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KIM JONGIN

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It was the middle of the night- probably a little after eight o’ clock or something- and I was roaming the campus, searching for the auditorium that was supposed to be holding a very important meeting. Earlier today, after getting settled into my dorm, I’d decided to take a much needed nap. Then afterward, as I was going to the night cafeteria to try and grab a bite to eat, I’d received a text message about a "secret meeting" being held in the auditorium at eight-thirty. The message said the meeting was for all senior boys to discuss some "important matters".

I already knew what the meeting was for- it was for our senior prank, which the guys had informed me about earlier today. I'd said I would show up, but I'd forgotten that I didn't exactly know where the auditorium was, which resulted in me redundantly circling the main campus a few times. Luckily, it didn’t take me too long to find it because I'd eventually come across a huge white sign on the front of a door that read:

“Meeting For Senior Boys Only”

I shook my head, a little embarrassed by their stupidity. I mean, could they possibly be any more obvious? This was supposed to be a private meeting that only senior guys knew about. They didn’t actually think that putting up a sign in bold lettering was discreet, did they?

Fortunately, the area around the auditorium was pretty vacant at the moment, so I snatched the sign off the door and threw it in the trash bin before entering the auditorium.    

It was noisy inside, to say the least.

All of my fellow senior guys were conversing all at once, so I assumed the meeting had yet to start which was kind of strange considering I was technically late showing up. That’s when I noticed a few of my friends at the front of the auditorium; they were the ones who were supposed to be heading this little meeting, but from the looks of them right now, it looked like they were too busy fighting with one another. This little bickering group now included Lu Han, the one friend that I had missed seeing earlier because he didn’t arrive on campus until later than all of us.

Lu Han, I hadn’t seen him all summer since he went back to his home country after school ended last year. His parents were part of the angry group of parents that didn’t want the academies conjoined. Actually they tried to pull him out of the academy, but Lu Han wasn’t having that. Knowing him, he probably coaxed his parents into letting him attend the co-ed academy by using his undeniable charms on them.

See, Lu Han’s face was… extremely adorable, and he had these big doe eyes that whenever he batted his thick eyelashes at his parents or especially females- they were completely powerless. For the most part, Lu Han was a good guy, but he still had his rebellious moments too, mainly when he was around us or when Sehun provoked him… just like now.

I noticed Kris sitting in the front row, so I walked over to sit next to him. He looked up at me and nodded as I seated myself.

“What’s wrong with them?” I asked nodding my head up at our friends arguing with one another.

“I don’t know,” Kris said shaking his head. He was playing with something on his phone that seemed more entertaining to him than our friends fighting. “Lu Han and Sehun are disagreeing about something.”

I watched Lu Han at the front of the auditorium, fighting with Sehun over who knows what; Tao and Chanyeol were trying to pull them apart but it didn’t seem to be helping.

“I thought they’d sorted this stuff out already,” I said. “That’s why we’re supposed to be having the meeting right now.”

Kris shrugged. “Who knows? You know Lu Han always has a stick up his .”

I chuckled at what Kris’ comment. Truer words have never been spoken.

Well, technically, truer words have been spoken, but that didn’t change the fact that Lu Han was pretty complicated to deal with sometimes.

“Okay, can you all quiet down now?” Lu Han now asked, trying to quiet down the talkative boys in the auditorium, but it was so loud, nobody heard him to pay him any attention.

“You guys we’re ready to start the meeting,” Lu Han tried again, but to no avail, the auditorium remained noisy, so he tried again.

“Okay you guys seriously-”

“Hey! SHUT THE  UP!” Sehun’s voice suddenly roared through the auditorium, instantly silencing every mouth. I smiled while biting down on my lip in order to stifle my urge to laugh. Sehun put down the bull horn he was holding now that everyone’s attention was on him and the others up front. “The meeting is starting.  Lu Han, go ahead.”

“Right, what Sehun said,” Lu Han said before clearing his throat and continuing. “Before we officially dive into the discussion, I want to give any underclassmen that are currently hiding in the room the chance to leave unharmed. I know some of you freshman decided to sneak in to the meeting, so I’m giving you a chance to leave. There’s the door…”

As Lu Han pointed to the door, the room remained silent as everyone looked around, waiting to see if anybody would get up. Suddenly, a body rose from a chair, which was then followed by another as well as a few more boys.

Finally, there were six kids total standing in the auditorium. I noticed that one of kids was actually one the munchkins from this morning that I had had take me and Sehun’s luggage to our dorm earlier.

“Get out,” Sehun order, his tone low and menacing. “Now!”

With that, all six boys bowed apologizing as they quickly hurried out of the door.

“Anyway,” Lu Han started immediately after the door closed. “As you all know from the texts, we called this meeting to discuss prank week.”

“Yes!” I heard someone whisper behind me. “I’ve been waiting to do this since last year.” 

“Now, we’d already planned the pranks for prank week, however,” Lu Han stressed the last word while side-eyeing Sehun. “Sehun here has come to me with a different idea that I feel we all need to discuss.”

“Sehun?” Lu Han called him and Sehun stepped forward. “Explain to our fellow seniors this horrendous idea you’ve come up with.”

Sehun grimaced at Lu Han but nodded.

“Alright you guys,” Sehun started excitedly. “Since prank week was first invented, the seniors have always pranked the underclassmen- the main targets being the freshman. However, I say we do something different for prank week this year…” Sehun then paused for dramatic effect before finally saying, “Let’s prank the girls.”

The once silent room suddenly erupted into rowdy and overly excited chatting again as everybody started talking all at once.

“Okay, so you guys,” Lu Han said bringing back the attention to him. “I personally, do not agree with this idea, but Sehun thinks with this being the first year that our academy has both guys and girls that we should do this instead.”

“I think this will be more memorable,” Sehun said. “Plus, I think it’ll be more fun to prank the girls because they don’t know about prank week, so they won’t know that it’s coming and we can do virtually anything.”

Very true.

Back at our old all-boys academy, senior’s pranked all underclassmen, which included: juniors, sophomores and freshman, but the main targets were the freshman. Everybody wanted in on torturing the “fresh meat”. It was tradition and it was kind of like the senior’s cruel way of saying “welcome to the academy”.

Freshman generally heard horror stories about senior pranks and would do what they could to avoid them. This is why Lu Han had to address the hiding freshman that snuck into the auditorium before starting the meeting. Some underclassmen would be smart and come up with plans to avoid being pranked on, while others who were lucky enough to have a sibling that was a senior or had a senior they were close friends with, would have them to look out for them. Through my years as a student at our old academy, I’d seen some of my friends get pranked both brutally and some pranks a little less brutal.

But I never was. No one wanted to mess with the headmaster’s son or at least, if they did, they never went through with any pranks they wanted to pull on me.

Regardless, the point was that the underclassmen anticipated prank week because they knew it was coming; however, if we pranked the girls, who knew nothing about prank week, pranking them would be so much more satisfying.

“That is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life!” Lu Han insulted.

“I think we should let them decide,” Sehun challenged him, smirking while gesturing his hand towards all of us seated in the auditorium.

Lu Han then turned to us in the audience. “You guys do realize that if we prank the girls that we have to change our entire game plan including the actual pranks we’d already planned to do, right? The same pranks we were going to play on the guys won’t work on the girls.”

“Yeah, putting itching powder in the jockstraps would have to be crossed off the prank list,” Chanyeol suddenly joked causing the auditorium to erupt in laughter. Lu Han frowned and looked down to glare at Chanyeol who was seated on the edge of the stage with his feet dangling.

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to scratch that prank off the list Chanyeol,” said Sehun. “We probably won’t get the chance to prank the girls anyway because Lu Han is a .”

Lu Han’s head snapped in Sehun's direction. If looks could kill… 

Tao suddenly moved between the two in order to keep anything from really going down while Sehun put both his hands in the air as if to feign innocence under Lu Han’s threatening glare.

“Let’s just do a vote,” Lu Han’s voice was deadly low.

“Alrighty then!” a cheerful Chanyeol said, standing up. “All those in favor of pranking the girls instead this year, raise your hands.”

I looked around the auditorium to see how many guys actually raised their hands; over half of all the guy’s hands were raised.

Tilting his head back, Lu Han sighed aloud, frustrated. “You know what? Whatever! I swear, you guys really don't know women at all. But hey, if you really want to target the girls...”

“Well of course you're on the female’s side,” Sehun heckled, his eyes fixing on Lu Han. “After all what else could we expect from a like yourself.”

Lu Han’s big innocent-looking eyes narrowed to slits before hissing, “At least I actually get .”

Suddenly the auditorium was filled sniggering, and the guys were mocking Sehun with sayings like “burn!”

“Okay! We’re all friends here remember,” Tao finally stepped in between the two hot heads and wrapped his arms around both of their shoulders; he pulled all three of them together like they were the “three musketeers”. “Instead of fighting with each other, let’s direct all this energy toward pulling an awesome prank.”

At first, Lu Han and Sehun were glaring at each other on either side of Tao, but when Sehun suddenly started bursting out into fits of aegyo, Lu Han started to cave-in.

Sehun wasn’t the type to hold grudges, really; in any fight or disagreement, Sehun was usually the one to first initiate reconciliation. So it made sense that he was trying to get back on Lu Han’s good side.

“Come on Luhan,” he turned his deep voice into a high-pitched squeal. “You know I was just joking with you.”

Lu Han looked like he didn’t want to budge; like he was fighting the urge to laugh as he bit down on his bottom lip. However, once Sehun put both his fist to his face and did the ever popular “bbuing, bbuing” expression, Luhan was full on grinning, and I knew that Lu Han had already forgiven Sehun for his earlier comments.

I didn’t know what Sehun’s and Lu Han’s issue with each other was, not that they really had an issue, but they did often fight with one another. Seriously, sometimes it was like they were an old married couple. I think they actually liked it better when they were fighting more than when they were getting along.

“So are you two just going to make kissy faces at each other all night?” some guy asked that was behind me in the audience. “Or are we going to finally decide what pranks we’re going to do.”

“Wait, if we prank the girls, are we pranking all of the girls?” another of the guys asked. “Because my younger sister is going here as a freshman this year and I just can’t prank her.”

“Awe,” teased the guy who was sitting beside, whom I guessed was his friend. “Isn’t that sweet? He's looking out for his sister.”

“No,” Sehun now answered. “Pranking the entire female student body would be way too suspicious. We’re only targeting the senior girls.”

“Can we pull some real pranks on the girls?” asked another senior. “Or do we only get to pull safe, lame ones.”

“Well that depends,” said Lu Han. “What do you define as a real prank?”

The guy shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know… maybe something involving tear gas-”

Lu Han held his palm up, stopping the guy mid-sentence. “I’m going to have to stop you right there. See, our goal is to come up with a memorable, but safe, prank. Not come up with a prank so bad that we all get expelled within the first week of school. So we can’t tear gas the school.”

“Oh I have an idea,” said another, waving his hand in the air before continuing. “What if we, like, spike their drinks or something…”

Lu Han gasped in horror taking the guy’s idea the wrong way.

The guy’s eyes widened as he shook his head and tried to explain himself. “No, I didn’t mean spiking their drinks with anything illegal. I don’t want to hurt them. I just meant something funny like diuretics, or maybe even something vomit inducing, you know.”

“Oh that’s a good idea,” Sehun agreed. He then turned to Chanyeol. “Put that on the list.” Chanyeol nodded before scribbling something down on the clipboard he was holding.

“How can we pull something like that?” Tao asked. “We’d also have to make sure all the senior girls got a drink and that no one else drinks from the same cups.”

As the guys talked about possible ways to get all the senior girls in one place at the same time, I halfheartedly listened as I picked at some unidentifiable gunk that was under my thumbnail. My mind was busy thinking about the four senior girls my friends and I had met earlier today.

They were all very cute and entertaining, especially Minji, the lovely, short-haired girl. She was actually quite adorable, not that she was trying; she wasn’t as outspoken as her friends were, as she let them do most of the talking, but that only drew my eyes to her more as well as Kris’. What made her adorable was her reaction to Kris and I staring at her; she couldn’t stay still so she kept shifting uncomfortably, and then she would start to fidget- first with her hands, then with her hair, then with her clothes, plus, she kept giving us these weird side-glances and it was really funny.

It was like we were playing a game of “eye-tag” where she would look at me, but then I’d look away, then I’d look back at her, and she’d look at Kris, but then he would look away. Then Kris and I would both glance at one another, before double-teaming on her, and we’d both fix our gazes on her, and that’s when she’d start blushing like mad before looking away again.

And then she just had to go and ruin the moment once she started talking about being co-presidents with me. The concept didn’t sit well with me, at all. It sounded like we would be… betrothed or something. Not that I wouldn’t mind someone as appealing as she was, but just not right now.

I was bit skeptical, but when I thought about it later, I actually thought that I should’ve figured something like this would happen. I was going to have to talk to my father, the headmaster, about this and see if we could make some rearrangements. I didn’t mind her being my vice-president or secretary or something, but co-presidents? That didn’t even sound right. I’m not willing to share something like this.

Minji hadn’t said too much after explaining the whole co-presidents thing, but as we all talked about the events that were supposed to happen the first week of school, I did remember her saying something about a “welcoming assembly”.

That’s when I got an idea…

“What if we pull the prank on Monday’s assembly,” I suddenly spoke up, grabbing everyone in the room’s attentions. “All seniors have to attend, including the girls. I think it’s supposed to be a welcome theme with lots of games, food and more importantly…drinks.” I wiggled my eyebrows at the last part.

“Ah! Good idea Jongin,” Sehun praised me before turning to Chanyeol to get him to write more stuff down on the clipboard.

I waved my hand as if to say it was no big deal. "Just doing what I can to help out."

For the next twenty minutes or so, the guys just threw around prank ideas until the meeting was finally over. We couldn’t stay in there for too long because apparently the custodians came along to lock the doors at nine o’ clock.

After we stepped outside into the night air, Sehun and Lu Han had decided that all that arguing earlier had made them hungry. Chanyeol and Tao wanted to go eat too, especially after all the energy they exerted in trying to keep those two from ripping one another’s heads off. Kris said that if they were all going out to eat, that he wanted something that was off campus, and I didn’t even get the chance to eat earlier because of the “urgent” text message about the meeting.

Since we only had a two days left before school started which would unfortunately give us curfews during the school week, keeping us from being able to leave whatever hour we wanted, we decided we’d all enjoy our freedom and go off campus for dinner… and then probably hit the party scene afterward.

Before I let the nights events take me, I sent a message to my father about wanting to meet in the morning to discuss the whole issue about my little “co-president”.

Gong Minji. Her name as well as the image of her sweet face suddenly appeared at the frontal lobes of my mind. Minji, Minji, Minji.

I had a feeling that her name would stay there from now on.

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