Mrs. Kim woke me up the next morning. I had been sleeping with a science book on my face, a result from my trying to study last night and ended up with some marks on my face. When I went downstairs everybody in the house was already having breakfast. The grownups were happily conversing with each other.

“Good morning”, Mrs. Kim greeted and put some food on a plate for me.

“Good morning”, I greeted back and sat next to her but in front of Min Ho who was glaring at me with an evil face expression.

“Did you sleep well, Ji Eun?” My father asked.

“Like a baby”, I answered and started eating. I thought it was awkward how the grownups had such a great relationship while the kids (Kai, Min Ho and I) had such a bad relationship. Min Ho was continuously staring at me and eating at the same time while Kai was reading the newspaper just like yesterday. I tried my best not to look awkward when Kai stood up.

“I’m leaving now”, he said as he left.

“Wait”, Mrs. Kim said. “Ji Eun, why don’t you follow Jong In? He’ll show you the way to school.” I quickly took a mouthful of my pancakes. ”Jong In ah! Wait for Ji Eun.” I  wore my shoes and hurried after Kai who was already halfway ahead of me. I was heavily panting once I caught up to him.

“Why are you walking so fast?” I panted as I walked behind him. Kai spun around to face me.

“You don’t know?” He asked. “I don’t want people to see you with me.” I narrowed my eyes and gasped. Why did he always have to be so mean to me?

”Let me tell you something.” Kai blinked when the sun shone on him and my legs grew weaker as a result of his cuteness. “I’m only taking you to school today so you better use your head to remember the road because I’m not going to be here on your way back home.” I nodded. “Also, just because we live together doesn’t mean you can go around school talking to me like we’re friends. We’re not even acquaintances. And if I ever hear anyone say anything about you living in my house I’ll end your life. Capich?”

I gulped down my saliva and slowly nodded at his words. I could tell by the way his eyes were on me that he was dead serious and honestly, it frightened me a bit. I just couldn’t understand why he was the way he his. What was pushing him to be so mean and cold all the time? 

I watched as he turned away and couldn’t help but feel sad as I followed him from a distance. At the same tine my sadness didn’t stay for long. Watching Kai walk from behind was an eye opening sight. I never knew a guy could look handsome from behind, but Kai was.

I laid on my desk facing the right side of the classroom. I was currently bored in class and instead busy thinking about him. A few weeks had passed since I’d moved in with the Kim’s and things were moving forward. I still felt like I was intruding in their family but this feeling had slowly gone down. Kai and I had barely had any interactions except sometimes bumping into each other in front of the bathroom, in the stairs, in the kitchen and everywhere else in the house. 

As he’d asked, I hadn’t mentioned anything about him nor talked about him during school day so far.  The guys had asked how my new house was but I had shortly answered with a everything is fine. If I had told them the truth, I knew Lu Han would have had a heart attack and the girls would have started gossiping. Tao would have probably gone to the extreme and dragged me away from Kai’s house and locked me inside his own house instead. If there was anything Tao disliked, it was Kai. He had always been so negative about my liking of Kai and this had increased drastically since he’d come back from China.  Se Hun would have been completely uninterested. 

“Ji Eun”, Lime called. “What are you doing?” She sat on the desk in front of me and since my head was on my desk, the only thing I could see was her legs and skirt.

“Thinking”, I answered. She shook her head as if she was disappointed in me. “What?”

“You’re thinking about Kai aren’t you?” She asked. I turned my head to the other side to face Tao instead. He was listening to music. “I knew it. When are you going to forget about him? I thought you would have been over him after all he’s done to you.”

“That’s exactly what I thought too”, Lu Han agreed from the other side of the room.

“Anyway”, Alice meddled in. I was thankful towards her for stopping the talks about Kai. “It’s soon time for the big test again.”

I rolled my eyes. Just thinking about the big test made me feel sick. The big test was a big  - mind the word big - test that every student in grade 2 and 3 did every year. The test consisted of all the courses we students had through the years. They put of all the different courses together and created one big test that was divided in two parts and lasted three full days. The first part of the test consisted of theoretical subjects where as t he second part consisted of practical ones. The test for the theoretical subjects lasted two days and the practical one, only one.

A thing to be worried about was the fact that the teachers put up each students result in the foyer so that everybody in the school could see it. The results of the 20 best scores were usually presented on the tv screen screen in front of the 2nd and 3rd graders. The rest of the scores were sent out as a list in our school's own app so that everybody could easily see where they ranked. To people like Kai, the big test was another way to show and brag about how smart they were. To people like me, it was one big embarrassment.

Last year everyone in my class ranked in with the lowest scores which made us a laughing stock in front of the other students. This year I wasn’t expecting anything to change either.

”It’s going to be much more difficult than it was last time”, Lime commented. “Maybe we should we study together?”

“We usually fall asleep every time we study together”, I sighed in defeat. “Why waste our time on it?”

“It’s lunch time!” Se Hun yelled right as the bell rung making the entire class burst out in laughter.

The bell had just rung a couple of minutes earlier but the cafeteria was already full of hungry students. I was about to serve myself some juicy meat when Lu Han showed up from nowhere with a plate full of food. I looked behind confused. If I remembered clearly, Lu Han had been right behind me. How did he get food so quickly? I accepted the plate wanting to add some side dishes on my own plate when he showed up again only this time he handed me a bottle of coke.

“This is for you too”, he said with a big smile. I smiled back and shook my head at the coke.

“No, thank you Lu”, I said and gave him back the bottle. Lu Han stubbornly forced it back in my hand and we struggled with it for a moment until I had enough. ”Lu, stop! I don’t want to drink coke.” I pushed the bottle back in his hand but to my surprise he had already removed his hand. The strength I had put behind giving him back the bottle led it to pivot towards our school’s buffet. For a split second I was relieved thinking the bottle would simply fall on the floor. This quickly vanished when the bottle cap flew off and the drink violently spritz all over me and the food that the students where supposed to eat. 

When the bottle finally hit the floor silence erupted in the entire cafeteria. I stood there mouth opened, hand frozen and wet. The entire school lunch had been spoiled by my reckless hand. 

I didn’t know what to do. On one hand I wanted to disappear from earth and never show my face again, and on the other hand I wanted to scold Lu Han for never listening to me. As I stood there conflicted, the lunch ladies started yelling at me. I immediately went lower than 90 degrees and bowed and bowed and bowed again.

“I’m sorry to announce there’s no more food besides this”, one of them said. ”You’ll have to either eat the sandwiches at the cafeteria store or not eat at all today.” I bowed again as they started removing the buffet and cleaning up. 

The uproar from the students quickly followed and I felt everyone cursing at me deep down as their eyes lingered on me.

“I’m sorry”, I began but my voice drowned in the loudness that was surrounding me. Someone started clapping and walking towards me. My tensed body tensed up even more so slowly because I knew exactly who it was..

”Go Ji Eun”, said a voice that I could recognise at any time and anywhere in the world. ”You’ve done it again!” He was now standing in front of me. I didn’t know how his face seemed as I didn’t dare look into his cold eyes. ”I have a question, actually I think we all do. Do you have a brain or is it just empty in your head?” Tao who was standing not to far away from took determined steps towards Kai but I stopped him by grabbing his arm. Enough was enough. Yes, I knew I had just ed up but Kai had no right to take this as an opportunity to bash me in front of the entire school again.

 I was going to deal with Kai my way although I had no idea what that way was.

”Why do you have to meddle in?” I asked in anger. I was angry at what had just happened and pissed of at Kai. ”This has nothing to do with you.”

”Nothing?” He scoffed. ”I’m student body president.” I clenched my sticky hands. Why would I forget such a thing at this crucial moment? My honour was at stake here and I needed to keep it. 

“I didn’t do it on purpose”, I tried to explain myself. “It just kind of happened so don’t call me an airhead.”

”How can I stop calling you stupid when you keep doing stupid things one day after another?” He asked.I’ll ask the students what they think.” He looked around in the cafeteria. ”Should I stop calling her stupid after what she did?” The students all said No! “See? The students have spoken.”

I sighed in defeat. Why did Kai always have to bring up the fact that I wasn’t the smartest? Was it really so great to be smart and good at everything?

”I’ll prove to you that I’m not stupid”, I said. If Kai wanted to continue going at me then I would fight back; by proving him wrong.

“And how are you going to do that?” He asked.

“I’ll make it into the top 20 for the ranks of the test”, I blurted out of me.

“And if you don’t make it?” He asked. “What’s in it for me?”

“You can do whatever you wish to do with me”, I impulsively blurted out for the second time.

“What I want?” He asked. “So you’re saying you will run 20 km if I tell you to?”

“Y…yes”, answering yes to that question was difficult, but it was needed. I had enough of Kai being awful towards me. “But if I win”, I continued. ”I can do whatever I want with you.”

“Fine!”, Kai accepted surprising not only me but every one present in this room. “It’s a deal. I hope you won’t regret this.” He left the cafeteria and I was able to breathe properly.

“Top 20?” Tao asked. ”Have you gone crazy during my leave to China Ji Eun ah?” I looked at Tao with emptiness in my eyes as I myself was shocked at the recent events.

 “You will not make it”, Lu Han commented. “It’s impossible. He will win!”

“Ji Eun!” Tao touched my cheeks. ”Hello?? Is anyone there?” He waved his hand in front of my eyes but I was still unable to talk. 

What did I just do?