“Wake up, sunshine!” Baekhyun sings, opening the curtains. “You’ll be late for school!”

“What? No. Go away,” Sehun groans, pulling the covers over his head. Baekhyun grabs the end of the covers and yanks them off the bed.

“Really. You’re going to be late.” Sehun curls into fetal position and shakes his head vigorously. “Do you really want to embarrass yourself on your first day of school?”

“Okay, okay. I’ll get up.” Sehun forces his eyes open, shielding the blinding light with his hands.

“Your uniform’s laid out here,” Baekhyun shows him, “and I made some breakfast in the kitchen. Hurry up!”

He leaves the room and Sehun finally sits up in bed, picking the covers up from the floor and stretching. He washes his face in the little bathroom next to his room and pulls on the itchy uniform, grumbling to himself. After getting a quick bite of breakfast, Baekhyun and Sehun rush to get into the car. The detective revs the engine, and Sehun holds tight as Baekhyun swerves through morning traffic with a vengeance.

“And this should be it,” Baekhyun signals and pulls over to the curb. “Your new school.” It looks small, but the grass is neatly cut and the windows look recently washed. Sehun stares at the line of teenagers passing through the school gates. His new classmates. Baekhyun clears his throat, and Sehun throws him an annoyed look. This is his first day of school since elementary school. He wants to be mentally prepared.

Taking a deep breath, Sehun steps out onto the sidewalk. “I’ll be back to pick you up after school, so just wait here at the gate.” Baekhyun stomps on the gas pedal and speeds away, leaving Sehun by himself in unfamiliar territory.

“Hey, is that... Sehun! Over here!” Sehun turns around and sees Kai approaching with startling speed. He’s still on his crutches, but it looks as natural as walking. “I’m supposed to show you around today. So glad you made it! I was starting to worry they’d arrested you or something.” He nods his head towards the entrance. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

They join the stream of students and go through the large double doors, which open into a spacious lobby. Sehun’s vision is flooded with new sights: groups of schoolgirls chatting and giggling, a bulletin board with various school rankings tacked to it, and teachers striding through the lobby with papers tucked under their arms.

“You okay?” Kai glances over at Sehun worriedly. The boy’s eyes are flicking back and forth, observing, noting, and storing away information. “It’s almost like... Oh yeah. This is your first time in a high school, right?” Sehun nods slowly, still looking overwhelmed. “In that case, let’s go for the grand tour!” Kai pokes Sehun in the leg with his crutch and takes off. Sehun sighs. It’s his second tour in two days. He’s already getting tired of them.

“I’m taking you to the office first so you can meet the principal.” Another boy waves at Kai in the hallway. “Don’t worry, I’ll introduce the new kid to you later.” Sehun’s eyes can’t keep up with the rapid flow of adolescents so he stares at Kai’s back to give him some sense of stability. Every time Kai waves or nods at another student, his back muscles shift under his uniform. Kai must be popular, Sehun realizes. Half the school must know him. And it’s a big school.
Kai’s back stops moving and Sehun looks up. “Voila. The principal’s office.” He shifts all his weight onto one crutch and uses the opposite hand to turn the doorknob. “And... she’s in.”

The principal is a clean and professional middle-aged woman. She’s immaculately dressed in a pantsuit and her red talons are poised over her laptop keyboard. To top off the look she has shockingly red lipstick and glasses balanced a little below her eyes. She cooly appraises Sehun over the thin rims of her glasses and a look of recognition flashes across her face.

“You must be Oh Sehun, the new student,” she says, flashing her blindingly white teeth at him. “Very nice to meet you.” Sehun smiles and bows. She seems like a strong woman. “I hope you adjust quickly and enjoy your last year of high school here.”

“Thank you very much,” Sehun says, and the principal shifts her gaze towards Kai.

“I’m trusting you to take good care of Sehun,” she says, “None of your usual games, please.”

Kai laughs it off. “I’m giving him the grand tour right now. Nothing to worry about.”

They visit the library next, a vast sea of knowledge that Sehun is instantly in love with. The room is furnished with worn old cushioned seats and lit by sunlight shining through the skylights on the high ceiling. Sehun leaves Kai at the entrance and runs his fingers along the shelves, closing his eyes and concentrating on the rhythm of the rise and fall of the rounded book spines against his fingers. He hears Kai clear his throat behind him and opens his eyes reluctantly. “As much as I like missing class, I don’t think the principal will be very happy if we spend the whole day in the library. Come on, we still have a long way to go.”

Next is the cafeteria, then the huge gym, then the sports fields. “And this is our last landmark,” Kai says, stopping at a small building next to a soccer field. “Everyone just calls it the old building. It’s unused, so I come here to eat lunch. It’s so much better than eating in that ty cafeteria.” Kai shudders at the thought. Sehun cracks a smile. “So, ready to go to homeroom?”

“Let’s do this,” Sehun says, sounding more confident than he feels.

Kai pats him on the back. “Don’t worry, they’ll love you.”  They trudge off towards the main building.

“Wait here,” Kai leaves Sehun outside the classroom and walks in. Sehun grasps his wrists nervously as the loud conversation inside the room dies down to silence. It’s okay, he tells himself. With what Sehun’s been through, meeting a whole room full of new people will be a piece of cake. But the slight shaking of his fingers shows he hasn’t quite convinced himself.

“This is him,” Kai says, coming back out into the hallway with the teacher, a youngish-looking man. Sehun guesses he’s not even in his 30s. “Sehun, this is Mr. Kim. We all call him Chen, though, because he looks Chinese.” Chen has long eyelashes and sharp, prominent cheekbones that look like they are chiseled out of stone. His eyes are a bit small and tilted, giving him a more exotic, Chinese look.

“Hi, Sehun. I hope we’ll get to know each other well this year,” Chen says, smiling nervously.

“He’s a little shy,” Kai whispers in Sehun’s ear.

“Well, are you ready to meet the class?” Sehun takes a deep breath as Chen slowly slides open the door.