The Real You || Jung Sungchan

Chapter 18

Miyoung:

The next morning I did my regular morning routine, but instead of having my dad drop me off, I took my bike. My brother wanted to sleep in today so he still left with my dad at 7:30, but I left the house at 6:30. I was so thankful that Sungchan has been getting me these peach-flavored snacks and drinks so I went to the convenience store and picked out a bunch of popular treats and snacks that everyone likes. My brother is a picky eater but he loves all of the snacks I picked out. I haven't been going to my convenience store job because every time I try to ask my boss if I can work, he doesn't respond. He was working when I came in though.

"I'm sorry I haven't been letting you work, Miyoung. My son got into some bad trouble so I'm having him take your place for a while. I also know you have other priorities so I'll let you off for another three months and you can be back here." My boss says to me and I smile and nod.

"This one will be on me then. I'm sorry for not informing you sooner." He smiles and I thank him, grabbing everything and putting them into my backpack.

It was still too early for me to go to school, so I dropped by the café where I work at almost every spring. It's almost spring which means that I can work here again. When I enter the door, my favorite barista and senior, Hayoung, greets me. She immediately looks up and smiles, moving away from the counter to come hug me.

"Awww Miyoung! I'm so glad to see you! I know school is super stressful and I can't wait to see you back here again! What would you like to order?" She asks, going back to behind the counter.

"I'll have a blueberry muffin and orange juice today." I tell her my order and she nods, placing my order. I pay for it and she hands me the receipt. She gets the muffin and the juice and hands it to me, going away from the counter again and leading me to sit with her near the window.

"Let's catch up. How's school?" She asks.

"Hmm.. school work is doing fine as usual, it's the same work load as always." I sigh, remembering that finals are up.

"Other than that... I finally made a friend!" I smile and Hayoung does too. She doesn't know about my scandal, but she knows that I'm extremely shy and I have a hard time making friends. I don't even remember how her and I became friends.

"That's amazing! Who is she?" She asks and I laugh awkwardly.

"It's a guy." I say below my breath and Hayoung squeals, clapping her hands and having me face her.

"Tell me all about him!" She looks me in the eyes and I look down because of how much I'm blushing. Then another customer came in and Hayoung sighed, going back to the counter. I laughed and she did too, taking the order of the customer.

I quickly finished my muffin and juice and it was already 7:00. I said goodbye to Hayoung and ran to the school which was about 10 minutes away. When I got to school, luckily it was still early enough that not that many people were around, but I still got surrounded by some whispers.

"Oh my god! It's Miyoung! She looks so pretty even though she's out of breath."

"Should I take a picture of her? It's like I just saw a celebrity!"

"Miyoung is the prettiest senior. I wish I looked like her."

Hearing all of these, I hid my face and ran to my classroom, hoping that Sungchan would be there early like he always is. Before I stepped into the classroom, I took out my mirror and applied my lip gloss. Normally I don't wear lip gloss or any makeup to school, but today I had a sudden change and I wanted to feel nice. I have a lot of makeup at home and makeup that I get from brands that want to collaborate with me but I never use them because I'm usually not in the mood for makeup. Many people on my Instagram (before I deleted it) and in person would ask me what my makeup routine is, but I tell them I don't have one or I ignore them. After I finished applying my lip gloss, I put my mirror away and entered the classroom but I fell into sadness when I realized it was empty.

My heart sank. I checked my watch and it was 7:15. Usually, there aren't a lot of people here, but for the past couple of days, Sungchan has been coming in early, if not, earlier than me. Maybe he had a rough practice last night? I mean my brother did want to sleep in today so maybe their teacher was being really strict with them and overworked them? I was praying in my mind that was the reasons and not something else. Suddenly, I remembered that Mingyeom didn't have practice yesterday. More and more thoughts started to appear in my mind which caused me to panic. Did Sungchan really mess with me? Does he not want to be my friend anymore? Was all of this a dare by his friends? Was he forced to pretend to like me and make me feel like my mental health was a priority for once? No this couldn't be, Sungchan would never do that.

But at the same time... I don't know him that well. I mean, we talked for the first time when he caught me crying at the river and I opened up to him a little bit, but we grew so close over the past couple of weeks and he's the first real friend I made in high school. We're both seniors and I've been alone for all of high school basically since I was afraid that if I got attached too quickly then I would have another friend like Seoryeong. No... this can't be. Sungchan isn't going be end up like Seoryeong right? I anxiously tapped on my desk with my pen and bounced my leg up and down while I stared off into space and got lost in my thoughts. I checked my watch again and it was 7:19. How is he not here yet? It has to be because of his lesson right? I'll ask him when he gets here.

I sighed and put my pen down and took out my phone and headphones. As usual, I plugged in my headphones and pretended like I was asleep. A couple of minutes pass and I could hear students coming in. I wasn't going to look up until I heard that Sungchan sat down. I checked my watch and it was 7:25. Suddenly, Sungchan sat down and I immediately shot my head up and took out my headphones and shut off my phone. I smiled and Sungchan was just getting everything ready for class. He didn't seem like his usual self today, so I wanted to be a good friend.

"Sungchan." I tapped his arm with my pen. He didn't even move a muscle, he was just looking forward and staring. I tried to see what he was looking at but he was just spacing out. His sleeves were rolled up and I noticed he had bandages on them.

"What happened?" I ask, still no response.

"Sungchan." I say and tap him again and again he doesn't budge. I almost put my hand on him but he gets up and leaves the classroom. My heart started to pound.

Maybe he doesn't want to talk about it? Yeah... that's probably it.

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