“Students,” Mr. Ahn called.

No one bothered to listen. They were all busy gossiping or playing games on their phones.

Mr. Ahn loudly cleared his throat. “Students!”

Still, his voice wasn’t heard over the sound of chatting.

“HEY!”

Suddenly, everyone turned their attention to the front of the classroom. A boy who looked completely ticked off had gotten up and slammed his fists into a desk. Once he had successfully scanned the room for any trouble-makers, he sat down and went back to doing whatever it was that he was doing. His sudden fit of rage had made everyone a bit nervous, so they hung on to every word that came out of Mr. Ahn’s mouth.

“Thank you, Sunggyu,” he said, grinning at the boy. “As I was saying… Students, please welcome your new classmate, Hana Kim.” He pointed towards me and tried to get everyone to start clapping. Only a handful of my peers joined in. The situation turned into an awkward one when I understood that I needed to formally introduce myself. I was already seated so everyone had to turn around to face me. I stood up and bowed to the class. “My name is Hana.” Mr. Ahn urged me to tell them more about myself but I just sat down. “Err, okay. On that note, everyone get out your textbooks and turn to page 36.” I opened my backpack and looked through all of my school supplies carefully. “Sir,” I raised my hand, “I don’t have a textbook.” The professor quickly looked through all of the cupboards and then shrugged, “there aren’t any left. I’m sorry. You can pick one up at the office at the end of the day, but for now you’ll have to share with someone else.”

I groaned rather loudly. “Can’t I just listen to what you’re saying?” He shook his head, “no. Today’s lesson is going to be very important. Either find someone to share with or I’ll pick for you. I know it’s your first day in an unfamiliar school, so it would be nice to make some friends.”

But I don’t want to make friends.

“I’ll share with her. The seat next to mine is empty.” I focused my attention on Sunggyu, the loud kid from before. Before the teacher could say anything else to me, I scrambled to get my things and moved seats. “See? It all worked out,” a small smile formed on Sunggyu’s lips. I didn’t say anything and silently followed along in the book. There seemed to be a lot of reading in this course, I’d better get my own textbook as soon as possible.

The bell rang and I started to pack up my stuff when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I nervously shrugged myself out of it and turned around to see Sunggyu. “Oh, sorry. I just wanted to tell you that I don’t mind if we share the textbook for a while. The waiting list for new books is really long, so don’t get your hopes up.” When he smiled his eyes disappeared, which was endearing. “I’m going to go now,” I said stiffly as I walked past him. I was already tired of school and I just got there. Deciding against going to class, I aimlessly wandered the hallways of the school for a while. Woollim High was huge and I had a hard time figuring out how to get back to class, so I ended up going outside for some fresh air. The amount of useless features this school had amused me. They had a tennis court, for Pete’s sake. After making myself comfortable underneath a large, shady tree, I fell asleep.

Hopefully I won’t ever wake up.

~

After what seemed to be a 6 hour-long nap, I woke up. The sun made my eyes squint so I put a hand over my head to protect myself from its rays. Sitting beside me was a boy. He was just leaning his head on the tree, watching me. What the hell? Why do I always attract the weirdest people? I scooted away from him a little bit and raised an eyebrow. He stared at me but didn’t answer. Looking at him with the sun shining down on his face, he seemed almost angelic. I furrowed my brows, wanting to get an answer out of him, but I never spoke. We sat there in silence until I got tired of it and got up to leave. Always the weirdos.

~

After I returned to class, school was, for the most part, boring. Sitting in those tiny seats and listening to monotone professors rambling on about things I didn’t care about was torture. I couldn’t wait to get out of this hellhole. The final bell rung and I virtually jumped out of my seat and headed for the door. I took out a little slip of paper that had directions to the main office on them and started to follow them. “We meet again!” As soon as I heard his voice, I started to walk faster. “Hey! What’s the rush? School’s over. You seem lost. Do you want me to be your navigator… again?” I looked up at him. “Woohyun,” my hand involuntarily curled up into a fist, “please. Let me do this on my own. I don’t need your help.” He sighed as I walked away but ended up following me anyway.

“Nice weather we’re having, huh?”

…

“So where are we going?”

I stopped in my tracks. “WE aren’t going anywhere. I am going to the main office to place an order for one of MY textbooks.” I huffed. “You were trying to get to the main office this whole time?” he whistled. “If you would have listened to me earlier, you’d have known that the main office is in the left wing, not the right.” I made a sudden u-turn and walked in the other direction. “No thanks?”

“Thanks.”

~

“TWO WEEKS?” I complained.

“Sorry, miss. We have a ton of new students this year and they came in earlier to order theirs. For an extra $50 we can get it shipped out a week sooner.”

“... No, it’s alright.”

“We’ll see you in two weeks, miss.”

I slouched as I walked and my steps became heavier. Why doesn’t anything ever go my way? “Hey, so... Do you know the way home?” Woohyun asked me. He was quiet for a while, so I figured he was trying to decide whether or not to ask me. “Yes,” I groaned, “but you’ll end up tagging along anyway, so what’s the point of trying to resist?”

“I knew you’d let me walk you home! You have a tough exterior but we both know that deep down... deep... deep down, you have a heart of gold.” He beamed.

Why is this kid still following me?

The conversation we had on the way home was bland and one-sided. He never shut up and I gave one word responses. Finally, we were at my aunt’s. “We’re here.” I said. “Time flies!” he responded. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Hana,” he bowed. “I guess.” I walked up the steps to the house and opened the door.

“HANA, you’re home!” My aunt called out from the kitchen. “Did you have fun? Did you make any new friends?”

“No.”

-x-
Phew, that was fun to write. Am I uploading these too fast for you guys? Let me know if the quality is suffering 'cause of it. I always find little typos and have to fix them, so yeah.. In this chapter she met Sunggyu and L (he was the weird one under the tree, kekeke) In the next few chapters Hana's story might be partly revealed. It all depends on the pace of how I'm writing. Please comment <3