Shin Hye found Hibari’s room without too much difficulty.  The double bedroom looked like the home of an obsessive war strategist with a penchant for pink.  Pictures of many good-looking boys from both Osaka High and Seoul High were tacked up onto a board along with little pink post-it notes explaining their individual pros and cons.  Maps of Saint Blossoms and Seoul High had little secret routes dotted on them in red ink like Harry Potter’s Marauders Map.

Shin Hye stumbled over a box marked ‘surveillance tapes’ lying on the floor and crept under the drying rack of red lacy lingerie to find her bed.  Although everything screamed out the presence of her roommate, there was no sign of Hibari, and Shin Hye was able to clear away some of the pink stuff around what would be her bed.

After she had unpacked her things, washed her face and brushed her hair, Shin Hye went downstairs to join the other Hibari dorm students for their special first-night supper.  Teacher Jung was there too, doing his best to ignore the laughing and squealing girls around him by hiding under his fringe.  His eyes were firmly glued to his plateful of food, and he only shifted his attention once when Shin Hye walked past him to get to the buffet.

As she picked up a bowl of rice and a selection from the side dishes, Shin Hye wondered if she should take the first step towards a friendship with Teacher Jung.  It was important for her to get along with him so that when she asked him the almighty favour to teach her brother music, he wouldn’t tell her to go jump off a cliff.  She decided to treat him like any moody co-worker at her old job; she walked right up to the seat opposite him and sat down without a word.

The girls drew silent at the stunt.  Yong Hwa glared at her from over the top of his funky thick-framed glasses for almost a minute.  However, Shin Hye refused to be cowed, and she remained in her chair despite the instinctive urge to flee.  She pretended not to notice his dagger eyes, and stabbed a spoon into her meal, making smacking noises with her tongue every time she swallowed a mouthful of her food.

When she’d finished her drink, Shin Hye made her next bold move by refilling Yong Hwa’s cup first, treating him like a true elder.  Yong Hwa looked up from his plate and watched her with his steady brown eyes as the aromatic liquid filled his cup.  He said nothing, but he gave her the tiniest of nods for her efforts.  It was a good sign.

“Unni!”  A plate smashed down on the table beside her.  Bits of rice and chopped green onion went flying across the table as Min Hyuk took a seat.  “Here you are!  I wondered where you went.  Man, I am so starving that I could eat a house!  Hi Teacher Jung!  How was the rest of your day?  Mine was so fun.  Komari-ssi is soooo nice.  She offered to do my hair for me tomorrow so that I look good when I meet the boys that go to Seoul High.”

Teacher Jung said nothing.  He dropped his fork onto his plate with the look of someone who had lost their appetite and got up from the table without excusing himself.  Shin Hye buried her head in her hands as the teacher exited the room.  Min Hyuk had ruined everything.

“Did I say something wrong, Unni?” Min Hyuk asked.

Shin Hye ruffled her own hair before looking at her hopeless brother.  “Never mind, you.  It can be fixed...I hope.”

“Oh good!  I thought I annoyed him somehow, and I don’t want to do that.  Hey Unni!  I have news.  Komari told me that all the new Hibari girls are going to be taken to meet the Seoul High students tomorrow morning.  I think that this will be our chance to prove our loyalty to them.”

Shin Hye drank some of her tea.  “So what are your ideas on how to impress these boys at Seoul High?”

Min Hyuk’s brows drew together.  “I have one idea, but you might not like it.  You know your lucky baseball bat we brought in case of an emergency?  The one you were going to use to protect us if we were ever found out by the school and we needed to escape by knocking someone unconscious?”

“Yeeeeeees.”  Shin Hye glanced around to make sure that no one had heard what Min Hyuk had said.  When she saw that most of the girls were two tables away, she relaxed.

“Let’s give it to the most popular guy in school,” suggested Min Hyuk.  “Komari told me that Lee Seung Gi is really into baseball.  Just like you!”

Shin Hye pouted.  “But that’s my baseball bat.  It has the autograph of my sports idol on it.”

“Exactly!” said Min Hyuk.  “He’ll love it because you gave him something that's so precious to you!  Let’s give it to him, Unni.  Please-please-please?”

Shin Hye grimaced.  “Okay, little sister.  I suppose if it’s for you, I can’t say no, can I?”

“Thank you, Unni!  Did I mention how young you look in that uniform?”

She smirked.  “Give me some of that pork on your plate, and we’ll call it even.”

“Stop!”  Someone slapped Min Hyuk’s hand before he could reach for his fork.

It was Hibari; student head of the dorm and leader of the Hibari Four.  She snatched Min Hyuk’s plate away from him and sat down next to Shin Hye with a disapproving look that mirrored Teacher Jung’s.

“You won’t make the boys at Seoul High happy if you are fat,” she said, inspecting Min Hyuk’s mountain of rice with a disapproving eye.  “I could feed an entire village in Africa for a week with the amount of rice on this plate.”

Min Hyuk shrugged with the confidence of a boy with fast metabolism.  “So what?  Think of me as a village.”

Hibari tossed her curly hair-extensions over her shoulder.  “If I let you eat this rice, tomorrow morning your stomach will look like you’ve been impregnated by an alien, and your face will swell up to the size of a beach ball.”

Min Hyuk recoiled.  Shin Hye patted her round cheeks guiltily.

“Is that true, Unni?”  Min Hyuk looked down at his twig of a stomach and patted it in fear.

“Sad, but true,” sighed Hibari.  “And I cannot let you meet the boys of Seoul High looking like E.T.’s Eomeoni.  Shin Hye, as Min Hyuk’s Unni, I would expect you to teach her these important things.”

Shin Hye found herself apologising before she could stop herself.  “I’m sorry, Hibari-san, but my little sister loves big meals.  Please don’t make her eat nothing.  She is still growing.  Look at how skinny her arms are; they’re like chicken legs.”

“Yah!” protested Min Hyuk.

“Spoken just as if you were his loving mother,” complimented Hibari.  She took Shin Hye by surprise by clasping one of her hands.  “Shin Hye-chan, I am charmed by your devotion to your sister.  I hope that we can be the best roommates in this school and the best of friends, so please, both you and your sister can call me Unni from now on.  Okay?”

Unsure of how to react, Shin Hye smiled at Hibari while trying to free her hand.

Hibari shot Shin Hye a confused look, and without warning, she let go of Shin Hye to lift a hand to her own heart.  “Hm.  That’s strange.  My chest is pounding.  I must have had too many diet cokes today.”  She got to her feet and shrugged.  “And now it’s gone...I guess it was nothing.”

Shin Hye’s ‘let’s-humour-the-crazy-person’ smile wobbled.  “Ooooh good?”

Hibari relaxed.  “I will see you soon Shin Hye-chan!  If you come back to the room at nine, we can gab about Lee Seung Gi while you clip my toenails.  I go to bed at ten sharp, so you’ll have to hurry if you want a shower tonight, and don’t borrow my clean if you do!  I have them labelled from one to twenty, so I’ll know if one is missing.  I have heard that thieves are rife in South Korea.  The statistics are so shameful.  Bye!”

The moment Hibari turned her back on them, Shin Hye grimaced.  How on earth was she supposed to live with a girl like that without disaster?

Min Hyuk pursed his pink lips and gave his sister a lopsided smile.  “Did I mention how great you look in that uniform, Un-ni?”