeri halted her actions.
Did he just ask that? Wasn't he a regular, judgmental kid like the others?
Caught in the spur of the moment, she slowly nodded, still processing what she thought his intentions were. She tried to read him, and it seemed like he intended no ill. Perhaps she had gotten herself a friend.
Perhaps.
At her nod, Felix smiled widely, dropping his bag next to her chair and sitting down on the seat beside hers, huffing, "Why are people so weird here? I mean, I was walking down the hallway and they kept staring at me. I seriously felt so small under their gaze."
Chaeri nodded in understanding. She knew all too well how the students in this school were.
"And that girl? I bet she was giggling with her friends because of me."
She wrote: I know, right? They are too judgemental. It sucks being here.
"Yes! I never knew that a language could make me a laughing stock," he frowned, and she wrote down more: Even staying quiet makes you a laughing stock here. Forget Gordon Ramsey's Hell's Kitchen. This is Hell's School, ruled by none other than arrogant, pretentious people.
Felix giggled, and she swore that it was the sweetest giggle she had ever heard. It made her smile too.
That's when the teacher walked into the classroom. Chaeri glanced around and noticed that the class was fuller now. When did the students come in? Was she too lost in making a new friend? Time just flew by when she was talking to him.
Is that what having a friend felt like?
She couldn't answer.
"Sit down, students," the teacher proclaimed, "We have a new student with us today. I know, after the end of the recess, but better late than never."
She eyed Felix, who took it as a cue to walk to the center of the class, understanding a few fragments of the sentence. She was talking about something new, right? Probably a new student, and that was him.
He came to the front and whispered to the teacher, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I don't really know Korean. I'll need some help from you to learn the language."
"Oh, alright," the teacher retorted in English, "How about you introduce yourself to the class?"
He turned to the class, examining a few faces up front: some girls leering at him, making him feel vulnerable in the most uncomfortable manner.
"Hello, I'm Lee Felix!" that was all he knew, so he took a breath before continuing in English, "I hope we can get along well."
At that, half the class snickered, including the girls up front. There were a couple of students at the right end of the class who didn't laugh, and he moved his gaze to the window-side, which was the left end of the class, where he saw Chaeri disappointedly looking at her classmates.
Felix forced out a smile for courtesy and started on his way back to Chaeri, when the teacher asked, "Where are you going, Felix?"
"To my seat."
"You're sitting with her?" she asked incredulously.
"Yes, ma'am. Why?" he was perplexed.
"You need to sit with someone who will help you improve your Korean."
"But she knows English and can understand me well. I believe she can teach me Korean too," Felix retorted, and in Chaeri's eyes, admiration shone for him. He was the first person, except her brother, who had made her feel like she was a regular student with no disabilities. Like she belonged.
"How can she teach you? She can't..." the teacher trailed off, and Felix looked back at Chaeri, who gave him a tight-lipped smile, nodding at him, telling him to follow the teacher's orders through her eyes.
Felix grimaced, sighing, and picked up his bag, mouthing a little apology to her. She didn't reply with any expression, but watched him move to the front of the class, where the teacher assigned him a new partner, sitting at the right end of the class - a whole end away from her.
And just as quickly as the warm, bubbly feeling of having a friend had hit her, it had evaporated too. It was nice until it lasted - she thought, turning her page and doodling more. Alone.
(a/n: i see that i'm writing long chapters for this book. honestly, I'm not even making an effort, it's just coming out naturally. I love this feeling, though!
