Colors

XVIII : Puns

An underclassman of ours was snickering as he walked past us.

"Yah yah! What are you laughing at?" Jimin spat, shooting him a deadly glare.

"N-nothing.. I apologize, sunbaenim!" he stuttered and bowed towards us before scurrying back into his classroom. The moment we were sure he wouldn't be able to hear us, we laughed at what just happened.

"You don't have to scare the poor kid though," I giggled.

"That brat deserves it," Jimin also cackled "his expression was priceless."

Mrs. Oh had made us stand one-legged in the corridor while having to balance our math textbook on top of our head for a session.

"Gosh my legs are killing me," I complained as aches started to creep on my right calf.

"By the way, you sure you're okay Jiminnie?" I asked him for the zillionth time.

"I've told you. I am the okay-est as I can be, babe."

My insides felt ticklish hearing the word "babe" even though we've used that word to call each other since ages ago.

"Such word as 'okay-est' doesn't even exist," I paused for a millisecond "b-babe."

I felt a sense of accomplishment after saying the last phrase.

Another underclassman of ours, a female this time, walked past by. She was biting her lower lip and looked away from us, all the effort to hold herself back from laughing at us. Well at least she tried.

Jimin grunted "That's it, I'm so done with this."

I supposed he was physically okay, but his pride can't afford the hurt anymore. He was going to let his lifted left leg down when I stopped him.

"Don't!"

"Why?" he pulled back up his left leg who almost touched the ground.

"The damn witch checks on CCTV footages."

"Really?"

"Well yeah, don't you remember when she called Minjae out for not doing the 'posture of shame' properly, and made him do it all over again in front of the classroom?"

"Kwak Minjae?" I nodded, he then continued "I don't.."

"But it was only this Tue--"

Right, he wasn't here this Tuesday.

"Uh, nevermind.."

He gave no further reply. The situation became promptly silent and awkward. I internally blamed my seemingly supernatural power in making things awkward all the time.

But then my mind travelled elsewhere.

He wasn't here this Tuesday?

I wondered if he really was the one who returned back here. But then why was everyone acting so normal about it? Like nothing ever happened to him.

Like he was never... dead.

Had I went crazy and hallucinated about his death when he was actually perfectly alive all the time?
Was it me who got carried to an alternate reality which would happen if he never took his own life?
Okay, I might have dosed myself with too much science-fiction works. But then "Guilty until proven innocent,"
Right?
After all he's here, so everything is possible.

Or in the worst case, was I only stuck in a dream right now, where I could wake up anytime to a world without him?

Nothing makes the tiniest bit of sense to me.