“Where is it?”

Yoonji goes back to the classroom again, trying to figure out if she actually misses the sight of her bag anywhere. Although her stomach would probably beg her to rest, she doesn’t have such luxury right now. There are a lot of important books and notes in there, so she must find it quickly.

She starts looking around the classroom again in detail without missing out any space, but still, she can’t find it. She now thinks of the possibility of someone bringing it outside the classroom. But why would they? Is this also part of the new student celebration or whatever it is? If it is like that, Yoonji is definitely not happy with it.

She looks around the floor wherever she goes. She also looks into trashbins, but nothing. She looks around the library, the computer room, the bathrooms, everywhere. But she still can’t find it.

As she returns to the first floor, her stomachache starts to fade, but she feels so exhausted, having looked around all the rooms, even the other classrooms. Where could it possibly be?

Somehow, as she turns to look at the fountain, one of the boys in her class is standing right next to it, and he also slowly turns to her. His eyes are wide with some sort of unreadable expression written all over his face. Yoonji is suddenly curious of why he’s like that as she approaches the boy, but right then, she sees something familiar in his hand, wet.

That’s when Yoonji finally explodes.

“What the !” She runs to the boy and forcefully snatches away the wet beg out of his hold. “What the hell! Do you guys think it’s funny to put my bag inside this fountain? Are you guys happy pranking me all day long? Do you guys want me to quit this school already? Do you want to see me kill myself? Or what? What do you guys want from me????”

After that, she screams again in anger, startling the boy who keeps staring at her, confused. Soon enough, she feels hot tears stinging her eyes. She wipes the ones who manage to slip out of her eyes, also angrily.

“Yoo Yoonji-sshi?”

She turns to the source of the voice, ready to spit some fire at the person too, but then she realizes, it’s Jo Soohyang, offering her a rather warm smile with a set of lunchboxes in her hand. Behind her is one of the boys, whom she thinks must be the shortest out of them.

“I heard you haven’t had your lunch yet,” Soohyang starts again, “so we brought you some veggie porridge.”

Yoonji blinks once, twice, thrice, before nodding.

The nurse, Ms. Yoon, prepares a table special for patients that can be put on top of the bed. So Yoonji opens the lunchbox on that table, and indeed, veggie porridge is in there, along with fresh bananas in the other. At the sight of the bananas, Yoonji almost wanted to cry.

“Hope you’ll get better,” Soohyang says to her with a cheery smile.

“I...thank you,” Yoonji awkwardly replies.

“No big deal. If it wasn’t for Jisoo, we probably wouldn’t know.”

Yoonji turns to look at the boy on cleaning duty today, the one who brought her to the nursing room in the first place. He offers her a gentleman-like smile, almost making Yoonji blush.

“Oh, I haven’t really introduced myself. I was too shy, I’m sorry,” Soohyang says again to her as she stretches a hand to her. “I’m Jo Soohyang, nice to meet you.”

Yoonji blinks again, once, before taking her handshake offer.

“Yoo Yoonji. Nice to meet you too.”

“That guy is Hong Jisoo. I mentioned him just now,” Soohyang continues as she points at Jisoo, who nods to Yoonji. Yoonji also nods back to him.

“That one is Lee Jihoon,” she points to the shortest boy who came along with her just now. He waves briefly at Yoonji, which also feels kind of awkward.

“And that guy you see near the fountain is Wen Junhui. He might be a little mischievous, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t put your bag in the fountain.”

Yoonji blinks again. Once, twice, thrice, four times, before sighing.

“Anyway, please have your lunch now! It’ll get cold if you let it be like that. I’ll excuse myself for now.”

Soohyang starts to leave, but not without offering a friendly smile first. Jihoon immediately follows her, but Jisoo stays for a brief moment.

“Get well soon, Yoonji-yah.” After that, he leaves the room too.

Her eyes are now fixed onto the porridge as she starts digging in. The porridge is so warm, so delicious. She then looks at the bananas, her favorite fruit. Then her mind starts to wonder to Soohyang, the one who brought her all of these. She now understands why the boys are all head over heels for her.

After having her lunch, Yoonji feels a lot better, especially since she already took the meds. She thanks Ms. Yoon before leaving the nursing room. When she leaves, she sees the boy who stood by the fountain, Junhui, with her backpack in a plastic bag next to him. When he finally notices her by the doorway, he immediately shakes his head fervently.

“I didn’t put your bag in there!” he exclaims as he points at the direction to the fountain. “I just found it!”

Yoonji notices that his Korean feels a little bit off, but she brushes it off anyway. She nods in understanding of his situation.

“Soohyang told me you won’t do it. For now, I’ll believe you.”

With that, a small smile starts forming on his face.

“Thank you! Now let’s go home.”

He starts walking off with her bag in tow, which raises a question mark in Yoonji’s head.

“Wait! What do you mean by ‘let’s go home’?”

Junhui feigns innocence as he explains, “I’ll take you home. Soohyang asked me to make sure you’re fine until you arrive home.”

Soohyang asked him? Now Yoonji really feels a whole lot more thankful to her.

“I heard you got a stomachache? You didn’t have your lunch?”

“Uh? Well, that’s a long story...”

“Well, we still have a long way ahead of us. Let’s get on a bus, and tell me that long story.”

“Ah~ so that’s the story!”

Yoonji nods, her face looking rather gloomy.

“That’s too bad for you to get your lunch snatched away.”

“Yeah,” Yoonji agrees, “They called me a friend. I’m the type who gets touched pretty easily too...”

“Friend?” Junhui laughs at the word, making Yoonji turn to him. “Don’t get fooled by them.”

“Fooled?”

“Well, can’t you tell why all of the guys only like Soohyang instead of the other girls in the class?”

Yoonji thinks back to Soohyang’s acts of kindness again. With that thought, she nods in understanding.

“But do you like her that way?”

Junhui looks a bit taken aback at the question. “What?”

“Do you like Soohyang that way? That way that makes you want to be her boyfriend or such?”

“Well... for starters I think the other guys are.”

At the mention of ‘the other guys’, Yoonji feels a tinge of disappointment.

“As for me, I don’t know... I like her because she’s the nicest girl in the class, but I don’t know if that means I like her that way, you know...”

She nods again in response. There’s no way knowing whether Junhui likes Soohyang that way, she realizes.

After a moment sitting in the bus, they arrive at their intended stop. They have passed Junhui’s stop long time ago, but he insists to see her reach her house with his own eyes. Besides, his house is not so far from there, he thinks.

“Anyway, I was wondering...you know, your Korean sounds kind of funny to me...”

There, Yoonji said it. When she gets curious, it can sometimes get a little bit too much, just like the awkward moment she had with Hansol. But Junhui, pretty much like Hansol, just laughs it off too.

“Oh, right, I haven’t said it. I’m from China, actually. Minghao is also from China.”

“Huh?” From China? Wow, he is really far from home.

“What got you here then?” she continues with her question.

“Scholarship got me here. Minghao too. But I got here earlier, so I think my Korean is better though.”

Yoonji nods in approval. There are times when Junhui sounds totally like a native Korean, but there are also times when his real accent shows up.

“Why don’t you teach me Chinese?”

The sudden question startles even Yoonji, the one who asks it. She didn’t realize until now how comfortable she has become with Junhui in a rather short period of time. If compared to the other guys she has interacted with, Junhui has a more carefree attitude which allows her to speak whatever comes to her mind with him. Also, he’s totally the most handsome Chinese guy she has ever met until now.

He responds her question with a smile as he reaches a hand to ruffle her hair. She is a bit upset with him treating her like a child, but it’s short-lived.

“Of course. Anytime.”

She’s not sure whether it’s a joke or that he means it, but she doesn’t think to ask about it because they are now arriving in front of her house.

“We’re here!” she exclaims as she runs to the gate of her house.

“Quite a nice garden you have,” Junhui comments as he checks out the garden behind the gate.

“Thank you! I’ll tell it to my mom, she’s the one who’s been taking care of it!”

He smiles before handing her the wet backpack.

“Are you sure you can dry it by yourself?”

She accepts the backpack before nodding. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. You’re not responsible for this, so you shouldn’t do it for me.”

He smiles again before waving her hand to her.

“Bye, see you tomorrow.”

“Oh, yes, of course! See you!”

Then Yoonji enters the house with a big smile on her face.

When she’s finally in the house, she shouts “I’m home!” for everyone in the house to hear.

“Yoonji-yah!” Her mother comes out from the kitchen, seemingly busy preparing for dinner. “How was your first day?”

She thinks back to everything that happens throughout the day, from the bad things to the good things. With a little smile, she says to her mother,

“It was quite... unconventional.”

Hahaha do you think Junhui and Yoonji are getting along rather quick? Don't worry, since no one has suggested him in the comments I probably won't use him as the lead (might just change if suddenly he gets mass votes though :v)

Anyway here is the updated vote count!

Wonwoo - 3 votes
Seungcheol - 3½ votes
Jihoon - 1 vote
Hansol - 1½ votes
Soonyoung - 1 vote

Also, I'll allow everyone who wants to change their pick, but that means your vote will be moved from your original choice to your new one. So keep your suggestions for the main lead coming!