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GONG MINJI

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Part I

Kai and I were alongside the wall of the gym while waiting for our headmasters to call us up to the podium.

The entire gym was now filled with our senior classmates and we were supposed to go up to say our speech right after the headmasters finished with their introduction. I was nervous and I was annoyed.

I was nervous about giving a good first impression to the senior class, and I was annoyed that Kai looked so completely unaffected by our current situation. How could he stand there and remain so calm? Wasn’t he even the slightest bit nervous about what the female students thought of him like I was nervous about what the guys thought about me?

Regardless, I didn’t like not having a speech prepared. It’s preparedness that gave me the assurance to do my best, but now that I was going to go in front of my entire senior class to say a speech without anything to go off of, I was downright freaked out. And I hated it when I got nervous because I could never stop fidgeting when I was. Like now.

I closed my eyes and tried to relax, all while clicking my heels together in the process.

There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.

The sudden feeling of my shoulder being jerked brought me out of my thoughts and my eyes popped open. I looked up at Kai and he stared back at me, questioningly.

“Ready to go?” he asked me. “They’re signaling it’s our turn.”

It was a mistake, but one look into those dark chocolate eyes of his and I was already nodding. I hoped I could trust him.

“Let’s give a round of applause to your senior presidents for the class of 2015!” Mrs. Jung said to the crowd.

The gymnasium filled with noisy clapping, cheering, whistling, and yelling as Kai and I made it up to the podium. We both bowed to our headmasters before they stepped down to give us space.

“What’s up graduating class of 2015!” Kai suddenly yelled into the microphone. The gym filled with more noise that was so loud it was almost deafening. As the noise died down, he spoke again. “Now we’re all here for the assembly, but before we get into the activities, as your presidents, we want to take a moment to introduce ourselves.”

Kai then signaled to me and I took that as my cue to go first.

“Annyeonghaseyo!” I greeted, bowing.  “The senior girls already know my name, but I want to introduce myself to the senior guys as well. My name is Gong Minji and I am your female senior co-president.”

The entire gym filled with cheers, especially from the girls. There were also some guys that cheered my name as well, but then I heard some flirtatious whistling amidst all the cheering.

“You’re hot!” a guy suddenly yelled out really loudly, making Kai snort in amusement.

I rolled my eyes. Boys will be boys. 

“And I am Kim Jongin,” Kai introduced himself, right afterwards. “And I am your male senior co-president.”

Suddenly whoops and hollers were heard throughout the gym. The senior guys sounded like jocks cheering and chanting Kai’s real name.

“HEY Y JONGIN!” commented an anonymous female from the crowded bleachers.

The crowded gym erupted in laughter.

Kai smirked, and cockily adjusted the collar of his suit, like he knew he was the . I on the other hand, just shook my head. The girls could be just as bad as the guys sometimes. 

 “Now I’m sure that our headmasters and teachers want us to talk about school issues, and working hard our senior year,” Kai started improvising our speech. “But that’s boring! Senior year isn’t about work, it’s about partying!”

Now the gym cheered louder than ever. In fact, that was all I heard the rest of our time at the podium during our “speech”. The moment Kai started talking about partying, from then on, the gym was so loud that I could barely hear anything else that he said, even though I was standing right next to him.

It’s not like it mattered what was said anyway, because it really wasn’t much of a speech. We didn’t even discuss any important school issues, or how things were going to run this year or anything important to presidential duties.

Oh No! God forbid we talk about something that actually mattered! Kai was all “party this” and “fun that” and “let’s just have a good time”. I barely even got a few sentences in amidst all the cheering. I tried directing the speech towards something a little more proper, but he would just find a way to direct the speech back to unimportant things.

“And since we’re going to be the first graduating class of Cheonan Academy,” Kai finally started to finish up the speech because both of our headmasters were signaling that we should finish. I noticed neither of them looked too pleased as their facial expressions looked like they were quite irritated. I didn’t blame them.

Kai looked at me expectantly, and I assumed he wanted me to finish the speech with a final quote. I spoke into the microphone.

“Let’s make this the best and most memorable senior year that will last forever in our school’s history!”

And with that, there was more cheering.

* * *

“You can’t seriously be that upset, can you?” Kai asked me as I marched in front of him with my arms crossed across my chest. I was trying to ignore him, but he was difficult to ignore. He sped up and walked ahead of me, then suddenly stopped right in front of me making me pause my stride. He held on to both of my shoulders, bending slightly to look at me at eye level.

I automatically shifted my eyes away on impulse. I hated when he looked at me like this. 

“Seriously Minzy-ah,” he called my nickname affectionately and I scoffed aloud. He doesn't fool me, calling me by my nickname in order to soften me up. I hated when he did that too. “The speech really was not that big of a deal. Everybody loved it.”

“Of course the seniors loved it!” I yelled. How could he be so dense? “You made an entire speech about partying and all seniors want to do is party, but you should’ve seen the look on our headmaster’s faces. I won’t be surprised if they reprimand us for giving that so-called speech. We didn’t even get to speak about any of the important issues.”

“And we have the rest of the entire school year to talk about those things,” Kai replied, clearly not seeing anything wrong at all. “This is only the first school day, and the assembly was originally made for the boys and girls to socialize anyway. Why would they want to hear about issues on their first day back when they have the rest of the entire school year to stress about their own school related issues?”

I sighed. I guess he made a point, but that still didn’t mean we had to make an entire speech about partying the entire year away.

“Again, you worry too much,” Kai told me. He stood up straight, and I thought he was going to remove his hands from my shoulders, until he wrapped one of his arms around them instead. “Come on, let’s relax, and get some drinks.”

We made our way over to the drink stand and waited in line until we made it to the front.

“Oh, nice to see you two,” Luhan, the boy I’d just met earlier today (thanks to Tao) greeted us. “What’s up feisty Minji?”

“Not much, the cute but hard-headed, Luhan,” I quipped back.

He grinned. “Oh, so you think I’m cute?”

I rolled my eyes. Yeah, he was cute. Especially with those big, watery, deer eyes.

I’d met him earlier for the first time when I’d arrived to the gym to help set up. Tao introduced us and I’d remembered that this was the guy Tao was referring to when he told us about Luhan the first time I met all the boys last Friday.

 I instantly thought he was cute, but I found out just how difficult he was the moment we started working together. I was originally supposed to be helping with the drinks, but he’d insisted that he and Tao had it all covered. I tried to reason that I was there to help, and that it was a lot to take care of drinks for the all the seniors with only two people managing the drink stand.

Still, he said that they could handle it, and finally I just went to help with the food stand, instead.

“What’s up, man?” he said to Kai and they did some handshake.

Kai shook his head. “We just came to get drinks?”

Luhan’s smile got inexplicably bigger and he looked at me. “Ah. And what would you like to drink, Minji?”

“Just bottled water.”

Luhan’s smiled automatically faltered. “We actually don’t have water. The staff didn’t buy water since the school already has water fountains. But we have other drinks like a variety of sodas, and punch, or sports drinks…”

I shook my head “no”. “No thanks. I really only drink water.”

Both Luhan and Kai stared at me without blinking.

“Seriously?” Kai asked, flabbergasted.

I nodded, looking back and forth between the both of them.

“You don’t drink anything else?” Luhan asked this time, looking just as stunned as Kai.

I shrugged. “Well, I like milk too, but I mainly drink soy.”

They were still staring at me and I sighed.

“What?” I groaned. It wasn’t that weird, besides I had a pretty good reason for my limited beverage choices. “I have to take good care of my skin. Sodas, and other sugar-filled drinks can ruin skin.”

“Oh,” was all Luhan said and he looked back at Kai. “Well this is disappointing.”

I frowned and was about to ask why it was disappointing, when suddenly, I heard my name being yelled.

“Minji-ah!”

I was abruptly jerked forward, as someone tackled me from behind and I turned to see Bom, followed by Chaerin and Dara.

“Oh hey,” I greeted.

“So, that was some speech you two gave,” Chaerin said, sarcastically with a smirk gracing her lips, looking at both Kai and me.

“Oh yeah!” Bom exclaimed. “Senior year isn’t about working, it’s about partying! I love that quote, Jongin. I’m going to use it from now on.”

Kai chuckled and nodded.

“If there’s anybody that knows how to get the party started, it’s you Bom,” I joked.

“You know it,” she said, moving over to Luhan. “Hello cutie, can I get a diet coke?”

Luhan’s smile graced his lips once again and nodded. “Tao! We need a cup of diet coke for the gorgeous bombshell, here.”

“One diet coke coming right up,” Tao said and went to make the drink.

“Bomb-shell,” Bom repeated, putting emphasis on the “bomb” part. A sweet smile appeared on her bubble-gum pink lips as she stared back at Luhan. “I like the sound of that.”

Luhan smirked and handed over Bom’s drink. “Here you go.”

“You guys,” I said, referring to Chaerin, Dara and Bom. “This is Luhan.”

“Oh, so you’re the boy the guys were talking about when we met them,” Dara said.

Luhan raised a hand. “Guilty. So can I get you ladies something to drink, as well?”

“I’ll have fruit punch,” Chaerin said.

“And I’d like Pepsi,” Dara replied.

“Coming right up,” Luhan said and went to go make the drinks.

I turned back to my friends. “So where have you guys been? This is like the first time I have seen you all night.”

“We’ve been here,” Bom said. Her eyes narrowed as a mischievous smile appeared on her lips. “It’s just that you seemed rather occupied with Jongin and we didn’t want to disturb you two.”

“Bom!” I exclaimed, my eyes widening in shock. I whipped my head around looking to see if Kai had heard what Bom said, only to find nobody behind me anymore. Kai had disappeared.

I frowned, wondering where he suddenly went off to, but I was relieved that he hadn’t been around to hear my friend’s tease me about him.

“Here’s your drinks.” Luhan came back and handed drinks over to Chaerin and Dara.

“Thanks,” Chaerin said. Turning back to us, she insisted that we head to the bleachers.

The four of us went over to the bleachers and sat down while watching the other seniors engage in the assembly’s activities.

“I still can’t believe you and Jongin made a speech about partying all senior year,” Chaerin said, still not over the speech Kai and I gave earlier. “I never knew you could be such a party animal.”

I rolled my eyes, wishing to just forget that speech already. “If only I’d known beforehand that, that was what he was going to say, then I wouldn’t have let him speak in the first place.”

“You didn’t know he was going to say that?” Chaerin asked, doubtfully. “Didn’t you two spend all afternoon working on the speech?”

“It didn’t exactly work out the way we thought it would,” I replied curtly, hoping this conversation would just end.

“Well I thought it was still a fun speech,” Dara complimented, still forever the optimist.

“Yeah, sure it was ‘fun’,” I said, putting air quotes around the word “fun”. Fun? Fun? Clearly she and Bom didn’t see the look of disappointment on our headmasters’ faces. “But the headmasters don’t want ‘fun’. They were expecting a serious speech. You guys should have seen the looks on their faces when we finished our speech. I just hope we don’t get scolded for this later.”

“Oh, who cares if they were grumpy because they didn’t like the speech,” Bom said, dismissing everything I was just worrying about. But of course Bom didn’t care, she was born a rebel. “They’re too uptight anyways. Hey? Is it just me, or do these drinks taste way better than normal?”

I frowned at her sudden change in topic. That was random.

“What do you mean?” I asked. I couldn’t relate because I didn’t get a drink.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, and then took a sip of her drink again, like she was testing it to help her explain. “It just tastes sweeter somehow, but in a good way.”

“No, mine does too,” Chaerin said, now taking a sip from her own cup. “I just thought it was my drink only.”

“Same here,” Dara added, taking a sip and then smacking her lips like it was the most refreshing drink she’s ever had.

All of their drinks taste different than normal? Interesting.

“Maybe somebody spiked the drinks,” I joked, and then took a sip from my own water bottle that I’d brought myself.

“Nah,” Chaerin disagreed. “I don’t think anybody could get away with drugging all the drinks.”

Bom laughed. “Boy, I hope someone did drug the drinks. This assembly ought to be really fun after it hits everybody’s systems.”

As the conversation started to steer in another direction, I tuned out and looked around the crowded gymnasium. That’s when I noticed Kai and headmaster Kim in the far corner of the gym, talking. I was curious as to what they were discussing, since Kai’s father looked rather serious while Kai on the other hand looked impatient like he couldn’t wait to get away. I wondered if what they were discussing had anything to do with our speech.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Bom suddenly asked me, pulling me out of my thoughts. She leaned against my arm as she tried staring in the direction I was just looking in so she could see what had my attention.

I didn’t want to tell her the truth because I knew if I even mentioned Kai’s name, that she, Dara, and Chaerin would annoy the hell out of me for it.

“Uh… the corn eating stand, over there,” I fibbed and pointed over to the area where students were lining up to participate in the contest.

“Oh, do you want to do it with me?” Bom asked me suddenly perky at the mention of corn.

I let my head slack back and side-eyed her as if to say “of course not”.

“Oh come on, please,” she started to plead. “I wanted to do it earlier, but you know Chaerin doesn’t like corn so she won’t do it with me and Dara already ate almost half the entire supply of dukbokki at the food stand, so she’s too full. You’re my last option.”

“Ah, dukbokki,” I heard Dara sigh in satisfaction as she rubbed her full belly.

I shrugged. I really didn’t want to participate in any of the activities right now. I ran around all day trying to find my co-president to finish a speech, then arrived early to help set up the gym for the assembly and then had to give that awful speech after stressing about it for so long. Now, I’m pretty much tired out.   

However, before I could even give her a decent reply, Bom had already resulted to begging.

“Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please-“

“BOM!” I yelled, cutting her off.

“Hey ladies,” a voice from behind me said, making me jerk my body around. It was Chanyeol. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Bom answered. She then smiled at me, eyeing me mischievously and put her hand on my shoulder. “Minzy and I were just talking about joining the corn eating contest.”

What? I didn’t agree to join the contest. I frowned and turned back to her, so that she could both see and feel my glare, which she ignored.

“Oh really?” Chanyeol asked surprised. I turned my head back around to face him. “My buddy, Xiumin and I are actually going to join the corn eating contest too.” He pointed to a slightly shorter guy that was next to him.

“I’m actually surprised you’re joining too, Minji,” Chanyeol continued on. “You don’t really seem the type to do such a contest.”

“Huh?” I asked, not getting what he meant. “What do you mean, that I ‘don’t seem the type’?”

Chanyeol shook his head. “Oh, nothing. I just meant you usually seem the type that’s too serious. I didn’t expect you to do something fun like join a corn eating contest.”

The type that’s too serious? He thinks I’m the serious type? He thinks I don’t know how to have fun? I have plenty of fun, thank you very much! 

“That’s not true!” I argued. “I have lots of fun all the time.”

“Really?” Bom asked, disbelievingly. “Name one genuinely fun thing you’ve done since you came back to school.”

“Well…” I trailed off.

I looked up at the high ceiling as I racked my brain for something I did that was “fun” but I was coming up blank.

When I didn’t answer, I heard Chanyeol snort to keep from laughing. I looked at my friends around me and noticed all their eyes were trained on me, staring at me in amusement. Even Xiumin, who barely knew me seemed to find my situation pretty funny as he glanced away from me, smirking.

That’s it. I’ll show them “fun”.

“Well, I’m about to have some fun right now!” I exclaimed, standing up from my spot on the bleachers. I grabbed Bom’s hand and pulled her up with me. “Come on Bom! We’re going to join that corn eating contest, and we’re going to beat Chanyeol and his little buddy.”

“Little?” Xiumin scoffed, covering his chest with his hand as he pretended to be hurt by my comment. "But I'm taller than she is."

“Don’t worry Xiumin,” Chanyeol patted his friend’s back and then looked back at me. His eyes narrowed. “Let the best corn eater win.”

* * *

I was holding a plastic bib in my hands that I was apparently supposed to wear around my neck before the corn eating started. Bom already had hers tied around her neck and was excitedly staring at the enclosed basket of corn right in front of us. She was bouncing excitedly right next to me, like she couldn’t wait to open the basket. I rolled my eyes.

“Bom calm down,” I said, as I tied the bib around my own neck. “You act like the corn is going to jump out and run away if you look away for even a second.”

She shooed her hand at me, dismissing anything I said.

Just as I finished tying the bib, Mr. Kang, one of the staff members, started to explain the rules of the contest to us.

“Alright kids! We’re going to start the next round of the corn eating contest with our new contestants. These are the rules: in these baskets placed in front of you is twenty corn cobs. You and your partner have to finish as much corn cobs as you can within five minutes. In order for you and your partner to be the winner, your team must have the most number of corn cobs completely finished. Got it?”

Bom and I nodded along with the rest of the eager contestants. There were at least fifteen different teams and we were all facing each other. Right now, Bom and I were directly across from Chanyeol and his friend Xiumin. He was sending me warning glares from his side, but I wasn’t being wavered. After all, all odds were on my side considering I had Bom on my team. I was determined to win.

“Ready?” Said Mr. Kang, looking at his stopwatch to start the timer.

“Yeah!” some of the crowd watching us cheered.

“Set! GO!”

Bom and I practically tore the basket open and grabbed our first corn cobs. Bom didn’t waste any time as she immediately had the first corn cob already in .

I picked up my first cob and started munching on it. I had a plan called “slow and steady wins the race”. I wasn’t eating too slowly, but they did mention during the rules, that all the corn cobs had to be eaten completely in order to be considered the winner. In that case, I wanted to take my time to make sure I didn’t leave any corn on the cob.

Bom was already moving onto her second cob and by the looks of it, boy did she practically murder the first corn cob. I finished up my first and discarded the eaten cob into the basket before moving onto the next.

I didn’t mean to, since I was trying to keep my focus on my own corn, but I glanced at the progress of my “enemies” across from me and cursed in my head. Chanyeol just finished his second and was moving onto his third, while Xiumin was already on his third cob, as well.

How could they possibly eat that fast?

I was close to finishing up my second when I glanced at Bom and was surprised to find out that she was already finishing her third and was grabbing her fourth. Seeing her eat, I really had to try to suppress the urge to laugh, or else corn would’ve flew out of my mouth.

While watching Bom eat corn, suddenly the image of a chipmunk munching on an acorn popped into my head.

She looked so cute but funny at the same time, while her cheeks munched away.

I threw my second eaten cob in the basket and grabbed my third. Because I was behind (in comparison to Bom) I decided that maybe I should speed it up a little. I munched and munched and munched my way through each corn cob without focusing on anything else but finishing, when all of a sudden, the sound of horn blowing caused me to look up.

“Time’s up,” Mr. Kang said, holding up a bull horn. “The five minutes are up. Put whatever corn you have down and step away from the baskets.”

I threw my half-eaten corn cob down and stepped back with Bom. I glanced at our basket and nodded in content at the amount cobs I saw. We finished quite a bit for five minutes, but I’m pretty sure it was mostly because of Bom.

Mr. Kang and a few other staff members, came through to check each of our baskets. They counted how many cobs were finished in each basket and then marked the numbers down.

“Ah, we have the most number of cobs finished so far,” Mr. Kang said to a team. “They have eight corn cobs finished, let’s see if any of the other teams can top it.”

After finishing counting other’s baskets, finally Mr. Kang made it down to Chanyeol’s and Xiumin’s table. I watched on carefully, as he opened their basket, anxiously wanting to the number of cobs my “enemies” had finished.

“Whoa!” Mr. Kang exclaimed, looking impressed with what was in their basket. “This is the fullest basket I’ve seen so far. I think we just might have found our winners. But let’s count first.”

Mr. Kang began counting the corn cobs one-by-one, placing them outside of the basket for everyone to see. But as he continued to count, he seemed to notice something and halted his actions.

“Hmmm…” He rubbed at his chin.

“What?” Chanyeol asked, looking worriedly between the basket and Mr. Kang.

“I’m sorry but you two are disqualified from winning,” he replied. “Although you both have the most cobs in your basket, half of them are half-eaten. The rules were that each cob must be completely finished in order to be the winner.”

I almost wanted to laugh at the look on Chanyeol’s shocked, but disappointed face when Mr. Kang walked away from his table. I settled for a smirk instead, and that’s when Chanyeol looked up at me, just in time to notice it.

His eyes narrowed and he stuck his tongue out at me, jokingly, causing me to smile. Serves him right for thinking I was incapable of “fun”.

At last, Mr. Kang made it to our table and opened our basket. “Alright, let’s see what we have here?”

Bom and I waited patiently while we watched him count the cobs in our basket.

“Nine, ten, eleven, and twelve,” Mr. Kang counted the last of our cobs. Mr. Kang looked at us and smiled. “That’s twelve corn cobs completely eaten.”

The staff member beside him recorded the number down and they looked over the results.

“Well people, I think we have found our winners!” Mr. Kang said, and looked at Bom and me. I immediately smiled at Bom and we both jumped up and down.

“Woo!” we cheered as Mr. Kang came over and handed yellow ribbons to the both of us that red “Winner: Corn Cob Eating”.

“And your winning prize is a week of free coffee at the cafeteria.” Mr. Kang gave us two certificates and sure enough, they were rewards for free coffee at the cafeteria.

Although coffee from the cafeteria might not seem like much of a reward to outsiders, actually, the coffee served at our school is pretty damn good. Plus, it was expensive so this certificate was like gold for a coffee lover like myself.

I looked up to see Chanyeol scowling at me and smiled. Time to gloat.

“So, is there anything you have to say to me?” I asked, with this huge smug grin on my face. He just rolled his eyes.

“I guess you are more fun than I originally thought,” he admitted, sourly, but in a joking manner. He then paused before adding, “And you’re surprisingly quite a quick corn eater. Bom is too. You girls really know how to eat a lot.”      

“Is that a compliment?” Bom asked.  “Or are you being sarcastic to make fun of us?”

Chanyeol’s mouth suddenly displayed us a huge smile and I figured it must have been the latter. If I was really bold or y enough, I probably would’ve slapped him.

“Well, I was originally going to share my free coffee certificate with you,” I said, and started turning away from him. “But now I think I’ll just keep it to myself.”

“That’s all right,” Chanyeol yelled out at me as I walked away from him. “We’ll see who has the last laugh.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that. What could he have left to laugh about? Shouldn’t I be having the last laugh, considering I’m the one that won the contest?

I chuckled and shook my head. That boy was competitive, wasn’t he? He just wouldn’t let it go.

Little did I know that he was hinting at something I was totally oblivious to that didn’t happen until the next morning…

* * *