“All he’s done the past two days is sit in bed on his phone.”

“Well, have you tried to talk to him?”

“Yeah, but he’s like a brick wall. Now he’s in there writing in like a diary–”

Jihoon sighed as he listened to his roommate continuously talk about him out in the hallway right next to the door of their shared room. His roommate was a funny boy. Not mean or anything, just, to put it politely, interesting.

‘Kwon Soonyoung’ as the name tag out in the hallway stated. ‘Hoshi’ as the boy introduced himself. Jihoon didn’t bother to ask why he preferred such an obnoxious name because he himself was in the same boat. His name was Woozi now. Something he still couldn’t get used to nor accept as his official persona. He didn’t want to be Woozi.

Being Jihoon was exciting. It was fun and interesting. He had confidence and feared nothing. He had money and power. People listened to him. People were afraid of him. People were never idiotic enough to talk about him right outside the room he was in.

But that wasn’t who he was anymore.

He was Woozi. It was new to him and he was new to everyone around him. Potentially, he could be anyone that he wanted to be. He could be kind or mean. A playboy or a saint. He literally had the chance to completely reinvent himself and that was overwhelming.

He worked for 17 years to become who he was and now he has to completely start over. Worse, no one could ever understand. It wasn’t normal to be in the current situation that he was in.

Now he had only a couple of hours to decide who “Woozi” was going to be. The first day of senior year was tomorrow. The beginning of the end of his and Woozi’s high school career. So it was important to know: who was Woozi?

He knew for a fact that Woozi wasn’t some lazy piece of that just stayed in bed and wrote in a diary as his roommate was portraying him. He knew he needed to go confront him and make a statement. Show this Hoshi fella who he was, and how he should treat him.

Jihoon sighed and swung his legs over the edge of his bed. His feet hit the cold ground as he heard Hoshi say, “He seems like he might be a little weird. I mean his name is weird and that says something.” Jihoon couldn’t help but verbally scoff. Hoshi was sure one to talk.

He grabbed his green sweater off his desk and slipped it over his head. Putting on his shoes next to the door, he decided he’d go for a late-night walk around campus just to make sure he knew where he was going tomorrow. It would be beneficial to him, and not be suspicious to Hoshi as to why he's confronting him.

Jihoon opened the door, causing Hoshi to stumble backward slightly due to leaning on it. He and his two friends looked slightly confused by Jihoon’s sudden appearance.

“Oh! Hey, roomie! These are my friends: Seungkwan and Seokmin. You can call Seokmin DK though. It’s causes less confusion between them!” Hoshi said, a big grin spreading across his face. Seungkwan gave an awkward, fake smile, not bothering to extend a hand while Seokmin, or DK for whatever the , started to laugh.

“Please, you can call me anything! What’s your name?” Seokmin-DK asked, acting like they all hadn’t just been out here ting on it 30 seconds earlier.

“I’m Woozi. It’s nice to meet you all,” Jihoon said with a blank expression. Jihoon didn’t want to fake a smile, he felt like they’d know, so instead, he opted for nothing. No expression. Just a casual, monotoned greeting.

Hoshi fidgeted next to Jihoon, obviously uncomfortable by the interaction. “So where are you–”

“For a walk,” Jihoon interrupted, already walking towards the exit. Then stopped. He knew what kind of person Woozi should be. He turned around. “Oh yeah, Hoshi?” He called.

Hoshi looked at him, his expression lighting up at the sound of his name. “Yeah?” he called to Jihoon down the hallway.

“Our door isn’t soundproof.”

Woozi was a savage.

The air was slightly chilly outside which made Jihoon glad he brought his sweater. Even though it was summer, the nights sometimes could get cold due to the wind chill, something Jihoon had never had to experience when he lived on the other side of the country. But it was honestly something he could get used to.

Since moving, no, being shipped out here, Jihoon had struggled with his sense of style. Old Jihoon would just wear the newest designer items and not have to worry. Woozi, however, doesn’t have that kind of money, or really any money. Woozi wears thrifted clothes that Jihoon never would have picked up. Ever. The only old clothing item he could sneak to this school was the oversized green sweater that he was currently wearing.

As he wandered around the school, he realized how massive it really was. The dorms were split up into four eight-story buildings, each floor having 30 rooms housing two to three students. He was extremely lucky to have gotten randomly placed on the 2nd floor in the closest building to the main campus in a two boy room. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Hoshi yet, but he sure was thankful for the room placement. He knew for a fact that Seungkwan and Seokmin-DK lived together with a third roommate down the hall. He had heard it through the grapevine, aka, his bedroom door. It must have been nice for Hoshi to have his close friends right down the hall, saved Jihoon from having to get to know him.

The hardest part about Jihoon being at this school was how his whole life was a lie now. His name was Woozi and his entire backstory was different now too.

Hi, I’m Lee Woozi. I’m seventeen-years-old and I just moved to this area. Originally I am from a small rural community and lived just with my mom and 2 siblings. I’m here now on scholarship because it has always been my dream to graduate from a prestigious high school such as this one. Due to having younger siblings, my mom can’t come to visit me or talk on the phone a lot.

Jihoon repeated the statement of his simple life story in his head. His dad must have made him practice it at least a hundred times. He kept saying, “One mistake and it’s over. They’ll know what you did”. So he practiced and practiced until it almost felt real.

“I am Woozi,” Jihoon muttered to himself, grimacing at the way the made-up name rolled off his tongue. It almost stung him to say out loud. “Woozi,” he repeated trying to make it sound natural. “I am Lee Woozi–”

“Well, Lee Woozi I got to say this is a first for me.” A voice said from behind Jihoon. He flipped around to see another boy, dressed in casual clothes, sitting on a bench. Jihoon must have been so zoned out that he didn’t even realize the boy was there. “I’ve never seen someone introduce themselves over and over again to no one,”

Jihoon’s face grew red. Was he caught? Did he seem suspicious? Is it over before the first day of school began? “Yeah,” Jihoon laughed. “Just getting ready for class introductions tomorrow.”

“Well, you’re not very good at it.” The boy stated bluntly. “You have to be more believable!”

“Believable?” Jihoon wanted to die. This random boy figured out the whole gig.

The boy stood up from the bench and walked over to him. “Yeah, like you want to be here. You sounded like you barely wanted to be alive!” He laughed with a wide grin. “Let’s practice!”

Jihoon’s heart stopped racing as he realized what was going on. He wasn’t discovered, the boy just was making fun of what he was doing. This was fine. Jihoon could work in this situation. “Practice?” he questioned, cocking his head to the side.

“Yeah, practice introducing yourself to me.” The boy said eagerly. “Come on, do it!”

“Um, okay. Hi, I’m Lee Woozi. Nice to meet you.” Jihoon said casually.

The boy frowned, crossing his arms and shaking his head. “Have more gusto to it,”

“Hello! I’m Lee Woozi. Nice to meet you.” Jihoon said, making his greeting more stern and loud.

The boy laughed out loud. “Now you just sound aggressive. Why don’t you just get the nerves out by screaming it?”

“Screaming?” Jihoon asked. “Like out loud where people will hear it?”

“Yeah get the jitters out. No one will care, come on. I’ll go first,” The dark-haired boy said. He took a deep breath, put his hand up to the corners of his mouth, and proceed to scream through them: “I AM CHOI SEUNGCHEOL! NICE TO MEET YOU!”

Jihoon couldn’t help but form a slight smile. He really yelled, Jihoon thought to himself. The boy, Choi Seungcheol, looked at him eagerly, waiting for Jihoon to follow. Jihoon cupped his hand around his mouth, took a deep breath and screamed: “I AM LEE WOOZI! PLEASED TO MEET YOU!”

Seungcheol started clapping out of excitement. “See? Doesn’t that feel better? Now, you don't have to worry about introducing yourself to your class when you just introduced yourself to the whole world!” Seungcheol said, motioning towards the sky and all around them. Jihoon shrugged at this statement as Seungcheol laughed again. “You’re an odd one. I’ll see you around tomorrow okay, Lee Woozi?”

“Yeah,” Jihoon said in awe. Weirdly, his name didn’t sound too weird coming out of Seungcheol’s mouth. He watched Seungcheol literally sprint off towards the dorms before Jihoon started that way himself. What a weird guy…

When he arrived back at the dorm, Hoshi was back inside sitting on his bed playing a game on his phone. He didn’t look up as Jihoon took off his shoes and sweater before changing into his pajamas. Once Jihoon was in his own bed, Hoshi looked at him.

“So, how was your walk?” He asked awkwardly, sitting up.

Jihoon glanced at him before saying, “Don’t feel like you need to make awkward small talk with me if you don’t want to.”

Hoshi looked appalled. “Dude, I’m just trying to be nice. You could cut the sass and try it some time. But if you don’t want to talk, then we don’t have to,” He laid back down and pulled out his phone.

Jihoon sighed. This was him being Jihoon, not Woozi who just shouted his name to the sky with a stranger. “Um, it was good. I met some boy named Seungcheol. He was nice–” Before Jihoon could stop talking Hoshi was standing right in front of him, eyes wide and mouth open.

“You met Seungcheol. Like. Just casually?” Hoshi asked, his expression not changing. Jihoon nodded slowly, his eyebrows furrowing, causing Hoshi to verbally scream. “AHH! Of course, you just happened to randomly bump into him! Oh my god, was he nice? Wait, you just said he was. But. Was he nice? Like actually?” He was talking a mile a minute, almost completely on Jihoon’s bed practically climbing on top of him.

“Yah, slow down. Why are you acting like a fanboy?” Jihoon asked sternly which caused Hoshi to scream once again which resulted in their neighbors hitting the wall and yelling “Shut up”.

Hoshi sat down on Jihoon’s bed, and took a deep breath to calm himself down. “Sorry, I forgot you were new here and didn’t know. Seungcheol is the most popular guy in school. He doesn’t talk to anyone outside of his clique. I’ve known him since middle school and it’s always been that way.”

“His clique?” Jihoon questioned, raising an eyebrow. What were they in? Mean Girls?

Hoshi’s eyes lit up as he prepared to enlighten Jihoon’s world. “Okay. So Seungcheol is the leader of this super popular clique called SVT. I don’t know why it’s called that, only the clique members know. Inside the clique is obviously Seungcheol, then his right-hand man and supposed boyfriend but no one can really confirm that: Jeonghan. Jeonghan is sassy and only cares about s and his looks. After that is Mingyu, he’s tall and loud. That’s about it. Then there Minghao, who goes by The8. Again, I don’t know why it’s just a clique member thing. He’s probably sassier than you. After that, we have Vernon, who is Seungkwan and DK’s roommate. He is nice but only hangs with the clique so Seungkwan nor DK have figured him out. Finally, there’s Chan, aka Dino, for unknown reasons. He’s Seungcheol’s child and the one he takes care of the most. That is the clique,” Hoshi finished without taking a breath. He sounded like he was talking about a popular band, not boys at his own high school.

“So this clique, what makes them special?” Jihoon asked. He kind of liked the idea of a clique at school, it seemed interesting. Almost elite.

“They are all really talented in at least one thing. Seungcheol, for example, is an expert at rapping. He can also sing, dance, and is good at every subject. Idol companies are always trying to recruit him but so far he's turned everything down. All the other clique members are like this,”

Jihoon smiled. “Interesting,”

“Don’t you dare think about joining Woozi! They may be popular but I heard it comes with a cost to your physical, mental, and literal financial state. I wouldn’t recommend it.” Hoshi said, getting off Jihoon’s bed and sauntering over to his own. “Plus, I'd be hella annoyed if my own roommate got into before me.”

Jihoon now knew exactly the kind of person Woozi would be. He’d be in the clique.