Chapter Text
It was a cold friday afternoon when teacher Park entered class 2-5 holding a pile of papers.
"Hello, everyone. As you know, we are now in the school's anti-bullying week and as part of this program, there's a project for you.
You're going to pair up with someone who either is not in your friends circle or whose personality differs a lot from yours and both of you will answer these 40 questions to the other, personally, like an interview or a chat. Aside from these questions, each will need to write your own impression of your peer from before and after the project and then we're gonna discuss it in class.
The goal is to get to know your peers better and maybe change any wrong idea you may have of them. This will give extra credits I know most of you need. Deadline is last week before summer break, you have 12 weeks so take your time and do it throughout the weeks. Now, to your delight or not, here are the pairings:
Daesu and Hyeonju
Heesu and Joonyeong
...
...
and the last two pairings are Suhyeok and Namra, Gyeonsu and Nayeon.
By the end of the period you can pick up the questionaire with me. Now let's start our class and please open your books on page 74."
As Ms. Park went on with her explanation, while most students were still complaing about the pairings or the project itself, Namra did not move an inch from her position, looking down at her book as if she hadn't listened or didn't care about the assignment.
But Suhyeok couldn't quite decide what his feelings were. He always felt like doing an assignment together would be the easiest way to talk to Namra, but he never had a chance to pair up with her before, let alone for a long-term assignment with personal insightful questions. He had just hit the jackpot. She'd have to answer, she'd have to ask him too, and they would talk for weeks. Like really talk, not those 3 seconds of attention he usually got whenever he greeted her with "hey, prez" or asked something she'd answer with 5 words or less.
But even though he was happy that he was going to spend time with his long-time crush, on the other hand it was a forced situation and he knew she felt very uncomfortable with it. If she could, right now she'd probably be adding more bricks on the walls she built around herself.
He buried his head in his arms and laid on his desk, pretending to be listening to the teacher, but got so caught up in trying to think of a way to break the ice between them and not jeopardize his only chance that he didn't realize period was over and his classmates had already left, except for one person standing by the door, holding 2 copies of the questionaire. Namra.
"For you." She handled him a copy and turned around to leave.
"Hold on, prez. Do you wanna start now ? I mean, I don't know how you wanna do this, but it's friday and school's over, so ..." Suhyeok stuttered a bit.
" We have yet... to write our previous impressions before we start. " Namra suddenly cut him off and he smiled, she had just spoken a whole sentence to him.
" What ? "
" Nothing. It's just that it was the first time you spoke more than 5 words in a sentence to me. I'm just.. not used to it. To hear you talk spontaneously."
" So, next friday. Bye... partner." Namra held his gaze for 2 seconds and smiled timidly, bowing her head before she left him alone. His heart skipped a beat. Today was really a lucky day.
Suhyeok went home reading the questionaire in his hands. There were many personal and deep questions. He couldn't wait for next friday to come.