Jihoon already told Soohyun that his parents won’t come and the principal was ok with it. He’s not mad or asked Jihoon’s parents to come home. He was cool with it. 

“Seungkwan, are your parents coming?” Jihoon was sipping his cup of coffee that he made this morning. He didn’t have early class and same goes to Chan and Seungkwan. Three of them decided to chill and talk about stuff in the living room instead of doing homeworks.

“Yeah. Both of them are coming. I don’t know what will happen to me once they’re here.” Seungkwan was about to cry when he knew his parents would come. He love them, but not at this time. He was positive his mother would ask him the same question every time she came to this school. If she didn’t ask him in front of everyone then maybe he would ask him when Seungkwan was with his friends. That would be more embarrassing than ever.

“She would ask me if I like anyone at this school and she would set up a date for me. If I said I don’t like anyone, she would ask every student at this school to go out with me. She would keep asking until someone said yes. Last year I manage to stop her because I was sick and have fever. I was lucky that time because I can’t even move a finger when I’m sick. But right now, I don’t think I can escape anymore.” Seungkwan massage his temples because of the dizziness he felt when he thought about his mother coming to this school.

Jihoon was laughing until his stomach hurt. He almost fell from the sofa because of Seungkwan story about his mother. It is because he never thought Seungkwan mother would be like that. He never met her, but the way Seungkwan told him about his mother made him feel curious. Does his mother really want to set him up with some strangers? Or maybe she just wants Seungkwan to be happy and didn’t grow old alone. He knew when he met her later.

Jihoon wiped his tears with the back of his hand. He was still smiling and he shook his head when Seungkwan pouted at him. Seungkwan had his arms cross against his chest. He was shooting daggers at Jihoon but the older just shrug him. Chan was going out because he need to meet someone. Jihoon already told Seungkwan about his parents not coming to school and Seungkwan nearly hit him. He was so jealous because his parents would come every year.

“I remember something. What does the red stripe means? Sometimes I saw people with blue stripe and sometimes yellow. What does that mean?” Jihoon asked. He sitted himself far from Seungkwan because the younger ones seems to be mad at him and could kill him if he sit too close to him.

“Seriously? You don’t know.” Seungkwan eyed Jihoon with his are-you-kidding-me-face. He doesn’t know what does stripes means? Even people who didn’t attend this school knew what does the stripes means. Jihoon pursued his lips and shook his head. He really don’t know. Never heard of it.

“Well, as you know, there are 3 colors of stripes. Yellow, blue and red. Yellow is for those who are starting to learn about basics things easy to say for the beginners. For example, music notes, name of instruments, and more. But they only learn the basics. But of course, the yellow stripe has assignment to do. If they fail, they would be expelled. Because learning basics things are so easy and if they fail, then they are not good enough to stay here. Some people were expelled because of their fail results. Yellow only have one stripe. Blue is a bit different. They would separate us and place us in the right place. Like me, I’m blue stripe. I’m in the vocal major. I sing. For Chan, he was a blue stripe but he’s in dance major. Same goes to Jun-hyung. For vocal students like me, we get to learn how to control our voices. We learn to hit the high note and also the low note. We also learn to stabilize our voices when we’re out of breath although it makes no sense at all. Not only that, I also learn how to dance. Because we could take two majors once we have two stripes. Me and Chan have two stripes. Chan are taking major in dance and rapping. Blue have two stripes. Red is the highest one out of those three. It not that hard to get 2 red stripes, but for a students to get 3 red stripes are a bit, difficult. It like, impossible. Most students in this school graduate with 2 red stripes, only few of them, oh wait, non of them have 3 red stripes. No one had ever been into the third level of red stripe. Until, Choi Seungcheol break the record. He’s the first one to get 3 red stripes. He’s literally amazing, everyone wants to be with him and team up with him. Even I want. He compose song, most of his songs is rap and it really good. I’ll let you listen to it later. Red stripe students are learning about composing. Self produce music. They created their own music for their assignment and sometimes mix and match. They also learn to create music. The music needs to have a singer, a dancer and a rapper. It depends on how much you want but that 3 is a must be. For those with 3 stripes are people that incredibly amazing. They are like, the role models to all students in this school. I’ve only seen one before. Choi Seungcheol, even Soonyoung got 2 stripes. It was hard for him because he’s in dance major. Seungcheol is in rap major. But I bet rap and dance are both hard. No, all is hard. Sing, dance and rap, they all hard. Non of them is easy.” Seungkwan explain everything to Jihoon, from A to Z, he didn’t miss any details. Maybe he miss certain parts where he find it didn’t matter or not that important to remember.

Jihoon was cursing in his brain because he has 3 stripes. The red one. How can he get the red stripe on his first day at school? Does the teacher know about his activity from his old school? No, it can’t be. His school is not that famous and it a village school. There is no way:-

“Which colors are you hyung?” Seungkwan asked, this time Chan is with them. Jihoon mentally cursed Seungkwan in his head. How was he supposed to tell his friends about his 3 red stripes? He was new at this school and he barely knew where the toilets are. –I’m red. I got 3 stripes, can you believe that? On my first day of school.- Stupid. He was not going to say that.