Sticks and Stones • Park Jimin

iii.

Jimin reached for the apple on his desk only to have it snatched away by Kyung-soo.

He lifted the apple high enough to the point where Jimin knew he couldn't reach it even if he stood up and jumped. Which he'd done before. But he didn't do it now because he already knew that everybody would just laugh at him more.

"Can I have my lunch back?" Jimin asked instead. Another one of his theories in progress was that if he was nice to Kyung-soo and all the rest of his classmates, they might stop. It hadn't worked yet.

"This is your lunch?" Kyung-soo asked, scoffing. "This one apple?"

Jimin hesitated before nodding. "I'm trying to eat healthier."

"It's more like you need to lose weight, isn't it?" Kyung-soo asked meanly, smirking, and Jimin just frowned.

"But I'm not fat," Jimin said. He knew he wasn't. Every year for school, he had to get a physical from his doctor, and his doctor had told him that he was in great shape and on track for his weight.

But all the kids just laughed.

Jimin frowned. What was it about himself that made them torment him? He didn't get it at all. He knew that what they were saying was untrue.

But when he left class to go to the bathroom, he locked himself in a cubicle and lifted his shirt up to stare at his stomach. It wasn't big, was it?

Was it?