“Pay attention to the game!” Mr. Song barked. They all at least turned
their heads in the direction of the ball, but only a handful of the
class was actually discussing the game; the rest were too busy
discussing what they had just witnessed.

Out of the corner of my eye while looking down, I could see Mr Song
giving me disapproving looks. He probably had a whole different
expectation of what going to the bad girl’s place meant. In fact, not many
people would assume that I would be going there to tutor.

I could imagine the headlines. 'Straight A student caught in scandal
with school’s badgirl.' How tragic. I could imagine my reputation
swirling down the toilet.

Mr. Song blew the whistle twice and the game was over. Several girls
cried out with relief and immediately began trudging back to school. I
was left carrying the poles and various other bits of equipment back, by
myself. I must say my teacher was incredibly considerate. Sure he was
behind everyone else too, but I was even further behind. Even though
winter was settling in, and I hadn’t done any sport or run around, the
beads of sweat had formed on my forehead.

I groaned and dragged the poles against the ground while continuously
tugging on the bag of sashes slung over my shoulder to stop it from
dropping or sliding down. After the next step, the weight suddenly and
abruptly lightened. My studies in physics clearly told me there was no
way the mass could have shifted so suddenly, but then again, anyone
would even a shred of common sense would be able to work that out.

I turned and sure enough, it wasn’t a sudden change in mass. Nayeon was
holding the other end of the poles.

“All of a sudden, I’m starting to think you rely on me to help you,” she
laughed.

“I was fine,” I lied, possibly sulking.

“Okay.” She grinned and dropped the end.

“Argh!” I exclaimed, quickly dropping the whole thing before the impact
affected my arms and possibly pulled on my shoulder. “What the hell was
that for!?”

“Accident,” she replied nonchalantly. She picked up the end and looked
from me to the other end of the poles.

“You can carry it by yourself,” I grinned and waltzed ahead with the bag
of sashes in one hand.

Mr. Song looked rather surprised as Nayeon trailed along to the
storeroom as well, but didn’t question it. Man, looking into the shed
again brought back rather strange memories.

“Isn’t this nostalgic?” Nayeon said, nudging me in the ribs. I shot
backwards with my arms defensively over my ribs. Both Nayeon and Mr.
Song were staring at me, and I worked out that it was because I had
accidentally yelped. “Don’t tell me…you’re ticklish?” She cracked up and
dumped the poles in the corner, walking out of the shed. I followed.

“Okay, I’m going to lunch. Are you coming to Momo’s at six? We’re
doing the tutoring thing again,” I said flatly. The notion of being in a
house with Momo alone wasn’t too appealing.

“Eh, might as well. I guess we can work on the chem assignment too.”

“Oh yeah. Have you done any extra research?”

“Nope.”

“Great,” I answered sarcastically.

“What about you then little miss genius?”

“I like to think that I work better under pressure, hence leaving work
until the last minute,” I quickly replied, walking away.

I went back to my locker, grabbed my lunch of a peanut butter sandwich
and headed back out. After spotting Sana and Jenny sitting on the grass,
I went and sat down next to them.

“How was sport?” Sana laughed, knowing it was the equivalent of torture
to me. She picked at the hamburger she’d bought from the school, pulling
out the salad, tomato, pickles, carrots and basically everything else
apart from the piece of meat. Her choice of food was so bad I wasn’t
entirely sure how she still managed to look like a supermodel.

“Oodles of fun.”

“Did you just have sport?” Jenny asked.

“Yeah,” I replied, taking a bite from my sandwich.

“Mr Song?”

“Yup,” I answered with my mouth full.

“I have him as well, but at a different time obviously. He seems nice.”

As soon as I heard the word ‘nice’ I nearly spat the food everywhere,
and while preventing myself from doing so successfully managed to
breathe in my food. Yes, I breathed it in. Rather than going down the
esophagus and into my stomach, it entered my trachea, heading towards
my lungs. Thus, the natural reflex interfered and immediately, my body
tried to send the food back up.

So basically, I was incredibly close to coughing my half chewed food out
everywhere.

“Momo doesn’t have football training this afternoon, so tutoring will
start straight after school instead of six,” Nayeon said as she walked past.
I didn’t answer. “Hey, did you hear what I said?”

“Yep,” I mumbled and she left.

“You do tutoring?” Jenny asked, seeming somewhat surprised.

“Tutoring?” Sana laughed. “She doesn’t need one. She’s the tutor.”

“Oh, so you tutor them?” Jenny asked again.

“Yeah,” I replied, taking a bite from the sandwich.

“What subjects?”

“We do whatever really…But chemistry mainly.”

“Ah…” She sat there pondering something for a moment and after a moment,
uncomfortably asked, “Is it okay if I come as well? I need some help
with chemistry.”

“Sure. In fact, it’ll probably be better to have another girl with me.”
I grinned.

“You’re there alone?” She sounded shocked. Then again, most people would
have reacted like that if I told them I spent an hour and a half alone
with a bunch of 'badgirls' alone inside a house.

“Yeah. They don’t do anything weird,” I quickly reassured her, hoping
she wouldn’t suddenly change her mind about coming. She didn’t. “Just
meet me at the gate after school. We’ll wait for the girls and head to
Momo’s house.” She nodded and we finished off our lunches.

The bell rang and I endured the next two classes.

I waited by the gate after school and watched as Jenny made her way
frantically towards me as though she were trying to catch a bus about to
leave. It was quite amusing. The other girls arrived not long after.

“Okay, I’ve done a head count,” Momo announced proudly. “There’s an
extra person.”

“Well you don’t say.” I rolled my eyes. Jeongyeon laughed and ushered us all
along the path. A sleek black sedan with dark tinted glasses slowed and
came to a stop by the path further down by the administration office and
a man in a suit stepped out, opening the back door. It reminded me of
something.

“Who goes to school like that?” Jenny gasped. Momo looked back to see
the sedan as well.

“Who cares?” Momo stepped behind me and put her hands on my shoulders,
pushing me along. “Come on, let’s go!”

“So…you guys seem close,” Jenny began. Everyone turned their heads
towards her, with my eyes boggling in particular. “Have you been friends
for a long time?”

“Friends?” Tzuyu laughed and walked up beside her. She put a hand on her
shoulder and leaned down. She pulled back a little. “You see, we
recently became acquainted – you could say – with Mina.”

“Basically they enjoy bullying me and making my life difficult,” I
scowled, looking particularly at Momo and Nayeon.

Momo laughed and Nayeon gave me the 'who me?' look.

Jenny was going through the same awe that I did when I first saw
Momo's house. After all, you'd expect that a punk would live in a
shabby little place, not a perfect average neighbourhood picket-fence house.

"I live near here," Jenny informed us.

"You never tell them where you live, or they never leave you alone," I
warned, doing my best ominous voice.

"Well, Mina is extremely paranoid," Tzuyu said.

"Friends you know? Friends," Jeongyeon elaborated.

"Okay gossiping ladies, you can come inside now," Momo said, holding
the door wide open after unlocking it. We all filed inside and found a
space on the carpet of the lounge room floor.

This floor brought back rather awful memories. So did that stupid
wardrobe-closet thing that stood proudly in the corner of the room.

"Good memories," Momo teased, noticing my troubled expression.

"Good memories? Hah, no," I scoffed.

"What are you guys talking about?" Jenny asked, wide-eyed and ready for
a detailed story with a protagonist, antagonist and all the bells and
whistles.

"Nothing important," I quickly answered.

"A very significant event," Momo said, almost at the same time.

"Uh, okay," she said slowly, looking at us both as though we had gone
bat crazy when in fact, only Momo was.

We all sat cross legged looking around in an awkward silence. "So, what
do you guys usually do?" Jenny asked, looking around.

"Someone is usually stuck on something..." I mumbled.

"Okay, if there are no objections, we'll do chemistry," Nayeon announced,
throwing her textbook at me. I threw my arms up, hands open and managed
to catch it before it squashed my face.

"How's your assignment?" Momo looked at us as we flipped though our
textbook vigorously. Nayeon and I exchanged glances before chuckling
awkwardly. "You haven't started, have you?" Momo seemed quite
surprised, but laughed.

"What?" I retorted, slightly offended at her reaction.

"No. But when do I ever do my work properly?"

Well, that was true.

"Quick question, but what is your chem average at the moment?" I asked Nayeon.

"Well mine's forty five percent," Momo chimed.

"I wasn't asking you." Hearing my reply, her face quickly deflated and
it was honestly quite amusing.

"Fifty two percent," Nayeon finally answered.

I could feel the incoming doom ahead. Unless I wanted to my average to
go from ninety six percent to sixty percent, it would be a better idea
to just do all the work by myself. I would suffer and possibly curse Nayeon
every time I did the work, but at least I'd get a wonderful mark.

"Uh, so what should I do?" Jenny questioned awkwardly.

"Oh great. Momo should be able to keep your company. She's an absolute
professional at annoying a person to death." I smiled sarcastically at
Momo and she returned the sarcastic smile.

Nayeon and I eagerly scrawled down notes - some relevant, some not so
relevant. I glanced over to see Jenny and Momo laughing, pointing at
some things in their human biology textbooks. Immature.

"They're pointing and laughing aren't they?" Nayeon asked, not looking up
as she continued writing.

"Yup."

"Haha. What are they, nine?"

"You don't laugh at it...do you?"

"I don't. But that's only because I don't take the subject." She looked
up at me as she spoke, and it was only then that I noticed how dark the
brown in her eyes was. Her almost-black hair was tied in a ponytail and - ...I
quickly looked away awkwardly. I cleared my throat and started writing.
She laughed.

Nayeon's phone buzzed and she pulled it out, looked concerned for a moment
and then put it back into her pocket.

"What was it?" I asked, still flipping through the textbook.

My parents want me home again," she answered. Then in a quieter voice,
she mumbled, "I wonder what this is about now." She got up, grabbed her
books and swung her bag over her shoulder.

"You're leaving?" I was a tad surprised that she listened to her parents.
Then again, they were the ones feeding her.

"It could be bad."

"What could be bad?" She ignored me and quickly farewelled Momo before
exiting.

"You do know our assignment is due the day after tomorrow right!?" I
exclaimed.

"Yeah!" she yelled back. "We'll work it out later." From the window, I
could see her jogging down the path and away.

"I should probably leave," I said aloud, realising there was no longer a
reason for me to stay.

"Not going to tutor?" Momo replied.

"You guys are doing fine. Is there actually anything you need help
with?" She paused and I figured she was taking her time coming up with a
good lie. "Okay, I'm off."

"See you tomorrow!" Jenny exclaimed, waving frantically. I waved back
and left.

After dinner and three hours of tediously working on the chemistry
assignment, I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling in the dark. Despite
everything, the only thing I could think about was the car that had
pulled up today. It couldn't be, could it?

It was the usual morning routine and I was on my way to school. It was
freezing cold and it became more evident that winter was creeping in.
Soon we would be seeing the first flakes of snow.

My footsteps made little crinkling sounds as I occasionally stepped on
leaves. All of a sudden, I could hear some form of an echo. Was that
even possible? I slowed my steps and I got that weird feeling that
someone was behind me. My heartbeat quickened and I continued walking.

I turned around and nearly shouted when I saw her. Nayeon doubled over
laughing and it was in that moment, it was absolutely undeniable. She was
kinda cute, good looking ish. Whatever.

"Merry Christmas," she managed to say in between her laughter, holding a
neatly stapled document out towards me. I took it from her and flicked
through; she had completed her part of the assignment.

"You finished?" I asked, honestly surprised.

"Yeah. Many hours' work, just to let you know," she grinned.

"It's not plagiarised...is it?"

"Nope."

We reached the gate and just as we were about to enter, Sana came flying
past. "Morning guys!" she exclaimed, overly cheerful for a school morning.

"What's up?" I greeted.

"Hey there," Momo said as she too, came by.

A car pulled up by the path; it was the same black car from yesterday. A
man in a suit opened the door and a girl stepped out. Approximately 5'3
foot tall, dark hair, dark eyes, in perfect school uniform, birthday on
the 23rd of April. My jaw dropped.

"Who is that? You know her?" Momo asked me. Too late, I wasn't in the
frame of mind to answer such a question.

"Let's just say," Sana paused, thinking for a word. "She's...I guess what
you would call her first love."