Disingenuous

Chapter 3: Socail Climbing

Ji-Yeon

    I woke up to an incoming facetime call from someone, groaned as I put on my glasses to look at who it was from. King's name appeared on the screen, accompanied by a 6:06 A.M timestamp. I declined his call. Right as I took off my glasses, I heard a stream of notifications from my phone. Realizing they were all from King filled me with a passionate desire to block him.

King: wake up
King: Pick up my call biht
King: bitch*
King: Come over
King: I know you can see these
King: Boy you have your read receipts on, you're not slick
King: Don't turn them off and pretend like you're still asleep
King: You PROMISEDDD to help me
King: I'll be at your house in 7 minutes
I responded with a yawn emoji then set my phone back down in hopes to sleep again.

    I was just about to fall into a deep slumber when my blanket was yanked off my body. A disgruntled groan left my mouth as I pulled the blanket back onto my body, in a desperate attempt to cling on to my remaining lethargy, at this point it wasnt so much about sleep but more about annoying King.

"If you keep playing these games I won't hesitate to get your mom." As soon as those words left his mouth My eyes opened immediately. "All of a sudden I'm awake, and ready to start my bright Saturday morning." King chuckled "Yeah, that's what I thought." he said smacking me in the head.

    "So why did you wake me up at this ungodly hour?"

King glared at me, "Did you forget."

"Well I need to know what it is to see if I forgot." He flicked me, hard as hell. "Remember, it's time for the annual HRC party, you said you'd help set up."

I might've forgotten.

"Of course I remembered." I lied through my teeth as I got out of bed and put sweatpants over my boxer briefs.

HRC was our School's Human Rights Club on campus, which King led. Their first official meeting takes place this Friday, however King made a tradition of throwing a pre-party at his house every weekend before the club's first meeting, so that everyone could mingle first.

After talking about the party some more, I left King so that I could get my morning routine done. When I put in my contacts I looked at the mirror, and could see myself clearly for the first time today. My skin looked great after the sower, I couldn't help but to scrutinize the rest of my features. My body was sort of too lanky, it felt awkward to just have such long limbs. I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that I was forgetting something, but I walked out of the bathroom anyways.

Looking at my closet made my skin crawl. Finding clothes I liked was a challenge for parties. I didn't hate big crowds, but they unnerved me, occasionally making me feel self conscious.

I feel the most insecure specifically when King and I are socializing with large groups of people.

Which is weird, because he's my best friend and my literal ride or die but, of the two of us, he's always been the most social. When we're socialising in a large group I always feel out of place. I wished I could hold casual conversations with strangers in the same manner he did, he had the ability to make anybody laugh.

I always feel a little stupif for being jealous of him. It's not like I dislike who I am as a person, but people gravitate towards King more as a person. Sometimes I can't help but to feel like a background character in my own life.

On one hand I genuinely understand that we all had our things that made us special, and these feelings of inadequacy were mainly attributed by social hierarchy that places a higher value on extroverts. On the other hand, I'm a teenager who doesn't really care about what is and isn't a socail construct, I just want to fit in.