[SANDEUL POV]

Sunlight pours in through my window, giving the insides of my eyelids a strange orangey glow and making me wince. As any morning, I groan as I pull myself out of bed. I'm on a schedule – I don't need an alarm clock to wake me up for school. However, it's still just as difficult to make myself open my eyes and swing my legs over the edge of the bed.

Stumbling into the bathroom, I yawn. I tame my short brown hair and splash my face with cold water. It's going to be yet another long day.

When my teeth are brushed and I've used the toilet, I leave the cramped bathroom and return to my room, opening my closet. I pull out a crisp white dress shirt and a tie, then discard the sweats I had slept in to put the new clothes on, along with the jacket and pants that make up my high school uniform.

I attend Sung Hwa High School just outside Seoul, and let me tell you, the school is a piece of crap. Why my mother decided to send me here, I'm really not so sure. Since I was of elementary age, my mother had always instilled in me that grades were of the utmost importance and I was not to let anything get in the way of that. I was never allowed to date girls, bring friends home, or spend my Saturday mornings watching cartoons with my dad. From the beginning, all of my time was to be spent on “useful” things – a.k.a, studying.

So when my parents divorced and my mother and I moved closer to the city, I never understood why she chose Sung Hwa for me. The education program is awful, the teachers don't give a about what they were teaching, and all the students could care about is which girl's are pregnant and who's house the next party will be at.

Maybe Mom wanted to put me in a cheaper school.

Maybe she needed extra drinking money.

I quietly walk down the stairs, careful not to wake said woman in case she was sleeping. As expected, I near the bottom of the staircase and make out a figure splayed out on her back on the couch.

As I near, I can see her dyed supposed-to-be-blonde-but-ended-up-orange hair messed up and sticking out in random directions from her face. Her lip gloss is dried up and smeared at the corner of , which is slightly open and letting out shallow, even breaths.

Breaths that smell distinctively of pineapple and rum.

Heaving a sigh, I gently place one arm beneath my mothers waist and the other under her thighs, careful not to pull on her dress. I lift her gently, cradling her to my chest and trying not to wake her up. My mom has always been very small, once beautifully petite but now somewhere on the verge of scarily frail. She's easy to lift, too easy to lift, and I assume she weighs close to 90 pounds.

I gently lay her down on the bed in her first floor bedroom, tucking her in. I fill a glass of water in the kitchen, and set that along with a cup of hangover soup that she can microwave when she wakes up, on her bedside table. She stirs when I set the porcelain cup down, but doesn't wake up, so I tiptoe out and fix myself my own breakfast – leftover kimchi stew – before grabbing my bag and heading out the door.

The early morning sun momentarily blinds my eyes as I step out of the house, but as they adjust, I can make out the orangey glow that coats everything in sight. The grass in my yard is still dewy, and today, the wind lightly blows, cooling my skin. I remember a time when, as a kid, I'd spend all my time outdoors and thoroughly enjoy the atmosphere. Lately, my mind has been cluttered with too many thoughts to enjoy simple things like the air around me. I draw in a breath, soaking in the sunlight and fresh air before continuing down the sidewalk.

Sung Hwa is only seven blocks from my house, so I always walk. First period starts at nine, but I like to arrive a half hour early (sometimes more) to spend some time in the small library off the side of the building. As far as books go, there isn't a very large selection, but I have my laptop in my schoolbag as well, and I spend the time studying as much I can.

When my mother isn't stumbling in the door drunk, she's glaring at me with cold eyes, stating firmly that I am to be number one in my class, I am to make it into the best university in the country, and I am to exceed all of my teacher's expectations.

So as I make it to the front gates, I make a beeline for said library.

I bow in the doorway and greet the librarian, a small thin woman who appears to be in her forties with dark curly hair, and thin glasses that rest on the end of her nose. She's warm and friendly despite her appearance, and along the line I think I became a sort of acquaintance of hers. I'm pretty sure I'm the only student that ever visits the library on my own accord.

From behind the desk, she smiles. “Hello, Junghwan, you're a little early today.”

I glance at the clock, and notice it was only ten after eight.

“Ah, I guess I am,” I let out a small smile and set my things down on one of the small round tables. Pulling out my laptop, I flip it open and press the power button.

“Well as always, make yourself comfortable. I have to go make copies in the staff room for a few minutes, but I trust you'll be okay alone here, right?” she asks me.

I glance over at her and give her my signature eye smile, nodding. “You can trust me.”

She smiles back, then turns to leave through the office behind her desk. A calming silence takes over the room, the only sound being the click of fingers on my laptop's keys and the occasional flip of a textbook page. Even when the librarian returns, the atmosphere remains quiet and stays that way until my day at school officially begins.

The morning passes without event, basically just me listening to the drone of unenthusiastic teachers giving lessons I already know by heart.

As lunch time rolls around, I make my way through the cafeteria line, and unfortunately the only option today is the lunch-ladies' take on beef ramen soup, where the noodles are half dissolved and fall apart between chopsticks, and the beef doesn't exactly look the way it should. I grab an apple from the basket at the end of the line, hoping that even though it has some rotten spots, it would prove more edible than the other concoction.

I take my seat at the table next to the window, and less than thirty seconds later, a figure comes bounding up, nearly slamming his tray down and hopping into the seat across from mine.

I slurp the remaining bit of the soggy noodle in my mouth and look up. “Hey, Gongchan,” I mumble with a full mouth.

The dark haired boy grins at me. “Hi, Sandeullie-hyung.”

Since my freshman year, I've always sat alone at lunch, staring out the window at this very table and picking at my food, usually while reading a book as the rest of the cafeteria buzzed with laughter and conversation. I've always been anti-social, and since moving to this area, I never bothered making friends. They were a “distraction” anyway, as my mother would say.

But on the first day of this year, my junior year, I sat down at lunch, fully prepared to eat quietly and alone, only to be taken aback at the sight of a cute young boy bounding up to my table. On that day, he told me he was a freshman, and that he wanted to start talking to more genuine people. I assumed with his good looks, he had been hanging out with a more popular crowd. And I know from observance that that crowd likes to party, parties that involve illegal things.

So I let him sit with me that day, not realizing that he would come back every day afterward. Over time, I guess we sort of became best friends. We don't hang out much outside of school, but we text a lot and occasionally I tell my mother I was going to the library so I could visit Gongchan's house.

I slowly learned everything about the younger boy, and he knows everything about me.

Which is why he brings up that topic today.

“Hyung,” he asks between spoonfuls of ramen, “Has Sunwoo bothered you yet today?”

I sigh. “No, not yet.” I don't want to think about when I'll receive the attack today.

Gongchan shoots me a concerned glance. “Well, if anything really bad happens, text me or something. I'll come to the rescue,” he grins at me, lightly pumping a fist in the air.

I chuckle at his childishness. “I'm sure I'll be all right”

“If you say so,” he sings, punctuating it by sticking out his tongue.

I sigh again, my smile fading.

Cha Sunwoo, or better known as Baro, is a sophomore, and one of the most popular ones. With a strong athletic body, deep voice, and dyed blonde hair, he's what you'd call a kingka – every girl wants him, and every guy wants to be him. Apparently he's the highlight of most parties and has dated half the girls in school – things that should turn people off, but at a school like Sung Hwa, it propelled him straight to the top.

If only people could know what the hell he does when they aren't looking. Every day for weeks now, Sunwoo likes to find me at a random moment during the day, and slam me with some sort of attack. He'll do it when everyone's heads are turned or when there's no one around, not wanting to ruin his perfect image. Sometimes it's a verbal attack, other times it's physical.

The physical things he does are annoying and inconvenient sometimes, but I don't let anything get to me. Sometimes he locks me in the locker room until I call Gongchan so he can get me out, and other times he pelts a water balloon at me as I walk home from school. Even if I walk in the door soaking wet, if it doesn't affect my grades, my mother doesn't ask.

Most verbal attacks are on my weight, and those do irritate me. I didn't understand it at first. I thought my body was average, not muscular but also not fat. I eat just as much as the next person – sometimes even less.

But as Sunwoo pelted me with words like 'chubby', 'big-boned', and straight up 'fat', I began to actually think about my appearance. Am I larger than the average guy? Is my face as chubby as he says it is? Slowly, his words have begun to tear down my walls and actually get to me. I find myself eating a little less unconsciously. Sometimes I think, “Why am I letting a scumbag like this guy get under my skin?” But nonetheless, when a third of my human interactions are with this guy, the words he say are hard to get out of my head.

I don't usually feel hatred. Not even towards my neglectful-unless-it's-to-yell-at-me mother, because I know half the blame is in the alcohol. Not even towards the father who left my side, because I know he needed to travel to make enough money to support my mother and I. Not towards any of my peers, because frankly, I don't really want to befriend people like that.

But when it comes to Sunwoo, it's slowly getting closer to hatred.

He has no legitimate reason for doing the things he does. He's popular, good-looking, and from the look of his clothes, he's got money. Yet he tries to pull me down to a level even lower than I'm already at. I try to be strong. I usually succeed. But again, without knowing it, he's affecting me. And why does he do it? Why does he attack me?

Because he gets a kick out of it.

At least, that's the only explanation I can think of.

So after lunch today, when I'm at my locker, I see his blonde hair in a see of brown and black and decide today will be different.

For some reason, I feel like putting this to an end. I won't let him hurt me. I'll fire hurtful words right back at him.

He approaches me, walking with that assurance he always has, smiling that stupid cocky grin of his. I shut my locker, and turn to face him, ready to combat whatever he's about to do to me.

But the words I've prepared get caught in my throat as he lifts his arm slowly, raises an eyebrow, and mumbles, “Did 'ya get enough lunch, fattie?”

… before dumping a bowl of soggy, half dissolved noodles on my head.

[A/N]: So the first chapter is up ^^ This is so much easier to write than Unexpected. I think because it's in first person, maybe? This was really fun to write, too. I think this may get more updates than my other story. XD It seems to be more popular, too, getting more subscribers with just the forward than Unexpected got in eight chapters. XD

Well yeah, comments are love. <3 Tell me what you think of the first chapter. ^^

(Yes, I updated just for you people even though I'm at the beach! Sitting here enjoying the ocean view right now :D)