Yeojin took her cellphone from the bedside table. She stared at the clock on the screen.

06:08 am.

She sighed. It’s still two hours to wake up and have breakfast. And it’s still three hours to go to the induction program. What should she do?

She didn’t sleep well last night. She felt strange about her room, her bedroom felt different, and a few times she thought about scary things that could happen in her dormitory. She kept waking up to change her sleep position. And now she woke up earlier than her schedule.

She put her cellphone back to the table, then flipped over to the left side. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep until her alarm wake her up.

Meanwhile, in East Court…

Jungeun reached the bedside table to grab her cellphone that suddenly played the famous drum beats of Walk This Way by Aerosmith. Without even seeing the caller ID, she picked that up.

“What?” she asked right to the point.

“Sunday jogging ritual!” Sandeul’s voice replied her.

“Can’t we delete this stupid ritual?”

“No. You suggested this, remember? Because you can’t do it in your house.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Come ooooonn… there’s something Baro wants to show you, seriously. See you in Serene Park.”

He hung up. Jungeun growled. She got up from her bed, changed her clothes, and walked out of her room.

She stopped in front of Amber’s room. She started knocking it brutally. “Hey, Josephine! Sunday jogging ritual!”

“Buzz. Off,” that’s all that Amber said.

“Are you having PMS?” asked Jungeun. “You’ve been like this since last night.”

“I’m coming out now!” hearing that, Jungeun quickly escaped and ran downstairs.

Lazily she unlocked her bicycle which was parked beside the entrance door, then she bicycled to Serene Park which was located behind the library.

When she arrived at Serene Park, she saw her two best friends laughing beside the mulberry tree. Baro was holding something in his hand. Was it possibly what he wanted to show her?

Jungeun stopped pedaling and came down. “What’s that?” asked her while approaching them.

“TADA!” Baro showed off the camera on his hand. Seeing that, Jungeun’s eyes were bulging. “Nikon D5100!”

“No way!” exclaimed Jungeun while grabbing the camera from his hand.

“Yay, Baro joins the Nikon club!” Sandeul did the happy dance.

“Oh, fudge… if my brother didn’t insist to buy that Chevy Volt, I would probably have a better one than this,” grumbled Jungeun, taking a closer look at the camera from every angle. “What are the specs?”

“16.1 mega pixel camera, 3.0 inch screen, 920k point resolution, flipped screen, 1080p 30fps video format…” Baro explained. “I forget the rest, haha.”

“Let’s try it,” said Sandeul.

They immediately took pictures with Baro’s new camera. As photography students, the quality of their camera was far more important than anything, though the quality of the camera didn’t guarantee their grades.

They spent two hours just to take pictures and jog around the park.

When it’s time to The Buttery to open, the cafeteria was getting full of the juniors. Key looked like having fun talking with a group of guys. One of them was holding a guitar and played it randomly, even though CRISIS, the campus radio which was heard all over Camaraderie including The Buttery, was also playing a song.

“Jaejin, stop playing guitar,” Key blurted out. “It’s not the time for you and your friends to disturb the peace in The Buttery.”

“What do you mean it’s not the time?” asked Jaejin. “This is our first Sunday in Camaraderie, so we have to have fun. Non music student should be quiet and enjoy the show. Come on, Minhyuk, help me.”

“What?” asked the guy who laid his head on the table. He still looked sleepy and lazy. “I have no idea for now.”

“Oh, come on, as long as the seniors are not here, The Buttery is still ours,” Jaejin encouraged him. “Okay, let’s sing. What song?”

“Hmmm…” Minhyuk tapped his fingers on the table. He started singing.

“Round and round the record spins all day,

Listen again it takes you far away,

Trying to stop it is futile,

So just listen now to my musical doodle!”

“Please no, not Spongebob,” sighed Key. But Jaejin, Minhyuk and the music students who gathered there were singing Spongebob Squarepants’ Musical Doodle louder instead.

“Think you can control it, but it’s way too hard,

Every time it plays, it’s an electric charge,

The sound in your head is brutal,

Now you’re infected by the musical doodle!”

Yeojin and Luna came at the wrong time, where half of the people in The Buttery were noisily singing Musical Doodle together. For a few moments they were just stunned, confused, surprised and dumbfounded with the situation that was happening.

“Yeojin,” Luna woke Yeojin in from her shock. She pulled her to the counter to take out their breakfast.

Finally the music students finished singing the cheering up song that morning. At the same time, Minhyuk looked away to the line in front of the counter. And he saw her. The blonde chick who was wearing a sky blue hoodie and white mini dress with a smile that’s really… really made everything seemed so bright, happy and beautiful.

It’s Luna.

Of course Minhyuk didn’t know who she was. All he knew was it was his first time seeing her in Camaraderie. Was she a fresher? Should he go there and get to know her? What if…

His view was blocked when someone passed in front of him and sat there. Minhyuk glared at him. It’s Jonghyun. Lee Jonghyun, his senior. Darn.

“Where were you last night?” he asked, making him dispersed from his concentration towards Luna. “I didn’t see you at dinner.”

“I was drifted with the physics kids,” answered Minhyuk. He scratched his head, “I think I lost my mind back then.”

While Minhyuk talked to his senior, Yeojin and Luna went to the quietest table to enjoy their breakfast.

“That was really weird,” said Yeojin while spooning her cream soup. “Why were they singing in here? What for? I mean, it’s a cafeteria, not a music room.”

“Let them be,” replied Luna. “They must be seniors. The freshers wouldn’t dare doing that in their first day of college, would they? As long as they don’t disturb us, I think it’s fine.”

“Don’t disturb us?” asked Yeojin. “Weren’t they so noisy and surprised us all? Last night they were also rowdy, shouting like watching a concert. I really don’t get it.”

“Don’t you think it’s fun?” asked Luna calmly.

Yeojin frowned. She noticed that she and Luna were different. Luna seemed really liked Camaraderie. But she said she didn’t have any friends here. Did she leave her friends for her own prophesy? Wow, that meant she really intended to study Japanese well.

“Sore wo kobamu you ni sekai wa yurete, subete wo ubaisaru…” Yeojin picked up her ringing cellphone from her jeans pocket.

“Hello?” she said.

“You’re up?” her mother replied. “Have you had your breakfast?”

“I am having my breakfast right now.”

“Oh, what are you eating?”

“Mom. I’m eating at The Buttery, so I can’t be eating weird stuffs.”

“Haha, yeah, I know. So, how was your first night in Camaraderie?”

“I almost couldn’t fall asleep.”

“I know, it’s weird not being at your home. Relax, you’ll get yourself to it soon. Oh, yeah, how was the dinner?”

“At first it was so rowdy. But when the lecturers and professors came in, they all went back in order.”

“Rowdy? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. The seniors are always rowdy in here.”

“Hmm… your brother never complained about that to me before.”

“Ha, he’s so lucky.”

“Fine, have your breakfast. Finish your food. It’s all paid! Don’t you waste any bit of it.”

“Okay, Mom. Bye.”

Yeojin put her cellphone back to her pocket. Luna snickered seeing her.

“Yeah, it’s my mom,” said Yeojin. “If she doesn’t call me at least five times a day, she must be sick.”

Luna cracked up. “For goodness, Yeojin,” she said.

At last, they finished their breakfast. They went back to West Court to clean up and prepare for morning class.

For the first time Yeojin stepped into the Main Court, the main building where all the lecture rooms, lecture halls and laboratories were. The hallways were so wide, enriched with distinctive European architecture. The building seemed so old but also magnificent. No wonder why there were a few freshers who immediately taking pictures everywhere with their cellphones.

Fyuhhh… a strange university in a strange town, completed with 80% possibility of getting lost, weird seniors who acted like kindergarten kids, pressure to beat her brother’s record from her father, and an old building that must had tons of history, both positive and negative.

What could possibly be worse than that?