The three members of the popular Chinese idol group, TFBOYS, stood in awe at the grand western inspired building in front of them.  However, reality soon set in – they were running late.

“See you two later,” the youngest member, Yi Yang Qianxi, although just younger than the second oldest member, Wang Yuan, by exactly twenty days, was already waving his goodbye, obviously anxious that he might not leave a good first impression on his homeroom teacher for the first day of school.

“Wait!” Wang Yuan ran up and blocked his friend from getting any further ahead.  He had a big innocent smile plastered on his face.  “There’s still five minutes before the final bell, so let’s head to the snack stand first,” he suggested enthusiastically.

“Nah,” Qianxi shook his head.  “You guys go ahead.  My classroom seems to be on the other side of the building.  I don’t want to be late.”

“Ha, my classroom is situated over in the next building,” the leader, Wang Junkai, laughed dryly.  He waved their glutton member goodbye as he walked through the gates.  “You’re on your own.  Just don’t gain too much weight or else you’ll look like a blowfish on TV,” he teased.

Wang Yuan pouted, annoyed at Junkai’s words.  He turned to Qianxi, seemingly looking for the latter to disagree with what their leader had said.

However, Qianxi only shrugged with an amused smile on his face before walking through the gates, following their leader’s footsteps.

Wang Yuan huffed out a frustrated breath.  “Well, you guys don’t know what you’re missing!”  He threw a fist up in the air.

~*~

After Wang Yuan got his bags of snacks, he went up to the main hall near the administration office where the class lists and rooms were posted.  He was dumbfounded to see a crowd still hovering over the class list.  He squeezed through the crowd to find his name on the class assignment list.  After much struggle, he found his name at last under 1-A.

“Wang Yuan?” a familiar feminine voice laced with a hint of surprise came from a short distance away.

Wang Yuan turned around at the sound of his name.  His eyes widened in surprise at this former classmate, a girl with long wavy hair and almond-shaped eyes, but soon followed with an obvious joyful grin.  “Class President!”  He would have given her a hug out of instinct of seeing someone familiar (and pleasant) if she didn’t take a huge step back defensively.

“What are you doing here?” she narrowed her eyes at the idol.

His sparkling smile never faltered even for a moment at her tone.  It was either he was oblivious or that he had long gotten used to this particular former classmate’s attitude.  Instead, he hit her playfully on the arm.  “Oh, come on.  Is this how you gonna greet an old friend after such a long time, Xia Zixin?”

She raised an eyebrow, quite baffled that he would use such adjectives.  “Correction,” she put up a finger and attempting to widen their distance, “two months of summer break is not a long time, relatively speaking, especially in this case.  And second, the term ‘friend’ is definitely too strong of a word to describe two former classmates.”  And ‘friends’ were something that they would never be, she was sure.  For the entire academic term last year, she had to endure most of the after school hours cleaning the classroom on the idol boy’s behalf because the latter was either a real klutz or had forged ignorance to escape doing any actual work.  She even started to think that all those snacks he had attempted to share with her were nothing but bribery (not to mention that she loathed the weights that she had gained from all those snacks).

Wang Yuan slapped the former class president playfully on the arm, seemingly oblivious to how ‘un-subtle’ she had been in forming the physical gap between them.  “Oh come on, don’t be like that.”

She raised an eyebrow callously.

Though, he never caught the condescending expression on her face as he turned to the bulletin board again, searching for something.

Suddenly realizing that she should take the opportunity and leave before he could cause a scene (as the oblivious idol boy seemed to have a knack for), she her heel.

 “Wow, awesome!  We’re in the same class again!”

She stopped in her tracks.  A rush of coldness ran down on her.

“Hey Xia Zixin, come and take a look!” Excitement shone through his peppermint-like voice.  “Seriously, what are the chances?”

She sighed and muttered underneath.  “Yes, indeed.  What are the chances?”

~*~

Despite of Wang Yuan’s enthusiastic greeting when he entered the class, not much reaction was drew out from the rest of the students except for a few head turns to acknowledge his existence.

Zixin rolled her eyes at his lameness as she walked past him and settled her bag on one of the desks in the front roll.

Wang Yuan scratched the back of his head and grinned sheepishly.  A small sense of anticipation stirred in him.  It seemed that their manager was right to conclude that they might get to experience a ‘normal’ (as normal as it could get) high school life after all.

Some students just chatted amongst themselves, seemingly already knew each other from their middle school days, while others looked around nervously, yet to adjust to the new and unfamiliar environment.  None of them really paid attention to Wang Yuan, or perhaps, even noticed that a celebrity had just graced their classroom with his presence. 

Wang Yuan walked through the aisles of desks and placed his bag of books on top of the desk that was located at the furthest corner in the back near the window.  Unlike the former class president, he didn’t like to sit at the front all that much, just the image of the teacher scrutinizing on him and nowhere to stash his snacks was enough to make him shiver. 

Immediately after he sat down, heavy gasps echoed throughout the room.  He looked up, startled. 

One of the students, a meek looking girl in glasses and pigtails covered a hand over .  “Oh no!”  a pitied tone escaped from .

Even Zixin, who was never one up for gossips, couldn’t help but turned around to see what the commotion was about.

A boy from across the classroom walked over to where Wang Yuan was.  His eyes widened in shock.  “Hey kid, are you out of your mind?”

“What?” Wang Yuan stared back at the boy blankly, confused to say the least.

“Oh my lord, you don’t know?” the boy was shocked at the idol’s apparent ignorance.  “This desk – the ‘One Week Desk’ is cursed!”

“Oh my god!  He’s so dead!”

“Huh?  Come again?” he still couldn’t fully grasp the situation.

“Everyone in town knows about this desk.  You must be new around here.”  Then his new classmate sighed, shook his head, and patted Wang Yuan’s shoulder in condolence.  “Good luck making through the week.”

Just when Wang Yuan was about to ask for further clarification, their homeroom teacher walked in and so the rest of the students quickly settled in.

Their homeroom teacher, Mr. Liu, covered the standard school policy and classroom rules lifelessly for over five minutes before he started the appointment process of the class president and vice-president positions.

“Xia Zixin,” Mr. Liu looked around the classroom, still unfamiliar with all the new faces of his students, “where are you?”

Zixin put up her hand.

Mr. Liu smiled, but the smile seemed rather reluctant.  It was becoming obvious to anyone that the middle-aged man loathed his job.  “Alright, you’re class president now, Miss Smarty-pants.”

A few students moaned in disappointment because they thought that they would have at least a chance to run for the position.

“Quit your whining,” Mr. Liu did not give in to any of the protests.  “The tradition of this class is that only the smartest and brightest student deserves the class president title.  Okay, now let’s move on to the vice-president position, which you lot of second-rated students can fight over.”

Much to the students’ dismay, it seemed that this was going to be a long and painful academic term with Mr. Liu as their homeroom teacher.

“Now, any nominations?” Mr. Liu picked up a chalk.

A few students eagerly put up their hands, either nominating themselves or their best friends.

“Hey, what’s your name?” A male student who sat in front of Wang Yuan turned around and asked the idol quietly.

“Wang Yuan…” the idol boy answered, but feeling a bit apprehensive.

His neighbour quickly turned his attention to the front again and shot up his hand.  “I nominate Wang Yuan!”

Both Wang Yuan and Zixin’s eyes, unwittingly, popped open in shock at the nomination.

“Oh right, he only has seven days to live,” one girl has her hands clasped together as the realization suddenly dawned on her.  “So let him have the honour of the position and live his life to the fullest for the next seven days!”

Quickly, the rest of the students followed suit with the idea.

“That cursed desk again?” Mr. Liu smirked, clearly bemused in the most sadistic way.  He sneered, “Seems you have the majority’s vote.  Alright, both the class president and vice-president come up and make a speech.”

Both designated students reluctantly got up from their desks and walked up to the front.

“My name is Xia Zixin.  It will be my pleasure to make acquaintance with all of you over this academic year.  I will do my best to fulfil the duties and responsibilities of this role.”  Zixin kept her speech concise and formally to the point.  One could only say that she sounded polite and reliable, but couldn’t exactly figure out if she was even remotely excited about her new role in the class.  In actuality, she was indifferent rather she got appointed or not.  Though now, she couldn’t help but felt a bit worried because the vice-president position was given to no other than the oblivious trouble-maker, Wang Yuan.

He looked like a deer in the headlights even though it was his turn to make a speech.  Given the position of vice-president was not something he expected, but it was also not something he would even consider sweating over.  What got him dazed and even slightly nervous was the fact that the rest of his classmates (with the exception of Zixin and Mr. Liu) seemed dead serious about the cursed ‘One Week Desk’.

Zixin took a side-glance at the idol when he was not starting the speech.  She was secretly frowning over at his gullible behaviour.  Despite her reluctance to know him anymore than necessary, she was still able to read him quite well, having been former classmates throughout middle school.

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Author's Note:  Mei here~  Sorry that it took so long to post this chapter.  Between running a business & crappy internet (I definitely need to switch my internet service provider soon), it really doesn't give me much time to write.  But I tried, and I'm still trying because I simply love writing.  ><  Anyways, hope you've enjoyed this chapter.  And now, I shall wait patiently for my co-author's next instalment. *wink*  Definitely no pressure though since I know we all live busy lives.

Oh btw, remember Xia Zixin?  She's the OC from Cleaning Duties.  ^^