Sara's POV

The alarm beeps loudly next to my head. Why did I put it right next to me on the pillow?! Because otherwise, you will ignore it. I answer my own question. I press the snooze button, and heave myself out of bed before Omma has the chance to come in, litterally banging pots and pans next to my ear.

I slip out of my night clothes and into my school uniform, before continuing on with the rest of my morning routine. After brushing my teeth, I walk in a daze downstairs to the kitchen. I'm greeted with grunts from my two oppas and a mute smile and nod from my younger brother. We all eat our ceral in silence.

Suddenly, Young-Woon, my oldest oppa, jumped up, swore colorfuly, and ran about the house muttering curses. ", , , , ! UGH! !!"

My other oppa, Dae-Ho, covers my little brother Jae-Jae's ears. I call after Young-Woon, "Watch your mouth!! What happened?!"

"I have this project paper that's due today!! I haven't even started it yet!!" Young-Woon shouted through his chorus of s.

"Oh, let me guess! You either 'didn't hear the professor assign it', or you 'heard about it but completely forgot that it was due today'?" Dae-Ho shouts, rolling his eyes and uncovering Jae-Jae's ears.

"SCHOOL BUS!!!!" Jae-Jae shouts loudly before Young-Woon can respond, jumping up and rushing to the door, yelling goodbye's to our parents, who were in the study. Dae-Ho and I follow him, abandoning both our cereal and our big brother.

Outside, it is freeeeeeeeeziiiiiiiiiing cold! We can see our breath as we huff and puff our way down the slippery driveway to the curb, where the bus sits, patiently waiting. I sit down in the front row of seats, on the left, alone. For now. My two friends who sit with me don't get on until later.

We were just starting to pull away from the roadside when Young-Woon comes barreling out the door, slipping, sliding, skidding on the black ice. By some miracle though, Young-Wook makes it to the bus without injury.

The bus pulls away again, and drives slowly and carefully down the road. It starts to snow, getting heavier by the second. The bus driver grabs the walkie talkie thingy, and holds it up to his mouth. "K, you kids need to be quiet so I can focus on driving! We don't want an accident, do we?"

Us kids chorus a 'No', and simultaneously take out our phones. Except for Young-Wook, who's scribbling away frantically at his notebook. I smirk at him, even though he's not going to look up to notice. I plug in my earphones, and listen to Top's latest hit, Doom Dada.

The bus crawls at a snails pace down the streets to Tao's house. It takes fifteen minutes to get to Tao's place, when it should've took less than ten! But finally we do make it, and the bus driver thankfully waits until Tao is pressed up against the door before he opens the door to the freezing air and snow flurries.

Tao hustles inside the bus, stomping his feet to get the snow off, and shaking off the snow from his head before motioning for me to scooch over so he could sit. As soon as he sits down, the bus driver floors it (not really), and we're off for Kai's apartment.

"Hello! How was your morning? Did you eat breakfast?" Tao asks me in his native tongue, Chinese. He's a foreign exchange student from China, and is determined to get me fluent in Chinese if it kills him. So every day, he greets me with a different phrase in Chinese, forcing me to keep learning. I smile at him.

"Hello to you too! My morning was okay, I guess. I had cereal for breakfast." I answer in choppy Chinese. Tao laughs, and corrects my pronounciation on a few words. Now it's my turn. Tao can speak Korean just fine, sure, but I just love stumping him. So I give him complicated scentences that are just gibberish most of the time, and see if he can answer them somewhat coherently.

"If morning is sunny, and ocean is green, how happy is the windy season?" I say randomly, crossing my fingers, hoping I've stumped him. I tried to slur so it's hard to tell the words.

"If moring is sunny, all are happy." Tao responds with near perfect pronounciation.

"Oh, darn it!" I groan, before being shushed by the driver. I giggle with Tao, before going back to listening to music. I feel myself dozing off, but I try to stay awake. I hate falling asleep on the bus!

"It's okay." Tao whispers in my ear. "Go to sleep. I'll wake you up when we get to school." I nod, but still fight the slick grasp of sleep with all my might. But in the end, exhaustion wins, and I fall victim to sleep.

It seems like only a few seconds later that I'm being awoken by the honey sweet voice of Kai. "Sara! Sara! Wake up!"

I groan inchorently, begging for more time to snooze. I'm poked in the side, and then Tao whispers in my ear, "Come on, Sara! You need to get up, or you'll be late to class! You're one tardy away from temporary suspension of your job lisence!"

That wakes me up almost as good as coffee. I jump up, bow to the buss driver, and hurry off the bus into the cold with Tao and Kris. We walk as fast as possible into the school building, where we say hasty goodbyes in the lobby. Today's a B day, meaning I have gym instead of my elective, which I share with Tao, Kris, and their friends, who are all at least two grades ahead of me. Meaning I won't be seeing any of them til tomorrow, since we'll all be doing different stuff after class, and my elective is the only class I share with them.

I make it to my first class literally five seconds before the bell rings. I sit down, avoiding eye contact with anyone, anxious as the rest of them. Why? Because we're getting a new teacher today. New as in fresh out of college. New teachers are almost never good.

It turns out I didn't have to worry about being late. The new teacher was ten minutes late. Longest ten minutes of my life. The new teacher turns out to be a woman, a white woman, in her early twenties.

"Hello class." She says in English. This is English class after all. "I am Ms. Brewer. Let's start with some rules. Number one: You can only speak to me in English. Understood?" There are muttered what?s in Korean. We're all first year English speakers, and she was talking pretty fast. I raise my hand. Ms. Brewer looks at me, and nods. "Yes, miss?"

"Miss Kim, ma'am." I say in English. "We're all first year English students, and some of the class had trouble understanding what you just said. If I may, ma'am, you were talking a bit fast."

"Ah. Ok. Well, Miss Kim, why don't you explain to me what you have learned so far?" Ms. Brewer asks.

"We just finished animals last week, and we've covered days, months, time, numbers, letters, and introductions." I explain. "We were going to start on verb conjugation next."

"Ok, then. Class, what verbs do you already know?" Ms. Brewer asks slowly.

English class passed quickly. After that, I had Earth Science, then Algebra, then gym, then lunch, then Astronomy, then history, then finally, Home Ec. After finishing up Home Ec. class, I walked lazily to the roof of building D. It had warmed up somewhat, but was still well below freezing. I wanted to make this quick.

I climb up the stairs, hoping that it wasn't too cloudy that I couldn't see the moon. I step out onto the roof of the building, shivering. I hoist my bag over my shoulder, and sprint across the roof to where the heater thing is. I lean my back against it gratefully, relishing the warnth that seems to have deserted South Korea the last month or so. I open my bag, and take out my telescope, notebook, and pen. I open the notebook to a fresh page, and scribble a heading in both English and Korean for practice.

I hold the telescope to my eye, and take notes of the lunar phase, whether there's a haze around the moon, and it's postition in the sky compared to the sun. After that, I take a picture with my phone, and email it to myself so I can print it and add it to my notebook later.

It's so warm here.... The heater makes a little pocket of warm, toasty air arround itself. I'm so sleepy.... I've been fighting sleep all day.... I yawn, and allow my eyelids to droop, not caring about what could happen if I fell asleep out here.
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I'm awoken by the sounds of pounding feet, howls of laughter, and hoots and whistles. I sigh, and pack up my stuff. Should I take the short way down? Probably, even though it involves a ten foot drop. It's dark, and I don't like the sound of those boys who woke me up.

I walk quickly to the lowest edge of the slanting roof, using my phone as a flashlight. I walk over to the gutter at the edge of the roof, and follow it to the vertical gutter that carries the water down to the sewer. I hoist my messenger bag over my neck so that it's less likely to fall off, and take a deep breath, preparing for the drop. I grab onto the rain gutter after taking ten deep breaths, and climb down it ever so carefully. My fingers are numb.

I make it to the ground safely, and fast walk around the corner to the front of the building near the bus stop. I'm passing by the janitors entrance to the school, on the side, it's like it's own little alley. In this light, you could barely see it. I only know that it's there because I've walked past it in the daytime, and I can kinda see it with my phone.

Suddenly, my phone is knocked out of my hand. It falls to the ground, screen down, just as a hand wraps itself around my mouth, an arm wraps around my waist, and I'm pulled into the janitors exit. I scream as loud as the hand over my mouth will let me, kicking and screaming as I'm dragged deeper into the little alley way.

"SHHHHH!!! Shut up! I won't hurt you unless you make me!" A males voice whispers harshly in my ear. Oh. It's probably one of those boys who's little game woke me up. I stop struggling, planning on breaking free as soon as he loosens his grip. But he doesn't. "Good girl." He coos. I hear more pounding footsteps, and the guys grip on me tightens. Oh ! He's keeping me here for them, his buddies! I start struggling again, pinching, slaping, stomping on his feet. In response, he moves - lightning quick! - and pins me against the wall, one hand holding my arms above my head, the other hand over my mouth, his body pressed up against mine, preventing me from moving. I bang my head against the wall, and I groan quietly.

"I warned you!" The man says quietly. "Now, for the love of god, stay quiet!! I'll let you go when it's safe, I promise!" When it's safe?!!

The pounding footsteps get closer, and closer, and closer.

"Where is he?!" One guy shouts.

"Yeah, where'd he go?!!" Another adds.

"Well, he can't have gotten far! Let's split up! Dong-hae, you and the twins go on ahead. The rest of us 'll search the building." yet another, the leader, I assume, commands. There's more pounding, but it soon fades away. After about two minutes, the man releases me, grabs my phone off the ground, hands it to me, and sprints away.