The door closed.

It echoed loudly in her head and it sounded 5 times louder than it actually was because she was asleep.

Robin shook.

It’s Monday! Her brain shouted as her eyes flew open.

She sat up almost immediately like a spring.

Her first reaction was to look around the room, and assess whether Baekhyun was here. Good. He wasn’t. That must be him leaving the room. But why didn’t he wake her up or make any sound?

Wait. Am I late?

Robin grabbed her phone violently out of its charging cables that was lying on her bedside table. Urgently, she jabbed at the screen so that the time would show.

6.45am

Oh thank God!

Robin breathed out and slumped back into bed. The bed was so comfy and this whole room has this warm and nice glow that makes her not want to leave. Her first class starts at 8a.m and that gives her plenty of time, actually not, she considered. She can never go without breakfast so that means she has to factor in time to find- and not get lost- the cafeteria to grab some food. Also she has to figure out where her locker was. Gosh, there’s a lot of things she has to do now the more she thought of it. Why haven’t this occurred to her last night? She must have been too tired to even set the alarm, thank goodness Baekhyun unintentionally woke her up. But why was he out so early anyway? Breakfast perhaps.. or maybe everyone else in the building would be up early for their first day of school.. Robin thought till the vibration of her phone shook her unexpectedly. It was a text. Still lying on the bed, Robin clicked open the text.

WRU!?!?!? Will see u at 730 in the hallway – Leah

Glancing at the time again, Robin pushed herself out of bed almost immediately. Today is her first day. As introverted as she is, she still wants to look good on her first day in the new school and maybe impress people with what puberty has done to her. And more than that she’s been looking forward to see Leah for the whole year and she needs to interact with someone before she explodes of loneliness.

It was well almost 7.45am by the time Robin did eventually get to the hallway, it mainly involved getting a little lost and she learnt by the hard way that there was a short cut to the school building, if only she would open to ask any of the thousand students around but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She didn’t even have time to find breakfast and this made her a little annoyed.

Stepping into the building, it looked pretty much like the admin building from last night in terms of colour, overall look and the plain white team. Rows of lockers spread ahead of her and there must have at least be 3 millions students walking around now, exchanging their ‘Hi!’ and “ Hey!!”.

This is quite intimidating to be honest. Is she the only loser here walking alone? Feeling slightly insecure, Robin turned to the glass door behind her to check her reflection quickly.

Her hair was tied up in a cute pony tail. Her uniform fits well. A pastel coloured backpack swung over her shoulders and her shoes were a little too new, the sort of ugly blue-ish white that makes you look nerdy.  When she looked up at her face she saw a nervous girl. But with all that said she’s been told often in the last few years that she was pretty. But being pretty isn’t a big deal in this school. It’s like, gosh- they were all born pretty. It’s so annoying that they overshadows her. Do they even know how hard it is to be born pretty? Examining her face further, she noticed how pale she was and her dry her lips were. She made a mental note to buy a lip balm and some facial masks.

Snapping her out of her thoughts, Robin felt a pair of hands grabbing her shoulders from the back, so abruptly it scare the hell out of her and she jumped.

“THERE YOU ARE!” Leah chirped with a bright smile as Robin turned around, recovering from her mild shock and broke into a happy smile. Being spontaneous, Leah pulled Robin into a tight hug and Robin felt almost like she was being swirled around. Or that might have been the case. Seeing Leah instantly melted away all her anxiety and worries, instead, a warm familiar feelings crept into her heart.

Finally after calming down a few seconds later, Leah retreated and beamed at Robin. “ I’m just so so so happy to see you here finally!! We’re back in the same school again since like what? A thousand years ago!”.

Robin let out a laugh as they started walking towards the crowded hallway and lockers. “ Don’t exaggerate, it’s only been like 4 years!”, she said hitting Leah’s arms in teasing.

She could now take a good look at Leah. Black shiny hair, pretty eyes, perfect nose, heart-shaped thin lips, fair and healthy skin. There she was, her best friend. Leah was always so full of life, cute, jumpy, happy, so many things and if not, too much things in a small package of cute petite little body. She is absolutely lovely and Robin loved her to bits. Sometimes she looks at her, smiling, and wondering how could such a large and lovable personality be fitted in such a small, curvy, little body and not explode? And to top it off, Leah was one of those super pretty girls that didn’t care that she’s pretty and didn’t act like one. No one, like no one, can ever get angry with Leah.

Whereas herself, mundane old Robin, had nothing more spectacular than a percuiliar personality and an extremely inconvenient uni name which everyone thinks it’s a boy’s name. Yet with all the boringness and shyness she possess, her body was still too big to contain her little personality. Although Leah would often counter this by insisting that Robin has the most patience, understanding and sensitivity in the world that could rival Mother Theresa.

“ Do you happen to know where is locker 53?” Robin asked, remembering that she had to get to her locker to put all her books there. She noticed a lot of people waving and trying to speak to Leah, except Leah was only paying full attention to Robin. As expected, Leah is still the popular girl.

“ Oh please, I even found out what’s your password,” Leah laughed as she tugged Robin to a locker infront.

It took less than a minute for Leah to teach Robin how the locker work and she wasted no time in arranging all her stuffs. It was only 10 minutes till the first bell rings and she haven’t even started finding out where that class is. If this keeps up she might graduate when she’s 28.

Since there weren’t much time to chat they agreed to part ways and meet to talk more during lunch at the cafeteria where Leah would also drag along her cousin so that Robin could make some friends.

Finding the class was surprisingly easy and Robin quickly took a seat in the middle row while everyone was busy streaming into class.

To keep herself busy, Robin took out her pencil and began occupying herself senselessly with counting her pens and flipping through the pages of her textbook meaninglessly as if she could read any hangul. Anything to keep her busy and avoided looking like a loner. A few groups of girls were glaring at her, pointing at her direction and whispering something about her. Occasionally they would burst out into annoying giggles which both annoyed and hurt Robin to a point because even if she was the new girl, was there a need to already judge her? Robin grunted and preteneded to ignore them.

She continued flipping through the pages of her textbooks when suddenly the group of annoying girls around the class began straightening themselves up and Robin saw the universal move that announced a good-​looking male was in the room. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the girls adjusting their hairs, their stomachs and rolling their shoulders back so that their s protude out.

 Robin follow their gazes. And that’s when she saw him.

A mind-blowing cute student.

Walking in with a bunch of good-looking boys but totally outshining them.

A medium build guy with the most captivating soft features she’d ever seen. His hair was a cute ruffled out-of-bed look and they were light brown. His eyes were sweet and pretty, like it was so overwhelming. He was smiling at a lot of people, because heck, everyone was smiling and waving at him. Sort of like the male Leah. I guess he must be it. Oh gosh.

She is struck.

So handsome. What a good-looking boy this is.

Robin wondered if she could go cross-eyed from staring this hard. And as if reality shot back at her like a lightning, the boy turned and met her eyes.

She froze.

And probably blushed so she quickly looked away. But not fast enough to ignore that little smile he had returned her. Gosh, her heart was beating so fast she wanted to rip it out and throw it out of the window. Her cheeks were burning and this was so lame. Why was she behaving like a 13 year old girl?! Did she stare too hard that he noticed?! 

She must have been so occupied with the dazzling boy, whom she had decided to name him in her mind as for now that she didn’t notice Baekhyun tapping her shoulder.

“Hey!” he hissed at her from the back.

Robin turned around, still dazed. Then shook herself out of it.

“ Hey..”

“ I didn’t know we’d be in the same class” he grinned like a small boy. It was lopsided but it radiated happiness.

“ Yeah..” Robin replied with a small, almost forced smile and frowned. Baekhyun shrugged, and turned his eyes to the teacher.

Robin sighed to herself quietly, feeling totally lame that she can’t think of any better way to return that line properly. She hated how she unintentionally express herself as this cold, uninterested person all the time. It’s not like she want it. She just don’t know how to express herself.

Class went by pretty quickly, only because she couldn’t read hangul and most of the lesson was filled with it. She originally thought by coming to an Arts school meant she didn’t have to read Hangul but as she now realized that sophomores had to take these basic modules such as Art History which required hangul. She groaned inside as the bell rang.

She began following the stampede to the cafeteria when she felt her phone vibrate. It was a text from Leah.

Can’t make it for lunch, gtg meet the DM, sorry and love u- Leah

Robin sighed. She wasn’t upset with Leah and of course this was going to happen sooner or later. Leah was no doubt one of the most fun person she’s ever known which is why Leah is always getting herself into such strange troubles with the Discipline Master/Mistress (DM) for pulling pranks on people. She just hope Leah wasn’t gonna get detention or something. Most times it’s not that serious and she usually can get away with it because her grades are perfect. She’s just that smart. It’s like she has superior genes.

When she arrived at the cafeteria she joined one of the queues that was filling up fast. As she did so she eyeball search for a table to sit. Surely she must have a small hole to dig inside and stay here undetected by the rest of the world.

She spotted an empty table in a corner and decided that she should retreat there. She didn’t want people to see her as a loner. It’s not her fault that she’s just transferred her in her sophomore year whereas everyone has already been here and chummy with each other since young.

But maybe there’s hope, the last she heard, Leah encouraged her by telling her how a pretty senior, Jessica, was also a new student in this school once but she hit if off with a lot of people almost immediately. But that was hardly fair because she had Jonghyun on her side.

Three minutes into her food, she heard a tray dropping next to her.

She looked up and was met with the familiar smile.

It was the toothy grin.

Baekhyun.

“ Can I sit?” he offered, still chirpy.

Robin stiffened. “ Ok. Sure” She croaked out.

Baekhyun took a sit opposite her. “ Are you usually this moody?”

Robin looked up, feeling a little embarrassed. “ What? No! I’m not moody!”

Baekhyun laughed. “ Then why do you always look moody and talk like you don’t wanna be near anyone?”

“ That’s not true.”

“ So you just hate me?”

“ No I don’t why would I hate you?”

“ I don’t know, it’s just that I don’t see you making or having any friends. And you’ve been frowning ever since I saw you last night till right now. Like you don’t even smile you just frown at everyone. You’re not like.. secretly one of those gothic people and all angsty are you?” Baekhyun asked, scooping macaroni into his mouth. " I mean who knows, maybe you're really a gothic maniac but you just forgot to put on your black lipstick today".

Wait. What!? Robin stared back at Baekhyun. He must have found it amusing because she could tell from his face.

“ No I’m not a goth maniac! ” She snapped. He is incredibly persistent for a stranger. " And even if i did own a black lipstick because it's part of my halloween costume so what? That doesn't classify me as a gothic manaic and also black lipsticks makes your teeth look whiter! ". .

Did she just blabbered thoughtlessly? 

The corners of Baekyun’s mouth wrinkled, like he was trying not to laugh. He beat a little rhythm on the table and smiled as if trying to blow her awkward moment away. She should have taken the out he was giving her, but she couldn’t just leave it. She had to try to cover.

" It's actually quite a popular look in some parts of the world though so there's no reason for you to discriminate goths. Like for example Japan, in the Harajuku district,it's like an art.. " Stop Robin. Stop now.

The whole time she blabbered Baekyun just watched her with a great amount of amusement. “ So you’re not actually grumpy inside right? It’s just that you’re bad with words and social settings and stuff?” He concluded. And smiled.

Robin shrugged, feeling overwhelmed by the great amount of embarrasement she felt in such a short time. She's being a complete idiot. She sighed to herself. “ I guess you can say that” Well. That wasn’t so hard to admit. Now she feels a little better, less misunderstood.

“ Where’s your friends anyway? Why are you here?” Robin asked back. Yet again, she sounded angsty, exactly what he just said about her. She winced.

“ Oh, “ He chewed slowly. “ They’re over there. To be honest, I kinda told them that I sort of know you but I didn’t say we were sharing a room because they will go crazy and they wanted to know you so they asked me to come talk to you” lied Baekyun. He came on his own accord.

Robin fought the urge to look at where Baekhyun was pointing to.

“ Don’t look,” Baekhyun shot her a look.

Her heart skipped a beat. Okay. This is new. She had to fight a smile back. Maybe I am a little pretty. Maybe… And there are people who wants to be friends with me! Me!

Baekhyun took a sip from his drink.“ Anyway, I did see you talking to Leah this morning. You’re friends with her? Why don’t you eat with her then?”

Robin subconsciously copied Baekhyun’s actions and took a sip off her own drinks too. “ Oh she had something else so she told me to eat by myself for today”. It came out sounding quite.. pathetic although it wasn’t really like that. Whatever. Gosh.

She poked at her burger, wondering if she’d really eat it.

“You’re making me feel sorry for you again,” Baekhyun said.

Robin turned her fork on Baekhyun. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”

“I can’t help it,” Baekhun said. “You’re quite a loner.”

“I am not.” Robin argued back.

“You are. You don’t have any friends, you eat in a corner of the cafeteria, and you always frown”

 “I object to every single thing you just said.”

 Baekhyun chewed. And frowned. His eyes are really, naturally small. He looked like a baby kitten.   

“I feel sorry for you, and I’m going to be your friend.”Baekyun said.

Robin looked at him and frowned.

“I don’t want to be your friend,”  she said as sternly as she could.

Baekhyun shrugged.  "That’s too bad. We’re roommates and I’m going to be your friend.” He said and smiled that toothy grin again.

"Why are you so insistent on being friends with me? You know we're just gonna be rommates till I settle and move out right?"

Baekhyun nodded. " And by then it'd be too late to get rid of me or terminate our friendship because I would have crept up inside your head and laid eggs of friendship inside there" 

Now Robin could really feel herself smiling. " You're ridiculous", she laughed.