Lee Seung-Hwan / Character Sketch / Tue 1 p.m

 

Unique Luke

 

His name was Luke. The time I saw him first was when I was 16 years old. It was the first day of my high school. Everybody was nervous, and so was I. Everyone in the class room was a stranger to me. Luke was also a stranger. For more details, he was actually a scary stranger. He was at the back seat of the classroom, and was leaning himself to the chair like a king. His hands were in his pocket. Shiny earphones were covering his ears. His mp3 player was quite expensive one at that time. Looked like he liked fancy devices. His face expression showed everything about his feeling. He was completely bored. Everybody can make a bored face. However, his face expression looked very unfamiliar. It was like he came from other world, and not aware of what was happening in our world, just longing to go back. Maybe the reason I received that impression was that his looked like a Caucasian. He had a sharp nose, and his eyes were big and loose. Furthermore, he was very tall. He seemed to be the tallest among the classmates.

I thought I would never be able to be a friend with him. However, strangely, I became a friend with him. He was way different than I thought. First, he was quite talky. I thought that he would have very heavy mouth, but the reality was the exact opposite of it. He talked about everything, and most topics he was talking about were so worthless that I usually forgot all after few hours. Sometimes he came to me and talked about some classmates he wanted to beat in the face. At first, I was completely frightened when he talked like that. Furthermore, each time I asked the reason why he hated certain classmates, he gave me worthless reasons - so worthless that I also forgot about those. However, soon, I came to realize that there was no serious meaning included in his hatred. He just had a fragile mind, so a single word could make him hate someone so easily. Corresponding to that, he also got back with classmates he hated so quickly. He actually didn't harm any classmates physically.

However, that does not mean he had a weak body. Actually, he seemed perfect when it comes to sports. He was really good at basketball. His grades in the P.E class was the best among the classes. Nevertheless, he never pulled any punches. He never wanted lose. The problem was, he also never wanted lose in worthless things - so worthless that I almost forgot about those, but I do remember one. One day, his friend asked him to bet on which one of those could pretend asleep more during the class. He accepted that fight, and they both pretended they were asleep in the class. Finally, the teacher scolded them to wake up. The classmate who started the bet woke up right after that. But my dear friend, Luke, did not want to wake up till he could be sure that he won. He woke up a while after the teacher scolded them. He was punished for that, but he just satisfied to the fact that he won, just saying "I won!" However, nobody cared for his glorious victory.

I still meet him. Because I am small and he is tall, some people say we look strange. They may wonder how we two hang out together so well, because we just look different. However, I don't feel any strangeness from him anymore, because I know under the peel of that strangeness, there are so many unexpected characteristics that fit me.