Today, I felt like Teacher Renu kept staring at me as if she had doubts. If I could read her mind, I wouldn’t have to guess like that. But since I could only hear the sound of her heartbeat, I thought it might be about how I knew that man’s name was ‘Aekaphop.’
Actually, it was kind of nice to be the center of attention, to have someone curious about you, and to be in Teacher Renu’s sights this much. So, I decided to continue playing dumb because it was cute to see her trying to find a chance to talk to me while I continued to avoid her.
‘Today, I need to talk to Teacher Renu and get straight to the point.’
Just as I was lost in my thoughts, the voice of the trainee teacher, who had been eyeing Teacher Renu for a while, echoed as he was about to pass by me. Just as I turned to look back at him, various thoughts and imaginations of that man surfaced vividly as if they had already happened.
"What’s wrong with you?"
On-an, who was talking about her dream of opening a restaurant named ‘Jessica’ after her favorite girl group, paused and nudged me lightly with her elbow, but I ignored it.
"Not now, you bitch. I can’t hear you clearly."
"I was speaking loud enough. What can’t you hear?"
"Damn it!"
I yelled at my friend, irritated.
"You keep speaking so loudly. I can’t hear you. I can only hear that intern teacher."
"Listening to what? He’s walking around by himself and doesn’t talk to anyone."
"You’re so annoying!"
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When I was a kid, I thought I was cursed with something that made me hear everyone’s thoughts, and it made my life very difficult. Ever since kindergarten, I could hear Mrs. Kookkal, the teacher who always smiled but cursed the chubby student in her mind, thinking,
'Why don’t you fall down the stairs and die?'
When I asked my friend’s mother to her face, 'Why does Mrs. Kookkal want Sompong to fall down the stairs and die?'
The teacher wrote a behavior report for my mother, saying that I was a liar who made up stories to slander others.
"Why did you say that about your teacher?"
Mom, who didn’t know I could read minds at the time, asked when we got home. Her head was already full of stress about Grandpa’s recent death and the fear that Dad wouldn’t get anything.
"Don’t worry. Grandpa left the building to Dad because he can't fend for himself."
When I suddenly expressed this, my mother was shocked. Her mind was filled with a million questions, and there was a song playing in her head, completely out of context.
'Sometimes I run... Sometimes I hide... Sometimes I'm afraid of you.'
"Why are you singing this song out of nowhere?"
"I'm just singing along with you."
"How did you know I had this song in my head?"
"You’ve been singing this part over and over since school. It’s so loud. Change the song soon."
Mom started to suspect that I could read minds, so she had me test it with Dad. My dad, who loved gambling, picked a card without showing it to me and asked me to guess.
I picked a red card with a diamond shape and a number that looks like a circle... I can’t remember what the number is.
Since I was very young and hadn’t learned many numbers, I answered like this. I could answer everything in my dad’s mind. Instead of thinking I was weird, my parents thought I was special and kept telling me, “Don’t tell anyone about this. It’s too special.”
