Mingyu stares at the ceiling of his shiny new room at the academy. It’s a Tuesday night and he should really be reviewing for his first day tomorrow, but he’s just thinking about the charming student president.

For some reason he can’t stop playing the image of Jeonghan in his mind over and over. His soft smile, his delicate steps, his flowing beautiful hair— and the way he welcomed Mingyu to the academy. It probably isn’t surprising that the student president, who seems to capture hearts of both males and females in the school, makes butterflies swarm in his stomach, but well, what can he do about it?

He doesn’t exactly know what he’s feeling yet— so for now he decides to just set it aside and focus on collecting himself mentally for tomorrow.

The special class Mingyu had been placed in proves to be all the prestige that the students in the cooking class from yesterday made it out to be. But at the same time, it also turns out to be a whole lot worse than he expected as well.

The class starts off with the teacher plopping him next to Jeon Wonwoo who just gives him a blank stare.

“Hello!” Mingyu cheerfully greets him. “Didn’t realize we’d be in the same class.”

Wonwoo only nods and looks away from him, his chin leaning against his palms. Mingyu can’t help but frown at the sudden coldness. After a couple of minutes of Mingyu taking out his school supplies and opening his notebooks, Wonwoo finally breaks the silence.

“Your fly is down you monkey.”

Mingyu goes red glancing down at his pleated pants and quickly fixes that issue while Wonwoo’s face remains cool and stoic as ever. “Don’t say it so loudly!” he hisses.

There’s a tiny amused smirk forming on Wonwoo’s lips now, which he hides by turning his face slightly towards the window. Mingyu scowls, but he’s not being too serious when he lightly shoves Wonwoo’s shoulder.

When there’s a small break between subjects and they’re waiting for their next teacher to arrive, Mingyu is suddenly surrounded by students who seem curious about him.

“Um, nice to meet you. I’m Kim Mingyu.” he shyly introduces himself to the small crowd. He figures he should try to make some new friends.

News and gossip seem to travel really fast around the school, because all at once the students are buzzing once again.

“Oh my god, aren’t you the one that Jeonghan kissed?” Some girls giggle, while others frown. “I’m so jealous!”

“You must be so important!”

“What do your parents do? What’s your relationship with Jeonghan?”

“Yeah, and what’s your special talent?”

The questions are like thousands of buzzing flies and gnats attacking him from every corner. Mingyu gulps from the flood of attention. From the corner of his eye, he catches Wonwoo looking bored by the whole cabal and turning his head to stare out the window. It calms him down, just slightly, to know that not everyone is all gossip-y and nosy.

“N-no, it’s nothing like that,” Mingyu stammers. “I’m just... I came from Goseong.”

“Ooh! Does your father own a big company there?” a girl with a particularly high-pitched voice asks, batting her eyelashes at him.

“No! I... I’m from, um, the countryside,” Mingyu pauses when they all look at him blankly. “I came here on a scholarship,” he explains.

The moment Mingyu says that, the whole class seems to go dead silent, and there’s a sort of stillness in the air that creates a pit in his stomach. Something tells Mingyu that he just committed social suicide with only one sentence.

“Oh,” A clear voice finally rings out to cut the silence. A guy with flawless fair skin, and an attractively sloped nose and jawline, as well as silky bronze hair walks up to his desk. He looks like he could be a model. “Then why are you here?”

Mingyu gulps. “W-what?”

“I’m sorry,” the handsome boy laughs. “I’m not trying to interrogate you and be rude or anything, but this is the Class A— so it’s not exactly wherescholarship students belong.”

He says the word ‘scholarship’ with a kind of palpable distaste, and Mingyu’s hands begin to sweat with nerves.                              

“Yeah!” another girl behind the boy chimes in. “This class is for students who are actually important .”

“Huh?” Mingyu asks, now confused on top of nervous.

“The sons and daughters of all the big CEO’s are here,” the handsome boy gestures around him. “They’re going to be inheriting their parent’s company when they’re older. Celebrities, prodigies, and people with exceptional talents are placed in this class as well.”

“Like Wen Junhui here is a famous model!” a girl in the class giggles and points to said handsome boy.

Mingyu is pretty surprised and in awe by the fact that a model is standing in front of him, and it must show because another girls scoffs. “What, have you not seen him on any magazines?”

Mingyu shrugs helplessly. He doesn’t want to explain how back at the Lavender house, there weren’t really any magazines, or advertisements everywhere, or talk of celebrities and models... the Internet connection was too poor to do anything but homework, and they didn’t have cable either so no one really cared about those things.

“So,” Junhui squints at him and Mingyu can see the careful judgment in his eyes. “Do you have any special talent or something of that sort, seeing as you don’t exactly have the same, you know...” Junhui makes a vague gesture with his hands, and Mingyu immediately knows that he means to say ‘don't have the same social status as us’.

“Um...” Mingyu tilts his head in thought. “I won the ramen eating contest in Goseong once? I also the won the all-you-can eat meat contest, and the milk drinking contest— oh and the ice-cream eating contest too— and...”

The class is staring at Mingyu in stunned silence when suddenly there’s quiet laughter from the desk next to his. He turns to see Jeon Wonwoo with his hands over his mouth. “You’re just a big eater! That’s great,” he snickers into his palms.

Mingyu sticks his tongue out to him. He can now hear the quiet judgmental murmurs from his classmates.

“Wow, why is he even in this class?”

“I thought he’d be all that, having the director himself put him in here.”

“Wow, this is just embarrassing for Class A.”

Mingyu kind of wants to sink into his seat and disappear by the end of the day.

When the last bell rings, his stiff shoulders sink in relief. Finally .

He gets up to quickly gather his belongings, only to have someone rush past his desk and knock over his pencil case. All his pencils and erases clatter onto the ground and Mingyu sighs in frustration. He crouches down to pick them up, and his hands meet someone else’s long, thin fingers. He looks up in surprise to see Wonwoo silently helping him gather his stuff.

“Wonwoo come on!” someone whines in background. “Hurry up!”

Wonwoo quickly gets up, handing the pencils to him. Mingyu turns his head to see that the demanding voice is Junhui’s. Oh, so they’re friends? he wonders.

“I’m coming I’m coming, just wait,” Wonwoo mutters, slinging his bag over his shoulder. He gives Mingyu one last glance before tucking in his chair and walking off. Junhui throws a casual arm around Wonwoo’s shoulder as the two exit from the class.

***

Wonwoo stares blankly at his plate of food at the cafeteria. He doesn’t know why he even bothered coming here seeing as he has no appetite. He figures it’s the arrival of wintery weather that must’ve gotten to him, and now he feels the gross seasonal cold starting to hook his insides.

He stares around the cafeteria in boredom, and his eyes manage to land on the broad shoulders and tall stature of Kim Mingyu. Wonwoo knew Mingyu didn’t come to the cafeteria yesterday because he caught him eating by himself back at the classroom— so he feels surprised to see him here today.

Mingyu stares at the cafeteria board that reads the menu and prices for today in somewhat of a dismay before glancing down at the money in his hand. Eventually when Mingyu comes out of the lineup, Wonwoo can’t help but notice that it’s with only one sweet potato in his hand.

Wonwoo had been feeling pretty bad about yesterday because of all the scorn Mingyu received from his classmates, so he wonders if he should invite Mingyu over to sit with him. That idea gets cut short when Mingyu immediately plops down at an empty table beside his.

A couple minutes follow before Junhui and his ‘admirers’ sit down at the same table as Mingyu, seeing as there was no room anywhere else. Wonwoo and Junhui usually sit together, having been friends since childhood, but Wonwoo figures that the popular man needs to give his fangirls attention every now and then as well. He rolls his eyes at that thought.

Last year as a freshman Wonwoo was quite popular as well. That is until people realized he had zero interest in them, and wouldn’t bother maintaining those kind of superficial connections with everyone. But well, to each their own right?

5 minutes later of him picking at his food, commotion suddenly stirs. He watches Junhui look at Mingyu and ask him something. It must’ve been to pass the jug of water from his side of the table. Mingyu gets up and leans forward to take the jug. Suddenly as he’s turning around to hand over the jug, his arm nudges the lunchbox sitting at the edge of the table and it falls splat onto Junhui’s lap.

“Oh my god I’m so sorry!” Mingyu blurts out, rushing down to help him.

Wonwoo slaps his own forehead in frustration. How could this guy be so clumsy?

“Junhui!” a couple students exclaim in surprise.

Suddenly the flurry of worried girls over Junhui’s sacred pants shove Mingyu away, causing him to stumble backwards and knock over the water jug. Wonwoo visibly winces as Mingyu lands on the ground with a thud, shirt all drenched as an empty water jug rolls away.

One of the rudest girls in his grade (which Wonwoo can wholly agree with the title) turns around and glares at Mingyu. “I can’t believe you wrecked Junhui’s lunch and uniform on purpose. What are you, jealous?”

“Yeah,” another one scowls. “I bet you cheated to get in the Class A anyway, considering you have no unique talents and came here on ascholarship .”

Everyone at the cafeteria that had been watching the drama unfold is now murmuring. The rumour that Kim Mingyu— a scholarship student— had cheated to get in and dropped Wen Junhui’s lunch is being relayed faster than he can blink.

Junhui remains silent through this all, carefully trying to wipe his pants. Wonwoo begins to massage his temples. This whole scene was causing him a migraine, and he’s this close to heading back to the class.

“You’re just a nobody,” another one of Junhui’s admirers scoffs. “Go back to Goseong where you belong”

Mingyu is still on the ground, shirt soaking wet and staring at the eyes on him in surprise. Slowly, his surprised expression turns dark and stormy. He glares at the girls that had accused him of all that nonsense.

“Sure I’m might be a nobody... but I don’t drop food on purpose. It was an accident!” he snaps back, anger rising in his voice. “And I didn’t cheat to get in. I worked really hard for that. You girls are so judgmental and critical of others. Why don’t you all go home so your mothers can teach you some manners?”

They all stare at him in stunned silence for even having the guts to talk back to all of them.

Once again Wonwoo finds himself snickering at their surprised faces. Serves them right.

Something about Mingyu and the way he carries himself, refusing to take from anyone makes him smile.

Now Wonwoo is never the one to want to get caught in the ridiculous drama that all the arrogant rich kids in his grade perpetuate— particularly those from the class A; however, when a brilliant idea suddenly crosses his mind, he simply can’t keep it to himself.

Slowly, he makes his way to the table. “Why don’t you just remake it?” he asks, voice clear and loud, looking directly at Mingyu.

Mingyu is getting up from the ground, brushing off his pants and wiping his shirt when he glances up at Wonwoo’s question with surprise.

“What?” he asks.

Wonwoo hates how everyone’s eyes are on the two of them now, but instead of walking away like he normally would, he decides to make an exception. Mingyu is the exception. “You can cook right?” Wonwoo asks. “If you didn’t drop the lunch on purpose, why don’t you just remake it?”

Junhui is now standing beside him with a frown. “That was created by my uncle who’s a chef at Gaon, a 3 Michelin star restaurant. He can’t possibly remake that!”

“Gaon?” Mingyu perks up, a slight sparkle in his eyes now. The storm that was there before had dissipated into nothing. “I’ve been there before! The dish you had was their sweet potato taramasalata with salad right?”

“Yes,” Junhui nods.

“I’ve tried it before,” Mingyu grins. “I can remake it.”

“Isn’t that a little cocky of you?” Junhui suddenly bites back. “Gaon dishes are not that easy to remake.”

“No no, I think it’s a great idea,” a voice suddenly rings out. Wonwoo whips his head around to see his brother standing behind him with folded arms and an amused smile. “I was watching