As I ventured through what was known as a school hallway, I couldn’t help but think about how others would have perceived it as. What with the candle lights neatly hung on the walls, regal rugs laid across the floor and maids and servants along with sides, it would seem as if you were in a castle. I turned the corner on my heel and listened to my shoes clack against the now tiled floor, heading into the cafeteria.

            Once again, perhaps cafeteria is not the correct term. Dining hall seems to be more fitting for this boisterously pleasant atmosphere created by the décor. Red velvet table cloths, glittering chandeliers, fine china in front of every student; it is just like a high class restaurant. In fact, there weren’t even lines for you to stand in to receive your food. As you seat yourself, a servant comes to fetch your order, only to scurry off quickly to retrieve your desires.

            Seeing as my school is SM High, a boarding school for the elite and wealthy, I assume this is all to be expected. After hiring the best interior designers in the world, the school was structured to be like a mansion, befitting for all its students. We are all housed according to gender and ranking into neat rooms, each of which have their own bathrooms. Now usually, two people of the same gender are set into a room together. However, due to my… condition, my father has donated a large sum of money to install extra boarding rooms and allow me to stay by myself.

            “Umm,” a small voice suddenly hummed behind me. When I gracefully spun around, I met with a group of girls, standing in front of their table with heads hung low.

            “Yes?” I smiled sweetly, politely trying to inquire what they needed. However, it seemed that whenever I spoke, the girls became even more timid. Although I couldn’t quite see them, their flushed faces were slightly visible.

            “Miss Taeyeon, y-you look mighty beautiful today,” one brave soul managed to say, bowing soon after. The girls around her followed suit, showing respect to me who was of a high class.

            “Why thank you, lovelies,” I cheered, letting my smile grow. I bowed slightly, but only slightly since they were under me. Being an heir to a wealthy family, this was one of the many rules I had to follow. As I walked off, the girls began to squeal amongst themselves.

            “Popular as always, huh?” a snarky voice called. The tone he spoke in automatically told me that it was obviously my best friend, seeing as he is one of the only people who casually address me. When I looked to my side, I took notice of how he was sitting comfortably on the edge of the bench, staring up at me with his usual killer smile.

            “Hey, Onew,” I giggled playfully as I leaned forward with my arms wide open. He took hold of my waist and guided me swiftly to sit in his lap. I snuggled into his neck as my hands fell from his shoulders to his chest.

            “How’d you sleep?” he kindly questioned as his muscular arms pulled me further into the table, letting me have my own seat right next to his. Once I was properly on the bench, a servant immediately made his way over to me. I quickly ordered a meal before turning to smile at Onew again.

            “I slept well, and you?”

            “Mm, same for me,” he hummed his response while nodding. After he replied, he suddenly changed to a more serious demeanor. “Well, except for the fact that I fell off the bed.”

            “Again?” I laughed, much to his dismay. He sent me a pout which was accompanied by his puppy dog eyes.

            “Meany; aren’t you supposed to say something along the lines of, ‘aw, Onew baby, are you okay?’” his pout dissipated when his warm silky voice turned high pitched. While he was trying to extract my empathetic side, the action only elicited more giggles from me.

            “First off, I don’t talk like that. And second of all, I don’t call you baby,” I shook my head to him teasingly. He nudged my shoulder lightly just as our food arrived.

            “Sir and Madam please enjoy your breakfast,” two servants bowed politely before going their separate ways. Just as we began to eat, Jonghyun and Key, our other friends, took a seat in front of us.

            “Morning, you two,” Jonghyun cheered as he got up to ruffle our hair. Almost immediately after, I ran my fingers through my hair, straightening out the strands instinctively.

            “Good morning,” Key yawned before resting his chin into the palm of his hands. The four of us idly chatted while indulging into our meals. As we laughed together, our unique voices mixed together into a perfect harmony that reverberated through the dining hall. People gathered at the surrounding tables would glance over at us, often talking in envy about us. The bell tower outside eventually rung, echoing through the walls and into the building. A few servants immediately opened the doors, bowing to each individual as they exited. The others crowded around the tables, gathering up the dishes.

            “We better get to class,” Onew sighed heavily, standing from his seat. The rest of us nodded in agreement, following him out the room. Jonghyun and Key walked ahead, leaning on each other while playfully arguing. Well, Key did most of the arguing; Jonghyun just had his hands on his stomach as he laughed. While they were messing around together, that left Onew and I to walk side by side, not that either of us really minded.

            “How much longer do you have till you take over the business?” Onew suddenly asked. I pressed my lips together, making it into a thin line. He took that as an ‘I don’t know’ which coincidently seemed to be the answer for his case.

            “By the way, what is your parent’s business again?” I questioned, suddenly realizing that I had no clue. He laughed at my confusion, thinking I was crazy for not remembering.

            “Our parents businesses are pretty similar, so I’m kind of surprised you forgot. Now in case you can’t remember what your own family business is, it is in the marketing and music industry,” he explained with an index finger raised, jogging my memory slightly. My hand began to pinch at my bottom lip as the realization suddenly hit me. He was right, obviously. I was of such a high ranking because my parents had two separate branches. Of course, Onew, Jonghyun and Key’s families were just like mine but had a different combination of businesses. Everybody else here was either of a family who owned one business or their parents were CEO’s or another high ranked position in other families’ businesses.

            “Which one will you be taking over, Onew?” I asked just as we made it to the classroom. He held up his index finger as a signal for me to wait before looking around the room intently. The tables were set up so that everybody had to be in pairs, but our teachers really didn’t care too much for assigning us seats. Once we spotted an empty table, Onew and I swiftly sashayed over to it. It was right by a window, giving us the perfect view of the soccer and track. A few friends of ours, Tiffany and Jessica were seated right in front of us, gossiping enthusiastically.

            “I was hoping for the music industry one,” he shyly confessed, looking down to hide his slightly blushing face. Even though he wasn’t looking towards me, I still smiled to give him reassurance whenever he did glance over.

            “Oh, that’s right. You do like singing, after all. That sounds perfect for you,” I continued to feed him comments that were sure to perk him back up. Sure enough, it did. He had his usual goofy smile back in place.

            “Thanks, what about you? You are into dancing right?”

            “We’ll see where the wind takes me,” I shrugged, trying to sound mysterious and dramatic. Onew, of course, didn’t truly buy it, and he just laughed softly into his clenched fingers. Our teacher walked in just then, and all the chatting and laughter ceased. He bowed to us, and we quickly did the same. Soon after, he began to write on the dusty chalkboard and we were frantically trying to keep up with his pace.

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            ‘Don’t look,’ I kept frantically chanting to myself like a mantra. My hands reached into my locker room cubby and pulled out my uniform. While the girls just plainly stripped off their clothes, acting as if it was nothing, I scurried to a private changing room that our school set up. Surely for any other guy, this would seem like a dream come true. I was in the girls’ locker room with dozens of half , wealthy, and beautiful maidens; shouldn’t that be any guys’ dream? Well, seeing as they all thought I was one of them, it would be rather awkward if I was caught staring at them.

            ‘You can do it, Taemin,’ I thought confidently, trying to reassure myself. Every now and then, my eyes would wander when girls squealed out, but I managed to restrain myself. In all honesty, it really shouldn’t worry me too much. If anything, I was more gay than straight. However, in the end, I was still bi.

            When I made it safely to the private changing room, I let out a heavy sigh of relief. Seeing that I didn’t have a lot of time to cheer, I immediately threw off my uniform and replaced it with the white racerback tank top and navy blue shorts the girls were to wear. A servant was standing by the door when I got out, and she gladly received my uniform. I watched her scurry off to put it into my locker before I just walked out.

            “You’re pretty fast,” Onew commented as I made my way to where he was standing. He leisurely pressing his back into the fencing around the tennis court, hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts. Like some of the other guys, he rebelliously cut of the sleeves which allowed others to view his rather muscular arms. Thinking back to his comment, I looked around to see that not many people were out yet.

            “I guess,” I eventually shrugged in reply. I realized that most girls took forever to change because they stopped a bunch of times just to chat with their friends. Often times, they mentioned secrets to each other like the guys they like since it was difficult to mention out here.

            “Oh, you guys finished changing so quickly?” our gym teacher suddenly came out of his office, clipboard in hand. He looked around, shocked to see that there were actually people. “In that case, we are pairing up for tennis practice today. Start choosing your partners.” Onew automatically grabbed onto my arm without even looking my way. When he became conscious of his actions, he immediately released.

            “Sorry, I should ask before just grabbing you like that,” he shyly apologized. I giggled softly before copying his earlier actions and taking his arm.

            “It’s fine,” I reassured him before dragging him into the actual tennis court. Along the sides of the fencing were tennis rackets and balls carelessly thrown around.  I picked up a tennis racket, handed it to Onew and then grabbed my own. Onew ran off and fetched a tennis ball for us soon after. Our teacher just lazily instructed us to practice while the others started filing in. Onew and I got a nice spot on the far end of the court and were playfully hitting the ball back and forth. Eventually, Jonghyun and Key pushed aside the pair that was next to us and took their spot. Onew jokingly scared Key ever now and then, causing the latter to miss the ball. Jonghyun would cheer that he was winning while Key slapped Onew’s arms in frustration.

            “Class is almost over, so feel free to hit the showers,” our couch announced while lounging on the wire couch inside the court. Immediately, I ran back inside to be one of the first girls there. Repeating what I did at the beginning of the period, I grabbed my uniform and took off to the private changing room.

            “Excuse me, could I get a small towel?” I requested to the door. It may have seemed like I was talking to myself, but a small towel was thrown over the door by a servant. I stripped off my clothes and wiped away any sweat that may have littered my body. Once content, I threw the towel back over the door and redressed myself in my uniform.  With my gym uniform in hand, I walked off to my locker. After throwing the dirty clothes in, I pulled out a perfume and sprayed myself with the flowery smelling liquid.

            The bell rang just then, causing all the girls to panic as they weren’t completely finished with getting dressed. I, on the other hand, just made me way out the door. Onew and Jonghyun were standing outside, politely waiting for me to come out. I bowed slightly to show my thanks, but the two just waved to say it was unnecessary.

            “Key’s taking forever as always; I’ll just wait for him. You two go on ahead,” Jonghyun sighed before pushing us towards the door.

            “Those two are so close, huh?” I giggled with a hand covering my mouth. It was just a habit that I usually did whenever I was laughing or eating.

            “Really? I hadn’t noticed,” Onew spluttered, glancing backwards just in time to see Key fumbling out of the locker room. I looked as well to see Jonghyun laughing and Key hitting him.

            “Mm,” I hollowly hummed. Seeing those two, it kind of brought a nostalgic feeling. What could it be? My train of thought was broken when a guy suddenly knocked me over. A round of gasps filled the room; everybody around us stopped to stare. When my made contact with the floor, I couldn’t help but hiss from the pain.

            “Sorry!” the guy exclaimed as he bowed slightly to me. “I’m in a hurry, but sorry.” With that, he dashed off, not even showing me his face. I rested my body weight on my forearms as I tried to glance at the guy. My eyes widened when I realized just how tall he was, the all too familiar structure of his body. I shook the thought away. It couldn’t be him…

            “Taeyeon, you okay?” Onew cried as he bent down to pull me up, relieving my forearms from the stress. His arm circled around my waist as he kept me in the sitting position.

            “That guy was so rude!”

            “Doesn’t he know who he just ran into?”

            “His family is going to get it,” I heard people begin to gossip around me. I pushed lightly on Onew’s chest, and he took my hint and helped me to my feet.

            “Miss Taeyeon, are you okay?”

            “Did that guy hurt you?”’

            “You should tell your parents about this!” People worriedly crowded around me. My usual graceful and polite smile found its way onto my face as I waved to everybody to calm down.

            “Thank you all for worrying, but please don’t be mean to that guy. I’m sure he didn’t mean it,” I kindly advised them, hoping that they didn’t bring harm to him. An incident like this has happened before, and after becoming a social outcast, the guy left the school. Even though I didn’t know that or this guy, I’d really hate to be so troublesome.

            “It was probably an accident,” Onew added, further calming the crowd. They all bowed to us before leaving to their designated classes. Onew and I followed suit, casually walking back to class. However, he kept giving me worried glances, occasionally asking to make sure I was okay. Even after my reassurances, he would solemnly rub my sore forearms since they were slightly red.

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Author’s Note: Whew, it is finally done. :) I really hope you guys liked it! It’s kind of short (it’s a page less than I usually write), but it’s really just an introduction to what Taemin’s school life is like.

If there was any confusion, Taemin is a bi guy acting as a wealthy girl. People call him Taeyeon because that is his… girl name; I guess if that’s what you want to call it. :P It all seems so confusing, I’m sure. However, I hope it sort of makes sense now. Ah, Taemin and Onew’s relationship, although there is a lot of skinship (what with Onew pulling Taemin into his lap and all), they are just best friends. If you are thinking childhood friends, haha no just best friends that met… some time I’ll mention maybe later.

Look forward to the next chapter! :) Oh, and thank you to all the subscribers! Even though I only got 7 subscribers so far, that is sooo much to me especially with just a foreword. Hopefully I didn’t disappoint you guys! :)