"You're right, she's nice. Nicer than what I thought of her back then," Seungcheol nods in agreement as the class rumbles in loud chatters talking about past holidays to old friends or enganging in new conversations with newly acquainted classmates. Him and Seungcheol sits in the middle row of the classroom where there are five rows of seats with six sets of a table and a chair for each of their students in each row, so this is a completely different setting unlike back when he was in middle school. Back then, it was this large wooden table for a pair of students, be it in the same gender or the opposite. Cheating is obviously not an option in a setting like this, with quite a wide gap from one table to another, but for cheaters, everything is possible for them. They will make their own resolve with different methods and ways to earn a good score without having to study for it.

"You sure you don't want to sit beside me? The space is still available," Mingyu raises his eyebrow to the direction on his right and Seungcheol only shakes his head, sitting behind him, running fingers through his black hair.

"Nah, I'd rather sit here. Besides, if I fall asleep, I'll have you to cover me. You never fall asleep in classes, man," Seungcheol grins and bumps his fist jokingly to Mingyu's shoulders and he only groans in pretend pain, shaking his head, once again bewildered.

"Seriously, on the first day of school? Bored already?"

"Not bored, more li-never mind. And as what I was saying, your friend there is quite nice."

"I told you so, Cheol," Mingyu doesn't hold himself back from diverting his gaze to the girl sitting only two seats away in front of him, chatting and smiling with Seungwan and Yeri. There is still a hint of surpression on her expression while she responds to Yeri and it's known for the fact she doesn't easily open up to people.

At least, that's what he noticed when he introduced Seungcheol to her and it's normal since they just conversed for more than less ten minutes. Perhaps more. Time seems to roll so fast when he speaks to her.

Mingyu has noticed also that she looks ghostly pale in chopper brown whorls and eyebags below her eyes, her lips plump yet pale.

He was walking into his classroom with Seungcheol after he had been running late preparing himself and doing his own hair (he's good at that these days, he enjoys to look pleasing after all). But all the more reasons are for the fact he had to pick up Nayeon since he promised her.

"Nayeon still likes you," after bicycling his way to her home fastly, he came to a sight of Nayoung walking off the porch. "She is even leaving me for you."

Mingyu shook his head in denial, fixing the straps of his bagpack, making it even by both sides. "You guys assume too much. Between me and Nayeon, it was never real," his eyebrows furrowed in the process of fixing his straps, then he turned to look at her, with his foot on the ground, holding his bike. "You're walking alone then?"

She crossed her arms over her ed blazer, with skirt reaching a little bit too high from her knees since she was also tall, and well, that was expected of these friends of his. He didn't really question their choices in the way they wore their uniforms. It was either because they just found it stylish (like those uniform advertisements he came across in televisions and billboards, and yes, there were already billboards built in this small town of theirs, above buildings in the central town, thankfully there are only a few of it) or because they found it attractive to show a little bit of more skin to boys, teasing their imagination. He didn't delve deep into that, he preferred to not think of his friends in that light. Especially in Nayoung's case, since she was targetting the girls. As far as he had seen, he had never seen her spouting and talking about one specific girl constantly, meaning that she had never met an actual girl with the same ual orientation as her.

He kinda hoped that this was just a phase for her, or not, he was not really familiar with this topic. It would be difficult for her to live in their society that is said to be very conservative in the case of a homoual relationship.

Recalling upon it, it's uncommon to hear this kind of relationship around here. If there are some, they would be hiding it so well from everyone. He had read a few articles he found on the internet though, how those who 'came out of the closet' was still shunned. It all depends on how the closest people will react, by the end of the day. It's the biggest factor that matters.

"Yes, since she is going to ditch me with you, I'm gonna walk alone in my loneliness with no girlfriend to come and pick me up-oh wait, there are only straight people here, right? My bad. The possibility is close to none!" She made a zipping hand movement to her lips, uttering it all in her po-faced expression alias her blank canvas face, meaning that she was not happy at all with all these facts. 

His eyes went alarmed. "Are you crazy? What if your parents hear you?!"

"They're not even home!" Nayoung laughed boisterously, swaying her light brown hair with her movements, laughing up to the sky.

She stopped laughing soon, regaining her composure and she snapped her fingers. "You have to introduce me to those three friends of yours, the female ones of course, forget the boys. Wait-two, because I know Seungwan already even though she is pretty available and single, but Seungcheol," she made an inhumane sound of clicking her tongue while twitching her left eye, as if cringing for his mistake, tapping feet and crossed arms. "Sounds like a bad idea to mess with Seungcheol's old toy-"

His hand tightened around his bicycle's handle. "Seungwan wasn't his toy. I don't like hearing you referring to her in that tone. Seungcheol won't like it either," his eyes hardened more than he intended to and Nayoung arched her eyebrow.

"How can you tell? It's Seungcheol! That boy can't even keep his together in seeing pretty girls! Seungwan was a nice change of scenery since she's not clingy and nice, too. Very nice, I have to admit that-and no, I'm not finished," she settled into a more comfortable standing position, holding out her palm when Mingyu was about to cut her. Nayoung spoke too much of everything, most of the times. Fortunately, on the right time also and doing it very comfortably, bluntly without any filter.

"-once, she comforted me when my team lost in this volley competition, remember? Last September? She told me how there will always be another chance to win and I swear, I would have made my move on her if she wasn't his girl, anyone's girl. But she seems pretty straight so," she dismissed it quickly with a wave of her hand as fast as she brought it up. 

"How can you tell if someone is straight or not?"

She pursed her lips, painted nails in the shade of her lightly brown skin colour scratches on her temple. "I just know. I think, from the way they respond my actions? I've got some experience in hand with a few girls, though they were pretty scared most of the time; about being caught and exposed," she said this in discomfort as her palm fell to rub the back of her neck, looking down at the grey pavements.

"Seungcheol isn't as bad as he used to be-"

"Well, shortly after he broke up with her, he got Mina clinging into him already. If that's not a pretty move I don't know what is, since Seungwan is the nicest girl around his group of ex-girlfriends. It was pretty pathetic to see him fawning over her and not the other way around, but I have to admit they were pretty sweet. Seungwan is a sweet fellow too," Nayoung just uttered it in such a hateful tone Mingyu felt taken aback by it. He didn't expect this at all from her. Especially that slip of a curse coming out from Nayoung. She got a mouthful of profanities, just that it rarely occured in an hour as early as this time.

"But he broke up with her shortly after and he's single until now, that must have meant something. And I don't know you're this pissed off about them breaking up," he tried to keep up with her because as much as he hated to admit it, Seungcheol had been less alive after he broke up with Mina. But it seemed as if Mina was not the main reason for he saw him stealing glances at Seungwan whenever they passed each other or just passed along her with her friends on the canteen.

However, Mingyu doesn't want to ask as he takes a glance back to the lad behind him and returns his focus to Soojung again. He wants Seungcheol to man up and ask him or for the better, confront Seungwan about whatever happened between the two, making them end up in such a sour, platonic relationship (his relationships either ended in catastrophy or ended in a casual and completely laid back way (like how he's still friends with some of his exes). Something serious must have sparked between the two of them, since there is only this ambient of discomfort and awkwardness.

It always made Mingyu turn his eyes away to not flinch at them whenever they passed by each other. He had always silenced himself whenever topics about Seungwan were being brought up in their group.

"He was probably bored with her already, and yeah, I only told you about this. Nayeon already assumed from the start that Seungcheol just wanted to have some variation in his collection of ex-girlfriends; she was just too nice for him," she stated flatly. "Do you want to bet than in one week, Seungcheol will have another girlfriend?"

He fished out his phone from his pocket and looked at the watch. "We don't have time for bets! Where is your sister? I'm not planning to get late on my first day!" It's fourty five minutes away but he doesn't like to risk being late.

"Promise me you will introduce me to Soojung and that blond girl, Seulgi? Wow, she's-" Mingyu got ready for her starting to spout some fawnings and praises about her admiration or attraction to girls, and this time, it was his childhood friend, Kang Seulgi, who looked like she just went through a thunderstorm or some sort of that. 

"She's just so intimidating and flamin' hot, right? I mean, she can glare at me all day and I will savour the fact she spends that much time in looking at me. I mean, I accidentally made an eye contact with her one day in this grocery store, and she was boring lasers to my eyes," she began to squeal, smacking her teeth together. Sometimes, Mingyu couldn't get used to this side of her. It was still strange to see a girl to be attracted to another girl in a completely romantic way. All the girls Nayoung talked about were her target in romance in some sense. Crushes, you can say that. She gets rid of her fascination of Soojung as fast as she flips her palm, though.

"So what if I promise you that?"

"I will call Nayeon now."

"Isn't that too small of a favour for my own?"

"Of course not. Nayeon spends hours in doing her make up."

Mingyu slapped his palm to his face, getting off from his bike and pushed on the pedal so it could hold its own weight, parking it close to the pavements." I knew it, I'm going to be late anyway."

He looked down to her. "Sooner or later, you'll get to know them by yourselves-"

She stared hard at him, telling close to him. "It's different, duh. You're their friends first, they won't feel so judgemental to me since Nayeon already ruined it back then. Seulgi ended up glaring at me also even though I did nothing," she clicked on her tongue repeatedly, showing her disappointment to her fraternal twin.

He didn't reply her and she ended up shrugging it off. "Whatever, then. Anyway, I gotta go. I'm on my own and good luck in waiting for her!" She quickly bidded him goodbye with a slap on his shoulders and strolled along the pathway to the direction of their school.

After that, he had to dial her a few times to call her and he picked up after the fifth ring, then she showed up with no make up, and she said she didn't feel like fixing it in school later and he literally bolted his way to school as Nayeon gripped to his shoulders, constantly hitting his shoulders while complaining. They arrived in school, late enough they missed the whole orientation speech. Not that bad since he was spared from falling asleep in the middle of those long speeches.

Returning back to the present, he can hear loud laughters coming from behind him, and he can see Soojung's cousin, Ten, who already gets along quite well with those around him. He recognizes one of them to be Jaehyun in his brown hair and another three of them looks unfamiliar. Must be students from another middle school here, he thinks. He wonders if they'll be able to get along well, despite his obvious dislike to him at first glance. 

Mingyu finds his eyes wondering to Soojung's chopper brown locks, and how wavy and soft it looks, and also how thick the volume of her hair is as she removes it constantly all to her back.

While he's gazing at her, he is aware of all the girls stealing glances at him, falling into whispers and blushes and he pretends to not see and blurs all things and people that are not her so his eyes are zoomed to only her, to the way Soojung does that thing of paying her full attention to people while propping her chin to her palm. He remembers those days when some girls mocked him for his sunburnt skin and crooked teeth and how these three friends of his were the only exception who never mentioned any of these things.

He didn't read into it too much, but growing up and with all these attention he received, despite feeling somewhat excited with that limelight above his head, he grew aware of all the things in the past he thought didn't matter. How Seulgi mocked him for his height, how Seungwan debunked her theory for her existence of puberty (and it did a lot of wonders to him), how Soojung never mentioned any of these things and just kept sharing and sharing her love for the stars, those planets and all these things about astronomy.

He remembers also how her persistence in getting every one of them interested in her hobby vexed him a lot of time, but it doesn't matter now that they are already this big, not far yet not close either from their years of adolescence. Mingyu is reminded how throughout all those years, the one thing that doesn't change is the way Soojung looks at people, the way she looks at him. She still owns that wondrous expression of showing her curiousity towards things that interest her. He kinda saw that back then, when she absorbed and buried herself between those heavy, thick and scientific books that bored the soul out of him, and still is.

If there is one girl who is worth staring and have his whole attention, it would be her for all the history they had in the past.

"Poor girl will melt if you stare at her for too long!" a familiar voice booms to his ears as a pair of hands bounce to his shoulders making him jolt awake.

"What the f-" he turns to the sight of Junghan in his short black hair, jumping into a high five with Seungcheol. "Wait, you're in this class?"

"Obviously," he replies, pushing his hair off his face with his strong yet playful gaze and a set of cheekbones that accentuate his defined features. It's his old soccer pal back in middle school when he was still in the team. "Who's that? I haven't seen her around here before," he drops his bag carelessly to his chair and shrugs his blazer out of his body, dropping it into the table. "It's so uncomfortable wearing this blazer."

He narrows his eyes at Junghan. "It's Soojung, can't you recognize her?"

He stops tapping on his feet while his eyes scan around the room sitting, slowly turning his eyes to him, an amused and shocked look drawn on his expression, his eyes startled. "Wait, that's Soojung? I mean, she is back?!"

Seungcheol butts in, questionable look drawn on his fair face, fingers combing his eyebrows. "You know her?"

"I was pretty much in the same elementary school with her-with Mingyu also-but back then, I only knew Soojung. We were in the same class on 6th grade-"

Mingyu nods along to him,"-you two stayed up late after school researching for that science project right? Regarding stars and all that?"

He grins brightly. "Yeah, back in the days she was the only one I could talk to about that topic, and we went serious about it since we loved it. But now, I can barely remember anything about it. How did you know?" 

He almost says that she told everyone and him, The Cosmic Children, about it. But he is not sure if he is still a part of that group and that group itself is actually a secret between the six of them. "She told me. That's all."

Junghan glances at the clock in the top front of the classroom. "Wait, what time is it, how come the teacher hasn't come in? It's half past 9 already!"

"Bullseye, here comes the teacher," Seungcheol snickers as the students scramble to their seats when a middle-aged male teacher walks into their class, clad in a blue shirt tucked into black slacks and a pair of dress shoes. Typical clothings for teachers, as always, like the ones his father have in his closet.

There is a little bit hint of grey lines on his hair, falling into a center parting. Behind him, trails a familiar brown haired lad with hair falling shortly above his eyes, bobbing up and down as he rubs on his eyes sleepily and plops down on a seat beside Soojung, right beside the door.

"Is that Jongin?" Junghan muses, astonishment is drawn on his face. "Wow, he's pretty brave to go here remembering he chickened out last year and transferred out of school because he got bullied. Newsflash, his bully alias Baekhyun goes here, everyone."

"Wait, that goes here too?" Mingyu grits through his teeth, keeping his voice low as he turns to Junghan on his left.

He shrugs and suddenly he turns and keeps his head forward, posture transfixed and his expression frozen and flat. Mingyu reads his lips movement, words muttered hurriedly before closing shut . 

"We better shut the up because that teacher is looking at us," he hisses in panick.

He looks up to look at the teacher who stops their gaze at them, and giving him a thin smile, his eyes continue to scan the whole classroom. Strange. 

Mingyu holds another sigh behind, as he is going to face another three years of struggling and juggling things and priorities on his hands.

He's already in his own thoughts, molded by it as he listens to the teacher intently, to notice that Soojung's eyes are fixed to Jongin's fingers constantly rubbing on his eyes who stare down at the table, as if any sooner he'd collapse soon and fall asleep right there, being able to relate him to herself that is tired beyond her soul for watching the stars slept through her opened eyes, in order to soothe a certain worry that is chanting itself like a mantra slowly, but surely into a possibility that will come true sooner or later.