Chapter 1:

Monday.

A day not like any other. There isn’t one single day which is so feared, hated and disliked by everyone.

Especially by students. No matter what kind of student you are, you don’t like Mondays. It’s always the same, no matter where you go.

It’s almost a ritual already, to see dark circles around the students’ eyes, their half asleep looks, and their zombie-like state when they wander in the hallways on a Monday morning.

So, it’s no surprise to see that class 1A of Shinhwa High wasn’t part of the exception.

A third of the students were sprawled on their desk to get some last-minute sleep before class, the other third wasn’t even present yet, and the rest was either bustling around to get their forgotten homework copied, huddled in a group to share their amazing weekend stories or just sitting alone at their desks far away from the noises.

Kang Seungyoon started to shift on his chair when the song playing in his headphones ended, he opened his eyes to give a quick glance at his watch.

07:55

Five minutes until the bell rang.

He removed his headphones and stretched his stiff body, not bothering to suppress the yawn that was escaping his mouth. He rubbed his tired eyes and looked around the class, seeing the familiar image. ‘The’ girls were chatting together, comparing the parties they attended and fawning over the hot boys they met and made out with. Of course, there needed to be a counterpart to this group of girls, which was ‘The’ group of  boys who thought of themselves as the strongest, the best looking ones and every girls’ prince charming, sitting ironically just next to the girls, comparing and boasting about their awesome weekend adventures.

Seungyoon let his eyes wander to the other side of the room, he wasn’t interested in their talks which were from his point of view without any class nor smart content.

Next to the window on his left, were Woohyun and Sungyeol, the two ‘crazy nerd’ best friends, engrossed in some game on their smartphones, playing against each other which resulted in one of them to yell out in happiness while the other started to complain about some unfairness in the rules.

On the row in front of him was Youngjae, the vice class-president who everybody pretty sure knew was the unofficial president, taking on this week’s workload while his neighbour Daehyun, the actual elected class president, was munching on a half eaten chocolate muffin and sighing in contentment because of the amazing flavour.

In front of them were Nana and Raina, two of the more responsible girls in class who didn’t go out to drink themselves into oblivion on every weekend party. Raina was trying to read her book while Nana just couldn’t keep quiet and disturbing her by asking thousands of questions. If it would’ve been any other girl from the class instead of her best friend, she would’ve long exploded and told her off but since it was her best friend, she smiled it off while answering her every question earnestly.

In the second row next to the windows were Taehyun and Mirae, the class’ best students. Contrary to the imagination of many, they were two of the best-looking people in the class. Totally against the stereotypes, they neither wore glasses nor did they wear their uniforms perfectly as stated in the school rules. They could both be quite blunt sometimes but despite it all they were really nice people. They always helped out everyone in need without asking anything in return, so the students always repaid them voluntarily with cookies which they happily shared with Daehyun much to the latter’s delight.

Behind them and thus in front of the ‘nerds’ was the only person sitting alone during class: Kim Sora. A quiet and shy girl, who didn’t stood out a lot. She was seen as a quite ordinary girl with average to good grades and surprisingly good results in P.E. Despite her little bit of introverted character, she got along well with everyone in class and vice versa, especially the two class aces who just adored her. With four minutes until the bell rang, she was still passed out cold on her desk, her sleeping face hidden underneath her straight long black hair.

Kang Seungyoon looked away and closed his eyes again, that girl sleeping all alone reminded him of himself. In a way, he was quite similar to her with that little introverted character trait and the tendency to stay alone even thought they both got along with everyone. But on the other side, he was totally different from her: being known as the troublemaker rascal while she was the average 18-years old student.

But this was him.

Kang Seungyoon, the troublemaker.

Kang Seungyoon, the fighter.

Kang Seungyoon, the slacker.

But despite all this, he had his set principles. He wasn’t someone to mindlessly start fights with everyone but nobody knew it because in the end nobody cared about it. The rumours about him were enough evidence for them and Seungyoon didn’t even bother to correct them.

‘There is always some truth in everything.’

But he didn’t mind since he didn’t care about what others thought of him anyways. He’s happy to be able to be alone.

The ringing of the bell brought his focus back to class and with the entry of the way too happy-looking teacher, the lesson started on this particular Monday morning.

“We’ll talk about the group projects in detail next week. So, until then study hard!”

The last teacher of the morning lessons bid his goodbye to the class and rushed to his long-awaited lunch break. The class slowly emptied itself, everyone making their way to the cafeteria.

Seungyoon took out his home-made lunch, a messily made sandwich, and walked out of his class. He climbed up the stairs until the top where he reached the roof. Exiting though the door, he sat himself down leaning on the railings and started eating in silence. After a while, he glanced at his watch.

12:45