After changing out of my rollerblades and into my normal school shoes, I tossed a few of my books into the locker. And as I continued to do so, I was suddenly greeted by a girl with long dark hair. “Goodmorning Hyeri!” she chirped with her usual eye-smile.

I waved, happy to see her as well, as my exhaustion towards Seyong quickly faded, “Hey Minah! How was your holiday?”

Minah entered in her combination number and then took off her lock, “Pretty good! We went to the beach to celebrate my umma’s birthday, and then had a family picnic there.” Her pearly whites being showed told me that she was probably rethinking about the fun memory. She grabbed out two books and a folder, before turning back towards me, “How was yours?”

I shut my locker door and then placed back the lock, “It was pretty good I guess. Your one sounds better, but hey, I’m just satisfied about being able to catch up on a few zees.”

Before either of us got to say anything more, the bell rang, signaling for us students that class was now about to commence. It was a shame though, since I really did miss Minah, and wanted to catch up with her some more. Oh well, there was always lunch or something.

“I have music now, what about you?” she asked with a tilt of her head.

I took out my timetable, and quickly scanned for my first class, “Mm...oh, I have cooking!”

Minah giggled at my sudden level of surprise, “Looks like we’re both having classes that we like!” And then, it was as if she had just read my thoughts or something, (because I just so happened to be thinking about lunch as well), she smiled, “So I’ll see you at lunch or something?”

I nodded, “Yeah, see you then!” Waving my goodbye to her, I then began to make my way to the cooking classroom.

My morning wasn’t so good, but maybe things will get better from here...

———————————————

Entering the room, I took a seat, and then began to take out my folder and pen. The teacher wasn’t here yet, so a majority of the students were standing around, and chatting amongst themselves. Seeing this, I decided to get up from where I was to mingle around for a bit, to see who I was going to be seeing more throughout the year in this class.

"Yo, what's up Hyeri?" greeted a voice.

I turned around to see a male with a lop-sided grin, "Oh, hey Jiho...Jiho...wait a minute, is that you?!"

He let out a dramatic sigh, "I know I know, I got rid of the dread-locks. Shocking, huh?"

"Very!" I replied, still in awe at his now straighten hair. "Aw...but that means...that means no more Jamaican beggar," I pointed out, with a little pout.

Laughing, he then explained to me about how the 'spirit of the beggar' will 'always live on', and as if to prove his point, he then grabbed out his guitar (which made me so confused as to why I didn't notice it behind him before) and started 'singing' one of his classic 'beggar' songs about 'MTV'.

With the dread-locks or not, this always managed to make me laugh, along with everyone else who was nearby. Standing up, Zico did a few bows while thanking everyone, as though he had just performed a concert or something. Out of nowhere, someone had suddenly called out his name, and just before he went, he turned to me and gave me a salute, "Well, catch you later, ‘kay?"

I returned his gesture with the same amount of enthusiasm, as he then went to talk to someone else. Actually, now that I think about it, why was he even here? If I remember correctly, I thought cooking was something that he didn't like? Weird...

As I went around and spoke to a few others, I guess it was nice to see everyone again...well, until my eyes landed on a specific red-haired male that instantly had my eyebrows knitting together.

When his eyes landed on me, a knowing grin spread across his face.

“What are you doing here?!” I yelled, obviously disappointed.

Seyong pouted, “Metal work classes were full, so I got put into this smelly place.” He then scrunched up his nose, “Geez Hyeri, why’d you have to eat so many beans.”

I scoffed, “Yah! The only ‘smelly’ thing here is you and your stupid fat head!”

But all Seyong did was brush my remark aside, and give me a stupid cheesy smile. “I love you too~” he cooed.

I could see a few of our classmates nearby snickering at us, which just made me fume even more.

Briskly walking back to my seat, I saw how Seyong had greeted Zico with a fist-pump. It turns out that Zico had also been put in here, due to computer classes being full or something. Well, I guess that makes sense as to why he was here...anyway; I sat down just in time as the teacher entered through the door. Mrs. Choi greeted us, and we in turn chorused back a greeting as well. She then began to mark the class attendance, and once that was done, she went straight into an introduction of the subject, and what was to be expected within this class.

As she was doing that, I could see something moving at the corner of my eye. Glancing over, I saw how Seyong was pulling weird faces at me, yet again. I took in a deep breath, and exhaled it out slowly. God dammit Seyong, this is why I dislike having you in my class, because all you seem to do is cause stupid distractions. Aish, stupid, stupid, stupid! Come on Hyeri, breathe; just breathe and continue to ignore him and—

Oh, screw that.

Shooting him a glare, I then showed him my fist in a threatening manner, as an attempt to get him to be quiet. I should have known by know that it wouldn’t have worked, because all he did was mimic my actions, but in a more exaggerated ditzy way. Ugh. Rolling my eyes at him, I then shook my head, which caused him to quietly snicker away to himself.

“...Is there something wrong, Hyeri?”

Mrs. Choi’s question caught me off guard. At the mention of my name, the entire class had turned their head towards me, waiting for my response. I swallowed, forced on an artificial smile, and then shook my head, “Uh, n-no, there isn’t anything wrong.”

Blinking, Mrs. Choi seemed to believe my reasoning, and as soon as she went back to explaining about the safety rules within the kitchen, I turned back to a specific red-haired boy, who looked like he was going to fall off of the chair from all of the silent laughing that he was doing.

Oh my God, urge to strangle, rising.

“Alright, now that that’s out of the way, lets start cooking!” said Mrs. Choi, in an overly excited voice. She then clapped her hands together, “And since it’s your first lesson, I’ve decided to go with something simple,” she then pulled out a sheet, “pancakes!”

According to the happy murmurs, the class seemed pleased with her choice, as she began to hand out the sheets to everyone. Once that was done, Mrs. Choi spoke up again, “Now, I just need to assign you all your cooking partners, and then away you go!”

One by one, students were being paired off together, and I realized that it was going to be done in alphabetical order. In my head, I started to mentally jot down who was going to be paired with whom, and was so relieved for Chaerin separating me from Seyong. Maybe I should bake her some cookies as a thank you?

When it got to his turn to be paired off with her, I was doodling away on my notebook, because I knew that I was going to be paired off with Sojin.

“Kim Seyong?” called out Mrs. Choi.

Seyong raised his hand, “Here.”

“And your partner will be...” her finger moved to a stop on the list, “Lee Chaerin. Oh no, wait a minute, Chaerin told me that she's changed classes.”

What?

Horrified, I quickly scanned the room for her face, only to find that the teacher was definitely not lying. Since when did this happen?! If Chaerin’s not here then—

“That means your partner will be Lee Hyeri!” said Mrs. Choi with a smile.

No.

Oh dear God, no?!

I looked over at Seyong to see how his jaw had dropped for a split second, just before he quickly regained his composure. And then that giant, stupid, taunting grin then made its way onto his face as he finally looked back at me. "Aw, Hyeri-ah, why the long face?" he teased.

Feeling as miserable as ever, I slowly turned my head away, wondering just why this was happening to me.

Seriously, I must have done something really bad in my previous life to deserve this, huh?