사랑하니까 (On the Wings of Love)

II

A man with dark skin and crazy black glossy hair yapped away with an open book clutched in his left hand, unaware that he had already lost close to half his class of students to the sleep monster as he went on with his lecture about how feminism came about.

Yoona was apparently another victim. It was a good half an hour after their lunch break, and along with the humid weather, an excellent napping environment had been created. She took another shot at staying awake by inspecting the teacher’s facial characteristics, paying special attention to how droopy his eyes were, how incredibly broad his nose was, as well as his very thin lips.

As she noted how robust he was around the waist and how he managed to make such a cute t-shirt look like a disaster, she couldn’t help but picture a scene where he was much too large to fit through the doorframe of his own house. At this, a stifled chortle found its way out of her mouth and before she knew it, the educator was staring right at her, thudding his right foot impatiently. She straightened herself out at once and pressed her lips together, shooting her head down to stare at her empty desk.

When the man questioned what was so funny about the Victorian era, she boldly replied, “The fat people like you, Mr. Lee,” causing the remainder of the class to break out into hearty laughter. Oddly enough, Yoona derived joy from such instances. Perhaps it was because she felt capable when people actually laughed at stuff she said.

The schoolteacher turned red at once, both from embarrassment and displeasure, and he stormed over to where the rude girl was seated, challenging her to repeat what she just stated.

“I’ve always thought you were only overweight. I never knew you were partially deaf as well.” Again the students expressed their amusement, and the entire group started to get rowdy, cheering for Yoona and jeering at the older man.

Having taken quite enough, the teacher eventually ordered her to pay a visit to the Principal’s office, which she begrudgingly did.

“So, Im Yoona… you’re quite the class clown, aren’t you? According to your report file, you have yet to turn in your Physics assignments from last week, dozed off twice in class on Monday, got into a brawl with Jiyoung just yesterday, and are here again today for… mocking your Literature tutor…” The man seated in front of her took a double take at the teacher’s note, which was scribbled in deliberate, dark strokes that seemed to convey how fed-up he was.

All the time as he doled out the girl’s misdeeds, she simply yawned and sank further into her chair, satiated by all these people who were trying to run her life. The Principal had a difficult time trying to contact the girl’s father, and after ten phone calls, he gave up, deciding on the spot that she was to be detained in school until it was six that very day. When she made an effort to complain about how she would be bored to tears because she had four hours of absolutely nothing to do, he added that she should have completed a thousand lines of ‘I understand what I did was incorrect and it shall not be repeated in the future’ to be submitted by then.

*          *

“Seriously? Writing lines in this day and age? What am I, eight? Fucking hell…” Yoona quietly swore as she scratched away with her pen in almost illegible handwriting. It was already six and she was nowhere near a thousand.