First day of school. Again.

 

Last year, Aya would’ve laughed, had someone told her this would be her reaction to going back to school. First she failed to get up when her alarm started ringing, the familiar melody being the one that usually made a smile appear on her face. She thought she’d managed to pull through unnoticed. She’d just say she slept in and then think about this tomorrow, prepare herself for it somehow.

 

But of course, her sister had other plans. She jumped onto her bed, started screaming her favorite, absolutely awful song of her favorite boy-band BTS whom Aya did not like, and of course, she had to stop pretending she was sleeping and put her hands over her ears, screaming back for that hellish song to stop being sung.

 

And now here she was, in front of the door, refusing to get in. No, not refusing, she was just mingling, getting some fresh air and there was nothing out of place, not at all. Except it was raining, and no sane person would’ve stood alone in the rain and the relatively-cold weather for a normal September day.

 

Aya sighed deeply, already too tired to deal with any of this. Today she would have to go through another one of those days all over again. Sadly for her, she’d hoped - no, she’d expected they’d be gone when the next school year started. That’s how things went for ambassadors’ kids and foreigners, right? They stayed at a place for a short time, made as much trouble as they could, and then moved on and went somewhere else to bother people.

 

How did things end up like this? At the very beginning, they even seemed… normal. Like they could be steered towards the right path. Like they didn’t know what they were doing. Like it could all be fixed and they could all be friends. Aya snorted. She really was irrational, like Lamiya had told her a million times.

 

Lamiya. Her dearest, dearest friend who was forced to go through a similar treatment. Aya suddenly felt as if she’d actually gotten the lucky draw, because it was so, so much better than what her friend had ended up with - what her friend had willingly gotten herself into.

 

As if in a movie, the object - or rather, objects - of her thoughts appeared in the distance, holding hands under an umbrella. Kris was holding it high above their heads as he said something to her, all the while grinning.

 

Her friend made a not-so-obvious attempt at a laugh and playfully hit his chest. He was looking at her as if she was a masterpiece, a surreal visualisation of his imagination - which, she had to add, was usually a very sick place so it was good that Lamiya did not come from there - and the most precious thing he owned.

 

Yes, owned. No matter how much attention he gave her, she was still a thing, a possession, not a person. As soon as he got tired of her, he would throw her away, and Aya feared what would happen to her friend when that happened - she insisted she’d keep him happy and in love with her, but Aya knew it could not last forever. She just hoped Lamiya would fulfill whatever dream it was she was chasing before his eyes turned cold as he shred her to bits.

 

On the other side of the street, oblivious to their eyes and secluded by the umbrella, was the reason why Lamiya was doing this. He stood, hands in his pockets, unprotected from the rain and soaking wet, but it didn’t seem he was even aware of it.

 

He only had eyes for the pair, and as Aya had seen so many times before, they held many, many emotions that could not be called platonic. Lamiya refused to believe her, no matter how many times she tried telling her. She even once took a photo of him, but her friend insisted he did not look any different than usual - annoyed and uninterested in her.

 

Then a form appeared behind Sehun, an arm settling on his shoulder, even though he was so much shorter than him and it did not look natural or even comfortable. He also wasn’t carrying an umbrella, which seemed to be a fashion thing for these guys, and his now-pink hair was seemingly laughing at her. Great. So now even his hair color was provoking her. Next thing she knew, she’d have to carry a bottle of oxygen around since the air was plagued by his cells.

 

Thankfully, he didn’t seem to have noticed her, at least not for the time being. Her stomach was turning already and its contents threatened to come out very soon if she didn’t get away. This was why she didn’t want to come to school. How would she manage to avoid him every day? How would she manage to avoid him even just today? She felt like puking.

 

And to think that in a different dimension, in a different world, she thought they could be friends…

She remembered the first time she saw him as if it had happened merely minutes ago. Back then he was a blonde who’d straight-up run into her at the small hall that led to the side exit of the school.

 

She was desperately turning the pages of her Bosnian Language notebook, not being able to find where she’d written the information for her test that day when something ran into her, making her fall on her back. To make matters worse, the person’s head collided with hers, so she found herself on the floor, the whole world spinning around her.

 

It wouldn’t stop spinning as a blonde Asian head peeked at her. “Uhm,” he said in a very low voice, “You okay?”

 

Aya wasn’t able to move, but it wasn’t because her world was still spinning and the short blonde was constantly moving in her vision field. He was so handsome and too close to her for comfort - he was actually touching her arm with one of his hands! She knew it was because he would’ve fallen over her otherwise, but he was touching her.

 

She pushed his chest with both of her hands violently and with all the strength she could muster up - well, it might’ve been a bit too much, since he flew over to the closest locker and the sound his back made upon hitting it wasn’t pretty, but he was asking for it! Nobody touched Aya without her permission and got away with it.

 

The guy seemed to realize the exact same thing, since he put both of his hands in front of himself in surrender. “Okay. You’re fine. I believe you. Just don’t hit me.”

 

Aya would’ve snorted, but as she touched her forehead to see whether there was any real damage, she realized he hadn’t really done anything too awful. It’s not like he hit - or touch - her on purpose, anyway, so there was no reason for her to act this way towards him. She hadn’t met any of those Asian guys anyway, so perhaps this was a good opening. She could find out more about them, see if their mindset was similar to Bosnian people’s, perhaps exchange information about culture and all that. A little bit of being a nice host for a foreigner wouldn’t hurt anyone, right?

 

So she regained her composure and put on the best smile she could manage while her head was throbbing as she straightened up and walked over to him, offering him her hand. He looked at it as if it was some kind of a test.

He passed it. Instead of taking her hand, he brushed himself off and got up on his own, his back now leaning on the locker as he put some distance between the two of them and crossed his arms over his head. Strangely, though he looked a bit scared of her, he also looked amused, as if she offered him a challenge which he gladly accepted.

 

“Baekhyun,” he said as his eyes seemingly lightened up. They went from almost black to a very light shade of brown which reminded her of summer. Maybe the hit she received wasn’t that harmless after all. Now she was hallucinating, too.

 

“What?” Aya responded, having no idea what the Ba...con? word meant. It sounded like a Chinese word, but it wasn’t like she was an expert. It could’ve been Latin for all she knew, and that was a language she was supposed to be familiar with.

 

“Baek-hyun,” he repeated slowly, now grinning from ear to ear. It was already obvious that he was the kind of guy that could not stand still - he kept fidgeting with his shirt, moving in slow steps as he tried to stand leaning at the locker, and he even kept biting his lip. It was all very distracting even without the gibberish that was coming out of his mouth. “That’s my name. What’s yours?”

 

“A-ya,” she imitated him, now making him laugh out loud. Man, did she have to try to befriend such weird people? It would take a year to memorize Baek...kun. She hoped he would not have the same troubles, because that would reveal another fact about him - that he was as dense as he looked. “Not as exotic as yours, but it’s easy to memorize.”

 

Baek...hyon nodded, still smiling. “A-ya,” he tried the name on his tongue, and it sounded nothing like when her school friends pronounced it. “Now, Aya, I think I have an idea. Would you mind helping me about this little issue I have?”

 

Fifteen minutes later, they were again standing at the same place, but this time it was her that was leaning on the locker instead, one hand covering and failing to contain her laughter.

 

“I look ridiculous,” Baekhyun said matter-of-factly as he extended his arms and did a playful spin. “That’s very, very good. Nobody will be able to recognize me like this.”

 

Aya gave up on trying to contain herself - she sank to the floor, hitting it with her fists. “You seriously look like a girl now.”

 

She had no idea what was going on, but so far, it was very entertaining. She’d done the same thing when he’d first asked her to help him with his little problem, when he said he was actually a KPOP idol running away from the feds, which were trying to make him go back to his company, SM?

 

Seriously? Her sister knew all KPOP groups. There was definitely no Bekhyon in any of those groups, especially in SM. Whoever this guy was, he was being really obvious and his head was too high up in the clouds if he thought he could pass for an SM artist.

 

But then he gave her his phone, and she saw numerous photos of him with other famous artists, numerous videos of him singing and dancing at music shows, and even though she thought it was all fake at first, it quickly became really obvious that was not the case.

 

When she looked him up on the Internet - which he insisted she did, and it was very suspicious - it turned out he was a solo artist named Byun Baekhyun who was actually pretty famous.

 

Well, in Menna’s defence, she didn’t know any of the artists outside of boy groups, so the story was plausible.

 

He went on to explain that he was short on time and that he needed some kind of disguise to run away from the feds, whom she’d easily recognize because they were currently the only other Asian-looking people at the school, since other artists hadn’t arrived yet and he was their scout who’d test out the air to see whether they could settle here or if they had to keep running.

 

The only thing she managed to come up with in such short time was giving him some of her own spare clothes to cover himself. After all, people knew not to get too close to girls wearing the hijab, especially to girls wearing nikab, so it seemed rational that they’d pass right next to him and not recognize him.

 

He’d run away from SM because they treated him badly, he’d said. Her sister always told her the artists worked too hard, do there were even some disputes with some of their Chinese trainees in the past, but now it all seemed so very real, because they’d apparently driven people into running away to remote countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to be able to live a free life.

 

So now Baekhyun was standing in front of her, his face fully concealed by her red shawl. He was wrapped up in the biggest accessory she could find at her locker, so he looked like those girls from Indian telenovelas, only even more ridiculous.

 

In some weird way, he was still handsome, though. She could not get used to his hair or the eyeliner he wore, but she could get used to the sounds he made while he was laughing or talking or just being next to her.

 

They were still laughing when they heard footsteps and she saw a tall guy she’d never seen before approach the hall they thought was their safe zone. He had a skin darker than Baekhyun’s, but was undoubtedly Asian, so she quickly signaled Baekhyun with her eyes and got into the locker before he was close enough to see her.

 

Not a second later, the guy was standing where she had been. Phew. She managed to slip by somehow.

 

She could see the guy through the hole at the top of the locker’s door - he passed by Baekhyun, who was turning the pages of the notebook Aya dropped earlier unceremoniously, trying perhaps a little bit too hard to look inconspicuous and holding the shawl with one hand to cover his face. It definitely did not look natural, but for an Asian, it would do. He had no reason to suspect Baekhyun was anything but a regular school student.

 

Just like she thought, the guy didn’t do so much as glance at Baekhyun as he went out the side exit. Phew again. She was beginning to feel claustrophobic at the confined space of the small locker, so she prepared to open the door and get out-

 

"Wait a minute, you look familiar," the guy said in a voice which clearly showed doubts that the person in front of him was a school student wearing a hijab. He squinted, looking more closely at the cloaked figure who kept saying, "SubhanAllah" in a poorly disguised Korean accent.

 

This was not good. What would she do if he was busted?

Thankfully, Aya heard another unfamiliar voice full of impatience ring in the background. "Come on, Jongin, I don't want  to have to look for you again and we can't wait anymore. Let's go."

For another long moment, the guy kept pushing one side of his face towards the face barely visible through the shawl, looking frantically around with one of his eyes. To her surprise, he proved to be just a little bit dense because he shook his head and backed away as he said, "Nah, that can't be right. I'm sorry, I must be acting paranoid. Excuse me, Miss..."

The Miss he was referring to was as wrapped up in the red shawl as one could be, and it was hard to distinguish the tomato-red face from the color of the shawl. Baekhyun breathed a sigh of relief and got up gracefully, throwing his legs over the white cafeteria chairs in an attempt to bolt away as fast as possible.

That was when the shawl got caught up on a passerby student's uniform badge. A ripping sound was heard, and then a thump as the now-unveiled person fell to the floor along with the person which bumped into her by accident. Baekhyun turned around to see what had happened with the now-torn shawl which was beside them, instead of where it was supposed to be - around his head, protecting him from the guys that were chasing him.

The guy must’ve been very surprised because the person he thought was a girl wearing nikab, as it turned out, was actually a skinny short Korean boy with a blonde her and an expression of mortification. He was even wearing a skirt to complete his disguise. He looked absolutely ridiculous.

Baekhyun turned just to see the guy's maniacal face. He burst into laughter. "I knew it was you since the first moment, you scoundrel! What are you thinking, disguising yourself as a girl? Come on, let’s go, don’t let Math keep you waiting!"

 

Math?

"What?" Aya screeched, coming out of the locker. She was holding a pin in her hand, not having had the time to properly rearrange her black shawl, and it kind of looked like she was about to put it into Baek's throat. She was very tempted to do just that. "So you aren't the feds trying to lock him up and deport him back to South Korea?"

The dark-skinned giant ended up on the floor, looking like he was about to die from laughter.

Baekhyun was murmuring to himself, turning his head towards the wall and out of reach of the harpy Aya was going to become any second now. "Kkaebsong..."

She had a feeling it would not be that easy to calm her down. No, she had a feeling nothing would calm her down until she punched that liar’s head into the wall.

 

How dared he? How could he lie to her so openly, making her do such embarrassing things? He was famous? He was trying to find freedom? Who the hell was he even lying, her or himself?

 

She would not stop until she murdered him.

 

Meanwhile, they guy she heard was called Jongin kept talking to Baekhyun, as if she hadn’t made such a dramatic presence mere seconds ago. To make matters worse, they spoke in that foreign language of theirs she couldn’t understand a word of.

 

“Suho’s really angry - we’ve been searching for you for almost an hour! We even found Tao before you - he was hiding at one of the girls’ bathrooms.” Jongin said in Korean. They both giggled. “We probably wouldn’t have ever found him, had we not heard a girl scream that there was a ert in the bathroom. I actually thought it was you, but it turned out it was Tao instead! Could you believe it?”

 

He looked Baekhyun over once again and laughed shortly. “Your concept is no better than his, though. Where did you even get all this stuff?”

 

Baekhyun nodded over to where Aya was still standing with a pin in her hand, and she took that as her cue. “How dare you, you liar? And to think I actually believed you for a second! How dare you make fun of me like this?”

 

Jongin whistled and kept talking in Korean. “Man, you must’ve done something pretty bad for her to be acting this way. Did you steal her clothes or something? And what’s with the whole feds thing or whatever she’d called it - depror- depra… tion?”

 

Baekhyun sighed in exasperation. “It’s deportation, Jongin,” he said, looking at Aya as if she was an experiment gone wrong and he had no idea what to do about it now. “And I didn’t lie, not entirely. I did tell her about SM, it’s just that she thinks its the agency they’re posing as. I just used my disguise that we’d prepared before we arrived and she helped me. I just wish you would’ve passed me, and now I have to go to Math. Ugh.” He groaned.

 

Meanwhile, Aya was boiling. They were ignoring her. They were talking to each other casually, as there was nothing wrong in the whole world and as if she wasn’t at the brink of murdering them both just for annoying her.

 

She screamed. “Will you answer me already, or do I have to beat the answer out of you?”

 

Jongin looked Baekhyun in the eye. “You know the rules, Baek. No friends and no getting familiar. End this quickly and let’s go.”

 

Baekhyun shut his eyes tightly for a moment and then let a huge breath out. Then he nodded and started to take off his accessories.

 

“Listen- Aza, was it?” he said as he unwrapped the shawl from his head, “I appreciate the effort and everything but my friend and I have been playing and I’m too tired to explain it to you.”

 

He started to take of the skirt, too. “I know it was fun, being around a famous person and all, but I gotta go now. Serious business waiting, you know how it is.”

 

He tapped his chin with his left hand’s index finger, as if deep in thought. Then he shook his head and continued to remove the skirt and throw it in the trash can along with the shawl. “Actually, no, you don’t, so I won’t even try to explain it to you. You just go back to being the retard turning that notebook’s pages and I’ll pretend I never saw you. Okay? Now Bye!”

 

The guy actually had the audacity to wave at her as he started to turn around.

 

The whole time, Aya was painfully calm and collected. Not a single thought was in her head. All she could focus on was trying not to jump on him and break his neck. Possibly keep stabbing him with the pin until all the anger was out of her system. That way, he’d be of much more use than he’d been the whole time he’d spent with her so far.

 

But now, she let herself go.

 

She screamed at the top of her lungs and threw herself at him. She grabbed anything and everything she could - his nose, one of his ears, the hair at his temples, even his mouth. She scratched him and hit him with her fists as hard as she could. He, of course, did not hit back, for he was too much of a coward to do that.

 

Too soon, arms stronger and bigger than Baekhyun’s were prying her off him as she flailed with her limbs and tried to make some more damage. His face was bloody - she’d succeeded in scratching him, but it did not look as bad as she’d wanted it to. A retard? This retard would show him what it meant to get what he reserved, so maybe he’d actually respect people in the future instead of insulting them first chance he got!

 

“You stupid wench!” Baekhyun screamed back at her, now being the one who was fueling the fight. “Do you have any idea how much effort it took to have a clean face? And now you’ve basically peeled the skin off it, you lunatic! I’ll kill you for this!”

 

She wouldn’t have had a problem fighting with him. He was a midget with no pride, short arms and no courage, so she was pretty confident she’d make him eat the dirt very soon if they were to fight. But Jongin was holding her by the waist and no matter how hard she tried, she could not escape his iron-tight embrace, so she flailed her limbs some more, not managing to take a raging Baekhyun off her, but managing to at least hit him with her right leg where it hurt.

 

She’d never felt more satisfied than when he made a sound of intense pain and stumbled back. “That’s what you get for lying shamelessly and insulting people, you er!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, not even recognizing her voice anymore.

 

Aya thought this would be the end of it - okay, they had a fight, she won, and now they’d hate each other but get on with their lives.

 

But Baekhyun was on her a millisecond later, and what he did next was definitely something she never would’ve expected. It was low and prideless and she did not want to think about it.

 

Somewhere at the back of her mind, she would always think about that day.

 

About the eyes looking at her in shock after he tore her shawl and pulled it off her head.

 

About the laughter, the endless laughter, the laughter of victory and joy at being able to hurt someone who’d tried to help him not too long ago.

 

Stupid sadists. Even now, her eyes brimmed with tears, because what he’d done was not fair. He played dirty, and he had no respect for others’ emotions and no sense of what was actually important to someone.

 

And now he was staring at her again with a menacing smile. He pushed Sehun in front of him, approaching her, who was still standing at the school’s entrance, shouting loud enough to be heard by all of the school’s students: “What’s up, brown hair? You washed it, so that I can take that useless shawl again?”

 

Sehun laughed, too, as he joined the rock-throwing show. “Hyung, aren’t you going a little bit too far? There are so many girls at this school, you don’t need to hunt for these curveless and fake Muslim ones. Who is she kidding? The whole school has seen her hair, and she’s still wearing that stinky blanket around her head? You can do so much better.”

 

They waved at her sweetly as they passed beside her, one of them at each side, as if they were best friends or at least colleagues. Then they bumped her shins with their legs and she stumbled, but she did not let herself fall.

 

Don’t think about it, she chanted in her head. Go to the pretty places. You’re at a beach, the sun is shining and you can hear the sound of the waves whispering…

 

Then she heard another voice she felt sick of, but this one was not aiming its poison at her. “It’s enough, guys,” Kris said, as he reached the entry with her best friend in-hand. She was looking very concerned for her - she must’ve been able to see that she was barely suppressing herself from crying. “Leave her alone and back off.”

 

“Thanks, Kris,” she said while looking at the floor. As if he didn’t tell them to do this in the first place.

 

Being friends with these people? It would only be possible for someone like them, someone who had no morale, no borders and boundaries, no ideals to follow, nothing to look up to, nothing to respect.

 

She thought she saw his eyes light up? As he turned to look at her one last time, his eyes were two black holes, swallowing all of the light they could find and not letting anything get away.

 

And he was smirking, enjoying what he was doing.

 

She should’ve stabbed him with a pin on that day.

 

Baekhyun laughed morbidly and turned with his best friend in hand, leaving the sound of the menacing laughter to stick with her, repeating again and again until all she could think of was torturing him slowly and painfully, just like he did with her.

 

Someday, he’d pay for his wrongdoings.

 

They all would, and that was coming from someone who kept their word.