Clinging to Friendship

It was dark and foggy this morning. The quiet rumble of the bus playing in the background. I stared outside of the window, watching as trees and houses passed by. They were all covered by a heavy coating of fog. The whole world felt still. It sent a chill down the back of my neck. I rubbed my arms trying to warm myself up, even with my coat on it was insanely cold, I could thank the December weather for that. The bus was surprisingly quiet, maybe because everyone was focusing on staying warm and not freeze their ass off. Our bus driver never put the heating on, I think the reason was for that was that the heating was broken. Even some of the most annoying people were quiet. I was thankful for that. I was not in the mood to deal with their annoying loud talking. My morning hadn’t exactly been the best. My mom had been up all night with my little sister Quincy. So, she had been completely on edge when I had gotten up and she chose to harp on me for literally nothing at all. Thankfully my dad had managed to calm her down and told her to go back to bed. I felt a little bad about being pissed off at her, it wasn’t her fault she was tired, Quincy was really wearing her down. It was a little while later when the bus finally pulled into the school’s bus lot. Somehow the trip had felt even longer but honestly, I was a little happy to be at school now. I could finally warm up and talk with Layne. I stepped off of the bus and looked up at the private school I was attending. This place never ceases to amaze me. It was humongous. It never failed to remind me of a prison. The outside dark gray brick walls, tiny windows that barely let in any light, and the tall chain link fence that went along the perimeter of the school. I can’t believe they never tried to fix how prison like it was. It hadn’t even been a prison before, it was always a school! I rushed into the school, not wanting to be out in the freezing cold any longer then I had to. As soon as I entered, I found my friend Layne waiting for me at the bus entrance. “Dude, how are you not freezing? It’s like 30 degrees!” he grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me playfully, “You’re not wearing a coat, moron!” I laughed at his reaction and pulled away from him. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Haven’t you seen those white boys wearing basketball shorts in like 2-degree weather. I’m in jeans. It’s all good,” I assured him before jabbing him in the side playfully, I could feel the outline of his binder in the process. He laughed with me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Hey Kian, we should get to class early. I heard that there’s a new kid coming in today and he’s going to be in our class,” I looked at him curiously. I swear, he always knew what was happening. “How do you even know that Layne?” I asked him. He just smirked at me and headed off towards our classroom. “Come on! Tell me,” I called after him. I got some ugly looks from people walking around us. They probably weren’t pleased that I was yelling so early in the morning. I followed after him, resting my arms behind my head as I walked. “You know what, I don’t even really care. Who gives a s**t about the new kid?” I muttered irritated. I may be interested in the fact that we had a new kid, I wasn’t going to let Layne have the pleasure of knowing I was curious. “Kian, don’t you understand? It’s going to be great, we can totally play pranks on him!” I gave him a disapproving look and he gave me a sheepish look back. “Fine… We won’t do that… I guess,” Layne sighed. “Thanks, Layne, I’d rather not act like Josh,” I uttered in disgust. I absolutely hated Josh, he was one of the people who rode my bus. I couldn’t understand why anyone was friends with him or found him funny. He was a massive asshole and made awful jokes about autistic people, LGBT, and women. “What? You don’t like Josh’s’ sense of humor? I love his jokes on how he screws women every single night,” Layne teased me. “Oh, oh! I also love his jokes about trans people and how they have mental disorders,” I laughed. “Definitely. My favorites are how he get’s those girls to serve him sandwiches after f*****g them. I think those might be my favorite jokes that he makes,” I joked. Layne and I were practically hanging onto each other as we laughed at his expense. “God, Josh is such a total jackass.” “Oh yeah, no doubt about it!” We continued laughing as we walked to our English 12 class. ~ Layne and I continued joking around as kids filed in one by one. Every time someone came into the room, Layne would look up to see if the new kid was finally here. He really seemed interested in whoever it was coming into our class. But finally, the class had filled up and the bell rang. The new kid definitely wasn’t here. Oh well. Mrs. Layman, our English teacher, walked up to the front of the classroom and smiled at us all. “Good morning everyone!” She said brightly, “It’s nice to see that almost everyone in class is here, all except for our new student…” She trailed off and I could see a slight look of worry in her eyes. “Let’s just start our lesson and maybe he’ll come soon.” “Hey!” I heard Josh speak up. I groaned inwardly already knowing that this was going to be terrible. “Mrs. L, I know someone who’ll be coming soon. Why don’t you show up at my house later tonight?” My mouth gaped open, and I looked right at Layne, who was just as shocked as I was. He did not just say that to our teacher? Did he not have some kind of filter? What the f**k was wrong with him? Mrs. Layman looked at him and I seriously did not want to be on the receiving end of that glare. Damn if looks could kill, Josh would be obliterated. “Josh Palmer. Detention. 3 hours.” Her reply was quick and clipped, trying to contain her anger. Damn. “Oh, I can’t wait babe!” he pursed his lips at her in a kissing motion, which only made her angrier. “Josh, get out now. Go and see the principal if you want to continue with that language. I’ll call him, so he knows to be expecting you,” she growled. Literally, everyone in the class, even Josh’s friends, looked seriously uncomfortable, what an awesome first period. I can’t wait to find out what the rest of the day will be like. I groaned and buried my head in my arms. This was so uncomfortable. Suddenly a quiet cough sounded from the door. I looked up and right at the entrance of the classroom was a tall Asian guy. His face was completely flushed red, and he was looking down at the ground. Oh man, he must have heard that entire conversation up until now. That poor guy, his first day and he walks in on this. Mrs. Layman turned toward him, and she looked just as flustered as him. “Oh! Yi-Heong, I am so sorry you had to walk in on this. Mr. Palmer was just on his way out,” she said, throwing a glare at him. He nodded and gathered up his things before running out the door, bumping into Yi-Heong in the process. “I’m sorry, Mrs. But my name is Yi-Heong, it’s Ji-Yeong… It’s nice to meet you, ma’am,” he corrected her quietly. He didn’t exactly look like a quiet guy but honestly, I think if I was in his situation I would be just as quiet. “Oh of course! I am so sorry Ji-Yeong. It’s nice to meet you,” she apologized, holding out her hand for him to shake. At this, he finally looked up from the floor and took her hand. “Don’t worry about it, it’s a difficult name to pronounce,” he murmured, turning to scan the classroom until his eyes met mine. Wow… He was actually kind of handsome. Fluffy, black hair, really beautiful dark brown eyes. They looked almost as dark as mine. He had such a nice jawline, and high cheekbones, almost like he had been sculpted from clay. And his skin looked completely flawless, I couldn’t see any marks on him, acne or otherwise. How the hell did he manage to look like this? “Ack!” I made a noise when I realized that I had been looking at him weirdly. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. What was I doing? I turned away from him and looked down at my desk, trying to figure out what the heck was happening. What the hell? This was disgusting… Why was I thinking like this, I tapped my foot on the ground trying to bring myself back to reality. I slapped my cheeks gently, hoping to not bring attention to myself. I didn’t have anything against gay people, even with their lifestyle being weird as hell, but I totally wasn’t one. I was just having some weird thoughts, that was all. “Alright, so Ji-Yeong why don’t you go and sit over there,” My attention was brought back to Mrs. Layman and Ji-Yeong at the front of the room. Mrs. Layman was pointing to the desk that was coincidentally right next to mine. Great. So, for the rest of this semester, I was going to be sitting next to the pretty boy. I watched him as he walked through the rows of desks until he was right by the one next to me. He set his things down and sat down. Ji-Yeong began pulling things out ready to take notes on the lesson. I, on the other hand, was completely unprepared. I didn’t even have a pencil out. Whoops. I quickly hurried to get my binder out and my pencil so that I could take notes, I didn’t want my grades falling because I wasn’t paying attention in class. In my rush, I accidentally dropped my pencil, while I was trying to take it out of my pencil pouch. It ended up rolling right over to Ji-Yeong’s feet. I gritted my teeth and tapped on his shoulder. “Uh, excuse me. My pencil dropped by your feet, do you think you could grab it? Please.” I whispered, trying not to draw attention to myself. He jumped away from my hand a little bit, I assume it was because I startled him. He blinked and looked like he was thinking for a second before he nodded and leaned down to retrieve my pencil. “Here you go,” he murmured, his voice was quiet and thick with an accent. It sounded like he wasn’t exactly used to speaking English. Huh. Interesting. “Thank you,” I replied. I turned my attention back to getting ready to take notes, I was currently so far behind in the game. Mrs. Layman wasn’t the kind of teacher to talk slowly especially since we had just over 2 weeks before finals, and we still had a lot to talk about. Every once in a while, I would glance over to Ji-Yeong, he really looked like he was struggling right now. His face was a mask of confusion and just a little bit of dread. I mean the material wasn’t even that difficult, Mrs. Layman was talking about a book we had to read recently, but Ji-Yeong just looked lost as hell. Poor kid, it must be hard for him because he just transferred in near the end of the semester, it probably would’ve been smarter for him to transfer in before the first semester. Though, unfortunately for him, that’s not what happened.