Promise Me / Yaksokhae • K.T.H

•삼•

"You don't make sense."

"Ms please. I can't swim in front of men since I have to take my hijab off." I whine to her, explaining my reason again.

"Please just let me go this one time."

"That's not my problem. Just don't take it off then. Go and change now." My ex PE teacher says.

We have a male teacher now, and they are usually very understanding but Ms Hawthorne- the one I'm convincing to let me off the hook from swimming- is sort of racist.

Last time she told me to go back to my  old Muslim school since I don't belong here and she's normally always picky on me. That is, now I proved her wrong. For normal sports, I'm always bringing my gear. So technically she cannot say anything to me about me not being cooperative.

She likes to check in on our physical health classes every time we have them even though she's not in charge of us anymore.

To say my class is just lazy is a severe understatement. All they do is talk with their groups of friends during class, and they out on personas in front of each other. Doing their best to please their assigned friend group 'leader.' It makes me feel as if thought we're back in primary.

"I can't change Ms. I haven't brought anything." I say, pleading to her to let me go and just try to understand me this one time.

Worst case scenario, she gives me togs to wear.

Let's hope that does not happen.

With a massive dramatic sigh she closes her eyes and nods.

"Just this time."

"Thank you Ms!" I say.

"However, now you have to go to the dean and explain to her why you cannot wear swimming togs to class." She says, looking down at me.

"Hurry up now," she says with her British accent.

"Sure." I reply, dragging my feet as I walk away with a disappointed expression.

"That's the way to her class not to her office."

I hear her say behind me.

Without looking back, I nod in response, changing my direction.

•••

Two hours later and we've set to good old lunch time.

Hoor and I are currently walking around school, in order to lose weight. Well, she really loves walking so it's another win for her. She's average weight but she keeps denying the fact. She always comes up with a rebound, saying she's eating too much and she is getting overweight. She's not even close to it, but of course there's no convincing her.

As for me, I'm overweight. I have to eat healthy foods, and exercise daily as instructed by my family doctor.

I've had problems with my weight for the past five to seven years. Being fifteen now, I haven't really lost anything but rather gained more.

Losing weight isn't very easy, and my relationship with food has destroyed my self-esteem. It's got to the point where I don't know how I look to others. Despite getting compliments left and right, it feels as if though everyone's lying to me. The moment I see truth in their compliments, is the same time when my self-esteem crumbled to the ground because of my constant self-doubt.

"Tuck shop or nah?" Hoor asks me, interrupting my thoughts.

"I have some lunch today. You?" I lift my eyebrow up, waiting for her response.

"I don't know. Should I get something? I have an apple." She replies as we continue to walk.

"The tuck shop doesn't have healthy foods apart from the wrap. But that's finished too."

"Yeah I know. Let's just keep walking." She says, turning her head away from me as she turns the volume to her music higher.

With a sigh I get my phone out too, opening up a message from KakaoTalk, a texting app.

I've made friends with these three- well two since one of them is barely ever online, Koreans. They are under the name 전정국 (팬) which literally translates to 'Jeon Jungkook (fan).'

I made friends with them to improve my Korean, as well as to make some ARMY friends. Korean has been an interest of mine ever since I watched a historical Korean drama when I was five. And making friends with people who're native to the language will surely help me to learn it faster.

There's three people in total, as far as I know, that are running the account. The closest person I am to is a 19 year old male named Han-bi, the one I first started chatting to. It was just a causal 'hello' in Korean that made me get to know the people 
a nlittle.

At the start I thought it was just me talking to him, however much to my dismay, later I found out that there's also a 19 year old girl named Rumi, who is also apart of managing the account, and one more person who I have yet to find out the age and name of.

We've all talked a lot. So far, they know I'm living in New Zealand and that I'm fifteen years old. Everyday there's small talk between us. They seem very busy, considering they're still students. HanBi lives in a dorm but Rumi hasn't talked much yet. She's more busier than usual.

"라희아 안녕! (Hi Raihe!)"

The message is from Bi.

Rumi messages with a cloud emoji before her text and Bi has no emoji. It's a way to tell me who I am messaging with.

The two don't know each other in person, much to my surprise.

"헤이 (Hey)" I reply back, moving my fingers quickly.

A few seconds later I see Bi's message pop up saying "Why are you ignoring me?" in korean.

"누구시죠?" I reply, asking "Who are you?"

I do it on purpose to annoy him until he gives up. I asked him for his personal account, since there was too much publicity with two other people reading all our messages. Not that I had anything private to say, but it was just awkward. He denied saying 'no' with his laughing emoticons.

I'm not mad but I want to ignore him to annoy him, besides it's fun.

"좋아요. 이제 메시지 안 할게요. (Fine. I'm going to stop using this account)," He replies.

My heart drops as I read the message again. I mean, he could be joking but still. I don't know for sure if it's a joke or not.

I text him back saying that I'm not going to fall for his joke. No reply comes after that, making me anxious.

"Bi-ssi, you said you'd help me with my exams. Liar." I text him in Korean, waiting for a reply.

It's okay Raihe, he always takes long to reply.

I try to comfort myself.

For a weird reason, I feel weird if he says something unusual even though I don't know him well. We haven't even been declared as friends in the first place, but why am I like this?

He sends me a kissing emoticon, making me nervous.

전정국 (팬): ^3^

what?

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Hello to my non existent audience. I hope the chapter was enjoyable to read. More to come! Please do vote if you haven't done so already.