Head above the water

2

(Meme of this chapter dedicated to my friend Noemi who demanded a second chapter hours after I posted the first)

It had been two days since I saved the mystery boy at the cliff, and I still couldn't get him off of my mind. That was normal, I guess, when you save someone's life. I didn't think I would ever forget his face. He was taking up so much room in my mind, in fact, that I had completely zoned out in my first class of the day. Granted, it was a Monday in math class at eight in the morning and I would have zoned out anyway, but usually when I zoned out my thoughts were at least slightly productive. Today, all I could do was imagine all the different possibilities for his name. None of the names I though of seemed to fit with him.
Just then I heard the door open and bang shut loudly, which knocked me out of my haze and back into the real world. The teacher had been called out of the room, and everyone began to whisper about the possibilities that could entail. The words 'fired', 'promotion', and 'medical emergency' were thrown around, but our teacher was soon back to dismiss our concerns.

"Okay, everyone, today we have a new student all the way from Busan, South Korea. Please make him feel welcome," Mrs. Keynes said cheerily.

Just then, a boy walked through the door. He had his head down, so I couldn't see his face, but everything about him seemed familiar. He walked with a proud swagger that seemed like it had taken years and a lot of practice to perfect, but it fit him. Our school didn't have a uniform, which he seemed to take full advantage of. The boy was wearing a white t-shirt underneath a burgundy bomber jacket that accented the width of his shoulders and distressed blue jeans rolled to the ankle with a pair of black high top converse. Everything about him screamed expensive.

As I was examining his outfit my eyes finally roamed to his face, and I realized why he had seemed so familiar at first. He was the same indifferent boy that I had pulled out of the water. He held the same distant look in his eyes now that he had then, and it confused me because he gave off an energy entirely different from the way he was acting.

"Hi. My name is Jimin. Please take care of me," he said in an almost bored tone.

Some of the boys cackled at his introduction, but the laughter was drowned out by the wistful sighs of most of the girls in the room. The boy, Jimin, was much more handsome when he wasn't half drowned. So handsome, in fact, that I was sure he had to have modeled at some point in his life. If I hadn't met him already I might have been one of the girls sighing, but I had met him. Him being in my class may have answered the question of his name, but it only pushed me into wanting to know more about him. I decided I would have to catch him after class and ask what I wanted to know.

The rest of that class I was distracted by Jimin. He had taken the seat in front of me and one row to my right, which put him in my line of vision practically everywhere I looked. There was no hope for me in this class if my curiosity wasn't satisfied. I wanted to get to know this boy, even if he didn't want to get to know me.

After what felt like an eternity, the bell finally rang to dismiss us to our second class of the day. I chunked my things in my bag and shot out of my seat to catch up to Jimin, but by the time I had reached the door he had disappeared into the rambunctious crowd of teenagers clogging up the hallways.

Instead of searching for him, I tried to go to my next class. Tried being the operative word because before I could make it more than a few yards down the hallway my books were roughly knocked from my hands, and I was shoved backwards by my shoulders. I looked up to see my long-time bully, Trent, with a nasty sneer on his face.

"What is it you want today?" I asked with a resigned sigh. Usually if I just addressed him he would leave me alone for a while.