Chapter 2 – Introductions

 

 

A bored boy shuffled his feet slowly along the sidewalk, dreading the rest of the day at his new school. He had nothing personal against any of them, but he did not appreciate the way that they acted like they were better than everyone else just because they had money. For him, money could buy a lot of things, but not his trust. The one thing he was especially not looking forward to was dealing with the girl that followed him around like a lost puppy, Seohyun. He could tell she wasn’t a bad person, but he had no intentions on making friends with anyone, especially now. He had lived 18 years of his life without a friend, he was sure he could last for a while without one.

He chuckled as he took a look at his surroundings. The neighborhood he was in sure was a funny one. It seemed as if the divine being that created the neighborhood wanted to play mind games with its residents. It was probably one of the poorest areas in Seoul, yet the prestigious Daewon Prep was built 10 minutes away. Just down the road that crossed his neighborhood, stood the Daewon gated community where all the rich, snobs lived their luxurious and wasteful lives. The gods that created this area of Seoul seemed to really want to show how big the gap was between the rich and the poor. There was no other reason why such contrasting neighborhoods were placed in such proximity of each other.

“Aish,” he grumbled. “This place is such a damn pain…”

“Who are you talking to?” a voice suddenly spoke out behind him. As always, his stoic manner prevented it from startling him. He turned around to meet the gaze of a very thin girl with long brown hair. His eyes scanned her body and asked themselves how it was possible for a girl to be so thin.

“At least it looks good and not anorexic,” he thought to himself. Her eyes grew fierce as she noticed how his eyes roamed her body. She wore the same uniform Seohyun wore yesterday so he assumed that this girl also was a part of this hellish school.

“Yah, Mister Byuntae, you can stop undressing me with your eyes now,” she growled. “Tch, this is what I get for talking to weirdoes like you.”

“Byuntae? Me? I don’t have time for your games so leave me alone little girl. If you’ve got time to sit here and insult me, then you should use it for something else more productive. As I don’t know you or your name I’m not even going to deal with you, so later,” he explained to her before resuming his slow and unenthusiastic shuffle.

“The name is Goo Hara,” she told him. “Wait up!” Her legs brought her over to him, falling into the same pace that his were moving at. “Hello, anyone home? Man, I’m talking to you so answer me.”

“Troublesome woman… what is it?” he growled back, once again stopping his legs from carrying him forward.

“I haven’t seen you around here. Are you the new student that everyone’s been talking about? I guess so since they said he was a gangster from that poor neighborhood down the street. Seohyun also told me about how you told her to piss off a hundred times a minute. You sure as hell fit the description,” she insulted.

“It’s a good idea to believe everything you hear right?” he asked sarcastically.

“Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” she pointed out playfully. Yonghwa just continued to stare at her through her fit of giggles. He would admit that she was cute and he commended her having enough backbone to insult him out in the open so strongly.

“Is that all you have to say or can I keep on moving?” he asked in an uninterested tone. “Class is about to start and I already get enough crap from the teachers as it is. I’d rather not get on their bad side any more than I have to.”

“Wow you really have to lighten up. There isn’t any reason you have to be so defensive you know… I’m not here to hurt you, I just wanted to meet you,” she admitted.

“Well you met me, so I think it’s time for us to part ways dontcha think?”

“I feel so bad for Seohyun. She’s going to have one hell of a year dealing with you Mister Grouch. Well since you’re obviously too busy to pay attention to someone like me, I guess I’ll let you go on your way. I would say ‘see ya later’ but you obviously have no intentions of that.”

“I’m glad you can see it my way.” Once again the slow and weary pace picked up again and he began to move out of her sight. Hara stood there with her arms crossed laughing at how much of an attitude he had.

“What the hell crawled up his and died today?” she joked to herself.

Yonghwa looked around the halls and noticed the relative lack of students. He breathed a sigh of fresh air, grateful that he would be able to avoid all the idiots he hated already, at least for the morning. The sheet of paper in his hands told him to go to his Japanese class. He walked in and noticed that very few people were in here as well.

“At least that annoying little Seohyun won’t be in here…” he thought to himself in relief. The last thing he wanted now was to be annoyed by the goody two-shoes girl that pushed all his buttons in the wrong way. If there was an award for the most annoying person in the world, he was sure she would win it. His moment of relief vanished as he saw a group of five girls walk into the room. The blond one, possibly the leader of their little clique, stopped dead in her tracks as soon as her gaze met his.

“Omo! Why didn’t anyone tell me that there was going to be a cute new guy in our class? Alright girls, you know the drill. I called him, so he’s mine now,” she babbled. Instead of glaring at her however, he continually turned his attention to the girl on her right.

“Well well Mister Grouch we meet again. Who would have thought that you would be in my Japanese class? If that was the case then we could have walked here together dontcha think?” she asked him, mimicking the same tone from when he had asked her the ‘dontcha think?’ question just a few minutes before.

“Hara do you know this guy?” the blond girl asked. “Well I still called him, I don’t care if you met him first. So what’s your name?” she flirtatiously asked Yonghwa.

“Don’t worry, I’ll deal with this. I know we got off on the wrong foot, but since we’re all in the same class, we should try to get along. As you know already, I’m Goo Hara. This blond bimbo to my left is Park Gyuri. Don’t worry, she won’t bite, unless you’re into that stuff,” she laughed with a wink.

“Hara, you make me sound like a ert. I only bit that one guy… jeez. And I’m not a bimbo,” Gyuri responded.

“This girl with the short hair to my right is Han Seungyeon and the girl to her right is our cute little American, Nicole. And this tiny little thing behind us all is Kang Jiyoung. Don’t be mean to her. Since she’s just a little freshman and a scary senior like you will make her cry,” she stated, introducing her small group.”

“I’m not a baby Hara unnie!” the youngest of the group cutely pouted. “You make me sound like I’m five years old.”

“Yeah well, when your voice is just oozing your little aegyo speak of yours, it’s hard to tell,” she dryly added. “Anyways, care to tell us your name?”

“Jung Yonghwa,” he grunted.

“Yonghwa oppa~~ I hope we can get along just fine. Do you have anyone to sit with at lunch? If you don’t, there is always an empty seat near me,” Gyuri offered, sitting in the chair next to Yonghwa. As always, he gave her his signature uninterested look and a slight glare. “Kya~~!!! That look is so y and mysterious, keep doing it more.”

“Alright, alright, settle down class,” a male teacher ordered. “As you may all know by now, we have a transfer student in our class. His name is Jung Yonghwa and I hope you all get along with him as he doesn’t know anyone in our school just yet. Miss Hara, please take the seat next to him and be his partner. I’m sure a lovely girl such as yourself would brighten his day a little.”

“Yes sensei,” she responded politely. The polite attitude disappeared as she slammed her books on the desk next to his. “Great… I guess I’ll be sitting next to you for the next year of my life. I hope the cloud over your head clears up because I don’t want to get wet.”

“Hey, you act as if I’m happy to sit next to you. Just leave me alone and we can all get along just fine,” he pointed out to her.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She turned around and made a worried face to the rest of her group. Gyuri made a throat slashing motion out of jealousy towards her, while Jiyoung and Nicole, being the immature underclassmen they were, suppressed their fits of giggles.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

An uneventful hour passed by before the bell finally rang for the class to end. Yonghwa threw his notebook in his bag and bolted out the door, hoping to avoid seeing any more people that annoyed him to no end. So far it was so good until he ran into a young man with spiky, brown hair that was slightly taller than him. The young man stood so proudly that Yonghwa could tell right away that he was one of the snobbiest of the snobs.

“Yah you , watch where the hell you’re going,” yelled the rude boy. “I haven’t seen you around here so I’ll let it slide for now. Hopefully you learned your lesson and this doesn’t happen again.”

“Tch,” Yonghwa scoffed. “I’m sorry your royal excellency,” he replied with sarcasm drowning his words. “I didn’t know that the royal family of Korea was reestablished and that their heir attended this school. Oh wait, let me think, that hasn’t happened, so why don’t you shove that pride of yours up your , maybe then someone will give a damn about it.”

“Well, well, this kid has some real guts to stand up to me. Obviously you don’t know who I am. Well let me tell you something, kid,” he said while poking Yonghwa in the chest. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I owned the land where your house was built on. If you didn’t know, my family owns one of the most important real estate businesses in all of Asia. Now, apologize and I’ll let it slide this time.”

“I’m sorry. Well I’m sorry that I don’t give a damn about how much money your parents earned. Once you earned all of that money by yourself, come talk to me. If you haven’t done that yet, then stop ranting on about how you’re rich, because it’s not you who’s rich, but your parents,” Yonghwa pointed out to him, while returning the poke to the chest to him.

“Seung Ri what the hell are you doing now? Stop picking fights, it just brings you down to their level. Especially with a punk looking guy like him,” a rather tall girl cut in. Yonghwa’s eyes landed on her and immediately dropped to the ground. His will to fight back seemed to have been shattered the moment she entered the scene, leaving Seung Ri to laugh in his face.

“Not, so big and bad now since you know who I am huh you punk? Be glad Uee saved your just now or else you would be bowing to me. I hope I won’t have to run into your sorry any more than I have to,” he spat.

“Ugh, Seung Ri don’t even associate yourself with these kinds of people, they’ll only make you look worse. Comon let’s head to class.” A crowd of their followers parted to allow the pair to walk through them to their next class. Yonghwa continued to stare at their backs without moving an inch. He was starting to hate this school and the fact that it was so hard to just lay low. All he wanted was to not be recognized and to remain unknown to the school. His plans proved to be rather hard, and it was barely the first week.

“You’re so lucky you didn’t fight that guy,” a female voice snuck up from behind. “He would have most definitely won in a fight.”

“What makes you think I can’t take that guy,” he responded over his shoulder. “Besides who are you to tell me something like that?”

“Im Yoona at your service. By the way that you look and talk, I take it your that new emo kid Jung Yonghwa. I’ve heard a lot about you from a bunch of people already. You must be quite the popular guy,” the girl with long, dark brown hair responded. “Seung Ri is a professional Taekwondo fighter. Ever since he was a kid his parents built an academy with the best teachers in all of Korea. You would have gotten slaughtered.

“Obviously you know me better than I know myself,” he pointed out sarcastically. “I wouldn’t have fought that guy, and if I had I’m pretty sure I could have taken him.”

“Whatever you say,” she replied in an unbelieving tone.

“What a damn drag this school turned out to be. Why the hell is everyone in my business as if they knew me? I’m starting to regret coming to this school. At least back then everyone would ignore my existence. Now all these troublesome girls won’t shut the hell up and leave me alone,” he ranted in his head.

“Yo Yoona! What’s up baby girl, how you doin’?” a large male coming down the hall called from a distance.

“Ugh, Taecyeon shut the hell up and stop talking like that. It’s not attractive at all and you look like an idiot. Then you wonder why you don’t have a girlfriend,” Yoona scolded.

“Calm down girl, you know you want some of this. Oh, who is this dude?” he asked, pointing to the man standing next to her. “Yo what’s up man, I’m Taecyeon, nice to meet you.” Taecyeon held up his hand for a high five, expecting Yonghwa to return the gesture.

“Yeah… well later,” Yonghwa replied before heading off to his English class. He was starting to think he had some kind of sign saying “COME TALK TO ME PLEASE!!” that he couldn’t see. There was just no reason for him to attract so much attention. Then again, when a poor kid like him attended a school where peopled wiped their butts with 100,000 won bills, he assumed it was inevitable.

His little detour in the hallway cost him a few minutes, leaving him only a few seconds to enter the room before the bell rang. Unfortunately for him, the whole class turned his way as he entered the door, putting him through the situation he most hated in the world.

“Ah, you must be Jung Yonghwa. Take a seat at empty chair to the right over there and we will get started immediately. I hope you came prepared Mister Jung or else I’ll have to ask you to leave my class,” a rather enthusiastic, male teacher explained.

Yonghwa walked through the rows of people towards his new seat at the back of the class. He wondered why the seats in every classroom of the school were in pairs. At least his seat had an empty spot next to it or else he would learn to hate this class as well. He took a glance around the class and noticed that everyone here was pretty fluent in English. He himself was close, but his accent still showed. None of the kids in the class had any sort of an accent and he assumed they were all from overseas.

“Sorry for being late Mister Park,” a breathless figure apologized as he crossed the doorway. “There was this really hot girl in the hallway and she was like ‘Oh Taec I want to kiss you’ so we started making out.”

“Taecyeon, your excuses get lamer and lamer every time,” the teacher replied. “We all know you you’re nothing but a woman repellant so please take your seat and get started on the warm-up.” The whole class giggled as they all knew Taecyeon was the biggest loser in terms of getting women and he slowly headed back to take his usual seat in the back.

“Ohhhhhh damn, Yonghwa whaddup man? I didn’t know you’d be in my English class. Since you’re new and all do you wanna go to this nice place I found the other day. I figure you might need a little loving so I can hook you up with a few honeys that work there.” Yonghwa didn’t even glare back at the hormone filled sac known as Taecyeon. For some reason his death stares had no effect on the population of Daewon high school so it was better to conserve his energy.

“Uh no thanks, I’m good,” he replied in as few words as possible. Now his plan was to just not talk and act like he was listening to the person in front of him, since ignoring them obviously didn’t seem to work.

“So you’re the new emo kid I’ve been hearing about,” a blond girl in front of him said to him as she turned around. “Seohyun told us how much of a jerk you are but I guess you’re kinda cute. Do you have a girlfriend?” It wasn’t the same blond girl from before, but he definitely found her just as annoying.

“Jessica! Stop hitting on the new guy. It’s not cool to steal another girl’s man. Remember the girl code? It’s even worse since he’s Seohyun’s man,” the black haired girl next to her teased.

“Woah dude you’re hooking up with Seohyun already? You work fast bro! Seohyun looks like the shy, quiet kitten but I bet she’s a real tiger when it comes down to it,” Taecyeon cut in.

“What the hell are you all talking about? I met Seohyun for one day and I can’t stand the little girl. What makes you think that I want anything with her?” Yonghwa asked.

“Well she didn’t stop talking about you all day yesterday. Seohyun doesn’t usually get angry or upset with anyone because of how nice of a person she is. If she ranted about someone that much, that person obviously made an impact on her,” Jessica replied.

“Yeah, she’s sooooooooo into you. She should ditch her of a boyfriend already and just go out with you,” the other girl continued teasing.

“This day just gets better and better doesn’t it,” he inwardly groaned. Luckily for him, the teacher prohibited speaking for the rest of the class, preventing him from getting bothered some more by his new neighbors. He was contemplating just giving up his defensive and negative attitude. It usually worked, but these people kept on trying to push his buttons regardless and he was getting tired of it. Why bother building up walls if people were going to end up climbing them anyways. He wasn’t planning on getting close to them of course, but at least he would conserve his energy.

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Eventually the bell rang once more, this time indicating the start of the lunch period. Unlike yesterday, he was rather hungry so it was inevitable for him to end up going to the cafeteria. All the way across the room was the pair of students that had confronted him in the hallway that morning. He assumed that by sitting as far away as possible from the crowd that he would be able to eat his packed lunch in peace.

“Hey Mister Grouch, I see you decided to label yourself as a nerd from now on,” the thin girl known as Goo Hara told him.

“What are you talking about?” he asked in return, adopting his new attitude towards nosy people.

“Hmm, so nobody has explained anything to you yet? Well I guess I’ll have to do that. In this school there are two kinds of people. The rich, arrogant, pieces of trash that sit on that side of the cafeteria,” she began explaining and pointing at the people Yonghwa had observed moments before. “And then there’s the cool kids like us, except we’re kind of the nerds, since they’re technically the cool kids.”

“Wow, high school cliques… real mature.”

“Yeah, well when you have es like Uee and s like Seung Ri around, they’re bound to spring up. Well I’m glad you at least decided to sit here with us. I would hate to see their group get a new member. Well, I take that back. Not all of their members are s. Remember Gyuri? She’s so pretty that they invited her in the group. She doesn’t approve of their methods but she says the guys over there are hot so she doesn’t mind,” she continued to explain.

“So I assume those two run the school around here?” he asked in an almost curious tone.

“Well they run their little crew but they don't run ours. Seohyun is actually unofficially the leader over here. Uee HATES her with a passion. Eventually all the people that didn’t like Uee came over here and formed this group, with Seohyun as the leader. Currently it’s around half and half in members. I guess with you around here we’re winning,” she finished explaining.

“I don’t have any intention of sitting here then. I’d rather not get involved with your childish war,” he stated.

“Yo Yonghwa, my man! Glad to see you’re joining our crew. I’m sure you heard about our ‘nerd’ reputation but seriously there are some smoking chicks here. Dude, there are some girls here with some bodies that are just out of the world. If this is what being a nerd means, I’ll be a nerd all day,” Taecyeon immaturely admitted.

“I’m sure you can see why Taecyeon belongs in this group…” Hara pointed out.

“Yonghwa, you’re sitting here with us?” a gentle voice asked from the seat to his right. Yonghwa rolled his eyes and braced himself since he knew who it belonged to. “Does this mean you want to be our friend?” He turned around to see the bane of his existance, Seohyun.

“What a drag…” he mumbled.

“OPPA!! Annyeong! Seohyun stop trying to move in on my man!” Gyuri exclaimed. “I’m going to sit here today so I can get to spend some quality time with my new boyfriend. Oppa you’re so dreamy and hot, how do you do it?”

“Holy Yonghwa, you have Goddess Gyuri all over you. I can see why you turned down my offer. Good job bro,” Taecyeon praised.

“Unnie, why aren’t you sitting with the squad today?” Hara crudely asked.

“Screw them, all I need is Yong Oppa. I’ll trade my Goddess title for a nerd title as long as I get to see him every day.”

Across the room Uee and Seung Ri were busy bragging to their followers on how they would be going to exotic places over the summer on their private jets. Uee noticed the head of blond hair missing from her right and noticed it was across the room at the table where her mortal enemy sat.

“So does anyone want to tell me why Gyuri is sitting over there?” she asked coldly.

“I hear she’s really into the new guy. I have to admit he is somewhat of a looker. That cold attitude of his is pretty damn alluring,” a girl from the group explained.

“I can’t have members of my group join up with Seohyun. Just make sure that nobody else goes off and sits with them,” she ordered to nobody in particular. If there was one thing that was certain, it was that Uee would get her way no matter what the cost was.

“Kinda late for that dontcha think?” Seung Ri joked from the seat to her left. “Looks like Jessica and Tiffany left us already to go sit with them. If Tiffany and Jessica are gone, their best friend Victoria is sure to follow. And since Victoria is going out with Nichkhun, he’d end up leaving too.”

“Seung Ri, this isn’t a damn joke. This is going to become a serious problem isn’t it? Tomorrow make sure to catch that new guy and bring him here. I’m sure he won’t be able to resist my offer,” she cockily replied. “Let me go give him a little taste so he comes running back for more.” She stood up and headed towards the growing crowd around Yonghwa. Even though they all wore the same uniform, Uee had a certain charm that made it look ier than everyone else’s. Her skirt showed a little bit more of her legs than it should, gaining her the nickname of “Honey Thighs.”

“Um, Yonghwa~” she cooed. “I heard that you’re in need of a friend and I thought that maybe you want to hang out with us at lunch? What do you say?” She brought a slim finger to then rubbed his cheek with it. Everyone at the table of ‘nerds’ stared at Uee in awe as they certainly did not expect her to do something like this. They they didn’t know what she was up to, but it was surely nothing good.

Hara and Seohyun smirked at the sight in front of them. The great and powerful Uee was reducing herself to the level of a common street . In their minds, they knew that Yonghwa was too much of a stone-hearted man to fall for her tricks. They eagerly anticipated the failure that would ensue in a short while. They generally stayed away from Uee as much as possible. Uee was capable of doing some pretty low things and they would rather avoid getting dirty by being in her presence. Even though that was the case, there was nothing that stopped them from enjoying her humiliating herself.

“Uh… yeah sure,” he replied shyly.

“EH?!” everyone at the table exclaimed.

“Great I’ll see you tomorrow then alright?” she asked with a cute wink and headed off her way. Seohyun noticed the way that his lips tightened just the slightest at her words. His stoic attitude was slightly faltering, but you could only see it if you really paid attention.

“What an idiot…” she thought to herself.“Why the hell did he agree to sit with her? She’s obviously up to something that’s not good.” She continued to observe his actions, each minute that passed making her more and more sure of her assumption. There was no other reason for him to break down his walls and act so shy around her. Jung Yonghwa liked Uee and that was an obvious fact.

 

Author's Note: Boring chapter but it sets up the setting a little more. Not sure if I will continue to update on my usual every other day schedule since finals are coming up and they're going to my brain. Also, I'm finding it a little hard to write this story. On paper it was looking so amazing to me but now I'm like "wtf am I going to write today?" lol. So I hope this writer's block goes away soon. Enjoy the chapter and peace out.