WRONG NUMBER | NIKI

9 - Things That Pull Us Under

You don't even know me. 

The words refuse to lose their weight no matter how many times I tell myself they shouldn't matter. By the time I unlock the front door of our house, I've almost succeeded in convincing myself that I'm only irritated because he was wrong. The problem, unfortunately, is that some small, deeply inconvenient part of me isn't entirely certain he was.

My mother has already left for the grocery store by the time I reach home, leaving the house wrapped in the peaceful quiet that only exists during the brief hour before evening settles properly over everything. I barely have enough time to change out of my uniform and spread my textbooks across the dining table before the doorbell rings. 

A moment later, Minji lets herself in with the familiarity of someone who has been doing so for years, carrying a canvas tote bag overflowing with notebooks, colored pens, and enough snacks to sustain an entire study group through final exams. She kicks off her shoes near the entrance, calls a cheerful greeting toward the empty kitchen even though she already knows my parents aren't home yet, and wanders into the living room with the dramatic sigh of a woman carrying the emotional burden of modern education on her shoulders. 

"If I fail calculus," She announces to absolutely no one in particular while dropping her bag onto the table with a muffled thud, "I expect you to stand beside my grave and tell everyone I died doing what I loved. Which, to be clear, was not calculus."

I can't help smiling, even if it feels a little smaller than usual. Minji notices anyway. She narrows her eyes at me with theatrical suspicion before pulling out her chair, resting both elbows on the table and studying my face for several long seconds with the concentration of a detective who's just discovered the prime suspect voluntarily returned to the crime scene. 

"Okay," She says slowly, pointing a pen at me as though it were legally binding evidence. "You've been weird since yesterday." She pauses. "Actually, no. Weird isn't the right word. You're... haunted." 

I open my chemistry textbook with far more enthusiasm than the subject deserves. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Hana." She says my name with exaggerated patience, leaning farther across the table until her face occupies an alarming amount of my vision. "Do you know what people were talking about all afternoon?" She doesn't wait for an answer because she knows perfectly well she isn't going to get one. "Apparently you got paired with Nishimura Riki for the festival. Half the girls in second year nearly declared a national emergency." The corner of her mouth twitches. "Honestly, I didn't even know whether to congratulate you or offer condolences."

I slowly lower my pen. "Condolences?"

"Oh, don't look at me like that." She waves one hand dismissively before reaching for a packet of cookies. "You know exactly who he is."

"I know his name."

"You know his name?" She stares at me as though I've just confessed to not recognizing the principal. "Hana. That boy is practically a school legend."

She sits up straighter immediately, delighted by the realization that she's about to explain something I apparently don't know. 

"First of all," She begins, counting on her fingers with complete seriousness, "he's unfairly good-looking. Like, annoyingly so. The kind of face that makes people forget what they were saying halfway through a sentence." She raises a second finger. "Second, he's famous for never looking impressed by anything. Teachers yell at him? Doesn't react. Wins something? Doesn't react. Someone confesses to him? Apparently he just blinks and says thank you." A third finger joins the others. "Third, every girl in this school has either liked him, currently likes him, or is pretending not to like him because they've accepted defeat."