You talk a bit with Tao when you two enter your homeroom classroom together, but eventually, he heads back to his friends in the back of the room and you head back to your desk near the other girls. They don’t fail to notice your interaction with the boy either.

“I knew something would happen in that class. I just knew it.” Vicky cackles as she scrambles into the desk next to yours, “Are you guys friends now? Is he helping you with class? Do you have his phone number yet?”

You let out a laugh at her eccentric questions before answering her quietly, “I don’t know. He and Kris are helping me catch up with the rest of the class. He’s already been helping Tao since he can speak Korean better than us, so I’m just another add-in to his helper circle. He’s taking me to get art supplies later today.” You explain casually, taking out your pencil bag, a notebook, and your Korean dictionary.

“Wait, what?! You’re going out with Wufan today?!” Vicky shouts in a whisper frantically. “I can’t believe that happened so quickly! Can you believe her?!” she turns to Jia and Fei.

“Stop it. I said we were going to get art supplies. After that, I probably won’t need his help until we have a new assignment to be explained.” You hit Vicky lightly on the arm to shut her up.

“Admittedly, I am a little jealous. Wufan is pretty hot.” Fei admits, “And did you call him Kris? Oh yeah, that’s his English name from when he lived in Canada.”

“Canada?”

“Yeah, remember how I said he could speak English, Korean, and Chinese? Well he got the English from living in Canada before. He got Korean from living here. And apparently, he’s from Guangzhou, so he can speak Cantonese too.” Vicky explains.

“How do you know all this stuff?” You let out a slightly exasperated sigh. You felt like a stalker already even though you would have a chance to find out all these things yourself if you had the opportunity to befriend Kris and Tao on your own.

“Amber. We’re pretty close. And they’re pretty close, so she tells me everything.” Vicky shrugs.

“Well what happened in class today?” Jia asks, veering the topic in another direction.

“Uhm, they explained the assignment to me and I tried out different people. And none of them will work with me! So I was going to ask… Would one of you guys let me draw you?” you ask.

“You mean for an assignment?” Fei asks.

“Yeah, I just need to try and replicate a photo of the person. I was going to do one of my family members or my old friends, but it’s hard to work with them.” You pout to yourself, “So would one of you guys be willing to let me have a photocopy of a picture of you to draw? I’ll give you the sketch later if you want it.”

“No thanks.” Jia declines immediately, turning away.

“I think I’m good too.” Fei chuckles.

“Oh! You can draw me! I want to see how good you are.” Vicky smiles brightly, “I’ll get you the picture tomorrow.”

“Really? Thank you so much, Vicky.” You thank her, “Just a printed out photocopy will be fine. I don’t want to ruin any of your pictures.”

“I’m kind of excited to see it already.” Vicky giggles, scrolling through her phone, “Now I need to find a decent picture for you to copy.” She puckers her lips as she looks through the photos on her phone.

“Would you mind not making it a full front-on photo? Like angled to the side a little bit? I’m a little more comfortable with that.” You request.

“No problem.” She smiles as she continues looking through her phone.

But just then, the teacher walks in and greets the class in Korean. You and the rest of the students do the same and settle yourselves into your seats. He speaks in Korean throughout the majority of the lesson, refusing to let you speak any other language. You understand a little over half of what he’s saying, but once the lesson starts, you start getting a little nervous. Luckily, you have your dictionary by your side, and you flip furiously through it whenever a new vocabulary word that you don’t know appears on the board.

By the end of the class, your eyes are tired and you’ve filled up three pages of your notebook with notes. You pull off your glasses and rub your eyes in exhaustion. But you got a general gist of what happens in class each day. You’ll start off talking about your day and then the formal lesson will start. It seemed easy enough. Since it was your first day, the teacher let you off easy with your nervous Korean when you said you came to the school and made new friends and you liked it. The others just said simple things like talking about what they did in gym, or their elective classes, and one guy said something that you didn’t really understand, but he seemed to know his stuff.

Checking your watch, you saw that it was almost 5:35pm and a bunch of students must be out of school already. But you were surprised to find out that lots of students actually stay in the school to study on their own, whether it be in their classroom or in the library with other friends or in another part of the school. Everyone’s still working, is what Fei explains.

When you’re about to leave with the girls, Tao calls your name, “Wait… uhm, it’s Baiyun, right?” he asks as he follows you out of the room, adjusting the straps on his backpack.

“Yeah, Baiyun. Or Yun, for a Korean name.” You answer with a smile as the two of you walk down towards the stairs.

“Okay. So you’re coming with me to meet Kris, right?” he asks.

“Yeah, if that’s still okay with you guys.” You nod.

“It’s fine.” He shrugs, “But kind of weird. We haven’t hung out around girls for a while.”

“Really? Well, you can always pretend I’m a guy too, if you want.” You offer jokingly, “I can play like a guy.”

“Yeah, I saw.” Tao nods. “You killed it out there on the court today during gym.”

“You think so?” You smile to yourself before turning back to him.
 

“Oh definitely. Some of the guys glanced back at you a couple of times during your game. You have a good layup. And your side shots, oh my god!” he breathes out. “And your artwork. Are you like, good at everything?” he laughs when he faces you. It catches you by surprise, but you find yourself smiling back. He has a nice laugh, and he doesn’t look as dark when he smiles. He’s quite cute, actually.

“Thank you very much.” You chuckle, “But you know, practice makes perfect for everything.” You shrug as the two of you make your way down the hill towards the wide concrete pathway that leads to the gates. You turn to the courts on the left side and spot a couple of guys sitting down and drinking water. Even though with your imperfect vision, you can tell one of them is Kris.

“Hey.” Kris greets you and Tao when you reach the courts. He and his two other friends stand up and pull their backpacks over their shoulders, “Uhm… I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name when we were in class.” Kris says embarrassedly.

“Oh, right. Sorry. I’m Lee Baiyun.” You bow to the three before you, “And thanks again for helping me like this on such short notice.”

“No problem.” Kris waves it off, “And this is my friend, Lay. He’s the one who knows where the stationary shop is. So I’m bringing him just in case I get us all lost. And this one is Luhan, he’s just tagging along because he has no life.”

Luhan ignores Kris’s joke to bow to you with an adorable smile on his face, “Hi, Baiyun. I’m Luhan, like he said. Where are you from?”

“I’m from Hefei.” You answer, “But I lived in Hong Kong for a little while. So if any of you guys speak a little English, then maybe we can communicate through that too.” You offer with a small smile.

“Hong Kong? So do you know Cantonese?” Luhan smiles gently.

“Yeah, a little bit.” You nod.

“That’s cool. Because Kris knows English and Cantonese too. You two are like a perfect match.” Luhan laughs, “Saw you kill it on the court today. You’re almost as good as Kris.”

“Nah,” You shake your head, “It was just a game. But uh… thank you. I guess once I learn Korean, we can communicate in like, four languages then.” you chuckle.

“Sounds good.” Kris says, “So, shall we go?”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

And with that, the five of you head off towards the school gates. “So wow, do all of you speak Chinese?”

“Yeah. Luhan’s from Beijing and Lay is from Changsha.” Kris says.

“Wow. I guess I don’t need to feel outcasted at all here.” You smile to yourself. “So how long have you guys been here?”

“We’ve all been here since at least the first year of high school, except for Tao. That’s why he’s in the newcomer class with you this year.” Luhan explains.

“So can you guys speak Korean already?”

“It’s alright. Not great, but we get by.” Luhan shrugs.

As you guys near the busier ends of the streets, your head suddenly snaps up when you spot the subway station down the roads. “Oh! Actually, do you guys know where I can get a T-card?” You ask.

“Do you need one?” Lay asks, “There’s a big convenience shop down there that issues T-cards if you need one.”

“Do I need any special information or anything?”

“Not really. It’s not a credit card, so you don’t need much besides your name.” he replies.

“Really? So uhm… do you guys think we could…?” You trail off, but Luhan nods right away.

“Yeah, sure. Let’s do it. Having a T-card will make it a lot easier for getting around and paying for everything.”

The guys make their way to the large convenience store and ask the man behind the register for the card. Five minutes later, he hands you your newly registered, green T-card that you had just filled up with ₩50,000 and you take it gratefully, thanking him with a bow. And when you walk back outside, you thank the guys as well. They wave it off, of course, and just start leading you towards the subway stop.

You guys only have to wait a minute before the subway flies into the station, and surprisingly, plenty of seats are open. So the five of you sit in the same row between two doors. You sit on the edge next to Lay. And you think you’re just going to spend the ride daydreaming, but Lay starts talking to you.

“So, is it Baiyun, as in like the paintbrush?” he asks.

“Yeah, it is, actually.” You smile widely at him, surprised that someone knows the meaning behind your name. “How did you know? Are you a painter?”

*Baiyun means ‘White Cloud’. It’s a type of brush with white hairs/bristles that are used for Chinese watercolor painting. Its main purpose are for washing out the colors to make them fade into lighter colors or the paper.

“No,” he shakes his head, keeping his eyes down most of the time. Not out of fear or anything, but it seems as though out of habit. “But my dad was an art teacher. I took art classes for a couple of years.”

“That’s really cool.” You say, still smiling at him. He’s actually really cute. The way he looks down makes him look shy and his voice is really slow and gentle to your ears. “I took some classes too. I really liked them, actually. And my dad’s an art history major, so that’s why he named me something like that.”

He nods understandingly, but doesn’t continue with the conversation. You wonder if you should continue to talk to him or just let the silence rest between the two of you. You felt like you left the conversation at an awkward end, so you decide to ask him a question, “So, is your name Lay, as in ‘I’m tired’?”

“No, it’s Lay as in thunder.” He answers in his regular emotionless, gentle voice, “But my real name is Yixing.” He shrugs.

“Oh yeah. I’ve heard about you.” You say aloud before you can catch yourself.

“You have?” he asks curiously, finally turning to look at you. It’s only for a moment but his gaze is dark and so, so mysterious. It’s not like it’s piercing you, but you want to kind of fall into his deep, dark eyes.

“Uhm, yeah. I heard that you’re a really good dancer.” You say. You really don’t know if he’s good or not. You just remember hearing Jia say that he was in her dance class.

“Oh yeah… that. It’s okay.” He shrugs, returning his gaze to the general direction of the floor.

“Dance is cool. I kind of wanted to learn before, but there weren’t many dance programs for me to take.” You shrug.

“Dance is cool.” He agrees, nodding. You decide that’s when you don’t really need to talk anymore. If another topic comes up, you’ll speak again. But for now, the silence between you two has grown comfortable.

It’s weird because you’re so used to rowdy people and rough behavior, but Lay is kind of a breath of fresh air for you. You’ve never really met anyone that calm. And you always did appreciate the calm since artists tended to be in those kinds of environments. Maybe it takes another artist to understand that. It’s strange to imagine such a quiet, reserved boy as a dancer.

Twenty minutes later, you guys finally get off the subway and head back up into the streets. Lay and Kris lead the rest of you down several streets until you’ve reached a quiet part of the city. Once you step into the peaceful road, you can totally imagine Lay knowing a place like this. Maybe you would try and visit this area more often as well. That is, if you managed to get here again. The way here really was kind of crazy.

Finally, you reach the stationary store and Kris leads you to the section with all the art supplies and office stationary. You pull out your list from your backpack and Kris picks each and every pencil, eraser, sketchbook, and stencil that you need. He also picks a small pencil box for you to hold it all in for you to leave in your class cubby. You smile at him as he takes charge for you, appreciating how caring he is towards other people. You can see great leadership qualities in him.

You thank him as you reach out to take the stuff from his hands, but he shakes his head and says he’ll carry it for you. You say that you wanted to quickly look for something else to buy as well. “Okay, I’ll just bring these to the front register first. When you’re ready, you can just bring your stuff and I’ll tell him to ring it up altogether for you.” He says.

“Thank you so much, Kris.” You bow to him once more before he nods and heads down the aisle with your new art supplies in hand.

After grabbing a couple more new pencils, you scan the shelves for another sketchbook, for your own personal use, and you end up choosing one with a hard plastic cover that lets you slip a paper into the front. The edges of the cover are the same shade of green as your T-card, so you tuck that under your arm as you walk down to another aisle until you find the arts and crafts section. You quickly grab a pack of colorful origami paper and hurry back to the front counter to pay for your things. Although you have a T-card now, you pay with cash anyway. You would just save the card for bus fare and quick payments when you’re in a rush.

You look outside and spot the other guys standing together and chatting casually. So you turn to the counter and pick out several lollipops and ask the man to ring it up along with the rest of your purchase. A minute later, you step out of the stationary store with your bag of new art supplies and five lollipops in your hand. “Here guys, thanks for bringing me here today. I really appreciate. If there’s anything you need from me in the future, don’t hesitate to ask.” You smile as you hold out the lollipops for them to choose out of your hand.

“Ooh~ Sweets. Thank you Baiyun-ah.” Luhan smiles as he picks a lollipop with a pink wrapper. You offer it to the others, and they each take a lollipop, thanking you. Ironically, you end up with the lollipop with the green wrapper, so you can’t help but smile as you unwrap it and stick it into your mouth. The apple flavor sweeps over your tongue and you smile to yourself.

“So, how do I get back to my neighborhood?” You ask.

Kris is the one to ask where you live, and when you tell him your residential neighborhood, he says that he’ll take you there. “You don’t have to do that.” You say. “You’ve done enough for me already. And it’s still my first day.” You chuckle.

“We’re going in the same direction anyway. But when we switch subway lines, Luhan and Tao are going in a different direction. Lay lives around your neighborhood, so would you be willing to bring her home?” Kris turns to ask Lay.

“Yeah, I can do that.” Lay nods, moving the lollipop stick across the seam of his mouth.

“Thank you guys so much. For everything.” You bow to them again.

“No need to be like that.” Luhan waves his hand at you, “You bought us candy, we’re all friends now.” He laughs.

“Really?” You laugh back, “Well, thanks for that too.”

The subway ride back home seems shorter than when you went there. And you’re a little sad to say goodbye to Luhan and Tao as they head up the escalator to another section of subway stops, because it means that you’re going to have to say goodbye to Kris and Lay soon too. Kris and Tao were okay, you would see them in class tomorrow. But who knew when you would see Lay or Luhan again? Outside of your homeroom, these were the only people you knew who spoke Chinese. You were pretty reluctant to let go of them.

Kris leaves you and Lay to head towards your house when he needs to make a different turn, but not before he asks if the two of you are okay with everything. You nod and thank him once again for everything he’s done for you before turning away to walk down the street with Lay. After letting the silence walk alongside the two of you comfortably until you ask, “So do you live near here?”

“Yeah, I actually live in the apartment complex a few blocks down from yours.” He answers, “This is actually a pretty good neighborhood. So you don’t have to worry too much about getting kidnapped or whatever.”

You can’t help but laugh at how casually he says it. You get the feeling that he’s the type of guy who’s unintentionally funny, so he gets confused when people start laughing at him. It’s another trait that you can learn to appreciate in him. “Thanks. So, which subway lines should I ride to get to school? Is it a long way? Because I was thinking of getting a bike.”

“The school isn’t really close. If you bike in good traffic, you’ll make it there in about twenty to thirty minutes. And there are two different subway routes you can take. The one on that side is closer,” he gestures towards the east side, “But you’ll need to walk several blocks to get to the school. The one on that side is a little farther,” he points towards the north, “But you end up closer to the school. Plus, you ride fewer stops, so you pay less on that route. Generally, you should be able to get to school in a ten to fifteen minute time frame. Subways come a lot more often than buses, so you don’t have to worry about waiting too long.”

You nod along to everything he says, wondering if you’ll be able to figure everything out by searching up the subway routes online. “I don’t have to make any switches, right?”

“No.” he answers, “But you’re still completely new to the city, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, pretty much. But I’m learning really quickly thanks to you guys.” You say with a grateful smile.

“How long have you been here?” he asks.

“Uhm… I got here just a couple days ago actually. First day, slept a lot and moved in. And the second day we sort of just unpacked everything and organized a bit.”

“So they pushed you into school right away? That’s pretty fast. You didn’t even get to tour around yet.” He says thoughtfully.

“I can’t really tour around anyway. There’s school to focus on.” You shrug.

“Hmm…” Lay hums to himself as you two get nearer to your apartment building. You’re starting to recognize the surrounding building structures. “Okay, how about this. I’ll take you to school tomorrow and bring you on the different subway lines until you’re good on your own.”

“Are you sure? You’ve already done a lot for me.” You find yourself almost blushing at his sudden offer. It’s very blunt and straightforward, not really matching up to the image you’ve already built up of Lay in your mind already.

“We’re going to the same place anyway. It only makes sense to help you.” He says.

“Well, thank you again, Lay. Thank you so much.” You bow your head to him briefly as you stop near the entrance of your apartment complex.

“Okay, the thing is, I usually go to school early so that I can get there about half an hour before class starts. So we’ll be on our way there at around 7:00am. Are you okay with that?” he asks.

“Oh no! That’s perfect. That’s the time frame I kind of wanted to get to school around too. Thank you.” You say again.

“So uhm, can I have your phone number to call you when I’m here tomorrow morning?” he asks, slightly embarrassed. You notice how he lightly scratches the back of his neck before he asks.

“Oh! Yeah!” You say, pulling out your iPhone. Luckily, you only had to switch out SIM cards, so you didn’t have to learn how to operate a brand new Korean phone. You prepare the keypad for him and he calls his own phone number. He hands you back your phone after he hangs up, and the two of you save each other’s numbers into your contacts.

When he looks back up from his phone, his voice comes out somewhat awkwardly, “So uh… I’ll be here around 7am. Just be ready by then.”

“No problem! Thank you so much for everything, Lay. I really appreciate it.” You smile at him gratefully. And with that, he says goodbye to you and heads down the road towards his own home. You smile at his disappearing figure once more before hopping up the steps and scanning your keychain to open the door. As you take the elevator up to the 13^th floor, you just let out an overwhelming sigh at the thought of everything that had happened today. What a fantastic first day.