Piercing aches, throbbing pain, penetrating madness, unyielding desire, all followed by merciless mockery and years of regret. How else can I be expected to describe the sensations evoked by my feelings for Sehun? Looking back I realize how foolish I was as a 2^nd year transfer student to allow my silly love for him, the school playboy, to blossom. I'm fully aware of the sorrow I was overcome with after finding out my worth to him, but I truly believe that, retrospectively, he did cherish me at one point. At the time I had everyone to blame but myself, however if questioned now I would own up to my mistakes and say that yes, it may have partially been Sehun's fault for being the way he was, but it was largely my inability to control my desire for acceptance that drove me to confront my infatuation.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

          “Class, we have a new student joining us today. Please introduce yourself,” my new homeroom teacher said with a look of boredom. He'd obviously said those words often and only wanted to get on with the day.

          My eyes scanned the classroom and took note of the classmates I'd be with for the remainder of the year. It was the start of the second semester and the students had a variety of looks: some were staring intently at me; others looked out the window, probably wishing they were outside instead of having to be stuck in school; a few were even secretively on their phones, glancing up every now and then to make sure the teacher wasn't focused on them.

          I took a deep breath and pushed the hair out of my face and said, “Good morning, my name is Im Yoona and I'll be your classmate from now on. I look forward to a good rest of the year with you all.”

          “Very good,” the teacher said, “your seat will be in front of Oh Sehun.” He pointed to a very handsome boy with ashy brown hair and dark, serious eyes and a solemn expression on his face.

          “Alright let's get this day started. Open your textbooks to page 294 and we'll go over the homework from the semester break.” The teacher's voice seemed distant as I walked nervously to my new seat in the 6^th row by the window. My eyes locked with Sehun's momentarily as I neared my desk and a mischievous smirk appeared on his handsome face.

          “A good year it will be, eh, Im Yoona?” he whispered, watching me slide into my seat and pull out a textbook, flipping to the correct page. I timidly turned my head to the side, not making eye contact, and nodded once.

          “What were built up by ancient photosynthetic prokaryotes, Tiffany?” the teacher asked with his back turned to the board, chalk in hand, ready to write the correct answer.

          A girl with long, flowing black hair stood up from the center of the room and read her answer from her notes then sat back down upon hearing the teacher's grunt of approval and the scratch of chalk against the board.

          I looked back down at my textbook and found a folded piece of paper on top of it. Somewhat surprised that such a prestigious school harbored young people who would use their phones and pass notes in class, I unfolded the paper and read its contents.

          “great 2 see a new face! lets eat lunch 2gether? -Seohyun :)” it read in messy blue handwriting. Looking up, I found the writer of the note, a chubby cheeked girl with pigtails and black framed glasses smiled and made a small wave in my direction. Grinning, I nodded and gave a slight wave of my own, eager for my first lunch period to eat with the girl who could potentially become my best friend.

          How childish, I thought. Best friend? I haven't even used that term since my third year of middle school.

          Even so I happily walked into the hallway after the awaited bell signaling the start of lunch and met up with the pig tails girl.

          “Im Yoona, right? Hi, I'm Seo Joo Hyun, commonly called Seohyun. Oh, but you probably already knew that from the note,” she giggled and started walking toward the cafeteria.

          I smiled, glad that she seemed like a kind person so far. “Yeah. I'm kinda surprised, though, that SM Academy, which has such high standards, has students who use their phones and pass notes in class.”

          “Oh, yeah, that. Well this is still a high school after all so of course there are gonna be those rebellious people who do that. We're not as bad as public schools though, since, like you said, this school has really high standards. Trust me, if you get caught using your phone in class, it gets taken away for a whole month and your parents have to personally pick it up afterward,” she said while weaving in and out of the crowd of students in the hallway.

          “As expected, I guess,” I replied as we got in line for lunch.

          The line was fairly long but we were lucky enough to have walked in only a minute after the bell rang, allowing us to be near the front. My mouth watered as I looked at the amazing choice of food. Trays of a variety of seafood, pasta, pizza, fried rice and more were scattered around on little islands in the cafeteria and I carefully chose shrimp fried rice and grilled salmon. I reached for some kimchi when a hand took the spoon ahead of me and dumped a surprising amount of it on a plate. I looked up and was confronted with a tall, beautiful young woman with flowing black hair. The same one from the classroom, I thought.

          “Excuse me,” she apologized. “I'm just really in a rush right now to snag a seat outside. It's such a lovely day, you see.”

          Wow, even her voice was angelic, which suited her perfectly. She noticed my staring and smiled radiantly, basking in the moment of attention. Her smile seemed to send surges of calmness throughout my body and I wanted to stare at her forever until the handsome boy who sits behind me in class came up to her and s his arm around her waist, waking me from my stupor.

          “Sorry, but I have to steal this pretty lady from you,” Sehun said, smiling down at Tiffany. All I could do was nod dumbly and flush a deep red after realizing I had been staring at someone of the same gender.

          “That's Tiffany. She's like the idol of the school, despite only being a second year.” Seohyun walked with me to a table in the middle of the cafeteria and we sat down. “But don't get fooled by her angelic appearance. She's actually the worst kind of , trust me. We've been in the same class since last year and a lot of drama has gone down because of her.”

          Scoffing, I glanced back once more at Tiffany laughing heartily with her circle of friends and sharing food with Sehun. “Yeah, right. I'll believe you though since looks can be deceiving, I guess. Is she dating Sehun?”

          “Yeah. They've been around quite a lot in the school and since they're both super popular, they decided to hook up. Why not, you know? Except that it's not really a devoted relationship since they still sometimes sleep around with other people. It's not as often anymore, though,” she added quickly. She stared out the window at Sehun and sighed ever so slightly.

          “Is it okay if we share crushes?” I teased.

          Seohyun laughed loudly, saying, “Sure, but you'll also be sharing with about 800 other girls and possibly some boys, too.”