The school bell just rang, indicating that everyone must be inside the school campus by that time. The giant gates were slowly closing and the students were running with all their might, in attempt of slipping through the gap that was slowly becoming slower as the gates continued moving towards each other.

Even before the others were able to form a line at the quadrangle, one guy was already standing in front of the flagpole. His hands were nervously gripping onto the thick straps of his backpack, whilst his eyes were stiffly focused at the person standing before him. The other was eyeing him, as if telling him to relax, but the former just couldn’t do that—especially now that the students were slowly filling the space inside the line of the quadrangle.

Soon enough, soft snorts, some were even loud, were heard from behind him, and a comment from the eldest in their batch immediately came his way, “Of course, Jongin would be here already. First day of school—how can he be late?”

The question was followed no answer but a round of laughter from the other students, except for two people. One chose to ignore the bullying that was happening as she thought that it wasn’t worth her time whilst the other chose to sigh deeply and feel sorry for the male. Kyungsoo, the person who was standing before Jongin, scrunched his eyebrows together and glared at the students standing in front of him. “Are you going to shut your mouth or should I send you all in detention room?”

“But Sir, the detention room is too small for all the students of this school.” A student answered, and was soon followed by another round of laughter from the rest.

“That is why, you better shut your mouth or I will seriously send you all in the detention room. I won’t even care if you’ll exchange body odours with each other because of the lack of space.” Kyungsoo retorted, locking his eyes at the student from before. “You don’t want to study, right? You’re lazy to study, right? Better go inside the detention room and spend your supposed to be precious time and smell each other.”

Everyone fell silent upon the teacher’s statement. A single word wasn’t uttered, except for a snort that came from the guy who was called Jongin. Negative reactions were immediately sent towards him—glares, scoffs, and some were even harmful words. Jongin inclined his head, darting his eyes on the ground as he bit his lips; an indication that he was afraid.

“Hey, hey, let’s stop here, okay?” Kyungsoo immediately tried to hush them all, not failing to look at the poor kid in front of him before scanning the crowd before him. “Today’s the first day of class. For the seniors, do your best and try to graduate. For the second year students, try your hardest to get good grades. It’ll give you an advantage when you finally reach senior year.”

“Sir, what advantage is that?” a student from the line of the second year asked with his hand raised.

Kyungsoo’s lips curled up to a smile and he said, “If you get good grades this year, it’ll be very useful for when you finally reach senior year. Why?” he paused, turning his head towards the line of the seniors. “Because it’ll be the first thing that the universities will look at. Were you doing fine even before senior year? Do you deserve to enter the university that you want to enter? Do your grades reflect to your behaviour during high school?” he ended his questions with a deep emphasis on the word ‘behaviour’.

Everybody in the school campus knew about the seniors’ status when they were in second year.

Hot issue, Troublemakers, The Favourites—those were just a few names that were given to them by the students and the teachers. Not only did they cause too much trouble, they were almost the downfall of the school. During their midterm and final exam, everyone but three failed the examination, making the school second to the last in six schools in that province. The teachers wouldn’t even want to mention the horrible number that the school placed for the whole country. What was worse was that, the students intended to fail as a way of rebellion towards the school.

What was the reason for their rebellion?

Simple—and unreasonable: Jongin’s existence in the school.

 They wanted him out of their sight, out of their batch, out of the school—out of their life. He was a nuisance, a disgrace to their batch. They said that they can do better—only when Jongin was kicked out of the school. They knew that Jongin won’t be able to do anything since there was no one in his life who’d be able to defend him. He had no parents, no siblings—he had no relatives at all.

During those times, the teachers, even the president didn’t know what to do. How can such a small childish thing cause too much of a problem in a school? The president explained that he couldn’t expel Jongin because of their rebellion. The kid didn’t even do anything wrong, he said that day when he stood before the rebelling students.

“Is that so?” Jaejoong, the oldest in their batch, interrogated with a scoff. “Well then, we’ll make sure to give you a reason for him to be expelled.”

After that statement was said, trains of bad things happened to Jongin. The first was for him to be caught buying a pack of cigarette at the convenience store, which was actually a plot that Jaejoong’s friends made. They blackmailed the poor guy into doing such thing, telling him that they’ll track down his house and destroy his little sanctuary. The latter was possible to be done, as Jaejoong and his friends belong to the most influential families in that province. They purposely took a picture of Jongin entering the shop and buying the cigarette. They didn’t fail to send the photos to the president almost immediately after it were printed out. The president was shocked, but he knew Jongin. He knew that the kid wouldn’t do such thing. He was too kind and pure. The first plan was a failure, and this caused too much anger from Jaejoong and the other students with the exception of two people.

More plots were executed, but all of them would fail. It even came to the point when Jongin’s school I.D was taken from him. It was the most basic rule in all schools. Without his I.D, he wouldn’t be able to enter the school. But again, it failed. Why? Because Jongin was protected by the president—by the whole faculty. They knew the real story—everything behind all these schemes.

“Expel us, then!” Jaejoong spat at the president. “We don’t want to be in this school with that idiot!”

It was very courageous of Jaejoong to say so. Of course, the president wouldn’t want to do that. If he did, then there will be a problem with the number of students in that batch. They couldn’t accept any more students since the whole ruckus happened when enrolment was done. However, no matter what happened, the president was still smarted than the students.

“Fine,” he said. “I will expel all of you.”

The students were taken aback, even Jaejoong.

“I will expel all of you, and I will request to the Department of Education that you will never be able to enter any other schools in our country. You won’t be able to finish high school, and worse, you won’t be able to even start college. You have caused too much trouble in this school. Even if I don’t request such thing, will other schools accept you after reading your conduct paper? Will they accept you if they discover that you rebelled just because you don’t want a person in your batch?!”

Those words pretty much silenced the students. They were given no choice but to stay, and behave if they could.

“It’s our last year,” a voice said, breaking the long, unnecessary silence that reigned in the area. “Don’t worry, Sir. We will leave this school and never come back.”

Kyungsoo snorted. “Of course, you won’t, Jaejoong.” he said, tilting his head to the side. “We wouldn’t want to welcome back students who were such troublemakers.” Jaejoong rolled his eyes and sighed out in annoyance.

The teacher looked down at his wristwatch, and nodded a few moments later. “It’s almost time for your class. You may now go to your respective classrooms.” The students bowed politely at the teacher and went on their way.

Kyungsoo stepped down from the platform and reached out his hand towards Jongin’s shoulder, stopping him with an intention at the back of his head. “Jongin.”

Jongin stiffened and swallowed thickly, before turning his head towards the teacher. “Y-Yes?”

Kyungsoo sighed. Will he ever change? “One year. Just endure one more year, and you’ll be out of this hell.”

The younger smiled and said, “Sir, what are y-you talking about? This p-place is not hell. Th-this is the place wh-where I learned, and will be learning the things that I’ll need for college.”

A smile found its place on Kyungsoo’s lips. Jongin had always been positive despite the things that were happening to him, and he was glad that it was that way. “One more year, Jongin. Now go to your classroom.”

Jongin responded with a smile and bow of his head, before turning on his heels and walking towards the school building.

Kyungsoo watched him as he walked without confidence radiating from him. He could only smile at the student’s character. He just wished that his classmates have grown tired of trying to throw him out of the school. Jongin was a nice guy—he didn’t understand why they found him to be bothersome.

He sighed. “One more year…”

***

Jongin slid the door to the side, and entered the room with his head inclined. He knew better than to meet the eyes of his classmates. He knew better than to say a single syllable when they are not in their best mood. It was best to keep silent at that time; otherwise, he’d get in trouble once again.

“Are you happy?” Jaejoong asked, turning his eyes towards him. “The teachers love you, you are under their protection. Are you happy?!” he abruptly stood up from his chair and threw it in the air. The chair was heading towards Jongin. He would have been hit, if not for the fast hands of one student who was able to stop the chair from hitting Jongin.

Everyone’s eyes immediately flew towards the saviour. Smart-looking, tall, and beautiful—who wouldn’t know her? “Seo Joohyun.” Jaejoong growled, his hands turning into balls of fist.

“It’s the first day of school, and you’re already trying to make another issue?” she calmly asked, setting the table back on Jaejoong’s place.

Jaejoong didn’t answer. Instead, he just continued glaring at the woman, to which Joohyun responded with a calm gaze at him. The two shared intense eye contact with each other for a good minute or two. They had no plans of stopping, if not for an annoyed cluck of tongue at the corner of the room.

“Childish,” the female said as she twirled her hair on her finger. “One says this, and the other does this. Really? Are you elementary students or what?”

“Shut up, Ailee. No one asked for you to look this way and make your mouth work.” Jaejoong said as he rolled his eyes.

“Well, no one told you to pay attention to what I had to say.” She answered back, shrugging her shoulder.

The action annoyed the male so much he stood up from his table and charged towards Ailee, his fists ready to land a punch on her beautiful face when the teacher’s door slammed open and a familiar figure entered the room.

“Kim Jaejoong, are you now hitting a woman on the face?!” Professor Miyoung asked, her eyes reflection so much hatred towards the male student in front of him. The students froze on their spot, even Jaejoong. “Go back to your seat before I call Professor Kyungsoo to take care of you!”

Jaejoong gritted his teeth and forcibly dropped his hand on his side. With a deep sigh, Jaejoong went back to his chair and sat down. Everyone did as well and took their notebooks out.

Professor Miyoung exhaled exasperatingly and walked to the teacher’s table. “Let’s check the attendance.”

She started calling each of the students’ names, and as she did so, a little voice from the back said to Jongin, “Are you okay?”

Jongin looked at Joohyun and pressed his lips to a timid smile, nodding his head slowly. “Don’t worry, Joohyun. I got through first year and second year. I’ll be able to go through this as well.”

Joohyun stared at the male’s smile. How can he be so optimistic despite the things that happened to him in the past? She wondered, will he be able to survive this time around? No, she argued in her mind. Of course, he will be able to survive. Jongin’s a strong person. It may not be in physical terms, but deep inside, she knew that he’s strong. Turning her body back towards the board, Joohyun chose to focus on the discussion. Even though her attention was fully given to the teacher in front of her, she didn’t allow Jongin to be forgotten. Even though he’s at the back, her mind was still alert for him. Even if she couldn’t see him, as long as she knew that he’s there, everything will be okay. That was what she thought.

It’s alright, Jongin. I’m here for you. 

------

Woops, that was pretty intense. But, am I the only one who felt that I should have added a few more scenes at the end? :/ 

But anyway, thanks to the people who read the first chapter, and to my first subscriber. ^^