*For this chapter:

Italics = Korean

Blue Italics = English

You’re about to pack up your stuff and head out of the classroom down to the cafeteria with the other three girls someone knocks on the open door. Your history teacher looks up and greets the boy standing at the doorway, “Xander-ah, how are you?” she smiles.

“I’m great, Mrs. Yoon, thank you for asking. And you?” he bows to her with a smile as well.

“Is there something I can help you with?” she asks with hesitation.

“Yeah, I was told this is the classroom for a new transfer student named Boyun?” he asks, looking around the room at the students preparing to leave.

“Lee Boyun? Yes, that should be her right there.” Your teacher gestures to you, “Would you like to speak to her?”

“Yeah, I would, if that’s possible.” The boy continues to smile.

“Fine by me, it’s lunch time.” Your teacher chuckles, “Yun,” she smiles at you and gestures her hand towards the boy whom you suspect to be your new tutor.

He walks up to you and bows before holding his hand out to you, his never-wavering smile flashing right at you, “Hey, Yun.” He greets you in Korean before switching off to slightly accented Mandarin, “I recall that we had a nice chat this morning, I’m Xander.”

“Yeah, we did. How are you?” You ask with a bow before accepting his hand to shake, smiling back.

“I’m good. Sorry to bother you during your lunch, but I just wanted to introduce myself really quickly and get to know your face. I wanted to match it up with the person I was talking to this morning.”

“Oh, did my face reach your expectations?” You ask with a joking smile.

“Very much. I can’t tell you how satisfied I am.” He smiles, finally letting go of your hand that the two of you hadn’t seemed to release from each other for a little while. You apologize quickly for that, but he just laughs off your apology, “It’s not a big deal. But anyways, you’re doing well so far, right? Made lots of friends?”

“Yeah, a lot more than I had expected, and in a really short span of time I hadn’t expected too.” You smile, thinking about all the girls and boys you seemed comfortable with interacting with at this school already. Xander seemed to be another friendly face that you may want to draw before you go to sleep.

“That’s great. So, is there anything else you wanted to ask or do that I could help with?” he offers.

“Uhm, actually… I uhm… Well, there was a little homework review I wanted to ask about, but I don’t want to bother you during lunch.” You press your lips together.

“No! No way, if you need help, I’m here to help.” He reassures you, “Would you like to do it now?”

“Yeah, actually. Would that be okay with you? Am I keeping you from your friends or anything?” You ask shyly.

“No, I’m sure they won’t mind. I’d be happy to help you. If you don’t mind sitting at a table with me, that is? I think you’d probably want to eat a little before studying. Unless you want to study in a classroom.”

“Anything is alright.” You shake your head.

“Alright, then shall we head down to the cafeteria?” he asks, holding an arm out towards the door down the row of desks you sit at.

“Yeah.” You smile with a nod. You turn to see the three girls are actually still waiting for you by the door, so you tell them that you’ll be joining Xander for lunch today, if that’s okay with them.

“Yeah, no problem. You get your study on, girl.” Fei pumps a ‘fighting!’ fist for you before heading out the door. Jia gives you a wave before following her and Vicky flashes two thumbs up for good luck with a big open-mouthed smile before heading out the door sideways.

With that, you shoulder your backpack and walk out of the classroom with Xander and down to the cafeteria, talking casually about school and each other. He gives you a general feel of what his middle year of high school was like last year, and you listen intently, hanging on his every word. He seems to have a good point of view on things, so you hope that means that he won’t be shy in giving you constructive criticism on your Korean.

You follow Xander to table near the back of the cafeteria, by the window. You come up to see him stop between two tables filled with boys, all of them at least somewhat intimidatingly handsome. Not the way Kris was intimidatingly handsome, but still somewhat nerve-wracking all the same.

“These are some of my friends,” he introduces you to the eight boys spread throughout the two tables that each seat six. “I hope you won’t take them as a distraction or intimidation or anything. I promise I’ll try and keep them on their best behavior around you.”

“Hi~!” One of the boys waves to you immediately. He has a sweet face, so you soften immediately at his eye smile.

“Hi.” You reply back in English as well.

“I’m Kevin.” He continues in English.

“Yun.” You shake his hand.

“I’ve heard. Don’t worry, Xander’s a great teacher. You’re in good hands.” He flashes you a reassuring smile.

“I’m sure. Thanks for the confirmation, though.” You smile back. You can’t help it, his voice makes him seem so cute and approachable.

“Wow, your English is kind of fantastic.” He chuckles, “Korean’s going to be a snap for you.”

“You think? I'm after halfway into the year already though. Just a week old.” You press your lips together, looking at him doubtfully.

He lets out a cute laugh at your expression, “You’re great, I’m sure you’ll do fine. If I’m wrong and you can barely hold a three minute conversation with me at the end of the year, then I’ll buy you dinner or something.”

“Okay, stop right there, you.” Xander cuts in, “Kevin’s too friendly for his own good. Let’s go get lunch.” He rolls his eyes before pushing your shoulders to direct you to the lunch line. You let out a little laugh at the comfortable atmosphere. Xander’s English isn’t too bad either.

You pass by Jia, Fei, and Vicky’s table on your way there, so you send them a wave, and they wave back. Vicky sends you a mouthed message about how she’s scoping out the hot guys at Xander’s table or something, but you just roll your eyes with a smile and turn to get in line behind Xander.

Ten minutes later, you’re chewing on your remaining bread roll with your carton of milk sitting on the side of your Korean textbook and notebook on the table. You’re surrounded by all the multitalented guys in Xander’s group of friends who know either English or Chinese and have agreed to help you in whatever way they can. You can’t help but feel somewhat blessed that you have so many teachers.

Xander is getting you to practice reading at a faster pace, so you don’t fall behind. He explained to you how the easiest ways to learn a language would be in the order of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. But he decided to go with the method of getting you to reading to practice your speaking. You were still reading at a pace of word a second, with several pauses between as you get through the sentences.

“Here, it’s kind of like reading in Chinese or English,” Kevin jumps in in an attempt to help, “Your mind kind of reads ahead and you automatically conjure up the words in your head to say them out loud. Like, if you don’t know what a word means, you can still read it out.”

“Yeah,” You nod, breathing out a sigh as you read over the next sentence before saying it out loud for the guys to hear. “Just need practice is all.”

“Stop bothering her, you’re annoying.” The guy sitting next to Kevin by the name of Eli nudges him.

“I’m just trying to help, gosh.” Kevin pushes his arm off with a chuckling small to defend himself.

“You only help her when she needs help. And she’s doing fine, so stop bothering her.” Eli argues back.

You chuckle at the two before turning back to the sentences in the workbook that Xander had bought for you. He wouldn’t take your money to repay him for the workbook, so you just praised him with thanks and grateful words that worshipped how wonderful of a tutor he was to you. You couldn’t find the price tag anyway, and he had reassured you he bought it at a really big book sale. It wasn’t brand new, but it was still clean. You kind of liked the somewhat folded up binding. It comforts you in helping you think that other people had needed to learn just like you.

You read out a sentence with about fifteen words in eight seconds. You’re getting better. You can easily end the sentences that usually have the same ‘-seyo’ and ‘-yo’ to keep the gentle and polite tone. The words were becoming easier to read as well. But sometimes you would try reading a little too quickly and confuse some vowels since they looked so similar. But as you went on, you were getting to realize how similar Korean was to Chinese. Many of the words sounded similar to the same meanings in Cantonese or Mandarin, and a lot of the time they were interpretations of English words. You were endlessly grateful for your background in all the different languages and dialects.

Ten minutes before the end of lunch, you and the guys were deciding on different teaching methods to help you practice. Because they kept complimenting you on how great of a learner you were. All you needed was more practice. The rest was memorization, and you could handle that.

“Do you like watching dramas?” the one named Dongho, who went to school in Beijing, for a little while asks you in Chinese.

“Only sometimes.” You answer.

“What kind?” Xander asks you in Korean.

You stutter a bit before quickly typing in the pinyin for the words into your phone to get the Korean translation for the characters that you pull up. “Action, comedy.” You read out, “…Interesting stuff…” You finish lamely.

“Romance?” Kevin asks in English.

“A little. Only if it has a good plotline.”

“Stuff that makes you cry?” Xander continues in Korean, a confident smile on his face.

“…Sometimes?”

“Oh! Noraebang!” Kevin jumps a little, throwing his fist into the air with an excited smile on his face before turning to you, “Karaoke? Do you like k-pop?”

“Kind of. I don’t know much besides the famous stuff.” You shrug.

“Hm, okay. I say you start getting more into Korean entertainment stuff, listening to it and everything. Then later, we can party at the karaoke bar.” Kevin laughs.

“You guys like karaoke?” You laugh as well.

“Kevin’s a monster with a microphone.” Xander says.

“Oh yeah.” Eli nods with the remaining guy at the table, who you were told to address as AJ.

When Dongho is left blinking out of cluelessness as to what’s going on in the English conversation, Kevin fills him in with a little body shake and pose as if he’s playing with a tambourine, “Noraebang!”

“Ah.” Dongho nods understandingly. “Does this mean they’re taking you to karaoke? Because you might not actually get a chance to practice after all.”

He receives a scoff and a hit on the arm from Xander as you chuckle at him. He’s pretty cute too. Now it’s the Korean guys who feel left out, so Xander quickly explains, “He says we’re going to be mic hogs and Yun won’t be able to practice.”

“I don’t know… That sounds a little accurate to me.” Eli shrugs, receiving an offer for a high five from Dongho, which he accepts.

“Yeah, well still. Maybe listening to some Korean music will help you a little. Don’t force yourself to listen to something if you don’t want to, but maybe finding some good songs can help you a little. Look for the lyrics and stuff and see what you can make of them. If you can read the lyrics off as you sing them, then that’ll be perfect.” AJ advises.

“Okay. Thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it.” You smile at all of the boys, bowing to each other them, “I’ll buy you ice cream next time. Or maybe treat you to karaoke.”

“Whoo~! You’re getting better already.” The boys clap for you.

“Thank you.” You bow again, “Thank you so much. I’ll text you later?” You turn to Xander, shouldering your backpack and picking up your books.

“Whatever you need. I’m a tutor, a friend, and a gossiper.” He chuckles.

“Okay. Thank you guys so much for today, I had fun. I’ll see you later?” You smile as you begin to walk towards the cafeteria door.

“We’ll walk you to class!” Kevin jumps next to you happily.

“Really? You don’t have to.” You smile, shaking your head.

Just then, the end-of-lunch bell rings and Kevin links his arm through yours to lead you out of the cafeteria. “Let’s go.”

“Okay.” You chuckle, looking down to hide your giddiness at his friendliness. He is so cute. Xander follows, but he shoos the rest of the boys off to head to class first. You wave goodbye to them and they do the same before heading down the other hallway.

Xander stands beside Kevin, whose arm is still linked with yours. The three of you talk casually in English. Kevin mentions how you have a British accent, and you explain how it’s because you learned it in Hong Kong. He nods, saying it makes sense.

Suddenly, a pair of hands smacking onto your shoulders sends a small heart attack down your spine as a scream escapes your mouth. Your books fly out of your other arm after you receive the shock. When Tao’s mischievous smile comes into view, you start shouting, “HUANG ZITAO! Oh my god...” You breathe out, bending down slightly as you clutch your arms that are no longer linked with Kevin’s to your chest.

You feel a hand on your back, and it calms you down a little faster with the warmth that radiates from Kevin’s palm. You let out a final sigh before bending down to pick up your books. But Xander and Tao had already made to pick them up for you. You pick up the remaining notebook and jump up to hit Tao on the arm harshly with it, “WEI! You almost killed me!”

“I didn’t know you got scared so easily. Sorry.” He smiles humorously.

You let out another sigh, just to let out the rest of the frustration mixed with relief as you let your arm drop, “Forget it. Let’s just go to class.” You say, holding your hand out for the books. But Tao just backs up, keeping them in his arms.

“It’s okay, I’ll carry them for you to class.” He says, “Least I can do for making you jump at least thirty centimeters into the air.” He laughs.

“Ugh, whatever.” You throw the notebook onto the book pile in his arms as well before turning back to Xander and Kevin, “You guys can head back to class now, I guess. Thanks for everything.”

“You okay?” Kevin asks with his sweet eye smile, understanding Tao’s prankster humor well.

“I’ll live. I’ll see you guys later?”

“Okay then. See you, Yun!” the boys wave you goodbye before heading towards the other direction.

You adjust the straps on your backpack and let out another sigh before turning to walk down the hall with Tao following beside you with your books in his arms. “Is that why you didn’t come out to play with us today?” he asks.

“You say that as if I’ve been playing with you for ages.” You let a small smile appear on your face.

“It already kind of feels like it.” Tao says bluntly, “Like seriously. Since you were with those guys, the other girls didn’t bother to come out to the courts either, so it felt like we were kind of missing some people today.”

“Isn’t this just you? Because you seem like the type of person to get attached to others easily.” You smile humorously.

“I’m serious! The other guys were the ones who brought it up. They were like, ‘Are the girls not coming out today?’ And I told them about you following your tutor and stuff, and some of them were kind of upset.”

“You’re too kind to me.” You turn to smile at the floor this time, relishing in how special Tao is making you feel with this story.

“You’re too humble with yourself. Get over it and accept the fact that people like you.” Tao scoffs, making a turn down to your classroom.

“Thank you.” You say as he sets your books down on top of your desk for you. He acknowledges your thanks and flashes you a cute smile before heading back to his seat.

The second you sit down, you’re bombarded with questions from Vicky, “So how was it? Lunch with third-years? They all seemed like hot kingkas. Were they all helping you or something? There were a bunch of guys talking to you at that table. I’m jealous. A lot of them were really cute.”

“Wait, wait, wait… Slow down.” You laugh, “Wait… What is a… ‘kingka’?”

“I think it’s some sort of slang for those popular guys who rule the school or something.” Fei answers, moving the piece of candy around in with her tongue.

“Oh… okay.” You blink, opening your notebook to scribble down what you think is the spelling for the term in the top margin of your notes.

“Answers?” Vicky presses.

“Okay, okay.” You laugh, turning to face her in your seat, “Uhm… There were three of them who could speak English besides Xander, and that small, cute guy could speak a bit of Chinese. So they tried to help me a little too.”

“Aw! That’s so nice! And so cute! He has such a helpful group of friends.” Vicky gushes, “So were they good teachers or whatever?”

“Uhm… I guess. They were all recommending different ways for me to study. By the way, do you guys know any good k-pop songs or artists I should listen to? They said I could learn a little by listening to the music and stuff. Oh, and also watch dramas. Do you know any good dramas?”

“Oh! I know some!” Fei says, “Here, I’ll write them down for you. And like, a little summary and the genre for them.” She says, pulling up to a fresh page in her notebook to scribble down her recommendations for you.

“I’ll write down some of the stuff I listen to for dance class. And my own personal taste.” Jia offers, pulling out a piece of scratch paper to write on as well.

“Oh! Oh! Me too! I’ll send you one of my favorite playlists and stuff.” Vicky adds, jumping a little in her seat.

“Really? You guys are the best. I love you for doing this for me.” You let out an exasperatedly grateful sigh. You felt like you were miraculously blessed with good friends in this school. It felt like you could depend on anyone here.

After an uneventful history lecture, you and the girls make your way down to the locker room to change for gym class. And when you make your way down to the courts, you’re immediately bombarded by Luhan and Chanyeol. “Hey! If you’re going to lead us on like that and leave us right when we’ve gotten so accustomed to you guys, you could at least let us know!” Luhan shouts, obviously intending to make his raging fit a joke.

“What are you? My boyfriend? Get off my back.” You roll your eyes to joke back before walking past him in a diva-like exit, not forgetting to smile right afterwards. But the smile drops when you’re suddenly lifted off of your feet and thrown over Chanyeol’s shoulder as if you were a sack of rice after Luhan whispers something you didn’t understand to him.

“Ahh! Chanyeol stop! I’m going to fall!! Ahhh!” You scream as you desperately wrap your arms around his torso in your upside-down position over his shoulder.

“You’re not going to fall.” And you can just hear the innocent, but smug smile on his face as he carries you over to the courts.

“Help! Help! Help! Help! Help!” You cry out in all of the different languages you know. You start letting out overdramatic fake sobs as you continue to clutch his chest from behind.

He’s already guffawing as he lowers himself to let you down. You slide your arms off of his torso, and the second you can stand upright on your feet, you land a harsh punch smack in the middle of his chest. You run after you hear his cry of pain behind Kris’s tall figure, cowering behind him.

“Chanyeol, I’m sorry! But you had it coming!” You shout to him before hiding behind Kris again.

“Ah! Ah…!! Ahhh….!!! Baekhyun hyung… It hurts so much.” He clutches at his chest, letting out several choked coughs as he clutches onto the shorter boy who attempts to help him. “She has a damn strong arm.” He chokes out. “Nobody maker her angry! You’re going to suffer…” he warns.

“Ohhh… I’m sorry…” You in a breath as you start making your way towards him with your arms reaching out, ready to help him. But you stop yourself and step back again, unsure of whether he’ll come back at you for revenge. You hated being upside down. If any blood was to rush to your head, you wanted it to be because of vigorous studying. “Chanyeol… I’m sorry…” You step forward again, giving up on your fears and letting your conscience take over. If he wanted revenge, you sort of deserved it. Who in the hell would have the audacity to punch someone in her first week of school?

Once you’re in front of him, you realize you don’t really know what to do to help him. Were you supposed to rub his chest until he felt better? That would be somewhat awkward. You hesitantly hover your hand over his chest and pat him twice before snaking your arms around his waist to hug him warmly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” You say, leaning your cheek gently against his chest.

“Aww… It’s okay, Yun-ah.” Chanyeol laughs, rubbing your back before you pull away. He kneels down a little until his eyes are level with yours, making you feel like a child, “I forgive you.” he says sweetly in his deep, caramel voice that makes you want to melt in it.

“Uhm… thank you.” You bow once, “and I’m sorry, once again.” You bow again.

This time, he throws an arm around your shoulders, bringing you in close to him to pull the hair tie out of your ponytail in order to ruffle the rest of your hair. You’re about to start yelling for help again, but the teacher’s whistle blows, signaling the start of class and for everyone to retrieve their basketballs. Chanyeol lets his fingers slide out of your hair, but he keeps you close to him under his arm, “You’re on my team today.” He announces.

“Okay…” You oblige right away, still feeling like you need to earn his forgiveness. Maybe a win for his team this class will do it. Oh, what are you thinking?! You punched the guy in the chest! You’ll probably need to win all the games for the rest of the semester to make yourself feel better for doing that.