Eccedentesiast || Bang Chan

06

"Girl, why are you walking around with no shoes on?!" My bestfriend asked. She grabbed a pair of loafers on the back seat and chucked it towards me. "Just return it to me next time aight? Now get to class or you'll be late." She sighed before she rushed off to her next class and I did the same...

The lecture hall was full by the time I got there so I had no choice but to sit in the back. The topic wasn't all that new and difficult to understand and halfway through the lecture, I started to get bored. I pulled out my phone and texted someone I knew would reply.

To Chan
Today isn't my day. :(

As I expected, it didn't even take 3 minutes for him to read it and reply.

From Chan
Why not? :( By the way, i got a shoot in 5 mins.

He's such a cutie. But I didn't reply to his message. He probably had to concentrate on his shoot. I knew messaging him would distract him. Just as I put my phone down, the bell rang, signaling the end of the class. But instead of being happy about it, my head started to hurt when I saw a familiar face by the exit.

I tried to tell myself that bickering with that guy is useless so I decided to ignore him but the guy was just too annoying. "Dani, I bought you a pair of sneakers." He said, showing me the paper bag of converse. "I wasn't sure what size your feet are but I took a size 37. I hope it fits."

It was rude but I walked past him. Of course, I felt bad about it but I had to draw a line in between us to keep him away. He was rude to me first, call me childish but I'll be damned if I didn't get back at him and taught him respect. Well it was bad for me since he looked like that overly confident boy. "Come on, don't tell me you don't want this?" He asked, following right behind me. "You can take this, I swear it doesn't even cost much for me." Again I felt my temper rise.

"Alright give me the shoes and don't ever talk to me again." I halted in my tracks and faced him. "I'll take the shoes." I grabbed the paper bag from him and again, walked off to meet my best friend at the cafeteria but much to my dismay, this guy was persistent. Instead of moving along, he trailed behind me much like a shadow.

"Look, I forgive you feel r your rudeness. You've made it up to me by buying me a new pair of shoes so now, there's no reason for us to talk." I smiled, pat his shoulders. "So don't follow me around anymore."

"There you are! I was wondering why you were taking too long!" My best friend Suah conveniently arrived at the right moment. She took one look at the guy and her face turned sour. She didn't even waste a single minute and grabbed me by y hand, pulling me along to the parking lot. "Why were you with him?"

"She owed me this." I showed her the converse paper bag.

"What for?"

"That guy almost run me over." I shrugged.

After that, she showed me a way too disgusted face, I never thought was possible. We then took a seat on our usual spot with our food and that's when my dear friend started gossiping. Of course, Suah's target today is already set. "Girl, never talk to that boy again." She warned. "I swear, I've been his classmate since pre school until high school." She added.

I nodded along as we went out for lunch nearby at a small and cozy restaurant in a narrow alley. We took the table by the corner and ordered our usuals. The place was small and not much people knew of this place except for the old souls we were the only millenial pair in the place.

While waiting for our order, we sat quietly, doing our own thing and I chose to scroll through my messages. A few messages from the animal shelter informing me about new animals surrendered in, from my other friends who were inviting me out to mixers, from my boyfriend and from the teacher of my younger brother.

I have two other siblings, both were younger than me. My little brother who is twelve as of the moment and my little sister who's eight. Both lived with our dad in the country and I wasn't their legal guardian so it was a mystery why my brother's homeroom teacher would message me instead of dad.

From Mrs Jung
Good Afternoon Dani! It has come to my attention that Jihoon has not been coming to class for a week now.
Mr Song has been out of town for his job for a while. I think you should be informed of this?

I felt my eyebrows curl into a frown. My little brother, although he's just twelve, he's very responsible. He knew how to cook rice, what to do in cases of emergencies, he knew how to save up. It was strange that he hasn't been in school for a while? It's even more worrying because according to Mrs Jung, dad is away for business.

In worry, I dialed the telephone number we had at dad's house. But to my horror, no one picked up. So I decided to ask Mrs Jung to visit the house as I was unable to do so myself... "Hey, there's an emergency, can you drive us back to my apartment?" I asked Suah.

"Huh? Just a sec. Ma'am can you make our orders on the go??"