Chapter 1

“Jieun!” I continue lying on my left cheek on the desk while making a pout. “Lunch together?” Sanghyun walks over, places his chin on my desk to meet me at my eye level. I can’t help but to continue with the little pout on my lips as I gradually lift my head and walk away.

“Yah!” he drones loud enough for me to hear but I choose to ignore.

It hasn’t been long since the recess bell rang. I grab onto my lunchbox and walk slowly out of the classroom. It isn’t a pleasant start for school. I checked the arrangement of classes for the year 2s the moment I reached school and it hit me hard when I found out that both Jiyeon and Luna will not be spending time with me in the same classroom for the whole of this year. Surprisingly I end up being in the first class and the two of them in the class next to mine. But hey, what’s the point of being in the top class when your bestest friends are not together with you?

“Jieunnie-ah,” a sudden arm wrap around my neck and another grab onto my arm. “Ahnyeong!” they charm together and giggled. I could recognize them without even having to look at them. Well, there’s this phrasing that goes, ‘I could recognize them even if they are burnt into ashes.’ My head continues to lie low with my crouching back. “Ahnyeong…” I greet them in a zombie-like manner.

“Yah Lee Jieun! What’s wrong with you?” Jiyeon comes to a stop and responds almost immediately. She pulls her hand off my neck and instead uses her hand to lift up my chin and holds up my shoulder to straighten up my back. “Oh, come on! You are in freaking first class, cheer up Jieun!” I give a fake smile before dropping my head down and shrug.

I slouch even harder while letting a long sigh out of my mouth. I know what Jiyeon’s intention is. It is to make me feel all better and to look at things more positively. I know I shouldn’t be acting like this. Being separate from friends doesn’t mean the end of the world. Letting my emotions taking over me, I can’t help but to get depress. I could still remember clearly how we would always get through those boring lessons by passing little notes to one another and how we would always get scolded for making small little pranks on our beloved classmates. Oh, does that mean that I will not be able to do any of those this year? Tell me, how am I supposed to stay still and lifeless in class for the entire year? I grunt loudly at the sudden thought. That is definitely not Lee Jieun’s style!

“Jiyeon’s right,” Luna adds on, “being in different class doesn’t mean that we will stop hanging out together right?”

“Hmm...” Jiyeon agreed with vigorous nodding of her head before popping a lollipop into my mouth and grab hold of my other hand. “Cheer up neh? It’s lunch time.”

“Well, anyway Jieun will forget about all this soon.” Jiyeon looks at me playfully before continuing, “That’s what Jieun does best!”

I raise my eyebrow and Luna can’t seem to agree more, “That’s true.”

❧

Along with their cackling sound, I was pulled to the stairs at the basketball court where Jiyeon will scream, squeal and fangirl randomly at the sight of the hunks playing the ball at the court.

The stair here is the place where we hangout all the time. Well, not that I like this place or anything. In actual fact, I actually kind of dislike it. The stair here is always so dirty and dusty. It seems like the place where the janitor would always neglect due to the crazy amount of events going on here every now and then. It’s no surprise how the janitor would always choose to not clean up this place. I mean, what’s the point of cleaning it if it will get dirty again the next second after having it cleaned up. Salute to the janitor who has the exact same thoughts as me.

“He totally embarrassed me in front of the whole class for not bringing his English textbook!” Luna continues complaining while I nibble on my kimchi.

“Seriously, can’t he just chill? It’s only the first day of school for goodness sake.” She caps her lunchbox back after chewing the last piece of meat, “and god how could it be possible that the whole class brought it except for me?”

“ to be you!” Jiyeon pointed at her cheekily. In a quick swift, Luna retorted by giving her a smack on the forehead.

“Yah! Park Sunyoung!” Jiyeon screamed out Luna’s embarrassing real name while rubbing the painful spot.

Before Jiyeon could get her revenge, Luna acts quickly, “Look, your Joon oppa just scored again!”

Without a word, Jiyeon turns her eyes back to the court and stood up screaming, “Joon oppa jjang!!! You’re the best!!! Hwaiting hwaiting hwaiting oppa!”

Oh yeah, this is the main reason why we have to have our lunch here. Okay, scratch that. This is the only reason why we have to hangout here. We are forced to come here by our best friend, Miss Park Jiyeon. Apparently, her eye candy is the captain of the basketball school team. According to what Jiyeon said, he is a legend in our school – bringing our school’s basketball team back into the championship after 10 long years of defeat. He was said to be so amazing that even his seniors have to bow down to him in the club. Well, all those are words came right out from Jiyeon’s mouth and they are usually exaggerated due to her blinded love for him. All I can say is that he’s a basketball maniac. I mean, if he is given a ten-minute break, he would gladly bring the ball down just to have a quick 600 seconds game. Sad to say, he is the perfect example of having only the build but with no brain. Sometimes I really wonder why Jiyeon could go gaga over a Dumbo.

I chuckled upon seeing Luna’s triumphant victory little dance. Without warning, I raise my hand and pulled her hair hard. “For Jiyeon.” I wink.

“Yah!” she roared while showing her fierce-looking teeth.

“Ringggggggggggggg!”

“And there goes the bell” I quickly place a peck on her cheek and shout “saranghae!” before escaping. “Ahnyeong!” I shout again while forming a big heart shape using my arms which I place the tip of my fingers on my head. Seeing how Luna pretends to raise her fist to give me a flying punch. I lost control of my own laughter and stuck out my tongue just to further irritate her. With that look on her face, I assume that I have succeeded.

I slow down my pace as soon as they are out of sight and turn around. “Oh!” Today seems like a day for me to fall over and over again. Before I could react, I found my landing on the ground. Being rather unlucky this time, my sense a cooling and sticky sensation that I can’t simply ignore. The ground turns out to be moist and muddy. “Eww” I groan out in disgust.

Biting my lower lip, I quickly glance up to have a good look at the person who brought me down. However, the sudden direct contact with the stinging sunlight brought dismay to my vision. On reflex, I raise my hand over my forehead to try blocking out the scorching sunray. I squints my eyes hard but still, that didn’t help to identify the human-being standing right in front of me.

“Are you alright?” a strangely familiar voice rings.

“Eh?” I murmur while fighting against the undefeatable sun.

“You are not bleeding…” my heart stop even before he could finish his sentence, “right?”

It’s him, again.