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I need people to read a review, CRITIQUE, please... Thanks to anyone that does!!!
Chapter one:
I looked around at the people who surrounded me; at the life that went on around me the same way everyday without change. I was growing bored. Day in and day out: no change. And what was worse: we all looked the same. Not just in this room, but in every room in the building. The girls in their black and white plaid skirts, with white dress shirts, black cotton vests and if they chose, a black tie; along with a black blazer (which they could remove if it was too warm). The boys in their black and white plaid dress pants, white dress shirt, black cotton vest, a black tie (which was a must) and a black blazer (they, too, could remove it if it got too hot.)
“Hey Emma!” came a familiar voice. I glanced over in the direction it was coming from. Having just entered the busy classroom was one of my best friends: Corinne and right behind her was my other best friend, Sunyoung. “Hey!” I called back as they walked over to my desk.
Corinne sat on my desk, and Sunyoung took her seat (which was conveniently right next to mine).
“Ugh, another day at school.” Sunyoung sighed as she whipped out a math textbook from her backpack. “Did you study?” she looked at me hopefully. I laughed. “What do you think?” She gave me an I-know-but-I-was-double-checking look and sighed again. “I hate math.” She complained. “Me too!” exclaimed Corinne. “It should be banned from school!”
We talked a few minutes more about various things, mostly school—and what we’d be doing today after school, even though we three lived together in the same apartment.
The final bell rang and the teacher walked in shortly thereafter. “Class,” she began, “Today I have a new student who just transferred here from abroad.” She smiled, and opened the door whispering “come in” as she stuck her head out slightly.
A tall Asian boy with a perfect posture and dyed blond hair came in. His face looked smooth around the edges, with a distinct jaw line; his lips were plump, but not huge. He had a sharp and serious look in dark brown eyes. He looked sort of like the type who was nice, but if you messed with him he’d literally kill you. I laughed to myself when I thought this.
“Why don’t you introduce yourself?” the teacher said to him, smiling.
“My name is Junho,” he began. His had a lovely voice: it wasn’t too deep or too high, but just perfect. “I just moved here from Korea.” Obviously he wasn’t really sure what else to say because after he finished he glanced over at the teacher, face straight. It was at this point that I noticed that since he’d stepped into the classroom he kept his face entirely unemotional, like joining a new school with strange people didn’t faze him at all.
The teacher smiled at him and asked “Are one of you parents American? You don’t have an accent when you speak.” Still, without smiling or showing any emotion whatsoever—except maybe pure boredom—he answered “My step-dad is American. I’ve never met my real dad.” As soon as he added the last part the teacher looked like she regretted asking—obviously she thought she had touched on a spot he didn’t want to discuss, as a result she only replied with “Oh” and a smile. She didn’t ask anymore questions—afraid, probably, that’d she ask another question that came with a sympathetic response.
“Well,” she teacher went on, “why don’t you have a seat over by Emma?” Typical. There was only one empty seat in the class and that was to my left. “Emma,” the teacher went on, “raise your hand, please.” Did I really have to? Junho was already walking to the seat, anyway. Nonetheless, I put my hand slightly in the air. He glanced at me when I did so, looking dead straight into my eyes, sending a shiver down my spine. I thought about giving him a kind smile, but from the reading I’d done of the way he carried himself, he wouldn’t have returned it anyway, so I opted on not smiling at all, and keeping the same empty look on my face as he kept on his.
He slid gracefully into his new seat and pulled out a notebook and pen from his briefcase. It wasn’t one of those overly fancy ones, you know, with a lock on it and all that great stuff, it was really simple. He flipped open to his first empty page, ready to take notes. Short thereafter the teacher began lecture and didn’t stop until there was about ten minutes left to class, having finished lecture early (which was rare—she usually went until the bell). Corinne quickly stuffed her stuff into her bag and dashed to my desk and began chattering away. “Why don’t we go to the mall after school today?” she suggested. “We went there not even a week ago!” Sunyoung complained. “Let’s do something else for once.” Corinne and Sunyoung put there heads up in strain together, trying to think of something to do. I tried to think of something too, but I was never very creative, so I usually left it to them.
I glanced over in Junho’s direction, and to no surprise another girl in the class—known to be a ‘man-eater’ as I called her—was walking over to him. I’d say she was walking over to him bravely if she wasn’t known for her dirty deeds. She was more or less the school prostitute who worked for free, going over to offer her “services” could hardly be considered brave. Nonetheless, she kept her shoulders back and her chin up—like she owned the place.
“Hey, there!” she said to him. “I’m Nicole!” She smiled as she pushed her long blond hair back. If Junho hadn’t merely shifted his eyes to her, I would have thought he either didn’t hear her or had pretended to not hear her. Either way, he showed no emotion to her introduction. After a couple of seconds, of what I thought had to be him analyzing her, he finally “Hey” and looked back down at his notebook.
The look Nicole gave in response to his obvious indifference to her almost made me bust out laughing. I’d never seen someone show so little regard to her besides other girls. That’s not to say every guy here went ga-ga over her, most just felt so sorry for her that they forced themselves to be nice. The rest, well…the rest were sex fiends.
She hadn’t given up though. “So, you’re Junho, huh? What’s Korea like?” She obviously didn’t care what Korea was like at all, but she couldn’t stand to be thrown to the side so easily. Without looking up, Junho simply said “Better than here.” Nicole blinked stupidly and asked “Oh, well why’s that?” she smiled. Finally, Junho looked her straight in the eyes “Because the women there have more respect for themselves and don’t go around trying to get down every guy’s pants.” I had to bite my tongue to keep from busting out laughing, though I still had a wide grin on my face. Corinne, I could hear, was failing at that, and so was Sunyoung.
Nicole looked like she was going to kill him, or, at least slap him across the face. Of course, I knew she would never do that because she too much of a coward to ever defend herself. And either way, the bell rang, saving her the trouble of having to stare at him much longer pretending like she was going to slap him. But, by the looks of it, Junho probably would have caught her by the wrist long before her hand got close enough to slap him, anyway.
Corinne, Sunyoung and I got up and left, and as I walked out the door and managed to catch Junho’s eyes. Even though I knew he wouldn’t return it I couldn’t help but flash a smile in appreciation for what he had just said to Nicole.
As we walked to our next classes Corinne went on about what Junho had just said. “Finally!!” she exclaimed “Someone OTHER THAN a girl says something to her face! Maybe now her dumb a** will stop spreading STDs!” Nicole wasn’t really spreading STDs, but she had sex enough to be doing so. “I don’t even know how she got into this school, anyway.” I added. “Yeah,” Sunyoung agreed. “I mean, how does someone so dense and stupid pass the exam to get into a place like this? I mean seriously.” She went on. All three of us got quiet for a second and thought about it. “Well…” Corinne began, “If she’s been in this school system since grade school, then it’s different.” Sunyoung and I thought about what Corinne had said and agreed. If you started with this particular school system from grade school, getting into its high school wasn’t that hard, because those who started from grade school weren’t required to take the entrance exam.
“Well, then how did she get into its grade school?” Sunyoung wondered. “Parents.” I said, simply. “They’re rich.” Sunyoung thought about this for a minute and then, rolling her eyes, she said “Figures.”
I entered my classroom, waving bye to Corinne and Sunyoung who had different classes than I did this hour. I took my seat at the far end of the classroom and got out my textbook and notebook from my backpack. There was still three minutes before the next bell rang so I decided to quickly go over my notes. After about a minute I looked up, since I knew everything written down by heart, and noticed that Junho was talking to the teacher. Looks like we had two classes together, and like last class he was seated near me. Instead, however, he was seated in front of me as opposed to beside me.
The bell rang and the teacher started talking. “Students, we have a new student today.” She said. “Why don’t you stand-up and tell us your name?” She went on, looking at Junho. Junho stood up and looked to his right (which is where most of the class was, since he was up against the window seal) and said “I’m Junho.” Before he could go on to say anything else—not that he looked like he would add anything on to that—the teacher said “Thank you” with a smile. Junho gave a very slight nod and sat back down.
The day went on in more or less the same manner. Junho—it turned out—was in all but one of my classes. That class was Painting.
Finally, the last class of the day came around. Not sure you could call it a class though; it was more or less a study hall. Junho was in there too. At this point I’d hoped we’d at least one day get to a point where we’d talk to each other—we didn’t have to become friends, just two people who talked, especially since we had Study Hall together—Corinne and Sunyoung had a different teacher for Study Hall, so I was often times incredibly bored when I didn’t have anything to do.
I sat down at a table and watched as Junho carried on a simple conversation with the teacher on the other side of the room. When he finished he looked around, looking for a place to sit—since in Study Hall there were no “assigned seats.” He soon spotted me and began to walk over. “May I sit here?” he asked, motioning to the seat directly across from mine. “Sure.” I said. Not that he really had to ask, we were pretty much sat next to each other in every other class, what difference would one more make?
I pulled out a book I’d been reading for leisure and began reading. After a few seconds I could feel Junho’s eyes boring into me, and on instinct I looked up at him.
“I’m Junho.” He said. Poor guy, he was beginning to sound like a broken record. He stretched his hand out across the table. I shook his hand and replied “I’m Emma.” I half expected the conversation to end then and almost looked back down at my book, but he went on “Is that girl always like that?” I blinked “Who, Nicole? Yeah. Well known slut. It’s disgusting.” I made a disgusted face. “Yeah, it is. I was a little taken aback when she started talking to me. I’ve never met a girl who showed so little respect for herself.” I laughed “How many times have you been to America?” I asked. “I lived here once when I was a little kid, but, you know, when you’re that young it’s all fun and games, not sex and drugs. Not that there’s anything wrong with fun and games, or sex and drugs, but when you overdo any of it, it’s disgraceful.” He shook his head. “So, what are your friends’ names?” He inquired. “Corinne is the shorter one with shoulder-length black hair. Sunyoung is the Korean.” I said. “Hm…yeah, I had a feeling she was Korean. What about Corinne? What is she?” He asked. “She’s African American, Native American, White, and Japanese mixed.” I said, simply. “Wow.” He said, amazed. “What about you?” I asked. “Hmm?” He said. “Did you make any friends today?” I asked. “Oh. No. Not yet. Well…maybe one.” He shrugged. “Oh, who’s that?” He looked up at me as if the answer was obvious. I had an idea, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. “You.” He said. “That is, if you want to be friends.” He urged on. I smiled. “Sure!”
We continued to talk until the bell rang signaling not only the end of the period, but the end of the school day. Junho walked with me to my car. “Maybe we can hang out sometime?” He asked as I clicked the button on my keychain to unlock the door. I looked at him and blinked. “Sure, why not?” I said as I opened the driver’s door. From the corner of my eye I could see Junho look over his shoulder. “Here come Corinne and Sunyoung.” I looked up past him, and sure enough, Corinne came skipping along with Sunyoung trailing not far behind.
“I should go.” He smiled and walked off before Corinne and Sunyoung reached the car. “See ya.” He said as he walked off.
“Wow, you’re friends with the new kid?” Corinne said when she finally reached the car. “Um…yeah, I guess.” I said, as I slipped into the car. “SHOTGUN!” shrieked Sunyoung as she dashed to the passenger’s side before Corinne could react. “Damnit!” she cursed “Always when I’m caught off guard.” Against her will she got into the back seat.
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