Tao opened his eyes and stared blankly at the ceiling of his room. Ten hours of sleeping seemed didn’t affect much to regain his spirit. Moving to Korea was never a good news to him. If it wasn’t for his parents who planned to expand their business from China, he would never stay long in this foreign place. It wasn’t that he hated Korea, but for him staying in China was a better option he unfortunately didn’t have. Tao looked at the clock hanging on the wall right in front of his bed.

‘It’s almost seven. I better wash up now.’ Tao rised from his bed, rubbed his tired eyes while heading to the bathroom. ‘Better be a good day. Or else right from this day I will plan my escape back to China.’

***

The class was a chaos before Mrs. Kim entered. Everyone seemed so excited to meet each other. They were busy telling stories about the trip to Jeju, dresses they bought in Harajuku, and other awesome stories about the vacation they had before the school started. Except for one girl who hardly moved from her seat. She only smiled and nodded as she listened to the other girls babbling around happily. Now that they were in senior year, the school seemed a lot more fun.

“Yah, Park Chanyeol! Get off your desk and sit properly on the chair! And quit shouting so loud in the class. Aigoo.. The school’s just started but you gave me a headache already.” Mrs. Kim scolded Park Chanyeol, the troublemaker. The boy was just smiling so wide showing his neat teeth as usual.

The little crowds in class began to break up, everyone reached their own desks and sat down.

“Okay, kids, I’d like to welcome you guys back here. Congratulations for having yourselves in senior year! I wish we can do better this year. So let’s study hard and make good memories.” Mrs. Kim said and a big cheer came from the students, thanks to Chanyeol and his noisy friends.

“It’s really good to see you all again and it’s even better because today our class will have another member.” The boys started to put their palms together and pretended to pray for hot chick to enter the class while the girls were anxious to see a good figure of charming boy. “ZiTao, please come in.” Mrs. Kim ordered to the person behind the door.

A tall and black haired man walked in. His broad shoulders were nicely built that it made him look like a model even in a regular uniform. He took a few steps and stopped right behind Mrs. Kim. He faced the class, revealed his face to everyone, looked around for awhile with his sharp eyes. A few girls were too mesmerized to close their mouths.

“Hello, everyone. I’m Hwang ZiTao and I’m a new student in this school. Please call me Tao. I hope we get along well.” Tao said in a deep tone and bowed politely. Mrs. Kim coughed a bit.

“So kids, this is ZiTao. Eh.. Tao, yes, Tao. And he’s from China. So he might not be familiar with a couple things in Korea. I need you guys to kindly help him, okay?” Mrs. Kim said, followed by the class saying yes. “Okay then, Tao, you can go to your seat. Let me see.. Ah, there. It’s still empty there.”

Everyone in class was seated in single desks. Tao headed to the direction Mrs. Kim had pointed out. An empty desk by the window at the back of the class. ‘Perfect.’ He thought.

As Tao settled in his seat, the girls beside his desk pulled out their hands to greet him. He nicely shook their hands one by one eventhough it was a little bit too much of a warm welcome for him.

“I’m Jung Hana! It’s good to see you, Tao.”

“I’m Go Mina. Feel free to ask me for help if you need any!”

“I’m Han Jungmin!”

“I’m Cho Soyeon!”

After almost half of the girls in class said hello to him, Tao finally could rest his back and relax. ‘Well, not a really bad start, ZiTao.’

“Okay, everyone, now we back to biology.” The class sighed and moaned in response to the order. “Open up your book on the page 177 and Park Chanyeol, Kim Himchan, Lee Taemin! At least try to hold your heads up for the first few hours, aigoo… You sleepyheads!”

Everyone giggled. Tao smiled and pulled out his book from the backpack. As he tried  to find  the page, his eyes caught a person in front of him. It was a girl with rather long black wavy hair. She had a good picture from behind. Tao wondered who she was, since from what he could recall, she didn’t even bother to look back to see him while the other girls were busy greeting him. He shrugged and after a split second got his attention back to the book.

***

The bell rang, after thanked Mr. Go the math teacher, the students rushed out from the class to the cafeteria. Tao streched his neck to left and right. ‘Damn math class, I couldn’t get to sleep at all.’

“Hi, Tao! Want to get some lunch together? We can show you the cafeteria.” A girl whose name had already been forgotten by Tao offered cheerfully.

“Ehm.. Thanks, but I still have something to do. Please go first.” He replied with a little smile. The girl nodded and left with her gang.

The class was empty in a flash, except there were still him and the girl in front of him. Her head was facing the window, looked like she was looking at something really amazing out there. Tao grabbed his backpack and reached out for his ipod. He wasn’t really hungry so he planned to go somewhere quiet to listen to some music. But he glanced at the girl and stopped for a while.

‘Should I greet her?’ Tao wondered. ‘Okay, it won’t hurt to know her name.’ He walked to approach her desk.

“Hi, I’m Tao.. It’s nice to meet you.” Tao pulled out his hand to the girl.  The girl looked up to Tao. Her face was unexpectedly pretty. Tao found himself stunned for a milisecond. The girl didn’t say anything but smile. It wasn’t even really a smile, she was slightly pull the tips of her lips to her cheeks. She shook Tao’s hand, with that little smile on her face. Again, Tao was stunned.

“And you are..?” Tao finally asked out of his curiousity. “I’m Han Yejin.” She introduced herself.

Finding himself ran out of topic, he decided  to leave the room. “Good. I guess I’ll take my leave first.”

Yejin nodded. As Tao walked out the door, he felt a strange feeling after seeing Yejin. He realised that it wasn’t that he liked her face that much or what, but it was something else. Something else about Yejin he hadn’t found out yet, had stunned him.