Monday, 6:30 AM

Kang Residence

“Yah, Daniel-ah, you’re really amazing! You’re in the news again! What did you do this time? Didn’t you say you were only gonna go clubbing with the guys? What happened that’s so worthy of commotion from Seoul? They said something about your outfit… some ladies… and you taking your clothes off…” Joy has been speaking on and on about the controversy while looking at the news from her phone from the moment she entered the Kang residence until she barged into her bestfriend’s room. She walks in on a sprawled on his stomach, half- Daniel who slowly rouses from sleep due to the loud, incessant blabbing.

“Sooyoung-ah…” Daniel calls out with one eye open adjusting to the brightness of the day before he continues. “…You know how they exaggerate things.” He then opens the other eye and sees a stooping Joy in front of him, hair in a bun to hide its unruliness, thick-rimed glasses slipping down to the tip of her nose, already dressed for school. “It’s not even a big deal.” He says before he closes both eyes again. She looks at the photos from the news one last time, sighs and pokes his forehead with her finger as if it’ll wake him up.

“Arrayyo. Kuraeso ireona, we’re gonna be late.” She says before she stands up straight again and walks to the other side of the room to sit on the couch near the floor-length window, waiting for him to get ready.

This was how Monday usually looks like when Daniel goes out to party the weekend before. He knows he’ll either be too drunk or too tired to wake up the next day so he asks his ever so punctual and stellar best of a friend to pass by his house to make sure he gets to school on time. Joy doesn’t really mind since she really wakes up early for school anyway and his house is practically in the same neighborhood.

Once seated, Joy uses her left hand to take out a comic book from her bag and gets immersed right away, while her right hand is in charge of holding a bun she’s been munching on. She gets into a comfortable position with her legs resting on top of the coffee table. Some time has passed and her nose is now buried in the comic book she’s reading that she doesn't notice Daniel approach her. He bends slightly to the chair’s height and uses his finger to hook the book down from her face to reveal a noisily chewing Joy looking up at him. He mimics her open-mouth chewing in a mocking fashion. “Can’t you chew with your mouth closed? It’s basic manners for humans.” He starts a banter as he uses his right index finger to lift her chin up as if to close her open mouth.

“Can’t you keep your shirt on in a public place? It’s basic manners for humans.” She retorts back referencing to the his bar stint in the news, as she swats his hand away and exaggerates chewing with open.

Daniel wears a disgusted look following her loud chewing, “This is why I say you’re so unattractive to men…” he teases as he rolls his eyes to the right missing the look on Joy’s eyes as he said those words. Though she quickly recovers and fires back, “Last time I checked, there is no one in this room I want to attract.” She then puts her comic book back in her bag and stands up, but Daniel wasn’t done yet, “Keurae, my bad, I almost forgot you were aual…” He continued to tease as he buttoned up the remainder of his uniform. She responds by putting the rest of the bun in before huffing almost unintelligibly with full, “Better aual than you, prick. Come on, we’ll be late for class.” With that, she walks out of the room with Daniel in tow laughing at her crudeness.

Once inside the car, Sooyoung instructs the driver to head on to Ong Seungwoo’s house which was slightly off course, to make sure he’s awake as well. He was also out with Wanna One last night and they both know how wasted he gets after. The driver was about to turn the corner when Daniel objected,

“Aniyo, Mr. Lim, just head on to school.” He tells the driver before he turns to Joy, “How many times do I have to tell you, you don't have to be concerned about Ong.”

“What do you mean?! You guys were together last night, for sure he’s still asleep now, too!” Joy says, concern and annoyance evident in her voice.

“Just mind your own business, kid.” Daniel tells her while he fishes for his phone from his uniform’s pocket. He dials Seungwoo’s number and it took forever before he finally picks up. “Where are you? You already missed first period, Lee Seok Hoon sonsaeng-nim said he’ll fail you if you don’t show up in 15 mins.” He fakes the urgency in his voice.

“Oh shiiii…” Seungwoo completely believes the bluff as he hurries in panic not even responding to Daniel on the phone. Daniel covers the mouthpiece and stifles a laugh when he hears a loud thud indicating an Ong falling from the bed. He ends the call and looks at Joy beside him. He clears his throat and says coolly, “He’ll be in school.”

“You keep calling me kid, but you’re the real kid here…” Joy says as she shakes her head and looks at her side of the window.

7:20 AM

Jaeguk High School

They reach the school gate in just 20 minutes and Joy tells Daniel that she will go down first in order to avoid the wild crowd of fan girls that never fail to swarm towards him. When he objects to this idea, they start another round of argument. Joy, seemingly having enough of the banter raises her arms to the air as if surrendering. “Fine!!! let’s go down together…” She scoots closer to Daniel’s side, looks at him with a strained smile, leans forward to open the door and b