Some girls do

Chapter 21: Chaewon

I read her text about ten thousand times, think of about a hundred different ways to answer, but in the end, I do nothing. Not even a quick low-key "thanks." I just leave her hanging. Like an asshole.

On Monday, we have the entire class time to work on our presentation. My stomach is in knots waiting to see what she says. But she says nothing. Kazuha acts like there isn't anything between us. Like I'm just another classmate or coworker or something. She doesn't get mad. Or crack a joke about it. Or acknowledge it at all. She's just . . . completely fine, and I hate it.

I know that I don't have the right to hate it, that I deserve worse than this for both rushing off and not returning her text, but I'd take annoyance or anger to this indifference any day.

On Tuesday, she flat-out ignores me, looking right through me in the halls, and I can't take it. I get lost on my way to my car after school and accidentally end up at the track watching her practice. Jimin is there snapping pics of the guys and grabs another candid shot of what she calls my "moony-for-Sunghoon face."

Good. Let her think that.

Unfortunately, this confuses the hell out of Sunghoon, who seems to think I really was there to watch him practice. That night, I reply to his booty-call text with a picture of lotion and some tissues.

Oh, and Kazuha? She didn't look at the stands once the entire time.

By Wednesday night, after another long day of being ignored, I lose it a little. I text her an article I dug up about some runner who did an ultramarathon. I don't even know what an ultramarathon is, but I figure she'll like it.

She doesn't respond, because karma.

Meanwhile, Karina is up my butt asking me why I'm such a sad sack, and even Hyojong called me to check in since I hadn't been around the shop all week. I admit to neither of them that besides homework, working for Eunbi, and pageant prep, I've just been home licking my wounds.

In class on Thursday, I ask Kazuha if she got my text. She says yes and that it was interesting, but she sounds weird when she says it. Like, not unfriendly, but politely unfeeling. Like I'd said, Nice day out, eh? instead of googling fifty different running articles to try to impress her. She's not even asking how or why I found it.

It's difficult to focus on a speech about the Endangered Species Act when I feel like a time bomb about to explode.

That night, I try the text angle again: Ready for our presentation tomorrow?

This time she writes back, just a simple one-word answer, but I'll take it: Yes.

The next morning, I'm through-the-roof antsy. Like I just drank a dozen black coffees and topped them off with a Monster. I don't know why. Scratch that, I know exactly why. Because Kazuha responded.

But it was only one word, and I can't work out the tone. A reassuring yes? Or an annoyed yes? The period at the end doesn't instill confidence.

I may not know what she's thinking, but I know what I want her to be thinking, which is that she definitely should not stay away from me, even if it's for the best. I flip between wishing I had told her that to her face . . . and wishing I had let her run home in the rain that day.

But her hands, Jesus, her hands on my back. And the way her breath hit my ear featherlight. And now we have to talk about protecting endangered species while I'm frustrated and confused and tied up in knots.

"Are you okay?" she whispers to me as Yujin and Wonyoung walk up to present the Animal Welfare Act.

I shrug like it's no big deal, even though it is. Because I realized last night that she might never speak to me again after this group project ends. Who goes to a pageant by choice and also doesn't want a dumb group project to end? The new me. Apparently. But only for nefarious reasons, so it still tracks.