Chapter One

I hum under my breath as I scan the corridors for the classroom number written on my admission card. The building was silent as the first classes of the day commence. The clicking of my low-heeled shoes echoed through the halls as I pass by classroom after classroom. I finally spot the room number on my card, designated at the very end of hall. The room was directly beside the fire exit.

I rearrange my school uniform and pull my knee-high socks in place. With squared shoulders I twist the doorknob as quietly as I can and enter the room to face my new classmates.

The room falls into a hush as I make my way to the teacher's table. Whispers and small chatters erupt when I handed the aged teacher my admission card. She gives me one long look, her eyes lingering on my bright red mane with an unmasked disapproving expression on her wrinkled face.

From her old age she stands up with much difficulty from her seat and shushes the chitchatting students. I survey the room with mild interest, my eyes flickering from one face to another. I noticed one shorthaired girl with a big smile on her face probably at the sight of a new girl in class. And at the very back of the room was a hunched figure of a blonde-haired boy, his face covered by his arms on top of the table--- clearly asleep on his seat.

"We apparently have a new American student in our class." The teacher began. More intrigued noise erupted at the mention of my Western upbringing. She spares another hard look at my red hair and continues, "This is Jung Soojung and she's a new transferee from Korea Kent Foreign School." She sneers my name with much distaste. I tried to brush it off and gave the students a hesitant ninety-degree bow and they greeted me with mixed responses.

The teacher gestures for me to sit beside the shorthaired girl and continued her lecture as if nothing happened.

I placed my bag on top of my desk and sat down, craning my neck to look at the sleeping boy in curiosity. But he wasn't sleeping anymore. He was staring at me so intently that I had to turn away in self-consciously. I subtly peeked at him once more but he was dozing off on his seat again. I shook my head at this oddity.

"Hi I'm Choi Jinri!" The girl beside me chirped. She was pale and cheerful and really pretty. I smiled at her as a response but she seemed to be buzzing on her seat with more things to say.

“Krystal.” I said with a small smile.

"Oh, is that you’re English name? Then you can call me Sulli. And wow your hair is so red. So pretty, I like it." She gushed in one breath; her eyes were sparkling with genuine delight.

"Thanks." I said, not knowing how to respond to her enthusiastic compliment. I suddenly remembered the teacher's odd fixation to my hair and asked Sulli about it.

She laughed softly in her seat, covering to avoid catching the teacher’s attention up front.

“Dyed hair equals troublemaker. Or that’s what the adults in this town think anyway. It’s kind of become a stereotype here. But I think it’s beautiful! I’ve always wanted to dye my hair but my parents won’t let me. They’d think I joined a gang or something.” Sulli loves to talk and never loses her breath, it seems.

Sulli told me that it was rare for teenagers to have their hair artificially colored in this town as the elders frown upon it. She had warned me that my bright red hair might cause unnecessary attention from other people, as I was one of the few students who had one.

“Should I dye my hair back to black?” I asked worried at how the teachers would respond to my bright red hair.

“Don’t! It’s beautiful. I’d do anything to be able to have your hair.” She smiled reassuringly at me. “Just get good grades and you won’t have problems with the close-minded teachers here.” I could do that.

We listened to the teacher’s monotonous discussion for a while before Sulli spoke again. “Do you see that blonde boy at the back?” she whispered to me. We turned to look at him at the same time and I absentmindedly nod. He was fully awake now, staring aimlessly out the window oblivious to our discussion of him.

“He is one intriguing, good-looking boy.” She sighed. From this angle I could see his defined jaw line, there was small band-aid plastered to the top of his eyebrow and a cut on his lip as if he just got into a fistfight. His platinum blonde hair strangely compliments his tan skin.

“That’s Kim Jongin. No one calls him that though; he only responds when people call him Kai. He and his eleven other friends practically started that dyed hair stereotype here. The teachers couldn’t say anything against them though. As much as they get into a lot of fights outside of school their grades are superior to the most of us.”

I looked at him for a few more seconds, trying to decipher him, and then turned my attention to the front of the class when I couldn’t, resting my elbow on the desk and my cheek on my knuckle.

Kai with his platinum blond hair, his cuts and bruises, and the enigmatic aura he seems to emit were the only things I could think about for the rest of the day.

Lunch break swiftly arrived in no time and Sulli had graciously offered me to sit with her in the cafeteria. In the few hours of being her seatmate I have come to know that she was an honor student--- coming second to Kai who was surprisingly top one in our year; Oh Sehun, one of Kai’s friends from another class, was third on the list.

I also learned that Sulli was the only daughter of a textile company owner. She was tall and had porcelain skin and a delicate doll-like face. Not only does she come from an affluent family, but she’s also blessed with beauty and brains. She’s naturally cheerful and positive and I could already see myself forming a strong friendship with her.

We found an unoccupied table in the middle of the school cafeteria. The room was spacious, natural light filtered through the surrounding glass windows and the walls were awash with minimal white paint. It was bright and clean. Utensils clanking against ceramic plates and enthusiastic chatters echoed along the cafeteria.

I’ve been playing with my food absentmindedly for the past half-hour while I listen to Sulli drone on about school gossip when excited chatter suddenly echoed through the spacious cafeteria. Sulli choked on her orange juice at the sight of four boys entering the vicinity. There was a chorus of girlish sighs and giggles as the boys found an empty table near the tall glass windows. One of them was Kai, disinterest plain on his face.

From the reaction to their mere arrival, Kai and his friends further intrigued me and piqued my interest.

When Sulli has finally composed herself she takes a napkin from her pocket to daintily wipe her lips.

“You see that tall boy beside Kai? His name is Park Chanyeol.” She whispered to me, her cheeks flushing pink. I silently observe the said boy. He was tall and lanky. Among the four of them he was the only one who seemed to be enjoying the student body’s excessive attention to them, under his eye was a bruise looking similar to the ones his friends are sporting.

“You like him?” I guessed. I take Sulli’s interminable blush as an affirmation.

“They’re quite interesting, those boys. Don’t you think?” she tells me with a dazzling smile. I shrugged.

“Sehun is the other blonde one.” She tilts her head in their direction.

“Oh, he’s third on the honor’s list, isn’t he?” I asked. As opposed to Chanyeol’s bright expression, Sehun wore the same bored look on Kai’s face.

“Right you are!” Sulli claps her hands as if I just answered a question on a game show. “The other one is Tao. He’s Chinese and a martial artist. He’s really good at fighting.”

“Why do you know so much about them? Don’t tell me they have a Wikipedia page dedicated to them?” I joked, when Sulli hesitated my jaw dropped.

“No way! They do, don’t they?” My eyes widened. “Of course they’d have a Wikipedia page of their own.” I said, sarcastic.

Back in my old school there was also a group of boys who were just like Kai and his friends. They challenged fights from the tiniest of misunderstandings with no fear of getting suspended. I saw them as cocky and spoiled, and yet all the girls in my old school seemed to fall for their ‘charms’ every time. I never understood the hype surrounding those boys but somehow I just can’t seem to stop myself from being intrigued with Kai and his group of oddly good-looking friends.

My curiosity got the better of me. “But I thought there are twelve of them?”

“You’ll rarely see all of them together. There were supposed to be twelve of them but four of them have already graduated high school.” Sulli shrugs nonchalantly as if it’s supposed to be public information. Who knows? Maybe it is.

Seeing the plain confusion on my face Sulli explained, “They all have their own thing. You know, sports, music, dancing… They spend their breaks and free time immersed in their own activities.”

We continued eating our lunches in silence with Sulli occasionally asking me question about growing up in California and attending a foreign school. I never really had a real friend back in my old school, I used to spend my lunch breaks practicing piano and eating my lunch in the music room because I didn’t have anyone to sit with. I wasn’t a snob, per se, nor was I ostracized as a weirdo. I guess I just never really found someone who I felt as comfortable as I had with Sulli now. This thought made me smile.

The four of them stand up, carrying their empty food trays. All eyes were on them as they make their way to the rows of trash bins to deposit their trays. I felt them pass by behind me. Sulli unabashedly stares at them with sparkling eyes.

Tao lingered behind us. “Nice hair.” His Korean has a prominent accent.

“Uh, thanks?” I muttered, unsure if it was a backhanded compliment. He gives me an impish grin and small casual wave before catching up to his friends who were already ahead of him. I caught Kai’s gaze for a moment while an oblivious Tao slings an arm around his shoulder; I broke our eye contact by looking down, feeling my cheeks burn against my will. There were audible sighs coming from the female students as the four boys left the vicinity.

Sulli slumps on her seat in a very unladylike manner as if her bones have turned into jelly.

“Oh my god. Tao’s smile almost killed me! How are you not in heaven right now Krystal?” She gushed, fanning her own blushing cheeks with a hand.

I shrugged. “He’s not really my type.”

Sull’s eyes glint in mischief. “Who do you like then?” Kai’s intense stares suddenly flashed inside my head. I shake my head to clear my thoughts.

The school bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch break, effectively saving me from answering her flustering question. We hurriedly throw away the remains of our lunch and run off to our next class of which we were already a few minutes tardy.