[no reason] - eric sohn

one: haircuts and hellos

Jihyun's never been the type to draw attention to herself. She had always just kind of been... there. Nothing completely outstanding a bit above average, maybe, but that's about it. 

She would attend all the important school events, like the year-end block party, and occasionally helped out with a club event or two, yet, she never joined any of these extracurriculars, claiming they were too much energy.

So, when she showed up on a Wednesday morning, missing 10 inches off her head and sporting a new platinum dye job, there were some stares. 

"Good morning!" She stood in the doorway, one hand waving brightly, the other holding her bag.

People stared, obviously. 

Who wouldn't?

It's normal to greet friends, sometimes the professor if they were likeable, but rarely ever do you see someone say this to a class of 200 students. 

The noise died down significantly in the lecture hall. People stopped their conversations to see what the silence was about.

A beat.

Then the chattering came back tenfold.

As you grew older, you realized just how little everyone else mattered, especially so in college. Nobody here had the time to spend worrying about others, not when they had mountains of their own troubles.

So really, it was all the better for Jihyun that the class chose to ignore the very odd and very sudden change in her demeanour. 

She headed to her usual spot in the back of the hall, where her best friend sat waiting, a puzzled expression on her face.

"Morning Doyeon."

"What was all... that," Doyeon asked.

Now Jihyun could play it two ways, actually tell her what was going on or play dumb.

"What are you talking about?"

She chose the latter.

"Oh real funny Jihyun," Doyeon's unimpressed, "seriously what was that."

Jihyun put her bag down and slid into the seat beside Doyeon, still faking a confused expression.

"I don't know what you mean."

Doyeon stayed silent and instead decided to stare Jihyun down until she broke. 

And break she did.

"Okay, fine, so, I read somewhere that if you tell someone good morning then it subconsciously wires their brain to make them think their morning is good so then-"

"Since when did you ever care about other people." 

Doyeon didn't mean it in a mean way, she never meant anything in a mean way. It was true that she had never cared much about others, but it was different to hear it from the mouth of someone so close to her.

"Since now?" It came out more as a question than an answer.

"Okay..." Doyeon waited for Jihyun to continue before realizing that she wasn't, "you're not going to elaborate?"

"No, not really," Jihyun took out her laptop, "and shouldn't you be doing something productive, not interrogating me? You're not even in this class Ms. Pre-med."

"Don't change the topic on me Jihyun, I haven't even gotten to your hair yet." She ran a hand through Jihyun's hair, "Blonde? Really?"

"Does it look... bad?"

"No it's cute, but... why? You weren't gonna even give me a heads up? Like maybe you could've sent a 'Oh I chopped all my hair off and bleached it platinum don't look act too shocked when you see me' text?"

Jihyun paused to think. "Surprise?"

"You know what, I'm not even going to ask anymore."