(chapter 2)  :  T  H  E   A  B  D  U  C  T  I  O  N 

When I entered the school gym, the first scent that hit me were flowers of different kinds that were brought by the family of the ones who were graduating today. Not to mention the decoration of flowers on almost every inch of the gymnasium. I quickly covered my nose because the mixed smell that the flowers gave were starting to make me nauseous, especially when the gym was fully furnished with high quality aircon that made it so much worse because I get cold easily.

I wish I was like my other friend Minsuk who is completely immune to the cold. I wrapped my toga around me more to help me at least battle the cold.

Hangang River Academy, just one of your average schools here in South Korea. It is not as renowned like other schools but I can say that this is one of the schools that care more about the education of the students rather than extra curricular activities though we also excel in that. Each class has about a hundred students and if that is a lot already for you, you should go check other schools and see the enormous amount of students that they have walking around their halls. 

Me and Sunhwa are just your ordinary mediocre students who don't excel in their studies but don't fail in them either. We're just...average. Not saying that is a bad thing but we don't get attention like the popular students get and yes, we also have an hierarchy in this academy.

The school gym was filled with tons of people. Parents, students, teachers, maintenance, and security guards. It almost felt like we were at a concert because of the crowd that was formed here at the gymnasium. I could see parents and relatives taking photos of their daughter or son as they posed with their graduation cap and toga, smiling at the camera and ready to start a new chapter in their lives. I always imagined my life to be normal. Graduating high school, going to a prestigious college, meeting a guy, kissing the guy, him being my boyfriend, have a job, get married, have children, then die.

I smiled at the thought of having kids as me and Sunhwa sat down at our seats and our parents sitting somewhere in the crowd. I watched the stage as our rather tall and muscular principal walked up the stage and stood behind the podium. He didn't look that old and he can even pass as someone in his early 30's but judging from having him as our principal since I was in nursery and maybe even before that, he was way beyond his early 30's.

"Good morning fellow graduates, parents, faculty, and staff. Today marks another chapter in our lives as you graduates are about to step into the world of hell," Principal Kim stopped for a moment before saying, "College." 

Everyone snickered at what he said and some of the jocks even gave a whoop-whoop and we just laughed even more.

"It's nice to see everyone is gathered here today to witness this special moment for these wonderful students that I have seen grown for quite some time now and of course to the parents who have seen them since they were just a little baby, but now beautiful young ladies and handsome strong gentlemen. Now, let's welcome this year's valedictorian Do Kyung Soo!" the crowd cheered and clapped for our class' valedictorian as we shook hands with our principal and taking his spot behind the podium. We all settled down in our seats as we waited for of course an inspiring message that is to be given. 

"Dear fellow classmates, parents, faculty, and staff. Good morning to you all. I am Do Kyung Soo your valedictorian for this year," the mass of people started clapping again before Kyung Soo raised his palm as we quited down before he said strongly, "You all have opportunities, skills, and education that so many folks before you never could have dreamed of. So just imagine the kind of impact that you're going to make. Imagine how you can inspire those people around you to reach higher, to reach their dreams in life."

"I had my ups and downs before I could acquire this honor that has not been given to me but is something that I have earned, something that I have worked hard for. And I can tell you from my experience, I have made a lot of mistakes and I know that all of you have to made these mistakes. That is what I think the beauty of learning is. We make mistakes to learn from them. This isn't the time to make fast decisions but this is the time where we have to make errors, where we have to fail in order for us to make it to the top. There is no straight path from your seat today t