Thundering footsteps, the creaks of the dragged desks and chairs, the loud slamming of locker doors and most of all, the dull groans of Seoul National High School’s students echoed throughout the building on the first day back of school after the winter break.

A lone female student emerged from the register’s office clutching her schedule and started walking away from the overly cheery old lady who gladly offered to tour her around. She rejected the offer politely and made her way out the damned room.

She mentally cursed her older brother and his bestfriend, who coincidently is also her boyfriend, who both had convinced their parents that she would do better in this school rather than her previous one and her other brother, who would and should always be on her side, surprisingly agreed. Being the maknae all she could do was throw a tantrum in her room and throw her stilettos at her brother every time he tried to stick his head in his room.

She blew a stray strand of hair away from her face and trudged towards her homeroom class, well, math class now. She read her schedule again and the time; her homeroom ended 5 minutes ago. She turned around and walked in the opposite direction towards her math classroom.

            “I should kill Jaejoong oppa for this.” She hissed as she faced the cream-colored classroom door with a clear glass window on the top half.

A few students noticed her standing by the door even before she rapped on the glass thrice, which caught the teacher’s attention. She opened the door and greeted the teacher before handing in her attendance slip. She scanned the room and noticed this high school was one of those institutions that separated the girls and the boys.

Her teacher was young probably not as much older as her older brother. She saw the teacher’s id and his name was, Cho Kyuhyun. He took one glance at her note before he lazily flung it on his table and gestured for her to move to the middle of the room. She inwardly groaned hating on what was about to happen.

            “seems like we have a new student this term. New student please introduce yourself.” He said trying to look encouraging but failed, he obviously just wanted to torture new students into doing what they hate most when becoming ‘the new girl’.

She sighed and faced her classmates that she probably would either ignore her, hate her for just being the new student or for just being the new subject of juicy gossip at the lunch table.

            “annyeonghaseyo, Kim SunHee ibnida. Nice to meet you all and please do take care of me.” not! She was independent and didn’t want any help, not that she was a social outcast in her previous school but she just didn’t want unwanted attention for just being the new girl.

            “that’ll do, there’s a vacant seat at the back you can take it.”

with a bitter “ne, seonsaengnim.” She trudged towards the back, dropped her bag and slouched on her chair.

A few curious glances came her way but she ignored all of them, she glared at some of the girls who in turn gave her dirty looks before looking at to the front.

The bell rung for lunch break…finally. She started shoving her books to her bag and just wanted to get out of the room asap.

Girls who blocked the doorway started whispering and some were even giggling. SunHee raised an eyebrow but ignored them. She squeezed in between them not bothering to apologize. Successfully making her escape she started walking away to search for her locker. She barely walked a few feet when all too familiar voices rung in her ears.

            “Kim SunHee!!!” she winced and was about to turn around when she was flung from her feet and twirled around the hallway.

Curious murmurs now filled the area.

            “Chunji oppa, put me down!” she yelled hitting Chunji’s arms around her waist.

The blonde boy grinned playfully and put her down. She made a pained face with a hand to her waist. That was going to bruise, she thought. She looked up and glared at the still-smiling boy when something fast with black hair knocked out all the hair out of her as she was suddenly enveloped in a tight bear hug.

            “my favorite girl in the world!!! You’re finally here!!!” the happy cheer of her assaulter made her cuss again. Wiggling out of the hug was near impossible and so was breathing.

            “Dongjun oppa, I…can’t…breathe!” she choked.

            “oops!” Dongjun let go with a smile that made all the other girls swoon. “sorry, SunHee got slightly carried away.”

            “slightly?” she spat massaging her arms. “this is why I don’t want to transfer here! Because you two are just gonna abuse me!”

There were murmurs in the crowd now, these two boys weren’t exactly kingkas but they were still quite popular, Dongjun being the jock and Chunji the school dj.

            “aw come on, we haven’t seen you over the break.” Chunji pouted.

            “yeah, it seems as if you were avoiding us.”

            “I am avoiding you two.”

The two boys fake a bawling cry and hugged each other.

            “what’s with all the noise?” a new voice sounded, an all too familiar voice for SunHee and she unconsciously flinched and shrank.

She would’ve avoided him too. One, she was still mad at him, and two, if he’d apologize she would not be able to resist him.

            “Myungsoo!” the two boys cried and rand over to their friend and leaned on his shoulder.

“she says she didn’t want to see us!” Chunji pointed at SunHee dramatically, which made her roll her eyes.

“she didn’t mean it.” Myungsoo said in a casual tone and walked towards SunHee. “right?”

she kept her eye contact defiantly but then gave in. The connection she had with Myungsoo was too strong to resist. The pull they had for each other is what makes them hard to resist, in this case, hard for SunHee to stay mad.

            “no, I don’t.”

she and Myungsoo ignored the cheering dorks behind them. Myungsoo stared at her with a raised eyebrow before he crossed his arms.

            “what?” she said spitefully.

            “I know you’re still upset but I didn’t expect you to forget to greet me properly.” He said tapping his left cheek.

SunHee groaned before tiptoeing and planted a brief kiss on Myungsoo’s cheek earning a gasp from everyone. The latter smiled and motioned for the other 2 to go.

If possible the jaws of those around them dropped even lower they haven’t seen Myungsoo smile at a girl except when he was acting. Yes, Myungsoo was the star of the drama club.

            “see you later.” He kissed SunHee’s forehead before he walked away with his 2 buddies.

Muttering silent curses and threats under her breath she walked away to the opposite direction after deciding she’d just skip lunch. The morning encounter was enough for her to lose of what remained of her appetite.

She sought refuge in the gym, she would’ve preferred the outdoor bleachers but thought against it immediately. She didn’t want to spend her first day of school freezing like a popsicle.

Sitting on one of the top seats of the bleachers, far from the giggling and cheering fangirls who watched some of the boys play basketball. SunHee took out her sketchpad and flicked through the pages and settled on a blank one picturing the image of the lone dandelion from the windowsill of her classroom. It looked sad and on the verge of dying from the winter chills. Sunhee even wondered how it managed to survive autumn. With a sigh, she raised her pencil and started to draw the outline.

Dabbing her worn kneaded eraser, she dabbed it on her drawing and took out her charcoal pen and slowly started to visualize the sill then lightly drawing vertical lines along the sides.

She unconsciously smiled at she draw, she remembered how Myungsoo tried so hard to make a “holder” for her charcoal sticks so she wouldn’t get her hands dirty. She told him it was part of the art to get your hands dirty but he wouldn’t hear of it. After months of hardwork, he finally managed to create a holder decent enough to use. It was just a smoothened piece of wood with a gaping hole for a charcoal stick to fit and play-dough clay for the art instrument to stick. She still gets her fingers dirty whenever she started shading but Myungsoo still hasn’t figured out an idea how to get around that yet.

She had started the faint outline of the pot when a shadow blocked her light. Brows furrowed in an annoyed frown she looked up only to be met with a cocky smile from a boy with the kind of look she wholeheartedly despised. Sure, he was tall, good looking, that smirk surely had countless girls fawning over him, a bit full lips that one pout from it could have noonas nodding to his every whim and the naughty glint form his eyes might earn him quite a number of male followers just so they could also be called “cool”.

And, yes, she hated it. Arrogance and overconfidence, she absolutely loathed it.

            “move. You’re blocking my light.” She said trying to sound nonchalant.

He didn’t move.

            “I guess you’re the new girl since I haven’t seen you around before.”

Oh how smart of you, you could be a genius. Those words threatened to make its way out of but held back.

            “yes.” Squinting slightly trying to draw with the little light that remained.

            “I knew I was right, a beautiful girl like you wouldn’t have had escaped my sight.”

SunHee raised an irritated brow in reflex and gave a mocking scoff.

            “if that’s your idea of a pick up line you might need to get another one coz that one honestly .” She gave him a demeaning look before she stood up to leave and started down the stairs but the stubborn boy followed her and blocked her way halfway down.

            “can I at least get your name? mine’s Kai.” he either seemed to have recovered from that slap to the face statement a while ago or he’s just too overconfident to care.

            “no, now out of my way.” She said with the authority she was all too used in using.

SunHee pushed him hard out of her way making him lose his balance slightly that it almost made him sit on one of the chairs. She also his friends looking at them, looking curious and amused but didn’t care enough to intervene or get in any way involved.

She finally got to the bottom when she felt her arm yanked back to face the angry boy.

Hot blood rose to SunHee’s face, she did NOT like being touched. She yanked her arm back harshly and glared at the boy.

            “touch me again and you will regret it.” she fumed. “why don’t you go back to your mother and ask her to teach you some manners.”

He still looked unfazed with that grin she hated most plastered on his face.

            “sorry but this chick left the nest a long time ago. You know to start learning about the world early. What do you say we rendezvous at my place later?” he wiggled his eyebrows and she gave him a rather disgusted and disturbed look.

Did girls actually fall for THAT trick? She thought.

            “well apparently, ‘the chick’” she said making air quotations. “didn’t manage to fly and fell on its head.”

His friends on the court heard the comment and guffawed. Kai flushed red with anger at the insult and humiliation.

            “give it up Kai, leave the new girl alone.” A taller blonde guy said. He was trying to hide his amused smile but failing miserably.

SunHee turned her back from the group but before she could even reach the door a hand on her shoulder prevented her from moving further.

            “I told you I want your name.” Kai said sounding a bit angry now.

            “and I told you not to touch me!” SunHee grabbed Kai’s wrist. It all happened so fast and the next thing they knew Kai was on his back on the floor writhing in pain.

The laughter exploded in the gym and his friends walked over to him to try and help him up.

            “you should’ve listened to Kris when he told you to leave her alone.” Another tall boy with round wide eyes and a creepy smile guffawed.

SunHee didn’t bother to linger and walked just set off for her classroom. It was the long walk that made her miss St. Therese’s School for Girls in Ohio. She missed all her classmates and friends. As much as she was close to her brothers, she didn’t like hanging around other boys. Her brother, Jaejoong’s playboying ways and how other girls would constantly tail her other brother were just sickening.

But they weren’t all like that, she thought of her boyfriend who, even with his insatiable appetite, was always a gentleman and honest with her. They grew up together and they knew each other like the back of their hands, if they would lie, the other would know about it. Also, if he hurt her, her brothers would not leave that lying around.

She smiled at the thought and entered her classroom just in time for the bell to ring. Then she remembered why she was stuck in this new school in the first place and the smile just disappeared from her face just as fast as it had appeared.

Her next subject, English, was utter torture. Not because she spoke the language more fluently than their teacher did but because their said teacher named, Kim Heechul, just sent the last student that questioned his sentence construction outside on his knees with both arms raised. So yes, she had to endure a whole hour of English that tested her patience more than her older brother, Kim Jaejoong did.

Her next class, history, was admittedly fun. Their teacher, Park Jungsu, made the class less boring by making fun reenactions of Jang Heebin’s death sentence. Music was…interesting. Kim JongWoon taught voice and Henry Lau taught musical instruments. You could attend either class as long as you bring bugs to Kim JongWoon’s class and food to Henry Lau’s.

By the time it was finally for Phys.Ed, Kim Sunhee was beyond relief. She may only be stuck in the gym when she just flipped a stubborn during lunch but it was a nice change to the suffocating 4-corners of the classroom and deom the overly helpful class reps that seemed to think she was an invalid, not capable of having enough brains to distinguish the difference between a Pythagorean Theorem and a chalkboard.

SunHee was in the middle of tying her shoes when a feeling of déjà vu came over her as a shadow loomed from above. She sighed and saw 3 girls crossed-armed in front of her. By the looks of the tad overdone make up and the trying-to-look-cool expressions on their faces that she assumed she was in the presence of this school’s resident mean girls. Or at least trying to get that title.

SunHee sighed and continued tying her laces.

            “can I help you with anything, girls?” she asked not looking at any of them.

            “what is your relation to the perfect three?” one of them said, SunHee looked up and it looked like the girl from the middle was the one who spoke from the way she tried to raise her nose up.

            “excuse me, but the perfect what?” SunHee couldn’t help but laugh. If they called, Kim Myungsoo, Lee Chanhee and Kim Dongjun perfect then they should’ve seen them go berserk over a platter of chocolate cupcakes and scarf down all of it with icing all over their faces. Not to mention that one summer when Lee Chanhee had this terrific idea of spending the afternoon away from the heat by staying up in a tree forgetting about his fear of heights that they had to call the fire department to help him get down.

            “the perfect three!” snapped the shortest one with the heavily penciled eyebrow. Seriously, since when did high schools in Korea allowed students to wear make up?

            “now tell us what’s your relationship with them? Especially to L!” the one in the middle asked again but this time SunHee raised a curious brow.

            “who?”

            “L! Kim Myungsoo! You kissed him! How dare you! Is he your boyfriend or something!?” the one to the left screamed like her head was on fire.

            “L?” SunHee tried to stifle her laugh but couldn’t help it and let it out loud. Kim Myungsoo, the dork she knew all her life was actually calling himself L in school?

            “stop laughing, now tell me why you call Chanhee-ssi Chunji? I heard only close and intimate friends call him that?”

            “and Dongjun oppa! Why did he say you’re his favorite girl in the world!?” she demanded.

            “it’s not like I enjoy being in that place, to be honest.” She whispered but they heard anyway and pushed her hard that her back hit the lockers. Her temper meter began spiking for the nth time.

            “you better answer us now or you’ll not be able to set one foot out of this room.” Ms. I-have-too-much-eye-shadow-i-look-like-a-panda threatened.

            “yeeeah…right. I really don’t think it’s any of your business why I know ‘the perfect three’ and how they know me. if you’re that desperate to know ask them.” SunHee grabbed her towel and walked out the door.

She heard rustling noises, a door banging and the next thing she knew she was on her on the floor.

            “we told you we want answers!” a crowd of student turned their attention to the shout.

            “and I assume she didn’t give you any.” A male voice from behind the three girls said. The trio spun around and met the angry glares from another trio.

DongJun and Chunji walked towards SunHee and helped her up. They didn’t fuss because they know she hated it and just silently help her dust off her sweat pants. The three girls now cowered under the furious glower Myungsoo was giving them. He slowly stepped closer and they stepped backwards trembling.

            “if I see any of you lay so much as a hair on my sister’s head, I will personally see to it that you will be kicked out of this school before you can say kimchi! And my words that that will be the nicest payback you will every get.” he said through very tight gritted teeth.

The three girls paled.

            “y…your…your sister?”

Myungsoo didn’t answer and just walked towards SunHee. He put an arm around her shoulder and walked towards the bleachers followed by DongJun. Chunji stayed a bit to grab a new towel for SunHee.

            “Chanhee-ssi, is she really Myungsoo’s sister?” a boy from his class asked.

            “yep, they’re twins, actually. And if you ask me, those two would kill if anyone hurt the other.” he grinned swinging the new clean towel and walked back towards his friends.

The group settled down on the other side of the basketball court and sat on the floor.

            “hyung called.” Myungsoo started.

            “and?” SunHee answered tentatively.

            “and he says he wants to make it up to you.”

            “how?”

Myungsoo shrugged and took a swig from his water jug.

            “dinner, just the three of us, at that restaurant by the Han river that we loved as kids.

SunHee’s defiance to ignore her older brother wavered a bit. But, thankfully, she was saved of not answering by the sound of the PE teacher’s whistle.

            “tell him I’ll think about it.” she stood up and ran to the group of girls.

            “she going, isn’t she?” Chunji grinned and Myungsoo chuckled.

            “oh yes, she is.” Dongjun laughed and went to the group of boys.

A pair of eyes watched the siblings and their friends from the moment they stepped foot on the court till they separated to their respective groups. Kai was still fuming about his humiliation earlier in the day.

            “eyes on the coach.” A bored voiced echoed in his ear. Looking down he saw Kyungsoo who had his attention on a book.

            “how about you then?” Kai snapped.

            “you’re a junior and on the basketball team, I’m just here for my PE class, I’m reading my PE book. The coach is talking about your strategy against your game with Busan High.”

            “whatever.”

            “still butthurt you got rejected?” Kai could picture the amused grin on Kyungsoo’s face.

He glared at his wide-eyed friend.

            “no one rejects me!”

            “yeah right. not all girls will fawn over you, Kai. You’d do well to remember that and besides, she may be new here but she’s already a senior. Not to mention she has Myungsoo sunbae, all the more reason for you not to cross her.”

Kai sat straight up in his seat.

            “what? Myungsoo sunbae? What’s that lame actor got to do with her?”

Kyungsoo sighed. Of course there was nothing lame about Myungsoo’s acting; in fact, he is good enough to get love calls from various drama producers.

            “she is Myungsoo’s twin. Heard Suho hyung ask Chanhee sunbae earlier.”

            “you’ve got to be kidding me.”

Kyungsoo shook his head.

            “nope. And if that is true then you really need to stay away from her if you want to keep all your limbs intact.”

            “and why is that?” he spat. He knew very well of Myungsoo’s temper when it comes to crossing him and his pals and he expected even worse if his sister is involved.

            “because Kim Jaejoong sunbaenim is also their older brother.”

Kai gaped at his friend.

            “Kim Jaejoong? As in THE Kim Jaejoong? The one who graduated in this school 2 years ago and the youngest taekwondo gold medalist in the Olympics!?”

Kyungsoo nodded. There were already rumors about Myungsoo being Jaejoong’s younger brother but since everyone knew Jaejoong’s younger siblings were twins and didn’t know Myungsoo had a twin, they dismissed the rumor.

            “sorry pal, she’s way out of your league.” Kyungsoo laughed and patted his friend on his back.

            “at least she won’t be able to get a boyfriend with her two brothers being too protective of her.”

            “actually…she already has one.” Kyungsoo rubbed the back of his neck.

            “what?! how’d you know?! And where do you get all your information from? You gossip like a girl!”

Kyungsoo stared at him insulted.

            “you seem to forget that I am the editor of the school paper. I’ve done my research as soon as she set foot in this school, .”

Kai gave up and just cussed under his breath and stared at the twins in question who were off on their own again with Dongjun and Chunji.

Finally, the school bell for dismissal rang and students from all levels flooded out of the school gates. The Kim twins along with their friends lagged behind a bit to avoid the hoard of eager students.

Reaching the gate, the group was particularly aware of awestruck voices from the boys and squealing from the girls. Squeezing their way out, a black Audi R7 came into view with 2 very familiar, not to mention famous, figures leaning on it.

            “Jae hyung!” Chunji and Dongjun cheered at the top of their voices earning the attention of the man they just called.

            “hey! I haven’t seen you two in a long time. Still breaking hearts?”

both confidently shrugged.

            “what are you doing here, hyung? I thought we’re meeting at home?” Myungsoo glowered.

            “nice to see you too, bro.” he ruffled Myungsoo’s hair and seeing his sister his face broke into the widest smile that had girls fainting. “little sis!” he spread his arms and was about to hug SunHee when she ducked and ran over to the other man with him.

            “Changmin oppa!” she squealed and hugged the tall man who also hugged her back. Jaejoong sulked at the sight and had Myungsoo fuming.

            “oh sure, ignore the brother and go to the boyfriend.” Everybody gasped at the revelation. Shim Changmin just graduated a year before and was already gaining popularity in the modeling industry.

            “don’t be such a killjoy, hyung. we haven’t seen each other in 2 months.” Changmin defended who still had his arm around SunHee’s shoulder.

            “well, I haven’t seen her in 3 so beat that!” Jaejoong said and yanked his sister from him and enveloped her in a bear hug. Defeated, SunHee let her brother hug her and just rolled her eyes at her brother’s childishness.

            “aren’t we going yet?” SunHee asked pushing Jaejoong away for some breathing distance.

            “we aren’t going to fit in his car so he will be taking his car with the boys, send Dongjun and Chunji home and I will take you on a short ride and meet your brothers in time for your dinner plans, in which I will not be joining.” Changmin narrated and SunHee looked at Jaejoong with a perplexed look on her face.

            “yep, go spend a few short minutes with him as I take these two home.” he said with a slight push ignoring Myungsoo’s obvious objection to the plan. “come on, you three!”

as SunHee got into Changmin’s car she couldn’t help but notice the stare she and the others were getting from her fellow students.

            “what are you thinking, Sun?”

            “we will be getting a lot of this, wont we?”

            “well, that’s high school for you, babe, and with a very popular family like yours, it’s hard not to get attention.” He said with a tiney smile before handing her his ipad.

She took it and reading the bold letters of the headlines in the school news website made her groan. This was definitely going to be a very long year.

Drama Club Star, Kim Myungsoo, Reveals Twin Sister!

Olympian, Kim Jaejoong’s Young Twin Siblings, Kim Myungsoo and Kim SunHee. An Exclusive Peek!

 

The END..;)