“This is my home for the next year,” Jackson announced to himself as he walked into his dorm room, which was spacious with simplistic decoration. The color scheme was mainly black and white and there were a couple inspiring quotes on the walls.

According to the teacher in charge, he was assigned the largest dorm room alone. Jackson told the teacher it was not necessary and didn't want to be treated differently because of his past, but the arrangements had already been made. Jackson unpacked his luggage, which wasn’t much so he was able to relax on his comfortable bed. He had two days to settle in before school and he decided to take advantage of them.

    “Ladies, you cannot be here. This is the male dorm!” yelled the teacher with struggle to his voice as he was blocking the hoard of girls from entering.

    “We heard there’s a new international student here that’s super cute. Let us see him!” fussed one female student as other girls began to whine.

Jackson chuckled and locked his door, not really wanting any disturbances at the moment. He was still getting over the jet lag. Even though Hong Kong wasn’t too far from South Korea, he hated plane rides in general and they always made his body feel weak. He tried taking a nap, but failed so he grabbed something out of a chest that he kept locked at all times. It was his official Hong Kong fencing jersey.

    “Can I get through this?” he whispered to himself, hoping that this school would help him through his struggles. He held his jersey tightly and was able to fall asleep right away.

Mark slammed his alarm off and opened his eyes slightly. It was still quite early in the morning so the sun was hardly peering through his window. After a few minutes of just wrestling around, he finally got up and quickly showered and got dressed. The uniform was sleek black pants, a white collared button up, dark gray blazer, and a tie of the color of your respective team in school. Mark, being in the swimming team, had a dark blue tie, but there were others such as dark gray for fencing, green for soccer, light blue for water polo and more. He fastened it to his neck, but loosened it considerably as he couldn’t stand looking so preppy.

“You’re finally awake. I’ve been waiting,” chuckled Mark’s close friend, Park Jinyoung. They lived next door to one another and since Mark lived alone, Jinyoung’s mom often brought him food to eat and today was one of those days.

Mark rolled his eyes and sat down in front of Jinyoung and started eating. The two didn’t say much and just ate until their plates were empty. After putting and washing their plates in the sink, they walked out where Mrs. Park was waiting for them.

    “Mark, you look even handsomer,” complimented the lady, in which Mark simply smiled and  thanked her. She often complimented his looks and compared him to her son, getting whines from the boy.

    “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever. Where do you go during breaks?” Jinyoung asked, clinging onto the Taiwanese boy who pushed him off.

    “Y’know. This and that,” Mark didn’t really like telling people about his business outside of school, including Jinyoung.     

The rest of the car ride went silent as Jinyoung knew not to push the quiet boy. After receiving several kisses from Mrs. Park and told to have fun and do well, the two were dropped off only to see a crowd of girls in front of the school.

    “What’s going on over there?” Jinyoung asked as he walked closer to the school entrance.

Mark shrugged and looked as he saw a bright male face in the center of the sea of females. The male was an international student as he was obviously not Korean, most likely new to the school as well. He had a sharp jawline and smooth velvety skin. His brunette hair seemed to have received little attention, but the way it fell into place was charming. The student’s smiling face was quite attractive and brightened Mark’s mood instantly. For some reason he looked a tiny bit familiar to the Taiwanese boy, but not enough for Mark to really care and get into it. The new student seemed to like the attention he was getting from all the girls which made Mark chuckle as the boy seemed petty because of it.

    “Pathetic,” he quietly dissed in English as he walked passed the crowd.

Jackson had no idea who said that, but heard it and turned to where he heard the voice immediately, but saw no one. He was disappointed and sighed. The girls were still fathoming over him and honestly, he wasn’t really feeling it anymore as he wanted to find the owner of that voice and have a fun conversation in English. He knew Korean pretty well due to the lessons he took in Korea and the Korean nannies he had over the years, but he was still rusty.

The bell rang and the crowd dispersed quickly. Jackson smiled and took a deep breath as he felt suffocated around all those girls. He knew he was quite good looking, so he figured those were the side effects of being irresistible. The new student walked into the office and got a quick rundown of how it worked in the school.

    “Welcome to JY Pro-sports Academy. This is one of the top sports focused high schools in the world and we are proud to say so. Only the basic classes are given and as long as you get Cs in your classes, you can continue to stay here. 90% of students here go on to further teams such as college, pro, and recreational. I hope you enjoy going here!” informed the receptionist who handed Jackson his schedule, which after looking at, didn’t seem too hard of classes.

    “Do you know who you’re talking to, Ms. Shin?” questioned a familiar voice.

Jackson looked up and saw the principal, Mr. Park Jinyoung, a famous fencing athlete back in the day. He was someone Jackson looked up to and he immediately bowed to the legend. The principle laughed and shook Jackson’s hand.

    “He’s a part of Hong Kong’s national fencing team. Mr. Jackson Wang, it is a pleasure to have you here,” welcomed the principal with a bright smile.

    “I… would prefer if no one knew that, if that is okay with you,” Jackson said with his head down as he quite embarrassed to say so.

I was in the Hong Kong national fencing team. I was, but not anymore.

    “Of course. I’ll make sure of that as I haven’t blabbed to anyone about our VIP student,” Mr. Park laughed as he pat Jackson’s head before leaving.

Jackson walked out of the office and took a deep breath in disappointment over his conversation with Mr. Park. He didn't want to be known as the Hong Kong national fencing player because that wasn't him anymore. After relaxing up a bit, he went on to class, which had little to no participation as most of the students didn’t bother to put a lot of effort as they hoped to get into college through athletics not academics. Because of the atmosphere, Jackson also fell into the same slump and didn’t bother to focus in his classes either.

Jinyoung and Mark slammed their lunch plates on their usual table, smiling as school lunches were actually pretty good. They looked around for their two other friends and saw them still in line fooling around. The taller one was in a gray tie and loved to tease and mess around with his close friend. Most people were scared of the shorter one in the green tie as he was the ASB President, but the taller one didn't care at all.

"Mark, we didn't see you at all during break. How are you?" chuckled the gray tie as he sat down.

"I'm fine, Jaebum. Nothing much," Mark said quietly as he shrugged his shoulders.

"Jaebum-ahh, you can't just leave me like that!" yelled the boy with the green tie as he ran to the table.

"That's what you get for joking around like that, Youngjae!" he laughed as he patted the boy's head. Youngjae pouted and didn't say a word as he stuffed food in his mouth.

Mark and Jinyoung laughed at Jaebum and Youngjae's behavior. The two were always like that, but in the end they were inseparable, an even stronger bond than Mark and Jinyoung as Mark would like to believe, but slightly embarrassed to admit. Jinyoung looked around and saw the new international student sitting alone, but he didn't look sad at all as his eyes gleamed looking at the delicious food that was served.

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