Math, history, and English breeze by easily for you. Luckily, you were slightly ahead of the class back in your previous school, so you can follow along easily. Each class was about an hour and a half, with a twenty minute break in between each. The teacher let you know that you were free to roam around and visit others or buy a snack during the break as long as you make it back to your next class on time. But you spent those twenty minutes working on your math homework so you would have less to do later. And in those twenty minutes, none of the other students had bothered to approach you, so you might be alone later during your lunch break.

You wondered if you should buck up the courage to introduce yourself to the others. They were, after all, the only others in the school that you knew of who had the same problem as you did. But the thing was, they didn’t seem like your type of people. Throughout the break, the guys had gone outside somewhere while the girls seemed content gossiping to each other about celebrities or playing around with their phones. You weren’t really into that. Maybe you would just spend your time exploring the library some of the time during these breaks if you ended up not befriending any of your classmates.

Finally, it was time for lunch. Since it was your first day, you didn’t know how the cafeteria worked yet, so you brought your own. Once you figured it out, then you’d be free to try out the school lunch. Unless it tasted like crap, then you would probably continue bringing your own food. You decide to leave your backpack in the classroom like the other students, bringing only your lunch, wallet, and cell phone along with you. As you’re about to make your way out of the classroom, one of the girls greets you.

“Hey, Baiyun, right?” she asks.

“Hi.” You grin back at her politely.

“I’m Fei. These two are Jia and Vicky.” She introduces them, and you bow accordingly to each of them. “Would you like to eat lunch with us today?” she offers, “Since it’s your first day. If you find some new friends that you like better, you can always hang out with them when you meet them later.”

“Really? That’s very kind of you. Thank you.” You smile gratefully, “So do you guys buy school lunch?”

“Yeah, we usually do. The food is pretty okay.” Vicky nods, “So we should go now before the line starts getting too long.” She shoos us towards the door.

“Okay.” You nod, following Fei out the door. You make your way down three floors and across the quad to the cafeteria and follow them into the line. You suppose you could start yourself off with a simple drink.

“Do you have a T-card?” Jia holds up her red card to show me, “You usually use it for subway rides and stuff, but you can really use it to pay for anything as long as they have scanners at the register. And they usually have them everywhere.” She explains.

“Oh yeah! They have those in Hong Kong. It’s like the Octopus card.” You smile at the familiar concept.

“Oh, you’re from Hong Kong? I thought she said you were from Hefei?” she asks me.

“I am, but I lived in Hong Kong for a couple years when I was a kid.” You explain.

“Oh cool, no wonder you were so chill during the English lesson,” she chuckles, “So can you speak Cantonese?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” You shrug, “Can you guys speak Cantonese?”

“Nope, but Fei can. She’s the only one out of the rest of us. Maybe now you two can exchange secrets together.” She jokes.

“Maybe.” You laugh. Soon enough, you guys are at the front of the line, and you watch as Jia grabs for rice, a small salad, a bowl of meat and tofu, and a bottle of orange juice to put on her tray. When you reach the drinks, you grab for a carton of regular milk and follow Jia towards the cash register. You watch as she presses her T-card against the scanner on the register after the lunch lady tells her the price of the meal.

When it’s your turn, you hold up your carton of milk and she nods as she glances at the screen to tell you the milk is ₩500. You pull a ₩500 coin out of your wallet and hand it to her with a smile. She smiles back with another nod before you leave the register and follow the three other girls to a table next to the windows.

You gaze out the window and seen a large patch of green that’s just dying to be run across. There are already a couple of guys running around the field, throwing a tennis ball back and forth. “We like sitting here to scope out the athletes when they go out to play during lunch.” Vicky chuckles as she gestures for me to sit down across from her. I take my seat next to Jia and scan their lunches. They all got something similar, but instead of meat and tofu, Fei chose the curry with chicken and potatoes. Vicky got the same thing as Fei, but traded in the orange juice for a bottle of chocolate milk.

“So how much do your lunches cost?” you ask.

“Generally, if you get one of everything, then it comes up to about ₩5,000.” Fei answers.

“Do they ever change up the menu?”

“Yeah, it’s different every day. Sometimes there’s noodles and fried rice instead. They usually separate it into the bowls and plates themselves, so it’s an equal proportion that everyone’s paying for.” Jia says. “Fridays are usually the days where we have some American food or something.”

“That sounds cool.” You nod, starting to pull out your lunch box and start in on your kimbap.

Throughout lunch, you and the girls just converse in Chinese comfortably, and you can tell there are some people giving you a couple more glances than needed, but not enough for it to become a problem. “So,” you decide to start up a new topic, “Is there any special social ladder I should pay attention to in this school? Or like, some extremely popular hot guy that I should be aware of?”

“Oh! Hot guys! You picked a good topic.” Vicky laughs, and the rest of you laugh at her outburst with her. “Well, there isn’t much of a thing you have to follow since our group usually sticks to ourselves. There isn’t much drama at this school with some crazy queen bee who runs the school or whatever. But there are some pretty cute guys walking around.” She lowers her chin to look up at me with her eyes rising up towards me.

“Will I be coming in contact with them in my classes?” You ask with a laugh.

“Probably not. Unless you have choir or dance as an elective.” Fei shrugs.

“Art.” I shrug.

“Oh, some of the guys’ friends take art, I think.” Vicky perks up.

“Really? Which ones?” Jia asks.

“I think the Chinese ones. Like Yixing and Tao and them.” Vicky waves her hand above her tray as if trying to trigger Jia’s memory as to who she’s talking about.

“What? No, not Yixing. He’s in dance with us. I think you’re talking about the tall one, Wufan.” Jia corrects her.

“Oh right! Him! My bad.” Vicky says before turning to you, “You remember that guy from our class?”

“Uhm… no.” You admit. Truthfully, you were too busy with taking notes and such to pay attention to the other students. You didn’t even remember the girls’ faces before they invited you to lunch. And the guys sat behind you, so that makes it even more impossible for you to remember.

“Well, we’re talking about Huang Zitao. Or Tao, I guess. He’s like, the sort of dark, moody looking one.” Vicky explains to me, “Other than the guys in our class, he’s really good friends with the hot basketball players and dancers that hang out together because he’s close to Wufan, who’s the tallest basketball captain you will have ever seen. Or the tallest guy you’ve seen in general.” She shrugs, “But anyways, their group is like, FULL of hot guys. And they’re all athletes, dancers, or singers. Ugh! Could you find any better candidates for eye candy?!” she almost screams out.

“Hmm,” you nod, “Sounds tempting. Wait, I don’t remember what Tao looks like. Is he handsome?”

“He’s alright.” Jia shrugs, “Not the most obvious one. The best looking ones are mostly the Korean ones. But there’s this guy from Beijing who looks like a doll, and he’s so pretty. Oh yeah, and Wufan. He’s like, born to be a model or something. You can tell just by the way he walks.” She almost rolls her eyes at the thought of it.

Throughout the rest of lunch, you talk with the girls about eye candy and they start questioning you about previous flings you might have had in the past. You admit that you had a small thing with a kid you played with back when you were in Hong Kong, but you two grew up and apart. They ‘awww’ at the so-called ‘tragedy’ of your childhood love story, but eventually, the topic moves on to celebrity man candy. This topic, you’re less familiar with, so you’re just listening as the other girls start debating with each other about different aspects that Vicky brings up about each star.

By the time you’re all back in the classroom, you’re back to your quiet, concentrated self in the classroom. Your glasses are on and your hand moves across your notebook to copy down the important concepts of the physics topic you’re focusing on. During the twenty minute break, the girls move out of their seats to sit next to you. But they end up talking about topics you’re uninterested in and show each other things on their phones while you just sit next to them and go over more homework, quietly enjoying their chattering company beside you.

Your next class is gym, so you and the girls head to the changing rooms with your gym clothes. You find a teacher in the office next to the locker room, so you knock and introduce yourself. Five minutes later, the teacher leads you towards your new locker for your clothes. You have the combination written down on a piece of paper and you repeat it to yourself until it’s burned into your mind as you change into your t-shirt and shorts. The torso of the shirt is light blue, while the short sleeves are navy to match your shorts. Luckily, you brought your tennis shoes with you so you could change out of them.

Once changed and ready, you find Fei, Jia, and Vicky so they can lead to down to the fields. The four of you walk down one of the hills that lead to the intersection of the school buildings and walk towards the group of students that have gathered near the middle pathway in their identical gym uniforms. The teacher appears minutes later, and she explains that you’ll just be playing basketball today. There were about 50 students, and there were six courts to play on. So it was decided that everyone would get into groups of four, and two groups of five would play against each other.

Perfect, you thought as you huddled in with the other three girls who found opponents easily in the crowd of students. They were all already friends and you were introduced to the four other girls you would be playing with; Min, Luna, Krystal, and Amber.

“Hey, Baiyun, you know English, right? These three can speak pretty good English too.” Jia gestures towards all of the girls in our opposing team except for Luna.

“Oh really? Should I switch into your team so we can yell out secret plays?” You joke in English with a smile.

I get a laugh from the girls who understand what I just said, but Luna just smiles along anyway as if she gets the joke too. “What happened?” Luna asks with a clueless smile on her face.

“We were thinking of kicking you out so we can make plays in English.” Krystal answers bluntly, but humorously. When Luna drops her jaw angrily, you all let out hearty laughs. When the teacher blows the whistle to tell you to grab the basketballs and claim a court, you head out. The teams stay as they are, and you stick with your Chinese friends.

But as the other girls follow us to the court, Vicky leans in next to you to whisper, “Amber speaks Chinese too. And she’s pretty close with Wufan, that really tall basketball captain that I pointed out earlier.”

While waiting for the teacher to come out to the yard, Vicky and the other two had pointed out a couple of the hot shots they told you about during lunch. You had forgotten to get a look at Tao when you were back in the classroom, but it wasn’t hard to spot him because apparently, he was standing next to the complete giant bean stalk that was Wufan. He popped out of the entire crowd, so it was easy to spot him. And Jia was right. The way he waltzed around just made him look like a model. It didn’t hurt that he was ridiculously good-looking either. Other than those two, they were hidden in the ocean of students, so we didn’t get a glimpse of them.

“We chose this court because it’s next to the guys and their regular group. Altogether, there’s around twelve of them. I guess today they decided to keep it up with the groups of four. Two of them are playing against each other. I wonder who the other group is playing with…” Vicky looks around to spot four guys heading to the court behind the one of their left to play with another group of boys. “Oh, they’re over there.”

To be honest, you really couldn’t distinguish anyone right now. They all looked the same in the identical uniforms and general boy hairstyles. It was even hard for you to find the girls in the crowd, since a lot of them had their hair tied up if it was too long. You hadn’t taken your hair out of your ponytail all day, so you didn’t bother touching it. You decided you didn’t have to pay attention. It was only your first day. You could learn to remember hot guys’ faces throughout the rest of the year.

The next hour of class is one you spend whooping everyone’s asses. Okay, not really. Amber, Krystal, and Jia showed fair game, so it was really based on the four of you. The rest would just find a way to pass it to the four of you. But in the end, you ended up showing everyone up with your layup shots and side throws. You had a smile on throughout the entire game and you would laugh a lot as you were chased by the other players as you dribbled the ball along. Jia made her fair share of shots, but she let you take the lead a lot of the time.

Obviously, with the roll you were on, your team won the game. No one really kept count, but it was clear which hoop the basketball swished through the most during the game. Fei and Vicky come screaming up to you and Jia, throwing high fives at you and jumping up while you guys laugh together. You share you happy victory with the other team as well, commending them on how great they were in their diversions. Min’s whirl wind arms and Luna’s jumping jacks in attempts to block you almost made you lose the ball in your fits of laughter several times.

By the end of class, you didn’t want to leave the court. This was where you were happy. You didn’t have to worry about dealing with people or worrying about fitting in, because all you had to do was play and move and do your thing. Time would pass by so much more quickly and you would be having a good time. And had you a chance to try out, you probably would have tried out for the basketball team or any other sports teams in this school. But there’s always next year.

Finally, after changing back into your uniform, you realize you only have three minutes to get to your next class, so you pick up your pace out of the locker room, up the stairs, and down the hall to your art class. You make it with a minute and a half to spare and you see that there aren’t any actual desks for work like regular classrooms. But there are single desk tables shaped like blocks lined up in a three-sided rectangle along the room, leaving one side open for the front of the room. And on the other side, there’s a door that leads to another room that you assume holds extra art supplies. As well as several canvases of drying paintings and ceramic pieces. On either end of the room, you spot light boxes for making final sketches. There’s a large table on that side of the classroom for bigger projects, you assume.

You make your way to the teacher and bow, introducing yourself and handing her your transfer student information. The teacher nods writes out a list of items that you need to get a hold of for the class. He then assigns you to a cubby for you to put all your supplies when you’re not in class. He writes ‘Lee Yun’ on a slip of piece of paper for you and tapes it to one of the bottom cubbies, since they’re the only ones available for you. You thank him and follow him back to his teacher’s desk. He then starts explaining to you the project the class is working on, but you give him a clueless look and he realizes that you don’t really understand what he’s saying. So he leads you to one of the tables in the classroom.

He looks to the two boys sitting next to each other, whom you recognize as Tao and Wufan from your gym class when Vicky pointed them out to you. He says something to the two, and Tao seems a bit reluctant to scoot over to the next seat away from Wufan, but he does so anyway. After talking to them a little more, he turns back to you, saying something else and gesturing for you to sit between the two boys. You thank him once again and bow before he walks away back towards his desk.

You look at the now empty seat between Wufan and Tao nervously before scurrying around the desks and plopping into your seat. “Hello.” You bow to each of them before pulling your backpack off. You see that they’re both still in their gym uniforms, so maybe the teacher doesn’t really care if you change back into your uniform or not. That could be used to your advantage if you ever decide to play a little longer.

“Hi, I’m Kris.” Wufan introduces himself in Chinese, “And that’s Tao over here.” He gestures towards Tao on your other side. “The teacher asked me to help you with the class whenever you need it, so just ask me if you ever need anything.” He says gently to you.

His eyes and serious demeanor intimidate you a bit, but you can tell that he’s responsible and willing to help you in whatever way he can. “Thank you.” You bow your head to him, “I’ll need it. So uhm, can you tell me what’s on this list? Since I need to get them soon to keep up with the class.” You hold the paper that the teacher had given you.

He takes the paper and scans it before he takes a pencil and writes down the translations of each item you need to prepare for the class. When smile gratefully when you see the characters written next to each of the items accordingly, “Thank you very much.” You bow again.

“It’s no problem.” He waves it off, “Do you need anything else?”

“Uhm, I was wondering…” You start off, eyeing his gym clothes, “Does the teacher mind if I walk in with my gym clothes on? Is it a requirement for me to change back for this class?”

“Oh, not really. He doesn’t really care. As long as you’re wearing school clothes instead of street clothes. It’d be easier to clean than your regular uniform if you get it dirty.” He suggests.

“Oh, okay, thank you.”  You smile gratefully before turning to Tao, “You’re in my homeroom, right? 3-B?”

“Yeah.” He confirms.

“So is Wufan helping you too?” you ask.

“Oh, you can just call me Kris. But, wait. How did you know my name?” Wufan says behind you.

Oops. Busted.

You keep yourself composed when you face him, “Oh, sorry. You had introduced yourself as Kris. But some of my classmates told me about you being a basketball team captain since I asked. I mean, because you kind of… popped out of the crowd since you’re so tall.” You fib lightly.

“Did I really stick out that much?” he offers a small smile. His eyes are still quite wide open, so it’s hard to believe his amusement. The smile actually still intimidates you.

“Well, how tall are you? Like well over 180 cm, I’m sure.” you chuckle a little.

“Yeah.” He smiles back, “But anyways, you and Tao are in the same class? You guys can help each other then. If you need anything, just ask him to contact me or something.”

“Okay, thank you.” You bow your head to Wufan, or Kris, and Tao. “So uhm, what project is the class working on right now?”

“Right now we’re doing portraits of other people.” Tao answers, “You have to bring a photo of someone you want to draw, or a photocopy of the picture if you don’t want to ruin it. We’re just going to try and replicate it on a bigger piece of paper. First, you have to do all your rough drafts on this kind of scratch tracing paper,” he pulls up a thin, brown sheet of paper with his rough and somewhat disproportionate drawing of someone, “And then later, when the teacher approves of what you have, you take this and over to the light boxes to trace it onto the thicker white paper.” He points to the light boxes on each end of the room.

“Okay.” You nod, “How long have you guys been doing this?”

“We just started last weekend. But he’ll probably give us until next week or maybe even after that to finish. We have all of class time to work on it. And you’re allowed to come into this room during your free time or afterschool if he’s here.” Kris explains.

“Okay. So what do you mean by ‘someone I want to draw’?” you ask.

“He said that you would probably be more determined to do a good job on your drawing if the drawing is of someone special to you. So maybe a grandparent, another family member, or a good friend, whatever you want. It should be one person only, though. Also, you can’t draw yourself.” Kris says.

You nod and thank him once more before letting the two boys go back to their drawings. You go over the list and see several different kinds of pencils and brushes you’ll need to prepare. You recognize the different kinds of supplies you need, since your dad works with artwork a lot. You’ve learned a lot about the different techniques and materials artists use to create their work. Art is a comfortable hobby to you. It provides a different kind of escape than sports. This one, you can put all your energy and focus into creating something, and the results usually turn out pretty well with practice.

For the rest of class, you find some brown tracing paper and start scribbling some practice outlines of different people you might draw for this assignment. Staring at random pictures on your phone, you try out your dad, but you’re not really good with drawing guys yet. You try your mom, but her facial structure is a little mature for your comfort zone. You try roughing out a sketch of your baby cousin in Beijing, but infants are harder than adults, even though they have fewer details to focus on. By the end of class, you’ve decided to wing it. You’ll ask one of the girls in your class if you can draw them. If not, then maybe you’ll just settle for your mom after all.

When everyone starts packing away their materials, Tao takes a look at your rough prototypes scrawled throughout your paper and his eyes widen, “Whoa! How did you do that in just this class?! That’s amazing.” He praises.

“It’s nothing. I was just trying to figure out who I wanted to draw.” You shrug, gathering your papers and pulling your backpack over one of your shoulders. You pick up the tracing paper as Tao continues to spew out his words of awe.

“No seriously, how did you do that? That was like, five different people in just one hour! And look at what I’ve done with half a week already.” Tao scoffs, holding up his messy attempt to replicate the photocopied photo of a boy who seems a little older than you.

“That’s nothing, look at this.” Kris laughs, holding up his scribbly sketch on his tracing paper. Although it’s rude of you to think so, it really does look a little pitiful.

“It’s perfectly fine, guys.” You chuckle, folding the paper in half and pushing in your chair, “You’ll get better with practice. If you want anything, you can ask me too. By the way, is there an art store near here that I can go to?” You add quickly as you slip the paper into your bottom cubby and walk out of the classroom with Kris and Tao.

“Oh yeah, you can actually get all the stuff at the art store a couple blocks down the street from the school,” Kris answers, pointing his hand towards the west of the school, “But it’s a little more expensive there. You can do what I did and go to this special stationary store somewhere downtown. They have everything you need, and it’s actually pretty good quality.”

“Where is it?”

“Uhm…” he breathes in, looking up to think of how to explain, “It’s actually a little hard to find. It was actually my friend who told me about the place… Do you want me to take you there?” he offers.

“Oh no, you don’t have to do that. I was going to get it today so I could start right away to catch up with the class. You probably have things to do. And I have to stay later for my Korean class.” You explain.

“That’s fine. I have basketball practice anyway. You’ll be taking your class with Tao, right? We both finish around the same time, so I think I’d be able to take you.” He says.

“Really?” You ask incredulously. Although he still intimidates you with his thick eyebrows and sharp jawline, he really is helpful. “Is it really far away? I don’t want to burden you.”

“It is a little far from the school, but you can easily take the subway back to the central part of the city.” He says, “It’s really no problem. You wanted your supplies, right? Let’s just go today.” He pushes lightly.

“Well, okay. Thank you very much, Kris. I really appreciate how much you’re helping me with. Thank you.” You bow to him again when the three of you get to the third floor.

“You’re welcome. You two have a good class. Just meet me by the courts later.” He says before heading off into the crowd of other students swimming through the halls now at the end of school.