It was almost a perfect morning for Mina. As always, she woke up at 6am and began to get dressed before heading to her kitchen. There was a small note left on the counter from her mom telling her that she had cooked Mina’s breakfast and left it in the oven to stay warm. And like any other day, Mina would pull out the breakfast her mom had prepared for her and plop into a seat around the kitchen table to eat it. Then, she would grab her backpack and head out to the bus stop.

The air on this particular morning felt suffocating to the girl. It rained heavily the night before which probably explained the washed up smell. Mina thanked the heavens when the bus came early and she stepped on to it, escaping the horrible smell that came from the rain. She sat at a window seat and waited patiently for the bus to take her to school. The bus was filled with students from various other high schools and only one uniform stood out to be the same as Mina’s. Mina recognized the girl but she couldn’t quite figure out where she had seen her around the school. Shrugging the thought off, Mina stood up and took off when the bus pulled into her stop. She braced herself as she walked past the gates and up the steps into the large school.

It was almost a perfect morning for Mina — that was until she stepped foot into the school and every teacher began to bombard her with various questions concerning student council. As the president of the school’s student council, a lot was expected from Mina and she was slowly beginning to despise the lazy teachers who would pile their load of work onto her own, forcing her to do others’ jobs.

This morning, most teachers seemed to be concerned with having little to no time to mark the previous day’s tests. Mina’s homeroom teacher piled his stack of unmarked tests in front of her as she sat in the student council room. She waited until he was done talking before shooting her sweet smile and promising to get it all done by the end of the day. He just smiled and walked out, leaving the door open. Strolling inside were the four other student council members who Mina was friends with for the most part. A girl with light brown hair was the first to approach her, giving her a tight hug and kiss on the top of her head. Mina blushed, not because she had any feelings for the girl but because any kind of physical intimacy made her shy. She cleared and turned to the girl.

“Sana, did you all just get here?” Mina asked, turning to greet the three other girls who smiled and sat around the table. Two of them already got to work chatting about some kind of show that Mina didn’t watch. The third girl sat quietly, taking out her notebook and flipping through it until she found an empty page.

Sana smiled at Mina, her doll-like eyes lighting up as she nodded her head, she pointed to the two girls who were talking, “Nayeon and Chaeyoung got into an argument about that drama so we missed the first bus-”

The two girls looked up at the mention of their names and threw Mina the biggest smiles they could manage in order to avoid getting in trouble. Mina just laughed softly and brushed it off.

“-And Jihyo accidentally left her workbook overnight so she had to finish the homework.” Sana finished reporting the morning’s events to Mina and took a seat.

As Mina was the president of student council, her seat was at the head of the table while Nayeon and Chaeyoung sat beside each other and Jihyo and Sana were across from the two. Mina cleared and pointed towards the stack of tests in front of her,

“I’ll be busy with these today, and there isn’t much to get through this morning but…” Mina glanced at the clock to find they only had about five more minutes before they would have to get to their homeroom classes.

She sighed and continued talking, “Never mind, we’ll just meet up after school and discuss the festival.”

Everyone hummed in agreement and began to stand and gather their things. Nayeon was the first to walk out, grabbing Mina’s hand on the way and squeezing it tightly as if to say “good luck” without words. Chaeyoung and Jihyo left next, both giving Mina a quick hug and giving her words of support out of pity after glancing at the stack of tests.

Mina and Sana were the last two left in the room at that point. Sana was seated quietly, checking something on her phone. The student council president watched her for a moment before sitting down and starting on the tests. She could be a minute or two late to homeroom and excuse it for council work to the teacher. Without her realizing, Sana had put her phone away and rested her head on the table, watching Mina closely. It was a quiet couple of minutes and just as Sana wanted to say something, the door busted open to reveal a teacher who looked distressed.

Both girls turned to look at him with curious eyes, and stood up greeting him with a quick bow. He waved his hands as though to stop them and began to speak quickly, “Mina, I have to talk to you-”

He paused to take in a deep breath and the two realized he must have ran over so he could talk to Mina before the beginning of morning classes. Mina smiled and waited patiently for him to continue.

“I have a student, she’s...passing in most subjects but-,” he paused to take a breath, “-her English mark isn’t quite up to par so I want you to tutor her since you have the highest mark in the grade...and school.” He finished.

Sana whistled impressively, not knowing that Mina had achieved such a feat despite the two being best friends in the same class for many years now. She looked proudly over at Mina who was still smiling but Sana could tell something was a little bit off. Mina cleared before speaking, “Of course I can help, but...may I ask who exactly I’ll be tutoring?”

The teacher pulled a file out of the binder in his hands and gave it to Mina. She opened up the folder and slowly read out, “H-Hirai Momo?”

Sana looked quickly at the teacher before turning back to Mina. The look on her face was priceless and Sana wanted to capture it on her phone but she knew it would be disrespectful if the teacher saw her pull it out. So instead, she ingrained Mina’s confused facial expression into her head and promised she would relive it perfectly to their friends later in the day. The teacher glanced at the clock and began to teeter impatiently from one foot to another.

“I’ll be expecting you to talk to her today since you’re in the same class. Make sure to schedule some tutoring lessons for the week, I’ll be off now.” He quickly found his way out of the room and closed the door behind him.

Mina was still standing confused in front of the room and Sana took a step towards her, peering over at the open folder. “What’s even in there?”

“Past assignments, quizzes, tests…” Mina replied, flipping through the pages carefully. She sighed realizing this was only adding more work onto her large pile.

She closed the folder and place it on top of the test she had been trying to mark earlier. Sana watched her again, putting her hand on to Mina’s shoulder to give her a comforting pat.

“It’s okay, I’ll help with the tests today okay? You can do this.” Sana smiled and Mina gave her a shy smile back, her cheeks turning a little red.

The morning bell sounded signalling the start of their morning classes. Both girls looked up and then back at each other before nodding, “We should get going…” Mina mumbled.

They dragged their feet towards the door and took a deep breath before opening it up and stepping out. Mina turned back around and locked the door before stuffing the keys back into her backpack. They walked and walke