-Flashback-

“Choi girl alert!” Wheein heard the girl next to her right whispered loudly, enough to cause the entire group to stop talking.

“The who now?” Hwasa, who was on her phone the entire time, now, is fully interested upon hearing the odd nickname given by her so-called friend.

Before the purple headed girl can continue any further, all 6 of them suddenly heard a quiet soft voice coming from the bottom of the bleachers, few seats away from where they were sitting.

“Wheein-shi.” The thin girl started, feet moved and twisted around in an uncomfortable and nervous manner. Wheein, hearing her own name, frowned in response but still managed to give her full attention towards the girl. ‘Dark blazer? She must be a senior.’ She thought to herself.

“Yes?”

“Uhh…” the said girl paused, eyebrows scrunched together, and clearly all of a sudden having a great trouble in continuing her sentence. Wheein can hear her other friends, or rather her classmates giggled, except for Hyejin who was sitting directly next to her left.

“I-I umm…” the girl stuttered, her face now in a much darker red shade in comparison to a few seconds ago. Both of her hands clenched into tight fists; so tight, Wheein can noticeably see how both of them slowly turning to white in colour. The girl’s dark hair covering almost half of her face away from Wheein’s eagle view as the afternoon wind blows gently across the school’s field.

“C-can I speak t-to you? Privately?” The dark pupils hiding behind the thick glasses were full of hope and fear maybe? Even if the day is rather cold than hot, the girl’s cheek was softly caressed by a drip of her own sweat coming from the pores of her head. Her posture basically screamed anxious, so obvious, even from afar. ‘That’s odd,’ Wheein wondered. She was about to give her own reply before Jessica slightly pulled her arm sideways, and said on her behalf instead, almost in a mocking way, “I’m sorry, but who are you? This is Wheein, Jung Wheein. Do you have an appointment?”

The girl undeniably sensing the sarcastic tone behind Jessica’s question, shook her head gently, confusion written all over her face.

“Jess.” Hwasa warned the rude girl, clearly objecting the way the girl decided to approach the stranger.

“What? Just wanted to inform the girl how things run in this place. No need to be sensitive about it, right Wheein?” Jessica giving out a wide and sickeningly sweet smile, lightly nudged her friend with her left shoulder. Wheein, upon seeing the attention has been directed to her once again, instead turned her head to her left to see the younger girl’s reaction. Now face to face with her blonde best friend, Wheein can plainly recognize the pointed look Hwasa was giving her. However, Wheein decided to ignore the warning look and chose to faced forward to look at the older girl.

“That would be correct. I would advise you to just scoot away for now? I hope you don’t mind.” Wheein shooed her away with a flick of her wrist and a tiny smirk grazing her face.

“I-I’m sorry.” The girl apologized, mouth opened to let out a mix of breathy sigh and gasp, before quickly fleeing away from the horrendous situation. Now realized how foolish she was to just approach the girl out of the blue.

“How embarrassing.” Jessica scoffed as they watched her walked away across the field, encouraging the other girls to let out very loud giggles.

“Who was that?” One of the girls behind Wheein, wondered aloud.

“I don’t know. I just know her surname, it’s Choi. She’s quite famous amongst the final year seniors in fact.” Jessica exclaimed uninterestedly while looking profusely at her own long pink glittered nails.

“Really? Why?” Another one said, Wheein can barely remember their names. Jessica’s friends seem to keep on changing every single week, Wheein never really bother to keep up.

“Why don’t you ask them? What am I? A messenger?”

“You seem to know a lot about her.” Wheein decided to ask instead, knowing that greedy Jessica would never step away from her attention. And she was right; the girl immediately beamed at her.

“Well, from what I heard, she’s like super weird or something; always hiding in the library.” Hwasa, on the other hand, who never shy away from expressing her bold feelings towards the older girl, snickered loudly upon hearing the seemly ridiculous comment.

“It’s called studying Jessica, not hiding.” Hwasa shifted her attention away from her phone to Jessica’s flustered face.

“Anyway, I heard she’s like super poor, like she got here under a scholarship. She doesn’t really have friends.” The girl continued, feeling extremely uncomfortable upon seeing the younger girl’s cold unwavering stare.

“But Wheein, you just burned the girl down! I was right about you; maybe you are indeed a cool girl. Perhaps you can come along to one of the senior’s pool party this weekend.” Jessica smirked and winked suggestively before carrying on to whatever the other girls were discussing before being offensively interrupted by the senior.

“Thanks.” Wheein quietly said. She slowly turned her head towards Hwasa, who was uncharacteristically not in her bright playful self today. Hwasa now back to her own world, dropped her gaze to her phone in hand, once again muting everything around her including Wheein’s current attention on her. Wheein thought that the girl probably didn’t care much about what just happened a few minutes ago between her and the mysterious Choi girl, almost let out a sigh of relief. But then, precipitously she heard a low voice radiated from the younger girl, loud enough only for her to hear causing the hair at the back of Wheein’s neck to rise in fear and in guilt.

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“So I was like ‘no teacher, we have two kidneys! But we only have one liver’ and he was like ‘no Seulgi-ah, we-’ unnie! Are you even listening to me?” the younger girl, clearly frustrated seeing how Moonbyul had a blank expression the whole time she was telling the supposedly super funny story. ‘How rude.’

Moonbyul snapped her attention back towards the girl sitting in front of her before giving out a half-hearted reply, “Oh? Yes, yes I am.” Moonbyul quickly defended herself, giving the girl her now the ultimate concentration, avoiding from offending the girl any further.

“What did I just tell you?” Seulgi crossed her arms and her eyes squinted in the process, giving the senior an obvious judgemental look.

“That we have two kidneys and one… uhh liver.” Moonbyul shrugged causing the junior to let out a tiny hum.

“You’re lucky your brain is smart.”

“How’s that even linked to this?”

“Because I know you weren’t paying attention at the first place.”

“I did.”

“No, you did not.” Seulgi huffed, now slightly annoyed by the older girl’s useless attempt to deny the truth.

“Then how come I know what you were talking about just now?”

“Because you have this super awesome memory. You have this weird ability to rewind whatever stuffs you just listened to, even when you were not giving your 100% attention. It’s quite annoying really.” Seulgi casually explained.

“Sorry Seulgi.” Moonbyul lowered her eyes.

“What’s going on with you?” Seulgi asked softly, knowing that the girl had never really acted this way as long as she can remembers.

“I talked to her today.”

Seulgi went quiet, and Moonbyul can immediately see her thinking wheels rotating inside her head. She knows Seulgi has warned her before about Wheein, a huge numbers of times to be exact but Moonbyul never really paid much attention to any of them. Her crush towards the other younger girl weren’t supposed to be acted aloud. Even she knows her feelings would never be accepted, not in a million years to come.

This is Jung Wheein they are talking about, the youngest child of the Jung family. The same family that owns the exact high school she’s currently attending, the exact high school that offered her the greatest scholarship than anyone could ever submitted across the entire South Korea itself because to be honest, without them, there is no way she could even afford buying the school’s uniform with her own money. The Jung family was generous enough to pay everything the school is able to offer on her behalf.

She gets to attend the best school in the country, and for free. A special treatment that only a few can take any of the pleasures in; as the ‘scholars’. That’s who Moonbyul is, that’s what they labelled her as. The scholar.

Moonbyul also comprehends how hard it was to even get one and knowing that she got offered during her first year at her small hometown’s high school was considered as a big miracle. But everyone notices how naturally smart Moonbyul is, sometimes too smart compared to the kids her own age. She’s always been known as the odd one, the one who always buried her nose behind the thick books instead of playing with her other normal classmates.

She was different.

No one really understands why she took interests in learning and gaining knowledge that were beyond her years. Maybe that’s how she got her almost perfect photographic memory at the first place. But maybe, she was just simply, too curious for her own good.

Moonbyul sighed, knowing that Seulgi is probably pissed with her now, and her absolute foolish behaviour. Moonbyul turned her head to the window placed directly next to her left, now more interested in counting the number of birds flying by rather than seeing the disappointed looks that Seulgi may have given her at the moment.

“What did she say?”

“Nothing much.”

Seulgi, openly staring at Moonbyul who was obviously avoiding her eye contact, saw how sad Moonbyul was, even if she didn’t say so. Her eyes, used to be filled with excitement, now more than often, substituted with frustrations, confusions and even anger.

“I see.” Sensing that the older girl is no longer wanting to talk about it, Seulgi decided to give the senior some of her own personal space, and moved on with another topic that won’t involve a particular beautiful blonde girl.

“Anyway, can we talk about how introverted professor Irene is?”

Maybe they can talk more about it later on, when the girl is ready.

-End of flashback-

“My goodness, you look absolutely gorgeous Miss Moon. I’ve always known how good looking your family is but I never expect you to be this beautiful.” Madame Jung complimented the girl sitting across her husband, throwing subtle smiles at Madame Moon as well who happens to sit on the right side of the young lady.

Her husband on her right, who immediately approved of her quick sense, nodded along before hastily adding, “Yes, how lucky you are Madame Moon to own such precious DNA.”

He smiled softly, eyes focusing and switching between the two women in front on him. Moonbyul, not used to being complimented so bluntly, blushed lightly before politely thanking the two older Jungs. Madame Moon on the other hand, who are much more quick with her own wit than the younger ones, opened and gave out a definite reply, “Thank you Jonghyun-shi. She is quite indeed our precious gem.”

“Miss Moon is very young too. From what I heard and from what it seems, Miss Moon has become one of the youngest CEO in South Korea, next to CEO Kim Yong Sun. You might have heard her name before, yes?” Madame Jung asked, once again, pushing all the attentions towards the obviously shy but undoubtedly confident girl.

“Very much so. I have never met her in person, however. But I do follow her clothing lines rather religiously.” Moonbyul admitted and let out a tiny embarrassed laugh.

“She is quite the talented one, isn’t she? The Kim household has been in the fashion industry for so long now but they are always interested in the business more than they interested in the fashion itself, or designing for that matter. CEO Kim definitely broke those stereotypes away.” Madame Jung continued.

“It’s inspiring.” Moonbyul agreed.

“Madame Moon, you have attended her runway shows before, I assumed. She did it last year in Japan, it was absolutely stunning!”

“I believe so, Sooyoung-shi.” Madame Moon smiled in return.

“CEO Kim is one of our daughter’s closest friends. We’ve met her more often than we can ever remember.” CEO Jung declared. Moonbyul nodded her head in acknowledgement.

“Speaking of our daughter, I would like to apologize for her tardiness. She has honestly never done this before, she is rather quite punctual.” Madame Jung frowned, apologizing on behalf of the girl that is nowhere to be seen, her hand consciously reaching out to grab the much younger girl’s hand laying comfortably on the surface of the glass table.

“That is quite alright.” Moonbyul smiled.

“You’ve been so nice to us. We are sorry once again, Madame Moon, Miss Moon.”

Madame Moon upon seeing the sincere apologetic faces in front of her, shook her head lightly.

“Perhaps Young Lady Jung is feeling nervous?” Madame Moon offered.

“Perhaps she is indeed.” The parents laughed nervously, knowing so well that was definitely not the reason why their daughter is absent.

“I remember I found it hard as well meeting new people when I was around her age.” Moonbyul reassured.

“Ah yes, you are 2 years older than her I believe?” CEO Jung wondered.

“Yes I am.”

“So you guys probably know each other well? I heard you attended our private high school.” Madame Jung hoped.

Moonbyul, taken aback by the question, opened to give out a response. However, her brain failed to think of any reasonable ones. Madame Moon, sensing the young girl’s hesitation and lack of answer, decided to intrude in instead.

“Miss Moon was a very shy person when she was in high school. I doubt she has the courage to approach Young Lady Jung back then.”

The Jungs, blinded with Madame Moon’s comeback, nodded their heads in understanding.

“I don’t think people even know she was a Moon too, Miss Moon does enjoy her privacy as much as I do.” Madame Moon continued and gently laid her left hand on Moonbyul’s right arm.

“Young Lady Jung was a friendly student. I did, to be honest, feel rather intimidated by her presence more often than I could ever admit.” Moonbyul half-lied.

The Jungs, not knowing any better, are satisfied with her response.

“That sounds like our Wheein indeed.”

“While waiting, shall we order first?” Madame Moon quickly suggested, straying the Jungs’ attentions away from the young CEO and successfully dodging any other unwanted questions that would eventually be beyond their own control.

The Jungs are known to be the curious ones and Moonbyul’s past should never ever again be at the centre of the conversation. Madame Moon swore in making sure of that.

That was indeed the real deal between her and her grand-daughter.

“That would be marvellous.”

p/s: By the way, all the other characters are not based on any other celebrities. I just made them up :) plus, english is not really my first language so I apologize in advance if there is any spelling or grammar mistakes. I'm a new writer and I'm open for any improvement :D thank you and enjoy. Do comments what you guys think so far.

ALSO I know the story is a bit confusing for now but I just wanted to highlight some of Moonbyul's and Wheein's past before I move on with their official meeting :) Thank you for the support! <3