SungGyu's POV

The bell rang signaling the end of my first day as a Senior. All I wanted to do was go home and sleep. I put my books in my backpack and headed towards the door. Just as I was about to exit the classroom Ms. Jung, our English teacher, called out my name.

"SungGyu."

I turned around to face her. "Yes?"

"Can you help me carry these to the staff room?" She gestured to the stacks of study material lying on the desk.

No matter how much I wanted to go home and sleep, I couldn't say no to a teacher. In the end, I did have a reputation to uphold. (Not that I'm bragging about being the top student in my year or anything.)

"Sure." I answered and picked up all the material that I could and headed towards the staff room.

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I sighed after exiting the room. It's been an hour since the school ended and the hallways were now deserted. What was supposed to be a quick 'Go in, put the papers on the desk and come back out in 2 mins.' ended up being 'Go in, put the papers on the desk and get roped in for more work by our Maths teacher Mr. Song.'

As soon as I exited the school building I heard a loud bang which sounded like something was being thrown against a metal object followed by a series of coughs and groans. Once again I sighed. Mentally cursing my curiosity and clenching my fists in frustration I turned right, walking towards the gymnasium that was located right next to the academic building searching for the cause of the noise.

It took me less than 30 seconds to find the cause of the commotion. Right outside the storage room located in between the gym and the school building were two kids fighting each other. Well, one was on the ground spitting blood while the other was on top of him, punching him in the face.

"Ya! What do you think you're doing?" I shouted running towards them.

The kid on the top stopped punching the other guy and looked at me. He himself had a cut on his cheek and his jaw looked a bit swollen.

"Just mind your own business and leave."

He raised his fist to punch the other guy again but I used all the power I had and pushed him off of the other kid. I looked at the kid laying down on the ground.

"Can you get up?" I asked trying to lift his arm.

He grunted and pulled back his arm from my hold. He pushed himself off the ground and sat in an upright position leaning against the gymnasium's wall.

After his breathing calmed down a bit, he looked at me with an unreadable expression.

"Just what the hell is the top senior student doing becoming a part of a fight that isn't even his in the first place."

"Well, excuse me for trying to save you from getting beaten to death." I scoffed looking away.

His laughter filling the air followed by a groan. I frowned and looked at him. He was holding his stomach.

"You need to get that checked. I'll take you to the nurse's office." I said getting a hold of his right hand.

"I'm not the only one who needs treatment though." He stated, looking at the other side.

As soon as I looked at what he was referring to, my eyes grew double in size. I looked back at the kid who was now looking at me with amusement in his eyes.

"That.. how.. but me.. I.." I was unable to form a proper sentence. All I could do was look back and forth between the guy who was now trying to control his laughter to the kid who was lying unconscious against the storage room's door.

"What? Did you think that he was sitting silently in the corner while you were trying to help me?" He finally asked laughing a bit.

After I didn't respond he looked at me and started laughing again.

"Oh my god! You did! You know it's not a movie where the villain will wait for you to finish your emotional dialogues before he attacks."

I wasn't even able to form a proper sentence and here he was laughing his head off.

"Don't worry. He probably just hit his head when you pushed him. He'll be fine."

I looked back at the kid who was still unconscious.

Before I could respond or my head could start working properly, a voice boomed behind us. "What is going on here?"

I turned around and saw our head teacher Mr. Won looking at the scene in front of him with a cold expression on his face.

'Here goes my dream of having a clean school record.'

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"SungGyu, I know that you want to help him, but taking the blame on yourself won't do any good. He'll just do it again. And this isn't his first time doing something like this either." Our headmaster tried to reason with me for the 5th time after I told him that it was me who pushed YuHwan which resulted in his injury. Apparently, the guy sitting next to me right now, the one getting beat up before, is named HoWon. He's one of the 'troublemakers' as headmaster puts it. With bad grades and a bad reputation, of course he thinks HoWon was the one who did it and me being one of the best students, was trying to save him. YuHwan, the guy I ended up hurting (unintentionally, might I add) and HoWon were classmates. HoWon was asked the reason as to why they were fighting but he won't tell anything.

"I'm not Sir. I'm telling the truth. You can even ask YuHwan once he wakes up." Just as I finished saying that, someone knocked on the door.

"Come in." The headmaster said.

The door opened to reveal our school nurse.

"Headmaster, YuHwan is now conscious."

The headmaster looked at me. "Well SungGyu, let's go and confirm whether what you're saying is true or not."

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"How are you feeling now?" The headmaster asked YuHwan who was lying down on the infirmary bed.

"I'm still a little out of it." He replied and then suddenly turned his head towards me. "Seonbae, the nurse told me that it was you who found me. I'm very thankful to you. If it wasn't for you, I might've been more seriously injured. Thank you."

"Ya! Don't lie! You know that it was me who pushed you."

"Enough SungGyu." The headmaster glared at me. I bowed my head and clenched my fists. He then turned towards HoWon. "Let's consider this your last warning. One more complaint and you're out of this school. You should be thankful to SungGyu for finding you two before something worse happened or else you won't even be standing here. Also, you're in charge of cleaning your classroom for a whole month and you'll be doing it alone." He then left the room.

As soon as he went out of the room, my anger took control. "Ya! Why did you lie? You pretty well know that it was me who pushed you. And you were the one beating him up in the first place!" Then I turned towards Howon. "And you! Why won't you say that you didn't do anything wrong."

YuHwan's voice came out in a calm but threatening manner. "Kim SungGyu. You should be grateful that I'm not targeting you after what you did to me. I'm actually thankful to you for helping me land him in some trouble because it became easy with your help but it's better if you don't test the limits of my patience. I did let you off the hook for pushing me this time but I won't allow it the next time. And shouldn't you be happy? Because of me you still have a clean school record."

Fuming with anger I left the infirmary, set on leaving the school grounds as soon as possible.

"Are you sure you're angry at him?" Came a voice from the person who was silent till now. I came to a stand still and turned around facing him. He was standing a few feet away from me. "Are you sure that you're angry at him and not on your own self?" He smirked.

"Ya! Lee HoWon!"

"What? Can you deny the fact that somewhere down in your heart you were happy knowing that your school record is still clean without even a single complaint?"

I couldn't answer him back. He was right. More than YuHwan, I was angry at myself for feeling happy knowing that at the end of the day, I wasn't the one in trouble. Even though I was the one who did this, someone else was getting punished for it. I felt guilty, yes, but I also felt relieved. And that angered me to no end.

He walked over to me. "Since you pushed him off me, let me give you some advice." He leaned down close to my ear. "Don't stick your in other people's business if you can't handle the consequences."

He then stood up straight, turned around and disappeared down the hall.

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'How could he! I get it that he's getting punished for something he didn't even do. But it's not like I lied! I did confess that I was the one who did it. It's not my fault that they don't believe me! And him! he didn't even thank me once for saving him. And that YuHwan, he used my name! Kids these days have no respect for people older than them.'

I was making my way back home with anger still clouding all my thoughts.

'Sleep is the only medicine. I should sleep as soon as I get home.'

As I saw my apartment building my pace quickened, wanting to get some much-needed sleep as fast as possible.

Our apartment building was nothing out of the ordinary. A 4BHK targeted towards the Upper-Middle class. I entered the building, walking towards the elevator. I was a few feet away when the elevator door opened and my neighbor stepped out.

"SungGyu Hyung!" DongWoo greeted me.

"DongWoo-ya." I smiled. "Going for your dance lessons?"

"Yes. What about you Hyung? You're coming in quite late. Usually you're the first one to get home."

"Things happened at school." I muttered thinking about all that happened during the end of the day. I feel like I've aged 5 years from going through all that.

"Is everything ok?" He asked concerned.

"Yea, don't worry." I replied.

"Well then, I'll be heading out."

"Sure, have fun and do your best." I patted his shoulder.

"Yes Hyung." He bowed and then left.

I entered the elevator and pressed the button for the 26th floor. After some minutes a 'ding' sound came and the doors opened up.

'265' I repeated my apartment number in my head as I was walking towards it. DongWoo lived next door in 264.

I opened the door and the site that greeted me brought tears to my eyes. No, I'm not exaggerating (or maybe I am, doesn't matter). What does matter is that my sister was out and so were my parents. I had the whole house to myself.

I closed the door and jumped face first on the sofa. "I love you. I missed you." I mumbled with my face digging into the seat.

It only took me some minutes to fall asleep, forgetting all about the crappy things that happened today and dreaming about the ramyeon I'm going to eat once I wake up.

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HoWon's POV

I entered the dance studio, heading towards the usual room I practiced in.

"You're late today."

I looked towards DongWoo Hyung who was sweating a bit from his practice.

"Something came up." I answered.

DongWoo Hyung sighed. "Were you fighting with some back alley kids again?"

"What? No! I wasn't!" I exclaimed. "I was in the school till now."

He looked at me and just shook his head. "Let's just get to practice then."

"No, wait." I put down my bag and stood in front of him. "You still don't believe me." I frowned.

"Well, then can you tell me exactly what were you doing in school this late?" He arched an eyebrow in question.

I looked down. I can't tell him that I was involved in a fight or he'll just get more disappointed. I wanted to make him feel proud of me, not the opposite.

"This is just weird. Even SungGyu Hyung came home late saying something came up in school."

I looked at him again. "Came home late?" I asked quoting his words. "You know him?"

"He lives next door. Why?"

"I was with him! We were helping a teacher."

DongWoo Hyung looked at me weirdly. "Helping a teacher? You? You can lie better than that."

"It's the truth. Just think about it. I was with SungGyu Hyung. Do you think he and bad go together in the same positive sentence? You can even ask him! But then you'll be needed to disclose the details as to why you were asking him about me and that would be you breaking our promise." I high-fived myself mentally.

It was in my first year of high school when I came to Seoul. As soon as I joined the school, I came to be known as one of the troublemakers of the school. Me being indifferent and ending up being a part of fights I never started in the first place didn't help with my reputation either. I love to dance and that's why I signed up for a dance studio membership far away from our school thinking no one would see me here. But to my luck, I ended up in the same studio that DongWoo Hyung came to for practice. He was the one who approached me first, commenting about how he was glad to see one familiar face around. The moment I found out that we went to the same school, I made him promise me that he'll never talk about me with anyone or to me outside the dance studio. If he ever did that, I won't talk to him ever again.

He sighed. "Fine, let's just practice. We still have to go over what we did yesterday."

I grinned and hugged him.

'I'm safe... at least, for now.'