Almond(14)

On the second day of the new semester, my homeroom teacher summoned me. She was a chemistry teacher in her second year of teaching. She looked maybe just ten years older than me. As she flopped down on an old purple couch in the counseling room, a dust cloud billowed from the impact. She gave a dry cough into her clenched fist, clearing her throat, Ahem, in a small voice. Here, she was a teacher, but at home, she might be the doted-on youngest daughter. Her constant coughing was starting to annoy me when she cheerfully struck up a conversation.

“It must have been difficult for you. Is there anything I can help you with?”

So she had some idea of what I had been through. The psychiatrist and lawyer working for the bereaved must’ve contacted the school. As soon as she asked me the question, I said I was fine. Her lips stretched thin and her eyebrows raised slightly, as if that wasn’t what she had wanted to hear.

*

Something happened the next day, just before class was dismissed. The homeroom teacher must’ve put a lot of effort into memorizing the students’ names the last couple of days. But no one seemed to be impressed, because the names she had diligently memorized were followed by remarks like “be quiet” or “please sit down.” It was clear she didn’t have a knack for drawing people’s attention. And it must’ve been a habit of hers to clear her throat because she did that every three seconds.

“Listen up, guys.” She raised her voice suddenly. “One of your classmates has been through a tragic incident. He lost his family during the last Christmas holidays. Let’s give him a warm round of applause as encouragement. Seon Yunjae, stand up, please.”

I did as I was told.

“Cheer up, Yunjae,” she said first, holding up her hands high to clap. She reminded me of those floor directors I’d seen on television shows who prompted the audience to cheer from the back of the studio.

The kids’ reaction was lukewarm. Most of them only pretended to clap, but a few genuinely cheered, so I heard some applause at least. But the clapping waned quickly, leaving dozens of their eyes fixed on me in complete silence.

It was incorrect to say I was fine to her question yesterday.

You can just leave me alone. That was what I should’ve said.





24


Rumors about me didn’t take long to spread. If I typed “chri” on a search engine, “Christmas murder” and “Christmas crisis” came up as related keywords. News articles about a fifteen-year-old with the family name Seon who lost his mother and grandmother occasionally turned up. They had pictures of me taken at the funeral with my face pixelated, but it was done so poorly that everyone who knew me would recognize it was me.

Every kid reacted differently. Some pointed at me from a distance in the hallway and whispered as I passed. Others sat next to me at the cafeteria and tried to talk to me. I would always meet someone’s eyes whenever I turned around in class.

One day, a kid had the guts to ask what everyone was curious about. I was heading back to the classroom after lunch. I saw a small, flickering shadow outside the hallway window. A branch was tapping against the window. At the tip of the branch, tiny forsythia flowers were blooming. I opened the window and pushed the branch in the opposite direction. I thought that way the flower could get some sunlight. Just then, a loud voice echoed in the hallway.

“So what was it like to see your mom die in front of you?”

I turned toward the voice. It was a small kid. A boy who often talked back to the teachers and found it amusing that his actions could stir up the crowd. You see that kind everywhere.

“My mom’s not dead. My grandmother is,” I responded. The boy quietly exclaimed, Ohh. He looked around at the other kids, caught some of their eyes, and they snickered together.

“Oh yeah? I’m sorry. Let me ask you again. How did it feel to see your grandma die in front of you?” he asked. Some of the girls booed, Hey, that’s not funny.

“What? You guys wanna know too,” he said, shrugging and raising his hands. His voice was smaller now.

“You want to know?” I asked, but no one replied. Everyone stood still.

“I felt nothing.”

I closed the window and walked into the classroom. The noise returned, but things couldn’t go back to the way they had been a minute ago.





25


That incident made me kind of famous. Of course, not in a good way by normal standards. When I walked down the hallway, the crowd parted like the Red Sea. I heard murmurs here and there. That’s him, that boy. Well, he looks normal. Some of the seniors came all the way to our floor to see me. That’s the boy who was at the murder scene. The boy who saw his family bleeding to death in front of him. But said he felt nothing without batting an eyelash.

The rumors grew bigger and bigger on their own. Kids who claimed they had gone to elementary school or middle school with me said they had borne witness to my strange behavior. The gossip became outrageous, as gossip often does. According to one rumor, I had an IQ over 200. According to another, I would stab anyone who came near me. One even claimed that it was I who killed Mom and Granny.

Mom used to say that every social community needs a scapegoat. She’d given me all this training because she thought I had a very high possibility of becoming one. Now that Mom and Granny were gone, her prediction turned out to be true. The kids quickly realized that I didn’t react to anything they said and started asking me weird questions or more blatantly making fun of me. Without Mom to come up with sample dialogue for every new scenario, I was utterly helpless.