The day ended at 3, whereupon I bade farewell to Sungmin, who returned to his own house while I headed back to the dormitories. I headed along a windy path which I had grown to like in just two days, as it had trees on either side, which made it a very pretty walkway. There was no one else except for a guy wearing shades with his hands in his pockets, ambling along.

As we passed each other I didn’t take much notice, but right after, I did a double take as I realised he looked familiar. I decided to stop him. After all, what could be the worst that could happen? And at best, it was a long lost friend! “Chogiyo…”

He stopped, then turned around to look at me. He removed his sunglasses. “Eh?”

“Oh!” I exclaimed in wonder as I realised it was the guy from the bus. “H…hi! From the b…bus…” I managed to stutter.

“Ah…! Hello! Fancy meeting you here again. Well, I guessed as much that you were studying here, but still!”

There didn’t seem to be much else to say, so I just said, rather breathlessly, “Yeah! What a coincidence! Well, see you around then!” He gave me a final wave and we parted.

I was happy that I had met him in SM again, then instantly realised I had forgotten to ask for his name. “Aish…!” I clenched my fists in regret.

At dinner I sat with one of my neighbours, who had invited me to join her. She was a year younger, but had entered SM two years ago. There were many intakes at SM, mine being the last.

“Are you looking out for somebody?” my neighbour Youngeun asked.

“Eh?? No…” I stopped craning my neck trying to look out for the guy from the bus, whom I was hoping to see at dinner.

“Come on…I can recognise that kind of behaviour. Is he cute?” she nudged me and raised her eyebrows.

“Heh. Quite!” I giggled. She giggled along too. I was glad that I had Sungmin and his group of friends as my first friends at SM, but thankful for Youngeun too, for girlfriends were important. I could see that we were going to get along well too. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, except for Heejun. I hoped there wouldn't be more trouble the next day.

For the first lesson the next day we had a diagnostic test, so the teacher told us to keep all our things under the table. Sungmin burst in just as the test was starting, apologising and bowing profusely. He wanted to tell me something but realised there was a test going on so had to save it for later.

When the test ended, he told me, “Ah! I couldn’t get up this morning! Was out with the guys the whole of last night. Donghae called us out for dinner and I wanted to call you along but I didn’t have your number. What’s your number, anyway?” We exchanged numbers and I took out my handphone to key in his number, only to hear a familiar ‘Oh my god!’ coming from the side. Moments later, somebody snatched it from my hands.

“Everybody, look at this antique! Anyone wants to bid for it?” Heejun asked the whole class as she paraded around with my phone with her perfectly manicured nails. “Nobody? Wellllll….I guess it’s not thattt old to qualify as an antique yetttt. Yet it wouldn’t be worth anything at today’s prices. Which essentially makes it utterly worthless.”

“Give it back!” Sungmin was up and snatched it from Heejun. After turning it around a few times to check that it was ok, he even blew on it. One could imagine how much Heejun was fuming by now. “Here, Jiyeon. It’s a really nice phone,” sweet Sungmin said as he presented it to me.

Heejun gave her classic ‘hmph!’ and walked away. I took my things out from under my desk, but besides my own things there was another piece of paper. As I unfolded it Sungmin noticed it too.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know, I just found it under my desk.”

The note was anonymous, but it needed no telling as to who it was from. Scribbled in large writing, together with a rough drawing of a skull, it read, ‘Don’t you DARE go off with Sungmin again.’

Before I had much time to react, Sungmin snatched it, crushed it, and gave a perfect shot at the bin. “And don’t you dare let that affect you either. You’re coming with me, ok? Provided you want to, of course.” Sungmin was so mad. Actually apart from incidences to do with Heejun, he was a really jovial and relaxed boy. But whenever Heejun did something like that, his face would just change.

When lunch came, Sungmin asked if I wanted to go back to Super Junior’s room for lunch again. It wasn’t that I felt that threatened by Heejun’s note as to reject his offer, but I just didn’t know how whether it was that good sticking with the elite group of the school all the time. As it was, I hardly knew anyone else in class, and had already earned Heejun and her supporters’ enmity. Besides, Youngeun had also asked if she’d see me at lunch, to which I gave a noncommittal answer. But I still thought it’d be better if I got a sense of the life a ‘normal’ student led first. “Sorry, Sungmin, I’m meeting my friend for lunch,” I told him apologetically.

“Oh? You know someone else already?”

“From the dorms…”

“Ah…I forgot about that. Ok, well then, see you later!” Sungmin gave a cute smile and waved goodbye.

The main canteen was nowhere near as grand nor the food as good as SJ’s room, but I felt much more comfortable and at ease there.

“Hmm…which stall here is good?” I asked Youngeun.

“What did you try yesterday?”

“Yesterday…” I wasn’t sure what Youngeun’d think of me going to SJ’s room on the first day of school, or if she even knew of the existence of such a room, so I just cooked up a lie. “Yesterday I wasn’t that hungry, I just ate a piece of bread that I’d brought.”

“Oh, ok. I think the chicken barbeque is nice!” Youngeun led me there. As we were queueing, the girls in front of us started talking about their boyfriends.

“So, unnie…do you have a boyfriend?” Youngeun asked.

“I don’t! What about you?”

“Me?” She asked in a high-pitched voice. She seemed happy that I’d asked. “Not currently, but I do have someone I like…” She twisted her arms in front of her and swayed from side to side.

“Who is it?” I smiled. She looked like she was in love already.

“Well…he’s one year my senior, your age. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them, but there’s a group called Super Junior in school. They’re the richest kids in school and they are also a band. Not that I like him because he’s rich, but he’s so cool when he dances on stage!”

At the mention of Super Junior, my heart started to race. Which one did she like? Ryeowook and Kyuhyun were out, so Eunhyuk? Donghae? Or…Sungmin?

“Oh…I’ve heard of them. Sungmin’s in my class actually. Which of them exactly are you talking about?”

“Sungmin oppa’s in your class? Oh, you lucky girl! But for me…I like Eunhyuk oppa! But it’s just a crush…I haven’t even spoken to him personally before.”

Seeing her face turn from glee to sadness, I almost thought for an instant how I could create and opportunity for the two to meet, since I knew both of them. Well, I sorta knew Eunhyuk. But then I shook myself. I wasn’t going to be hanging out with SJ anymore, right? Only with Sungmin in class, at most. For I knew it deep in my heart, that their kind of lives were far too different from mine. They were the kind of people I was most afraid to meet.