The opening ceremony began with the longest of speeches from the head teacher. His droning voice threatened to send them all to sleep. In fact, at one point an audible snore came from the back of the hall, causing stifled laughter. Somewhat embarrassed, Mr Kim swiftly concluded his speech “I wish you all well. Act responsibly and remember that you now represent our school. Seungri High School is a place for you to learn and to grow and to make new friends. Now, teachers please lead your classes to their assigned classrooms.”

Taekwoon’s teacher was a man by the name of Mr Young. He was a bit on the short side, especially in comparison to Taekwoon’s growing frame, and wore large spectacles which took up most of his face. He led the class to a room on the second floor clearly marked 1-3. Hakyeon was not in this line up of students. When Hakyeon had heard that they were not to be in the same class he whined “But I wanted us to be seat buddies, no fair! What if I need to borrow a pencil?”

The seat assignments were random, and Taekwoon luckily avoided the fate of being in the centre of the room. Being completely surrounded was not a position he wished to find himself in.

He had hoped for a window seat, being able to look out on the world and daydream very much appealed to him. However, he got a seat by the corridor. It wasn’t all bad though, the windows facing the corridor would allow him to observe the passing students and serve as some form of entertainment.

Taekwoon was testing out his new view when flailing arms came into his line of sight. Directly opposite him, in the class across the hall, sat Hakyeon, desperately trying to get his attention. He mouthed the words ‘almost seat buddies’. The corners of Taekwoon’s mouth raised slightly in an amused twitch.

“Ahem!”

Taekwoon whipped his head around to see an unamused Mr Young.

“Self introduction, seat four”

“Ah… yeah” Taekwoon stumbled to his feet, unprepared. He had been completely oblivious to the first three introductions. He began to mumble the words “I’m Jung Taekwoon, I’m interested in-“ when he suddenly stopped himself and sat down.

“You’re interested in?” inquired Mr Young.

“Nothing.” Answered Taekwoon in a timid voice.

“Alright, seat four is Jung Taekwoon who is interested in nothing. Next!”

The boy behind Leo began to speak, but he didn’t take any of it in. Force of habit was a terrifying thing.

…

The bell rang for lunch. The lessons hadn’t been too strenuous – mainly an outline of what they were going to learn, and had i