My first thought while walking into school on Monday was “dear Jesus, I have P.E. today.” And then I proceeded to pout whilst I dug through my locker.

I had ended up getting to school later than normal even though I had gone to sleep way earlier than usual for me. It could’ve been the mental exhaustion from my weekend activities.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up when Luhan’s voice resonated through the hallway.

“Baekhyun, my love, how are you?” he sang.

So much for ignoring the person who had been standing behind me for the past ten minutes without saying a word. Baekhyun had been on his phone the whole time I had been standing around, dillydallying in my locker. I figured myself lucky because the rest of the goons hadn’t been there when I had first arrived, but it seemed that instead of them heading to class early, they were dillydallying too. Maybe they were also exhausted from the weekend.

As they proceeded into a conversation, I slammed my locker and hurried out of there. Judging by his indifference towards me, Luhan had no knowledge of me being in his house the past two days. That was perfectly fine with me and I planned on leaving it that way.

Despite my exciting weekend, classes were as usual and the shape of my chin was indented in my arm from lazing over my desk for most of them. But no matter how boring they proved to be, it was not a pleasant moment when the bell rang through the hallways and we were dismissed to our next class. A class labeled P.E. It was a common thought to consider asking for a nurse’s slip, but I didn’t want a nosy school nurse griping at me and asking who’d beaten me. Telling her I was ganged up on by Kim Taeyeon and then run over by her boyfriend was absolutely out of the question.

To avoid the same outturn, I lingered in the girls’ locker room until everyone went to the gym. My muscles felt really tight as I changed, but I was managing to reduce the soreness by taking painkillers around the clock. Every seven hours. I felt like a drug addict, but it was worth it every time I realized they were wearing off and my muscles were protesting my movements. My wrist had been completely forgotten about amongst the other injuries. If it weren’t for the small bruise that I noticed during science class, I wouldn’t have even remembered it.

“Choi, what’s taking so long?” Coach bellowed at me when I finally made it inside the gym.

I bowed apologetically before running over to the group of girls. I almost cried when I realized we were about to play basketball. Lord, please have mercy on my soul.

“Kim Taeyeon, Jung Soojung, pick your teams!” Coach blew his whistle and went to sit in his lawn chair. I and several other girls glared in his direction before looking towards the cheerleaders who were now scruntinizing everyone.

“Choi Eunhui,” Taeyeon called immediately.

From the sniggers going through the group of girls, I must’ve looked like a deer caught in headlights when I realized my name had been called.

“W-what?” I asked.

Taeyeon smirked and gestured me forward. “You heard me. You’re on my team.” She placed her hands on her hips.

Glancing at the other girls, like they would give any help towards my situation, I inched forward and stood behind Taeyeon while Soojung picked a team member. After both teams were complete, the coach bellowed for us begin the game. I began to wonder if that man was hard of hearing or just really had a shouting problem. I knew I was about to become deaf if he hollered in my ear one more time.

“Oof!”

Fifteen minutes into the game, one of the girls from the other team insisted on a pass – a pass I was conveniently in the way of. The ball landed right in my gut and I almost toppled over.

“Sorry,” the girl said halfheartedly before stalking off. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Taeyeon giving her a thumbs up.

I huffed and glared, but quickly righted my expression when Coach eyed me while blowing his whistle. Needless to say, I was ready to shove that whistle up his nose by the time gym class was over. And I very well might have if I hadn’t been sprawled on the floor, tearing up from the stinging pain surging through my body.

“Have a nice lunch, ladies,” Coach bid everyone goodbye. “Choi, get off the floor!”

I groaned and rolled over. “Yes, Coach,” I mumbled, sitting on my knees as I mentally reminded myself to take some painkillers as soon as I got back to my locker, where my bag currently sat.

Hurrying out of there before Coach decided to blow his darn whistle again, I limped into the locker room, almost getting sprayed in the face with Hollister perfume. I narrowly avoided it as I slinked around the girl I remembered as a cheerleader. She continued reapplying her lip stain, not even realizing she almost blinded me.

Knowing I could possibly get some sketchy looks if I popped open a bottle of pills out of nowhere, I sat down on the bench and waited for them all to clear out. Sadly, it took them all a while. Most of them showered and had to fix their hair and makeup before leaving, while a select few just threw their clothes back on and ran for the canteen like they were starving to death. I was quite hungry too, but my lunch was in my bag with my water bottle and pills and I wasn’t eating in the locker room. Then again, it was a safe place to avoid Oh Sehun and the others. But it was a quiet place for Kim Taeyeon to corner me.

Finally, the last girl scampered out of the room, her high pitched voice following after her and her friends. I grabbed my towel and went to the showers, switching on the hot water. I hadn’t gotten very sweaty, but hot water felt good on my muscles and I had time to kill before my next class.

Within only a few minutes, I was already back in the locker room and dried off, feeling much better from the hot water. I slipped on my skirt back on, this time putting on shorts underneath, a habit which I had adapted to after having my underwear shown a majority of the student body twice. Bending over to just pull my skirt up caused a painful sting and I immediately went for my pills when I stood, throwing my uniform shirt over my shoulder in a hurry to find the pills.

Finally seeing the bottle at the botto