Wiping away the tears from her face, Soojung let out a single sniffle before standing up and checking her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were puffy and her nose was red - all in all, she looked horrible. A quick glance at her watch also showed her that she had around ten minutes before her next class, so she should have enough time to put enough makeup to cover her appearance.

Taking out her makeup kit from her black makeup bag that she carried around everywhere, Soojung started to work on her face, doing her best to cover up any proof she previously had that she'd been crying. She couldn't let other people see her in her weak moments - she already felt weak and stupid enough as it was, she didn't need anyone pointing out the obvious and then asking her about what was wrong. Most importantly, she didn't need Jongin seeing her weak like this, especially since he was the one who originally made her cry anyway.

"That should do it," She muttered after seeing she looked all better already, thanks to the power of makeup. Coughing a few times after hearing how her voice sounded - heavy and sounding like it came from a snot-filled nose - Soojung talked a few more times to herself to make sure her voice went back to normal as well. "Test," Soojung said, and was pleased when she heard she already sounded like how she usually did. Tidying her hair slightly, Soojung then gave a fake smile at her reflection in the mirror.

She still wasn't okay.

But that didn't mean she couldn't pretend like nothing happened.

Unlocking the door and stepping outside, Soojung heaved out a sigh of relief after seeing that it was still empty. Everyone and their friends were probably still busy hanging out, so that would give her plenty of time to head over to class early and be able to avoid civilization for at least five minutes. Turning on her heel, she started walking towards the direction of her locker to go grab the textbooks and necessary school equipment for her next class - civics. Well, at least it was something she enjoyed, and not something like math. Ew, math.

Quickly heading towards the class after quietly getting her books, Soojung almost burst into happy tears after seeing that nobody was in the class yet. The only reason why Soojung could stand this class was because their teacher was laid back - and was also always fifteen minutes late for their classes, which meant most of the students who had this class would be too busy slacking around with their social crowd before heading back to class.

'i'm just going to close my eyes for a minute,' she sighed, putting her head above her arms, placed on her table. Soojung closed her eyes, thinking that it would only take a second and when she woke up, everything would still stay the same.

"Oh my god, is she sleeping?" 

The sudden noise of laughter jolted Soojung awake from her sleep. She looked around the room with bleary eyes and saw that a lot of the kids from her class were laughing at her, and some were hiding their grins. She almost rolled her eyes because really, who still laughed at their sleeping classmates? Not her, that was for sure. "So? It's not like none of you haven't done it," She retorded coolly, giving a small smile before propping her head using her elbow. Her classmates' laughs died down and most of them lost interest soon enough, and Soojung had gotten enough rest for her to be able to last at least thirty minutes in civics before dying of boredom.

"Good afternoon, class~" A chirpy voice was sounded, and their teacher, a middle-aged woman who was divorced with three kids in her custody, entered the classroom with a large grin on her face. They all did the usual class routine before sitting down, and their teacher put out a chalk and started to write on the board while speaking. "Today, I will be pairing you up with your seatmates! Today's group assignment will be..." Sadly, by that time, Soojung had already lost her attention for the teacher and had started looking out at the window, giving little smiles at the birds. Seemed like the birds were only things that she could smile at right now, besides flowers and the floor and the wall and basically anything that wasn't a human being.

"Partner," She then heard a deadpanned voice and curiously looked up - Sehun was standing there in all his glory, holding his textbooks and giving her a pointed glare that told her to move aside for him. Raising an eyebrow, she gave a short laugh. "We're not partners."

Sehun simply raised an eyebrow too back at her, as if daring her to challenge what he said. "You weren't paying attention, were you?"

"Of course I wasn't!" Soojung admitted shamelessly, giving Sehun a fake smirk. "My seatmate's gone so I'm going to do this by myself. Bye - "

"My seatmate's sick, so we're stuck together," The boy interrupted her easily, giving her a sardonic smile. Gaping at him like a goldfish, Soojung was trying to say something back, but she wasn't sure what. "You know what - ugh, fine," She groaned and finally scooted to give him some space to sit. "So, what was the project anyway?"

"We're supposed to make a poster about this," Sehun pointed at their textbook material and Soojung's eyes widened. She hadn't been listening in for the whole time she was here.

"Don't know, don't really care," Soojung smiled sweetly at him, talking about the material.

"Well I'm not going to do all the work. Can you draw?" Sehun asked, and Soojung nodded wordlessly. Sehun then got to work by writing down the slogan and whatever he wanted in their poster soon, while Soojung watched him work with unamused eyes.

In her eyes, Sehun looked different than how he was at his youth - and it wasn't just because of his age. Soojung could see some stress lines over the maknae's forehead now for some odd reason, and now his hair looked like it was half dead - probably because ever since she started here, Soojung had already seen him change his hair and hair colour at least thrice.

As Sehun continued to jot down his ideas, brows furrowed and eyes following his hands' every movements, he suddenly asked her something that shocked Soojung into jumping in her seat.

"So, you're Jung Soojung, right?"

AUTHORS NOTE 

It's late here and I just wrote this chapter because I'm just... a real idiot ahaha. All chapters are going to be pretty short now, but all of them will have the minimum of 1000 words so don't worry! i just wanted to make things more convenient for the both of us, so I can update faster and you can read the story faster as well.

Anyways, comments are loved as they encourage me to write faster and subscribes also make me a very happy girl! <3

- mondegreen.