daybreak || minsung

Chapter 7

I stumbled to English in a trance. Everything was making me dizzy. Was this what vertigo felt like? Was this what being high felt like?

When I walked in the door, class had already started.

"Mr. Lee," was all Mr. Mason had to say to disorient me further. I took my seat and didn't listen to the lecture.

Mike and Eric met me outside of English. By that point I had collected myself enough to function properly. As we walked through the hallways, Mike talked endlessly about the trip to the beach he was organizing. I wondered if he'd ever actually get to the beach, or if he would just be planning it forever. 

The rest of the morning was a blur. Being indoors, out of the sheeting rain, it was seeming more and more like I'd imagined my conversation with Jisung. He'd said too many unbelievable things to believe. Maybe I'd been dreaming. Maybe I was still dreaming; I pinched myself, and regretted it immediately. I had claws like an unkempt cat.

There was an uneasy knot in my stomach as Jessica and I entered the cafeteria. I half-expected to find that Jisung hadn't come to school today. That he didn't exist after all — he'd been a figment of my imagination the entire time, a hallucination my subconscious dreamed up to torture me. Or maybe it was all an elaborate prank, set up by some all-seeing puppet-master. I looked at Jessica differently, suspecting she might be an actor in a wig.

My eyes instantly focussed on their table, and my heart slid down my spine. The other five were there, but his chair was empty. I spun around a few times, scanning the ocean of people in the room. I couldn't find him. I followed Jessica into the lunch line. She was talking about the dance, but I couldn't make myself hear her. My appetite had fled — I bought nothing but a limeade to suck on. I just wanted to sink into my chair and let those grudging manga scribbles float atop my head.

"Jisung Han is looking at you again," Jessica whispered. As soon as she said his name I was listening. "I seriously think he wants to fight you."

I followed Jessica's gaze to see Jisung, sitting alone at a table on the other side of the cafeteria. Our eyes locked, and he smiled, showing the dimples at the corners of his mouth. It was infuriating how cute he was.

He gestured toward himself.

"Does he mean you?" Jessica asked.

Almost as if he heard her, he pointed at me, and then himself, and then waved me over with both his arms like he was landing a plane.

I turned to Jessica. "We have Biology together. Bye."

I could feel her eyes on my back as I walked away.

When I reached his table, I stopped and looked at him, my mouth a line, and asked, "What's this now?"

He smiled again, and my breath left me. "Wanna sit together today?"

In all honesty, this was exactly what I wanted, even though I was pretty sure I was supposed to be either interrogating or ignoring him. The whole van incident seemed to be disappearing in the rear view mirror. My lips twitched up — I coughed to hide it.

I sat down, dropped my backpack, and tapped the table with my fingernails.

"Hi again," I said.

"Yo," he replied.

"What's the special occasion?"

He shrugged. "It's Tuesday."

"It's Thursday."

"Oh." He clicked his tongue. "Even better."

"It would be better if it was Saturday," I mused.

"Why?"