I couldn’t help but stare at that guy walking past as I hugged Sungmin. He was the kind of guy who would never realize me, I could tell he was popular, a level that would take time to rise up to. Judging people was a terrible habit that I had but there were two factors that gave his status away immediately.

Factor number one: Every girl – and even some guys – head turned as he walked by before turning back.

Factor number two: He went and sat with JungGi.

I rolled my eyes as I sat back down next to Kari. There was no point in being friends with the hottest guy in the school if it meant I also had to befriend the school cow. I didn’t notice that I was sitting there with my eyes practically bugging out of my head at this guy, until he looked up at me – and spotted me staring. I would’ve taken my eyes off him straight away but once again his smile caught me.

Yep.

He smiled.

At me.

The newbie.

I slapped myself mentally – I was acting like a 12 year old girl with a massive crush – and wrenched my eyes off him. But not before he winked at me.

Mhm.

Winked.

At me.

The – God damn woman slap yourself harder! I shouted in my head. On the outside, I seriously slapped myself on the head, causing everyone else to look at me in surprise.

“Err, what was that about?” Sola asked.

“Uhm, a fly was on my head?”

“Are you asking us or telling us?” Kibum looked confused. Donghae whacked Ryeowook on the shoulder.

“Trust you to pick the lunatic!” He shouted.

“Yah! She’s not crazy!” Ryeowook pretended to strangle Donghae and the rest of us dissolved into laughter. While we were all laughing I decided to sneak one more glance in the mystery guy’s direction. I shuddered and turned back though as I saw him involved in what seemed like a VERY intense make-out session with JungGi. Our group whiled away the rest of the time by playing 20 Questions – or in this case, something like 50 – with me to learn all about me and where I lived, what my family was like, how I was enjoying my time here etc. Finally the bell rang however and I found that my next class was music, a lesson I shared with Kari, Ryeowook, Siwon and Kyuhyun. Sola and Sungmin went in the direction of photography, whilst Shindong, Eunhyuk, Donghae and Kibum headed off to drama.

Music was an eventful class once my friends discovered that I had an alright singing voice. Once getting over that pleasant surprise, Kari guided me to where the dance class was. We were joined shortly after by Sola, Donghae and Eunhyuk – it seemed as though those two were inseparable. As I hadn’t brought any trackies with me and I sure as hell couldn’t dance in denim shorts, I was given permission to sit out for this lesson. I couldn’t sit out for long however as I was so tempted just to join in. Eventually the teacher allowed me to join the others but I only did the upper body movements. According to Donghae I was ‘pretty awesome for a girl!’, however Eunhyuk said he had a long way to go before I was near his level, and I had to admit…he was pretty good dancer. I excused myself for a moment halfway through the class to go and cool off outside as I was still adjusting to the different summer temperatures when I saw the popular guy who had winked at me before standing in the corridor. I stopped for a second as he grinned at me from where he leaned against the wall. He shoved himself from it casually and gave me an appreciative nod before walking off down the hall. Needless to say I spent the rest of the dance lesson pondering why I kept running into him. Was it some sort of twisted fate? Was there a message being sent from the heavens? Was I over-reacting on my first day? Option three seemed the most likely.

Thankfully, when it reached lunch time I was able to walk out of the room with Sola, Kari and Donghae and therefore not get lost on my way to where we were sitting. But as we walked across the grounds together in one big group I bumped shoulders with that mystery guy once more. I turned around to apologize to him but he merely flashed me another smile and continued on his path to the ‘popular’ table.

“Ella?” Sola waved her hand in front of my face before poking me lightly on the nose. I started.

“What?”

“What are you looking at?” She asked. I shook my head quickly but decided against my thoughts when we reached our table.

“Who is he? That’s like the third time I’ve seen him watching me today.” I nodded my head slightly at the mystery guy. Kari flipped her hair around as she looked behind me. To my amazement, she let out a nervous little giggle and Sola actually blushed.

“Um, did I miss something?” I raised my eyebrow.

“Like, everything!” Sola her eyes widened, Kari just sat next to her nodding. “That’s KiJung and he’s like, the hottest guy in our year level.”

“I’m not an idiot. I can clearly see that he’s hot but, really?” I glanced behind me again looking at where he stood with a group of guys. “He looks too old for school – at least 19.”

“Well, he is.” Sola admitted.

“Dumb-.” Sungmin muttered.

“Not that much, he speaks both Korean and Chinese fluently,” Kari defended.

“Only cos’ he is from both backgrounds.”

“But, damn does he make up for it with his looks.”

“Again,” Sungmin shrugged. “Dumb-.”

“Kari, just remember that you have a boyfriend.” Sola said wisely. “A good one at that.”

Kari rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t stop me from staring at KiJung.”

“All I’m saying is Leeteuk would be upset if he was here and saw that you were admiring someone else.” Now I got confused.

“Who’s Leeteuk?” I directed my question at Kari. She smiled widely.

“The best boyfriend ever.” She sighed. “He’s smart, good-looking –”

“Who isn’t around here?” I joked.

“He’s caring –”

“Authoritive.” Shiwon cut in.

“Over-protective.” Shindong.

“Confusing.” Donghae.

“Authoritive.” Kyuhyun.

“Um, you said that already.” I pointed out.

Ryeowook just shrugged. “It’s twice as true.”

The others nodded in agreement.

“Whatever,” Kari threw her water bottle at Ryeowook. “But overall he’s –”

“The best boyfriend I’ve ever had and I’m going to see him tonight, I’m so happy.” Everybody chorused in high-pitched unison. I couldn’t help but laugh outright. Kari blushed.

“She says the same thing every Tuesday.” Donghae informed me. I nodded and rolled my eyes. I knew what it was like to hang with girls who were head over heels in love.

“I think we can say that any person on this Earth is better than KiJung.” Kibum piped up while resting his chin on his hand.

“Why?” I asked a bit too soon. Kibum just shook his head and straightened up.

“It’s probably better you don’t know. A lot of stuff has gone down in the past between him and Leeteuk and to put it quite simply, the guy is an , you’re better off not knowing him.” As though the conversation ended then and there miraculously, everyone split off into their own smaller conversations. I didn’t want the conversation to end here however; I was willing to find out all of the school’s secrets even if it was only my third day here. Seeing that Kari wasn’t engaged in conversation I tapped her on the shoulder.

“So, could you tell me more about KiJung?” I couldn’t help but ask, my curiosity was getting the better of me.

“Oh, but the others would kill me if they knew I was telling you.” Kari said softly.

“I’m not asking for a whole biography,” I whispered. “I just want to know.” Kari seemed to ponder this for a moment before shrugging.

“Well, I guess it can’t hurt.” She looked over her shoulder once before turning back to me and beckoning me closer. “Right, so you know all the basic stuff that we just went over but there is more to KiJung than that.”

“I figured.”

Kari shook her finger at me. “Be nice or I’ll stop.”

“Alright, mianhae, mianhae.” I quickly apologized.

“Anyway, he is the reason why we are in this group and he is in THAT one.” Kari jabbed a finger at the ‘popular’ table. “In truth, KiJung and Leeteuk and all our friends used to be like that,” She crossed two fingers. “But that was back in like Year 7. And that was when KiJung started getting a little bit too rebellious for Teukie to stand. I don’t think any of us really agreed with how KiJung started to go off the rails because he always seemed like such a straight-A person. Shortly after we all entered high school, he began drinking and smoking, he said it was to deal with the stresses of being a high school kid. We didn’t understand why he found it so hard when we were all coping. So Teukie – being the kind angel he is –” She drifted off here for a few seconds and I let her have her fantasy time before snapping my fingers in front of her face. “Well, he tried to help him. He offered to tutor him if he needed it; there were nights where he didn’t go to work in order to help his best friend improve his grades. But none of it really worked because no matter how hard Teukie tried to help his best friend, KiJung blew him off repeatedly. Eventually KiJung went and hung out with all the other slackers of the school and Teukie gave up. We thought the whole ordeal was over there because this had gone on for a while – yes, we were in Year 9 by this time, yeah, quite a long time, I saw your surprise just then – but then something else happened. Leeteuk had a girlfriend before me and they were, well, quite sweet together,” I sensed some bitterness in her voice and I giggled silently. “Except it was about…eight months after they originally got together, and KiJung began saying random stuff about how ‘good’ Leeteuk’s girlfriend was and…” Kari fake shuddered. “Actually no, I won’t tell you the other stuff he said, it just got too…ugh. Anyway Teukie kind of doubted him at first and blew it off as KiJung just being stupid as always until…well, one night…he was staying back at school to help and he happened to come across his girlfriend and KiJung making out outside one of the classrooms. His girlfriend tried to make an excuse and apologize but KiJung went to the other extreme and said that he didn’t feel sorry for it. Of course, it broke Leeteuk’s heart to see that and I guess that was the final straw for KiJung and Teukie’s friendship. KiJung insisted on antagonizing Leeteuk though, by saying that he slept with this girlfriend and how she had been with him before Teukie. Well, Leeteuk cracked one day and just punched KiJung out of anger – something I would never think he would do and then a massive fight broke out between them. It was pretty bad. Since then, they’ve practically hated each others guts.” She shrugged once more in conclusion. I threw KiJung one more glance before the bell rang…he didn’t seem so bad to me…

 

______

Well I couldn’t say that it hadn’t been an interesting first day, I thought to myself as we walked out of the school gates. It only got more interesting however as Ryeowook eagerly dragged me over to meet some more of his friends.

“This is Kangin.” He said pointing to a boy who seemed to be rather fierce. I noticed that even Wookie grimaced when Kangin patted him on the back, he must be pretty strong.

“Yesung.” Ryeowook gave happy wave to the afore-mentioned person who smiled at me – I noticed that even his eyes seemed to smile – before turning to give Sola a kiss on the cheek.

“Hangeng and Heechul.” Two guys who were arguing over…something, turned and gave me a brief wave each before resuming their argument.

“And this is –” Ryeowook began to say before…

“Teukie!” Kari practically flew out of nowhere and gave Leeteuk a huge hug. I almost laughed out loud but luckily held it in.

Leeteuk and Kari were so sweet together; I could tell that from watching them for only a few seconds. He knew how to be close to her and yet give her some personal space. When they talked it was like they were both equally important to each other. I was too focused on the two of them and the rest of the group that I didn’t notice the hot guy, KiJung, walk by. I only realized how close he was when the others stopped talking. He just stared momentarily at all of the others before resting his eyes on Leeteuk for the longest. Some sort of silent confrontation seemed to pass between. Finally KiJung stopped looking and smiled at me before brushing past. As he walked I felt him put something in my hand. Quickly closing my hand around it I tried to look as uninterested as the others. I watched him walk casually over to another car where a group of his friends were waiting.

Once it had left Sungmin snorted. “I so wanted him to walk into the door of that car just to prove how dumb he is.”

I laughed half-heartedly. We all made our way over to where Yesung and Sola were waiting at their cars. I wasted no time in pulling out whatever KiJung had stuffed into my hand. To my surprise, it was a phone number scribbled on a piece of paper.

“I know I haven’t talked to you in person yet…but you seem kind of nice. If you’re ever curious to talk to me, don’t be afraid to call.”

I was half-tempted to throw the piece of paper away as I jumped in Sola’s car…but something made me hold onto it. I thanked all of my new friends as I jumped out at the dorm in which I stayed and Ryeowook eagerly clambered across a few of his friends to give me his phone number and ask for mine in return should I ever need anything. His cuteness and caring touched me, so I happily handed over my number…which was quickly passed around the group.

I sighed to myself as I leant against the door of my room…it had been a busy day, I hadn’t finished unpacking and was unlikely to in the next year, and I couldn’t stop thinking about Ryeowook and KiJung. The piece of paper remained in my pocket for most of the night and after doing some homework I collapsed on my bed, still thinking. I read the note through quite a few more times and jumped in surprise when my phone buzzed. I opened it to discover that Ryeowook had sent me a message.

 

From: Eternal Magnae
To: CinderElla

Hey! It’s me ^^ I just texting to make sure that you’re not missing us already. If you ever need anything don’t be afraid to ask. I can cook too you know, so I can help with that.

Don’t stay up too late ^^ Nite

P.S: You might want to change your receiver name, Heenim won’t be happy if he’s sees that X)

 

I giggled at his child like attitude and was about to throw my phone back down when I paused. The piece of paper with KiJung’s number on it was still in my hand. The others said he was a jerk…but I wanted to know for myself…

After pausing for a few more minutes, I hesitatingly dialed the number and nervously put it to my ear.

“Hello?” A male voice answered.

“I – Is that KiJung?” I flicked myself in the forehead for stuttering.

“Yeah, hey Ella.” He sounded more happy now.

“Uhm, how did you know it was me?”

“Well, I was waiting for you to call. My night was pretty boring and I was pretty sure you could make it more interesting.”

“How? I don’t really know you.”

“Hearing your voice is enough to make it more interesting.” I rolled my eyes. “You have a pretty good singing voice.”

“Uhm, thanks?”

“No problem, hey, I was wondering, do you want to hang out with us tomorrow?”

“Uhhh…well I already hang out with Ryeowook…and I don’t think your girlfriend likes me.”

“My girlfriend?”

“Isn’t JungGi your girlfriend?”

“Nahh, broke up with her, she was too clingy, so I’m a free agent. So what do you say?” I bit my lip, they’d warned against it…but it couldn’t hurt to just see what it was like.

“Yeah, alright then.”

“Cool. I’ll see you tomorrow then. Night babe.” The phone disconnected straight away. I sat on my bed kind of shocked.

Number one: I’d just spoken to the guy everyone had forbidden me to speak to.

Number two: I was going to hang out with him and his friends.

Number three: He called me ‘babe’.

Ella, what have you done?

 

 

Indeed, what has Ella done?! I don’t know why I shouted that, but I felt like it hehe~

As always, silent readers are not appreciated but I won’t force you to comment, that's kind of inhumane I guess

BUT WELCOME TO ALL NEW READERS!