Illusion

Renoa

Today is a new day. It’s a new school, no one even knows you here. Everyone you have met here in the last 24 hours has been super nice to you. If adults here are that nice, the kids probably will be too, right? The young male gets up from his bed with a heavy sigh, he doesn’t know what this new school will be like and he definitely doesn’t want to find out. The brown-haired boy takes off his blue and white patterned pajamas and throws on a loose-fitting white T-shirt with a pair of jeans and black boots to make him look somewhat put together. After fixing his hair and brushing his teeth he goes back into his room and grabs his book bag that sits by the foot of his bed and heads downstairs to the kitchen. He makes his way into the dimly lit kitchen and makes a small bowl of cereal before sitting down beside his mom.

“I know you’re upset that you had to move schools hun, but I’m sure you’ll make friends here. Just go talk to someone, it’s really not that hard,” his mom says in a soft tone, she feels bad that he had to switch schools but they had no choice, they both know that. He had to deal with people bullying him every day, she’s just doing what is best for her son and she had heard people talking about Renoa for a long time so she wanted to give her son a better life at least for his last couple years of high school.

Is she really that out of touch with reality? Is it really not that difficult? Am I making it seem harder than it is? Does she know I didn’t even have friends at my old school, or does she just have that high of hopes for me? Regardless of what she thinks, he knows she just wants to do what’s best for him. “I know, I’ll try to make some friends. I’m sure that this place will be different, and people already seem so much nicer here,” he gives off a reassuring smile to his mom wanting her to believe he has the same amount of faith she does.

“Good, I just want you to have at least some fun before you go to college. Also, make sure you get home right after school, we have to go to the neighbor's house.” He nods as she talks not paying too much attention to her words. As time passes he starts to get more and more anxious about what this school will be like. He checks his phone almost choking at the time seeing that it is now 7 am meaning he only had 40 minutes to get there and he usually gets there about 10 minutes before class starts. The kid quickly gets up hugs his mom and leaves to head to his new school. He gets tired of always having to walk to school but his mom never had a car and his dad had always worked the overnight shift so he always had to walk to school. As he steps out of his house and onto the dusty porch a warm breeze brushes across his skin. While he walks to school he looks around at the scenery trying to relax.

The 14-year-old strolls down the street noticing how the trees sway in the breeze and how the sun shines through the gaps in the leaves. The fresh morning air blows through his hair messing it up and undoing all the work he put in it this morning. He soon gets to the large gold doors belonging to his school, the sun rays bounce off the gold making it brighter than it usually was. He walks inside the school to see that he’s not as early as he thinks and he quickly walks to room 305 which was the room the principal had told him to go to when he got to school the first day. He walks down the brightly lit hallway trying to find the room.

300, 302, 304… he looks at the left side of the hallway, 305! He opens the door slowly to not draw too much attention to him. Suddenly, a couple of kids in the very back turn to face him, some are nonchalant about it and turned to the front again, some give him a weird look like he is in the completely wrong room. One girl in particular though continues looking though, longer than anyone else. As he looks around the full room he notices that pretty much all the seats are taken up except for the one beside that girl. As he takes his seat he notices that she’s already done staring at him and she’s now invested in her phone.

He takes a deep breath and looks at her once he sits down, “h-hey, my name is Jungkook, what’s your name?

“My name is Naeun,” she looks up from her phone and looks at him happily, “I guess you’re the new kid here? Everyone has been talking about a new kid for a couple of weeks now.”

“I guess this school doesn’t get many new kids, huh?” The school is pretty big already so they don’t need a lot of new students every year anyway. She shakes her head smiling at his smart remark before going back on her phone. The teacher comes in soon to start teaching so Naeun and Jungkook can’t talk much during class, which Jungkook doesn’t mind since he barely knows her anyway.

                             ———————

Jungkook listens to music as he walks home reflecting on what had happened during the day. He hadn’t made any friends like he promised his mom, he only talked to Naeun, but for some reason that’s enough to satisfy him and no matter what his mom says to him about him not making friends nothing can bring him down now. After walking for about 40 minutes or so he steps onto his low white colored porch and opens the matching door walking into the quiet and dark setting. He walks into the living room to see his mom sitting there watching TV he sits beside her.

“So how was school today? Make any friends?” She blurts out not even bothering to face him.

Do I disappoint her now or later? I don’t want her to think I wasn’t trying today. I think today was the hardest I’ve ever tried to make friends. “It was pretty good, and I did make a couple friends today, everyone was really nice overall though, I think I’ll really like it here.” Why make her worry more than she needs to? Just tell her what she needs to hear.

Is he being genuine this time? I hope he’s actually making friends this time. She thinks to herself before acknowledging what he said. “That’s good hun, get ready, we have that party to go to tonight.” And with that she gets up and leaves the room to go get dressed leaving Jungkook in front of the TV screen. He gets up and goes up to his room leaving his book bag laying by the door.

About another 3 hours goes by and Jungkook is finally ready for the 7 o’clock party. He checks himself in the mirror one last time wanting to make the best possible impression on the neighbors as possible. He combs his fly aways down and tucks in his silky blue shirt into his black jean pants and leaves his room going downstairs and waiting for his mom. Once his mom is ready about 10 minutes later they finally leaves the house. This isn’t a huge deal because the party is only at the house next door so it is only a one minute walk there. The neighbor’s house looks almost the same as his except the door is painted black instead of white and it has a nicer finish look to it. He walks in the house after his mom and to his surprise a decent amount of people are there, pretty much the whole neighborhood actually showed up which never happened at his old neighborhood, he didn’t even know half the people from his old neighborhood. He walks around with his mom staying quiet not knowing anyone there. His mom stops to talk to the neighbor that is the host of this party. He stands beside her but doesn’t pay any attention to what they’re saying and just looks around admiring the difference in quality of this house compared to his. The bright light in the living room that makes it seem somewhat happier than his house, he felt more at home there than he did at his new house for some reason. Right when he starts relaxing a bit and locks eyes with a dark brown haired girl about his age who had eyes that matched her hair. Her glowing olive toned skin stands out the most on her he thinks. He quickly comes to his senses realizing that it is the same girl he had sat with today, the only person he even met today, the sweet girl that made his day so much better: Naeun.