She woke up feeling rather drained and sore, probably attributed to yesterday’s intense dance practice, but after laying in bed for an extra ten minutes, she gathered enough energy to get up. She went through her morning routine, brushing her hair and her teeth and changing into a fashionably matching outfit. While patting moisturizer onto her face and neck, she couldn’t help but admire her flawless skin. She turned her head from side to side and stretched her neck to examine all angles of her face before blushing slightly at her slight episode of vanity. Hey, she couldn’t help it! She was glad to get past those acne prone teenage years. The scars had all finally healed and not a mark interrupted the clean skin.

By now, she felt ready to tackle school. Flashing a bright white smile that reflected back at her from the bathroom mirror, she turned around to head to her first class of the day.

“Good morning Teacher’s Pet. Did you finish the readings for today?” asked a boy as she plopped her bag down on the table and took her seat next to him.

“Yeah. They were so boring though. I only read through the first twenty pages before I started skimming,” she replied, successfully holding back a yawn. Despite just being called a teacher’s pet, she didn’t seem offended at all.

“That’s nineteen more pages than what I read.” He was flipping through the reading packet without even looking at the words as if just by turning the pages, the information would transfer through his hands to his brain.

“I can tell you what it was about. I didn’t thoroughly read the last ten pages but I got the gist of it,” she offered.

“Nah. I’m not worried. Hyung is subbing today remember. It’s going to be an easy day.” He put down the packet and leaned back casually with his hands behind his head.

“You’re really mellow today, Jonghyun. Something good happen? On better terms with unnie?” she asked as she neatly put out her pen, pencil, highlighter, and notebook.

“Hmm? Yeah. She finally got past the depressing, angry break up phase and now we’re just friends again”

She lifted an eyebrow. “If I recall correctly, it was you who was really super gloomy after the break up, not her.”

“Whatever. Fact is, we’re not together anymore, we’re both fine with that, and we’re back to being friends,” he shrugged.

Jonghyun and his very recent ex-girlfriend, Shin Se Kyung, weren’t the only ones fine with the slightly rocky breakup. The row of admirers sitting behind the boy were also very much fine with how things turned out.

“Man…you ARE really mellow today.” She rested her chin on her hand and smiled at him, happy that he didn’t have a dark cloud hanging over his head anymore.

“Hello class!!!” Their TA tripped in and announced happily, “Have no fear! Jinki is here!”

Their normal professor was out with a sudden stomach flu so Lee Jinki, this class’s TA, was in charge today.

“So…what are we learning again?” Nobody really wanted to remind him. “Oh well! Sunsengnim didn’t leave me a lesson plan either so free day!” Everyone cheered. About half the class left the room while the other half just chilled and gossiped with friends while they waited for their next class to start.

Jinki walked over to the pair and messed up the girl’s hair before taking a seat in the row behind them. “What’s up?”

“Hey!” the girl shouted as she moved the strands of her hair back into place. “Oppa!”

“Oh look. The owner comes to pet the kitty.” Jonghyun commented. “Ow!”

The so-called kitty swatted her seat neighbor. “I am not a teacher’s pet!”

“Yes you are!”

“I thought you finally accepted that fact and stopped complaining about the name?” Jinki put in.

“Oppa! You aren’t supposed to agree!” she grumbled.

“But Kitty, I like that you’re a teacher’s pet. Makes my job easier.” Jinki grinned widely.

“Ugh.” She rolled her eyes but still smiled good naturedly.

“See you unnie!”

“Bye Princess!”

“Don’t forget about our club meeting tonight VP”

“Monkey, I hear intramurals are cancelled today. See you later though!”

Her name? Well, she did have one but nobody really called her it. She only went by nicknames now and she had many. From as far back as grade 1, she was the teacher’s most prized student, earning the title of “teacher’s pet”. At first she hated it and people called her that to mock her, but soon, people just called her that to call her that and she became proud of that title. Plus, nobody could say it with scorn anymore because she was just too nice. It was hard to mock such a nice person.

Some people called her a princess because people thought she had everything she needed: good friends, good grades, the teacher’s affections, parents that let her do her own thing but still sent her enough money to survive (unfortunately not enough to go crazy with shopping but that just made her seem even more humble and nice), nice clothes (actually, nothing was brand name unless it was a gift. She just knew how to dress and make her clothes look nice.), the best lottery number for rooming selection, etc.

Some people just called her by her position. If she was an officer of some club, they’d call her by her officer title. In high school, she was student council secretary and so many people called her Sec or Secretary. Some people back then called her Number 3 because she ranked third in the school.

People who played intramural sports called her Monkey. The nickname was received when she swung her legs up to end up on top of a bar during one of those ‘knock your opponent off the bar’ game and so as she sat securely on top of the bar, she tickled her opponent into falling to the ground. She honestly only did that instinctively in her panic as she had zero confidence in her upper body strength.

Many more nicknames could be added to the list and she responded to most of them. Really only a few select people ever used her real name, and of course she’d use it for legal documents.

“So what’d you do last night instead of your homework, Jonghyun?”  the infinite nickname girl asked while spinning her pen.

“I had the best sleep in the world! Was out from dusk ‘til dawn. I feel so good right now! See! Not doing homework is good for the body!”

“Or you can just do your homework earlier and still get the same amount of sleep,” she pointed out.

“Whatever.”

“Actually, I slept really well too,” Jinki in.

“Aw lucky… I slept like a log but didn’t really feel all that rested this morning. Whatever.” Changing her tone, she declared, “It’s a nice day out. I’m going to enjoy today! Let’s go eat lunch outside today!”

“But we never eat lunch this early.”

“That’s because you’ve never had this class cancelled before. What do you guys want to eat? My treat,” he whipped out his cell phone in which he had various food places on speed dial.

++++++++++++
THEA's Corner

Updated twice in a night just because this is the other part of the story that I've had done since the beginning of the summer. I also didn't want to just leave people with the impression that this would be all . I still have 2000 more words of this story but I just wrote it and I need to reread and edit it so that probably won't be up for a short while. "Lucifer's Butterfly" might be updated some time this week or next week.

Posted: 10 November 2011