A walk to remember || Tk

「Chapter 12 」

—Chapter twelve—

The following Monday was our last week of school before Christmas break, and finals were scheduled in every class. In addition, I had to finish my application for UNC, which I'd sort of been putting off because of all the rehearsals. I planned on hitting the books pretty hard that week, then doing the application at night before I went to bed. Even so, I couldn't help but think about Jungkook.

Jungkook's transformation during the play had been startling, to say the least, and I assumed it had signaled a change in him. I don't know why I thought that way, but I did, and so I was amazed when he showed up our first morning back dressed like his usual self: brown sweater, hair in a bowel cut, plaid trousers, and all.

One look was all it took, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. He'd been regarded as normal--even special--over the weekend, or so it had seemed, but he'd somehow let it slip away. Oh, people were a little nicer to him, and the ones who hadn't talked to him yet told him what a good job he'd done, too, but I could tell right off that it wasn't going to last.

Attitudes forged since childhood are hard to break, and part of me wondered if it might even get worse for him after this. Now that people actually knew he could look normal, they might even become more heartless.

I wanted to talk to him about my impressions, I really did, but I was planning to do so after the week was over. Not only did I have a lot to do, but I wanted a little time to think of the best way to tell him. To be honest, I was still feeling a little guilty about the things I'd said to him on our last walk home, and it wasn't just because the play had turned out great. It had more to do with the fact that in all our time together, Jungkook had never once been anything but kind, and I knew that I'd been wrong.

I didn't think he wanted to talk to me, either, to tell you the truth. I knew he could see me hanging out with my friends at lunch while he sat off in the corner, reading his Bible, but he never made a move toward us.

But as I was leaving school that day, I heard his voice behind me, asking me if I wouldn't mind walking him home. Even though I wasn't ready to tell him yet about my thoughts, I agreed. For old times' sake, you see.

A minute later Jungkook got down to business.

"Do you remember those things you said on our last walk home?" he asked. I nodded, wishing he hadn't brought it up. "You promised to make it up to me," he said.

For a moment I was confused. I thought I'd done that already with my performance in the play. Jungkook went on.

"Well, I've been thinking about what you could do," he continued without letting me get a word in edgewise, "and this is what I've come up with."

He asked if I wouldn't mind gathering the pickle jars and coffee cans he'd set out in businesses all over town early in the year. They sat on the counters, usually near the cash registers, so that people could drop their loose change in.

The money was to go to the orphans. Jungkook never wanted to ask people straight out for the money, he wanted them to give voluntarily. That, in his mind, was the Christian thing to do.

I remembered seeing the containers in places like Cecil's Diner and the Crown Theater. My friends and I used to toss paper clips and slugs in there when the cashiers weren't looking, since they sounded sort of like a coin being dropped inside, then we'd chuckle to ourselves about how we were putting something over on Jungkook.

We used to joke about how he'd open one of his cans, expecting something good because of the weight, and he'd dump it out and find nothing but slugs and paper clips.