It takes me an additional 2 hours to get ready the next morning. Suzy has to run to my room at 7 in the morning and hastily do my makeup, but it’s worth it.

    “Here’s how the day goes,” Min informs me as we stride through the empty courtyard. “We meet the guys in front of the Fluck building and eat breakfast together. After every period, we meet by the water fountains near the terrace on the third floor. Our lunch table is in the middle of the dining hall and all of us buy the express meal with a side salad. No entrees, no snacks, no juice or soda. After school we head to our sports practices- you don’t play a sport, right?”

    “Nope,” I say.

    “Are you in any clubs or organizations?”

    I sheepishly scratch my head. “Uh, I did Quiz Bowl for a semester-,”

    “Oh, god,” Fei moans.

    “Could you have picked a nerdier thing to do?” Jia asks, and my face burns with embarrassment.

    Suzy frowns. “Hey, give her a break. She’s still learning. Mihi, find a few clubs you like and we’ll tell you if you should join them. Okay?”

    “Got it.”

“Holy ,” we hear some gasp. The 5 of us swivel around.

JB, Jackson, and Mark are staring at me, their jaws hanging. A twinge of self-consciousness pricks at me as I attempt to look poised and confident. Behind me, I can hear Jia and Fei exhale with satisfaction.

“You look like a new person,” Jackson utters, eyeing me from head to toe. “Suzy, Fei, Jia, Min... you girls are truly skilled.”

Suzy laces her fingers into Mark’s. “It took us a long time, but Mihi was pretty to start with.”

I flush. “Oh, please. You flatter me.”

Jia grabs my arm. “Mihi, you need to walk in there with your face on. None of that slouching or walking with your head down. Stand straight and act confident. That’s the most important thing.”

I swallow, thinking of Sehun and his friends staring at me from their table. “Understood.”

“And don’t forget! Bring us a list of clubs you want to join by this afternoon.”

Jesus, this is like a class all on its own.

JB is still staring at me. Jackson is pulling out his phone, a grin on his faces.

“I’m going to record everyone’s reactions as we walk in,” he sniggers. “This is going to be great.”

    He’s right. It is great.

    Yesterday, everyone had been gossipping about how Sehun dissed me. They had chuckled about how much of a loser I was, how desperate I was.

    But the moment I stride into the room, a haughty expression on my face, followed by Fei, Suzy, Jia, Min, Mark, JB, and Jackson, the cafeteria goes completely silent. Everyone’s eyes are riveted to my face in absolute awe.

    See, when the plainest, dorkiest, most invisible loser turns into a gorgeous brunette, who’s started hiking her plaid skirt up 6 inches and undoing the top 2 buttons of her uniform shirt, and is currently making her way across the dining hall with some of the coolest kids in school, it’s bound to turn heads.

    Including Oh Sehun’s. My eyes subtly search him out. He is sitting at the center lunch table with Krystal and Baekhyun and all his friends, his blond hair mussed up just the right amount. He is in the middle of snickering at a joke Chanyeol has just told when he sees me.

    He freezes.

    A smirk tugs at my mouth.

    I strut down to the lunch line and grab a tray. “You’re doing great,” Fei whispers in my ear. “Remember what I told you. Half a grapefruit, cottage cheese, handful of grapes, cup of water. Nothing else.”

    My stomach angrily growls in protest. Mark hears this and starts chuckling.

    “Stop eating healthy breakfasts,” he jokes as he piles on sausage, waffles, syrup, and bacon onto his plate. “You’re making me feel guilty.”

    “Suzy!” someone chirps. All of us turn. Park Bom, an attractive senior (who reeks of designer perfume), grins at us with an enormous smile plastered on her face. Although her expression is friendly, there is something fake about it- and the calculating look in her eyes supports my hunch.

    “Morning, Bom!” Suzy squeals in a falsetto. “How was the party last night? We didn’t get a chance to go.”

    “Oh, trust me, you didn’t miss anything,” Bom laughs. Her unnerving gaze turns to me. “Who’s this? I’ve never seen her around before!”

    I don’t miss the pointed look Jia and Min shoot each other. Yeah, right, their expressions seem to scream. I snigger internally.

    “Hi, I’m Mihi,” I tell Bom, a sweet smile on my face. “Nice to meet you. I love your bag. That’s the new Gucci Leather Tote, right?”

    Bom’s eyebrows skyrocket. “Well, well. Yes, it is. How did you know?”

    Jia showed me one during her Popularity 101 Crash Course. “I saw it in the latest edition of... uh...-,”

    “Vogue,” Min cuts in. “We were looking through the August edition last night, and we thought it was super cute. I have the Animalier shoulder bag in purple.”

    Thank you, Min, I think, sending her a silent prayer.

    “Mm. That’s nice. Bom turns back to me. She appraises me for a moment, and then gives me a small nod. “Anyway, Mihi. I guess I’ll see you around.”

    As she prances back to her table to give all her friends the details of our interaction, I have the remote feeling that I have passed a test of some kind. At least I didn’t have a nervous breakdown and blank out on the name of her damn bag. Ugh, that bag. When Jia was blabbering on about it last night, she mentioned that it costs 3 million won. 3 million.

    “Who’s this? I’ve never seen her around before?” Jia mocks, and then scoffs. “What a . She’s so freaking fake.”

    Suzy rubs her temples. “She’s a headache. But hey, you did well, Mihi. This is your first step.”

    “Thanks for saving me, Min,” I tell her.

Min bats her hand. “It was nothing. Actually, I completely made that up. How do I know if it came from Vogue? I forgot, too.”

“What a mess,” I grumble.

“Bom’s always scared me,” JB confesses to me as we head over to a lunch table near the center right of the cafeteria. “Once, at this party last year, she chugged half a bottle of whiskey and went absolutely wild. She did things that night that I never want to think about again.”

I lean forward, curious. “No way. Like what?”

JB pretends to look skeptical. “Do you really want to know?”

“Tell me.”

“Well... it involves Vaseline, a 2-liter bottle of root beer, and a spatula. Need I say more?”

I burst out laughing. “What? How do those 3 things even relate-,”

Suddenly, someone slams into my shoulder. A cup filled with sticky amber liquid falls all over me, completely drenching my shirt. JB and I look up in shock.

Oh Sehun is standing in front of me, an empty glass of apple juice in his hand. There is a cold sneer on his face as he looks down at me. His friends are snickering behind him. The cafeteria goes completely silent for the second time this morning.

“Whoops,” he smirks.

JB grits his teeth next to me, and I see Mark, Jia, Fei, Suzy, and Jackson rise up from our lunch table in anger. But something hits me: this is my defining moment. They can doll me up all they want, feed me all the designer names they want, but in the end, my social status depends on how I act. If they try to back me up, I’ll look weak. If I apologize, I’ll look weak. If I ignore him, I’ll look weak.

Stand straight and act confident, Fei’s voice echoes in my head.

And before I fully consider the implications of what I’m about to do, my hand involuntarily grabs the glass of water on my tray and slowly empties its contents on Sehun’s head.

“Whoops,” I utter.

And then I coolly brush past him and his friends and take a seat next to Mark.

The entire student body of Andong Preparatory gapes at me as I calmy pop grapes into my mouth.

I am happy that they cannot see that my hands are shaking.

    Sehun is frozen in place. Water is dripping off his hair and onto his uniform top. He has not moved an inch since I strode away.

    And then I turn to Jackson, who is gawking at me, and remark nonchalantly, “Not eating? Your plate has chocolate croissants and ham and cheese perogies. Do you realize how lucky you are?”

He snaps his mouth shut. “Then why don’t you have some? Jia, Fei, Suzy, Min- look away,” he adds with a crooked smile.

Fei rolls her eyes. “Stop trying to ruin her health. We don’t all have the metabolisms of freaking cheetahs,” she says, and everyone at our table bursts into laughter.     

    This seems to jolt Sehun out of his stupor. He slowly swivels around, faces me. The look on his face causes a chills of terror to run down my spine.

It is an expression of cold fury.

    “What the ,” he hisses, “do you think you just did?”

    At that moment, the entire setup of this chessboard becomes apparent.

    “Are you happy?” I coolly ask Sehun.

    Check.

    He narrows his eyes. “Happy?”

    I lean back in my chair. “Happy that you have an excuse to talk to me.”

    And I turn away from him and casually resume my conversation with Jackson.

    Mate.

    Everyone has a defining moment.

    And judging by the collective gasp that rises up from the cafeteria; the looks of astonishment and shock on the faces of my peers; the growing beam on Mark’s face-

    This is mine.