Black & White [COMPLETED]

Chapter 3: Bullies

For the days that followed Junsu ignored me whenever he was near me. It was as if he had lost strength over me. Or so I thought...

On Friday we had P.E. class. It was such a weird day. At the start of the day I made sure I put my change of clothes in my locker and closed it. But somehow when it was time for me to do P.E., my gym clothes were gone. Even my trainers were gone. I looked around to see if anyone was watching me, but it seemed like no one could care less about me. Who would have taken them? Could Junsu...?

Whoever it was, it annoyed me to no end. I was never bullied at my previous schools. But everything changed once I started going to this school. And it was all because of him. Was he behind this? Honestly, who else could it be?

Since I didn't have my gym clothes, the teacher told me to sit on the benches and watch along as the class played basketball. To be honest, I couldn't do much of gym class anyway because of my back, so it didn't matter as much. First the girls played against each other, and then it was the guys' turn. Everyone seemed to be having fun except for me. And Junsu. I could tell that he would rather be doing anything else than basketball. He didn't seem to be getting along with his male classmates at all. But it didn't mean that he was bad at the sport. He kept scoring one hoop after another to the point where he was the only one doing all the work.

Eventually Junsu just dropped the ball and walked off the court. He seemed absolutely pissed off, maybe because his teammates weren't doing much. And he came over to sit right next to me. I could tell how some of the other students distanced themselves from the two of us almost immediately. They knew he had a temper problem, and they wanted me to deal with it. This was why I hated people.

I glanced at him quickly. Bad move.

"Don't look at me," he said in a low tone, his husky voice vibrating with anger.

I knew that tone all too well. It brought chills down my spine. I didn't tell him anything and kept looking at the game in front of me.

"Why aren't you playing?" he asked after a moment's silence.

The question surprised me for many reasons. Was he playing dumb with me? Or was it really not him?

"Someone... stole my P.E. clothes," I told him, studying him carefully.

He turned to me. "Hm..." He seemed lost in thought.

If it really were him, he would have been smiling by now. From what I've seen from him, he seemed like the type who wanted his ego to be fed by my fear. And when he didn't get what he wanted, he would either back off or throw a tantrum. Was this his tantrum? Or was this really the work of someone else? I would soon find out.

P.E. was the last lesson of the day. I made my way to my locker to put some books in it for the weekend. There was a note in it. It read: 'The river. Happy weekend'. Confused, I crumpled the paper up and threw it onto the floor. After putting my books that I wouldn't be needing on Monday in my locker, I closed it and walked off to wait for Dad.

Who left that note in my locker? What river was he talking about? I forgot there was a river a block away from our school. When I remembered this, I got a bad feeling. I hurried to the river, and indeed, I found all of my clothes floating in the water, including my clothes bag.

I bit my bottom lip, hard. I took a deep breath and jumped into the river. This was only my first week at school. Junsu went too far with this.

I heard giggling. I turned and saw a group of girls standing at the spot where I jumped in. They were holding cellphones. They were recording me. I remembered when I was starting to feel just a bit safer at school. The thought of that came crashing down. I assumed they were the ones who caused this, but my mind grew too dark for me to think clearly.

"How stupid can you be?" one of them asked, laughing.

"Stay away from Mr. Kim," another one shouted, "He's ours."

And then they walked away. I finally allowed the tears I've been holding back to overflow. What the hell just happened? Did I seriously get bullied by some stupid fangirls? Did they have a crush on Mr. Kim? Really?

Sure, so I've been spending a bit of extra time with him to avoid being alone with Junsu. But what part of them made them think they had a chance with him? What made them think that I liked him? He was a teacher. They were crazy for doing this over an obsession with someone they could never get.

I picked up my stuff from the river and scrambled my way back out. I did find some curious onlookers, but nobody approached me to ask me if I was alright. Instead they laughed.

A car's honk made me jump. It was, ironically enough, Mr. Kim himself. He was giving me a pitiful look that angered me more than anything else. I was tired of people giving me that look. Since Mom passed everyone kept giving me that look.

But when he of all people asked me if I was okay, something inside of me broke. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. But at that time I saw it as a good sign. Mr. Kim was a good guy. At least he asked me if I was okay. I could trust him.

[Junsu]

Was she being targeted?

That was the first thing that I thought when I saw a group of girls slipping a note inside So Young's locker. I was already in a crappy mood these days. But this was just... weird. As far as I knew, those girls didn't have a reason to be bullying her. Threatening her was my job. There was something about someone stealing your job that pissed a person off.

The following week the bullying continued. I could tell, because she was extra quiet and kept her head down a lot when she was surrounded by people. Even when I took one of her books while she was using it and refused to give it back to her, she didn't fight back. She just didn't care. I ended up watching her literally every single day, either up close or from afar.

What also annoyed me was how close she was getting to Mr. Kim. I knew that she was doing it so that I couldn't get close to her. I wanted to prove her wrong.

One day when school was over, I started trailing her. I could tell that she was going to walk home that day. Her dad had picked her up every day up until today, so this was my chance.

I saw her glancing back a few times. A small grin inched its way to my face. It's been a while since I felt this adrenaline. There was something about her and the way she always reacted that made me want to scare her more.

Surprisingly the girls who were bullying her suddenly jumped out in front of her, making her stop. I stopped walking too. I watched how they shoved her around and threw a big bag of flour all over her. Another girl took out a case of raw eggs and smashed them on her head, one by one. She didn't defend herself. She didn't say anything. She just lied there on the ground like a helpless puppy.

Before I could think about it, I started coming their way. The girls noticed me and took off. I stopped next to her and looked down at her. She was staring hard at the ground, as if she didn't want to see anyone.

"Get up," I grunted at her. She didn't react, so I pulled her up by her arm forcefully. "I said, get up."

The dark look in her eyes finally lifted. She looked at me. Oh great, she was about to cry... Crying women always made me uncomfortable. I looked away from her and let her go.

"This is why they keep doing this to you," I said, feeling frustrated at her, "Stand up for yourself more."

It was kind of hypocritical of me to tell her that, but it was all I could think of. Not wanting to get more involved in this as I already was, I walked off and left her behind. It just wasn't fun seeing other people push her around.