Where your eyes linger: A re-telling

Episode 6: The end of a 15 year friendship

(Is This Really How It Goes)

(Kang Guk)

I'm not sure whether to call it a fight or flight response, all I know is that it was fear. Fear that pushed my limbs into action, shoving Tae Joo off of me and onto the grass beside me. He lands with a thud on his back on the dry grass.

I flopped down beside him hiccupping slightly as my breath tried to regulate itself. I shut my eyes to the world and simply try to calm down and not to think. I couldn't think. I couldn't question. I refused to. Not here, not now, maybe not ever. I breath out in a stutter but with enough control I feel okay opening my eyes. The sky is still there the way it's always been.

That's when it finally sinks in and I sit up quickly. We were out in the open, where anyone could have seen us. "The others might see." I say to the still form of Tae Joo beside me. I stand up and Tae Joo groans as he moves up from the grass slowly. His elbows come to rest on his knees but he doesn't look at me. I can't read that expression on his face well, and part of me doesn't want to. Too scared to think what I might find there.

I offer my hand out to him and he looks at it. "Let's go," I said to him simply. His eyes turn away from me and back to the ground. For a second I think he might refuse. And I'm not sure where to put my emotions anymore. So I just do what I've always done. I shove them down. They were unnecessary. I need to get Tae Joo away and back to class. I needed this not to have happened. I needed not to want to know what I had all been about.

He was angry about the ball. He was angry that I had protected Hye Mi and not him. That was it. That had to be all of it.

Tae Joo reaches his hand out, grabs mine, and I help pull him to his feet. He looks at me with an expression I try my best not to see. It was too open and too honest. I grab his wrist and he allows me to pull him along, as I walk back in the direction of the locker rooms.

We pass by both Pil Hyun and Hye Mi, but I don't have the mental capacity to interact with either of them right now. I pull Tae Joo behind me without so much as a word until we reach the lockers rooms. There's no one inside as everybody else has already gotten changed. "Get dressed." I tell him simply and turn to grab my own uniform from my locker and begin to change.

"Kang Guk?" Tae Joo's voice is soft and unsure and it grates on me. He wasn't whining. I knew that tone better than anything, this was different and it threw me off kilter. I refuse to look at him, shutting my locker door with a hard snap. Was I angry? Or was I just scared? Stop, stop, just get dressed, ignore it, nothing changes.

Tae Joo's locker door slams beside me and I turn to look at him. "Are you really-"

"Let's get to class" I interrupt him. As I turn to leave I feel his fingertip brush against my forearm as if he wanted to stop me. I ignore it, pretending I don't feel it and head for the door. Then I stop, grit my teeth.

Eventually Tae Joo follows me.

(Tae Joo)

I could feel Kang Guk's breath brush my face, almost feel the heart from his lips, then it was gone. Kang Guk's hands suddenly grab me and with their normal force toss me away from him. I land with a thud on my back staring, once again, at the semi-clouded sky. My heart is still racing and I feel a tightness rise up inside me. I listen to his breathing next to me. Did he get it now? Had I been clear enough?

He sits up quickly. "The others might see." He says, but I don't have the energy to think about that right now. Kang Guk gets to his feet, and I groan as my back protests at moving after landing hard. I sit up and rest my elbows on my knees. Was it enough? Had I gone too far?