Colors

XIII : Chair

Wednesday, May the 20th.

I rose from my seat and glanced to my right, unintentionally meeting the gaze of Woo Hyerim, who is about to leave the class with a group of other girls. She gave me a concerned smile, which I replied with an awkward one, while her friends gave weird stares to me. After making sure they have left the room, I made my way to exit the room myself, only to have Jeon Jungkook blocking my way as he was laughing to the view of his buds tackling each other jokingly.

One of his friends named Kim Taehyung saw me behind him and silently notified him by pointing his head towards me. Jungkook gets his message and turned around facing me. "Oh, h-hey Jinhee" he smiled as he finished his words. "Hey.......Jeon Jungkook" I tried replying his smile hoping that it wouldn't be as awkward as the one I sent Hyerim. After some seconds of sour silence he finally said "Um.. we'll leave first, then. See you later Jinhee." and left with the three other guys.

Funny, about how everything was all awkward and so different from two months ago. So he really does feel guilty towards me. I tried imagining if he hadn't turned me down and made me realize I liked Jimin. Would we be heading to the cafeteria together at this very moment?

I felt suffocated by all the memories that suddenly flooded my head. I came to realize that I wasn't even hungry anymore. I canceled my decision on going to the cafeteria and returned to my seat instead. Crossing my arms on the table, I let out a sigh.

I'm done with all the crying..

I then laid my head on top of my crossed arms.

Staring out to the classroom window, I fully opened the windows to my memories.

I closed my eyes, letting my memories drag me back to Monday, March the 16th.

Done reminiscing about that certain Monday, I told myself to stop but my mind won't obey me. I knew that this would bring me no good, but the memories I suppressed raged at me like a tsunami. It traveled everywhere, even back to the childhood days I had spent with Jimin. I clenched my fists on the table as my head felt like a mess.

Today marks the second month of Park Jimin's death.

"Jinhee-yah," a voice of a male called out to me from the classroom's front door.

I looked up to see that it was Jin oppa standing without his uniform, as he was already freed from it. When I was away from school, me and my friends had turned into senior year students, while Jin oppa had graduated. He approached my desk and pulled out a chair from the desk next to mine closer to me. The friction from the chair's legs and the floor tiles made a painful sounding screech.

"I waited for you at the cafeteria but you didn't show up. I even brought some Jin-made cookies for you." He made a little frown upon saying his words.

Seeing my seating position and clenched fist, his eyes suddenly grew larger and he seemed to realize something.

"Y-yah, Lee Jinhee. Are you okay?"

I fixed my seating position and sat up.

"I'm fine," I relaxed my hands and slid it under the desk onto my lap. "I'm just not in the mood to go to the cafeteria. Probably because I ate too much breakfast." I tried making an assuring smile.

"Is that so?" he asked me. I simply nodded to him.

"By the way why are you even here, oppa? Didn't you graduated?"

He laughed at my question, "I came here because I'm worried of my naughty little sister, if you happened to meet her, please tell her this. Her name is Lee Jinhee."

I giggled, "Well that Lee Jinhee kid tells me that she's okay, and that her Jin oppa should leave school before the guards are gonna shoo him out."

He playfully smacked my head, "Yah this kid.. Alumni are welcomed you know! Especially when he's this handsome, and still a member of Bangtan Sonyeondan." He paused, "Well, as long as I don't disturb learning activities."

"I get it, I get it!" I made a small grin.

"Well then, is it okay for me to return to the cafeteria? I'm actually frikkin hungry" the last four words were more like a mumble.

I laughed at his mumble. "Of course, go ahead. Your poor tummy needs your attention. I'm sorry to make you worry about me."

He stood up from his seat and returned the chair to it's original position. Again, the chair made a sharp screech which I cringed at. "See you later Jinhee-yah!" He then headed towards the door.

Now standing on the frame of the opened door, he suddenly stopped and turned around.

"You know.. If you want to talk, about basically anything... You can talk to me."

He smiled to me, and left after seeing me smiling back. I felt bad towards Bangtan. It feels like I'm a burden to them and that all I do is make them worry or feel guilty.

Finally being alone again in the classroom, I took out my art sketchbook and thought about doing the task Mr. Jang had given us on Monday. The smell of the brown, textured papers of my sketchbook gave out a soothing effect to my mind. I flipped through the pages and found the sketch I've done. He had given us the assignment to make any form of artwork about flowers, but he also told us that the kind of flower we chose and the artwork itself shall work together to tell a story. I had sketched a lily.

"As the flowers most often associated with funerals, lilies symbolize that the soul of the departed has received restored innocence after death." as I had read somewhere.

I took out my box of color pencils. There were forty eight of them in total. As if it has its own mind, my hand made its way to the black one. I slid it out from the box and held it between my fingers. I stared at my sketch. The lily stood out alone in the middle of the paper, but filled quite a large space. I started stroking the black wooden pencil, coloring the background black. Soon enough the whole background was filled with black all over with red streaks in some places. I continued and colored the lily white, but I only managed to stroke the wooden pencil a few times before it's sharpened tip broke.

I let out a long sigh, my mood to continue the work had ceased to exist. My eyes felt heavy. I shoved my color pencils back to its box and pushed my sketchbook to the corner of my desk. I returned to my original position, crossing my arms on the table and laid my head on top of it. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. I can feel my consciousness slowly floating away, but it only lasted for a few seconds as a sharp screech woke me up. I instantly recognized the familiar sound, it was again, the noise from the chair.

Gosh, can everyone give me a break and stop dragging their chairs already.

I blinked my sleepy eyes open and looked to my front. Someone was pulling the chair from the desk in front of me closer to my desk and sat backwards on it.

"Yaaah... That is one ugly drawing." that certain someone said while giggling, his smile and crescent eyes being way too familiar.