taciturn | hwang hyunjin

ii.

t w o .

hwang hyunjin. he was the guy whom yesul thought would become popular during his mid teenage years. with his plump cherry lips and ebony eyes that also smile when he does, she reckoned he already had a couple of girls swooning over him. but she never expected to see him like this after returning from jeju.

aloof. tight-lipped. alone.

not even receiving a 'hi' from him when she came back, she felt ashamed to greet and ask about life.

so just like thin air, they revolved from being close friends to persons lesser than aquaintances. briefly, they became strangers. everyone around him did but nobody knew why. though she wasn't that hurt.

it's always like that in friendship anyway. the vaguer your connection becomes, the greater the distance between your bond increases. until one day, none of your memories were relevant to each other.

"hi."

yesul blurted after harshly grabbing the chair before hyunjin's seat, sitting on it and facing him with a smile. a sarcastic one. though the sarcasm was just a joke.

but boy did he only bore his uncanny eyes on her with his mouth pressed into a thin line. he gave no response. that made yesul frowned.

"mrs. byun just announced that we have a reporting and guess what? there's no need to guess 'cause i know you're not deaf and you literally heard her saying but yeah we're partners and we'll report on monday yay."

after her effortful statement, she only received a nod from him before going back to writing on his notebook in which she had interrupted.

"did you just—" yesul paused and pressed her lips into a thin line. what a fail. she wasn't the type of person to speak that exceeds 20 words but she did it for the sake of communicating with this guy. but she flopped. she knew she should've just shut up.

"okay fine. let's just meet at the cafe nearby our school on saturday at 2pm then. if you want, you can do some research about our topic while i'll do too."

again, he only nodded and yesul had nothing to do but just assume he'll comply.

with arms and legs crossed, she roamed her vision around the room. seeing all her classmates with their partners discussing about the report (or merely talking about random things), she sighed. might as well just read and study. there's still 10 minutes left before the next teacher comes in anyway.

her eyes dart back to the boy whose head is now on top of his arms. he wasn't sleeping, in fact his face was positioned towards the window and he was staring straight at nowhere. he looks lonely. yet his eyes screamed pure and naive.

if hyunjin hadn't built a wall from everyone, yesul would have asked what was wrong. but now, she didn't really have the time to deal with other people's business amymore. she had her own problems to face too.

she stood from the chair and walked back to her seat. but before she could do so, she saw a ripped paper on the floor which already had a few dirt in it.

she picked it up and her forehead wrinkled in confusion with what she had read. she tilted her head to the same boy whom she recognized to be the owner of the writing.

the wooden door creaked,
the little boy squeaked,
to surprise his mommy,
he opened it quick
there she was hanging,
on the edge of the brick
horrified was he
to see—