My eyes widen. She thinks I’m spoiled, that I’ve never had anybody stand up to me before. Although half of me wonders if she may be right, it doesn’t lessen the sting.
“And honestly, you’re going through culture shock right now. I recognize the signs. You’ve been sorta harsh about … everything. I know it’s hard to adjust to Korea right now, but just realize that you’re in transition.” She winces, leaning back from the table, almost cowering. “You’re not mad at me, are you?” she whispers.
I struggle to unravel my conflicting thoughts, vigorously shaking my head. “No! Definitely not.”
I force a smile, and she sighs in relief, her entire body relaxing.
“Okay, good.” She grins. “I was afraid you wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore.”
“Sophie, you’re my only friend. I’m pretty sure I would be screwed without you.”
“Right.” She giggles. “I guess that gives me the power, huh?”
I guess it does. And after growing up as the one everyone wanted to hang out with, as the girl with the cool family who called the shots, I’m not sure how I feel about the role reversal.
Chapter Nine
Sophie doesn’t bring up the come-to-Jesus moment again, and neither do I, even though it’s all I can think about when I see Jason in class on Tuesday. He ignores me like always, but that night, I get a text from a number I don’t recognize that reads: This is Jason. Meet me in the library tomorrow night at 6 o’clock to study for the Korean test.
Three thoughts rush through my head simultaneously—one, that he somehow dug up my number; two, that he must not be mad at me anymore; and three, that he is one of those annoying people who text with correct grammar and punctuation.
Wednesday evening, I scarf down an early dinner, then make the long trek across campus to the library. As I enter the gigantic, glass-faced building, I pull out my phone and send him a message: Where are you?
My phone buzzes a minute later. Third floor. Walk all the way to the back left.
I climb the stairs, cursing him with each step my already weary legs have to trudge up, then follow his directions. Although I find a number of empty tables around the book-filled stacks, he occupies one in the back corner that feels completely isolated from the rest of the library.
My conversation with Sophie plays back through my head. Maybe she was right—maybe I’m being a diva about Jason not liking me. I squelch any negative feelings, channeling only Zen thoughts in hopes of being at least civil with him.
Friendships are so messy. Too bad they’re not as easy to figure out as a math problem or balancing a chemical equation. If they were, maybe I wouldn’t have such a hard time dealing with Jason.
Still huffing from the walk over here and the climb up the stairs, I slump into the chair opposite him and dump my book bag onto the floor with a thud. He glances up with raised eyebrows.
“You just had to camp out on the third floor, huh?” I ask, pulling out my Korean textbook and notebook and inwardly cringing at my snippiness—can’t I be at least a little nice?
I force a smile and add, “I’m really glad you texted me. I’m freaking out about this test. I don’t feel like I understand anything.”
It’s then that I see what’s open on the table in front of him—not our textbook but a notebook of paper with musical bars printed on them and his penciled-in notes dotting the lines.
“Have you worked more on the song?” I ask, relieved to find something we can at least talk about without blowing up.
He nods. “I fixed something in the chorus, and I finished all the verses.”
“Wow! Can I see?”
He slaps the cover of the notebook closed, and I startle. “Studying first,” he says.
I straighten my back and salute. “Sir, yes, sir!”
His eyebrows meet in the middle of his forehead and he studies me a second before shaking his head and pulling out his textbook. Judging by his lack of response to my sarcasm, I’d bet Sophie had a talk with him, too. And for some reason, this puts me in a much better mood.
We delve into the composition of Korean grammar and how to string sentences together, and I follow along pretty well. I even manage to write the few characters we need to have memorized, which includes our names, written phonetically. A grin stretches across my face at seeing my name drawn out in Hangul, the Korean writing system.
“You know, this kind of writing is a lot more artistic than English writing,” I say. “It looks more like a picture than a word.”
“They’re just different,” Jason answers. “The symbols represent the pronunciation of one syllable, symbols built from multiple Hangul characters in the alphabet, so they’re sort of compounding on each other.” He brushes bangs out of his eyes. “Different kinds of writing systems.”
I stare down at the characters on my paper again, comparing the ones I wrote to his examples. Although he has messy boy handwriting, his lines are clearer, the spaces between them more distinct. I focus on making mine look more like his.
“You know, you sound a little bit like a smarty-pants when you talk about language,” I say, keeping my gaze focused on my paper.
He snorts, his voice thick with sarcasm, when he says, “Anyone would sound smart to you. You don’t know anything about languages besides English.”
I shoot him a glare. “Look, I get it, I should have studied harder in my foreign language classes. But I didn’t know I was going to move to the other side of the world. And I’m pretty sure my Español is still a lot better than yours, so why don’t we cut the attitude?”