Clinging to Friendship

Chapter 5

The next day I met with Layne and Ji-Yeong by the bus entrance. This morning had been one of the most peaceful mornings in such a long, long time. My mom had a day off of work today, so she decided to sleep in and my father had an early meeting, So, thankfully, I didn’t have to deal with either one of them. Even my bus ride had been quiet. Josh hadn’t been on today and so it had been the quietest day I had, had in so long. But now, my peace and quiet would end because I had to meet up with Ji-Yeong and act like I wanted to be friends with him. I plastered the nicest fake smile I could muster on my face and I greeted the both of them.

“Yo Ji-Yeong. Hi Layne. How are you guys this morning?” I asked them. Layne looked happy to see me, which was great because I wasn’t sure how well he would respond to me today after how I acted yesterday. Ji-Yeong, on the other hand, appeared to be kind of annoyed. Great, now what did I do? “What crawled up your butt and died Ji-Yeong?” he huffed at me in response and waved his hand dismissively in the air.

“It’s not you if that’s what you’re thinking, I just remembered that I forgot to finish my homework in Mrs. Layman’s class…” he groaned, rubbing his face in the process, “Jeez. It’s only the second day at school and I’ve already forgotten an assignment.” I heard Layne chuckle before he decided to speak up.

“Hey, would you like to copy mine? It wouldn’t be a good idea to get in trouble with Mrs. Layman. You probably don’t know this yet but she’s pretty much the scariest teacher here. You really don’t want to get on her bad side.” He said, which seemed to clear up Ji-Yeong’s annoyance.

“Oh my gosh. Yes please, thank you so much, Layne!” Ji-Yeong smiled at Layne before reaching into his backpack to retrieve what I assumed was to get his assignment. Layne nodded, took his backpack off and laid it down on the floor.

“Yeah, you’d definitely want to copy off of his homework. He’s the smartest one between the two of us,” I joked, which led to Ji-Yeong laughing. I felt my heart twinge and I pinched the side of my neck. That weird feeling was back. I kicked the ground with my foot and laughed as well. Not really because of him, it was more of me making myself laugh because I was just so damn funny.

“I’m sure that’s not true at all,” Ji-Yeong replied, his eyes were stuck to the two pieces of paper in his hands. Though there was still a huge smile on his face. “I did that. I put that smile on his face.” I thought proudly to myself.

“It’s a little true. You should hurry up with the copying,” I check the time on my phone, “The first bell is about to ring, and Mrs. L is on the opposite side of the school.” Layne nodded and took back the worksheet that Ji-Yeong was returning to him. Layne stuck the piece of paper into his backpack and zipped it up.

“So, is Poppy adjusting well to this school? She hasn’t really said anything to me about it,” I asked him, trying to keep some semblance of conversation going, that way we weren’t waiting around for Ji-Yeong to put his things away in silence.

“Wow, she hasn’t told you anything? Weird. Well, Poppy has been adjusting to this school really well. Like, I’m 90 percent sure that she has more friends than I do,” he replied, his eyes kind of glazed over as he thought of her. Layne was always so proud of his sister, and all her accomplishments. I always had this little hope that my sister could be as cool as her when she was older.

“That’s awesome. I’m glad that she’s fitting in here.”

“Hey, guys, I’m ready now. Let’s go,” Ji-Yeong quietly interrupted us, adjusting his backpack as he stood up. “Thank you so much, Layne.” He added on. Layne nodded and started walking off, with us trailing behind.

“No problem. I’m always willing to help out a friend in need.” Layne mentioned, just as the first bell rang overhead. “Oh no, we should walk a little faster. Come on,” Layne immediately began speeding up, leaving us to attempt to match his pace. Ji-Yeong was walking close beside me, occasionally his hand would brush against mine. It was kind of nice, really, I could almost pretend that we were holding hands… What the hell, I was acting like such a girl. Thinking that every little thing meant something. It was f*****g dumb. The next time Ji-Yeongs’ hand brushed against mine again I pulled my hand back like I had been burnt. I secretly checked his expression out of the corner of my eye, but it seemed like he hadn’t noticed. I breathed out a sigh of relief.

~

We just barely made it to Mrs. Layman’s class, but we made it just in time. Layne and I were breathing hard, trying to catch our breath, Ji-Yeong, on the other hand, looked just fine. He looked just as good as he usually did. How? We made our way over to our seats, Ji-Yeong and I sat at our table while Layne went over to his. I took just a couple of moments to breathe before I spoke to Ji-Yeong.

“How the heck are you not breathing as hard as Layne and I are? We practically ran here,” I questioned him. I wanted some answers if I had to be shamed by some athletic kid I wanted to know. Ji-Yeong laughed and answered me.

“At my old school - in Korea – I used to be on the track team. I was on the long-distance team,” he replied nonchalantly. Track, I wasn’t expecting that.

“Are you planning on joining the track team this year?” I asked him. “If you do I’ll come to any meets and cheer you on!” I thought that I would get a thank you or at least a smile from him, but he just turned away from me and scratched the back of his head.

“I wish I could join the track team. I can’t though, I recently had to undergo surgery on my knee and I haven’t fully healed yet.” He explained to me. That’s why he looked so dejected. I mean, he was forcefully taken out of a sport that I assumed he loved, that pretty much explains why he’d be sad. “I should be able to join the track team in senior year though!” He mentioned, sounding a little more upbeat about being ready to join the team. Man though, I wasn’t in any sports, I was lazy as s**t, but I couldn’t even imagine how it felt to have to stop participating in something you loved.

“I mean, hey that’s great at least, you get to end your senior year doing something you love!” I told him, attempting to raise his spirits, which it looked like he appreciated. I’m glad it seemed to do so.

“Excuse me, Kian. Ji-Yeong. I know that you’re probably having an important conversation, seeing that you’re talking over my lesson, but right now you are in my class. I would like it if you could please pay attention,” Mrs. Layman announced from the front of the room. “Both of you will have detention after school today, I expect for you to be there.” Oh, great…. I nodded, not even wanting to try and argue against it.

“Yes, Mrs. Layman. I’m sorry for talking in class,” I apologized to her before peeking over at Ji-Yeong. I’d really rather he wasn’t upset with me over this. I checked up on him and saw that he was trying to hold back his laughter. I smiled, glad that he was laughing and not angry with me.

I took out a piece of paper and wrote on it before sliding it over to him.

“See you in detention.”

~

The rest of the morning passed by without incident. Lunchtime had arrived, and I was seated at my normal table, with Layne, Poppy, and Ji-Yeong seated around me.

“I really can’t believe you got detention. You’ve never gotten a detention, dumbass,” Layne berated, between his mouthfuls of food.

“And to top it off, you got poor Ji-Yeong involved as well,” Poppy mentioned, glaring at me. She pointed her pudding covered spoon at me, threating to throw it at me.

“I did not get him involved as well, we got detention together.”

“No, I think that Poppy’s right in this. I’m the poor innocent foreign student. It’s only my second day here and you get me in trouble,” Ji-Yeong said, I snapped my head over to him about to tell him off when I noticed the badly hidden smile, his eyes were filled with laughter as well.

“Um, I don’t remember it going down this way at all. I haven’t had detention ever. You did this to me. You’re a bad influence, not doing your homework and then getting me in trouble with Mrs. Layman.” I tsked at him. Layne snorted and looked away from the two of us. “What? You got something to say to me, Layne?”

“It’s just you are saying that Ji-Yeong’s a bad influence. Don’t you remember that time when we were ten and you thought it would be a good idea for us to go play in the woods? We ended up getting lost for like the entire night! When our parents finally found us, we weren’t allowed to leave the house for like a month.” I gritted my teeth awkwardly. Man, I had tried to forget that for a reason… He may not have been allowed to leave the house for a month, but I could barely sit down for a month. My parents were so pissed off.

“Oh man! I had forgotten about that,” Poppy exclaimed, “Damn, mom and dad were so freaked out by the fact that you were missing.” Layne nodded, he looked like he was thinking back to that time.

“Yeah, yeah and there was this time when you thought it would be a good idea to sword fight with these giant ass sticks,” Layne reminisced, “yeah, that really was a bad idea.” Yep. He wasn’t wrong about that. I’d rather not remember what happened then,

“Wait, so what I’m hearing is that, it’s not my fault that we got detention!” Ji-Yeong mentioned.

“Yeah, totally not your fault, he’s always been a bad influence,” Poppy said. My mouth floundered open. I could not believe that my friends were ganging up on me right now.

“What? I am so not a bad influence. I was just a reckless kid when I was younger.” I huffed.

“And a reckless kid now,” Layne whispered to Ji-Yeong. What is up with my supposed friends ganging up on me?

“You know, I came out to have a good time right now, and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now.” Layne and Poppy groaned in annoyance.

“Really dude? That is such an old meme. Let IT DIE!” Poppy yelled at me. Ji-Yeong was looking between the three of us, his face a mask of confusion.

“Do you not have memes in South Korea?” Poppy asked Ji-Yeong curiously.

“Of course, we do. Just our memes have to do with South Korea, not America. I haven’t heard of some of these.” He explained. Oh no, Poppy smiled creepily. She just found someone that she could bombard with memes. One of just the many reasons that I had her blocked on all of my social media accounts.

“Hey,” I slid over to Ji-Yeong and whispered into his ear, “Don’t ever give her your number or social media. You will regret it.”

“Kian! Don’t you dare try to convince him to block me!” She was climbing out of her chair just as the bell rang.

“Sorry Pops, got to go!” I grabbed my backpack and rushed out of the cafeteria, trying my best to escape from her clutches.