XOXO (An XOXO Novel)

Spring means cherry blossom season and SAA’s annual school camping trip to one of South Korea’s national parks, which apparently was on the official academic calendar on the website. I hadn’t known because no one mentioned it until a few days before we’re supposed to leave.

“It happens every year,” Gi Taek explained. “You’re just”—he shrugged—“supposed to know.”

“I’m a transfer student!”

“The school sent out an email.”

“If it was in Korean, then I didn’t read it.”

“You really should work on your reading skills.”

The night before we’re scheduled to leave, Sori and I pack for the trip. It’s a two day, one night trip, and each student is allowed to pack one small duffel bag.

“Are you going to be okay?” I ask Sori, who isn’t exactly a minimalist.

“Shut up. Actually, can you pack my makeup case in your bag? Oh, and my face roller?”

“You don’t need two sets of pajamas,” I tell her, when I see her reaching for both her pink silk pj’s and her LINE FRIENDS shorts and T-shirt.

She spears me with a look. “‘Need is relative.’”

When she sees me packing my dad’s old shirt, she eyes me judgingly. “Jenny.” That’s all she says. Just my name. Like it’s a synonym for disappointment.

“What?”

“This is a two day, one night trip.”

“Yeah, I know.” I finally read the information page on the school’s website, which had a translate option.

“As in, we’ll be sleeping overnight somewhere with our classmates.”

“Don’t we do that anyway?” I ask. “I mean, we live in a dorm.”

“As in, the girls and boys will be in the same building, likely a small house in the middle of nowhere, with little to no supervision. As in, Jaewoo will be there. As in, you can get into his pants or vice versa or both.”

For someone who’s super into Hello Kitty, she can be quite crass.

“Wait, he’s going on the trip?” He hasn’t been in school the past couple weeks. And I have no means of contacting him because his phone is still being monitored. I guess I could contact him through Sori, but I also don’t want to get either of them into trouble.

“Jenny, no one misses this trip.”

This sounds more ominous than excitement-inducing, yet consider my excitement induced.

“Better,” Sori says when I hold up a pajama set. Though, as someone who’s stuffing a hairdryer into a twenty-two-inch duffel, her packing priorities don’t exactly inspire confidence.

The day of the trip dawns dreary with rain clouds, but that doesn’t stop every student at SAA, even those who don’t stay at the dorms but with their families in Seoul, from arriving on time, duffel in hand, beside the long stretch of buses outside the academy.

Every student, that is, except for the members of XOXO.

“I thought you said they’d be here,” I hiss at Sori.

“Maybe not.” She doesn’t look happy, her eyes scanning the crowd.

“Morning!” Angela calls, walking over arm-in-arm with Gi Taek. She’s wearing a neon green rain poncho over a matching track suit set. Gi Taek’s dressed just as stylishly in what is presumably a Japanese brand, if the kanji logo stitched onto the pant leg is any indication. They definitely took the lax dress code for the field trip and ran with it.

“Good morning,” I say, and accept a hug from them both. As I step back, I have this weird out of body experience where I flashback to only a few months ago, walking onto the LACHSA campus. I never would have imagined hugging a classmate. And now, it feels so natural, so damn heartwarming, to greet Gi Taek and Angela in this way.

They both look at me strangely; I must have a weird expression on my face.

“Do you think we have assigned seats?” I ask, covering up my attack of affection with a question. “Or can we sit anywhere on the bus?”

“We probably just have assigned buses,” Gi Taek says.

Of course, he’s right.

Gi Taek, Angela, and I high-five when our homeroom classes are assigned to the same bus. We give our duffels to the driver who’s stacking them neatly in the storage compartment beneath the bus. After boarding, we realize most of the seats in the back are filled so Sori and I take seats in the middle, with Gi Taek and Angela directly behind us. Our class monitors hand out food prepared by the cafeteria—bottles of water and gimbap wrapped in tinfoil.

I hold out hope until the last possible moment that Jaewoo might still show up. Seated by the window, I have a clear view of the curbside as the last of the students board the buses, until only the security guard remains, shutting the gates to the school. I turn from the window to see Sori craning her neck for a glimpse. Our gazes meet and she shakes her head.

After that, I try to resign myself to a fun field trip with my friends. It’s never too early for gimbap, so I unwrap mine and eat it like a burrito. The smorgasbord of ingredients is like a symphony in my mouth—seasoned and sautéed carrots, spinach, and burdock root, plus imitation crab, yellow pickled radish, and bulgogi, neatly encased in rice and laver seaweed and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

“I wasn’t hungry,” Sori says, when I emerge from my food-bliss to find her staring at me. “But now I kind of am.”

As we wind our way out of Seoul, Sori and I play phone games, and I take a selfie with Sori smiling prettily and Gi Taek and Angela making funny faces behind us to send to Halmeoni.

The chattering dies down as people plug into their music or settle in for a nap. I open my own music app, and soon Rachmaninoff and the drone of the bus on the road lull me to sleep.