“Italic” means that they are talking in English, just italic means that its their though.

Math was soon over, along with Chemistry lesson and it was now break time. Somi stretched her arms and rotate her head in circles, loosening her muscles.

She looked up and saw Seungkwan and Chan walking over, Somi fished for her wallet and went over to her friends, letting his friends bother him.

“Let’s go.” She said as the four of them walked out of class. Yeonjung and Mina joined them along the way and the six girls made their way to the canteen. Somi eagerly looked over the foods offered before picking up a coffee bun and a bottle of banana milk. She made her way to the cashier and paid for her food. Their teacher released them a little earlier, which explains the lack of crowd in the canteen.

As she was the first one to finish buying, she easily found an empty table and sat there. Soon, the canteen was filled. The 1st and 2nd year student shared the same time for their morning break while the 3rd year student had theirs earlier at 10am. Lunchbreak started at 1.30pm and it is shared among all 3 grades.

The other five girls came quickly and the six of them chatted, enjoying their time before torture aka lessons.

“You have no idea! I thought I was going to be a gone case when she called my name. It’s like she’s a psychic! She always picks people who she knows cannot answer the question!” Yoojung complained as she finishes her pizza bread.

“At least you were smart enough to take Doyeon’s book. But sadly, you did not have a prince charming to help you like a certain someone.” Sohye wriggled her brows at Somi. The other two girls who are not in the same class looked over at Somi in confusion. Somi blinked a few times before she gets what her friend mean.

“You just had to go there.” Somi mumbled in English.

Ignoring the younger girl, Sohye turned to the confused two and explained.

“Due to someone’s inability to do algebra, her prince charming witness her distress and decided to save his damsel.” Sohye said dramatically. The two girls just looked at each other and turned to the other two girls.

“Care to elaborate on what the theatre actress said? I only understood that the girl is horrible at algebra and that the prince charming refers to Hansol.” Mina said.

“What she meant was that Hansol lend me his math book to answer the question. And what the hell? Why are you girls still calling him my prince charming?” Somi complained and sipped her banana milk.

“Err because he played your prince charming in the school play back in middle school?” Yeonjung replied sassily.

“Oh please that was back then. You know his name so can we please be nice and call him by his given name? And he’s not my prince charming.” Somi fight back the blush that was creeping up. She never liked it whenever people, friends or not, tried to bother about her nonexistent love life. Some of her friends had ask her to date one of the people who once confessed to her, but the sixteen years old thinks that she is still too young for that.  Although, she did have a crush back in the middle school days. But it died down pretty quickly after he graduated.

“Sure. Because not ALL of us are that childish.” Mina send the three girls in Somi’s class a stern look.

“Yes Madam.” Doyeon and Yoojung playfully salute her.

Yeonjung looked at her wrist, “Yah! We are left with 7 minutes!” Doyeon shoved the rest of her food into and the girls picked up all of their rubbish, throwing it on the way out of the canteen.

Just like them, the students in the hallway were all rushing to get back into their class, after bidding their friends farewell, the four girls went into their class with a minute to spare. Somi let out a sigh of relief as they had just tried to power walked their way back to the class.

Somi sat down at her empty seat and tidied up her desk. She turned behind and open her locker to take her books, perks of sitting at the last row.

A snicker can be heard and she rolled her eyes at the boy.

“As if I’m the only one who does this Mr Choi.”

“I’m amazed at how… unglam one can look while doing that.”

“Yah!” Somi used the book she just took and playfully smack his back with it.

“Wow. Okay I get that you are aiming to be a professional boxer in the future but don’t use this handsome boy as your punching bag!” he said dramatically in English.

“Handsome? Where? All I see is just an idiot called Vernon.Choi.Han.Sol.”

“Honoured that the boxer remembers my English name.”

Before Somi had the chance to give her snarky remark, their teacher walked into class. Instead, she stuck her tongue out at him and proceeded to ignore him for the rest of the lessons.

Their relationship had always been like this, constant small arguments between the two of them, and inside jokes that only they understand. Four years, that’s how long they’ve actually known each other. But it was only in the 2nd year of middle school then the two became friends rather than classmate who just say hi and bye.

They were selected to be the lead of a class play and this forced them both to spend more time together. At first, Somi was a little reluctant to be near Hansol as they were both known as the ‘(good looking) halfies’ in the class, she was afraid that this would garner more unwanted attention. But after spending more time with the boy, she realise that they both clicked quite well. Clicked as in a friendly way, not romantically.  Ever since then, they had become good friends and coincidentally seatmates since the start of high school.

Time flies and now school was over. Somi had spent her lunch with her friends and unnies who are currently going through their last year of high school.

The girls had promise to hang out after school at an ice cream shop after school. Unfortunately, Doyeon and Pinky had cheerleader practise. Pinky is the captain of the school’s cheerleading team, but she’s retiring soon along with the other 3rd year students as they need to focus their attention on the upcoming college entrance examinations. Doyeon, as Pinky has nominated, is going to be the new captain of the school’s cheerleading team so there’s some administrative stuff that she need to learn from Pinky.

Somi place her math book in her bag and zipped it up, she then proceeded to poke the sleeping boy next to her.

“School’s over.” The boy squirm a little and let out an audible yawn.

“Yah, close your mouth you’re not a hippo.”

“I was trying to be you.” His voice was a little husky as he had just woken up.

“Seriously don’t play too much video games at night, you’re sleeping in class everyday!” she lectured.

Hansol just rolled his eyes at the girl, before he could give her his smart retort, he felt his phone vibrate.

Somi glance over and saw the contact “Devil in disguise”

“Sup hyung.” He answered the call while mouth to Somi ‘You have not won’.

Somi rolled her eyes and stood up with her bag. Mouthing a bye, she turns and walked out of the class with Yoojung and Sohye who were waiting for her.

“Mina and Yeonjung said that they are outside the staff office waiting for Chaeyeon unnie. Let’s go~” Yoojung said excitedly as she bounces around.

Somi shook her head in amusement, “Be careful, don’t fall down the stairs again.” This made the shorter girl stop immediately, she gave the younger girl a glare but took her advice.

When the three girls reached the staff office, the door slide open and Chaeyeon walked out.

“Kaja. (Let’s go)” She said as the girls followed her. The six of them walked out of school and went the opposite direction they usually took. They soon reach the shop and made their order before settling down at their usual spot.

“How’s today’s class unnie. Last year of high school must be stressful.” Yeonjung ask as she took another scoop of her ice cream.

“Don’t even mention it. It’s like the teachers think that we are some sort of machine. If you think that the amount of work you are receiving now is too much, I’m sorry to break it to you but it will double up next year. Maybe even triple.”

“Heol! I don’t want to go to 3rd year anymore! Can’t I just go back to being a 1st year? I mean with my height and face I’m sure to pass as a 1st grader.” Yoojung said.

“Please, you can pass off as a middle school kid.” Sohye said.

“Don’t just say that you want to repeat a year. I mean, look at that sunbae in my class. He has to retake another year because he failed to pass all of his modules last year and look at him struggling now.”

“You mean that scary looking sunbae? The one who was rumoured to be caught in a gang trouble? What’s his name again.” Mina said.

“Seungcheol. Choi Seungcheol. ‘sigh’ I have a feeling that Mrs Im is going to make me be his little student tutor or something like that. She’s been asking me about my impression on him and how I think he can improve on his studies.” Chaeyeon slumped down on her seat and pouted her lips, looking at her ice cream that was slowly melting.

“I’m pretty sure he’s not THAT bad unnie. You want me to ask Seungkwan to do some background check on him? Although I’m pretty sure that he already has some dirt on him.” Somi tried to comfort the oldest.

“It’s fine maknae. I mean, he looks more serious with his studies this year compared to the previous years. At least, he has yet to create any trouble this year.”

“Unnie, the year has just begun. We are just in the middle of March.”

“And how much trouble has he created at this time last year?”

“…Many?”

“Exactly.”

“Hwaiting unnie!”  

“Thank girls,” she looked down at her watch, “I need to head home soon. Homework.”

“Let’s go then.”

The girls bid each other farewell at the shop entrance, Chaeyeon and Yeonjung went left while the other four went right.

The four girls chatted a little more until the bus came. Bidding the other two girls bye, Somi and Sohye board the bus and went all the way to the back.

They plopped down on the seats and Somi fished out her buzzing phone from her coat pocket.

She rolled her eyes as she saw the sender.

“Not gonna read it?”

“Not worth my time.” She cleared the lock screen, ignoring the message send to her and closed her eyes, using the little time on the bus to rest before rushing her homework.

The bus ride felt quicker than usual as she had fell asleep, luckily Sohye was awake or else she would have missed her stop.

Both girl split at the bus stop, Somi going right while Sohye went the other direction.

For some reason, the unread message was bothering her, but that does not mean that she will give in and read it. Trying to ignore the uneasy feeling she had, she occupied herself by rumbling through the front component of her bag to find her house key.

Somi lived in the more well off side of the country compared to most people. Unlike them who live in high-rise buildings, Somi lived in a three-story high house, just like the rest of her neighbours. Her house was simple, unlike her wealthy neighbours who like to decorate the house with extravagant decorations.

After finding her key, she pushed the gate open and went to the front door. Unlike how she remembered, the front door was slightly ajar. Somi froze. Wait, why was the gate not locked? She turned around and found the lock of the gate open, suggesting that it was unlikely that it was destroyed by someone.

She suddenly thought of the message and she quickly fumbled her coat pocket for her phone. She unlocked it and went to find the message.

From: Jackass Wang

Somsom! I have something important to tell you! Call me when ASAP.

She clicked her tongue as the message does not seem to have anything to do with her unlocked door.

She kept her phone and slowly opened the door. Voices can be heard from inside the house.

“Can’t we just stay here forever hyung? It’s so much more better than our previous place.”

“We can’t, I’m pretty sure the owner would not like it.”

“Who want’s pizza! I found some left over in the fridge!”

Somi furrowed her brows, but that’s MY pizza.

She poked her head in, all she could see was the shadow of the intruders as there was a big shelf blocking her view. At this moment, she was glad that her dad placed this shelf next to the doorway as it helped to hide her. She looked down and found numerous pairs of shoes neatly placed, like it was supposed to be there in the first place.

She counted and found 13 pair of shoes, she unconsciously let go of her grip on the door, she did not even notice the door moving until she heard a slam.

Somi froze as she heard the house quiet down. Even the people who were making so much noise in the living room shut up.

“Who’s there.” A gruff voice was heard. “Show yourself.”

Somi blinked, she gathered her thoughts as she took baby steps to the other side of the shelf.

Wait, why should I be afraid of them when THEY were the one who broke into my house?

She stopped for a while as she realise that THEY were the ones at wrong. She clicked her tongue as she bravely made her way to the living room, startling the thirteen boys for a moment.

"Who do you think you are to linger in my house?"

Somi glared at them in annoyance.

A chuckle can be heard from the back, the boy stood up, "Well, seeing that you are wearing our school uniform, you should know us. But if you don't, just remember us as SEVENTEEN. A part of your worst nightmare."

29/3/17