After lunch was third block, which meant physics for me. None of my other friends had taken physics with me; aside from Jasper, they had all opted for the easier choice, which meant human anatomy, while Jasper, the little brainiac, had picked AP chemistry. So I was left to face relative velocity equations without any of them.

I had other friends in that class, but most of them sat on the opposite side of the room from me. As I moved towed my seat, my friend Kyle called across the room to me, waving, with a big grin on his face. I waved back; I'd known Kyle since elementary school, so we got along really well.

"Hey, Quez," I said to the boy next to me as I sat down. He just smiled in response, immediately turning back to his statistics work that was probably due next block.

As I settled into my seat, I glanced up to see none other than Kris making his way through the door and toward his seat -- directly behind me. I quickly made myself busy retrieving my textbook from my bag so that I wouldn't appear to be staring. What I didn't realize was that, as I was pulling my book from my bag, one of the bag's straps had fallen across the aisle between the desks, and as Kris walked past my desk, he stepped right on the strap and slipped a little on the tile floor. The action earned a few giggles from the people around us, and he hurried to his seat after quickly regaining his composure.

I knew my face had turned a bright red from the way my cheeks were burning, but I also knew I couldn't just sit there without apologizing. After all, it had been my fault that he had tripped and my fault that those people had laughed at him, since it had been the strap from my backpack. But I had always been bad with spoken words, and I had a feeling I was going to trip over whatever I tried to say then too. But I screwed up what little courage I had, took a deep breath and turned to say--

But I didn't say anything for a moment because Kris was bent over a book -- not his textbook, mind you -- reading very carefully. I tried to lean toward it a little bit, trying to make out what the pages held, both words and pictures, but as I did, my shadow leaned out further than me, reaching the edges of the pages. Kris noticed in a second an immediately snapped the book shut, slipping it back into his own bag in one fluid motion.

My cheeks turned even redder when I realized what had happened, and I quickly tried to backtrack and come up with some apology. "I, uh, I'm really s-s-sorry, sorry about the, uh, um, my shadow, er, what I mean is, uh, sorry about my b-b-bag, I didn't realize--"

"Don't worry about it," he said, his voice almost a growl. He didn't even look up as he spoke, simply staring at his desk since he obviously didn't want to look at my face. I couldn't blame him, actually; first I'd tripped him up with my backpack, and then I'd invaded his privacy by trying to look at his book. Without another word, I turned back around in my chair and sunk down into the seat, where I remained for the entirety of the class as I distractedly took notes.

~

My last class, AP economics, went by without event, unless Jamye and me passing notes to each other the entire time counts as eventful. After class, we walked out to the student parking lot behind the school where my red Honda was parked. Since I drove Jamye home every day, we put our bags in the back seat before out group of friends met us at the back of my car like we did almost every day. It was a good way to catch up at the end of the day, and it killed time while we waited for the student parking lot to clear out so we wouldn't have to sit in line.

"So? Anything exciting happen in physics?" Jasper asked, leaning against the spare tire mounted on the back of my Honda.

"Huh?" I asked, unsure of why he was asking about my science class, since he had never shown any interest in it before.

"He means your little 'friend'," Erica said, using air quotes on the last word. When I still looked at her, puzzled, she sighed and said, "Oh, come on. The one who sits behind you. The one you were talking about earlier. Please tell me you haven't forgotten."

Oh. Him.

I covered my face with my hands and said, "I don't think I want to talk about it."

"She had a bit of a run-in with the tall one," Jamye said before relating what I had done to embarrass Kris and then myself in turn.

Placing a hand on my shoulder, Jasper said, "Don't worry, Elle. I'll explain to him about your social awkwardness once he and I are wrapped up in a scandalous love affair."

"Thanks so much, Jasper," I replied sarcastically, pushing his hand off my shoulder.

"Speak of the devil," Erica said, nodding toward the school. Walking in our direction was all six foreign exchange boys, with Kris leading them.

I had completely forgotten that Kris's parking space was directly across from mine, his expensive Range Rover gleaming in the Georgia sun. The five of us quickly turned toward each other, trying to look natural, but at the same time, we were trying to listen to any scraps of conversation we could get from them. We got lucky; they spoke excellent English and obviously could not be bothered to revert to either of their native languages in the parking lot. Perhaps they assumed no one was listening; they would have been wrong, of course.

"Guys, just get in the car so we can go," came the gruff voice of Kris. Not only was he the tallest, but it was safe to assume that he was the oldest and in charge with the way he ordered the others around.

"But why?" one of then whined. I glanced around at the group and saw Erica mouthing the word Tao. I trusted her, since I knew she had anatomy with him during third block.

"If we leave now, we'll have to sit in line," another one complained. A moment after, Sam mouthed Chen to the rest of us.

"Hyung, I don't want to sit in the car in line!" Tao started whining again.

"Hush, maknae," another boy said, although his tone was rather gentle. As Sam mouthed the name Luhan to us, I looked up for a moment, just in time to see the one who had spoken -- apparently Luhan -- ruffling the hair of the youngest one, Tao, in a brotherly gesture.

"Well, I'm itching to go for a run," a fifth one said. "I'm getting stuff in these bones, and a good run would stretch out my other ones really well."

"Shut up, Lay," Kris said, smacking him on the back of the head. "You're too obvious. Now, all of you, get in the car," he said before climbing into the driver's seat.

After that, all the boys followed suit, Lay rubbing the spot on his head that Kris had hit, while Tao was making sure he waited as long as possible to actually get in the car. As he was standing there, I could have sworn he glanced over at our group for one reason or another, but it could have been a trick of the bright sunlight.

Once the car had backed out of the space and driven away to join the line of idling cars, our group immediately huddled together, or at least as much as we could in the September heat.

"Does anyone have any idea what they were talking about? And what were those words they were calling each other? Were they nicknames or something?" Jasper asked, frantically looking from me to Jamye to Sam to Erica.

"Calm down, Jasper," I replied. "They're harmless Korean words. 'Hyung' is a way of saying older brother, and a maknae is the youngest member of a group."

The others immediately looked at me, clearly surprised I had suddenly spouted this tidbit of information, especially Sam, probably because he was jealous that I knew even a tiny bit of Korean.

"Guys, k-pop. Remember? It's almost impossible not to pick up words like that with as many videos as I've watched," I said. "Anyway, what I want to know is what Lay meant by his 'other bones'. You can't tell me I'm the only one who thought that that was really weird."

At that, they all began nodding in agreement. Across the circle, I saw that Jamye had a thoughtful expression, and I could tell that she was going over something in her head.

"What are you thinking, Jamye?" I asked, and immediately her attention was brought back to the group.

"Oh, uh, you don't want to hear my idea. It's pretty stupid and out there, even for me," she said, grinning a bit.

"Come on," Erica said, nudging her. "It's not as if any of us have come up with any theories yet anyway."

Jamye let out a sigh and then said, "Alright then. Well first, the one -- Lay, or whatever his name was -- said something about a run before talking about having two set of bones, or so it sounded. So, what normally has a human form, likes to run, and can transform into something else?" She paused for a moment, trying to build the suspense, but all she did was make everyone want to hit her. Finally, she simple said, "A werewolf, of course!"

( Yay, a longer part! Almost twice as long, I think, and much earlier than I was anticipating. Anyway, this chapter might be sort of boring for some of you, but I promise to have more of the boys starting in the next chapter! Love you all!~ )