"Ok class, you have 15 more minutes to finish your test" the professor announces, aggravating the already tense class of students that filled up the classroom. The room started filling up with worried moans and aggravated groans, students start scratching their heads and start scribbling their answers all over the place.

It was Monday today and that usually means big test and truly enough, I forgot to study once again. I had spent the entire night practicing for a play that is to occur on Friday. My coach once told me 'you're good enough and you know that. You don't have to spend your weekend practicing for something you've already perfected' but my stubborn self didn't listen to a word he said. I practiced and practiced all my lines despite already memorizing them all. I wanted to perfect my act, completely forgetting that we had a test the next day.

I stared at my paper and found that not even half of the items were answered; only a number or two that I knew the answers to and more than a few "educated" guesses here and there. I focused hard and tried to search my head for the answers to put on the paper, but rather than answers, lines from our adaptation of Sweeney Todd started popping up in my head: 'Lucy, what have I done?', 'I am the demon barber of Fleet Street', that I nearly ended up writing them on the paper.

"10 minutes" the professor announced. I looked around the classroom to see my classmates losing their marbles in their desks, and I was certainly losing mine. I looked over to my left and saw, in the midst of panicking students, one girl was patiently jotting down her paper like it was a grocery list. In fact, she was almost done. That girl was Im Nayeon, smartest in the class. But very underappreciated. She was certainly on top of the academics list but was nowhere to be found if you looked at a list of invited people to a sweet 16 party.

Most of my classmates ever just talk to her when they need to borrow homework or answers for a test and she would just comply since it was her only fix of interaction among her peers. I felt sorry for her and I really didn't want to do so much as burden her in the middle of a test, but as I looked at the clock and the aggravated faces around me. I realized that I had no other choice.

"Hey" I whispered as I leaned my head towards her.

"Hey" I whispered louder, but she still wasn't budging. I was afraid I was going to get caught if I spoke any louder.

"Nayeon-ah!" I whispered loudly, whipping my head to the side to check if anyone noticed, thankfully everyone was too focused to do so.

"Yes?" she whipped her head to the side as well, causing her curly locks to brush past my face.

"I need some help" I whispered.

"With what?" she titled her head to the side.

"C-Can I borrow some answers, I-I forgot to study last night because of practice" I tell her, giving her a stupid smirk as if I owed her one. I didn't even know why I did it, my face kind of just moved by itself.

"Okay" she says and gladly hands me her paper. My eyes widened in surprise at how easy she was to comply. I couldn't quite process it, it wasn't right for her to be this submissive. I didn't know if it was because she had no one to talk to, aside from her best friend Momo who was in the other class, or if it was because she understood my predicament since she was part of the drama club.

Yes that's right, she is part of the drama club, but it wasn't like she did anything special. The other members just usually give her a line or two and make her buy them food and drink most of the time, and of course she would gladly do it since she thinks she was doing them a favor. But I knew better, I know that they don't care about her at all and they would kick her out of the club the moment she refused their orders. But it wasn't like she was going to anytime soon.

I quickly jotted down everything I saw in Nayeon's paper, finishing my test within a minute or two, and returning it to her before the professor could see me.

"Thank you" Nayeon said as she adjusted her glasses. I didn't realize I smirked at her actions, quickly snapping myself back to reality the moment I realized my actions.

"Hey Nayeon, I need some help as well" the girl on her other side asks, Nayeon just hands it over to her and waits patiently on her seat for the time to run out. I didn't enjoy seeing her being taken advantage of, but unfortunately that was always the case here.

After class

We were all lining up to get our test results from our professor. I watched as the students grimace and frown one by one as they received their papers and left the room, some even facepalming. All except for Nayeon who just smiled and uttered a simple 'thank you, sir' at the teacher who smiled back. She was able to leave much earlier than I did, and, in all honesty, I wanted to follow her if only I wasn't stuck in line.

"Mr. Y/N" the teacher called. I was next in line. I went up to my teacher expecting to be let down just like everyone else. I was expecting a frown and a lecture from the professor but instead, he only smiled and handed my test.

"Well done, Y/N. I'll admit I'm a bit surprised, keep it up" he said as I stared at him in confusion. I walked towards the doorway and slowly unfolded my test paper. To my surprise, I got a 97% passing rate.

"Yess!!!" I screamed by the doorway, causing everyone to turn their heads towards me.

"Hehe, sorry for that" I apologized as I rubbed my nape in embarrassment. As I walked to my locker to grab my things, I couldn't help but notice the voices that were coming from the other side of the hallway. They were much louder than the usual and it was clear to me that it was no friendly conversation. I walked over to the source of the noise and, as I got closer, started to make out some of the words that were being spat.

"It's your fault!" I heard a girl scream, followed by what sounded like something being slammed against the lockers.

"It's your fault I failed the test!" I heard her say again, it was accompanied by the sound of slapping, followed by a whimper. At that point, I already knew what was going on and true enough, I saw exactly what was on my mind.

Nayeon was being harassed by a duo of girls, one of them was the one who asked her for answers earlier. I recognized the duo immediately, they were Park Jihyo and Myoui Mina, one thirds of the most popular group of girls in my batch, Mina being the one who was doing most of the work as Jihyo simply stood by and watched her.

"You , I thought you were smart!" she yelled at the poor girl who was whimpering by the locker. Her clothes were all crumpled, and her curly hair was all over the place.

"I-I'm sorry" Nayeon whimpered as she cowered in front of the two.

"Sorry? Sorry is not going to bring my grades back dummy" Mina said as she lifted her hand. Before she could land another strike, I grabbed it and stood in front of Nayeon.

"Yah, if you want to pass then you should study. Don't take it out on someone else." I gave her a stern look.

"That just ruined my life, now I'm going to get slapped by my mom" Mina whined as she struggled to break free, but I wasn't going to let her hands go anywhere unless they were 50 ft away from Nayeon.

"So you slap Nayeon instead? Look at her, she's weak and broken, so get lost or else" I raised my voice a little.

"Or what?" Mina said as she got up on my face, but I didn't flinch one bit.

"Or I'm going to ruin your pretty little face" I tell her as I stared into her eyes, I could swear I saw them flinch for a second.

"Y-You..." Mina tried to make a comeback. She was obviously flustered but before she could do anything, Jihyo grabs her by the arm.

"It’s not worth it Mina, come on. Sana's looking for us" Jihyo says as she took off, taking the hot-headed girl with her. I turned around to face Nayeon who was on the verge of crying.

"Hey, don't worry, they're gone" I tell her, only receiving a heartache in return as I hear her let out a soft sob.

"Hey don't cry. It's ok, I took care of them now. I won't let them hurt you as long as I'm here" I tell her. She takes some time to regain her composure before standing up and fixing her glasses, releasing one last sniff.

"It's okay. I'm used to it. They do this everyday" she says as she fixes her uniform. Everyday, that was too much. I couldn't begin to imagine how she can put up with this everyday.

"Hey, I never really got to say thanks for helping me out" I tell her, trying to cheer her up.

"It's okay, you don't have to" she says all while looking at the ground.

"No really, thank you so much. If it weren't for you, I would've failed and got kicked out of drama club" I say, trying to make up for the actions of the girls.

"And as a token of my gratitude, I would... like to ask you for... lunch?" I hesitated, fiddling around with my fingers as I said that.

"L-Lunch?" Nayeon says as she finally looks at me. Her big round specs outlining her eyes. "I-I don't know..." it was obvious she had social anxiety. She never really went around with anyone except for her best friend.

"Oh, don't worry, it's my treat. You don't have to worry about anything and you can get as much as you want." I tell her, trying my best to convince her.

"Please..." I insist. Nayeon took her time to think before answering.

"C-Can I bring Momo with me?" she says. My eyes suddenly snapped wide open, my throat swallowing a big gulp in response. I wasn't expecting her to say that, but she looked like she was serious.

"M-Momo?" I ask her. She only nodded her head in response, making it clear that she wasn't going without her.

"S-Sure"

"C-Can I ask you something?" Nayeon says as she takes a sip from her glass. We were now seated in the cafeteria in one of the less occupied tables. I made sure the girls got what they wanted and paid for all three of us. I was seated directly in front of Nayeon while Momo sat next to her.

"What is it?" I ask her and took a handful of chicken into my mouth.

"D-Do you like, Mina?" Nayeon asked hesitantly causing me to nearly choke on my chicken.

"Are you okay?" she asked looking worried as she believes she caused me to choke.

"Yeah... I'm fine" I say after regaining my composure. "and no... I don't"

"B-But you just called her pretty" Nayeon said. I suddenly recalled the altercation that happened just a few minutes ago.

"Well it's true" I scoffed as I swallowed my food.

"So, you like her then" Nayeon said. I rolled my eyes at how naive this girl was. She clearly has a lot to learn about the world.

"I'm sorry. You don't have to answer that" Nayeon immediately took back her words after seeing me roll my eyes.

"No, it's okay" I assure her.

"Look Nayeon, I wasn't lying when I said Mina was pretty, because she is and that's why a lot of guys fall for her. But not me" I tell her.

"Why?" Nayeon asked innocently.

"Because she has a bad attitude. She hurt you Nayeon and I don't like that" I tell her. It was true, Mina was one of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen in school, but her attitude was clearly the opposite and a lot of dudes in my batch are completely blind to that. Nayeon looked down at her food, visibly taken aback by what I said, while Momo looked at her with concern. Both of them pushing up their glasses to their eyes, I couldn't help but smirk at their silliness.

"But... I deserve it. She's popular and beautiful, I'm a nobody and I'm ugly. I caused her to fail her exams so it's okay for her to hit me" Nayeon went on. I nearly facepalmed from her statement. I can't believe she was this naive and forgiving, it's no wander everyone takes advantage of her.

"No, it's not okay. You're not ugly Nayeon and it's her fault that she failed her test. Don't ever let her make you think that you're the reason she failed. It's her fault not yours and nobody has the right to hurt you no matter what" I gave her a piece of my mind. Momo suddenly starts clapping like she had just seen the best movie she had ever watched in her life. I turn my head towards her and so does a few other people. She suddenly stops clapping and looks down in embarrassment the moment she attracted everyone's attention, including mine.

"S-Sorry" she softly says and jumps back to her food. I unknowingly let out a small chuckle and felt my cheeks burn just the slightest bit, nearly forgetting about the curly haired girl who was thinking silently in front of me.

"S-So who do you like, Y/N-oppa?" she asks innocently. I found myself unable to answer her question as I was too flustered to do so. I didn't know what to tell her at all so instead I chose to sit there silently and steal small glances at the girl who was gnawing at her food like an animal.

"Guys, where in the world is Jennie?" Jisoo complained as she paced back and forth the auditorium. We were having rehearsals for our play that was due in just two days and our lead actress was missing in action.

"I've been calling her, and she hasn't been picking up" Rose says after attempting another call. Everyone was panicking as we couldn't start practicing without her as she played a crucial role, Mrs. Lovett, and we wouldn't be able to do half of the scenes without her. I browsed through my script and ran through my lines, I already had them all memorized and was ready to go, in fact everyone is but he had no choice. If Jennie wasn't coming, then we couldn't start at all.

"Can anyone substitute?" the coach suddenly brings up. Everyone suddenly starts looking at each other back and forth, as if trying to convince each other to step up.

"Well?" the coach started to get impatient. The tension in the room heats up and a few arguments started to arise among the students. I was standing by the stage ready to go up and go at it solo when Nayeon suddenly walks into the room with a bag full of food that the others had ordered. My mind suddenly hatches up the most outrageous idea ever. I was hesitant at first, but I had no other choice.

"Nayeon can do it!" I suddenly blurt out, everyone suddenly turns their heads towards Nayeon who was frozen in place.

"Are you sure?" the coach questioned.

"Yeah, I mean she's got all the lines memorized and no one else does." I say as I look at Nayeon who was melting from the attention. I gave her a small nod to assure her that everything was fine.<