Chereads / Mari-am / Chapter 11 - Chapter-11

Chapter 11 - Chapter-11

The scene opens, where footsteps noises, muffled voices, page-turning sounds, boots clanking noises, loud young voices, and loud giggle sounds can be also heard, then slowly those noise fades away, at that time, the sound of silent breeze whispers in the air, then a one deep, loud and firm regal voice is heard, commanding everyone to come out of their classes as there is an important announcement for all students, so all students came out of their classrooms silently, walked and stood on vast playground field.

Students saw some of the teachers standing near the Principal, and the Principal, standing on the stage.

The principal stands at the center of the stage. Since 1996, The principal has been running this institution, which is quite famous for its discipline and academic success.

The principal announces," A pet healthcare checkup camp will be organized within a few weeks, this is for those students, who own pets. Many veteran doctors are going to visit this organization and will do a free health checkup of the pets, this free checkup is not only limited to students' families, and they can recommend this to their neighbors or near their colony areas.

This free check-up is being organized by our management department as they want to promote the importance of pet healthcare as they are themselves, pet lovers.

And it will also benefit our institution as this will add value to our college reputation and will showcase the moral ground of our college to the upcoming new students, who will join our college soon.

The rest important instructions will be informed through a pamphlet, which will be given to all of you by your class teachers, and carefully read the instructions given in the pamphlet about this pet health checkup camp.

At lunchtime, that college boy reads the whole pamphlet in which the details are written in plain and simple.

That college boy is seen, sitting alone in the classroom, reading a book, both comic books, and textbooks are lying on his seat table.

After some minutes, he switches to a comic book and continues from the bookmarked page, he is seen enjoying it with a satisfying smile and laughing while reading the comic book.

Then that boy is interrupted by his close friends, and one of his friends speaks, " Si-U, Aera is saying that you met someone, someone special".

Aera speaks in a teasing tone, " My guess is always right. Didn't you all notice that he seems lost nowadays and looks lost in between the classes. Kwang, I think he has a crush on someone".

Kwang assumes, " Aera is right, he has a crush on someone either from their class Or from the other class section".

Aera speaks in a playful tone," 아니요, 그렇게 생각하지 않습니다 (No, I don't think so). Si- U has eyes on someone, who isn't from our college as till now, I have never seen him staring fondly at any girl in our college. She would be someone different and unique girl, I guess. Poor girl, she has to now tolerate Si-U's mischievous acts".

And, Si-U speaks," I don't know about crush and all. But, I surely want to know her name, spend some time with her and be friends with her. Unfortunately, I don't have any clue about her at all. Hope so, I meet her again".

His friends laugh and tease him, which made Si-U 's cheeks flush a little red.

His friends tease him every day, asking Si- U about his recent behavior these days, trying to make him say the whole story of meeting that special girl but he cleverly tackles the question and confuses them more, so they give in at last.

Then they discussed the pet healthcare camp, they all were talking about bringing in their pets and inviting their neighbors to this camp.

Then Aera asks all their friends about their plan for that organization day, so, they were discussing that.

Then suddenly a cute girl from their batch comes up to them with a determined and flushed face, turns towards Si-U and introduces a rose in front of him along with a handmade envelope in her hand, and extends it slowly towards Si-U.

His friends and others are staring at him in curiosity to see what will happens next, meanwhile, Si-U looks extremely nervous and feels bad as he was going to reject her proposal because he is not ready for this kind of thing but something unexpected happens as she proposes by saying a name at last, which is not Si-U instead it is his friend's name' Haneul', who is currently standing behind him shocked and a little flushed.

All started laughing at that scene as they all assumed that this girl was going to propose to Si-U. Si-U also laughs loudly, then his friends cheer Haneul to respond to that girl's proposal.

Hanuel accepts that girl's proposal by saying yes to being her boyfriend. Both faces looked red due to blushing, then they left that new couple alone for them to talk, and later they will attack him with lots of teasing.

Si-U returns home after college classes are over. He comes across his sister waiting on the sofa, looking keenly at him like an eagle, which makes him a little worried as he ponders about his recent activities, which might have angered/annoyed her sister. He realizes that she already knows about his recent playful activities, which may have disturbed or annoyed their neighbors.

Then after that, the reason behind her sister's keen gaze is reasoned with a statement of him being lost and dreamy, which is not his usual dumb self, this little joke annoyed him so, he also cracks a joke about her peculiar style of forgiving someone, which made her angry, then they started bickering, and after some moments, his sister's boyfriend tries to calm them down but couldn't do.

However, after some moments, those two siblings started laughing, which made his soon to be brother in law confused. His sister's boyfriend then just shrugs off and laughs at their antics.

Si-U gives the pamphlet to them and explains to them about the camp that is going to be held within a few weeks.

They looked happy about it. Si-U's sister says, " U-ram! This is so nice, we get to visit our friend, who is also a good veteran doctor, and will also get our pet a free healthcare check-up. Si-U, I will introduce my best friend Saeng ".

Mi-Ok and U-ram gave him some descriptions of Saeng, which reminded him of that girl, who he have seen many times but was never able to meet.

In another scene, a high school boy knocks on the door at the Saeng's parents' house, Saeng's mom opens the door and sees their close neighbor friend's son looking happy and excited but also a little tensed because of doubts in his mind, he requests Saeng's mom to also call her husband.

Then Saeng's dad walks up to them, then the boy explains to them about the pet healthcare camp being organized at their college, when they allowed him inside.

Before he could make any request, they read his mind and assures him that instead of their parents, they will come with him and take his pet to the camp along with him as they know that his parents went on a business trip for 2 weeks.

Here, Saeng gets a call from her other veterans whom she met randomly in the veteran clinic camp organization, they advised her to also take part in this camp.

Saeng accepts their advice as she also wants to expand her customer numbers and she can also meet different types of pets, which she is habituated to.

She also prepares a thank you card as she learned through some psychology books that appreciation is part of any work that people give service to. So, she works on those thank-you notes for more than two days.

Then only 5 days were left for the pet camp organization day.

When that day comes, the pet healthcare camp has already been set on a vast playground field, the field was filled with many street food stalls, and a few pet food stalls and banner board with ' Pet Healthcare Camp' written upon it, is fixed at the entrance of the field, which is decorated with ribbon flowers.

Around 7 am, student volunteers were supervising the arrangements of this camp organization, and teachers rushed here and there, making an assurance that this camp carries on without any interruption.

Some students are talking, some are playing with pets, and some students are helping the doctors if they need any help.

Around 8 am, many people started filling in that camp, slowly they formed queues in front of each tent set there, some tents had many people standing in long queues, some tents had a moderate amount of people standing in short queues and some tents had only a few people standing in front of it.

Mi-Ok, U-ram, and Si-U arrive together and enter the camp. Mi- OK and Si-U are teasing U-ram about something, and they gave hi-fi to each other. U-ram stands beside them and pretends to be angry. Then Si-U imitates his sister's behavior and voice and whines to U-ram about him being sometimes stiff and unromantic. U-ram laughs and Mi-Ok playfully hit her brother.

Si-U then introduces Wanja (pet dog) to his friends and his friends also introduce their pets, they laugh and play with their pets, then they hear their class's role model monitor commanding them to maintain silence and behave as disciplined college students but Si-U imitates him behind his back and their friends laugh at Si-U 's antics.

Most of the people gathered in the middle tent and then a moderate amount of people in the second tent, then a little less amount of people in the last tent, and the rest of the tents have a few but a good amount of visitors but the least visited one was the first tent which was strange and more strange was that college boys were gathered around that tent but with no pets.

This scene made Si-U curious, Mi-Ok and U-ram just laughed jokingly as they knew whose tent it is when they saw a group of college boys gathered in front of the first tent.

Mi-Ok tells her brother, " Si-U, that tent is surely held by her best friend 'Saeng ".

Aera asks, " Eonnie ( Elder sister), How are you so sure about that?".

U-ram speaks in a playful tone, " She is quite a beauty, I guess. During our college times, she used to attract a lot of attention from boys but she never talks much with strangers, so she only used to talk mostly with us and other friends of our gang. And, She has unique features, which either enchant or intimidate others".

They ask Si-U and his friend to come along with them to that tent but Si-U and his friends deny it as his friends need to help and guide some people in this camp.

And, Si-U feels something strange inside his body so he excuses them by giving a lame excuse.

Mi-Ok and U-ram looked somewhat convinced and visit Saeng's tent, there were enough people but least compared to all other tents, Saeng seems to be unbothered by this fact.

She is sincerely checking on the visitor's pets and giving them advice and suggestions and gives her clinic card along with an appreciation note to each visitor.

Mi-Ok and U-ram visit her tent and she looks neutral but her eyes reflect a soft glint of affection upon seeing them, she welcomes them formally and then does a health checkup on Wanja.

Wanja likes Saeng a lot, every time Wanja visits her, he becomes happy, unlike other pets who are afraid of the few veterans present there.

Wanja seems reluctant to leave her, so they request Saeng to let Wanja be near her.

Saeng agrees, she then gives them also an appreciation note which has cute and creative art, and also a statement saying thank you for their visit, which made them happy, so they decide to help Saeng gain more visitors by informing people about her efforts and her excellency in doing check-up of pets.

In this way, they attracted many visitors to Saeng's tent and also a special customer, who seems to be Saeng's parents along with their neighbor's son, they are in the queue waiting for their turn.

Meanwhile, somewhere, Si-U and her friends are playing with their pets and waiting for the queues to be small but it seems to be too long, then they start playing with their pets and they ask about Wanja and ask Si-U to bring Wanja, then he remembers that his sister and his brother-in-law went to the 1st tent.

Si-U suggests, "Let's take your pets for their pet health check-up to the 1st tent as it looks less crowded than other tents, so, it will be quick".

His friends agreed. They stand in the queue but Si-U asks them, " Why are you standing there? This veteran doctor is my sister's best friend, so, maybe that doctor will do our pet's health check-up first than others. Come, let's go near to that veteran".

But his friends refused his idea but he convinces them somehow to go in front of the veteran doctor, and they see that a few college boys are staring at someone even the role model monitor of our class.

Si-U and his friends get near to that tent, he recognizes Wanja, and then Si-U gets face to face with the veteran who was checking up on a pet, facing opposite them, when she turns Si-U is in shock and stares at her for few seconds and his friends notice this and smirk and nudge him teasingly.

Si-U speaks in a polite tone, " Excuse me ! Saeng ssi ". Saeng turns and faces them, and then recognizes that boy from the forest, and then he informs her that he is the younger brother of Mi-Ok nuna ( elder sister) and asks her to check on his friend's pets first.

Saeng speaks in a neutral tone," Sure but for that, you all have to join the queue line".

His friends, other college boys, and a few visitors in the queue laugh at him. Saeng tells them, " There is nothing to laugh about. You should not laugh at him as it might embarrass him".

Si-U feels a little embarrassed but amazed by her disciplined rule. Then that role model class monitor comes in front of Saeng and flirts with her but she gives no response and remains neutral, which makes him feel embarrassed by her ignorance.

Si-U feels satisfied by this scene. Then Si-U and his friends were going to join in the queue, then they hear Saeng speak loudly in a polite tone, " Mister Alligator!", Si-U turns and walks back to her and his friends go along with him

Saeng says," Mister Alligator, I have seen you somewhere. If I am not wrong, you are the boy, who was trying to escape from that poor alligator in Upo Marshland".

Si-U speaks in a playful tone, " My surname is not an alligator, Saeng ssi. And, yes I was that brave and charming boy, who survived the alligator. But, I wouldn't mind if you call me ' Mr.Alligator'".

Aera, Kwang, and Dae-jung are laughing at his foolish attempts to impress Saeng ssi.

Saeng speaks in a neutral tone, "Because of you, my forest tour was shortened and I was unable to see the rest of the animal species present there".

Si-U sarcastically comments," 'That poor alligator' you say, but wasn't I the poor one at that moment at the mercy of the alligator".

Saeng shakes her head and tells him, " That alligator was just acting upon his instinct and you defended yourself from him that was your instinct, but, she halts and leans closer to him, and whispers in his ear, " But, Mister Alligator, keeping him trapped in that net trap for long to make that poor alligator suffer is not morality or superiority according to me".

Si-U is speechless and embarrassed. Then he also remembers something and tells, " That you are that lady who was wandering alone in the Upo Marshland and often visits that place weekly once. And you are that same lady, who I have seen many times wandering alone in the streets with a neutral expression.

Saeng accepts and says 'yes' and then another visitor next in line comes up in front of her and asks her instead of giving her the pet, " Saeng-a, Do you wander alone in that wild forest and why have you never informed us about this. Dear, It could be dangerous, next time, be careful and take someone trustful with you to that place".

Saeng looks in front and stares at them with a sigh.