Chapter One

Han Sora was your ideal high school girl. 

    She always came to school with her neatly ironed uniform and had her thick brown, wavy hair in a ponytail. Despite her petite figure, she was able to snatch the first rank in her cohort, excelling in mathematics. On her first year of high school, she was nominated by her teachers to apply for the school’s prefectorial board, and she eventually became one, making her the youngest prefect in the school’s entire history. She plays badminton and practices yoga daily. When she walked down the hallway, she knew boys would steal glances at her, but no one  had dare to bring up a conversation with her. 

    Today was just another usual Tuesday, or that was what Sora thought, but apparently, it wasn’t. As usual, she walked to her class with Raina, her tomboy friend who was also the school’s athlete (God knows how many sports she played), and sat down on her place besides the window, but when she was about to put her bag down, she saw something inside the open drawer underneath her desk. A paper. She frowned and pull it out. 

    “Woah…” Raina glanced to her best friend from her seat behind, “That’s new.” 

    Sora frowned, as she opened the folded paper and read the note quietly, “Han Sora, you are beautiful.” 

    “What?!” Raina widened her eyes as she tried to contain her shriek and snatched the paper from Sora’s grip. 

    She read the exact same words that Sora had said out loud. Raina turned the paper but there was nothing else - only the sentence written by a messy handwriting. Sora snatched the paper back and fold it again. 

    “That’s just weird,” She mumbled to Raina, “Who would… I mean, do you think it’s weird?” 

    Raina nodded as she created a bubble with the gum she had been chewing, “I mean, you’re cute, but I’ve never seen something like this. Guys don’t actually - you know, chase you.” 

    Sora shook her head and scoffed, “Probably just a prank.” 

    “Well someone pranking you definitely had never heard of your killer brother,” Raina said, not buying the idea. 

    “Then it’s probably a dare,” Sora shrugged. Whatever it was, she honestly didn’t bother much. 

    Raina sighed, “Well then, if you think so.” 

    The bell shrilled seconds later and a large group of students came rushing into the class. Sora was always early, and she liked it that way. If she was asked to choose, she would prefer to come early and wait rather than come later. A lanky male teacher, with books in one hand and a mug of coffee in another, stepped inside and quieted the whole class down only by clearing his throat. 

    Sora swirled her body to face forward and she slowly slipped the piece of paper inside the front pocket of her backpack. 

~*~

    “How much are you betting?” 

    “10 won.” 

    “Eyyy… that’s too low.” 

    “Guys! Stop it!”

    “Fine, 15!”

    “I’ll bet 20 though.” 

    “Okay, 20, and that’s it, I won’t be raising it anymore.” 

    “Geez, I can’t believe the both of you!” 

    “Then we have a deal.” 

    “What is this that I’m missing?” 

    The whole group turned their heads in surprise, only to see one of their friends standing behind them. 

    A lanky male grinned widely and swung his arms around his friend, “Now, now Woohyun,” he said and averted his gaze towards the opposite corner of the class where three girls were grouping as well, “We were just wondering if you can go to the pretty one over there and maybe ask her to prom?” 

    Woohyun narrowed his eyes and stared at his friends one by one, “Were you guys betting on me?” 

    “Don’t tell me I didn’t stop you guys,” One of the males with a thin face said and crossed his arms in front of his chest. 

    “I’m not in this,” Another male said as he raised his hands. 

    “What are you talking about?! You’re the one whom I was betting with! Don’t you dare ditch me Myungsoo!” Sungyeol shrieked. 

    Woohyun chuckled as he sat on the table the other three males were surrounding, “You guys want to see if I can go for Kim Younha?” 

    Sungyeol and Myungsoo nodded eagerly and Woohyun let out a small scoff with a laugh, “You sure you don’t want any part on this, Sungjong?” 

    “You guys know this is wrong- I mean, how could you bet on a girl? That’s just mean!” Sungjong suppressed himself from yelling.  

    Sungyeol shook his head, “You’re no fun!” 

    Woohyun chuckled and was about to walk towards the said girl, who was also eyeing on him in a flirtatious manner, when a girl rushed towards the group, panting, as if she just had a marathon. 

    “Chemistry homework,” She said between her pantings, “Quickly, quickly!” 

    “W-what?” Woohyun widened his eyes, “There was a chemistry homework?” 

    Sungyeol clicked his tongue in amusement, “As usual, I would be surprised if Nara actually does her homework.” 

    The female slapped Sungyeol’s arm and pleaded again, “Come on guys please, I’ll study for the next test and help you all.” 

    Myungsoo chuckled and went to his seat before returning back with his chemistry notebook, “Here.” 

    Nara eyed him gratefully and grabbed the notebook, “Oh geez, you’re the best Myungsoo, seriously! I’ll repay you for this!” 

    With that, Nara rushed to her seat which was two seats away from Sungyeol’s and started jotting down the answers in her notebook. Woohyun, still startled with the fact that they actually had a chemistry homework, clumsily opened his backpack and rushed to Nara’s table to join her copying as well. But before the male could copy anything down, the bell rang and everyone ran to their places - Nara, quickly passing Myungsoo’s notebook to the rightful owner. 

    “Let’s start the class with the submission of your homeworks.” Mrs. Han said as she entered the class. 

    Nara, who was seated right in front of Woohyun, could hear him mutter a curse under his breath, and laughed quietly. Just like everyone else, Woohyun and Nara both confidently turned in their notebooks. After making sure every student in the class had submitted their homework, Mrs. Han smiled with satisfaction. 

    “Now, we’re going to discuss our homework. So open your textbooks to the page where the questions are written, and I will choose one of you to answer a question from it.” She instructed and both Woohyun and Nara turned pale. 

    Not only they were clueless about the questions, they had zero idea what the answer was, and Mrs. Han, being the most feared teacher by the nine graders, would definitely kill them. So Nara, being a professional cheater, pretended to stretch her sides and took a glance at Sungjong’s textbook which was opened at page 31. She immediately opened her book to that page as well and helped Woohyun, who she knew was also as clueless as she was, by inching her textbook closer to her so he could see the page number easily from behind. 

    “Let us start with you, Mr. Nam Woohyun,” Mrs. Han said with a smile - a smile which looked very sarcastic, “If you have done your homework, you would be able to easily answer the first question. So, what’s the name of the chemical substance?” 

    Woohyun let out a nervous smile. And at that moment, he knew he was doomed. 

~*~

a/n: Hi everyone! It's great meeting you all here in the first chapter :) I'm glad that you all are reading this! Thank you so much! If you are the ones who have been following Perks of Being Alive, welcome back and it's great to see you again :) If you're a new reader, I'm very happy to meet you here ^^ I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter. Leave your comments below! I would really love talking with you, even if you're not talking about the story hehe :) Till the next chapter!