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“I really hate it that we’re in different classes,” Jinae said in his practiced voice. After an hour of conversation, it no longer sounded forced.

“It’ can’t be helped,” Huanyue sighed. “That’s just the way things are.”

“But now we can’t talk to one another when things get difficult,” Jinae added. “What happens when we run into a problem? I don’t think I can deal with any complications on my own,” he whined.

“You’ll just have to,” Baekhee replied. “What’s the worst that could happen? You’ll get pegged as the weird cross dresser and be exiled from the school?”

“Gee thanks. That really boosts my confidence in this working,” Jinae grumbled.

“On the bright side, at least you look and sound the part,” Soyeon whispered. He had not perfected the voice and was forced to whisper. “What do I say to the teacher?”

“Just say you’re having allergies and your throat is not feeling well,” Baekhee suggested.

“It’s almost time for hell to start,” Huanye complained miserably. “Should we meet out on the quad during our lunch break?”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” Soyeon replied. The rest of them murmured assent.

“Good luck to everyone, then,” Huanyue said before they all separated. Huanyue and Jinae going down one hallway and diverging at the end and Soyeon and Baekhee mirroring the action down the other hallway.

--

Soyeon’s morning did not start particularly well. When the teacher called his, well her name there was a delay before Sehun remembered the name of his alter ego. The teacher said the name again and this time she timidly raised her hand and squeaked, “Here.” The teacher looked at her sceptically and she turned red. Soyeon could hear snickers around him and knew that this day was already going to be miserable. She stared intently down at her blank notebook in hopes of hiding her shame. At least she wasn’t the only one in the class who was daydreaming, or forgot his name.

“Zhang Yixing?” the teacher asked for the third time staring intently at someone in the first row.

“Oh, I guess that’s me,” came the surprised airy voice. The teacher looked at the student that Soyeon couldn’t see from her position with a look of surprise crossed with a look of irritation.

“You guess?” The teacher asked, voice terrifyingly calm.

“Well no one else raised their hand after the first two times,” the boy replied genuinely. The teacher inwardly sighed with exasperation.

“This means that everyone is here,” the teacher finally said, putting his clipboard down on his desk. “I am your homeroom teacher, Mr. Cho. You are not to call me anything but that.”

“We can’t call you Kyuhyun-nim?” the kid in the front of the room. “That’s what the nameplate on your desk says.” Kyuhyun ignored him.

“I am your Korean Literature teacher so you will see me during Korean lit alongside homeroom at the beginning and end of the day. Any questions?” Even the kid with the airy voice a few seats ahead of Soyeon could sense the threat in the teacher’s voice. The class remained silent and Mr. Cho nodded approvingly. “You now have a ten minute break while I get coffee and you wait for your first period teacher,” Mr. Cho said before he walked out of the room.

The girl sitting right in front of Soyeon turned around in her seat to look at her. “Nervous?” She had kind and motherly eyes so Soyeon didn’t feel as scared of talking to her.

“A little,” she whispered.

“It’s fine. I heard from my sister that this teacher looks mean but he isn’t really. He tries to act tough for the first trimester but it usually falls apart by the start of second trimester.” She smiled brightly and Soyeon couldn’t help but smile back.

“In case you missed it, my name is Yoo Ara but you can just call me Ara.”

“My name is Oh Soyeon,” she whispered back.

“No need to be frightened, I don’t bite. You can speak up.”

“I’m having allergies so my throat isn’t feeling very good,” Soyeon replied softly.

“Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that. It’s fine, you don’t need to talk.” She did look rather doe-like and reminded Sehun strangely of Luhan. Luhan reminded him of how much of a mistake this bet was to take.

Soyeon shook her head. “It’s fine.”

“I hope we can be good friends this year. You look like a nice person,” she said with bright doe eyes. Soyeon nodded in agreement.

--

Surprisingly enough, Baekhyun’s morning was even more complicated than Sehun’s. He remembered the name of his alter ego, to talk at a higher pitch, and to use female speech. It wasn’t that he messed up with his disguise, it’s that it was too good. Not only had he done a stunning job on his makeup, but also his voice was beautiful. He turned heads when they heard the angelic voice. Baekhyun wished that he weren’t so good at this because he was getting looks of light infatuation from half of the boys in the room and his cheeks were quickly heating up. He was also getting a few glares from jealous girls. Luckily, he found a friend sitting to his left.

He noted her name when the teacher called out the name “Shin Yoonjo” and she raised her hand. She was probably the only person in the room who didn’t ignore him, send him a creepy or infatuated look, or send him an envious look. She looked at him amiably and he sent her a grateful look.

“Now that we’ve called roll, I would like to introduce myself. I am your homeroom and history teacher, Kim Ryeowook. I would appreciate it if you referred to me as Mr. Kim,” said the delicate man at the front of the room.

Baekhyun scanned the room and found a boy off to his right staring intently at him. It was actually a little disconcerting as the boy had strangely curly hair, big eyes, and a wide smile. Instead of wondering why he had the class creep ogling him, he wondered whether the hair was a perm or natural. Scanning back across the room on his left, a little past Yoonjo and behind her was a boy with large owlish eyes. When he realised Baekhee had noticed his staring, he looked away out the window to his left, turning a furious shade of red. He decided that there was a very interesting bench down in the courtyard below. Baekhee had a handful of admirers and it was extremely uncomfortable.

“Homeroom is over so you all have a ten minute break,” Mr. Kim announced. Everyone in the class nodded politely and the man nodded approvingly. He would brag about how good of a class he had in the teacher’s lounge later.

Yoonjo turned to Baekhee. “Hello Baekhee.” She beamed at him. “My name is Yoonjo.

“Hi,” Baekhee replied awkwardly. When he spoke, a couple of the boys looked over at him.

“Just don’t mind them. They are simple and crude,” Yoonjo consoled him. “And don’t mind the other girls in the class either. They’re just jealous. You’re prettier than they are.” Baekhyun felt his heart sink. He was prettier than most of the girls in this class? It was meant to be a compliment but it felt much more like an insult even if she didn’t know.

“Th-thanks,” he replied, not knowing what else to say.

“I think that you have an admirer or two, though.” She was looking just over Baekhee’s shoulder at the boy who was staring with the slightly disconcerting grin. “I think his name is Park Chanyeol.”

“He kind of creeps me out...” Baekhee admitted, feeling the back of his neck heat up as he felt the gaze on his back.

“I don’t think he’s so bad, just a little immature but not with bad intentions.”

“Well you aren’t without fans either,” Baekhee pointed out. “There’s a boy in the back, he’s hiding behind his book now, His name is Minhyun I think.” During attendance, everyone looked at each student with varying looks, taking note of appearances and voices. Yoonjo looked over at him, seeing him peering over his book, and smiled at him. He turned red and hid deeper behind it as if he could just disappear behind the book.

“He looks nice. We should go talk to him during lunch. He seems a little shy at the moment.” She turned back to looking at Baekhee. “I’m wondering why you’re surprised by the guys staring. You’re quite beautiful,” she said genuinely.

“I’ve changed a lot over the last break,” she replied ambiguously.

“I doubt that,” Yoonjo replied. “I think that you are the type who has always been beautiful. Sure, you could have gotten more beautiful over the break, but it probably wasn’t so much improvement that you are just this year getting stares.” She smiled at Baekhee reassuringly and Baekhee couldn’t help but smile back.

--

Jongdae’s morning went by much less eventfully. He answered when his name was called and no one’s gaze lingered for any extended period of time, save for one but Jongdae didn’t really notice because the boy was sitting behind him and to the right. If Jongdae had actually been paying attention to his surroundings, he would have noticed that the boy’s name was Joonmyun. He did, however, take not of a little cutie toward the front of the room on the left by the name of Lee Yooyoung.

“Now that we’ve gotten attendance called, I’ll introduce myself. My name is Kim Jongwoon. Please address me as Mr. Kim. I am your maths teacher as well as your homeroom teacher. Homeroom is over so you now have a ten minute break.” He looked like he had something else to say but decided against it and simply nodded and left.

Jongdae got up out of his seat to go make friends with this Yooyoung girl. He didn’t notice Joonmyun had reached his hand out to tap him on the shoulder and Joonmyun was too shy to try and get his attention again. “Hello, my name is Jinae,” Jinae said, extending a hand.

“Yooyoung,” she replied, slightly surprised that Jinae was already out and about making friends when almost everyone in the class were strangers.

“You look like a nice person so I was wondering if you wanted to be friends and have lunch together later. I’m busy today so how about tomorrow? We’re all rather strangers so I thought it would be nice to get to know one another.” He smiled and his eyes turned into crescents.

“Sure,” she replied. This girl was a little strange and unorthodox in her methods of making friends, but she had a weird sort of charisma, Yooyoung thought to herself.

--

Luhan probably had the worst time out of the four of the boys. His teacher was very energetic and felt like doing more than just calling attendance.

“Hello class, my name is Lee Jungsoo. I am your homeroom teacher and I am also your chemistry teacher. Instead of just calling attendance boringly, I’m going to have you go from right to left front to back and have you introduce yourselves to the class. The easiest introduction is just a ‘Hello, my name is Jungsoo and my hobby is blowing stuff up with science’. And yes, you are allowed to call me Jungsoo-nim if you don’t feel like calling me Mr. Lee. If you’re feeling especially formal, you can call me Dr. Lee because I have a PhD but you don’t have to.” This received a stunned silence from the class. Either he would end up as the best or the worst homeroom teacher

Luhan was the fourth person to have to introduce himself and he developed a violent stutter as the three people before him introduced themselves.

“H-hello, my n-name is Lu Huanyue. I’m Chinese. M-my hobbies include s-singing and soccer.” He turned a bright shade of red before quickly sitting down, wanting to sink into the floor and just never come out again.

After his horrible introduction, however, the class’ attention just moved on to the next awkward student. Luhan had a short pity party before he looked around and found that everyone was having the same difficulty introducing themselves to the whole class and he began to feel better about himself.

The eleventh student was very confident and Luhan admired her. “Hello everyone, my name is Kim Hyelim but my nickname is Lime. My hobby is performing, which includes but is not limited to rap, singing, and dancing.” She beamed at the room and everyone suddenly felt nervous again. She was the most charismatic person in the class. “Thank you.”

A few students down came another unperturbed student. “Hello, my name is Kim Minseok. My hobbies include dance and soccer.” When he said soccer, his gaze drifted over to Huanyue, who turned a light tint of pink and averted her gaze, heartbeat loud in her ears for no apparent reason.

“This was very informative. I look forward to working with all of you.” Jungsoo grinned and a dimple came out on his cheek. This teacher looked deceptively young. He appeared to be about twenty, just out of undergraduate school, but he had a PhD, which meant that he was at least twenty-six.

“Well, you’ve got a five minute break now before first period. I took up five of your ten minutes, but don’t you think it was just a little more worth it to learn about one another instead of just having a boring time milling about or sitting silently in your room?” There were a few murmurs of assent in reply and the rest just gave quick nods. “I hope to find you here in a few periods bright, excited, and ready to learn and really hope you aren’t a boring class.”

When the teacher left, Lime came up to Luhan. “Hey there,” she said.

“H-hi,” Huanyue stammered.

“No need to be nervous. I don’t bite.” She beamed.

“It’s just that, I don’t know. It was kind of intimidating getting up in front of a bunch of strangers like that... How did you do it?”

“I’m a performer. That and it’s easier to find a person you like in the room and just talk to that person. Just make it that you’re talking to that one person as if you’re having a normal conversation and then things don’t seem so bad.”

“Whom were you talking to in this room?”

“The guy over there,” she nodded her head toward some guy who introduced himself after Luhan. Luhan missed his name while having his short pity party.

“His name is Kim Jonghyun but he says that his stage name is JR. He’s also a dancer and a rapper.” She grinned.

“Are you interested in him?”

“As a friend, but not really more than that. We'll see.” She shrugged. “But I noticed you noticing that Minseok boy. Don’t worry, I won’t tell him. He looks like a really good guy. Perhaps you could go play soccer with him during physical education.”

“Uhm. Yeah.” Huanyue looked away, totally embarrassed.

“It’s fine, you’ll have plenty of time this year to get to know him. We are all in the same class. You might even get to work on a project with him. I heard from one of my upperclassman friends that this year is the year for pair projects.”

“I don’t know if I want to work with him on a project!” Huanyue replied, mortified. His voice cracked and it came out as a squeak.

Lime giggled. “It’s fine. You sound like you’ve never interacted with a guy before,” she joked. Not like this, Luhan thought, brows furrowed. “I’m only kidding. Don’t worry. I’m sure that things will work out~”

A/N: We're finally at school~ Most of the pieces are in place now! You've met most of the EXO and Pledis characters and the rest of the story will be a barrel of laughs~ Hope you enjoyed reading. Upvote, subscribe, comment, I love all of those things, especially the comments. =w= Regards, J