I Am Thinking About You

Still humming softly, Ji Ah stayed unfazed and moved her pen nonchalantly over the pages of her notebook; drawing hearts, stars, circles, squares, writing alphabets from a to z.

Young Do seemed to be getting real annoyed now. He rattled her desk with his foot, completely deforming her favourite dialogue from a drama, yet Ji Ah carried on writing. He rattled her desk again when their teacher turned away and Ji Ah felt an earthquake shaking her, as she proceeded to put down jiggly words on the paper, with an admirable determination.

Sighing in exasperation, Young do leaned back in his chair and finally left her alone. Ji Ah couldn't hold back a small victorious smile breaking over her lips. Relaxing, Ji Ah went back to taking notes she had missed because of Young Do.

Hardly a minute had gone by when Ji Ah felt something soft hit her on the side of head. Her hand flew to the spot at once and her head instinctively snapped sideways. Young Do was staring straight ahead at the board with a small tight lipped smile and was tearing a piece of paper from his notebook. Ji Ah looked down to see a small crumpled piece of paper lying close to her chair.

Young Do crumpled the piece of paper in his hand and threw it at her without looking at her. Ji Ah flinched when it hit her on her forehead.

She scoffed at him before turning away.

Young Do continued to shower her with crumpled pieces of paper, rattling her desk in between, whenever their teacher turned his back to them, and Ji Ah continued to write in her notebook while also trying to maintain her patience.

A piece of paper hit her on the nose and another irritating earthquake shook her desk. She clenched her eyes shut in frustration, tightening her hold around her pen. She wanted to turn to him right now and yell at him that he was totally childish!

But Ji Ah pretended to be unconcerned. as she brushed some pieces of paper off her desk.

She sighed softly when the class finally came to an end, along with Young Do's paper showers and patience testing earthquakes.

Ji Ah pulled out her ink pot to refill ink in her pen before leaving. As Young Do made to move past her, he bumped into her desk.

Ji Ah sprang to her feet when the ink pot turned over, spilling ink over the desk and dribbling off it. She quickly picked up the ink pot, but the damage was already done. Her notebook and her skirt were now tainted with blue ink.

She gave him a hard glare, as Young Do turned around, and eyed her desk and her skirt with satisfaction.

Smiling derisively at her, he faked an apologetic look. "Sorry! I accidentally did it."

Ji Ah had had enough.

She heard shocked gasps from around them when she suddenly threw the leftover ink from the inkpot at Young Do. The smile wiped off his face in an instant. Ji Ah had intended to throw it at his face, but there was not much ink in the pot, so it landed on his neck and shirt.

"Sorry. I accidentally did it." Ji Ah said.

Young Do gave her a deadpan look for a few tense moments, then he bent his head, but when he raised his head again, an amused chuckle escaped his throat, as an unnerving smile had broken across his mouth.

Ji Ah felt her resolve waver because it reminded her of the day he had made Joon Young kneel. However, Young Do didn't do anything. He just turned away from her and walked out of the class with his shoulders pushed back and chest out, as though there was no ink covering his neck or shirt.

Everyone was giving her crazy looks, so she quickly gathered her stuff, jerked the ink soaked notebook to get rid of the excessive ink, and hurried out of the classroom.

By lunch, the news had travelled around the school that Ji Ah had thrown ink at Young Do. Ji Ah heard murmurs, barely concealed scornful laughs, and even received some sympathetic looks as she timidly walked to her locker.

She shouldn't have thrown ink at him, she thought glumly as she opened her locker. She wondered if he could file lawsuit against her for throwing ink at him?

Ji Ah checked her cell phone to see Mr Seo's missed calls. She moved to an empty balcony and dialed Mr Seo's number. She wondered if she should have called Ahn Dan Te instead because Mr Seo could be in a meeting, but he picked up.

"Hello," Ji Ah said politely.

"Are you at school?"

"Yes,"

"I don't have much work today. If you want to learn piano, today is the day."

Ji Ah's heart skipped a beat. She licked her lips and began picking at her thumbnail cuticles with her fingernails. "I am not sure..."

"Alright. If you feel like it, come to the office. My secretary at the reception will let you in if you say your name." He said.

"Okay, thank you, Ahjussi." She said meekly.

"And when should I get your next appointment with your therapist." He asked.

Ji Ah grimaced. "I don't want to go to him again." She said reluctantly.

"Why?"

Ji Ah moved to the railing and placed a hand on it while her eyes darted around the street absentmindedly.

"It's not helping. It' just wasting money."

"Yes, its supposed to help in just two visits. " Mr Seo said dryly.

"I am taking medicine and that helps calm me down." She said, with an eager smile that he must have heard in her voice.

"Why are you afraid of therapy?"

"I am not afraid of it." She said in a defensive manner, then faltered. "It's just he says I have many mental issues."

"What's wrong with that?" Mr Seo scoffed on the other side.

Ji Ah looked down at her shoes while still holding the railing.

"It is only natural to develop mental issues after going through something like that. It does not mean that you are crazy. Everyone has at least one mental problem, but they never see a therapist, so they never get to find out they have it."

Ji Ah turned around and leaned against the railing, staring straight at the empty school grounds.

"Anxiety, OCD, dermitallomania or phobias or nightmares doesn't mean you are crazy. You can just get rid of these problems with your therapist's help."

Ji Ah frowned deeply. "I don't want to do anything about my phobia or OCD or dermatilmania. I am okay with them."

"Dermitallomania." Mr Seo corrected her. "And no, you are not okay with them." He said sternly. "But if you don't want to do anything about them for now, then it is okay. But you need to work on your nightmares. Your doctor also said it's necessary or they would effect your heart and weaken it."

Ji Ah tensed. Her heart.

"I understand." She mumbled in a defeated tone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ji Ah stopped in the middle of the huge hall of FW's shinning office building. Looking down, she could see a faint shadow of her form on the floor. Women in pencil skirts and men in crisp three piece suits bustled around her. She felt conflicted within herself, as she reconsidered moving forward. I can make piano a distraction. She thought, feeling as though she were trying to deceive herself.

Eventually, she clutched the strap of her hangbag and moved forward. It was more out of the feeling that every passerby was watching her, than a firm decision on her part. Ji Ah wondered if the receptionist merely knew her name or also knew that she was Mr Seo's niece?

The receptionist, a young pretty lady with her hair twisted in a bun at the nap of her neck, asked her name in an all business tone. They had a different receptionist the last time she was here, Ji Ah recalled as she told her name.

The bored receptionist perked up and told Ji Ah that she could go in. Ji Ah nodded politely and felt the receptionists eyes on her when she walked away.

If Mr Seo was glad to see her, he didn't show it. Arranged gracefully on his office chair, he was doing something on his laptop when Ji Ah entered. Without taking his eyes off the screen, he told her to sit and wait for a few minutes.

Ji Ah's first ever piano lesson started exactly 15 minutes later. How she could have imagined that someone like him would be teaching her piano someday? But then life had gone in many expected ways.

Mr Seo began with providing her with all the information about piano that she didn't know. He proceeded to demonstrate notes to her, of the same song Ji Ah had played the last time she was here, something by Chopin; she didn't remember the name. Then it was her turn to practice.

"Practicing is what will help you more than me." He told her.

He was patient with her, as he guided her fingers across the black and white keyboard, instructed her on peddling, and corrected her finger movements and song notes.

The lesson continued for an hour, then they settled themselves on the plush sofas in, what Ji Ah called, Mr Seo's small living room.

Mr Seo insisted that she have lunch with him, now that she was here. Ji Ah had always received from him. She had nothing to give back, except lamely uttered 'thank yous', anyway. And now she was also receiving piano lessons from him.. Not to forget the freezer full of meat and seafood at her apartment. And the weekly check ups with an expensive doctor --combined with a psychiatrist now.

Ji Ah felt herself grow smaller and smaller in front of him.

They food arrived and Ji Ah poured herself a small portion of rice and fried fish. They ate quietly till Mr Seo spoke.

"Do you know what is the meaning of this song?" He asked her, grabbing his wine glass.

She swallowed a mouthful and answered. "No."

"It is a song Chopin wrote in a despairing condition, at an asylum. The rising and falling movement in the beginning, does it remind you of something?" He looked at her expectantly.

Ji Ah furrowed her brows and began carefully. "I think it... sounds like breathing.

A slight smile of appreciation quirked the corners of his lips up. "As if someone is stuggling to breath!" Mr Seo completed.

Ji Ah couldn't help feeling pleased with herself. "Yes..." She smiled grimly and nodded, while placing a ball of rice in her mouth with the chopsticks.

"This song is called suffocation by some, because it sounds like someone is struggling to breath." He elaborated. "The ending notes also sound like someone is taking their last breaths."

Ji Ah frowned, immediately reminded of her mother taking her last breaths lying at a hospital bed, and Cha Ji Ah and her old driver, stuck in a car being mulled over by a mad truck.

"I felt that it was a sad song." She mumbled, feeling gloomy suddenly.

Mr Seo, didn't notice, however. "It is a sad song." He agreed, pouring himself more rice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Young Do laid straight in a sofa in Myung So's studio, with an arm folded under his head and the other resting by his side. He stared straight at the ceiling, as he remembered Ji Ah looking at him fearfully, when he had a small scuffle with Joon Young in front of the lockers. Her wide round eyes gave her an innocent look.

She had looked similar when he had held her arm while asking for her number. She had tried to appear brave, yet she looked obviously afraid. He felt an odd sort of joy in recalling every memory and image.

He thought about when she had tried to pull out the notebook from his hands, she had pouted at him, while a few dark strands hung in her face. An image of the day he had first seen her sleeping on the table outside the store, flashed before his eyes. Her soft looking pinkish lips were formed into a cute pout.

He caressed his fingers together innately, when he recalled brushing her hair out of her face and the tips of his fingers had brushed against her skin, for a very short moment. He wondered how it would feel like to caress her cheek with his knuckles while she would flutter her lashes at him innocently.

And the thought surprised him. Only for a moment though, because deep down he knew where that thought originated from, he just didn't want to openly confront that origin.

"What are you doing?" Myung So, who had been dancing girlishly, stopped upon noticing Young Do smiling at the ceiling. "What are you thinking about?"

Young Do's gaze didn't waver from the ceiling, nor the small smile on his lips."I am thinking about Cha Ji Ah."

"Why are you thinking about Cha Ji Ah?" Myung So asked suspiciously.

The smile wavered now. "Exactly." He said hazily. "Why am I thinking about Cha Ji Ah?"

"Is it about today's ink incident?" Myung So asked.

"No," Young Do said shortly.

"Then why are you thinking about her?" Myung So asked in confusion, pouting like a child.

Young Do didn't reply.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you Iwoody1 for following the story.

~Fawns