IN BLOOM ; PARK GUNWOOK

two.

╰ IN BLOOM.

    "Oh my god, Nav. Slow the fuck down," Yeonhee says to me as she watches me completely devour my rice and spicy pork.

    "Just let her be. Apparently she didn't have time to eat breakfast," Haeyun says.

    "Well, don't say I didn't warn you when she chokes on her food,"

    Seori suddenly clears her throat. "So, Navin. Didn't you have something to tell us?"

    I stop in the middle of stuffing pork into my mouth. I tilt my head in confusion. "Hm?"

    "Remember?" she hums. "Our promise?"

    Oh, right. That.

    I begin to talk as soon as I finish chewing my food. "Right, so... apparently Jeongwoo has a girlfriend,"

    Seori slams her hands down on the table and shouts loud enough for the people around us to hear. "What the fuck? Who?"

    "Lee Juwon,"

    "Lee Juwon? As in the bitch at our school that nobody likes?"

    "Mhm,"

    "The fuck? Since when? And how did you find out?" Haeyun furrows her brows and makes a disgusted expression.

    "First, I have no idea when they started dating. And second, someone wrote a post about it on the school bulletin," I reply, acting like it didn't affect me personally.

    "How the fuck does that asshole already have a new girlfriend? It's been like what, four weeks since you broke up?" Seori exclaims.

    "Three weeks," Yeonhee corrects and Seori looks at her with a flabbergasted face.

    "Son of a bitch,"

    "So they've known each other for like two weeks max?" Haeyun asks.

    "Unless they've known each other before the breakup," Yeonhee says.

    "You're saying he was cheating on Nav?"

    "Well, not necessarily..." Yeonhee shrugs. "But I mean, it's Park Jeongwoo and Lee Juwon. There's no way they didn't know each other personally,"

    Haeyun places a hand on my shoulder. "Nav... are you okay?"

    "Pff, yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" I ask, scooping another spoon full of rice and shoving it in my mouth.

    That was a lie.

    That night, I spent at least two hours sobbing into my pillow, soaking it with my sticky and gross salty tears. I stared at the post through my blurry vision, reading it over and over again until it was encrypted into my head and I could state the entire thing by memory. But even then, I couldn't bring myself to believe it. How could he do this—do this to me? I felt like an old doll; only used when you needed it and once you've grown out of it, you throw it away and move on.

    But after a good sob, I surprisingly felt better. Because you know what? Fuck men. Who needs them anyway? I was single for more than half my life and I was just fine.

    That night, at one o'clock in the morning, I decided for myself that I'd try to enjoy life without having to cry over a male because they moved on too fast. I wanted to refresh my mind and start living a life I had never lived before.

#

    What the actual fuck.

It's the second day of school, and here I am, sitting in one of my favorite classes finding out that I have an essay to write. And all in English.

"This will be your first project of the year and you will be working with a partner—which, of course, I will be choosing. The purpose of this essay is to write a description of your partner, whether that be their characteristics or personality traits, and also your perception of them.

You will have exactly one month to complete this essay. And I expect to see fairly decent writing, considering that this is an advanced class,"

For the first time, I was annoyed and angered by my favorite subject. What kind of a teacher assigns a whole damn essay on the second day if school?

"Now. Your partners—"

My last hope is that my partner is Seori or at least someone I was close with. I could not survive to write an essay about a complete stranger.

"—will be your seatmate,"

I feel my heart drop at those words and, without thinking, I mutter, "Oh, fuck me,"

I hear a scoff from next to me. "In your dreams,"

I slowly turn my head to the owner of that voice and simply glare at him before averting my attention back to the front.

    "I will be giving more specific details tomorrow, but keep in mind that you and your partner will have to meet every week to fill out a weekly worksheet. This is mandatory," Mrs. Kang sternly says. "That's all from me. Take the rest of class time to introduce yourselves, if you haven't already,"

    The once quiet classroom soon turns into a chatty one while I'm quietly seated at my desk, rethinking my life choices and wondering what I must've done to get myself into this situation.

    "Well, I guess you're stuck with me for a month, Little Vin," he says with a smug face as he placed his hands on the back of his head. "Isn't this just wonderful?"

    "Very funny," I reply sarcastically, ignoring the awfully tacky nickname. "Look, we both don't like working together, but I really need to get a good grade on this,"

    He leans slightly forward. "Who said I didn't like it?"

    I roll my eyes and flick his forehead, causing him to yelp in pain. "Back up before I do anything worse,"

    "Why the fuck are your fingers so strong? That hurts like hell," he whines, rubbing his forehead.

    "I used to do volleyball, remember? Now you know not to play with me," I reply. "So do you get it?"

    "Whatever, just don't push your nerd agenda on me,"

    "We both know you need to pass this class in order for you to stay on the basketball team," I remind him, crossing my arms. "You don't want to get kicked off the team now, do you?"

Gunwook huffs and runs his fingers through his hair. He was clearly frustrated and I knew just by this reaction that I had gotten my answer.

I stretch my neck side-to-side and click my ballpoint pen. "Let's get to work,"

IN BLOOM.╯