Megan.

Jackson laid sprawled on the couch, groaning incoherent words into the couch pillows. Something about how annoying was the first day, how strict were the teachers and how impossibly clingy girls could get. Kris just laughed his off at him.

“That’s just the beginning, my little brother.”
I could sense Jackson scoffing at the title “Little brother.” I carried the snacks-filled tray to the living room, kicking Jackson’s leg, which was half hanging off the couch, in the process.

“Stop whining like a little girl besides, you, out of all the people, liked the attention. Why whine about it then?”

All Kris did was laugh while Jackson constantly smacked him on the head with the couch pillows. Tell people that those two are my elder brothers and they would surely not believe.

“How was your first day, meg?” Kris had said between catching breaths.

“Okay, I guess?”

Jackson straightened up, combed his fingers through his hair before wearing his snapback.

“You wouldn’t believe what had I witness today.”
Sometimes, Jackson’s exaggerations are going way overboard that I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at it.

“What. You finally had the clear view of a girl’s ?” Kris’ remark had me on the floor, laughing.

“Please. As if,” Jackson scoffed, folding his arms against his chest “what I was trying to say is, Props to Megan. She pulled this amazing stunt today and students at the hall gaped in awe at her.”

“Enough with your bluffing, Jackson Wu. Just tell me the thing already.”

“It’s called an amazing stunt, for your information.”
I could practically see how hard Kris restrained himself from smacking Jackson straight on the head right now.

“So, there was this so called queen in our school. Meg and I were immersed in our daily arguing when Meg bumped into this girl……” He continued on and on about how “Heroic” was I when I argued with Lee Hyeri, it was uncalled for okay?

“Like, the point of it all is just that Meg never did that whenever she gets into an argument with school bullies and it truly amazed me.”

“Well, I grew up? I suppose? And she was the school’s “Queen” not “bullies”.”

I shrugged my shoulders to portray my fake nonchalance.
Kris and Jackson patted my head almost in unison, praising me at my “new bravery” and all I wanted to do is cry because for God’s sake, I didn’t mean to do that.

“Yes, yes that was all very heroic. Can we please stop talking about this right now?”
My voice came out as a whine, which I didn’t plan on sounding of course but you see, every inch of my body likes to betray me.

“I and Chanyeol decided to go fishing this weekend, wanna tag along?”

I did some mental calculations beforehand; like how Park Jinyoung will also be there and as per usual, wherever you see a Park Jinyoung, you see a Mark Tuan. The only place I want to meet them at is school and school alone so I decided to decline the offer when Kris spoke up.

“Funny thing is that you think you have a choice.”

We almost groaned in unison (although I never thought Jackson would disagree on this) upon Kris’ smug tone and his stupid little triumphant smirk.
He surely knows how to mess with us.

Glancing my way, Jackson slowly nodded as a signal that he was going to pull our old trick and that I have to play along.

“Fine, We would go,” he paused and I continued on from where he left off (or at least, that’s how we had tried to act and do like) “under one condition. You will be in charge of our house courses. Deal?”

Kris nodded but his expressions told me otherwise; both I and Jackson jumped on top of him and forcefully making him promise.

“Geez. Are you guys sure you’re attending high school because that act is only done by med-schoolers.”

“We were med-schoolers three months ago, you can’t blame us.”
Sticking my tongue out, I ran upstairs when I saw the pillow directed to my head.

It’s funny how red Kris gets when he is mad. (or maybe, he was out of breath because he was just there, used as a temporary couch by his younger siblings)

*

I was fully aware that the alarm clock pretty much filled the room with it’s annoying-loud noise yet I had no will to pick myself up or dress myself up for school for that matter.

I reluctantly got out of bed, trudged my way to the bathroom only to turn back to switch the alarm off; man, alarms are official life ruiners.

I took a quick shower and was ready under 10 minutes, ran across the room to gather my belongings before finally running down the stairs; actually hoping to have breakfast with the whole family only to be disappointed when I only found Jackson.

“Careful princess, no need for the rush the school is to start in half an hour.” Although he knew full too well that I rushed myself for a complete different reason.

“How does riding my new bike to school sound?”

His grin was so wide that I am both amused and scared; amused because wow, his mouth could do stretching just fine and scared because well, what if the mouth stretching went way overboard and failed?

I just grinned back not as equally wide but it was enough to hype up Jackson’s already-excited mood and he dragged me all the way around the house to get ourselves to the garage.

Our butler had said (advised) us about how dangerous was it to ride a bike to school and how walking seems to be a smarter choice if we didn’t want to take the car but Jackson merely listened and slightly nodded, untangling the chains that secured his new bike and told me to get on it after himself.

The last time I had ever ridden a bike was back then when I was four, back then when our parents weren’t so restraining on stuff, back then when…well, we were a complete happy-go-lucky family or so my childish self had thought.

We reached school 15 minutes before classes start and I bid him goodbye because I had literature for a starting and Jackson, along with Jinyoung and Mark had physic.

Walking around the unfamiliar hall, I didn’t expect to meet Lee Hyeri.

“Owee, it’s the peasant.” I rolled my eyes and barely glanced at her before she stopped my track. “We’re not done talking.”

I don’t get why she always refers to herself as “We” or maybe she was referring to herself and her satan twin, the latter made much more sense.

“Look, unlike you, I don’t go around the school to gossip. I have classes to attend and if you will excuse me.” I intentionally bumped her on my way and I heard her muttering something about how a new student shouldn’t mess with her.

Basically, no one pays heed to it.

I strode faster as I have only gotten 5 minutes in hand; thanks to the queen and my lack of knowledge of where the classes are. This is just the second day, totally not my fault; my brain had convinced me.

I was grateful that I reached the class just in time before the bell indicates the starting of classes.

As usual, I chose the seat at the very back of the room. The room was quite packed and I was forever grateful for the seats at the back were all empty.

Not long after my entrance, Mrs.Han entered with a girl (a tomboy) alongside herself.

“Attention class, this friend over here is a foreigner. Be nice to her and help her if she ever needs it.” Said girl bowed full ninety degree before she was told to pick a seat. Surprisingly, she sat beside me.

“Hi,” I told myself that this was a chance to open up and make friends because let’s face it, loner of the year award doesn’t sound so appealing.

“Oh hi there, Amber is the name.” she grinned brightly and somehow reminded me of Jackson.

“Megan. Nice to know you.”

“I hate literature.” Amber managed to whisper between Mrs. Han’s endless lecturing. I rolled my eyes, before snickering (my two favorite things to do).

“Why are you here then?”

“Because I love doing the things I hate.” I didn’t know how I did it nevertheless, I tried to laugh soundlessly. Yep, definitely Jackson 2.0 or Girl Version of Jackson.

We got along pretty well and talked quite a lot ( who am I kidding, we talked from the beginning to the end of the lecture) which earned warning glares from Mrs.Han that we had managed to ignore so that she got back to her task at hand, letting us go just this time.

Amber and myself had the same classes through out the day and we basically had an endless conversation until lunch hour rolls over. No, we’re not talkative. Definitely not.

Jackson waved both of his hands once we entered the cafeteria or else, we could easily get lost in the sea of people.

“Hello there.” I greeted them and sat, scooting left so that Amber would have a place to sit, pushing Jackson to the edge in the process.

“This is Jackson, my brother,” I paused, reluctant about how should I continue my brief introduction but did it anyway “and these are Jinyoung and Mark, his friends.”

“And your friends too!” Jinyoung had whined like the kid he was.

I heard rushed footsteps before Jaebum plopped himself down beside Jinyoung “Morning.”
Well, we could always welcome Jaebum.

“And that’s Jaebum, Our senior.”

“By a year.” Jackson had added. “Anyway, where are you from?”

Jackson, Amber and Jinyoung fell into a string of endless conversations about a variety different topics while Jaebum and myself talked about literature since he had whined about how literature is tough but he loved it too much to take another subject; we had a mutual interest and so we sprung into discussions on books and authors.

Meanwhile, Mark was just there, forever judging us; us as in all the five of us but mostly me and Jaebum because maybe, he was a bit amused at people our age discussing about books?

“Hey, how about we go to this bookstore in my neighbourhood. They’re constantly updated. So, weekend?” it was a great idea and I was about to constantly agree when I remembered that we had an “event” this weekend.

“Nah, my eldest brother decided to go fishing this weekend.” I could barely tell if Jaebum was actually pouting.

“How about Monday?” I had a mental quick scan on my schedule before nodding.

“Cool.” We chuckled after giving each other a high-five.

“Im Jaebum, did you just ask my sister out?”

Jaebum rolled his eyes and scoffed “Yes, based on a friendly matter besides I am too old for her. Happy?” the four of us laughed at Jaebum’s lack of patience. Four of us excluding Mark, of course.

*

Weekend was around the corner and school just gets a lot more tiring; Mark had decided that joining literature is fun and so, Jinyoung and Jackson tagged along which basically turned the class into the loudest class in the history. Sometimes, I really do wish there was a penalty for being loud.

I scribbled on my book, partly notes and partly doodles while trying extra hard to focus with my half-reluctant working brain.

Amber threw a piece of folded paper, *U OK?* were written with bold-capital letters on it.
I mouthed “tired” and being the forever humorous Amber she is, she started making faces, later joined by Jackson and Jinyoung and I could tell my face was practically blue-green from all the laughters I restrained to let out. Define Sorcery.

By the end of the day, I had no energy left in my being; all I did was lean on Jackson’s back on our way home because Jackson decided it was nice to ride the bike extra slow today.

At the beginning of this year, I had imagined all the possibilities of me being a complete loner, the wall-flower who only does the studying and I pretty much made my mind to live up to it.

But then, life seems much brighter when you broaden up your circle.
I didn’t expect Jinyoung to be such a good friend over the past week (judging that he was quite an in the past,  not that we’re the closest now and we still are at each others throat at times but yeah,that’s totally not my point) and I am thankful that I had decided to befriend Amber and Jaebum.
We weren’t the biggest or the most popular circle of friends but I am pretty much content about it.

Speaking of Jinyoung being the complete opposite of his past-self, where all he does was annoy the living day light out of people, Mark is pretty much the same guy I knew from middle school; just a bit more quieter and a lot less annoying.

No one ever thought I would be closer to Jinyoung but not to Mark (Jinyoung’s other half) but life is unpredictable.

“We’re home, princess.”

I wasn’t really sleeping, I wanted to tell him but then Jackson would be teasing me for wanting to have more skinship moments with my “handsome, wild & y” brother so I passed on that and walked silently behind him. As if I would want more skinship with that dorky fluff ball.

“EWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!”

We heard a loud screech once we entered the main door, it was pretty loud considering that it could be heard from the downstairs when the source is up there.

I and Jackson just stared at each other, chanting “Are you thinking what I am thinking?” in unison before running upstairs.

Only one person crossed my mind when it comes to such exaggerating show of disgust. ( or more like sound of disgust?)

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