Bruises | l.mh

04

//yena

I DON'T HAVE DETENTION today so as soon as the bell rings and my last class gets out, I head over to my locker to exchange my books for my homework. I grab my writing notebook and stuff it into my backpack before closing my locker and—

"Hey!"

I quickly look over my right shoulder and see a dark-haired guy against a wall with his hands up defensively. He's looking over at another guy who's walking down the hall toward the front, a guy who probably just pushed the dark-haired guy.

The one walking away I recognize, though. I recognize his black hair, falling into his face a bit. It's that one guy from detention the other day. Why was he shoving some guy?

"Yejoon, are you okay? What was that?"

The dark-haired guy turns to a tall girl. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just some pissed off jackass."

The two walk away. I mind my own business and hold onto my backpack straps as I walk toward the front of the school.

Neither my mother or Ji-sub is home with I get there, so that lifts my mood a little bit.

I go into my room and lay on my bed, opening up a bag of dried apple snacks and pulling up my social media on my phone. I scroll through feeds of famous people I'll never meet and interesting stories that come up.

The time goes by faster than I expected it to. Soon, I hear the front door open and heavy footsteps come into the apartment. It must be Ji-sub, even though he's usually home later than my mother.

Carefully, I step outside of my room and peek around the corner to see that it is Ji-sub. He's putting some alcohol away into the fridge.

I go back into my room and quietly close the door. I look at my backpack and think about the homework in there. I don't really feel like doing homework, though.

I quickly change into jeans and t-shirt, throwing a jacket on over it. I grab my smaller backpack and sling around my shoulders as I head out toward the front door.

"Hey, Yena," Ji-sub greets me. "Where are you going?"

"Just out for a stroll," I answer. I open the front door and step out.

Before Ji-sub can say anything else, I close the door and I'm already moving down the apartment steps.

I walk in the opposite direction as the bus stop my mom will soon get off at to walk the short distance to our apartment. I head down the street toward the busier part of the city, where more people will be walking around.

I pass many shops and look into each one to admire their craft and what they are selling. I want to go into a candy shop, but I don't have enough money for anything so I continue on.

Sometimes when I'm bored, I just walk around. I don't really ever have a destination in mind but I like wandering the city. I like to see all the shops and the people that are out.

I make it to a bus stop and sit down at the bench there, watching the people pass by. There's a woman with her young son, a young couple eating ice cream and walking together, a man in a business suit talking on the phone.

The bus is rumbling up to the stop, I can see it in the distance.

I want to get on the bus and go somewhere else. Maybe to another city, close to this one. Just to walk around and see new sights and visit new shops.

But I won't. I've never done it before.

A while ago, when I would come down here, I wouldn't stop at the bus stop. Then I started standing at the stop, watching the people and thinking about getting on the bus. And after that, I started sitting at the bus stop as if I was really going to take the bus to somewhere new. But I've never actually gotten on the bus before.

Maybe someday I will.

<<<

MY MOTHER IS IN a fairly good mood today, so I don't scolded when I get home for not being there. She asks me where I was and I tell her I took a walk around the city and she doesn't press for any more questions.

I take a quick shower as my mother and Ji-sub are eating dinner. Once I'm done, they're watching TV so I quickly grab some leftover bulgogi from last night and bring it into my room to eat it.

I bring my computer over to my bed and start watching some of my favorite dramas. Eventually, at a time I don't recall, I fall asleep with the drama playing in the background.

<<<

I SLEEP THROUGH MY alarm on accident and I'm running a little late for school. Luckily, I'm only about ten minutes behind so I'm still able to slip out before my mom starts getting ready for work.

But as soon as I get to school, I remember the homework I was supposed to do last night. There's not enough time to finish it all before classes start. Looks like I'll just have detention again.

There were two classes, math and writing, that I didn't do my homework for. Both of the teachers give me a detention slip so I show up to detention after school with both slips.

I take my usual spot at the back, but this time I work on my missing and current homework instead of writing. The teacher is feeling nice today, so she lets us listen to music as long as we keep our phones face down on our desks.

Since I'm listening to music and I'm so focused on my work, I barely notice someone sit down at the desk on my right. But I see him out of my peripheral vision and can't stop myself from looking up at him.

He's not paying attention to anyone as he puts his earbuds in and starts drawing on a blank sheet of paper in his sketchbook. I watch as he starts to draw a palm tree. It seems pretty normal until he starts to add mouths onto the trunk of the palm tree.

"Ri Yena?"

I quickly take my right earbud out and look up at the front. The teacher has her hand up, gesturing for me to go up to her.

I can feel eyes on me as I'm walking up to the teacher's desk.

"You have been getting detention a lot recently. I think it's time we make a game plan for you to not get detention so much. I have a paper here that I want you to fill out. Please return it to me by the end of this class; it shouldn't take too long."

I take the paper back to my desk and let out a sigh before putting my left earbud in. I look down at the paper and read the first few statements on the paper.

Reasons for getting detention (list all):

How many detentions have you gotten in the past six weeks?

What is a goal you have for yourself that will help you stay out of detention?

"Are you actually gonna fill that out?"

I look at my pencil poised to write my name at the top of the paper and then I look over at the two-toned brown hair guy on my right. "Obviously."

He chuckles. "They don't actually care about those. They could give two shits about whether or not you fill it out. It's just a waste of your time."

"And how do you know this?"

"I think I hold the record for most detentions ever received." The guy shrugs. "I've been through one or two of those papers. Just thought I'd give you some advice."

"Well, I didn't ask for your advice," I snap. I put my right earbud in and continue filling out the paper.

The guy doesn't say anything else. Or maybe he does. I can't hear him, so it doesn't matter anyway.