“I’m going to kill him,” I snarl, throwing my backpack in my room. After an hour of waiting outside the school for Andrews to pick me up, I received a text from him asking if Mathletes practice was running late. Apparently, Taehyung told him I’d signed up for Mathletes and didn’t need a ride home.

    “Andrews, do you know where Taehyung is?” I ask, running downstairs. I have changed out of my sauce-stained shirt, which I had to wear the entire day like some symbol of how low in the depths of loserdom I’m in.

    “He’s out on the sundeck,” Andrews responds.

    I freeze. “Wait, where is that again?”

    “The roof.”

    “Thanks.” I hurry back up the stairs and head to the swivel stairs near the back of the 3rd floor.

“What the hell is your problem?!” I exclaim, bursting onto the roof- and freeze.  

Taehyung, along with six other boys, are sitting around on lounge chairs, sipping on Schneider Weisse. I blink uncomfortably as they stare at me with judgemental gazes.

“Perfect timing,” Taehyung says coolly. “Cheese-and-crackers platter. And some more beers.”

    His friends look at him in astonishment. I scoff.

    “Really? You really think I’m going to do that after all the you did today?”

    “You will if you don’t want me to call my mother.”

    “Hey, it’s physics girl,” one of his friends remarks.

Taehyung looks at him with raised eyebrows. “What?”

“Remember that girl I told you about from Mrs. Stone’s class? That’s her.”

Surprise flashes across Taehyung’s features for a moment, but it is gone by the next, replaced by a condescending sneer.

“I’m not even surprised,” he says. “That’s exactly what I would expect from someone like her. Now.” He turns back to me. “Cheese-and-crackers platter and beer. Last time I’ll say it.”

I glare at him, absolutely incensed. My mouth opens, about to tell him to go himself-

But then a bizarre sensation washes over my body; something oddly stifling, suffocating. It is like I cannot breathe all of a sudden. My hands tremble the slightest by my sides. I take a deep, staggering breath while Taehyung watches me with that smug smile on his face.

“Fine,” I mutter, and I stalk away.

He gives me the creeps.

Becca: morning friends! how's it going :)

Joo: I ING HATE THIS PLACE

Becca: o

Zeke: I thought u made friends D:

Joo: yea they're cool. but everything else .

Joo: taehyungs friends have been shooting me nasty looks in the hallway! and making the rudest comments!

Zeke: I don't get it. People in Lindsborg are popular bc they're nice or good at sports or funny

Zeke: Why da fuq are these people popular

Zeke: How's everyone else in the school tho

Joo: WELL if the most popular people in the school hate you, everyone else hates you too!

Zeke: At least taehyung isn’t in ur classes. Because he's a senior right

Rob: I'll come there and beat everyone up.

Joo: I don't know, dude. Something's not right about this place

Becca: what do you mean?

Joo: idk

Joo: Every morning when i step into this school I feel PHYSICALLY sick. I just DREAD coming here-

Someone slams into me hard. My phone clatters to the ground.

“Sorry,” I say, looking up.

Evan Rothcliff, starter on the lacrosse team and one of Taehyung’s friends, is glaring down at me.

“Watch where you’re going,” he spits in an acidic tone.

“Sorry,” I say between clenched teeth. I bend down to pick my phone up off the floor-

His foot comes crashing down on it, shattering the screen.

My jaw drops.

“Whoops,” he gloats.

“Are you serious?” I shriek, but he is already swaggering away.  

    “I don’t get it,” Dev says after the dismissal bell has rung. He is peering at my cracked phone and trying to assess the damage. “Why do the seniors hate you so much? You literally just got to Windsong.”

    Because Taehyung thinks I’m leeching off his family and wants me gone.

    But there’s no way I’m telling them that I live with Taehyung. Nuh uh. I’m not losing the only three friends I have here.

“Who knows,” I grumble.

As we are heading to the science wing, a pencil bag falls to the floor next to me. I reach down to pick it up-

And come face-to-face with Cloe.

“Ew,” she says, yanking her pencil bag off the floor. Sasha, Yasmin, and Jade sneer at me from behind her. “Keep your hands off my stuff.”

I roll my eyes. “I was literally trying to help you.”

Cloe snorts, flipping her luscious blonde hair behind her shoulder. “Oh, yeah, by stealing my stuff with your grubby little scholarship-student hands?”

“Ladies, ladies,” Dev says, stepping in between me and Cloe. “This was just a misunderstanding.” He flashes Cloe a dazzling smile, the one I call the “Look at me, I am wonderful, love me.” Guaranteed to make any woman swoon (and also guaranteed to make Lucy and I want to retch).

“Cloe, you’re looking particularly lovely today,” he grins.

She glares down at him. “Who the are you?”

“Okay, let’s go,” I say, grabbing Dev, who looks shattered. I am turning to leave, when suddenly, a hand clamps down on my arm.

“Learn your place, brat,” Cloe hisses. She drags her sharp, pointy nails across my skin and I wince, twisting my arm out of her grip.

“Whatever,” I say, and hurry away with Dev.

“So gross,” I hear Sasha giggle behind me.

“Holy , Joo, you’re bleeding,” Dev breathes. I look at my arm in shock. Jagged red lines criss-cross over my upper arm, oozing out blood.

“What the- she didn’t even scratch me that hard!” I exclaim. “How am I bleeding?”

“Oh, no, no, no,” Dev mutters. He grasps me by the arm and practically sprints to the science wing. Tom is poring over his laptop at a desk when Dev bursts inside.

“Hey-,” Tom begins to say, but Dev cuts him off.

“Cloe scratched her,” he says in a low voice. Tom’s eyes widen in horror. He jumps up.

“Get her to the lab,” Tom tells Dev.

“Wha- guys, it’s not that big of a deal,” I say confusedly as they drag me out the door. “I just need to put a few band-aids on-,”

“Yeah, the- the lab has band-aids!” Tom says.

The two of them rush to a door down the hall and burst inside. My jaw drops. We have just stepped into a high-ceilinged, brightly lit room, packed with wooden tables, silver burners, stainless steel autoclaves. An entire wall is filled with sheets of varying metals, with an adjacent panel containing screwdrivers, picks, and strange pointy rods I cannot identify. SEM and TEM microscopes sit beside blocks of grey rectangle that have detailed screens on their surfaces. A tall stainless steel freezer is next to the desk, a large sign on it reading “ELEMENTAL MATERIALS”. Wide-screen televisions and computers line another panel in the room, perfect for observing atomic structure on a large surface and projecting 3-dimensional holograms.

I think I’m going to cry of euphoria.

“Get solution 18,” Dev tells Tom. “Where the hell is Lucy?”

“Probably student council,” Tom says, grabbing a vial of clear fluid from a fume hood. “Where are the cotton swabs?”

Dev slams my arm down on a lab table. It’s still bleeding, except now, the area around the wounds has turned a strange purplish color. Something shifts and all of a sudden the entire room turns a little blurry; I blink hard, swaying to the right-

“Here, sit down,” Dev says, guiding me into a chair.

“Okay,” Tom says. He unscrews the vial, dumps some liquid onto a cotton swab, and then dabs the swab on my scratches. It feels like a hot iron rod has been pressed onto my skin. I shriek in pain.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Tom says softly, dabbing away the blood on my arm. “It’s all done. Bandage?”

“Here.” Dev wraps my arm in gauze and secures it with a bandage. “Tom, do you have orange juice or something?”

“Be right back.” I hear Tom race out the door.

“Hang in there, Joo,” Dev says.

I blink rapidly. Dev’s face keeps fading in and out of focus.

“I don’t get it,” I mumble. “She didn’t even scratch me that hard.”

“I know. Stay away from them. They’re dangerous.”

My lips curl up into a lazy smile. “Dangerous. That’s what you said about Taehyung.”

Dev gives me a long look.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s true.”

“Sunny D!” Tom exclaims. He rushes back into the room and forces the bottle in between my lips. “Drink.”

“Feeling better?” Dev says.

I gulp down the juice, pausing only to take a deep breath several seconds later.

“Yeah,” I say, shakily standing. “Holy . Guys, I’m so sorry. I have no idea what happened.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it!” Tom beams. “I’m just happy we were able to get you all fixed up.”

“We need to get Lucy,” Dev says. “Let’s go to the student council office.”

“I don’t get it,” Tom says as we hurry up a flight of stairs. “Why the hell would Cloe scratch you? What does she have against you?”

“Her and her stupid friends just hate me,” I exhale.

“But she scratched you.”

I furrow my eyebrows. “She didn’t really scratch me, though. She literally just ran her nails over my arm. I don’t know why I was bleeding so much.”

“We’re here.” Dev says. The three of us have arrived at a large, tinted glass door. A gold placard above it reads Student Council.

Lucy is sitting at a desk at the back of the room, next to... Jimin Park? I raise my eyebrows. The two of them are huddled up next to each other, poring over a stack of documents. They look up in surprise when we walk in.

“Hey,” Lucy says, right as Jimin says, “Jooyeon?”

Lucy, Dev, and Tom look at him, startled. “How do you know Joo?” Lucy asks.

I narrow my eyes at Jimin.

Say anything, and you’re dead.

A cocky smirk slides across his lips. “You know how it is, Lucy,” he drawls. “I make sure I know every girl’s name in this school.”

Lucy glares at him. “You’re disgusting.”

He flashes her a cheeky grin. “But you love me.”

“God, get away from me.”

“Good, you’ve finally started referring to me as god.”

“Ugh!”

“Lucy, can we have a word?” Dev says, stepping forward. The smile slowly fades from Lucy’s face when she sees how serious the three of us look.

“Yeah, sorry.” She clears . “I’ll be back, Jimin.”

“Alright.”

As we walk out the door, Jimin gives me a knowing look.

 “Nice to see you flirting with the enemy,” Dev mutters as we crouch down in an empty stairway corridor.

   Lucy narrows her eyes. “For the last time, we’re not flirting. Jimin’s like that with everyone. Besides, who are you to lecture me about flirting? You flirt with everything on legs-,”

    “Both of you, cut it out,” Tom says. “Lucy, Cloe scratched Joo.”

    The annoyance on Lucy’s face disappears, replaced by a look of pure horror.

“What?!” she gasps. “When? Where? How?” Lucy grabs me by the shoulders. “Joo, are you okay?!”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say. “I don’t see why this is such a big deal.”

“We disinfected the wound and bandaged her up,” Tom tells Lucy. She exhales in relief.

“What is with them and you?” she says, looking at me. “Why do they hate you so much?”

 I chew on my lip, my eyes shifting from Tom to Lucy to Dev.

    And then I sigh.

    “I... live with Taehyung,” I admit defeatedly. “When I got into Windsong- well, my mom and Taehyung’s mom are friends, so his mom said I could stay with them. Unfortunately, Taehyung isn’t too... happy about this.”

    The three of them simply stare at me.

    And then Lucy says, “So... you’re family friends with Taehyung.”

    “Uh, I guess, yeah.”

    “And... you live with him.”

    “Yeah.”

    Lucy, Tom, and Dev exchange unreadable looks. I nervously stare at them in anticipation.

    “So that’s why Jimin knows you,” Lucy utters. “And all the upperclassmen- okay.”

    I notice that none of them are making eye contact with me.

    “Guys?” I say hesitantly.

    “I have to go, Joo...,” Tom says, shifting from side to side.  

    “Me, too,” Lucy says. “Uh, student council business.”

    “Tom and I have a... project we’re supposed to be working on,” Dev coughs. “We’d better head out. Make sure you take care of that wound.”

There is a sinking feeling in my stomach. “Wait, guys-,” I say, but they have already left.

And that’s the last time I talk to Dev, Lucy, and Tom. They avoid me after that, citing excuses about having “a student council meeting to attend” or “a deadline coming up tonight” or “physics homework to finish”. Just like that, the only three friends I had here are gone.

If Taehyung’s friends would abandon him too, that would be amazing. Then there would be no one attending the ridiculously loud parties he hosts every weekend, and I would no longer have to clean up the entire house after they left. The initial feeling of awe I had about this place has long since disappeared. It’s a little hard loving a house when you spend a good hour scrubbing vomit off its windows.

A week after the Cloe incident, I am lying facedown on my bed, moping about how ty my life is, when suddenly my phone buzzes with a text.

Groaning, I roll over in my comforters. I don’t want to deal with anything right now.

My phone buzzes another time, and I ignore it again.

Two minutes later, my door slams open. I look up.

Taehyung is standing in front of my bed, a furious expression on his face.

“I texted you twice,” he growls. “Come downstairs.”

I grit my teeth, sit up.

“Why do you hate me?” I demand. “I know that you don’t want me here. But why do you have to turn everyone against me?”

He smirks in satisfaction. “If you hate it so much, then leave.”

“You think I don’t want to?”

“Then get out. But in the meanwhile, make us dinner.”

“Us?!”

“Yeah, everyone’s downstairs.” He gives me a malicious smile. “We need enough food for... hmm, let’s see... 20 people?”

I stare at him, absolutely dumbfounded. Taehyung’s expression darkens. He strides over to me in two paces, grabs my arm-

“Ow!” I hiss, yanking my arm from his grasp. My skin is still hurt from Cloe’s scratches, despite the fact that they were inflicted days ago. The scratches are almost healed, but my entire upper arm area is sore as hell. Taehyung narrows his eyes.

“Stop being overdramatic.”

“Tell your friend Cloe to keep her hands off me,” I mutter, getting out of bed.

“What?”

I look back at Taehyung. “Cloe scratched me. I’m sure you’re pleased,” I shake my head. “Whatever. I’ll make your dinner. I hope you’re happy.”

“Wait.” Taehyung grabs my other arm. “She scratched you?”

I shrug him off. “Why do you care? I’m sure you’re happy.”

He looks like he wants to say something else, but I storm off before he can.

A/N: so i originally intended on making my chaps between 3000-4000 words, but pacing just gets a little.... wonky when i do that, so i'm keeping it at like 2000-3000 words heh

i love when i first start out my stories bc usually, the people who subscribe/comment are like readers i know/recognize because yall have been so freaking supportive on all my other stories and are literally my OG readers LOL. this also goes for subscribers, like u may think i dont recognize u because you dont comment but i see ur name and i know u :^) its so nice, like i dont feel any pressure, i can reply to comments....

ive noticed from the past that the more pressure/expectations that are on me, the more likely i am to just freak out and suddenly lose inspiration for a story. which is hella bad lmao but it is what it is i guess. this is the honeymoon phase of this story heH