The rest of your day was a bit uneventful, considering all you had to do was homework. But after you ate dinner, you started in on it right away. And since you did a handful of it at school, you finished all the homework that was due within the next two days in about two hours. You personally liked the feeling of being one step ahead in the class, so you spent the next couple hours or so going ahead by one lesson in each of your subjects. English was a snap, so that was tossed aside after ten minutes or so. Math took a little while, but you had done a good amount of the practice problems in the lesson done after about 45 minutes. For history and science, you read ahead by one chapter and took notes on what you read through.

By 10pm, you figured you were due for a shower, so off you went with your pajamas to the bathroom. As you washed the foamy soap across yourself to cover every inch you could reach, you suddenly thought about tomorrow. After so much had happened today, you figured that it would be a bit calmer tomorrow. Although you were going to see Lay in the morning, as well as Tao and Kris in class, you were a little upset you would get a chance to hang out with them after school like you had today. You liked the air that they had around them.

Ten minutes later, your mind had clouded with thoughts of the people you befriended today like the steam had clouded around the bathroom when you stepped out of the shower to dry off. Once back in your room, you put all your stuff into your backpack, including your new T-card and art supplies, and set it on your chair. You look over to your closet to see your school uniform hanging off the handle of your closet cabinet and nod to yourself. You’re all set for tomorrow, so you grab your pencil, your new green sketchbook, and your phone, bringing them with you to your bed.

Well, since you just moved in, it’s more of a thin floor mattress and a comfortable blanket. But you don’t really mind at all. Your water bottle sits on the floor near the head of your mattress, in case you get thirsty during the night. Setting the pillow up against the wall and turning on the lamp that sits in next to your water bottle on the floor, you settle yourself into the covers. You flick off the ceiling light and open up your new sketchbook, writing the date on the very first page.

When you turn to the next page that’s just as fresh as the previous one, you close your eyes and let a picture flash across your mind. Today was a wonderful day, everyone was kind to you. You really wanted to draw everyone you met today. But for some reason, a picture of Kris and Tao talking to each other as you walk up to their desks with the art teacher sticks to your mind. You wait for new inspiration to come, but something about this picture just makes you itch to scrawl the entire thing onto the paper. So you breathe out a sigh, open your eyes, and commence your first piece in your first sketchbook at the end of your first day at SIS.

**

Lay’s phone call the next morning comes at 7:02. You put your glass of milk down to answer just after the second vibration, “Hello?”

“Are you ready? I’m down by the front.” He says simply in his calm voice. It’s very relaxing to hear in the morning.

“Yeah, I’ll be down soon.” You say before you hang up hearing his ‘okay.’ You pack two of the steamed buns that your mother had steamed especially for your breakfast into a small plastic bag, put your backpack on, and head out the door. After your mom had steamed the buns for you this morning, she went straight back to bed. And your dad hadn’t even woken up yet, so you didn’t bother calling out to them.

When you exit the elevator and walk out of the front entrance, you spot Lay exactly where he was standing yesterday when he had dropped you back home. “Hey,” You greet him, holding out the bag of buns, “Did you have breakfast yet?”

“Oh, thank you.” He says, surprise painted in his eyes. You assume that he probably would have declined had he not been so caught off guard, but you put the bag into his hands before he can say no.

“It’s just chicken and some veggies.” You say, “We didn’t have all the ingredients for the barbequed pork buns, so we settled for this instead.”

“Uhm, thank you. I’ll it eat well.” He bows, saying the last sentence in Korean. His sudden action makes you laugh, and you just gesture for him to start walking. He obliges and the two of you start down the street.

As you start towards the subway stop that Lay had said would be closer to your house but end up a little farther from the school, you look around and take in all the different buildings and stores around you. When you turn back to glance at Lay, you see he’s just walking with one hand in his pocket while the other hand with the bag of buns hangs at his side. You nudge him gently with your elbow, “You should eat it now while it’s still warm.”

“Oh, right.” He says, holding the bag up to open it. He holds it open for you to grab one first.

“I already had mine.” You shake your hand to decline his offer.

“Well I also had breakfast already, so I probably won’t be able to finish it myself.” He says.

You look at him before you shrug lightly and take one bun out of the bag. He takes the other one out and bites into it. Even the way he eats is gentle and careful. You don’t know why you find it kind of attractive. He lets out a hum and looks forward before saying, “Actually, would you mind if I take the other one back?”

You freeze mid-bite and look to him, only to burst out laughing when you see the innocent smile on his face that subtly tells you that he was joking. He quietly turns back to finish his bun and you do the same. Lay stuffs the plastic bag into his coat pocket and the two of you don’t speak until you reach the subway station. The streets get noisier and more crowded as you near the station and you can’t help but miss the peaceful atmosphere you were just walking through.

“So do you have your T-card?” he asks, pulling out his wallet from his pants pocket.

“Yeah.” You answer, pulling out the small Badtz-Maru card holder that holds your T-card, your school ID card, and a bit of money, out of your coat pocket.

“Good, let’s go.” He says as he scans his card and walks through the bar that turns as he pushes his weight through it. You follow his actions and walk through the spinning bar when you hear the beep of the T-card. You tuck the card holder back into your pocket next to your phone as you follow Lay down an escalator to the right subway stop. You look around and spot the station sign, making a note to yourself to remember which one you live near.

And also like Lay had said yesterday, the subway train comes within three minutes. The two of you step in and see several people already preparing for their days as they travel to work or school. You spot a few students, but you don’t recognize their uniforms, so you assume they go to different schools. Since it’s still a little early, there are seats available, so Lay leads you a couple near a door.

Lay sits comfortably and messes around with his phone for most of the ride, so you let yourself relax into your seat as well. After about 7 minutes of speeding through tunnels, Lay finally announces your stop, and you follow him out the door. You don’t forget to take note of the station name when you ride the escalator up to civilization again. The walk to school lasts for about five minutes, and besides the passing cars, the air is still comfortably silent. When was the last time that you were so comfortable with being quiet around another person? You usually felt a need to keep a conversation going, but this is perfectly fine with you.

Soon, you turn into a quieter street and you spot the school gates just ahead. As the two of you walk through the gates, you prepare yourself to take your leave. But as you turn to thank Lay, someone else calls his name. A couple of guys sitting on the benches on the other side of the basketball courts wave to him, and Lay waves back.

You take that as your cue to depart, “Thank you for bringing me to school, Lay. I really appreciate it.”

“Hm? Oh, no problem at all.” He says, turning back to you, “So do you have somewhere to go? We still have half an hour before the bell rings.” He says, glancing at his watch.

“Yeah, I was just going to go to the classroom or the library or something. But thank you for accompanying me yesterday and today.” You say again.

“Are you sure? Because you’re welcome to hang out with us before class starts. We’re probably just going to play basketball or something.” He offers once more.

“You’ve done enough for me. I don’t want to be more of a bother. Thank you for everything.” You bow as you start walking backwards towards the school building.

“Okay. Just meet me here at the courts after your Korean class. I’ll take you home.” He says.

You had forgotten about the prospect of going home. But being reminded of another chance to hang out with Lay only makes you smile at him, “Okay. Thank you so much, Lay. I’ll see you later.” You wave goodbye to him, knowing that his friends are probably wondering about you at the moment. You decide that Lay wouldn’t say anything bad about you as you turn around and start towards the small hill on the right side. You start making your way to the library, but then you decide to walk past it to put all your art supplies down first.

But like yesterday morning, the door wasn’t open, so you decide to head back towards the library. But when you spot several other students in there, you suddenly feel a bit self-conscious. So you make your way down to walk to the other building, climbing up to the third floor. You didn’t realize actually how heavy the books in your backpack are, but you’re not panting just yet.

Luckily, the door is open, and the classroom is empty, providing a perfect sanctuary for you to study or fool around on your own until the others come in. Pulling your math book out in preparation for your first class of the day, you look over the paper that you had stuffed inside to bookmark your lesson and recognize all the formulas you use to solve your equations. You nod happily to yourself and review the next lesson that you had practiced yesterday. You practice the rest of the problems of the next lesson until Fei, Jia, and Vicky walk into the room chatting happily.

“Oh hey Baiyun.” Vicky calls you cheerfully, “How long have you been here?”

You glance over to the clock on the wall and see that it’s ten minutes before the bell will ring. “I’ve been here since like, 7:35.” You answer.

“Whoa. You’re like a back-breaking kind of student, aren’t you?” Fei chuckles, “Were you studying the whole time?”

You shrug in response, and Vicky speaks up again, “Oh! I found the perfect picture yesterday!” she squeals, rummaging through her bag to pull out a folder. Then she opens it to pull out the printed out picture of herself. You take it from her and just stare at it with wide eyes because she looks so beautiful. It’s the perfect angle that you had asked for and her hair seems to flow smoothly off her head. This is everything that you like to work with.

“Wow, this is… perfect.” You say before turning up to her again, “Thanks for helping me, Vicky.”

“No problem. I want to see myself sketched out by another person and see how it turns out. It seems exciting.” She giggles.

“Where is this even from? You are… so pretty.” You say as you turn back to the picture.

“Oh yeah, I was at a photo shoot for those photo books. It’s a lot cheaper back in China, so I have a couple of them. This one was my favorite though. It’s not even an official picture. It was just a random one my mom took when they were fixing my hair and stuff.” Vicky shrugs, “That’s why there’s some random light on the side. Hope that’s not too distracting.”

“It’s perfect…” You breathe out again, “Your nose is so long… How in the hell will I perfect that?” You say to yourself, making the other girls laugh.

“I’m actually kind of curious to see how it turns out too.” Fei says, “Are you good?”

“I practice on my own, if that means anything.” You shrug back.

“Then you must be good. Bring some work back to show us one day.” Jia says, sitting on the desk in front of Vicky’s.

“I’ll think about it.” You chuckle.

“So how was the homework last night, guys? I was wondering about the last couple problems.” Vicky brings up.

“Oh yeah, I was wondering about those too.” Fei says, opening her own bag to pull out her math book and folder. For the rest of the time before the bell, the four of you compare answers and explain concepts until your homework matches up.

Just as the bell rings, Tao walks in with his two other friends and he waves to you. You wave back before turning back to your work and the girls. That exchange caught Vicky’s attention though, and she claps her hands as if she just figured something out. “That’s right! You went out with Wufan yesterday. How as that?” she says in a hushed voice.

“Uhm….” You hesitate, still conscious of Tao sitting several seats away from you in the room, “Can I tell you later?”

“Don’t skimp on details.” She warns as she leans away from you back to her own seat.

When Teacher Chang comes in, you and the rest of the class greet her good morning, and the lesson commences. She goes over the homework first, answering any questions anyone has, and all of your answers turn out to be correct. And twenty minutes into the class, Teacher Chang starts on the next lesson. As expected, you follow along with everything she says swimmingly, taking down an extra note or two in your notebook when needed while the others in the room glance back from their notebooks to the board several times a minute. Yes, this system would help you feel more comfortable.

When the break comes, Tao and his friends leave the room to do whatever and Vicky calls you out, “Okay, he’s gone. Spill it.”

“What?” You laugh in surprise.

“Go on. From the minute you stepped out of Korean class with Tao. What did you do?” she presses.

“Nothing, relax.” You chuckle, “I went with him to meet Kris, and his other friends were there. It was his friend who knew where the store was, so he brought us there. I got all my stuff and then we went home.” You summarize.

“You’re so boring. Give me the good stuff.” Vicky scoffs at you.

“Okay, fine. I bought them candy, okay? Juicy enough for you?” You offer.

“What kind of candy?” she narrows her eyes at you.

“Lollipops. Oh yeah, they took me to buy a T-card. That was nice of them.” You say.

“Aww, that is kind of sweet.” Fei says, “Yeah, I heard Wufan is really helpful. It’s just his face that’s a little scary sometimes.” She laughs.

“No kidding.” You mumble, “He really is a good helper. He’s really nice to everyone. Is he a class leader or anything?” You ask out of curiosity.

“He probably is.” Jia nods, “I wouldn’t be surprised. I mean, he’s basketball captain already. Why shouldn’t he be class leader too?”

“Did he take you home?” Vicky asks.

“No, Lay did.” You answer.

“Lay?” she repeats, slightly confused.

“Yixing?” You try.

“Oh right, Yixing. Gosh, they all have weird nicknames. Are they really trying to be cool or something?” she mumbles to herself before pressing on again, “But anyways, he what?! Whose idea was that?”

“Kris…” You shrug again. “We live in the same neighborhood.”

“Oh my god!” Vicky squeals as quietly as she can as she wiggles in her seat, “So how did you get to school today? Did he take you again? Hm? Hm?”

“Actually yeah. He’s trying to teach me which subway lines to use.”

“He is?” Fei asks incredulously, “Wow… Okay. Damn, you’re good at making friends.”

You let out a laugh, “Explains why I have you guys.”

“Aww, you’re sweet.” Vicky coos, wrapping her arms around your head to hug you. You look at her with a weirded out expression when she lets go, but she ignores it and tries to get more out of you, “So what? Is he going to bring you home today too?”

You nod casually, trying to make it look like you couldn’t care less, when you truly were just a bit excited about it. You were sure not much would happen between you two since he was a quiet guy, but you just seemed to like his company. And his patience; that was definitely a quality you liked in a person.

“Ah~! I can smell a new relationship brewing.” Vicky giggles, “It’s so perfectly set up that you can’t possibly not become friends.”

You roll your eyes at her but chuckle anyway. And right on time, the guys come back into the classroom with drinks in hand. The teacher returns to the classroom as well, and your English lesson is about to commence. You don’t have much need to pay attention throughout the lesson, so you find yourself doodling just a bit in your notebook around all the English words written on the paper. Another break comes, but the guys stay in the classroom this time, so you and the girls find something else to talk about. And after that, you sit through a comfortable review of what you read yesterday at home in history class. You don’t have problems answering questions in any of your classes that morning.

You are so ready to eat by the time lunch comes. You’re just itching to move around after sitting in your seat for so long, re-learning stuff that you taught yourself. You’re so pumped that you find yourself challenging the other girls to a race down to the cafeteria. They’re so surprised at your eagerness to leave the room that there’s no way that you don’t get to the cafeteria first. You’re already adding your side dishes to your tray when the girls get in line. You’re early, so the line’s not long, and the food is still fresh and hot. You hold your card holder up to the scanner on the register and it beeps accordingly, and you pick up your tray to leave the line.

You wait for the other girls to finish paying before they head off towards the table near the window. The four of you chat through your meals casually, but all you find yourself doing is staring out the window at the grassy football field. You’ve been sitting all day, so you’re just dying to jump out the window and run across that field. It’s Jia who voices out your daze first.

“Dang, you must really want to go outside today.” She laughs, pushing the rice around in her bowl.

“I kind of do…” You sigh as you continue to stare out the window.

“Okay, okay. We’ll go outside later.” Fei laughs as you continue to get closer to pressing your nose against the window, “Just finish your food first.”

You listen to her well and five minutes later, the four of you are walking down the hill from the intersection of the school buildings. You practically scream when you take in your breath of fresh air and start running down along the concrete pathway towards the gate on the grass. Your arms are up in the air and you suddenly decide to start spinning around, much to Vicky’s delight. You can hear her laughing at you from meters away.

Soon enough, Vicky is the first to catch up to you since she’s the only one running. Jia and Fei take their time walking in your direction, chuckling at you. Vicky grabs your hands and the two of you start spinning each other around with your arms outstretched, hanging onto each other for dear life as you let out crazy laughs. Finally, the two of you collapse onto the grass to take a breather. By that time, Jia and Fei have caught up to you guys.

Vicky sits up, and when you see her waving to someone across the way, you turn you head to see Amber waving at you guys from the basketball courts. That is, until Kris tells her to pay attention and get back into the game. She pushes him off with a laugh, and you turn back to the girls. “Hey, do you guys want to go over there?” You say out of nowhere.

“What?” Fei and Jia say.

“Come on, let’s go. I want to play too.” You say, standing up and making your way over towards the courts. Kris and Luhan spot you skipping towards their court and stop what they’re doing to greet you. “Hey.” You say to them.

“Hey Baiyun.” Luhan smiles at you, “Did you come to play?”

“If you have room for another.” You smile back.

“Totally!” he agrees immediately, “I wanna see what we’re up against.” He laughs before turning to the other guys on the court, “Guys! Guys! New game. We have a new player.” he announces.

You don’t really hear or understand the conversation because they’re speaking in Korean that you don’t understand yet, so you just decide to follow along. You see Luhan gesture towards you and suddenly there are several pairs of eyes on you, so you take that as your cue to introduce yourself, “Hello, I’m Yun.” You would have asked if you were allowed to join their game, but you didn’t know how to.

“You guys remember her from yesterday during gym? I call I’m on her team!” Luhan laughs.

“What?! Okay so am I!” Tao shouts, jumping to your side.

“Are any of you guys going to join in the game too?” Luhan turns to the other three girls behind you.

“I think I’ll sit this one out.” Vicky backs up.

“Yeah, actually, I think I’ll join you.” Amber pipes up, walking over to Vicky’s side behind the basket. “Don’t want to get my whooped again.” She laughs as she passes you. You return the laugh. But when you turn back to the rest of the group, no one else seems to understand what you’re laughing about. Besides Kris, Luhan, Tao, and Lay, that is. One or two of them are smiling as if they get it, but the others are just looking at each other, wondering what’s going on.

Fei announces her sitting out as well, and soon enough, it’s settled on five against five. Although you don’t know how it was settled, your team consists of Tao, Luhan, Lay, and this other serious looking guy that sticks by Luhan’s side most of the time. Jia ends up on the other team with Kris and three other guys that you don’t know. You remember Luhan stating a lot of Korean names, but you figured that you’d remember them if you ended up getting to know them later.

“Are you guys ready to get whooped?” the tallest guy after Kris says in his extremely deep voice that anyone would melt under. You find yourself jumping a little when he opens his mouth.

“Right, we’re the ones who are going to get beaten to the ground.” Luhan’s laugh drips with sarcasm.

Quickly, you run over to hand Vicky your jacket and tie. You the top two buttons to let yourself get a little air. Jia does the same thing to her uniform. Since each team had a member with a skirt, you supposed it was evenly matched. Except for the fact that their team had two giants! HOW was that fair at all?! You find yourself breathing in nervously as one of the other guys plays referee, throwing the ball into the air. But once it’s in the air, the smile creeps across your face and you start feeling excited. Yes! This was the rush you’ve been waiting for all day.

The shorter guy on the other team managed to get the ball before the guy on your team, so everyone was on a chase now. You, on the other hand, waited patiently for someone to steal the ball. Short Guy passes it to the other player with a handsome face and firm arm muscles that you can see since he took his uniform shirt off, leaving a black wifebeater on. You had your sleeves rolled up when Luhan suddenly jumped out of nowhere in the middle of Pretty Boy’s pass to Kris, so when he throws it to you, you catch it swiftly and turn on your heel to dribble it down the court to the other basket.

Tao is a fast runner, so he’s already closer to the basket than you. The second he turns to you with the proper footing, you toss the ball to him and he throws it up into the basket after he catches it. Too bad that he threw it a little too high and it’s on its way to the other side of the hoop. So you jump your hardest and hit the ball volleyball style on its way down, dumping it into the basket after bouncing off your palms. Tao lets out a whoop and high fives you. You chuckle as he holds your hand and pulls you in to bump his shoulder towards you like guys would do. You let out a laugh as he catches himself and tell him that it’s okay.

“Whoa!” Tall Guy on the other team shouts, “Was that kind of thing allowed?” he laughs in his deep voice as he jumps up with his hands in the air in attempt to imitate your last-minute play. “Kai, watch out for that one!” he shouts at Pretty Boy as he points to you. To which you respond by shrugging with an innocent smile and throwing the ball over to Tall Deep-voiced Guy before walking off to the side. As told to, Pretty Boy, or Kai, keeps a side glance at you as you walk off.

Lay is on the other side of the court, and he scrambles to the right only to swerve on his heels and spin to the left, throwing the ball to the other guy on your team. You really have to remember his name. But wow, Lay’s moves. The way he twirled on his feet left you astonished. You kept replaying the move in your head as you ran after the others running towards the ball.

But somehow, Kai gets a hold of the ball and he’s dancing on his feet as he dribbles it back across the court and shoots a perfect three-pointer with a plié-like jump. You suspect that he might in dance class too. Just the way he moves screams fluidity and agility. You had a threat. The other team manages to score the next couple of points, but you suddenly find your fire and take the initiative to steal the ball as Shorty passes by. And you prove your own agility as you run and jump and shoot the ball straight into the hoop.

You can’t help but let out a loud “Whoo~!” when you land on your feet. You spin around and find Luhan running up to high-ten you first. Tao comes next, and you jokingly hold onto his hand and push your shoulder towards him until the two of you break out laughing. The next play starts and Other-Guy-on-your-team is deciding where to throw the ball. Most of his closest teammates are being blocked off by the giants, but you have a somewhat clear opening farther away. He decides to take a chance by dribbling forward half a meter before tossing the ball with all his might up into the air in your direction.

When you catch it, you turn around only to let out a scream of surprise before throwing the ball to the ground underneath Kai’s arm and spinning around him to chase after it. This is the time for your layup to shine. And shine it does, smoothly sliding up against the headboard before falling into the basket.

“Aw Kai what was that?” Tall Deep-Voiced Guy shouts with a laugh at Kai, “Stop getting distracted by pretty girls and get your head back in the game.” He scolds.

You only understood the first part of his sentence, but it was enough to make you turn away to smile brightly to yourself. You turn back around to see Kai walking away with his eyes avoiding the others. This time, you’re the one being blocked off as you decide where to toss the ball. You see a thin opening that’s perfect for humiliation so you take it, dribbling forward between Deep-Voiced Guy and Kris and spinning around quickly to dribble backwards for a second to catch them off guard. Then you throw the ball through Kris’s long legs and catch it with your other hand, running with it until you toss it to Lay just ahead of you. He catches it and makes the shot smoothly, and he turns just in time to catch your double high-five.

You can’t help but clasp his hands and jump up and down excitedly at the play you just made, “Did you see that, Lay? I snuck through two giants.” You laugh.

“Yeah, I saw.” He smiles back gently. Although you can tell there’s genuine amusement in his eyes, you have yet to hear him laugh. You promise to yourself that you’ll see him laugh one day.

“Damn! Kris, did you see that?!” Deep-Voiced Guy shouts again, he had started laughing just after you threw the ball to Lay, so you guessed he found your passing through Kris really funny. You catch Kris push Deep-Voiced Guy on the arm as he claps his hands together, guffawing hysterically. “That was great.”

As the game continues through lunch, the teams switch off in dominating the game. Jia just ends up running after everyone and tossing the ball to the tall guys in her team. She did make a couple of shots, but not all of them got in. It was mostly Kris, Kai, and Deep-Voiced Guy who were making the main shots. You, on the other hand, had miraculously managed to hoop all of your shots. You only had a handful after your first couple shots afterwards, but you still made yourself look like a total badass. A badass who had to be watched, so of course you didn’t get much of a chance to shoot again.

But Luhan and Lay managed to shoot many successful shots, so you guys were covered. During one of your shots, Deep-Voice was blocking you and he had the weirdest smirk/evil grin on his face that you just HAD to show him up and throw an impressive side shot that fell through the hoop with the most satisfying swish you had ever heard. You got a lot of praise for that one. Honestly, you had to blink a few times to take in the fact that that had actually happened. You ended up screaming a little in excitement afterwards. You got a lot of amused laughs from your reaction. But the game ended up being called as a draw since no one really kept count.

By the time you, Jia, Fei, and Vicky were on your way to the bathroom, waving goodbye to the guys and promising a rematch soon, you had settled that this was going to be another great day. 

I don't want to go back to school tomorrowwww T____________________________T