Clinging to Friendship

Chapter 2

The bell soon chimed signaling the end of class had come. Oh, my f*****g god. Thank you! I hurried to grab up all of my stuff and shove it into my backpack, I kept gesturing my head to the door to try and get Layne to understand I wanted to leave immediately. But that little fucker either chose to ignore it or didn’t notice my gestures. He walked right up to Ji-Yeong and smiled a huge welcoming smile.

“Hey, Ji-Yeong! Nice to meet you,” Layne greeted him, why did he have to bother the new kid. I just wanted to get out of here. “The name’s Layne, and this is my friend Kian!” I had just taken one step closer to the door when he decided to grab me by my shoulders and held onto me tightly. Stopping me in my tracks. He totally knew that I was attempting to get out of here, but apparently, that wasn’t what Layne wanted. He was totally trying to befriend Ji-Yeong.

“Nice to meet you,” Ji-Yeong replied frostily. Oh good, it seemed like he really didn’t want to talk to us. For which I was extremely grateful. I really didn’t want to talk with him any longer.

“Sorry that you had to walk in on that this morning. I would say that it’s not normally like that, but Josh usually has some kind of outburst that gets him sent to detention. I personally think that he’s just trying to get out of class.” Layne laughed. I tried to ignore the two of them, choosing to think of some way to get out of Layne’s grasp. He might not look it, but he was fairly strong. When he turned 12 he decided he wanted to get ripped and ever since then his room was literally filled with work out equipment.

“Oh no, don’t worry about it… I had a guy like that in my previous school. I was kind of hoping that I wouldn’t have to encounter that with this school. You know, with it being a private school and all?” He replied, a slight smile crossing his face. It was a nice smile, despite it being a small smile it lit up his entire face. I really liked it, and I almost responded with a smile of my own before I remembered that I was trying NOT to befriend him or get close to him.

“I personally think that people in private schools are just as bad as public schools, except that people here are richer,” Layne said, leaning up against me. Please let me go, Layne. I thought to myself.

“Hey Ji-Yeong,” Mrs. Layman spoke up, causing me to jump in surprise.

“Jesus, Mrs. Layman. How the heck did you manage to get behind us that fast?” I asked her, as she walked around the three of us, so we could face her, and she wasn’t speaking to our backs.

“Doesn’t really matter, I need to speak with Ji-Yeong,” she replied to us, a little harshly. Man, I just asked her a question, “I noticed that you were having trouble with the lesson, what’s going on?”

Ji-Yeong’s face flushed and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh… Yeah… You were speaking a little too fast. It’s kind of hard for me to understand when you speak that fast,” he responded.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I would slow down for this semester but since we’re getting close to finals, I have to finish up my lessons so that my students at least know what’s on the test. Next semester I promise to be a little slower, so you can understand,” she apologized to him. Probably the first time I’ve seen her be so kind. She can be a little harsh.

“Yes of course. Thank you, Mrs. Layman,” Ji-Yeong said. He sounded a little disappointed, maybe even upset. I couldn’t quite tell.

“Hey, Ji-Yeong! You know that Kian is really good at English, he probably has the best grades in this class. I bet he could help you out!” Layne offered my services to him. I gave him a look of shock. Really dude? You are actually killing me. Ji-Yeong glanced up at me, his expression had changed from disappointment to actual hope. He had this whole puppy dog look about him and I couldn’t bring myself to say no.

“Yeah… I can help you out… I guess,” man I really am a sucker for those looks. That’s how Layne used to get me to do everything for him when we were younger.

“Glad that’s all settled. Now, you do realize that if you don’t get out of here you are going to be late for your next class,” Mrs. Layman scolded us. Layne nodded his head rapidly, put his backpack on and pushed the two of us out of her room. If I could say that there was only one thing about him that irritated me, he hated to be late, I think it had to do with how his parents were always just a couple minutes early to everything. Also, it would really suck to piss Mrs. Layman off, any more then she was. She was not the kind of person whose bad side you wanted to be on.

It was only about a minute later into our walk to our next classes when Layne decided to ask him another freaking question.

“So, what’s your next class Ji-Yeong?” Oh my god. I swear, I loved Layne like a brother, but could he please just stop asking him so many questions. I didn’t want Ji-Yeong thinking that I wanted to be friends with him. Layne might want to, but I wasn’t going to get any closer to him then I had to be.

“Um…” Ji-Yeong scanned his schedule and after a little bit he said, “My next class is Trigonometry with Mr. Geoffrey.” Really? I looked up at the ceiling in exasperation. What the hell, if there was a God, he was seriously trying to make my life as hard as possible.

“What a coincidence! Kian over here has Trig with Mr. Geoffrey too,” I could literally hear him smirking, it was irritating.

“Yeah… the coincidences are astronomical…” I muttered under my breath. This day just kept getting better and better. I didn’t know why I was being so rude today, I’m usually kind of nice. Not as cheerful and welcoming as Layne but I wasn’t some asshole who just hated talking to people.

“Excuse me Kian,” Ji-Yeong stated. I stopped walking and picked my gaze up from the floor to stare at him. He was glaring at me. “I don’t want to be rude but what crawled up your ass and died? Your friend has been very nice to me, but you’ve just been kind of an asshole.” He demanded, staring me straight in the eyes. His eyes that had once held a nice warmth to them, were now looking at me, as cold as ice. I returned his glare not stepping back. I really wasn’t expecting him to confront me on my behavior, it pissed me off.

Layne was standing next to me, he placed a hand on my shoulder and looked up at me. He looked anxious, and it brought me back from my anger. I nodded at him and turned back to face Ji-Yeong.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to be rude to you. My day’s just been really shitty,” I apologized, sighing as I did so. I really didn’t want to get into an argument with him, especially since Layne was right beside me. He never liked when I was angry, at him or others. Besides I didn’t like the look in Ji-Yeong’s eyes. It didn’t seem right for him to be angry like it was unnatural for him to not have some positive expression.

“Jeez, have a bad day or whatever but don’t take it out on me,” he replied sternly. Layne was looking back and forth between the two of us, he appeared to be really embarrassed though. He wasn’t the best with confrontations, watching them or being in them.

“You know what… I think I’m going to leave you two and head off to class, so I won’t be late. See ya,” he waved at Ji-Yeong and me before jogging off to his next class, far away from us. Damn it all, now I was all alone with Ji-Yeong. Well, not exactly alone, there were still some people trying to get to their classes. Some were moving quickly, others were just hanging around their friends, not wanting to get to class yet.

Ji-Yeong sighed softly and rubbed his eyes, “Alright then… Do you mind showing me to Trigonometry? I’d rather not be late to my second class,” he asked me. He still sounded pretty annoyed with me, which made complete sense. I hadn’t been making the best first impression. Oh well.

“Yeah, yeah. Come on,” I said, turning my back to him the process. I waved my hand at him, gesturing for him to follow me. I headed down one of the hallways to our left, not particularly caring if he followed me or not. If he didn’t it would be his fault if we were late. I heard him mutter something in a different language, probably some kind of curse at me. I inwardly shrugged and kept walking.

~

Finally, lunchtime. The only good thing about this school was that they actually cooked their food. It wasn’t like they bought pre-made ingredients to serve us like they did in public schools. I had my tray piled high with packaged snacks and like one thing that had been cooked here.

Layne was already at the table, talking to his sister and… Ji-Yeong. How the heck was he literally everywhere? First in English, then in Trig, and now he was at lunch with us. I hadn’t had to see him since second period and now he was back.

I set my tray down and sat in my regular spot, right beside Layne and his sister, Poppy. Ji-Yeong was on the opposite side of our table, not really speaking up. He was leaving that to Poppy and Layne, they were the two chatterboxes of this table.

“Hey hey! Kian! You’ve met Ji-Yeong, right? Isn’t he great!” Poppy asked me, leaning over my tray, her long blonde hair practically falling into my food. I nodded, a grimace stuck to my face, as I attempted to push her hair off my food.

“Yeah, real great. Can you please move now? I’d rather not eat your hair,” I replied dryly. She pouted and moved away from me.

“You’re never going to get a girlfriend if you keep acting that way. You’re too mean,” she said, turning her nose up at me. I waved dismissively at her and started digging into my food.

“Mhm, I know,” Ji-Yeong snorted at our exchange, I snapped my head up and stuck my tongue out at him.

“What are you? A child,” he retorted. I just stuck my tongue out again, not wanting to respond to him. Even though he was pretty, he was kind of annoying. I bet he was the kind of person who was used to girls fawning over him and guys kissing his boots. He probably wasn’t used to anyone who didn’t like him.

“Did you know that Ji-Yeong was born in South Korea? He moved here like a couple weeks ago?” Layne said, checking with Ji-Yeong that he was right in what he was saying. When he got his confirmation, he continued speaking. “Yeah and so he moved here because of his dad’s work.” I really wasn’t paying that much attention to what Layne was saying, I was too busy eating my lunch. I was starving.

“Wait, so then, how are you so good at speaking English?” Poppy asked Ji-Yeong I assumed, I was still too engrossed in my food.

“My mom and dad both knew that English was important for me if I was going to want to succeed in life I had to know it. So, they hired tutors when I was younger to teach my brother and I,” he explained to us.

“How old’s your brother?” Layne asked.

“He-” Ji-Yeong started to speak but immediately cut himself off. “You know what, let’s talk about something else…” That drew my attention to the conversation. Why didn’t he just answer the question? It was just a question about his brothers' age. Hmm. What was he hiding?