Chapter 1:

Today, it is a bright and sunny day in Seoul, South Korea. This day is the first day of class of Kim Minseok and his sister’s. They moved to Korea a few months ago. They lived in Manila, Philippines for ten years because Minseok’s parents worked as volunteer doctors there. Minseok studied there until middle school in a Chinese school – he was called Xiumin by his schoolmates. This senior year, he will be studying in Korea for the first time.

“Okay, Minseok, smile!” his mother said who is about to take a shot of him counting down with her fingers.

Minseok smiles and grins. He kind of looked like an adorable hamster when he makes that kind of smile. He was wearing his school uniform – white polo, blue necktie, with blue coat and blue slack pants, and black oxford shoes.

“My son is already in senior high,” his mom runs to him with open arms and gives him a hug.

“My dear, can you please take us a picture with your dad.” his mom directs his younger sister and gives her the camera. And then, they did a cute wacky v-sign pose together. His sister, then, gives the camera to him so she can have picture together with their parents on her first schooling in Korea.

Minseok takes a picture of them three and smiles. He is very happy to see his family together like this – like there are no problems. They sometimes do have problems but his mom is good at dealing with it and solving it as soon as possible. When there is trouble in the family, they try their best to fix it.


Kim Minseok is not that tall – he has dark brown hair, a well-rounded face that has eyes, which are monolided, has sort of a flat and rounded nose, and fair skin. He was popular back in junior high school to weird looking girls before that he never understands why. He plays soccer in school and takes taekwondo classes in the weekend.

Together with his sister, they ride a school bus on the way to their school. Minseok is going to study in an all-boys school, and while his sister is going to an all-girls school that is next to his school. He is leaning on the glass of the school bus with his face resting on his arm while going to school wondering how life is going to be in an exclusive school. He is used to seeing girls in their campus back in Manila.

As soon as they arrived in school, Minseok walks out from the school bus – the school is total wreckage. A lot of guys are making scenes. He is shocked with all of these commotions happening. He never knew an exclusive school would be like this. He thought students who go here are rich and have class and are enough to act like one, but he thought otherwise.

He made his way through the racy crowd, and suddenly someone just bump onto him.

“Watch it, jerk!”

‘Wow, talk about being rude? I didn’t even mean that.’ he thought.


Finally, he made it inside the school. It is still pretty crowded though. He paused for a few moments to get his schedule inside his backpack. He removes his backpack from his one shoulder, while the other one is holding it. He s his bag, and looks for his schedule.

“There we go.” he said in a low register and looks at his schedule.

“Room 88? Off to my first class now!”


The bell rings and everyone is running to go to their classes. It is just embarrassing to be late in class on the first day. But Xiumin is just very chill. He walks briskly yet calmly. He was approaching a loud room as he goes to his first class. He checks the room to see if he was going to the right one – peeking inside the room. “Okay, here it is.”

When he enters the room, the boys are just looking at him with curious eyes so focused at him, thinking if he is someone just new or someone just who had a plastic surgery – but he did not, he has monolids. Minseok searches for a seat. He saw one in the second row, first column, behind a chubby guy. However, there were two guys who stopped him.

“Seriously, you don’t want to smell awful after class.” says Chanyeol and bits the tip of his pen, while his other friend Baekhyun laughed.

“Bbaeksong…” Baekhyun joked.

The two boys chuckled together.

“What the heck is ‘bbaeksong’?” Xiumin asked who never knew anything about Korean slang.


A moment later, the teacher enters the room. She’s a five-footer lady, who is wearing two-inch long black pumps, a black pencil skirt, a black cotton cardigan with a sleeveless see-through top inside, and rectangular-framed glasses. Her name is Ms. Boa Kwon.

Everybody sits down quietly, as the teacher puts down her books on the teacher’s desk.

“Good morning class!” and she said and sat down. Apparently, there was one naughty student a while ago who chewed a gum and after, sticks it on top of the back rest of the teacher’s chair. The whole class tried to hold their laugh. Meanwhile, Chanyeol can’t stop smiling and the teacher caught his attention.

“What are you laughing over there young man.”

He coughed and gulped, “I’m sorry madam.”


Meanwhile, Principal Lee Sooman appeared in front of the room’s door. He signals at Ms. Kwon for him to come inside the room. He then goes inside the classroom and greets the students, “Good morning, room 88."

Minseok was about to stand up, but no one actually did. He thought that there is something wrong with the principal or is it really with the students here in the school. He was quite embarrassed. He hides his face, looks down and sits down slowly.

Mr. Lee was there to welcome Minseok in school, “I am here to announce something to you boys. We have a new student here who came all the way from Philippines.”

Ms. Kwon looks at the dark-skinned student with black framed glasses, Kim Jongin and says, “Welcome to Korea!”

“Uhhh… I’m sorry, but I was studying here for four years already.” Jongin answered back.

“Oh I’m sorry kid.” Ms. Kwon apologizes and looks for that student – Minseok.

“Excuse me Ms. Kwon.” she pauses for a moment and lets him continue with his message.

“His name is Kim Minseok.” he searches for Minseok. 

He heard his name and he raises his hand and looks at the principal with a bright smile. “That’s me Sir!”

The two of them bowed at each other. Ms. Kwon then stood up but something was stuck onto her cardigan, it is the chewing gum that one of the student stick.

‘Oh gosh, I have to remove this cardi.’ she thought.

“Let me help you with that Ms. Kwon.”

“No, no, sir. I’m okay.” with no shame, Ms. Kwon simply removed her cardigan and stood up to make a bow with Minseok.

Meanwhile, all the boys took out their cellphones to take a picture of their teacher - apparently, because of the sleeveless and see-through top.

“Please take care of me, seonsaengnim.” Minseok said politely slowly standing back up straight from his ninety-degree bow.

“Okay class,” Ms. Kwon clenches her hands together and looks at her students with a ‘you are dead meat’ look, “Please keep your cellphones and I will look at your photo galleries one-by-one after class.”

“Awww…” the class said with frowning faces.

And Minseok sits down again comfortably.

It is now lunch time in their school. Minseok grabs a lunch in the cafeteria, but he didn’t know where to sit. All of the students looked at him meanly, as if they didn’t want to make friends with him. So he decided to sit at the very back of the cafeteria, on the floor.

He looks very sad and upset. He never knew students in Korea would be like this to him. Back in his middle school in Manila, all of his Chinese classmates were very welcoming to become friends with him. But now, everything turns out to be different. He wishes that this will just last for now only. He sighs and depressingly chews his food inside his mouth.

On the other hand, Chanyeol together with Baekhyun, and his other friends – Chen and Lay – were all eating at one table – sharing stories and cracking jokes at each other.

“Tao is one very lucky man to have a sugar mom in that school.” Chen shares a story to his friends while he chews his sandwich.

“Was he that lucky to get it down to the ‘v’?” Chanyeol without hesitation asks the most intriguing question.

Chen shakes his head, “I am quite not sure. Maybe? Maybe not?”

“Damn.” Baekhyun clenches his fist and stammers it on the table. “How was he able to get one? I always wanted a sugar mom. Maybe someone like our adviser?”

“Shut up!” Chanyeol puts his hand on Baekhyun’s face pushing him away.

“Hey, that hurts!” removing Chanyeol’s big hand from his face.

“Oh by the way, where is the new student from Philippines?” Baekhyun wondered.

“I don’t know, maybe he is at the back eating since no one wants to be friends with him for being a good boy.” Chanyeol joked.

“Is that the boy with monolids?” Lay asked.

Chanyeol and Baekhyun both nodded. Chen does not really care. He just keeps on eating his lunch.

“Actually, he looks good with his eyes.” Lay commented.

“Where is that kiddo though?” Chanyeol wondered and then chews a kimchi inside his mouth.