After the second break is over, it’s time for the last lesson of the day, math. All the students, with the exception of Taeyeon, groan once the teacher comes in.

“Hey, hey, why are you guys so upset to see me?” The math teacher, Mr. Kim, asks with one eyebrow raised.

“Isn’t it clear already?” Yoonji can hear Wonwoo muttering to himself.

“Don’t worry, today I won’t give you any punishment. In fact, today your class has been pretty quiet from what I see.”

Pretty quiet? Yoonji sighs in disapproval.

“Anyway, let’s get on with the lesson! Did you guys do the homework from last week?”

“Yes,” the students all chorus, except for Yoonji. She immediately raises her hand.

“Sir, today is my first day, so I don’t know anything about the homework...”

“Huh? Do you think you can get away with that?”

Suddenly she goes silenced as Mr. Kim raises his speaking tone.

“Even if you’re new, you could’ve asked the other students if there’s any homework or not! My lesson is the last one for today, so you had a lot of time to work on it! You could even copy their work! I don’t care if you’re new here! I won’t tolerate anyone who didn’t do their homework!”

Yoonji is utterly shocked by the fact that the teacher is scolding her, so she just keeps her head down. Not too long though, she feels something hitting her head, making her let out a little sound of pain.

“What’s your name, young lady?”

She tries to look up to the teacher while stuttering her name.

“I-it’s Y-yoo Yoonji, S-sir.”

“Kneel outside the class, with both your hands in the air, now!”

She blinks, numerous times, in disbelief. How can the teacher do this to her when she doesn’t even know anything?

“Now!!!!”

With that, she stands up from her seat immediately and half-runs to the exit. When she’s finally outside the class, she stays there for awhile, trying to peek into the classroom through the little space the door left after she walked out of it.

“Don’t you think I don’t know what you’re doing outside! Kneel with your hands in the air, now!!!”

As if getting electric shock, Yoonji immediately gets into the position. She sighs again, feeling it is unfair for her. She barely gets punished in another school, but when she got here, she gets punished right on her first day. The teacher is making such a big deal with her being a new student. How can the students stand such a teacher, really?

As her train of thoughts keeps going, another male student comes out of the classroom. He situates himself next to Yoonji before also getting into the punishment position.

Yoonji eventually realizes the presence of the student next to her, and soon enough her expression shows her surprise. The student, aware of Yoonji looking at him, gives her an awkward smile.

“I forgot to do my homework,” he explains briefly and Yoonji nods at the explanation.

Now that she looks at him, she realizes that this boy has a very unique look, unlike any usual Korean. He’s like a westerner. He also reminds her of a Hollywood actor...

“You look like Leonardo DiCaprio,” she mutters, albeit out loud, so the boy instantly turns to her when he hears her say that. Yoonji is about to turn her head in embarrassment when the boy soon shows her a bright smile.

“Haha, I heard that a lot.”

Yoonji wants to look at the boy again, but becomes too shy to do it. So she just keeps her head down, her eyes trained on the floor.

“What’s your name again? Was it Yeonji?”

She didn’t expect to hear him asking that question. Cautiously, she looks up and meets eyes with the boy, who is looking at her with curious eyes.

“It’s Yoonji. Yoo Yoonji,” she says it slowly to emphasize that that’s the right name. A look of acknowledgement crosses the other boy’s features as he nods a few times.

“I’m Choi Hansol by the way.”

Choi Hansol? The name sounds so Korean for that kind of face.

“I’m half Korean, haha. That’s why I have a Korean name, if you were wondering.”

Yoonji quickly hangs her head again in embarrassment.

“Don’t be embarrassed, everyone is all like that. That’s perfectly normal.”

She doesn’t know what to do with her head, so for now, she thinks it’s better to keep it down. But after some moments pass, she finds it a bit tiring, so she decides to look straight in front of her.

Another moment passes in silence. She starts to wonder when all of this will end.

“How much longer do we have to be like this?” she wonders out loud.

“Well, until the school bell rings, of course,” Hansol replies from next to her.

She turns to look at the boy again, who also fixes his stare at a spot on the wall right in front of him. When she looks at him like this, she starts to realize how handsome this boy is...

Just as Yoonji was about to go off into a daydream, the school bell finally rings. Hansol immediately puts his hands down along with a sigh of relief, as he slowly but surely starts feeling muscle pain on both of his biceps. Yoonji also does the same, and already starts massaging both her arms gently.

At the same time, she suddenly feels something that seems to hurt, right inside her stomach.

Crap!

“You two, go to my office, now!” Mr. Kim shouts at both of them before going off on his own. Hansol is already standing on his two feet, but Yoonji is struggling to get up from her position.

“Hey, are you okay?” Hansol asks as he realizes Yoonji’s struggle. She keeps holding onto her stomach as he helps her stand up.

“I... I’m okay,” she tries to reassure herself, but surely, Hansol doesn’t seem to be too assured.

“Do you want to go to the nursing room?”

“No... I think we have to go to Mr. Kim’s office first...”

“Let me help you. Hold onto my arm, okay?”

Hansol helps Yoonji link her arm with her to make it easier for him to lead the way.

“Hansol-ah!” Taeyeon cheerily calls the boy who is now busy leading Yoonji to the teacher’s office.

“Later, I have something to do right now!”

As Hansol and Yoonji go off to the office, Taeyeon’s expression quickly turns sour behind them.

“Just so you know that you brats,” Mr. Kim writes 5 in the column next to Yoonji’s name, and also 5 next to the other 5 that Hansol has collected throughout the year, “will never get away from me whenever you cause any trouble. Look here, this is your punishment point. If you collect 1000 of these points, it’s a sure deal you won’t be able to go to the twelfth grade.”

Yoonji feels a little relief. She surely won’t get points as much as 1000, right?

“Hansol, you’re reaching 600 points, so you should be careful. Do your homework, alright?”

“Yes, Sir,” Hansol flatly replies.

“And you, uh, what’s your name again?”

“Yoo Yoonji, Sir.”

“Yeah, you.” He turns to look at Hansol for a moment. “Can you leave us alone? I need to talk to her in private.”

Hansol looks like he was about to protest, but Mr. Kim throws him a murderous look before he can, so he has no choice but to bow out of the office.

Yoonji just wishes all this would be over, because her stomachache surely starts getting unbearable bit by bit.

“Since you are a new student, I will have to tell you, I will always come to get your class. If you want to stay out of punishment, do what you think a model student usually does.”

He looks at her, seemingly asking if she understands or not. She blinks for a moment before nodding.

“Okay, you may go now.”

Yoonji sighs in relief for real now, grateful that the teacher doesn’t take a long time in keeping her here.

After excusing herself, she walks out of the office to find that Hansol didn’t wait for her and had gone unseen. Why would she expect him to wait for her? Anyway, she goes straight to the class to retrieve her bag. When she arrives there, she sees Hyejin and a male student on their cleaning duty, but the weird thing is that she doesn’t see her bag on her seat.

“Where is my bag?” she inquires the two of them, who looks back at her in confusion.

Yoonji feels panic starting to seep into her as she starts checking out every nook and cranny of the classroom, but no matter what, she still can’t find it.

“Where is it...?” she feels like crying as she asks herself the question. Then she turns to the two students again. “Are you sure you didn’t throw it away or anything?”

“Yes. I really didn’t see it,” the male student replies.

Okay, she is totally doomed. She wants to curse out loud, especially since she feels her stomachache getting worse. Unknowingly, she starts kneeling on the floor. She feels like all of her limbs are turning into jelly, as if all the energy she has is taken away from her.

“Are you okay? Do you want to go to the nursing room?”

She identifies the voice as the male student. She just nods, and in the next moment, she feels her arms being placed on someone’s shoulder. She can still walk, but weakly, but at least the shoulder helps keeping her on her feet. Everything goes blurry until the moment she hears a door open and feels a rather comfy surface on her back.

Through her blurry vision, she tries to take a look at her surroundings. A school nurse is looking at her with worry as she uses her stethoscope on her belly. It feels cold, and Yoonji almost shivers at the coldness. The other one is the male student who’s on cleaning duty. As expected, he is a handsome one, too.

“What happened to her, Ms. Yoon?” the boy asks the nurse.

“Oh, it’s just some gastritis pain. It seems like she hasn’t eaten all day, but we have to get her eat quickly of course. Wait, I’ll get her some meds first.”

Ms. Yoon goes to search for her meds while the boy looks at Yoonji in worry. She keeps grunting in pain while still clutching her stomach as if her life depends on it.

“Here it is!” She brings a clear, small bottle in her hand with visibly seen pills inside. “She must have one of these 30 minutes before or after eating.”

“Thank you, Ms. Yoon.” He looks back at Yoonji, who is still squirming from the pain. “Yoonji-yah, let’s take one of these first. I’ll ask someone to buy you some food.”

Hearing those words, Yoonji then sits on the bed weakly. He hands her the clear bottle and goes off to get some water to help her swallow one of those pills. After she puts one of the pills in , he comes back at the right time with the water. She gratefully takes it as she drinks the water, helping the pill entering her digestive system.

“Are you feeling better now?” he asks gently.

Yoonji doesn’t feel better right away, but she feels a bit reassured. The day must be the worst first day for her though. Getting her lunch snatched away from her, getting punished by the teacher for something she doesn’t deserve to get punished for, getting a stomachache and also losing her bag—

“Wait,” she starts muttering as she realizes something. “I haven’t found my bag! I must find it now!”

“But—”

Yoonji doesn’t wait for the boy to finish talking as she just dashes out of the nursing room.

Here is chapter 3! Now that I've written a few chapters ahead of this one, I think the time to decide who'll be the main is getting closer... so to anyone who haven't given suggestion on the male lead, please leave it in the comment! Also, I'm not forcing anyone to subscribe, but if you don't subscribe yet you did put your suggestion in the comment, I'll count it as half a vote. Of course if you subscribe soon after before I decide the male lead, I'll count it as one vote. I'm doing this for the rest of the subscribers who wants to follow the story, but again I won't pressure everyone to subscribe~

Anyway I'll end this long author's note with a little vote count:

Wonwoo - 3 votes

Seungcheol - 2½ votes

Jihoon - 1 vote