This chapter is a bit shorter, but there's a lot more interactions with some of 17 in this one so yay!

Dragon Rider really is one of my favorite books. I've read it so many times.

A little violence in this chapter, but nothing big. Just some jealous folks...

The next morning, I got to class a little early. The room was empty, so I sat down and began reading one of my favorite books, Dragon Rider, yet again. I’d read it so many times I nearly had the thing memorized, but it’s been one of my favorites for a while.

Eventually Youngmi came in, and I told her about yesterday evening.

“He what?!” she gasped, then lowered her voice. “But I’ve never seen Woozi care about anyone other than his friends.”

“Really? He seemed pretty furious with the guy. He was pretty scary actually,” I shuddered, remembering the rage in Jihoon’s eyes. “Also, why do you call him Woozi? I thought his name was Jihoon.”

Youngmi laughed a little at this. “A lot of the Seventeen boys have nicknames. It’s just a thing they do. Woozi doesn’t really like being called Jihoon, so be careful.”

I nodded, not entirely understanding the whole thing, but I didn’t want to offend him, so I made a mental note to call him Woozi from now on.

Youngmi continued her interrogation of me, “I bet that guy was horrible. Weren’t you scared?”

I nodded, an uncomfortable feeling rising up in my throat at the memory. Shaking my head I said, “Ah, let’s not talk about it anymore. I’m okay, and that’s what matters. I have to remember to thank Jih- Woozi properly later, if he’s here.”

Lucky for me, Woozi and friends showed up with about fifteen minutes left in the lesson. Mr. Yoo ignored them as they sauntered into the classroom and continued his lecture on single cell organisms.

When science ended, we were forced to sit through an English class with Miss Na. She was a sweet woman, but couldn’t control her class, so people mostly whispered to each other and passed notes.

After the pointless class ended, we had a small break until the next class. Deciding now was my chance, I hopped up and made my way to the back of the classroom where the four boys were talking amongst themselves. Everyone ceased their chattering to stare at me as I made my way to stand in front of Woozi.

He stopped talking to Junhui and stared at me with a raised eyebrow. I suddenly felt very nervous and self-conscious, but I swallowed my anxiety and said, “Uh, Jih- er, Woozi, I realized I never properly thanked you yesterday, so, um, well,” I bowed to him, “thank you for rescuing me.”

With that, I flashed him and his friends a tiny, nervous smile then hurried back to my seat. Youngmi stared at me with something that looked like awe.

“What?” I whispered, suddenly aware of how quiet the usually rowdy classroom was. I glanced around and shuddered. Suddenly, with every girl’s glare on my back, the room felt several degrees colder.

“You are a brave soul,” said Youngmi, as the room slowly filled up with noise again. Although the chill remained, causing me to wrap my arms around myself.

“Brave? Why?” I said, with a small laugh.

“No one dares approach Woozi like that. I’m surprised he actually paid attention to you,” Youngmi told me, her eyes still filled with awe.

I snorted. “He’s a high school kid just like us. What’s he gonna do, call the mafia if we speak out of turn?” But even as I said that I remembered the rage in his eyes as he pounded a grown man into the ground. Perhaps there was some sense to what Youngmi said. I certainly shouldn’t underestimate Woozi…

“You never know,” Youngmi replied quite seriously.

“Well, I wouldn’t have been content until I thanked him properly, so I don’t have any more reason to talk to him now. That should be the end of that,” I said a little louder so the girls behind me would quit cursing my name.

They didn’t, and I was forced to endure their murderous glares all throughout the next class. Relief surged through me when the bell rang, signaling lunch. Finally I could get out of this stuffy classroom.

“I have to run to the restroom really quick, so save me a seat!” Youngmi said before hurrying off.

I nodded and continued placing my books in my locker. I was just about to grab the ones I needed for my afternoon classes when suddenly, the door slammed shut. I jumped in surprise and whirled around to see five furious faces.

Two of them were the gossiping girls from yesterday, but I didn’t recognize the other three. They weren’t from my class.

“Um, can I help you?” I asked warily.

One of the girls from my class, Seunghee, snarled, “Who do you think you are, new girl?”

I blinked in surprise at the venom in her voice, “Well, my name is Chaeyeon…”

“That’s not what I meant!” she shrieked. “Why were you talking to Woozi today?”

“Oh!” I exclaimed. “That’s what you’re upset about? It was nothing. He just helped me out of a sticky situation yesterday, so I wanted to thank him properly. That’s all. I don’t plan on talking to him again.”

Clearly my explanation didn’t sit well with them.

“You saw him outside of school?” the other girl from my class, Arin, said.

“Well, yeah?” I said, feeling confused. “It’s not like he lives here…”

“No one’s ever seen Seventeen outside of school, and suddenly you waltz in and think you can order them to do things for you? You !” Arin slapped me hard on the cheek before I could explain that Woozi had helped me of his own accord.

I gasped in surprise and pain and slid to the floor. I looked up at my classmates. “What was that for?!”

“As if you don’t know, you little ! What else do you have Seventeen doing for you, huh?” one of the unknown girls grabbed my hair and yanked me up.

I stumbled and Seunghee slapped me, too. “Binnie is right. You need to learn your place, loser. No one touches Seventeen and gets away with it.”

Cheek stinging, I glared at her. “Trust me, I think they can handle themselves without your help.”

“Why you-” The other girls bristling in anger, Binnie made to slap me as well when a voice down the hallway stopped her.

“What’s going on?”

The girls whirled around in surprise. “J-Jeonghan sunbae! J-Joshua sunbae!” Seunghee stuttered, fiddling with her hair. “We were just teaching this a lesson. She overstepped her boundaries.”

“Watch your language,” Joshua said, walking towards us with Jeonghan.

“Somehow, I don’t think she deserves to be slapped. And isn’t it a bit unfair for the five of you to go against one girl?” Jeonghan asked, his voice dangerously quiet.

I raised my head a little to see the girls cowering under the two boys’ gazes. One of them, with beautiful shoulder-length hair, turned to me, and I dropped my eyes again, shame heating up my cheeks.

“Get out of here and don’t let me catch you bullying someone again,” Jeonghan said, and the girls immediately scattered, leaving me alone with the two boys.

The boy with shorter hair came up to me and tilted his head so as to see my face. I jerked away from him, bowed to the two of them, and attempted to hurry off. I wanted to be alone. The bathroom had to be empty by now, so I could probably cry in there until lunch was done at least.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to be let off so easily.

“Not so fast,” said long-haired boy, gently grabbing my shoulder and turning me back around to face him. He carefully moved my chin up to look him in the eye and turned my head. “They really did a number on you, didn’t they?”

I didn’t answer, feeling completely embarrassed that these two random boys were helping me out of nowhere. I didn’t need to owe any more debts.

He smiled at me. “Come on, you need to put some ice on that or it’ll bruise badly.” He took one of my arms while his friend took the other. “My name is Jeonghan, by the way.”

The other boy piped up, “I’m Joshua. Don’t worry, we’re not as mean as people say, I swear.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that last part, but I figured they at least deserved to know my name, so I mumbled, “I’m Chaeyeon.”

“She speaks!” cried Jeonghan. He and Joshua laughed and took me to the nurse’s office. The school didn’t actually have enough funding for a real nurse, so they got the ice pack for me themselves.

“Thank you,” I said, placing the cool pack on my still-stinging cheek. It felt nice, and I sighed softly in relief.

“Now, you wait here until lunch ends. Don’t worry about being hungry, though! We’ll send the maknae with some food for you,” Joshua said, smiling kindly at me.

My eyes widened, and I shook my head, “Oh no! Please don’t go to any more trouble for me. You’ve done enough, thank you.”

“Nonsense,” said Jeonghan. “I’m sure you don’t want to go into the cafeteria right now, and we’re not about to let you starve. Now, just wait here for a tiny bit, okay?” He winked at me for some reason and practically pranced off, Joshua at his heels.

I stared at the door in mild confusion, the shrugged and decided to wait and see what would happen.

“Hey, Dino, we got a job for ya,” said Jeonghan as soon as he and Joshua arrived back at the table.

“Where were you two?” piped up Vernon from across the table.

“Yeah! We thought you fell in the toilet and drowned,” snickered Seungkwan. The others laughed at this, and Jeonghan stuck his tongue out at his friend.

“We stopped that Seunghee girl and her friends from beating someone up in the hallway,” Joshua answered Vernon’s question. “Which reminds me, Dino, will you take this food to her? She’s in the nurse’s office. We figured she wouldn’t want to face everyone in here right now.”

Dino pouted. “Why me? Can’t you do it?”

“We haven’t eaten yet, silly, and lunch is almost over. Obviously you’ve already eaten twice your weight by now, so I think you can spare some time to help her out. Now, go. Her name is Chaeyeon,” Joshua shoved the food into Dino’s hand and pushed him in the direction of the door. Grumbling, Dino stomped out of the cafeteria.

“Chaeyeon?” said Hoshi, his interest piqued. “Isn’t she the new girl in our class? The one who came up and talked to Woozi?”

For a brief and incredibly rare moment, all of Seventeen fell silent at Hoshi’s words. Then the whole table erupted into questions for the pink-haired boy, who shrank away from all of them.

“She talked to him? Why?” S.Coups raised his voice above the others.

“I’m not sure actually…” Hoshi said, thoughtfully. “She just came up to thank him for something and that’s it. He wouldn’t tell us when we asked him.”

“Woozi?” S.Coups said, looking expectantly at his friend.

Woozi sighed and put his chopsticks down. “She was attacked by a last night, and I stopped him. That’s all.”

Jun whistled. “No wonder you were more grumpy than usual last night.”

Woozi glared at him. “I am not grumpy.”

“Whatever you say,” Jun replied with a grin.

“A ? Wow, poor girl’s already been through a lot,” Jeonghan said. “No wonder she was so quiet.”

The rest of Seventeen murmured in agreement and continued on with their lunch, chatting about this and that.

Meanwhile, poor Dino had just reached the nurse’s office. He squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. Running from policemen is one thing. Talking to upset girls is a whole other thing. One he wasn’t so good at.

“Um, Chaeyeon noona? Are you in here?” he asked as he carefully opened the door. The girl looked up at the sound of his voice and gestured him inside. “I, uh, that is... Jeonghan and Joshua hyungs told me to bring you food…” He held out the plate to her, not meeting her eyes. Why, oh, why did she have to be pretty?

Chaeyeon put her ice pack down to grab the plate. “Thank you, um…?”

“Dino. I’m Dino,” he replied, taking note of the large red mark spread across her cheek.

If she found his nickname odd, she didn’t show it and instead nodded. “Thank you, Dino. Can you tell Jeonghan and Joshua that I said ‘thank you’ as well?”

Dino nodded and said, “Well, um, I’ll leave you to your food then. See you later, Chaeyeon noona!”

“Goodbye, Dino. And thank you again!” she said, standing up to bow a little in thanks.

Dino blushed and waved his hands back and forth. “It was no problem, really!” Then he dashed out of the room into the safety of the hallway. Patting his cheeks and hoping they weren’t too red, he made his way back to the cafeteria.

Dino was really fun to write omg. I hope I can do more with him in the future. My precious child <3

Anyway, hope you all liked the chapter! Thank you to everyone who already subscribed! Love ya'll