.
I spoke hesitantly, “Uh, are you gonna pick that up for me? Thanks…” I uttered.
Asking a seven-year-old boy to get my backpack for me seemed a little too much since it was quite heavy, but my knees were so painful that I could become shameless at that moment.
The kid raised his head to look at me; however, he showed a swiveling grin then began to run toward the opposite side.
I shouted, “Hey, where are you going?”
From the staircase right around the corner, a voice then reflected on the wall and echoed faintly.
“Catch me if you can!”
‘Oh, Lord!’ I touched my forehead while holding the grip. ‘Hey, kiddo, have some common sense. If you were in my situation, do you think you’d like to play tag with someone who just collapsed onto the floor? Even with my bag?’ I yelled in my thoughts. However, I couldn’t give up my bag at the same time.
“My knees hurt, so I can’t go there!” I shouted again.
“Not me, I’m all fine!” he replied.
‘Oh, yeah. Lucky you…’ While I murmured composedly, the boy came back to the hallway and stood at a close distance from me.
Was he finally trying to return my bag? I looked in his direction with exhausted eyes.
A moment after, I shrieked, “What the heck are you doing?!”
He was stretching out my bag outside the balustrade. ‘What if someone gets hurt when that’s dropped onto the person’s head? There’s a lot of books inside…’ I became anxious with those thoughts since the seven-year-old boy’s arm was too slim to bear the weight of my bag.
The kid, however, giggled in excitement at my shriek. He then mimicked the words that I just said to him.
“What the heck are you doing~?”
“Give that back to me right now!” I shouted and took my step forward with difficulty. The boy then took a step back. As I bent another step toward him, he also did the same thing but in the opposite direction. By his action and the look on his face, I noticed that he had no intention of returning the bag to me at all.
Biting my lips, I soon realized that the front door of the house right beside me was open. I knocked on the door as best as I could. That was when the kid looked like he was saying, ‘Oops!’ and quickly threw the bag to me. On all occasions, it hit my knees, which the boy bumped into at a full speed with his electric scooter earlier, so I let out a short shriek and crouched down.
At that moment, a middle-aged lady came outside the door.
“What’s going on?”
I lifted my head to look at her face which was half covered in the shadow of the door. It was exactly the same as the person I saw two years ago.
While I remained spaced out for a second, the lady urged me, “You’re the girl next door, huh? What’s wrong?”
“Ah, it’s…” I murmured, but once I pulled myself together, I pointed at the back and continued, “He’s Jimin, right? Jimin took my bag and…”
“It’s there,” she blurted out then pointed at the spot under my feet with her chin abruptly.
I kept on speaking as calmly as possible, “No, this is what he just did to me. That kid bumped into my back while riding an electric scooter, and that was when I dropped my backpack, so…”
In this way, I might become a stranger knocking on someone else’s door randomly, so I tried to explain the overall situation shortly. However, the lady intervened in my words, “Bumped into you? It doesn’t look that way though.”
“Ah, yes he did. I fell onto the floor and banged my knees…”
“You’re wearing long pants.”
“No, I’m not trying to say that I got hurt…” The moment I tried to speak composedly, the lady turned her head toward the hallway.
She shouted, “Hey, Jimin!”
I thought the kid already ran away since he was scared of getting scolded, but a small shadow crawled over from the stairs.
The lady asked, “Did you bump into this girl?”
The boy shook his head with his hands on his electric scooter.
‘Ha… oh my God…’ I was too dumbfounded that I heaved a small sigh.
He replied, “No.”
“He says no,” said the lady.
As I tried to respond, the lady diverted her gaze back onto the boy and flung another question.
“Did you steal her bag?”
“No,” he repeated the same answer.
“See? He says no.”
Holy mother of pearl! They were living right next door, but how could they react so ridiculously? Taking a deep breath, I detached my lips.
“I mean, if you ask him that way, of course, the kid will…”
“WHAT?? Are you telling me that my kid is lying?!” she struck a retort.
I uttered shortly, “Yes,” while being too exhausted to even quarrel with her. The lady’s face darkened with a grimace. She tossed a question.
“What did you just say?”
“I said he lied. That’s the truth. What he just said was all lie,” I replied without any hesitation.
The lady asked with a look of bewilderment, “Hey, young lady, you’re not supposed to act like that without any evidence. As a next-door neighbor, you must be more respectful.”
“What about you, ma’am? Will you be able to prove that he didn’t lie?” I responded.
The lady became at a loss of words. Meanwhile, I turned around and quickly entered the keypad on my front door. I sensed a pair of piercing gazes at my nape.
‘Ha, how dare you! So ridiculous!’ I also heard that kind of grumblings coming from behind me. The lady said she would talk to the adults. Leaving aside those words, I shut the door immediately once I stepped into the house.
There was no one inside. I never felt so welcomed in the dark and empty living room. Blinking swiftly for quite a while, I stood still then threw my backpack to the shoe rack. Covering my ears, I slowly squatted down on the floor.
“Ahhhh…”
I gasped slowly. Something that welled up from my chest clogged my throat and made me hard to breathe. Like a person sunk to the bottom of the water, I crouched down and fought for breath.
After a while, I was able to speak again, at last.
“Why are they doing this to me? Why does everyone…”
Why were they offering me a favor and compliments but venting their anger once I refused them? They kicked a can, pushed me down to the floor, snatched my thing, lied, and scolded me.
“Why on earth are they doing this?” I murmured and shoved my face deeply onto my knees.
In fact, this thing would have always happened in this ordinary world.
Perhaps, the little boy wasn’t the first time to tease and harass me this way. It also might have not been the first time for Chun Dong Ho to hit on me. However, in my point of view, those things––both kindness and hostility––took place for the first time in my life in this world. Shaking my head, I stuffed my hands into my disheveled hair.
The sights I had seen when I was young suddenly popped into my head such as a group of kids sitting on the ground and squashing some bugs or throwing pebbles to a stray dog.
I crouched down again while thinking, ‘I wish I can rather become invisible so that no one can see me.’
Going through this world for a week, I was fed up with everything. I couldn’t understand how every people in this universe could sustain their lives. Maybe I should be living in this world for the rest of my life. It was unbelievable… I mean, I didn’t want to even believe that possibility.
As I raised my head out of the blue, my face turned wet. My cheeks were full of teardrops at some point. Rubbing my face, I picked up my backpack that I just threw away and returned to my room. My parents were gonna come home from work soon, so I didn’t want to get caught behaving this way.
After turning the lights on in my room, I checked the time instinctively but soon shook my head.
It was already the fifth day since I came into this world. Now it seemed to be the time to fold up my intangible hopes. Only I would become painful while looking forward to those vain thoughts. Thus, I just lied down on my bed.
I utterly screwed up the mock exam; only two days were left until the new semester, but I had no will to finish my assignments. It felt like even the bare minimum of energy required for working on my daily tasks was all gone. In other words, the battery inside me went dead.
Lying on the bed for a moment, I murmured to myself.
‘But do I have to study? The reason why I pushed myself to get better scores was to attend the same or, at least, a similar level of college with them. Since the motivation is gone now, is there any reason left for me to keep moving forward?’
Rambling those thoughts in mind, I quickly shook my head. ‘No, the more I think this way, the deeper I’ll fall toward the endless abyss.’
“Wouldn’t it be the state of mind––feeling depressed––that makes gloomy things keep happening?” I murmured and lifted myself. Although it wasn’t true, I had to stop myself from letting my spirit sag. If I continued to stay depressed, I wouldn’t be able to adjust to my sophomore year in high school.
I murmured again, “Let’s just go on a strike today.”
