Jiyong was scrolling through his phone randomly in class, as he waited for the first lesson to start. He hated waiting for things to happen and cursed inwardly at arriving in class so early today. His friends in his clique, Youngbae, Seunghyun, Daesung and Seungri, were late as usual. If they were lucky, they would step into class at the same time that the bell rang.

As he got sick of looking through his phone, he locked it and chucked it onto his table. At that moment, Sandara Park walked in with her friends, Chaerin, Bom and Minzy. He glanced at her for a moment, before deciding to pick up his phone again. Jiyong had been in the same class as Dara for three years in high school. They were on amicable speaking terms but neither had gotten to know the other very well. They had their own clique of friends and never had much to say or do with each other except for the occasional class gathering. Dara seemed to be a little on the quiet side but she had a pretty smile.

Dara walked into class with Chaerin, Bom and Minzy trailing behind her. They were giggling over a joke Seungri had sent them but given her nature, she had taken no interest in it. Not that she had anything against Seungri but she just didn’t see why they had to make such a fuss out of it. She noticed Jiyong glancing at her but didn’t think much of it. They had been classmates for three years but had never bothered to get to know each other better.

As she sat down, the bell for the first lesson rang and she saw four boys rush into the class, followed closely by Mr. Kang, their form teacher.

“You four! Lucky for you, the bell stopped ringing only after you entered the class! Can’t you guys just drag yourselves out of bed like 5 minutes earlier?” said Mr. Kang in a frustrated voice. “Don’t you ever get sick of me nagging at you?”

“Yes sir! We’ll try!” grinned Daesung. Mr. Kang was a strict but very caring form teacher. The boys didn’t want to disappoint him but try as they might, they simply could not bring themselves to come to school any earlier.

“Yeah, I’m sure you will,” said Mr. Kang in a sarcastic tone. “All right everybody, please settle down. I have an important announcement to make.”

“As you all know, it’s our class’ turn to do a community outreach project this year. The needy group that we will be working with this time round is Sunrise Orphanage, which is just three streets away from our school. You will all be assigned into pairs and tasked a group of children to take care of during this period. As the group of children consists of both boys and girls, you will be paired up with someone of the opposite gender as well so that you can interact more comfortably with the children.”

“Aw man, Mr. Kang, can’t we just pair up with our bros?” begged Seungri. “It’s so much easier just working with them.”

“No, Seungri. It’s high time you learnt to work with people whom you’re not close to. If anything, I think I pity the girl who is going to work you more,” replied Mr. Kang, as the class laughed at his reply. “All right, I have two bags here with numbered cards in them. The boys will pick from the black bag and the girls will pick from the white bag. The person who has the same number as you will be your partner for this project.”

The class lined up in front of their bags with some grumbling. Jiyong was the last in line