“Befriend the Jihoon boy.”

It was such a silly mission, really. It was the stupidest mission that he had ever been asked to take on. He had been asked to break into houses, to crawl through air conditioning vents, to spy on people, to shoot people with anesthetics, to confiscate dead bodies, and to use knives to hurt people… but never had he ever been asked to befriend someone.

He walked through the gates of the school where he was to meet this “Lee Jihoon.” He was to act a few years younger and pretend to be a new student. His employers had obviously gone through a lot of effort to get him the fake identity under the alias of “Seungcheol” (as opposed the name he usually went by, S.Coups). Even though he didn’t understand why he was asked to do this, he knew that that it was important given how much effort was put into it.

His employers were the Kim family. This family was a major business player in Korea, along with the Lee family, to whom “Jihoon” apparently belonged. These two families were ultimate rivals, constantly at war, constantly in competition with one another. They were fighting to dominate the market, to become monopolies and steal profits from one another. In order to monopolize, they had to destroy each other.

This is why the Kim family employed an underground secret intelligence under which Seungcheol worked: to destroy the Lee family. There were about forty people in this secret service including Seungcheol, made to assassinate, to spy, to steal, to hurt, to inflict as much damage on the Lee family as possible.

Seungcheol was not entirely sure if the Lee family used such techniques, but he honestly didn’t care. He didn’t care about either of the families; he didn’t care if the Kims won or lost. He didn’t even know what market they were fighting to dominate. All he cared about was getting enough money to live, and this “job” was giving it to him.

He walked to the school office and handed in the enrollment paperwork. The lady at the desk signed it, did a few things on her computer and wrote a number on a sticky note. She handed it to him, along with a slip of paper.

“Go to that classroom, and give the teacher this slip. Welcome to Pledis High. We hope you’ll enjoy your days here,” the woman said robotically. Seungcheol took the papers from her and walked out.

He walked by a couple kissing, a bunch of girls giggling, some jocks talking about a football game, students rushing to their classes, a boy flirting with a girl, another one complaining about an exam that he had.

High school. He never went to high school, but he’d seen enough films to know what it was like. He thought he had successfully gotten out of going through this phase, but no. There he was, in the midst of the entire sweaty, mean, pompous, awkward, hormonal, stressed out bunch of teenagers. There he was, in the same uniform they all wore.

The fact that he didn’t have to go through high school was one of the very few perks of having the kind of life that he had. His parents had abandoned him at a very young age, and so he lived the majority of his childhood in an orphanage. He spent a few years there, but hated it. He ran away at fifteen. He was a homeless beggar for months, before someone offered him the job he currently had: a spy.

This identification is tattooed on his left shoulder permanently. The mark of the Kim family has been etched onto his skin as soon as he enrolled as part of this secret service. It was to symbolize the permanence of his decision; he was perpetually tied to this espionage life, and the only way he could quit was by dying.

After searching for a few minutes, he found his classroom. Class had already started when he knocked on the door before opening it. He handed the slip of paper to the teacher, who scanned it for a second.

“Class, this is our new student. Please stand here and introduce yourself,” she said to him

Seungcheol stood where the teacher had pointed. His eyes scanned the classmates seated in front of him. He was looking for that Jihoon boy. He had seen a picture of him when he was given the mission, but as he scanned the classroom, he couldn’t seem to recognize any of the faces as Jihoon's.

He cleared his throat and proceeded with his introduction, “Hello. My name is Seungcheol, and I just moved here from Daegu. I look forward to working with you all,” Seungcheol bowed. When he straightened his back, he scanned his classmates again more carefully, looking for the Jihoon boy. He was nowhere in sight.

“You can take a seat in the back,” the teacher said, pointing at the empty seat in the very back row.

Seungcheol bowed again and walked up to that seat. He kept looking for the Jihoon boy as he walked. He wasn’t there. He must be, though, Seungcheol thought. They made sure to enroll me in his class.

There was an empty seat that obviously belonged to someone though, and Seungcheol conjectured that maybe that seat was Jihoon’s. Or maybe he had forgotten the face in the photo. Or maybe the boy changed since taking the photo.

As he was walking to his seat, one of the boys had stuck out his foot in the aisle. Seungcheol, trained in self-defense, would not fall for such an amateur high school trick. Almost instinctively, he turned to face boy who had stuck out his feet and grabbed his collar, ready to beat him for playing such a trick.

As Seungcheol looked into the mischievous boy’s eyes, he recognized who it was. He’d seen pictures of him with his employer. Kim Mingyu. The son of the owner of the Kim enterprise, his employer. Despite realizing that Mingyu was the son of his employer, Seungcheol would not let the boy go. He didn’t care who this punk was; no one tries to humiliate him and gets away with it.

“Kim Mingyu,” Seungcheol said ominously.

“How did you…?” Mingyu asked, surprised that Seungcheol knew his name.

“That’s not important. Know if you do that again, you’re dead,” Seungcheol threatened.

“Let him go, Seungcheol!” the teacher yelled.

Seungcheol let him go violently, scowling at him before walking to his chair.

Great. Before he had even taken a seat, he had managed to get yelled at by the teacher and make a rival, who happened to be his employer’s son. Not to mention the fact he hadn’t found the Jihoon boy. Things were not going very well for him at all.

He was in a pissed off mood for the entirety of the lesson. He tried to listen to the teacher, but she was much too boring and he was much too troubled to even try to concentrate for more than ten minutes.

The class dragged on, and when the bell rang, Seungcheol wanted nothing more but to get out of there. Unfortunately for him, the teacher wouldn’t let him.

She kept him after class to give him his books, his schedule, and go over class rules, and to warn him against fighting in class again and all of that boring stuff. He nodded to everything she was saying, not really caring. He wasn’t there to learn and to be a good student. He was there to “befriend” that Jihoon.

He took his books and left the classroom, wanting nothing more but to get out of there and get leads as to where to find Jihoon. His wish was not granted, unfortunately. There, outside of the classroom, Kim Mingyu was waiting for him. The last thing Seungcheol wanted was to deal with him now.

Seungcheol scowled at him and walked past.

“Too scared to face me I see,” Mingyu yelled.

“Scared? Scared my ,” Seungcheol spat at him, “now make yourself useful and tell me where I might find Lee Jihoon.”

Mingyu narrowed his eyes curiously. “What do you want with him? And how do you even know him?”

“If you can’t tell me, back off,” Seungcheol spluttered, walking away. Unexpectedly, Mingyu didn’t follow him.

Seungcheol walked aimlessly through the hallways, looking at the faces of the random passer-bys. None of them seemed to be the Jihoon he was looking for.

It took Seungcheol a good five minutes to realize that what he was doing was ridiculous. He wasn’t going to find the Jihoon by trial and error. He needed to actually investigate.

He stopped a random student that he recognized was in his class.The student smiled at him brightly.

“Do you know where I can find Lee Jihoon?” Seungcheol asked him after a brief introduction.

“Jihoon? Jihoon never comes to class,” the student named Soonyoung explained.

“Why not?”

“He’s scared. He’s always bullied by Mingyu, because of their family rivalry or whatever. So Jihoon just stopped coming to class.”

“But wouldn’t that mean he fails?”

“His father is powerful. I’m sure he’s made negotiations with the school. Jihoon is smart though. He’ll pass high school with flying colors without attending any classes.”

“I see. Does he ever come to school at all?”

“He comes during his music composition classes three times a week because Mingyu doesn’t take that class.”

Seungcheol looked at his schedule. He had that music class too.

“Thanks,” Seungcheol told Soonyoung before walking away.

He decided to skip the rest of his classes. He knew that he probably would leave a terrible first impression to his teachers and his classmates, but he didn’t care. The only reason he was there was for the Jihoon boy, and the boy won’t be at school until tomorrow.

He sneaked out through the school fire exit, made his way through the forest surrounding the school. He walked for about half an hour until he heard running water nearby. Curious, he approached the sound.

In an outrageous coincidence, he found Jihoon sitting there. The boy was seated with his back against a tree beside a small creek, reading a book. When he heard Seungcheol’s approaching footsteps, his eyes flickered from his book up at the older boy.

Seungcheol recognized the face as the same face from the picture. A cute face with this industrious demeanor. Seeing him up close was a different experience for Seungcheol. The Jihoon boy looked pure, innocent, angelic, and childlike almost, as if every corrupt thing out there had not yet touched him. There was also the fear that was kindled in his eyes when he saw Seungcheol approach, making him seem even more vulnerable than he already looked.

“W…who are you?” the Jihoon boy stuttered.

Seungcheol stood there idly, not knowing what do. He was not prepared for this. He didn’t expect to meet the Jihoon boy like this so soon. He hadn’t planned out what he was going to do or say. He didn’t know how to befriend anyone. He realized then that he was not giving Jihoon a very good first impression.

“I… I… uh…” Seungcheol stuttered. Jihoon seemed to relax at the fact that Seungcheol was stuttering, as if he had realized that Seungcheol was not a threat to him.

“Are you a new student?” he asked.

“Yes,” Seungcheol said.

“Are you lost?”

“Yes,” Seungcheol answered even though he really wasn’t.

“Do you want me to help you find your way back to school?” Jihoon offered.

Seungcheol nodded. He didn’t know what had gotten into him all of the sudden, but he couldn’t seem to think properly in front of Jihoon all of the sudden. And so all he could do was affirm everything that this Jihoon boy was saying.

Jihoon marked his page, put his book in his bag and rose from the ground. It then struck Seungcheol just how little Jihoon was.

“School is that way,” Jihoon pointed in the direction of the school, “come on, I’ll walk you.”

Jihoon led the way, and Seungcheol followed, using the time to think of a way to “befriend” him. This is a first impression, and first impressions were important.

He realized how bad and inexperienced he was with this. He was able to effortlessly sneak into any home without being noticed, but it suddenly donned on him how difficult “befriending” someone would be.

How do you make friends? Seungcheol didn’t have any friends. He had acquaintances, but no friends. He lived his life in solitude, fending for himself and living only to survive. Friends were not necessary for survival. On the contrary, making emotional attachments with people would only bring you pain. Seungcheol learned that from when his parents abandoned him.

He realized that maybe he should introduce himself to the boy.

“Hi, I’m Seungcheol,” Seungcheol said stopping midway in his tracks and extending his arm.

“Hi,” the boy replied, smiling brightly, “I’m Jihoon.” Jihoon shook his hand and the continued to walk.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Seungcheol continued robotically. As much as he tried to sound friendly, he could not help the mechanical undertone of his words. He sounded as if he were programmed to say these things, and he knew it wasn’t very welcoming.

“Nice to meet you too, Seungcheol,” Jihoon said. A silence ensued between them, and Seungcheol hated that. He knew this befriending thing was not going well judging by the way Jihoon walked. Quickly, as if wanting to get rid of the burden that was Seungcheol as soon as possible. The fact he didn’t even try to initiate conversation or anything also made Seungcheol quite restless. How was he supposed to succeed if Jihoon’s first impression of him was this?

“So what were you reading back there?” Seungcheol asked, trying to initiate conversation.

“1984,” Jihoon answered with a smile.

“Is that a history book?” Seungcheol asked with narrowed eyes.

Jihoon stopped midway in his tracks and looked at Seungcheol curiously, “you don’t know 1984?”

Seungcheol shook his head.

Jihoon blinked at Seungcheol, looking at him as if that was the most surprising thing he had ever heard. “How can you not have heard of 1984?”

“I’m… sorry?” Seungcheol asked. Well, crap. That was not a good start for Seungcheol.

“No, don’t apologize. I was just surprised, that’s all,” Jihoon shrugged and carried on walking.

They didn’t talk for the rest of the way. Seungcheol suddenly felt too stupid to talk to Jihoon, and he was afraid that if he said anything else, Jihoon’s first impression of him would be worse than it already is. He decided to just keep quiet and try his luck the next time they met.

That night, Seungcheol looked up 1984. It is a renowned novel by George Orwell, written in 1939 about the projected future in 1984. It turns out that it is the most famous political novel of all time, so famous that real politicians refer to it as the paradigm of totalitarianism.

No wonder Jihoon thought I was an idiot for not knowing it, Seungcheol thought.

-

He had to go to class the next day, unfortunately. Apparently, the school had called his superiors (who posed as his guardians) and told them that he had skipped the previous day. Unfortunately for him, he had to attend all classes from then on or he would be expelled. His superiors would not be very happy about that at all.

He had to stay in school, attend his classes, pass the classes and not get into trouble. All of that just so he can succeed in his mission to “befriend the Jihoon boy.”

After his first class, he was met with quite an unwelcome situation. Mingyu.

Mingyu pushed him in the middle of the hallways, glaring at him, calling him to fight. Seungcheol knew it was a trap. To fight Mingyu would mean expulsion, and he wouldn’t risk it. As much as he wanted to punch Mingyu in the face and make him bleed, he knew he couldn’t.

Seungcheol ignored as Mingyu shoved him around. He knew he seemed vulnerable and weak to all of the passer-bys, and he hated that. He wanted to yell at Mingyu, but he knew that any kind of verbal reaction from him would do no more but encourage Mingyu to keep at his bullying.

When Mingyu had become impatient, he became a lot more violent. He kicked Seungcheol in the shin so hard, Seungcheol fell to the ground in agony.

“What’s wrong?” Mingyu asked, “Are you afraid? Why aren’t you being as ballsy as you were yesterday, huh? Why?”

Mingyu kicked again, but this time, Seungcheol was able to get off the floor quickly and dodge it.

“Mingyu, would you just stop?!” came the voice of Jihoon. Mingyu turned to see Jihoon emerging from a nearby staircase.

“Oh look what we have here, it’s Lee,” Mingyu snickered getting closer to Jihoon and consequently leaving Seungcheol alone.

Jihoon stiffened, and a look of fear replaced his confident one a few seconds back. He backed up against the wall, suddenly looking like a frightened puppy. “Stop bullying new students,” Jihoon muttered as Mingyu neared him.

The students around began to clear off. Students who had been walking towards the scene turned around to walk away. Even staff members: teachers, principals, and counselors, cleared the space. Everyone seemed anxious to get away from what was happening, and no one seemed to care that Jihoon was on the verge of being beaten.

“Dude, I advise you clear out,” Soonyoung, the student he had met the other day, advised.

“Why?”

“Mingyu gets pretty aggressive when he’s fighting Jihoon,” Soonyoung explained.

“Why isn’t anyone helping him? Why aren’t the teachers doing anything?”

“Because he’s from the rich Kim family, duh!”

“I can handle him,” Seungcheol responded.

“Suit yourself,” Soonyoung shrugged his shoulders and dashed away.

The hallways were cleared from everyone but Jihoon, Mingyu and Seungcheol.

Mingyu balled his fist and heaved it at Jihoon’s face. Jihoon resisted for a few minutes, trying to get away from Mingyu, but at one point, he gave up.

Seungcheol watched the scene for a minute or two. Jihoon was bleeding and crying, and Mingyu was on fire. Honestly, Seungcheol could not care less for Jihoon. He felt a little sorry for him, but nothing drove him to try and stop Mingyu. Then an idea hit him.

What better way to make friends with someone then by pretending to care for him?

“Hey!” Seungcheol yelled as Mingyu was to punch Jihoon yet again, “leave him alone.”

“Don’t. Go away,” Jihoon sputtered weakly as he coughed up blood.

“You’re pretty brave for a new student,” Mingyu spat turning away from Jihoon, “I’ll give you five seconds to run away. If you don’t, you will regret the day you decided to oppose me. Five,” Mingyu began his countdown.

“Run away,” Jihoon said immediately, imploring Seungcheol with his eyes.

“Four,” Mingyu continued.

Seungcheol raised his eyebrows at Mingyu. He knew that he was a far better fighter then Mingyu ever will be. He’s been trained to fight people for over five years. He’d fought fully capable men and won them effortlessly.

“Three.”

“Run away, you idiot!” Jihoon yelled, but Seungcheol ignored him, engaging in a stare-down with Mingyu.

“Two.”

Mingyu took hold of Seungcheol’s collar, assuming dominance, and Seungcheol only snorted in amusement at Mingyu’s pathetic attempts to scare him.

“One,” Mingyu said, raising his eyebrows.

Seungcheol gave Mingyu the benefit of hitting first. Mingyu tried the usual punch to the face. It was predictable, and dead easy to dodge despite Mingyu’s hold on his collar. Seungcheol head butted Mingyu against the wall with full force, causing Mingyu to lose of hold of Seungcheol. He managed to keep his balance though. There was anger flaring in his gaze as he regained himself. He swung his fist again, and Seungcheol dodged it with ease. Mingyu kept attempting to hit, and Seungcheol kept dodging. It was only after a minute of dodging that Seungcheol began to hit back.

Within seconds afterwards, Mingyu had run away.

Seungcheol did not bother going after him. He didn’t care about winning Mingyu. He only cared about defending Jihoon and getting on his good side.

After Mingyu was gone, Seungcheol walked up to Jihoon who had been watching the fight, gaping in awe at Seungcheol’s abilities.

Seungcheol extended his arm to help Jihoon from the floor. Jihoon took it, looking at Seungcheol as if he were some kind of alien.

“Are you okay?” Seungcheol asked Jihoon. Obviously Jihoon was not okay. There was blood all over his face, and Seungcheol was not entirely sure whether the cut was from his mouth or his nose or both.

“I’m… I’m fine,” Jihoon said. “That was… amazing. Are you trained or…”

“I… I do taekwondo. Black belt,” Seungcheol lied.

“I see,” Jihoon bought the lie, wiping the blood off of his face with his sleeve.

“Come, let me take you to the nurse,” Seungcheol said, taking Jihoon’s arms.

Seungcheol had vaguely remembered walking by the nurse’s office the other day, and so he just took Jihoon’s arm and led him to where he remembered it was. Jihoon didn’t talk but he groaned and cried a little bit as they walked, probably because of the pain.

After walking for a few minutes, Jihoon finally said, “thank you. You’re the first one to stand up for me, and I don’t even know you.”

“No problem. Just, I was wondering why don’t you fight back?”

“Because I’m weak.”

“I mean, you’re from the famous Lee family right? Your family has power. There’s a lot you can do with money, and I’m sure that this problem of him bullying you could be fixed…”

“It’s not that simple,” Jihoon answered, “first of all my family doesn’t give a about me. Second of all, I don’t want to tell them I get bullied, because that’s a sign of weakness. I don’t want them to hate me more than they already do. There are other reasons that I’d rather not say.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, I can protect you from now on, if you want,” Seungcheol said to Jihoon.

Jihoon smiled at Seungcheol, “that would be extremely nice. What’s your name again?”

“Seungcheol.”

“Where are you from?”

“Daegu.”

Jihoon nodded, and an awkward silence ensued between them, which Seungcheol hated.

In an attempt to keep the conversation going, Seungcheol said: “I looked up the book last night, 1984,” Seungcheol said, “It seems very interesting. Would you mind if I burrowed it from you some time?”

“Of course,” Jihoon said smiling brightly, “I love introducing people to that book. It’s the most beautiful piece of literature ever in my opinion.”

“Wow, you’re very passionate about 1984,” Seungcheol laughed.

“It’s my favorite book of all time,” Jihoon said, “sorry if I came out aggressive yesterday because you didn’t know it. I was just genuinely surprised.”

At this point, they had made it to the nurse’s office and stopped at the door.

“You should go to class now, before you get in trouble,” Jihoon said. “You’ll be late because of me; I’m very sorry.”

“Can we be friends?” Seungcheol just blurted. He regretted saying it as soon as he did. That was so unnatural and forced and so wrong. People don’t just ask other people to be friends with them. He felt stupid that he asked it. Even Jihoon seemed taken aback by the question.

Jihoon then looked a little sad. “That depends,” Jihoon replied, “why do you want to be my friend?”

The question took Seungcheol by surprise. He wanted to befriend Jihoon because it was his mission, but he sure as hell was not going to tell him that. He hesitated as he thought of an answer to the question.

“Because… because I like you,” Seungcheol answered.

“Not because of my wealth?” Jihoon asked.

“No, of course not.”

“That better be the truth,” Jihoon said as he opened the door to the nurse’s office, “and if it is the truth, then I would love to be your friend.”