Waking up in the lobby by the receptionist was far from my expectation of a good start of the day. I had a terrible headache and there was a smell coming from me that made me want to vomit. I hurried to the hotel room before one of the teachers could see me.

In the room everyone was asleep. Se Hun and Lime were sleeping on Alice’s bed. Alice was sleeping on my bed while Tao was sleeping on the floor and when I went to the bathroom I found Lu Han sound asleep near the toilet seat. From what I saw in the toilet, Lu had been quite sick.

“Wake up!” I yelled. Lu Han jumped and I heard the others in the room groan and whine.

“No”, Lu Han hummed. “More sleep.”

“It’s almost 9 am”, I said. “And if we don’t start cleaning up this place we will be screwed.” It didn’t take long before they all woke up and we started cleaning the mess we had made. After throwing the trash into a big plastic bag and spraying the room with perfume, Tao opened the window to let fresh air in.

“Nice get together”, Se Hun said.

“Right”, Lu Han agreed. “We’ll see you in an hour girls. We’re apparently going to the beach.”

YES! My lost faith in the day was restored. I was looking very forward to going to the beach and dressing up in a swimming suit in the lovely summer weather. I went to the shower first while the girls were lazying around. When I came back Lime had woken up.

“What kind of swimwear are you going to put on?” She asked.

“A hot one”, I said after pulling out my white bikini and putting it on. Thank god I had waxed with the girls a few days before coming here. “Alice.”

“What?” She sounded grumpy. ”My head hurts.”

“So does mine”, I said. “But you have to wake up honey.” I put on a pair of denim shorts and an oversized black lace top. “We’re going to the beach.”

“The beach?” She sat straight up. “I have been waiting for this for years.”

“What do you mean?” I asked while putting things I would need in my backpack.

“I mean”, she looked at me. “All the guys from 3a and even 3d take us for granted. They don’t even look twice at us but when it’s the girls from 3a they all drool.”

“That’s because 3a girls are really tall and pretty”, I said. “And they have perfect model like bodies.” 

“So do we”, Alice started looking through her suitcase. “It’s just the uniforms that hide it and the fact that we don’t wear make-up to school like they do.”

“You don’t need make up to be pretty”, I said. “Or a hot body for that matter. Everything that matters is your personality.” My father had told me this so many times which I was thankful for because it had helped with my self-confidence. I thought at least.

“That’s bull”, Alice said. “I’m going to kill it today. The boys will wish they never ignored me before.” I laughed at my friend.

“Sure”, I said. ”Just remember to put waterproof make up on. We wouldn’t want you to look horrible after swimming right?” Alice stuck her tongue out with a big smile on her face. She pulled out a red bikini.

“Do you think Lu will like this?” She asked after putting it on.

”I’m sure he’ll love it”, I agreed. I just had this feeling today was going to be Daebak!

By the time we’d made it downstairs, the hotel’s restaurant was filled with students and other hotel guests. While we were serving ourselves breakfast, the boys joined us looking all fresh. I didn’t know why but they all looked so handsome in my eyes all of a sudden. Although we had spent the earlier night all together, they hugged each one of us as a greeting. Se Hun let me go and flaunted his arms muscles that were showing from his shirt.

“My muscles are finally free”, he cheered. We laughed because we all knew how obsessed he was with his muscles. “Did you guys hear we’re playing volley?”

“Really?” Alice gave Lu Han a plate. “We’re going to kick your asses again guys.”

“Keep dreaming”, Tao said. “Last time you only won because I had broken my wrist.”

“You guys are just sore losers”, I said remembered last years volley game.

We arrived at the beach about two hours later. It was crowded since it was a Saturday, but the girls and I managed to find a good spot and arrange the blankets the boys and we had brought on the warm sand. The girls and I put our bags next to the blanket and the guys disappeared leaving us by ourselves. Lime took off her clothes revealing her blue one piece swimsuit and Alice took off her revealing her red bikini. I had already put on sunscreen back at the hotel so I helped them with theirs.

I looked around searching for Kai that I hadn’t seen since last night. I remembered our humiliating conversation and had tried to avoid him during breakfast, but he was nowhere to be seen. Further away, I saw the guys helping Lee Tuk and Boa put up the volley net. Two of the things that made me almost choke on my saliva, was the fact that Lee Tuk (my home room teacher) was in a bathing suit and actually looked good. The other thing was that Boa was also dressed in a bikini and she always looks good but seeing the two of them standing together they looked like a couple.

“Guys”, I called. ”Look at Lee Tuk and Boa sangsaenim (teacher).”

“What about th… Oh my god!” Lime started laughing. ”Is that our dorky teacher?”

“Boa looks cute”, Alice complimented. “They should totally date.”

“I’ll be back.” I let the girls put on their sunscreen and walked to the guys.

“Who’s playing first?” I asked. “Boys against boys, girls against girls or do we mix it up?” Lime and Alice headed towards us and I saw how Se Hun, Lu Han and others boys’ mouths dropped open while looking at them. Tao was too busy fixing the volley net to notice anything.

“I think we’re playing against 3a”, Tao said. At the same time 3 girls and two guys from class 3a walked towards us.

“Shall we start?” One of the boys asked.

“You’re 5”, Lu Han said. “We’re outnumbering you.”

“Kai!” A girl yelled. ”Aren’t you coming?”

I followed her direction and finally saw Kai walking towards us looking straight out of a magazine photoshoot. The reason I hadn’t recognized him was because of his clothes. He was dressed in bathing shorts, a t-shirt and sunglasses, something I had never seen him wear before. All the girls’ eyes were on him and I tried my best to not be affected but I was. 

I was affected by him although he was not even near me. As if I wasn’t affected enough, he had to take off his shirt right in front of everyone making me all warm and fuzzy inside. It wasn’t the first time I had seen him shirtless but it still had that same effect on me. How could someone look so good?

He joined his classmates on the other side of the net and the guys started taking off their shirts too. Although they had great body’s and Se Hun had better looking muscles than Kai, Kai was the top boy on my list.

“Aren’t you hot?” Tao asked. I realised I was staring at the spot Kai was standing at earlier and patted my cheeks to wake up. “Or do you need my help to take your clothes off?”

“Boundaries, you sick !” I headed back to the spot our things were at. I pulled off my lace sweater throwing it at the side and got out of the shorts I was wearing then I tied my hair up in a ponytail. The guys were discussing strategies when I got there. Instead of listening I was paying attention to Kai although I tried not to.

“Let’s do this”, Se Hun said. “Ji Eun ah, you serve.”

I took my position at the back and caught the ball that was thrown at me. I was ready to kick some .

The game started after my serve that earned us one point thanks to the girls from the other team who tried protecting themselves instead of hitting the ball back. I served again and the same thing happened again in a humorous way. The third time one of the girls and Kai switched places. He went to the front and she went behind. I served for the third time and this time Kai hit the ball and the game officially begun.

The guys from 3a were good at playing but the same couldn’t be said to the girls even if they did try their best. They cared way too much about looking good while playing so they weren’t giving it their all. Whereas my time was 110% involved in the game. Every time we scored, we would cheer and hug each other like the team we were.

The score eventually became 16-15 and we were ahead by one point. Lee Tuk blew the whistle and our team changed position. I was in the front with Se Hun and the other four were behind us. The game continued and the other team hit the ball to us. I jumped and managed to hit it towards Lu Han but fell in the process. Lu Han thankfully managed to score.

”You alright?” He helped me up. My entire body was in sand but I was fine with it. I wanted to win.

“Yes”, I said. 

The game went on and after ignoring each other during the entire game, Kai and I were about to confront each other. The one who hit the ball would make it’s team win and I wanted to win badly. The ball was landing in the middle above the net and Kai and I jumped. I was so close to hit the ball but Kai was much taller than me and he hit it. He ended the game and his team won.

“I’m sorry”, I said to my teammates.

“It’s okay”, Alice hugged me. “We had fun. Besides there was no way you could have hit that. His arm is way longer than yours and so are his legs.” 

I laughed and we all went back to our spot. Tao and Se Hun left to buy ice cream at the store that was next to us and Lu Han went to swim although he wasn’t really good at it. I was taking it easy while watching Lu Han fool around in the water. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.

“This is really relaxing”, Alice said.

“I know right”, Lime rolled next to me. “Do you know what I noticed?”

“What?” I asked.

“Kai”, she smiled. ”He couldn’t take his eyes off you since we got at the beach.”

“Stop messing around with me”, I said. “He was probably checking out Alice’s big behind.” Lime and I laughed and Alice kicked us. While we were playing, I tried spotting Lu Han but he was nowhere to be seen. “Guys, where did Lu Han go?”

“What do you mean?” They stopped kicking each other and we sat up to have a better look at the beach.

“He was in the water a few seconds ag…” I saw a pair of hands coming out of the water further away from the swimming limit. Was someone drowning? I wasn’t sure, but the hand soon disappeared and I didn’t have time to think before I started running in panic.

“JI EUN!” Lime yelled behind but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I was only wishing for the person not to be Lu Han and also for the person to be okay.

”JI EUN!” I heard more voices yell but ignored them. I was running with too much speed. I took a deep breath and dived into the water leaving the world behind. I was afraid something was going to happen to Lu Han, because now I was sure it was him. 

I spotted him further away from me into the deep sea, bubbles were coming out from his mouth. I paced up and finally reached him. Heart beating, I struggled to pull him along with me because of his weight but we were thankfully nearing to the beach shore. 

I dived further down, put my arm around his stomach and pushed his body up, out of the water. When his head passed over the surface and fresh air reached him, his body started moving from under the water were I still was. I pushed him again as strongly as I could and was about to follow after but then I felt a sharp pain in my left leg as if I had hit hit something.

I reached down my leg and touched my leg. It was bruised and I was sinking deeper into the sea and worst of all I wasn’t able to swim properly. I was running out of air and my lungs couldn’t hold anymore. I swallowed water while accidentally trying to breathe and things around me were becoming blurry but I saw something dark nearing me. Before I could tell what it was, everything around me turned black.