"She tells me that I have stars on my cheeks, but she has no idea how she has them in her eyes."
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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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"It's like Triton collided with Neptune — that's how we thrive."
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Their eyes met, and Chaeri gasped, having stared at someone in the eye for the first time from as long as she could remember.
She instantly averted her eyes, and the brief memory of his eyes — those dark brown, puzzled eyes — flooded her head. Even though the color of his eyes was quite common, she hadn't seen such expressive eyes before.
And she didn't even know who he was.
Well, even if she did, then again, she wouldn't stand a chance to be his friend. She'd always been treated as a misfit, an outcast, and she had accepted her fate long ago.
She looked back at the window, and noticed that the boy was gone. She sighed in disappointment.
That's when the few handful of students in the class with her gasped, and she turned her head to see that unfamiliar boy walking into the classroom.
She turned to the front, biting her lip. He was definitely weirded out by her staring, and was probably going to give her an earful. What an amazing first impression!
She heard footsteps getting closer to her, and she shut her eyes tightly, preparing for some kind of insult, when the new boy spoke up,
"Hey, is this class 11 D?"
There were two things that she noticed which made her open and widen her eyes.
First of all, his extremely deep voice. She was definitely not expecting that heavy voice to come out of such a puerile looking boy.
Second, his language. He just spoke in English, didn't he?
Thankfully, Chaeri was good at English, at least at what was taught at school.
And call it a curse, but she couldn't let those words come out of her mouth.
"Hello?" he waved a hand in front of her face, and she dared to look up at him, still not meeting his eyes. She focused on his lower face — not before noticing his adorable freckles scattered all over his cheeks.
She nodded to his earlier question, and he sighed in relief.
"Hi, I'm Lee Felix," he managed to speak in Korean, and let out a hand for her to shake.
Chaeri shakily brought her hand up shook his, who smiled brightly.
She couldn't lie to herself; to her, his smile lit up the entire room. His pouty bird lips separated to show his perfect teeth, and his grin was contagious.
She couldn't help but feel at ease, now that she had learned that he was practically harmless. Or at least he seemed to be.
Seeing her spacing out for no reason at all, Felix gave up trying to make a conversation and spoke, "I know you can't understand me, but I'm new here and I need some help."
She then smiled, not knowing how to tell him that she couldn't speak.
So she did what she always did with others — write her words down on a sheet.
With her hasty writing, she wrote down in English: I'm Chaeri, and I can understand you.
Reading that, Felix's face lit up, and he rambled, "Oh, thank god! I was so scared that I wouldn't find anyone I would be able to talk to because, you know, I know only basic Korean language."
Chaeri nervously grinned at his behaviour. It was like he was the bearer of light around her, and it scared her, she didn't know why. Maybe it was the thrill of meeting someone new.
"Why don't you say something, Chaeri?" he questioned, and just as she grabbed the pen and started writing on the sheet, a girly voice came from behind them, "Hey! Why are you stuck with that dumb girl?"
Chaeri stopped writing.
Although Felix probably had no idea what she just said, he sensed that something wrong had been said, judging by the halt in Chaeri's movements. He looked at the girl and then at Chaeri, not understanding what was happening.
Meanwhile, Chaeri had no idea what her classmates had against her, for it was the umpteenth time someone had pointed out her disability and made fun of it.
That girl continued speaking, "You seem really handsome. Don't waste your time with her!"
"I'm sorry," Felix let out in Korean, and then turned back to English, "I don't understand what you're saying."
"Huh?" that girl probably failed her English classes.
"I don't underst-" Felix couldn't complete his words when that girl gave up on him, turning away and walking out of the classroom. He watched her go to her friends and giggle about something. Probably him.
That discouraged him.
He frowned, looking at Chaeri, who still hadn't moved from her position.
"Are you alright? Did she say something about you? What was it?" he asked, and she bitterly smiled, shaking her head.
"Then why don't you speak?"
And she wrote down: Because I was born mute.
(a/n: just to remind you, the dialogues in bold are being spoken in English, and the regular dialogues are in Korean.
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