Love and War

1. The Wicked Witch of the Land Down Under

I want to go home

Haerin is sitting with her body slumped over the table. Her chin rests snuggly on her folded arms whilst she half-listens to her teacher. She's now in her fourth class of the day and the desire to pull her hair out of boredom grows stronger with each hour that goes by.

Numbers are scribbled hastily on the whiteboard as her teacher rambles on about integration and blah blah blah. Haerin doesn't hear the rest of what she says. A sigh only escapes her lips and the heels of her two feet involuntarily hit against each other like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, both badly wanting to go back home.

Haerin closes her eyes and slowly the sound of her teacher's voice becomes muted. The young girl's attention span in school isn't the best. However, contrary to her poor work ethic, she has never been behind in class. Call that luck of the draw or a natural gift but Haerin is sure that in due time, karma will bite her back in the ass for it.

A vibration in her pocket wakes her up from her daze and she unfolds her arms to fish out her phone under the table. She unlocks it and swipes down on the screen to check the various notifications that she missed since starting school. A couple of messages from her basketball team about practice later, some silly text messages from her friend group (which is literally just her and two other people), and an alert saying that Hanni Pham had uploaded a new picture 3 hours ago.

Upon seeing this alert, her eyes glow with excitement and she presses the notification with zero hesitation. She has to physically restrain herself from kicking her feet when the app opens up and her long-time crush becomes fully displayed on her phone. Haerin gawks at the image. The picture only captures Hanni from the waist up.

She is wearing a plain white tank top and her lips are painted dark red. Arguably such a simple look but man does she look ethereal. Wow. Haerin feels as though Hanni's eyes are piercing right through her with how intense her gaze is in the picture. She feels giddy, smiling maniacally like a 10 year-old-boy in love.

While looking at the image, an idea pops into her mind. She looks up at the clock in thought. There are 30 minutes left of this class until lunchtime. Wouldn't it be such a coincidence if she had 'accidentally' bumped into Hanni on the way to the cafeteria? And then as a kind gesture asked her if she wanted to have lunch with her. Then maybe if all things go well, a nice date at a park? And then, if the Gods do hear her prayers and decide to be kind to her...Haerin smiles dreamily at those possibilities.

"Hey Minji, do you know when Hanni finishes Chemistry?" Haerin whispers to her friend, nudging her on the shoulder.

The older girl has her head on her hand, eyes half-lidded. For the past hour, Minji has been on the brink of falling asleep. If it wasn't for the fact that she had received a warning from the head teacher about tardiness in class yesterday, then she would've gladly taken a trip to Dreamland by now.

Minji exhales loudly through her nose to signal frustration. She turns her head sluggishly to face her younger friend, "Are you seriously asking me this in the middle of class? Do you have no shame?"

The younger girl shrugs her shoulders slightly embarrassed. Minji rolls her eyes at her, "Kang Haerin, you're always after this girl. I swear to God, what is it this time?"

Haerin sheepishly smiles at her tired companion, "I just wanted to ask her if she'd like to grab lunch. No biggie."

Minji perks an eyebrow up knowing too well of her friend's true intentions, "Right. How many attempts has it been now?" Minji looks at her hand, putting her fingers down one by one as if counting before ultimately saying, "22?"

The younger girl scrunches her nose and playfully hits her friend, "Shut up Kim," She puts her hands up in the air in surrender, "Can't blame me for shooting my shots, okay."