Birds of a feather flock together:

people of similar character, background, taste,...tend to associate

Sungkyu, Woohyun and the ventilation way

A/N: To get it easier to know whose speech it is, Sungkyu is purple and Woohyun is green, OK!

The two crawled in the ventilation way of the operational building. It is a small building locating on the left of the classroom building which is much bigger and right in front of the stadium. There is a wire fence between them to prevent any accident, but this isn't really efficient because students usually climb over the fence to get to the operational rooms quicklier. (And so did our boys.)

Sungkyu and Woohyun started their way at the end of the building, which is also the end of the ventilation way, so they had to crawl all the way to the Chemistry room, which is the first room from the classroom building.

There are 2 floors, between each is the ventilation system so it is easy to find the way. But the hard thing is to know the exact place to get out because the way still continues to the classroom building and it is curved and indirect. It was smart of Woohyun to detect the system carefully and calculate how far they would go because no one wanna find them in somewhere like the kitchen, where is absolutely unbearable hot and can't escape.

Our boys could only move slowly as they didn't wanna get scratch by some rusted nails here or sharp aluminium borders.

"I wonder where are others now." Sungkyu spoke up, made his voice echo all the way.

"Hyung-ah, turn down your voice!"

"For what, nobody is here except our crew!"

"But I have some feeling..."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. But my instinct tells me so. There is something here."

"What is here waiting for us?"

"I mean this is not the first time there is somebody to get in this way."

"Arghh, you're only good at nonsence!" Sungkyu started to get cross.

(quiet for a while)

"I dreamt about this yesterday night. I saw us crawling like this. But someone had been here before us." Woohyun whispered.

"Stop it! Shut your mouth!" Sungkyu punched at the egde.

Woohyun sprang ahead to stop the punch. "Aish, be quiet! Don't you wanna have a bloody hand before we reach our place?!"

Seemed like Sungkyu felt ashamed of his action, he later lowered his voice. "Where are we now?"

"Maybe below the principal's office area. But our target is the Chemistry room first."

"Hey, I think I also feel weird like you now. Still feeling the stench?"

Woohyun nodded.

[Flashback] This is a flashback about students' stress and being force to make fame for the school. It also present the despotic principal.

A/N: brown speech is the principal's.

It was a Monday morning. Blue sky, cool breeze, warm sunlight. Students hurried to gather in the front yard for the school weekly meeting. It all seemed like just a normal schoolday in the autumm. But actually not.

Just take a closer look to our students. Their mood were completely different from the great weather: stressed, worried, unhappy. What happened to them?

They came gathering in lines. After a few rituals in the morning, they stod still to wait for the principal's speech.

"Aigoo, it's so hot!I wish I could take off my vest." (as thousands of students crowded the ground)

"Damn it, I have 2 tests this morning and I haven't reviewed all!"

"Can't they let us sit?"

The student manager told them to keep quiet and handed the microphone to the principal coming to the stage.

"I can see you are still chatting. If you don't want me to speak, just keep on your business."

The students, one by one, shut their mouth. In fact, none of them wanted another lecture from him, but they didn't wanna recieve any more censure. Nobody wants to admit something that is not their fault, right?

"Very good! That is what you are educated for. Now listen carefully,"

"What more?"

"Any more test?"

"A group of external auditors is coming?"

"the City's Excellent sorting contest is coming in the next semester. Every school MUST take part in and choose at least fifty students to participate and the maximum is one hundred, depending on the Departmentod Education's choice due to the number of students. And according to the offical dispatch they sent us this morning, they require 100 since our school is in the largest scale of the number of pupils. So, if will transfer these information in details to each class teacher and they will sort out you guys."

"Oh great, now 100 of us are gonna die before next semester!"

"Really, this school is truly helping the Department to ruin our lives!"

"What is this for? Proving we are excellent by learning by heart useless academic theories and see who is gonna memorise those longer?"

"We should call it the City's exhausting contest!"

"And we haven't thought of ones who may not success and recieve a ton of scold after their hard attempt!"

"Why do they hold this contest but it won't help us to enter univeristy or get a job more easily?"

"QUIET! Who is complaining is such a chicken!" He raised his chin. "You don't want to face difficulty! You don't want to experience challenges! And this is the chance to assert yourself, to change!" He emphasised. "That is enough for today morning. You can get back your classes and start the lessons."

(Students chatting)

"Jinha-ah, don't worry, you'll succeed! Your study is superb!"

"But I'm still worry. See how they treated Aeyoung unnie last year after she failed? They decreased her points, they treated her like a particularly bad student and gave her negative feedback while she can easily be in Top 10 ranking. I don't wanna be like that."

"But that is not your fault!"

"Who don't know it is their (the school)'s fault! But wake up Byulji-ah! Who hero here would save us? Shinwon told me that his teacher said this year's target is at least 60% have to win, which mean only 60 of chosen students will have "a better life" after that damn contest, and 40 will be terribly disregard!"

"Why do they too care about this? I mean they need more fame for what?"

"I think they want more money. Just think, the more students succeeed, the more fame they get, the more newbies will attend, the more money parents invest in, the more this school get richer!"

"However, just keep calm and do your best. I think Ms.Jung will choose you and Janghyun to join."

"I wish I didn't perform too well that so now I have to pay!"

A/N: I kinda focus on more about the flashback. Keep it in your mind because these stresses and strains will be very important in the end. Guess what happened? Does it related to our boys adventure? And what is the stench there?

And guess who is next?