[CONTENTID1]

twenty-four: the assignment [/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2]

[The future is all I have left.] [/CONTENTID2][CONTENTID3]

"How's Baekhyun doing?" Juyeon asked when she saw Sehun in class.

Sehun rolled his eyes, not making any effort to hide it. "Like I said for the past two days. He's fine. If you're so worried, go talk to him yourself. I'm sure he'll be delighted to see his new best friend."

"Go to hell, stack," Juyeon snapped back. "And I'd rather not. If I go see him, I'm pretty sure I would just end up yelling at him again. I'm still pissed off over how clueless he is. How's the other guy? Kim Jonghyun?"

"Why should I care?" Sehun muttered coldly. Juyeon sighed, the end of her braid. "Ah, forget it. I should've known better than to ask you."

"Good call, tomato girl."

Juyeon jolted up like she had been prodded with a tazer and stared at Sehun so hard her eye twitched. "What did you just call me? D-did you just call me a ing tomato?"

Sehun's face looked devoid of emotion, but there was a sparkle of childlike amusement in his eyes Juyeon had come to notice. Sehun wasn't the kind of guy to show off his thoughts all the time, but she was starting to realize the guy had an incredibly annoying sense of humour. "Because your face turns red over every little thing. And because you're kind of soft and round like a tomato. I suppose if I were to crush you, your insides would look like a tomato too."

"Okay, enough with the tomato crap!" Juyeon interrupted, slightly creeped out by his explanation. "And―I sure hope you weren't calling me fat when you said I was soft and round."

"Maybe. You have been gaining some weight recently."

Juyeon threw her eraser at him. It bounced off his forehead and landed on the floor, and Sehun stared at her in angry astonishment. "I'm not fat! I've just been under stress lately!"

"So you admit to gaining weight."

"What? I―no― you, assface!" Juyeon turned away from him, fuming. She could have sworn Sehun chuckled, then something hit her cheek.

"You can have your ty eraser back," he said coolly. Juyeon glared at him, but was once again distracted by his hair. In the early morning sun, it seemed lighter, more golden-yellow, then streaking into smooth ice when the sun's rays hit it at an angle. Juyeon shook her head and looked away. She needed to stop getting hypnotized by his stupid hair.

Professor Strange walked in, looking just as professionally messy as he always did. "Good news, Problem Brats," he said loftily. "I don't have to teach you a goddamn thing today. Bad news is, you're all being assigned a project worth thirty percent of your final grade."

The class groaned loudly in unison, while Strange looked delighted. "You heard me. A project on Problem Children and the wars of the world. You and a partner of your choosing will be assigned a country, where you must gather as much knowledge about its history of Problem Children as possible related to battles and compile an essay on no less than two known Problem Children and three or more famous war figures that could have possibly been Problem Children. This is going to be the biggest project of the year, so consider it your final project."

The class erupted like a volcano. Even Suho looked outraged.

"Are you kidding me, sir?" Kai howled over the other complaints. "We're not even two months into the school year! We haven't even gotten close to midterms yet!"

"Oh, sit down," Strange said dismissively. "I didn't say it was due tomorrow, did I? You have until the first day of April to finish the assignment, so it's a long ways off. Until then, I will continue teaching you the curriculum to prepare your spongy little minds as much as possible."

"This is ridiculous," Chanyeol muttered, eyeing Juyeon hopefully. "Hey, Yeonie―"

"Oh, no, you're not," Juyeon said quickly. "I am not doing a project worth thirty percent of my mark with you." She looked around. Kai was also out of the question. Sehun―no, he worked well, but she'd get too wound up having to spend so much time with him. Suho? She had a feeling he would work with Baekhyun; the two always paired off together. Then that left …

Juyeon lightly tapped D.O's back. He turned around. "Mind working together?" she asked. When D.O didn't answer immediately, Juyeon felt embarrassment flood her body, and she leaned back. "Uh, it's okay if you don't."

"Alright," D.O said quietly. Juyeon looked at him in faint surprise and almost unrestrained relief, and he shrugged his shoulders. "It's fine."

Strange went up and down the rows, checking off names of paired students and assigning them a country. He stopped in front of Juyeon and D.O, and a cruel smile traced his features.

"The normal, eh?" he muttered coldly to himself. "Well, I suppose I'll assign you two England. Happy researching, you two."

D.O's eyebrow twitched angrily, and the aura surrounding him turned sour. Juyeon could have sworn she smelt something, like poisonous fungi and rotting plants. "," he growled under his breath.

"W-what?" Juyeon asked, as usual getting frazzled and nervous once he showed his temper. Why was she still so scared of him when he was like that? Juyeon had managed to lose most of her fear of the PCs, knowing they couldn't hurt her without risking Donovan's wrath, and by this time, she reckoned she was mostly safe from her new classmates. Even so, D.O still terrified her when he grew angry; even if his anger wasn't directed at her.

"It's his hatred for you, the normal," D.O muttered. His hand seemed to be resting normally on his table, but he was applying so much pressure with his fingertips that small web-like cracks began to appear on the surface. "He definitely didn't give us the hardest country by accident. ing England, it'll take us months just to get all the research for that country …"

Juyeon cringed. No wonder D.O was pissed. England was the root of it all, the epicentre, the origin of PCs. Sure, they'd find information easier, but there would be a lot more they'd have to find compared to other countries. Not to mention this wasn't exactly a topic you could just pull a Wikipedia search on.

"Uh, if you don't want to be my partner, it's okay," Juyeon said hesitantly. D.O took a deep breath and lifted his hand up. There were five cracking indentations in the surface of the table. "No, I was overreacting. It's fine; we can do this." He frowned at the table. "Damn. It'll be a to take notes with those in my way."

"What is this?" Kai whined, slumping over on his desk. "Chanyeol and I got ing Canada. Canada. Can you believe this?"

"Better Canada than America, right?" Juyeon said helpfully. Kai shot her a dirty look, although he mostly just looked like he was sulking again. "Are you kidding me? All the biggest PC battles of the Twentieth Century in North America were done in Canada! This is bull. We are so screwed."

"Easy for you to complain," Suho said, sounding grumpy. "The prof gave Baekhyun and I Italy. God, I'm g