Sehun is in my History of the Arts class, so I figure I’ll just apologize then. As soon as I walk into my classroom, I spot Oh Sehun himself lounging in his seat, surrounded by the most elite members of Andong Prep, the creme de la creme. Lee Taemin, Jung Krystal, Byun Baekhyun, Kang Seulgi, Kim Jongin, Song Victoria... there seems to be an aura of aristocracy around them, an invisible barrier of untouchability that separates them from the rest of their classmates. Each of them is the heir to a fortune of billions. Each of them possess incredibly attractive features. Each of them is accomplished, revered, feared.

    Untouchable.

    My stomach skitters with trepidation. Steeling my nerves, I stride across the room and head straight towards them.

    If people weren’t already staring at me before, they definitely are now.

    The elites’ eyes bore into me as I near them. Krystal, who is perched in Sehun’s lap, gives me a withering glare as I get closer.

    “Hey, Sehun,” I say casually, keeping the tone of my voice light. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

    His cold brown eyes slide up to mine. “Why?” he asks in a chilly, hostile tone.

    I swallow. “It’s about the Harvest Ball.”

    I become acutely aware of the fact that this room has reached pindrop silence.

    Sehun doesn’t say anything for a moment. But I can feel the spite oozing from his every pore. His friends glower at me with scathing expressions.

    Finally, Sehun tips back in his chair.

    “Are you happy?” he asks.

    I crinkle my eyebrows together. “What?”

    “Are you happy that you have an excuse to talk to me?”

    My eyes widen. “What-,”

    “I couldn’t give a about the Harvest Ball,” Sehun says, his eyes never leaving mine. “And why would I care if someone like you didn’t come to the ball? Some pathetic loser with no friends who’s thinks she’s so cool by ditching Oh Sehun at a dance where they were assigned to be partners? Get over yourself.”

    And as if I am not even there, he turns back to Taemin and starts speaking to him again.

I tear through the hallways, shoving past students, my head whipping around from side to side.

And then I spot a flash of red hair.

I march up to Mark. He is leaning up against the wall, laughing with his friends. When he sees me, his eyebrows pop up in surprise.

“I didn’t say sorry,” I utter, clenching my fists. “So you owe me a favor.”

His friends- aside from JB and Jackson, who exchange uncomfortable looks- look at me in bewilderment.

“Okay, let’s just...,” Mark pulls me to the side. “What is it?”

I stare at him, my eyes blazing with determination.

“Make me popular.”

He blinks. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Why-,”

“You’ll hear about what Sehun said to me pretty soon, after it finishes circulating the gossip grapevine. I’m sick of everyone in this goddamn school looking down on me like I’m a piece of trash, okay? I want to be someone.” I shake my head, muttering, “You wouldn’t understand-,”

    “I do understand.” Mark steps towards me. There is a strange, unreadable look in his eyes.

"Please help me," I say, my voice trembling just the slightest.

He looks at me for a long time.

And then slowly nods.

“Okay, Mihi. I'll help you.”

    A small smile creeps up my lips. “Thank you.”

    “Alright, then.” Taking a deep breath, Mark leads me back to his friends, who have been sneaking curious peeks at us for the last 5 minutes.

“Guys, this is Mihi. She’s in the squad now. Questions?”

    Their jaws drops.

    Finally, Bae Suzy sputters, “Babe. What?”

    “You heard me.” Mark pushes me towards Suzy and her friends Fei, Min, and Jia. “Go work your magic. We’ll meet at the dining hall at 7.”

    “Okay, first of all, what the hell?” Jia protests. “Second of all, we only have till 7? If you want us to... you know-,” she gestures towards my face- “then we’ll need a lot longer than that.”

    “Take as long as you need. She’s our number one priority right now.”

    “Okay, hang on.” Min (I didn’t come up with that ridiculous nickname, okay?) holds up his hands. “Mark. What the is happening?”

    Mark crosses his arms. “Mihi is our ticket to taking down Sehun and his friends once and for all.”

    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Suzy says softly, looping her arm around Mark’s. “Mark... what are you talking about?”

    Mark places a kiss on her head. “Don’t worry, babe. Just trust me on this. Okay?”

    Later- after Mark’s friends have finished ranting about how he’s being so vague and how strange this all is (and then hastily introducing themselves to me), I mutter to Mark, “So how exactly am I our ticket to taking Sehun down?”

    After making sure his friends aren’t watching, the cocky smile slides off his face, replaced by a worried look.

    “I thought you had a plan,” he whispers. “You’re a scholarship student, right? You’re smart.”

    “Mark?” Suzy calls. “Can we talk?”

    “Coming, sweetie!” he says, and after giving me a hasty pat on the back, he rushes away to join his girlfriend.

    I wearily rub my temples. Alright, so I have no idea what I’ve gotten myself into. I’m starting to regret this decision. My request to Mark was something spur-of-the-moment, risen from the humiliation and hatred I felt for Sehun.

    Maybe this will all blow over after a little bit.

“So you’re Kim Mihi?” Wang Fei says, peering at me. “I’ve never seen you around.”

    We’ve been classmates for 3 years, I think, but tell her, “I tend to keep to myself.”

    “None of that anymore,” Lee Min barks. “If you want to hang out with us, you need to go out more and actually talk to people.”

    “Girls, don’t be so hard on her.” Suzy steps out of her dorm room’s bathroom, her arms laden with a multitude of colorful bottles and shiny tubes. “Fei, can you get my straightener? And Min, Jia, can you get some heat protectant from my cupboard? I forgot to grab it from the bathroom.”

    “Sure thing,” Jia mutters, and the three girls hurry away. After they are gone, Suzy turns back to me.

“I heard about what Sehun said to you,” she tells me, her voice full of sympathy.

    “Who hasn’t?” I ask bitterly.

    “Mark explained everything to me. We can make you popular. It’ll take effort on your part, but we can make it happen.”

    I chuckle. “When you say it out loud like that, it sounds so shallow. I’m sorry.”

    “But is it?” Suzy sits down next to me. “Popularity is power. You can do anything if you’re popular- you can get job connections, you can influence people. You can make things happen. People who say popularity doesn’t matter are lying to themselves.”

    My eyebrows shoot up. I had never thought of it that way.

    “Anyway, Mark really wants to help you,” Suzy continues. “My boyfriend has a heart of gold, and he’s determined to make you succeed. I’ll do anything to help.”

    “Thank you.” I smile. Bae Suzy had previously come off as a snobbish pretty girl who was more obsessed with starting drama about her relationship with Mark than doing anything else. But it really seems like she cares about him. “But... Suzy, why exactly does he want to help me? This isn’t some kind of practical joke, right?”

    She shakes her head. “I think Mark kind of... sees himself in you. He knows how it feels to be ignored and looked down on, I guess.”

    “What? How?”

    “Well...,” Suzy bites her lip, debating whether she should speak. “See, Mark wasn’t born wealthy. His family was new money. Everyone shunned him and treated him like trash when he first came here. Of course, as the years went by, people slowly forgot, and he integrated with the rest of us.”

    I bite my lip. “I'm sorry to hear that. It's really nice of Mark and you and everyone to do this for me, though.”

    “Hey, it’s all good! We’re benefitting from this, too. You’re going to take down Sehun.”

    I wince. Before I can tell her that I don’t know exactly how I’m going to manage that, Min, Jia, and Fei burst back into the room.

    “Okay, let’s get started.” Suzy claps her hands. “Fei, Min- the three of us will start working on her face. Jia- start teaching her.”

    “Teaching me what?” I ask, my eyebrows creased in slight anxiety.

    “With pleasure,” Jia grins, and then turns to me with a hardened expression. “Listen up, Kim!” she barks. “If you want to hang out with us, you need to look and act a certain way. Suzy, Min, and Fei are taking care of the former. I’m going to teach you how to not act like a loser.”

    The next several hours are the most brutal, gruesome ones I’ve ever been through. Fei scrubs what feels like sandpaper all over my skin (apparently it’s honey, lemon, and brown sugar to exfoliate me) and Min starts wrapping my hair in aluminum foil after applying bleach and Suzy starts rubbing smelly green paste under my eyes and Jia screams at me the entire time.

    “You need to be interesting! Talk to people! And don’t blabber on about school- the last thing you should talk about is school.”

    I gasp, causing Fei to nearly get the thick jelly she is smearing on my lips into my mouth. “Crap! I totally forgot about my homework! I need to-,”

    “You need to shut up!” Jia hollers. “No! No homework!”

    “But I can’t lose my scholarship-,”

    “Forget your scholarship! Have you ever heard the expression ‘work hard, play hard’?”

    “Okay, but I can’t just forget my scholarship-,”

    “Shut up, Mihi!”

    But I listen to Jia’s words. She starts telling me about all sorts of names: Pucci, Lee Jongsuk, Boys Over Flowers, Teen Vogue, as well as various events occurring in the news. Not the actual news, of course- god forbid these people talk about what their mommies and daddies are doing- but news that concerns the elite of Seoul and the parties in New York and the hottest vacation spots in the Caribbean. And then she tells me about the dynamics of the school- the different groups and the different stereotypes they are associated with.

    “We hate Sehun,” Jia says, crossing her arms. The other girls nod in agreement. “Just know that, okay? No matter what, we will always unconditionally hate him.”

    “Join the club,” I snort. “But why? I thought all popular people were friends?”

    Min lets out a bark of laughter. “Yeah, right. All you need to know is that Sehun and his friends are trash to us.”

I absorb everything. If I want to fit in with the Untouchables, I need to learn this.

    I’ll show them.