Of all the terrible circumstances Kwan Choyoung, the girl sitting directly in the front row completely exposed to her homeroom teacher’s Spray Area, had pulled herself through, it hardly seemed fair that this would be the one to grab her in such a bind.

A literal bind.

With a loud thud, the bespectacled girl’s pink bento since middle school hit the table. As all eyes shifted to the unofficial-but-still-designated first year era, they watched as Choyoung and a fellow classmate settled themselves at the table no one wanted to sit at - the dejected table not too far away from the dark corner of the lunch room and the trash bins. The table late-comers to the lunch period were exiled to. Ignoring the critical stares boring into the back of her skull, Choyoung walked the walk of shame to where she had furiously thrown her chopsticks, while the other buried her face into her hands.

“You could make less of a scene, you know?” The older girl across the table hissed at Choyoung, leaning over so far forward that her high-tied ponytail dangled almost at the front of her face, “News flash - not everyone has to feel terrible because you feel terrible!”

An inhuman groan grumbled from the back of Choyoung’s throat as she shoved her childish bento over to the next seat before tugging at her bottom lip. As she peeled it away, her face wrinkled in both pain and disgust - that rawness was intense. After having caught her lips on her wires countless of times yesterday, she found herself tasting the metallic taste of her own blood’s iron tinting . Even lip balm or petroleum jelly didn’t help in this case. Not to mention, the soreness of her gums had almost numbed - but not in the ice numbing way, the so-much-pain-it-doesn’t-even-feel-like-pain-anymore kind of numb.

The day prior was an actual struggle: the pack of frozen peas she pressed to her cheeks eventually made the pain away until it was time for her to go to sleep and the uncomfortable feeling of the now-rough and bumpy surface of her skin brushing and latching onto her lips returned. The hours she spent tossing and turning on her bed the previous night were evident in the designer dark circles forming under her eyes. And even this morning she was late for first bell because she took so long eating and her parents wouldn’t let her leave without her at least shoving a slice of toast down if she had to. Stupid braces made everything she did look stupid.

“Shut. Up. Choyoung,” her friend glared, eyes darting side to side at the rest of the students and back to Choyoung, “Everyone. Is. Staring,”

Annoyed, Choyoung let out another groan - this time louder than her first one - before sliding into her seat with a defeated wail. With her head thrown back over the edge of the backrest, her glasses slipped from her nose and onto the floor with a clang. Another groan.

A few chuckles came from the nearby upperclassmen, while others who didn’t quite grasp the situation returned to their own conversations. Moonbi - or Bee, as everyone seemed to eventually call her the more they got lazy - rubbed her temples, clearly irritated at her rather openly pessimistic friend. All she wanted to do was eat lunch as normal as she possibly could. Just like every normal high schooler on television. Nothing else. But Choyoung - her best friend of eight years - with all her verbal complaining, and melodramatic gestures made the whole “normal” concept difficult. Folding under the pressure, Bi grabbed her own tray and seat-hopped beside Choyoung, offering her own lunch to the pained girl, “Here, eat this. You don’t even have to eat the noodles; all you have to do is drink the broth. No chewing involved,”

Wrinkling her nose at the sighs of the probably-already cold bowl in front of her, she could practically feel the oily broth trickling down , leaving a chilled sensation. She could almost taste the flavors of the once-individual ingredients in the broth fused together as it slid past her tongue. And honestly, even the word ‘soup’* itself was weird. Just the thought of someone whispering that god-awful word in her ear had she not known what it meant was enough to send shivers along the entirety of her body.

She hated soup with a passion, and it was practically an offense to her entire existence that she was lowered to such a status where she was absolutely obligated to eat soup. Oh how she hated her braces with a passion.

But an all-too-familiar phrase she’s said at least a hundred times that day (if you hadn’t guessed by now, it’s along the lines of hurting), stopped her halfway from eating.

“My mouth hurts, my gums hurt - hell even my teeth hurt! I don't think teeth are even supposed to hurt!!”

Her head instinctively whipped around towards the direction of the second year tables - eyes widening on sight of the complaining student. There he was. A tiny-eyed second year who looked like Xiaolin Showdown’s Omi, cupping the sides of his face with his hands and patting it tenderly. Through the thin crack between his lips, a metallic shimmer gleamed from a pair of all-too-familiar wires - he had braces too. Unconsciously, Choyoung found herself her lips as he ran his tongue over his own. She couldn’t help but sympathize with him, practically feeling the pain he was enduring. Hell, it even hurt watching him pull his lips away from the protruding wires - she could almost taste the iron taste of blood seeping into her taste buds.

She didn’t even realize how l