Trouble

Break

I sat down on the table with all my friends as we laughed about the latest embarrassing mistake that Hye Ri had made in one of her classes.

"I can't understand why I can't just silently sit in one place, do my work, and not open my mouth." She said, putting her palm on her head and letting out a sad, whining sound.

"It couldn't have been that bad," Lee, reassured her, and Young and I looked threateningly at her. Hye Ri always, always, did something pretty embarrassing. Hye Ri shot daggers at Lee and grudgingly picked up her chopsticks while mumbling something under her breath.

"What did you do?" Bo Ra asked, trying to stifle a smile. Even though whatever Hye Ri did was pretty uncomfortable, it never failed to become a humorous anecdote between all of us. Na Ri hit Bo Ra on her side and whispered to her to stop smiling. Hye Ri looked up, her bunny nose sniffling.

"The teacher paired me with...him." She said, looking at her suddenly unappetizing noodles and kimchi.

"Him?" Jeong and Young asked confusedly. They gave each other a high-five on communicating telepathically. They always managed to do, say the exact same things, all the time.

"No..." I said, looking at the reddening face of Hye Ri.

"Yes...him." She hit her forehead repeatedly with her fist to try and forget whatever happened after that.

"Kim Nam Joon?" I asked just to make sure it was him. She nodded and lowered her head to rest on the edge of the table. We all looked at each other trying to control our laughter at the odds of that happening.

"Did you talk to the teacher about changing your partner?" Na Ri asked, a hand covering her mouth to not show her smiling face underneath.

"I didn't get a chance to." She said, still not looking up. Young and Jeong had completely died, laughing as silently as possible in the corner. She looked up suddenly, a sad expression highlighting her face.

"What do I do?" Everyone's laughing expression changed to a serious one, and we all thought somberly about the outcomes.

"Maybe...try talking to him," Lee said in the middle of showing a huge handful of noodles into her mouth. Hye Ri picked up her spoon and hit her with it on her head.

"If I could talk to him would I be looking like this?" Hye Ri pointed to her disheveled hair, red cheeks, and shaking hands. "I tried to speak, and actually I did. I said exactly one sentence which I just shouldn't have. I told him that he has nice eyes. I didn't say hi, or hello, or how are you. I just said you have nice eyes."

"Honestly, if you think you can't go through with it, just switch partners," I said, rubbing her back affectionately and trying to calm her down.

"I'll have to go talk to the teacher in charge," She said sadly.

"You don't want to switch partners do you?" Bo Ra asked, her eyes narrowed, and her lips upturned in a smirk.

"No, I don't want to," Hye Ri said, her shoulders sagging forward and her head hitting the edge of the table again. I sighed, as everyone around me burst out in silent laughter again. How did Hye Ri manage to get into such situations again and again?

-

"It was pretty bad, I mean, she just sat there next to him, her cheeks flaming red hot, and her gaze directed forward. Apparently, she didn't even look at him, and ran out of class when the teacher turned her back," I explained to Yoongi as I left school. He had called me and had been filling me up on his tiring day after which I had tried to cheer him up with Hye Ri's story. He chuckled on the other line and was about to reply when a cheerful interrupted him.