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GONG MINJI

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Closing my eyes, I tried practicing my breathing exercises in an attempt to calm my nerves, but after five minutes had passed and my leg was still violently shaking, I realized breathing wasn’t going to help. It seemed nothing could calm the sporadic drum solo currently beating in my chest unless someone were to come along and sock me unconscious. I hadn’t been this anxious since the first time I ran for president back in tenth grade. 

At the end of every school year, my academy held its presidential elections for the next school year. I’d always wanted to be student body president ever since I was accepted into my prestigious all-girls academy back in ninth grade; however, I’d been too timid and shy to actually run. That changed my sophomore year: I had become older, wiser, and much more confident. Confident enough to run for president for junior year, and as a result, I won. In fact, I’d done so well as president last year, I ended up reelected as senior president for this year as well. 

Being elected president last year made me realize just how much power I had to make change in the academy. I liked being able to make change and even more I liked being able to implement my own rules and have people follow them. Now I wasn’t power hungry, but if you’d ever been in the position of authority, then you would probably understand what I’m talking about. 

It was just a shame that I was going to have to share that power this year with some boy I’d never met before. 

“Ooooh look!” I heard Dara’s high-pitched voice exclaim. Dara was one of my closest friends as well as my appointed secretary. I could trust her most out of anybody and her quirky nature was an extra plus. “It looks like more boys have arrived!” 

Crap! If it was possible, my leg shook faster and more violently than before.

“Jinjja?” I heard another familiar female's voice exclaim. While my eyes were still closed, I heard some fumbling and then felt a breeze rush by me like someone was running full-force. “How many more are on campus now?”

I knew that was Bom- my partner in crime; my feisty brunette friend who had my back no matter what. She was my appointed treasurer. 

“Oh, they’re still in the buses,” I heard her sigh. The room was silent for a moment until Bom released a frustrated groan.

“I really don’t see why we’re waiting around inside, when the hot guys are outside," Bom complained. "Can’t we just go sit under a few of the trees and watch the guys walk by? We don’t even have to talk to them, we can just watch!” 

*Crickets*

No one in the room responded causing Bom to let out another groan, this time sounding more frustrated. “Come on ladies! I’ve been waiting since all of last year for this. I need my testosterone fix NOW!” 

Oh Bom. I mentally rolled my eyes as I heard giggling from the behind me.  

“Our headmaster was right about them being rich,” a much mellower, calm voice spoke in awe. “These are some of the nicest charter buses I‘ve ever seen.”

Now that was Chaerin, my right hand woman in everything. She was smart, strong and very much a “no BS” type of person; she was the perfect choice for vice-president.   

“My gosh, how many buses are there?” Dara asked, stunned. “I’ve counted like four buses pull in already.” 

“That’s because a lot more boys attended Busan Academy compared to the number of girls in our academy," Bom explained. "The population at the boy’s school was like three times bigger than ours. But I’m not complaining about our school having more boys.” Bom then quickly changed the subject as she gawked from the window, "Damn! Busan High guys are fine!" 

I raised a brow at this, still not bothering to open my eyes or turn around to get a look at these boys invading my “territory”. 

“How can you possibly tell whether the guys are good looking or not?” I questioned. “They’re all the way across campus and you're staring at them from a window.”

“First off, I didn't say they were just good looking, I said they were fine," she replied immediately, placing extra emphasis on the word "fine". Bom was the most boy crazy one out of our little group, so she would be the most excited of us to see them. She continued, "And trust me, I know fine when I see it."  

“If they look this good from afar, imagine what they look like up close?” Dara wondered out loud. 

“And these are just the regular students," Chaerin added.  "Imagine how good looking their senior president must be."   

“Minji-ah should know,” Bom said, her tone of voice taunting. Even with my eyes closed, I knew she was grinning at me. “Minji, have you spoken to the boy’s school president yet?”

I wanted to guffaw at her question, but unfortunately, I was still too shaken up to do so and instead, shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

Oh, how I wished I could be like Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz” where I could just click my heals three times, open my eyes, and see everything go back to normal. But I knew that wouldn't be happening; it was already way too late...

And no, I hadn’t spoken to the boy's president because I hadn't met him yet. I really didn’t even like acknowledging the fact he existed, especially since I found out I was going to have to share my presidency with him. When we both finally do meet, I'll be as polite as possible and only converse with him when absolutely necessary.   

I never answered back, causing Bom to scoff and mumble, “I’ll take that as a no.” 

“Do you at least know what his name is, Minji-ah?” Dara asked me. 

Kim Jong In. My mind answered immediately.

“Kim Jongin,” Chaerin answered instead. “I haven’t seen him, but Minji told me his name.” 

“Ah! So you have seen him!” Bom’s resolution caused all three girls’ eyes to focus on me for a few awkwardly silent minutes. I still had my eyes closed, but I could practically feel their eyes on me as they silently for waited for my reply. 

They still didn’t get one, and so they just returned back to gossiping about the new boys on campus. 

No, I hadn’t spoken to him yet, either; as I said before, my plan was to pretend like he didn't exist. Of course that wouldn’t make him go away, but it would have to do for now.

I had seen him once though, but it was from a photo. Being the President allowed me access to student files and before the school year started I decided to catch a glimpse of what I’d be up against. Although I hate to admit it, if he was even half as good looking in person as he was in his Presidential photo, then I was going to have a really tough year. 

“Hey Minji-ah,” Chaerin called. “Shouldn’t you be out there greeting them? I mean, as President aren’t you supposed to welcome them to the school and everything? Especially so that they know who you are since you‘ll be co-president with this Kim Jongin.”

My ears didn't fail to notice the change in the tone of her voice when she said his name all flirtatiously. 

That's it, I said in my head, annoyed by my friends’ constant murmurings. Enough with all the teasing.

The moment my eyes popped open, I immediately stood up from my desk chair and made my way to the door.

Clearly the girls weren’t going to stop talking about the new male students, so I might as well hop on board, and stop playing like I’m uninterested. After all, who was I trying to kid?

After four years of spending my school years with only girls, I was just as anxious to see the guys as much as any other girl in the academy was. On top of that, I was going to have to get used to the guys anyway. I couldn’t just shut my eyes and wish them away (although I had tried multiple times). Now that the boys were here, I was pretty sure that from here on out, I was never going to get any kind of refuge anywhere on campus. 

Chaerin was right though; I should’ve been out there introducing myself as well as introducing the boys to the academy. But for a moment, I was being like the stubborn teenager I still was deep inside, and was avoiding my Presidential duties. Technically, the school year didn’t actually start until Monday, (it was still Friday) so I didn’t actually have any responsible Presidential duties until next week. Still, getting an up and close look at our new school mates wouldn’t be harmful right? 

By the time I was out the door, my three friends were already in stride with me as we paced down the academy halls. 

* * *

If you haven’t figured it out by now, my name is Gong Minji, the senior president of Maecheon Academy, a prestigious all-girls boarding school. Or at least, it was an all-girls school called Maecheon Academy. But as of this new school year, it’s a co-ed school renamed Cheonan Academy. 

About a year and a half ago, there were rumors floating around the school that the headmasters were in discussion of combining our academy with another to make one school. At first I thought it would just be another all-girl school that would just join ours’ or vice versa. It was no secret that our school was running off of a low budget, or at least, a low budget for a prestigious school. And after some bad business investments, some of the richest parents that contributed the most to our academy were forced to back out on funding, including the parents of “yours truly”. 

Maechon Academy had only been around for about a decade, in comparison to our brother academy, Busan Academy. That was the all-boys school which was about 10 miles away from our campus. It was during the middle of last year’s school year that our headmasters told us about the boys joining our school once the New Year started. Apparently, Busan Academy was three times as populated as ours, and was, therefore, three times as rich as well, which made sense because the boy’s academy had been around 20 years longer than our's. Combining the schools would allow us to be funded by the same people that funded the boy's school, and our headmasters thought it'd be better to have a co-ed school rather than to have to shut down the girls’ school all together.  

Changes would be made to our school over the summer to better accommodate the guys like putting urinals in the now boy’s dormitory, or expanding our field to better equip for sports like football. Oh and on top of that, I would be forced to share my senior year class presidency with the boy’s class president. 

“This’ll be for the best for both the girls and the boys,” the headmistress, Mrs. Jung, had told me. “You know how rowdy boys can be and having a president they’re familiar with will calm them down a little. In order for this transition to a co-ed school to go well, the presidents from both schools will have to do well to get along. The students will be looking up to you two and how well you work with one another. If you two aren’t getting along, the students will know and they’re surely will be tension between the two.”

She kept feeding me all this crap about being a “good leader” while telling me how important it was for me to get along with the this guy I’d never met and how their school was helping us out by conjoining the schools in order to keep the school open for the girls. She kept trying to persuade me to just “get along” with everybody. But I wasn’t stupid, I knew what she was really trying to convey. 

Basically, “get along with Kim Jong In” meant, “just go along with everything he says”. 

By joining our schools, I guess they were practically doing us the biggest favor, because without their money, the girls’ school would probably be closed down; and so basically, we "owed" them for bothering to help keep our school open. That's probably why Mrs. Jung wanted me to get along with the boy's president so much.

The headmasters of both schools wanted the conjoining of the two schools to go over as smoothly as possible. This is the first time they have ever done something like this, so this whole situation was also like a test dummy plan to see if it actually works out. If the new co-ed academy seemed to not be working out, they would probably just split us apart again, send the boys back to their old campus and it would only be a matter of time before the girls school closed down. 

Now, I come in peace and I’m all for “getting along”. But still, I worked hard throughout my junior year as president, and planned to do just as well, if not better, as the senior president, but if my headmaster thought that meant that I was going to play “lapdog” to whomever this Kim Jongin is, she was terribly mistaken.

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