In My Class

In my class, although we are pretty much immature brats, there are definately crushes between boys and girls.
One is a guy named Ju**** and my friend, Yi***.
Even though secondary school is supposed to be cliquely, this is Asia, and even though cliques do exist, the line between them and the rest of the school is not so defined. And when I say cliques, I'm not talking about the girls, I'm talking about the boys.
There are the basketballers, who are not as good in certain subjects as they are in P.E. There are the nerds, who make up their lack of physical strength with their IQ of 300. In a small school, the whole place is pretty much a happy community, everyone cracking jokes everyone can understand, everyone copying answers from everyone. In other words (for the boys), no matter which category you're in, the gap is not so large that is awkward.
And then there are the outcasts.
Ju**** and Yi*** really, really like each other but being teenagers, they deny it. In a class with only 8 girls and 9 boys, everyone is pretty much friends with one another. Ju**** takes the initiative and gets pretty chummy with Yi***. As a result, he becomes closer with the remaining 7 girls.
But his way of approaching Yi*** is frankly, different. In getting close to her, he starts to play with the girls, so much so that Yi*** and her two other girl friends are now including him within their group work, that they are visiting one another's houses, and they're even catching a movie together. So much so that to please and make Yi*** happy, he goes as far as to act niang so that the girls would crack up and Yi*** would shower him with affection.
So much so that when he has to do group work with the boys, his choices are very limited. And given a choice, he would rather stick with the girls then go with the boys.
Even though his actions are making Yi*** happy and everything, come on; really, which girl would want to go out hand-in-hand with someone so niang? He's pleasing her so much that he's distancing himself from the boys.
And another thing: Ju**** really changed a lot. Not appearance wise, but rather personality-wise. I grouped him in the outcasts because the boys never seemed to hang around him. He's tempermental. As in bad, bad temper-mental. He is proud and arrogant, and never does things he considers beneath his dignity. When he doesn't like something he doesn't hesitate to show his feelings, going so far as to shout at a teacher.
His temper gets on my nerves, but so far neither of us hasn't clashed yet. Thank goodness for that, because there would be blood. But when he started to get to know Yi*** his temper changed to that of a docile, attention-seeking puppy. He does the right things at the right times to show his love and care. If Yi*** wants something, say she was cold and she wants to turn off the air-con, no matter how much everyone else in the class shouts and screams at him he will get up and turn the air-con off. He is utterly devoted.
But its just that even though there is a significant increase in his tolerance level, some things just remain the same.
Old habits die hard. We were playing in the classroom during lunch today. Ju**** is used to the girls teasing him playfully and he accepts it with much laughter. Today we exaggerated what he did to Yi*** (by accident) so much so that 'Ju**** harrassed a young, innocent girl' was written in big letters all over the white board for everyone to point and gasp. There was a lot of harmonious laughter, and in the end, Ju**** was to get on his knees, acknowledge his sin and ask for forgiveness.
He repeated after Ja** (one of Yi***'s friend) on his knees, but he wasn't sincre enough so we demanded him to do it again. I laughed, but as time was almost up I took the whiteboard duster and started to clean off the words from the whiteboard. I had erased off 'young, innocent girl' when there was a sudden, angry shout. Ju**** was no longer on his knees. He was standing, in his full height, glowering at all the girls. Playtime was over.
He had lost his temper again. The ridiculeness of it. Emberassed and perhaps a little ashamed, Yi*** and her friends went out of the classroom for a while. Ju**** stormed back to his seat. Disgusted by his actions, I ignored him, glared instead at the whiteboard and proceeded to scrub every little dot off the board. They were sorry and he was angry.
The girls came back in again, walked up to Ju**** and gave him a 90 degrees bow. "I'm sorry." Their voices were meek and small. The frown on his face somewhat subsided.
It got me thinking then, if Yi*** weren't so lenient with him, he would have ruined his own master plan of getting close enough to Yi*** to acomplish his mission successfully. But she was a nice girl, and even though it wasn't her fault she apologised. They were laughing together again by the time school ended.
Why did you apologise to him, Yi***? You should've let him see just how much trouble his own temper could've gotten himself into. And Ju****, if you can't take the joke, then don't play with us. Besides, how could kneeling on the floor and apologising to the girl you like (we were playing, mind you) be below your diginity, if you are willing to act like a niang and lose your status among the boys just to make her happy?