Odd-eyed Beauty // hwang minhyun (#27)

Four

Yeongwon

I brought my lunch to the school garden, walking to the venue in high spirits, something that I will never find myself doing that ever. There is no way that I will be able to be myself in this school as long as there is one person who thinks that I am a curse to this school. Whatever I say or think will affect them a lot and I had learnt a long time ago that I should shut my mouth up and that would create less trouble for them.

But that hasn't been the case for me during lunch break at this particular location, I loved being in the school garden when there is no one around and I can be myself for that one hour of free time apart from school and toxic people.

And that now there is one person who is willing to listen to my voice... That anonymous person who comes around at the same time with his lunch box, sitting on the other side just listening to me speak whatever I want for one hour. He is someone that I have never expected to meet in school, there is no one that kind to listen to me speak for so long.

Everyone in school hated my voice and wanted me to shut up as soon as I started speaking, they said that my voice irritates them and along with my eyes, they said that it is the worst combination ever.

So I have never wanted to allow anyone to hear my voice when we have to do class presentations, I would be in the corner just standing by myself while the more confident students would speak their minds and pretended that they were as if like motivational speakers speaking to the whole class about world problems.

"Yeongwon ssi, why don't you ever allow me to see your face?" That mysterious guy asked and I choked on my food. "Are you okay?"

I grabbed the water bottle next to me and I gulped a huge mouthful of water, allowing the food to go into the right hole and not to my respiratory system. I coughed one last time, ensuring that it is cleared before speaking again. "I'm fine."

"I'm sorry... I am just very curious, you never revealed anything about yourself except for your name and your hobbies."

"I should be asking you that. Over the past one week that you have been sitting here listening to me speak, I know nothing about you other than your voice. Why don't you reveal your name?"

"I can't." He replied. What secrets does he have to hide?

"Then I can't reveal myself to you since you wouldn't let me know your name, I want to know the name of the only listener of my radio station," I said firmly. "Just tell me your name, won't you? It is not like you are one of the famous people in school."

"I just can't... I don't want to know my identity, that's all. It is my privacy."

He must have his own reasons for not telling me his name. Maybe he has an ugly name? If he doesn't want to, then I will not force him to. "Fine, give me a nickname then. Something that I can call you so that I can still call you by your name but a shortened form."

He laughed. "I don't have a nickname, nobody calls me by something else than my name."

"You are being very demanding as a fellow listener, first you don't want me to know your name, then you don't know what to call yourself by."

"I just... Nobody calls me something else than my name, it is just my name." He sounded really sad and I kind of pity him for having no nicknames. Even I have a nickname, my mother calls me by Won instead of Yeongwon sometimes...

"Maybe a nickname similar to your own name? Like one letter from your name would do for a nickname."

He went silent for a moment as he is choosing his nickname, it seems like a difficult thing for him to do since he has never had another name other than his legal name.

"Hyun." He replied after a very long time.

"Are you sure that you want me to call you by that? I will never call you anything else other than that."

"I'm very sure, call me Hyun." I felt the sides of my lips going up as he called himself a few times with the nickname that he has just given himself. "It is a part of my name."

"You sure like the way it sounds, it is a very cute nickname." And now I know part of his name, it wouldn't take me long to figure out his name since it is a very common syllable for boys.

I walked back to my class as soon as the school bell rang and I got back to my seat with much difficulty as one girl were sitting on my table, ignoring the fact that a person actually sits there.

"Ohh, you sit here? I thought that you didn't even exist." She exclaimed before getting up, leaving her carton of milk on the table. "Drink it all since you need a lot of calcium to function well, you dumbass."

Those are all the usual insults that they call me by whenever I walk past them but I wasn't the person that they were talking about, I just can't do anything about it. I'm powerless, I should just ignore them and tell no one about it. No one would care about it anyways.

The homeroom teacher comes into the classroom with a clipboard, ready to start the class. He greets the class and began talking about the things that we have to do for the next project. Why must we do projects all the time? 

The teacher began assigning pairs to do a simple exercise for the lesson and as usual, I didn't have anyone to pair up with. I just prayed that the teacher would forget about me but he had already called out my name.

"Bae Yeongwon!" I looked at him. "Are you here?" I raised one timid hand up. "Who is your partner?" I shook my head. "Again? Can't you make friends around in class?"

Hurried footsteps hurried into the classroom and all attention was on the one person who entered the classroom 5 minutes after the class has started, it was the new student who transferred in earlier this year. I didn't get to know his name because I wouldn't need to, it is not like he is ever going to talk to me.

"Hwang MinHyun! Why are you late for my class?" He scolded the new student.

He kept his head low as he apologized. "Sorry, it wouldn't happen again."

"It better be." The teacher turned his attention to me. "Your partner would be Bae Yeongwon, the one sitting alone." He pointed his finger at me and I felt a hundred times more reluctant to come to school the next day.