of all the one thousand people in school, why did it have to be her?

Minseok didn’t pay attention as usual during class, so maybe some of it is her fault.
If she had, she would have noticed the teacher showing the class the new kid, telling him to introduce himself. And if she had, she might have looked up and realized that it was the same boy she had helped earlier.
But Kim Minseok doesn’t need to pay attention in class and doesn’t.
So when lunch comes and she’s sitting down at her table, waiting for Yixing (he tends to get forgetful sometimes), she’s completely surprised when someone sits down in front of her.
It’s the boy she helped.
She blinks at him, wondering what he is doing there, and why there are suddenly a million people crowding around her table. Minseok shrinks a little bit, frightened by the mass of loudness around her normally quiet corner.
Luhan smiles widely at Minseok, as if not noticing the pressing crowd. “Hello, Minxi!” He says in Chinese, pronouncing her name with an accent.
“Uh...” Minseok says intelligently. Her most recently made sandwich sat, forgotten, in front of her.
“I hope it’s okay if I sit here. I’m not very good at Korean, so I thought maybe I should sit with you, since it’s easier to talk with you!” He beams at his own brilliance and fingers his check.
“Sure,” Minseok says, because she doesn’t know what else to say and the crowd is getting awfully loud.
Then some strange people sit down at her table, and she tries to keep herself from freaking out.
“Hey, Luhan! Why don’t you come sit with us?”
“You seem like the sporty type, come join us.”
“Luhan! What classes do you have next?”
“I could give you a tour, if you like!”
“Ni hao,” a girl randomly adds in extremely bad Chinese.
Luhan looks a bit uncomfortable, nodding and smiling and trying to pretend he understands, so Minseok feels bad for him.
“Do you want to go somewhere else to eat?” Minseok asks in Chinese, and Luhan looks relieved to hear something that he actually understands.
“That would be great!” He says, and Minseok stands up, picking up her lunch and pushing her way out of the crowd.
On the way out, they bump into Yixing, and Minseok turns him around with a gentle touch on the shoulder. Yixing follows without question and Minseok leads them out onto the grounds.
It’s a fairly cold day so there aren’t many people outside, which Minseok is really thankful for. She heaves a sigh and drops onto a bench. Yixing sits on her right and Luhan sits on her left.
Luhan breaks the silence. “Is this your friend?” He asks in Chinese, looking at Minseok, but Yixing is the one who answers.
“You’re Chinese?” He says bluntly, and Minseok pauses to stare at Yixing, because she’s never heard him speak anything but Korean and she thinks that his Korean doesn’t really have an accent so how could his Chinese be so flawless as well?
“You’re Chinese!?” Luhan gapes, but quickly recovers. “So nice to meet you! I’m Luhan, I’m a transfer student from China, please take care of me!”
“I’m Zhang Yixing,” Yixing says, and Minseok has never seen him more excited. (She also notes that she’s never known Yixing’s last name until today.)
“What part of China are you from?” Luhan asks, and Minseok leans back because Luhan is way too close.
“Changsha. I moved here during middle school,” Yixing replies.
“I’m from Beijing,” Luhan says. “Wow, I never thought that I would meet Chinese people in Korea! It’s really lucky that I chose this school.”
“You mean a Chinese person?” Yixing laughs.
This is also the first time Minseok has heard Yixing laugh.
“I’m going to get back to class,” Minseok states with her usual grumble and gets up, pushing past Luhan’s face.
The Chinese conversation resumes behind her and Minseok squashes down the sense of loss in her because, really, she’d never had anything to begin with.

Zhang Yixing was an angel plucked out of heaven and plunked down in a foreign school with unfamiliar classmates and a high debt on his family.
He was excused from purchasing a school uniform because of financial reasons. For this, he was teased.
He took extra lessons in Korean to keep up with the language. For this, he was shunned.
He talked with an accent that almost nobody could understand. For this, he was alone.
Alone, until one day he approached.
Kim Jongin.
At that time not yet bad boy Jongin. Not yet sporty Jongin. Not yet Jongin who cared nothing about grades and only cared about sports and drugs and girls.
Nerd boy Kim Jongin.
He listened to Yixing. Deciphered Yixing’s words sharpened by the Chinese tongue. Talked slowly so the latter could understand him.
During that time, some days, Yixing didn’t regret moving at all.
But it all ended, just like any cliche movie or book. On the first day of high school, Yixing was met with a blank gaze instead of one that spoke understanding and patience. He was met with dyed hair, ripped clothes, and even black eyeliner.
That day, Yixing met the bad boy, Kai.
At first, Yixing mourned Jongin. It’s not like the people changed when he had Jongin; back then and now, they were the same. Unsympathetic. Uncaring. Unseeing.
Yixing stopped caring after a while. Life was just something he had to get through; it was his test from God, and he was willing to bear with it if it meant he could return to heaven. But staying too long in reality made Yixing’s heart weak, and some days he just couldn’t stop the tears.
Yixing didn’t know what he was crying for anymore.
Enjoying life was long expired. Yearning for friendship was long expired. Wanting material things and wishing for family was long expired.
Yixing’s expiration date had come and passed, but he was still alive, like a spectator in his own life.

Jongin’s world was substantial, like a cloud.
If he put his hand in there and waved it around, everything would disappear, scatter, disperse as if it had never been there in the first place.
The drugs helped. It thickened the cloud, made it last for longer than a few seconds. When he was high, Jongin could dance through the clouds and nothing would happen.
Dance. Something he and Yixing used to do.
A small patch of Jongin’s protection lifts away and Jongin panics, fumbling for another needle and quickly injecting himself. Through the resulting fog, he hears a voice say, “Wow, someone’s eager today.” And although Jongin doesn’t recognize the voice, he laughs and mumbles something he himself can’t even discern.
Thinking about those days scar Jongin. They effortlessly tear holes in the web he had so carefully woven, so Jongin stopped thinking at all. Because anything that involved the rational part of his brain at all would lead him back on that path.
That path had ended at a broken bridge. And before Jongin could try to find other ways on, other ways across, he took the easier way and turned around.
It was too easy to turn back to that devastating cliff, so Jongin didn’t.
The balance in Jongin’s life is delicate.
Like a morning mist waiting to be scorched away by the sun.

The first thought Minseok had was, Luhan joined cross country.
Her second thought was, he’s good at running.
Her third thought was, just like Yixing.
Her fourth thought banished all preceding thoughts.
Then another thought swam into her head, pushing against the stubborn current.
Why does he already know so many people?
Minseok wouldn’t care if it had been a few weeks ago. But now she has someone she actually cares about. And to her, if feels like Yixing is already slipping away.
This is why you can’t get attached to people, Minseok scolds herself. You feel it when they’re gone.
And she sort of half smiles because she’s been following that so well, she doesn’t even know her own father.
“You smiled!” A loud voice interrupts her thoughts.
Minseok looks up, squinting into the sunlight. She’s immediately blinded by a row of white teeth.
And then she sighs. It’s the tall person. Chanyeol.
“You know, I noticed that you don’t smile a lot,” Chanyeol continues. “So I was really happy when you did!” He claps his hands, and Minseok wants to facepalm because he sounds ridiculous.
(Minseok tells herself she hates the attention)
“Let’s run together today,” Chanyeol says excitedly.
“Are we grouping up again?” Minseok asks.
“Nope! I just want to run with you. I like your pace,” Chanyeol says, smiling at Minseok, and Minseok wonders if he is making fun of her because she is the slowest in the team and there’s no way Chanyeol can keep her pace because she always stares at the backs of snails.
Well, maybe that was an exaggeration, but Minseok knows Chanyeol is Jongin’s friend, and Jongin is the embodiment of strength.
“Aren’t you going to run with Jongin?” Minseok wonders. Chanyeol loses his smile and his face scrunches up like he’s eating something sour.
“Uh... not today,” Chanyeol says quickly. Minseok doesn’t ask because Chanyeol is an open book and she can tell that they probably had a fight.
One of those small fights that seem like their world and their friendship is ending but will be forgotten in a couple of days.
“Whatever,” she says, and when the coach yells at them to start, she sets off at an easy pace towards the trail leading into the woods.
Minseok runs along slower than normal, hoping Chanyeol will get annoyed and go back to his friends. But no, the slow pace only made it possible for the taller to talk his head off and run at the same time.
“Hey, look! Those leaves are such beautiful colors! Do you know why leaves change colors? We learned it in science before. It’s because... actually, I don’t remember. I forget everything we learned after we take the tests! It’s not like it matters anyway.”
“Oh! Look at that squirrel! He’s taking nuts to his nest in the trees! He’s so fast and chubby and fluffy and I really like him!”
At this point, Minseok just hopes Chanyeol trips and falls or something because her ears are really getting a beating.
Her wish is somewhat granted as Chanyeol starts breathing heavily instead of chattering like a chipmunk.
It’s surprising that Chanyeol is so different from Jongin. Jongin, the dark skinned, dark eyed boy who was suspected of being involved in gangs, compared to Chanyeol, a bright, cheerful kid who would even talk to someone like Minseok.
“Do you want to know why I’m not running with Jongin?” Chanyeol says after a long silence. Minseok skirts around a rock in her path and stays silent. Chanyeol takes that as a cue to keep talking. He sighs. “He’s really hurting himself. I can’t pretend not to know any more.”
Chanyeol suddenly stops and Minseok, surprised, stops too. He leans over, hands on his knees, sweat dripping down his for once solemn face.
“He changed so much.” Chanyeol looks up, and suddenly he’s desperate. “I don’t know why he changed. He... he isolated everybody. I’m still his friend only because I bothered him until he let me stay. I thought he would be fine after a while, but it’s getting worse.”
Minseok has no idea what Chanyeol is talking about, and she could care even less, but the look in Chanyeol’s eyes makes her refrain from turning around and leaving him behind.
“i want to help him, but he’s not the only one in this world! He ignores his old friends... like Yixing... I didn’t know Yixing that well but I know he used to be Jongin’s friend.”
Minseok’s eyes widen at Yixing’s name, and her heart clenches.
“Yixing?” Minseok murmurs. Yixing was Jongin’s friend?
Chanyeol nods, eyes widening.
Minseok forces herself not to care. “This doesn’t concern me,” she says quietly, turning around so she doesn’t have to look at Chanyeol and feel guilty. “There’s nothing I can do about it, and there’s nothing I will do about it. I don’t know Jongin.”
And then she runs off with her insides squirming with guilt, scolding herself once again.
It’s no use getting attached. You’ll only hurt when they get torn away from you.
And somehow she’s not surprised when Chanyeol doesn’t immediately catch up to her, because even the giant is human and has feelings.
And he’s finally found out what it was like knowing Minseok. So he probably won’t talk to her again.

Luhan really doesn’t know what to do with his life.
Of course, his parents can’t know that. They trust him; they use precious money to buy him expensive clothes. They let him dye his hair. They agreed to move when Luhan said that studying in Korea would be better.
To them, Luhan is their money, their stars, their sun, and their world.
To Luhan, they are servants who would do anything for him.
Sometimes, Luhan wonders how far he can push them. His parents probably don’t sleep at all, working day and night to pay for the school tuition and anything else Luhan might need.
And sometimes Luhan wonders what he is doing. He wonders what kind of son he is, who uses his parents and doesn’t even have a goal in life.
Too bad. Luhan was never one who looked too far into the future.
Only now mattered. And now meant looking rich, looking handsome, and having everyone like him. Which means concealing his parents and his true life.
So far, so good.

Doing a music choice is something that looks good on college applications. So Minseok does choir.
Choir is simple. It doesn’t require buying an instrument. You show up and open your mouth and pretend to sing along.
Unless you’re one of those people that take it seriously and put your heart into every note that comes out of your mouth. Like Byun Baekhyun and his friends.
Minseok steers clear of Baekhyun. She’s seen him blow up at a student just because the student sang the wrong pitch. Minseok gravitates around the loud girl singers so she can pretend that, yes, she’s definitely singing right.
She’s heard of the placing auditions, and she dreads them.
Last year, she had managed not to audition because she was really, really sick and had to stay home. And Minseok only stays home on school days if she’s about to die, so it was serious. When she came back, she had told them that she was an alto, and nothing was questioned.
Minseok really hopes that it’s not for a grade, but she can’t be sure. So she actually sings a couple times in choir, copying the way her neighbors’ mouths open and close.
And Minseok decides that the only reason she’s doing choir is for the college application, because she’s sure she cannot sing and she is literally going to die when she has to sing in front of Byun Baekhyun.
Who, by the way, is like the president of the choir and conducts all the various activities.

Frostbitten201