**Warning: references to unpleasantness/bullying**

The downside of working with Kyungsoo was that his English was the best in the class – and that he decided about ten minutes in that it would be much more fun to join up with Baekhyun and Sehun, in part because he weirdly found the extract from Julius Caesar that they were doing much more interesting than the passage between Othello and Desdemona that he and Jinsu were supposed to be doing.  When Miss Jung came round to check that they were all working rather than goofing off a little later on, Kyungsoo thoroughly embarrassed Jinsu by reciting his lines passionately and word perfectly while she was still reading them from the script.  Sehun was too busy writing notes in his to really focus on what was going on, but Baekhyun leant back in his chair, snickering every time Jinsu stumbled or made a mistake.  The second Miss Jung was gone, Baekhyun sat up properly and engaged Kyungsoo in conversation about Jinsu as though she wasn’t even there.

“I feel sorry for you having to get paired up with her,” he said.  “You were sounding so good and she has to read the thing off the script.  Pretty obvious she didn’t even understand what half the words meant.”

“I know I don’t,” Sehun mumbled, still annotating.  “Does anybody know how historically accurate Julius Caesar is?  Who was Julius Caesar?”

“Some Roman dude.”  Baekhyun waved an airy hand.  “It’s a play – most of it’s probably fantasy.  Pretty sure he did actually die on the Ides of May, though.”

“March,” Jinsu corrected.  Sehun’s eyes darted briefly to her and then he turned away.

“Oh, shush, nobody wants your opinion,” Baekhyun said patronisingly.

Fed up, Jinsu got to her feet and stalked back over to her vandalised desk.  She slumped down in her seat and got out one of the English books they were encouraged to read in their free time each term, no motivation left to learn her lines.  Kyungsoo came back over a few minutes later and took the book out of her hands, looking irritated, but the second he opened his mouth, Jinsu snapped.

“Get yourself new friends and I’ll pull my weight for us to get the top mark.  Otherwise, screw off.”

He looked absolutely stunned.

Unfortunately, the remark not only got back to Baekhyun and Sehun, but also out to most of the school.  For the rest of the day, jeering laughs of “you’re telling Kyungsoo to get new friends when you have none yourself?” followed her down the corridors, and Baekhyun accosted her just before hometime.

“Rich,” he spat at her.    “Rich, snobby, rude – at least Kyungsoo has friends, which is more than anybody can say about you.”

Jinsu felt anger bubbling up inside her, but then Chanyeol’s body appeared between the two of them as he opened his locker and began transferring books between the locker and his schoolbag.  Baekhyun left to bother other people and Jinsu got back to sorting her own backpack out.

Chanyeol finished long before her and closed his locker door.  Jinsu assumed he’d gone until he cleared his throat just as she was attempting to zip hers up.

“Er. . . how’s your hand?” he asked her.  Jinsu yanked on the zip, but it refused to cooperate.  She waved the splint in his face.

“Broken?” he guessed.

Jinsu gave the uncooperative zip another fruitless tug and gave up with a sigh.  “Chanyeol, you might at least pretend you care before something like this happens.  Just go away.”

He didn’t respond.  Jinsu morosely contemplated her backpack and then hoisted it up onto her back anyway.  The sound of the zip going round reached her ears and she turned to see Chanyeol biting his lip, his hand still on her backpack.

“Are you trying to kill your reputation?” she demanded.  “Go away before somebody sees you fraternising with the enemy.  Seriously.”

His adam’s apple bobbed.  “I’m your cousin,” he protested weakly.

Jinsu rolled her eyes.  “Jeez, I never would have guessed from the way you act.”  Then she glared at him, dropping the sarcasm for real bite.  “Actually, wait, no, I actually never would have guessed, because you sit back and let your best friend insult me and laugh along with it when I’m supposed to be blood related to you.”  She slammed her locker door and stormed off, ignoring Chanyeol calling after her.

Things got progressively worse during the week, and it didn’t help that Jinsu was also beginning to get stressed about the science convention to be held on the Friday evening. In fact, the only positive thing she could really name, what with the stress at home and the unpleasantness at school, was the mystery person who kept leaving chocolate bars in her locker every time something bad happened.

On Tuesday, somebody took the screws out of her chair in maths so that it collapsed when she sat down.  Mr Song put the entire class in detention because the fall had resulted in Jinsu attempting to protect herself with her right hand, and she spent a good half hour or so of the lesson in the infirmary as a result.  Naturally, the entire class was not impressed, and when she got back, she found that all her stationery had been nicked and that some of her papers had been ripped to pieces.

On Wednesday, she was taken by surprise going into one of the girls’ bathrooms when she got a bucket of water thrown on her, destroying all the notes in her backpack and nearly taking out her phone too.  That was another trip to the sickbay because her splint had been drenched and she wasn’t even supposed to get it wet.

Baekhyun couldn’t resist sniggering about it in English, so much so that Jinsu was actually glad when he and Kyungsoo and Sehun ignored her to start talking Julius Caesar instead.

“So I was looking this guy up,” Sehun said.  “And apparently he was the veni vidi vici person.”

Kyungsoo frowned.  “Isn’t that the name of a song?”

“It’s a pretty good motto,” Baekhyun mused.  “I came, I saw, I conquered.  Might adopt it.”  He smirked at Jinsu.  “Maybe even for the bedroom.”

“You’re disgusting,” she muttered.

“You’re a prude,” he shot back.  “Soon to be a shrivelled old prune.”

It was the type of comment that would have made her snort if it was her brother, but it left a bitter taste in coming from Baekhyun, not least because she knew he was deliberately goading her with the bedroom remark.  As far as she could remember, Baekhyun had only ever had two girlfriends, and neither had lasted long.  People seemed charmed by him, but having bumped into him around school once or twice with the girls he was dating, Jinsu was pretty sure that he’d barely got passed kissing either of them.

Miss Jung showed up at that moment, wanting to make sure that they were actually getting on with something, and all four of them were obliged to do their scenes.  Baekhyun an