As usual, Somi was sitting at the bench, waiting for her bus to come. She briefly closed her eyes as she enjoyed the light breeze and Taeyeon’s voice. She silently hummed to the tune of Taeyeon’s new song, Fine.

She felt a slight nudge from her left and she opened her eyes to find one of her close friend, Sohye standing up. Following her action, the two girls quickly boarded the bus. As usual, both girls were able to easily find empty seats as the bus contain less than 10 people. Both girls lived a little further away from school compared to other students, whose house are either walking distance or a few bus stops away from the school.

The bus journey takes about 30 minutes, if they were lucky to avoid the traffic congestion that happens every morning. After learning their lesson, both girls woke up even earlier to catch the early bus.

Somi leaned her head against the headrest and closed her eyes. Hoping to catch some sleep before school. On Somi’s right, Sohye did the same and both girls got some light sleep.

The sky outside turned brighter as they were about to reach school, this prompted Somi to opened her eyes as the sunlight was hurting her eyes. She gently rubbed her eyes and her vision went to normal. She squinted her eyes and focus outside the window as she saw people wearing the same uniform as her walking on the sidewalk. She quickly pressed the bell, indicating that they were dropping off at the next stop.

She lightly tapped Sohye and the girl slightly shifted in her seat, slowly opening her eyes to adjust to the brightness that was not there before. The bus came to a stop as the door opened. Some people got down and the two girls quickly stood up and followed after them.

After getting down the bus, both girls walked side by side, following the crowd of people. In less than 5 minutes, both girls were in the school compound. Somi linked her arm with the older girl as they both chatted while walking to class.

“Yah, have you finish your math?” Sohye asked.

“Yeah, but there’s this question where I’m having trouble with. I tried to do it over and over again, but the answer just won’t be right.” Somi sighed, thinking back on the question she spend almost an hour on before she gave up.

“Was it the question on circle? That question was draining my energy!” Sohye lightly stomped her feet.

“No, I was talking about the algebra question. You know how much I at that topic. It’s the devil I tell you, devil!” Somi complained.

Both girls took the stairs and went to the second level, where their class is located. Opening the door of class ‘2-2’, the people in the class looked up and greeted the two girls and vice versa.

“Good morning girls!” Seungkwan, aka the class joker greeted loudly, as usual. Both girls flashed him a smile as they went to their other friends. There was still about 10 minutes to spare before the class start, so there weren’t that many people in class yet.

Somi and Sohye took the seats in front of their friends Doyeon and Yoojung. Somi’s seat was currently occupied by Seungkwan, as usual, who was busy poking his best friend, trying to wake the poor boy up.

Somi shook her head in amusement at the sight before turning her attention to her friends.

“What’s up!” Somi energetically greeted the two girls.

“Math.” Sohye sadly stated, making the other three girls roll their eyes as the subject that they share a passion in hating together.

“Don’t even remind me. That old lady is a monster! Who in the right mind would give their student, their lovely and tired student so much work to do! I slept at 2am last night just to finish her homework. 2AM.” Yoojung emphasised.

“Why can’t we have Mrs Kim as our teacher? I’m so jealous of Yeonjung and Mina. They would never understand the pain we are going through.” Doyeon dramatically said.

“Sorry to break it to you girls but the monster is currently walking down the hallway.” All four girls look up and found one of their classmate, Chan, talking to them.

“.”

Somi stood up and quickly went back to her seat, Seungkwan immediately stood up as he saw Somi and went back to his seat, knowing that it was the cue that the monster was coming.

Somi quickly settled down on her seat and took out her math book, notebook and pencil case.

“Morning.” She heard her seatmate greet.

Looking up, she gave him a small smile. “Nice to see you awake too Hansol.”

The said boy playfully rolled his eyes. “Well you might want to snap a picture, because I’m going back to sleep soon.”

“Morning class.” A stern voice said, making everyone sit straight in their seat.

“Morning Ms Lee.” The class said in union.

“Flip your book to where we left off yesterday. Choi Yoojung, Lee Chan, Kim Minhyuk. Come up to the board and show me how you solved the subsequent questions.”

Somi turned her head toward her friend, she saw Yoojung subtly taking Doyeon’s book as she stood up. The latter has always been better at math, so it was more safe to take her book as failure to answer Ms Lee’s question always come with consequences that student hate, like extra homework.

Somi heard a light plopped and she immediately shifted her attention to the boy on her left. Just like he said earlier, the had indeed went back to sleep. The only reason why he was even awake earlier on was because Seungkwan was bugging him. Somi lightly shook her head and let out an amused smile before she looked down at her book and continue trying to solve that darn algebra question.

Hansol opened his eyes slightly and looked at the girl next to him. He watched as she furrowed her brows and pursed her lips as she stared intently at the book. His gaze lingered a little longer at her lips, but he snapped himself out of his daze and divert his attention to the question that was giving her a hard time.

He almost let out a laugh as he saw the question. He always knew that the girl struggled with algebra even though she was smart. Heck, the girl is younger than him! She skipped a grade and enrolled into middle school a year earlier than her peers.

She had garner quite the attention back then as she was smart enough to skip a grade. Not only that, her looks had definitely caught the attention of many as she looked different from the rest of them, just like Hansol. She was bullied for a week after she attended middle school, instead of crying, she confronted her bullies and stopped the whole incident herself even before the teachers can be involved.

Many admire her bravery to stand up for herself, not only that, her bright personality made others love her too. It’s not surprising that the girl had some admirers of her own even if she’s not the queenka of the school. Hansol had been in the same class as the said girl since middle school and her seatmate since the beginning of high school.

He got along well with the girl due to her outgoing personality. Some of the other girls were envious of her ability to be able to get along well with almost everyone, and this includes the popular guys in school too.

Somi continue to burn a hole into the question, not noticing that the boy next to her was awake. She flinches as a book was lightly thrown at her table, covering most part of her math book. Glancing down, she realised that it was someone else’s math book with the answer to the question she was having troubled with. She looked at the boy next to her who was resting his head in his palm with his arms propped up on the table, listening to the lecture for the first time in a while.

“Jeon Somi, Kang Sungjae. You’re next.”

Somi looked at the question she was supposed to answer and let out a string of curse in her mind. She hesitantly took the book with answer and walked towards the board. She covered the front of the book, making sure that Ms Lee was not able to see the name on the book.

She picked up the marker and copied down the workings. After making sure that she wrote correctly, she capped the marker and returned it to Ms Lee, who pat her shoulder and softly said “You’ve improved.”

Somi walked back to her seat, after making sure that the teacher was not looking, she returned the book to him and copied down his working in her book.

She heard a snicker from her right and she turned to glare at her friends who saw the whole act.

She slightly turned to her left and saw the boy with a mocking smile on. She rolled her eyes and let out a soft thanks before turning back to her work.

15/3/17

Just a chapter that shows Somi's everyday life. At least on the surface.