*

GONG MINJI

*

My friends and I situated ourselves underneath one of the largest trees on campus- the senior tree. The tree provided a great deal of shade and was one of the most popular hangout spots for seniors on campus, and although there were already a few others hanging around the tree, there weren’t too many people around to distract us or block our view of the guys walking by.

I grabbed a magazine out of my boho bag and propped myself up against the tree.

Yes, we’d come outside to scope out the boys entering the campus, but we couldn't all sit there gaping at the guys, or else we'd look too obvious. I thought that out of the four of us, at least one of us had to try and look a little less suspicious.

“Seriously Minji?” Bom scoffed. “We come out here to see hot guys and you’re choosing to read a magazine instead.” She announced the word “magazine” like it was some sort of disease or something.

“Yep,” I answered matter-of-factly, my focus staying on my magazine.

“Well I’m going to be looking for my future boyfriend,” she replied. “Have fun with your magazine.”

With pleasure.

I flipped open a page and listened while my friends chatted beside me. I occasionally nodded my head to anything they said, but I was more interested in circling the clothes that I wanted to add to my wardrobe. Not that having a stylish wardrobe really mattered; once school started, we wore uniforms Monday through Friday anyway, but on weekends we could where whatever.

“Oh look! How about them,” Bom said cheerfully. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her using her index finger to point at whoever had caught her eye, but I didn't bother to look up to see who. “They’re cute, aren’t they?”

“Bom their tenth graders,” Chaerin deadpanned. I snorted at this.

“Gosh Bommie,” I teased, flipping a page in the magazine. “You can’t be that desperate, can you?”

“Shut up and read your magazine!” Bom shot back, before turning her attention back on the boys. “How can you even tell that their tenth graders?”

“Their dorm cards around their necks are gray,” Chaerin answered. “All sophomores are to wear gray this year.”

“How do you know that?”

I cringed at Bom’s lack of knowledge about the school despite her being a senior here. “Didn’t you read the student handbook we received over the summer?”

“What student handbook?” Bom asked, eyebrow arched high. I narrowed my eyes at Bom.

I really do love her, and after knowing her for the last four years, I learned that she really is a smart girl, but to others who didn‘t, they thought she was all about boys and makeup.

“Over the summer you should’ve received a newsletter in the mail about the new school,” I explained. “It also came with the student handbook that included everything you needed to know about how this school year is going to run. I know you got one or else you wouldn‘t have received the key-card to your dorm.”

“Oh! Is that what that thick packet was?” Bom asked, densely, causing me to roll my eyes. “I just took the card and left anything that had to be read for my parents. That‘s their job anyway.”

I couldn’t exactly argue with that; I guess it was sort of the parent's job to be invested in the school and know what was going on too.

“I guess I’ll just have to scope for other boys without the gray card then,” Bom reasoned. “Wait, what colors is each grade representing this year?”

 “The freshman wear powder blue, the sophomores are gray, juniors are navy blue and seniors wear black,” Chaerin answered, confidently. Unlike Bom who generally had very little interest in student affairs, Chaerin was always up-to-date about anything and everything going on in the academy. She and Bom were opposites in that way; or, in fact, I guess you could say they were complete opposites.

While Chaerin was generally calm, cool but calculated, Bom was more high-strung, adventurous, and unpredictable. Chaerin always thought first before she spoke, while Bom had no mouth-filter at all. If Chaerin wasn't so chill, or was more temperamental, I could easily see her and Bom constantly getting into arguments, but luckily, everyone's personalities perfectly balanced out one another’s so we didn't have the "girl drama" that most girls did.

"So, black cards are for seniors only, huh?" Bom rhetorically asked, as she reverted back to scanning the boys going about their business on campus. 

I grabbed at the black card hanging around my neck that symbolized my seniority in the academy; this card basically told anybody younger than me, that I was someone they didn’t want to mess with. In boarding schools, ranking was always a big deal because the higher the grade you were in, not only did you get more freedom, but you were more respected as well. Seniors expected to be respected and did everything they could to reinforce this belief on the underclassmen.

But it wasn’t just the seniors, juniors did it to the ranks under them as well and the sophomores did it too. The seniors were the highest rank which made us “superior” to everybody while juniors were second in rank; Sophomores were third in rank and Freshman were dead last. In fact, I felt bad for the ninth-graders sometimes because no one cut them much slack. 

Usually you could tell the difference between the students and what grade they belonged to based on the color of their uniform or the color of their ID card; however, since it was still the first day back and everybody was just getting settled in, nobody had their uniforms on so it made it harder to tell each other apart. Plus, picture day wasn’t until next week so we didn’t get our id cards until later. Still, we had our dorm cards to tell one another apart.  

Dorms and Housing this year would be colored the same as our uniforms and id cards. For example, because the ninth graders color was powder blue, freshman housing was the light blue building, while senior housing was the black building because our color is black. Each building or “house” separated the boys and girls: there was a boy's wing and a girl's wing. I was really curious to see how this was all going to play out this year.

“It’s still to hard to tell grades apart though because not everybody is even wearing their dorm cards,” Bom whined. “Maybe I can just-OH! You guys, don’t make it obvious, but look to your left and you’ll see a few really hot guys headed in our direction.”

“Really where?” Dara chirped and all at once, each of our heads instantly turned in the direction Bom said to look.

“Aish!” Bom yelled frustrated. “You three do not know how to play it cool. I told you guys not to make it obvious. Now they know that we’re looking at them!”

I stared at the boys she'd pointed out and surely enough, they seemed to be headed right our way. I couldn’t imagine what they could possibly want. We didn’t know any of the boys here at all and that probably wouldn’t change until the night of the first “Welcome” assembly that wouldn’t happen until the first day of school.

Within just the next couple of seconds, we were being greeted by five tall boys who were bowing as they approached us. I just stared on with one eyebrow raised waiting for one of them to speak.

“Hello ladies!" one of the tall boys cheerfully said. He then looked around at his friends like he was waiting for someone else to say something, but no one came forward. He then turned back to us and laughed awkwardly. "Um, do you ladies mind if we sit here underneath the tree as well?”

I stared at them without changing my blank expression. Why are they asking if they can sit in a public area? It’s not like we owned the tree and this space or anything. I wondered what they would've said if I told them "no".

I shrugged. “It’s a free country.”

The sound of one of his friends suddenly snorting right afterward, diverted my attention to him.

Now looking at him, I found myself frowning at the boy, not because I was repulsed by him or anything, but because I noticed that he oddly resembled the photo I’d seen of the boy‘s senior class president.

 I couldn’t be entirely sure that it was him because I’d never actually seen their president in person before. I guess I could’ve asked, but I didn’t want to suffer the embarrassment of calling him by a name that might not have been his.

Still, I was pretty sure this boy could’ve very well been the boy from the photo; he looked just like him. Either this boy was the Kim Jongin I’d been told about from my headmaster or he had a long lost twin running around that he didn't know about.

His skin was of the same copper color complexion as the boy in the photo; it was smooth and unblemished but was deeply tanned. He had the same shiny dark chocolate hair that could almost be mistaken for black depending on the lighting. He also had similar facial features: same pair of opaque irises, same proportionate long nose, and the same plump lips that held the same smirk as the boy from the photo.

By the time I finished assessing his appearance I figured that this boy had to be the same Kim Jongin from the photo. They looked too much alike not to be. I wondered if their president knew what I looked like or if he even knew my name. I didn’t think he did because if this guy was in fact my fated co-president, he showed absolutely no signs of recognizing me.

Then on second thought, he could’ve recognized me because he and his taller friend that he was currently leaning against were both giving me side glances. They weren’t trying to be obvious about it, but they were failing because every time I looked in their direction one of them would quickly look away in another direction. I found it a little weird and it made me wonder if these guys really just wanted a place to sit, or if they had hidden agenda.

The guys went ahead and settled themselves underneath the tree as well, sitting directly in front of me and the girls. Although there was plenty of space to sit (as this was a rather large tree that supplied a lot of shade) they sat rather close to us considering we were still "strangers" to each other.  I was actually afraid that with them sitting so close that it was going to get really awkward between us.

But then I forgot, why worry about awkward moments when we have the ever flirtatious Bom, to break the ice.

“Hi boys, I’m Park Bom,” she introduced herself. She smiled sweetly at them, but then seemed to remember that I and the other girls were still there. “Oh! And these ladies here are my friends. That’s Chaerin, that’s Dara, and that’s Minji.” She pointed to each of us as she told them our names.

I narrowed my eyes at her. She was probably already setting up in her mind which boy she thought would look good with each of us. Bom was forever in “shipper” mode.

“Cool names,” complimented the same boy who’d asked us if they could sit by us. “I’m Chanyeol.”

“I’m Sehun,” the white-blond haired boy sitting next to Chanyeol introduced himself.

“And I’m Tao,” introduced the boy beside Sehun with deep, dark eyes, and dark rings underneath them.

“Tao?” Chaerin repeated to which Tao nodded. “That doesn’t sound like a Korean name.”

“That’s because I’m Chinese,” he explained. “I’m an exchange student.”

“Oh cool, I’ve always wanted to do foreign exchange,” Dara marveled, looking genuinely interested. “So, are you boys seniors?” she continued, giving them her mega-watt smile that usually reeled the boys in.

They all nodded in unison.

“Oh cool, us too!” Dara added this time, flicking some of her blonde hair behind her ear. She smiled sweetly and I could tell that she was just as hypnotized by the good looks of the boys in front of us.

“Well we can all speak comfortably then,” said Chanyeol, finishing his sentence with a cheery smile. It was a smile too genuine for me to believe he and his friends had any plans to do something to us. Still I didn’t want his innocent face to fool me.

Up close his face was pretty cute in that young boyish way, but he was still handsome; totally Dara's type when it came to looks. He had short-cut black hair that’d been styled upward on top of his head to perfection; it contrasted his with white skin, but his hair couldn’t hide the size of his ears. They protruded out like a sore thumb. Still, they were kind of charming in their own way.

“So have you guys checked out your dorms yet?” Chaerin asked this time.

“Oh yeah, me and Kris checked out our dorm earlier,” Chanyeol said, pointing over to the stone-cold faced boy sitting directly in front me. He was the same guy that was side glancing me earlier along with the Kim Jongin look-alike. “Tao already scoped his dorm too, but his dorm mate still isn’t here yet.”

“His name is Luhan. He’s another good buddy of ours,” Tao informed us, brushing back a few of the strands of jet black hair that fell into his dark eyes. “He’s Chinese, and a foreign exchange student as well. You guys will probably see him later.”

Studying Tao, I was rather impressed by his physical features. Really all five of these boys were really handsome, and I figured it must have been because of something in the water over at Busan Academy.

“The dorms look way better than our old dorms,” Tao continued. “Our old dorms were pretty cramped.”

“That’s only because we used to have to fit four to five dudes to a room,” Sehun said, rather monotonously. “I’m so glad we only have to share two to a room now.”

“Four to five boys in one room?” Bom repeated, a little too excitedly causing each boy’s eyes to land on her. Her cheeks tinted red now that everyone's attention was on her and she smiled sheepishly before speaking in a lower tone. “That . It must have been… messy."

“Thankfully they put a lot of money into making accommodations to the dorms over the summer,” Chaerin said, steering the direction of the conversation.

“Oh yeah, my father was one of the ones who invested quite a bit of money into renovating the school,” the look-alike finally spoke for the first time.

Dara gaped at him. “Wow! Your family must be like ridiculously rich." 

He smirked. “Well, when you’re the headmaster’s son…”

This made me look up from the magazine. Did he just say what I think he said?

“You’re the headmaster’s son?” Bom said, enamored at the news. “Oh wow! Jackpot! We get to be friends with the headmaster‘s son.”

He and his friends started to laugh at this, but I wasn’t all that amused. Mainly because this look-alike seemed rather smug and it certainly didn’t help that Bom his ego by making it sound like it was an honor for us to be speaking with him.

“I’m sorry, what was your name again?” I asked, as the laughter died down.

“Oh that’s right, we didn’t introduce ourselves formally did we?” said the look-alike looking over at his friend.

“Well, I’m Kim Jongin,” he introduced. “While this good-looking fella’ is my dear friend, Kris.” He patted his friend’s shoulder; however, I noticed when he said Kris‘s name, his eyes landed directly on me like he was trying to convey something to me that he wanted me to pick up on. Like there was a double meaning to his words.

Kris looked at me and the right corner of his lips turned upward, slightly smirking at me. I bit my lip looking back and forth between Kris and Jongin wondering what they were hinting at. They‘d been giving me the eye since they walked up to us, furthering my suspicions that they were up to something.

I sat there recalling each of the boys names in my head, so it took me a second to realize what the look-alike had said his name was. But Chaerin seemed to notice it before I did.

“Hold on,” she interrupted. She pointed at him and spoke slowly to emphasize each word. "You're  Kim Jongin?”

His eyes widened like he was unsure as to why she said his name like that. All the girls had their eyes on him all bug-eyed and mouths open. Quite frankly, I did too even though I’d already suspected he was Jongin earlier.

“Yes, I’m Kim Jongin.” He nodded as another smirk graced his lips. He chuckled, seeming amused by our surprised expressions. “I take it the four of you already know who I am?”

“You’re the guy that’s going to be co-president this year with our Minji!” Dara chirped.

“Wow, so this is what you look like,” Chaerin mused.

“He really is handsome, huh Minji?” Bom asked me in front of everyone; teasing me. I snapped my head in her direction and if looks could kill I would've zapped her into oblivion. I wanted to chuck something at her.

“What do you mean co-president?” Chanyeol asked, frowning. “Jongin is the senior president.”

I arched an eyebrow. It was then that I noticed that all five boys were looking at me like I had a third eye in the middle of my face or something.

“Err… no,” I said awkwardly. “This year there will be two senior class presidents.” I held up two fingers for emphasis.

But this didn't register with the guys as they now stared at me like I’d suddenly grown a second head. I looked at the girls who seemed shocked as I was that they didn’t know there were two presidents for this year. They tried to help me explain.

“The headmaster’s decided it would be better to have two class presidents this year,” Chaerin informed. “They thought having both a male and female president would be the only fair way to represent the new co-ed academy.”

“Yeah and during last year’s presidency Minji was voted by the girls as the female senior president,” Dara added.

Apparently, none of this news was registering to the guys. With the way they were looking at us, we might as well have been speaking Swahili or something.

“Seriously, didn’t any of you guys receive the student handbook over the summer?” I asked, finally at a loss of hope that they were ever going to understand what we were talking about. “It had all the info about how this school year is going to run.”

“What student handbook?” asked Sehun, completely dumbfounded.

My hands raised and slapped back down on my thighs as I released a frustrated sigh.

Was I really the only one in the entire school who bothered to read the school handbook?

“See that’s what I said!” Bom said. “I’m not the only one who didn’t read the damned handbook.”

I rolled my eyes. No wonder why everybody was so clueless as to what was happening this year.

“Huh, so two presidents this year,” Chanyeol said, looking up at the sky like he was considering the possibilities. “Interesting.”

“Well it most certainly is news to me,” said Jongin, staring directly at me, as he looked deep in thought. I stared back at him, not shying away from his rather intrusive gaze.

Well maybe if you had read the handbook… I thought snarkily. Seeing as he was supposed to be the co-president, I expected him to at least know something like this. He should really be more interested in the school considering he’s supposed to help run it this year. I wanted to say this aloud but I’m pretty sure that would get me off to a bad start with him and that was not what I wanted.

My headmaster’s lecture about getting along with Kim Jongin came back to me and I sighed.

* * *