The girls trampled through the small apartment, hurriedly trying to get ready for school. Like usual, Hara had turned off the alarm in her sleep making them late. Pulling on her sneakers Sohee shoved the laces into the shoes, not sparing the time to tie them. She grabbed a container of yogurt and rushed out the door with her twin following sleepily behind.

            Hara might not care about school or her grades but Sohee definitely did. The two got onto the train that took them to school and fell into the open seats. Hara immediately went back to sleep on Sohee’s shoulder while she spooned yogurt into .

            The train screeched to a halt at the next stop; Sohee yanked Hara out of her seat and pushed her out of the train. Grumbling to herself she followed her sister barely making it out of the doors. The doors closed on the loose lace of her sneaker easily pulling the shoe from her foot.

            “God dammit!” She cursed watching it disappear down the tracks; if there was some being living under the subway tracks it had probably accumulated at least two dozen of half of her shoes.

            Hara slumped over one of the benches, still in a post-sleep daze, “you could-you could go after it.”

            “Shut up, you idiot,” Sohee puffed her cheeks out and pulled off her other shoe, throwing it into the tracks. Sohee stomped in her socked feet out of the subway terminal to school. Hara blinked lazily and paced after Sohee; she couldn’t fall asleep in the subway station again, she’d get ticketed.

            The halls of the school were already empty, save the few students like themselves still trickling into class. Sohee waved goodbye to Hara, who’d finally woken up, and slipped into her class.

            “Late, again,” the teacher continued to write on the white board without turning towards the door, “Sohee, I assume?”

            “Sorry teacher,” Sohee bowed and shuffled to her seat.

            “Shoeless again, too?”

            Sohee grumbled and pulled out her binder. The classroom door opened again and an unfamiliar peeked in.

            “Woops, not my classroom,” he laughed and closed the door, Sohee rolled her eyes. Not ten minutes later the door opened again, the same guy on the other side.

            “Sorry,” he apologized, “I was right the first time.”

            The teacher pinched his brow, “I can only handle so many airheaded students. Are you the transfer?”

            “Yup.”

            “Fine, take a seat somewhere,” the teacher sighed, “no, don’t sit in the first row, it’s empty for a reason.”

            The new student shrugged and found his way to the only other empty seat, next to Sohee. That one was empty for a reason, too.

            “Why is the front row empty?” He leaned in to Sohee. She backed away slightly, “he says he has to deal with kids enough as it is so he’d prefer if we were farther away.”

            “Sorry,” he leaned in closer, “what did you say, couldn’t quite hear you.”

            Yelping Sohee scooted away further successfully falling out of her chair with a loud thump. The boy looked at her for a moment before laughing heartily. The teacher sighed and clicked his tongue, “Sohee, try to avoid hurting yourself for ten minutes.”

            Sohee pouted and scuttled back into her chair, nursing her sure-to-be-bruised elbow she glared at the new kid. The boy pushed his light brown locks back over his forehead and simply grinned at her anger.

            “Alright class,” the teacher let out a long drawn out sigh, “this is our new student. Kim Heechul. Be nice to him.”

            The class murmured quietly and let the teacher start the lesson. While Sohee studiously took notes, her new seat partner doodled in his notebook. Every few seconds he would exhale loudly to blow a piece of hair from his face, Sohee gritted her teeth and continued to glare at him.

            “Would you stop,” she prodded him in the side, “I am trying to learn.”

            Heechul glanced sideways at her and set down his pencil, “stop what?”

            She let out an indignant shriek and turned away from him, school was going to get that much more unbearable.

            Sohee padded through the halls in her bare feet looking for Hara. Her sister was chatting with a few of her friends. Unlike herself, Hara, didn’t let their “curse” hold her back. She enjoyed her life far more than Sohee did.

            “Did you call mom?”

            Hara scratched her nose, “yeah, she said she’ll drop you some shoes on her way to work.”

            “Oh, alright,” Sohee grumbled and moved away from Hara. She found a secluded part of the cafeteria and set up her books, she intended to maintain her 4.0 grade point average. The scraping metal of a chair being pulled away from the table made her jolt upright.

            “Ugh, not you,” she winced.

            “Hello,” Heechul grinned, “you like to study?”

            She felt absoultly drained when he was around her, “no, I don’t like to study.”

            “Why do you, then?”

            “Scholarships are my only possibility for going to college,” she glanced away from her textbook, “are you planning on going to college?”

            He snickered, “I’m not too sure.”

            “You don’t have any goals…”

            “No,” Heechul raised his brow, “that’s a bad thing, huh?”

            “Yes,” she responded, not sure why she was still indulging him with conversation, “you should find something.”

            Heechul watched Sohee study, “I suppose.”

            “Hm,” Sohee pulled her lips tight, pushing out her full cheeks as she scanned her textbook. Heechul rested his chin on his hand and stared at Sohee; his hair started falling in his face again making him start up his repetitive blowing.

            Groaning Sohee slammed her pen down on the table and looked at him, “you don’t even know that you’re doing it, do you?”

            Heechul cocked his head, “doing what?”

            “Now, I know you’re not that oblivious. You keep blowing your hair out of your face.”

            “Oh, yeah. I kind of forget about that.”

            Sohee puckered her lips; reaching back she untied her hair and stepped around the table to Heechul. Grabbing a handful of his brown hair she quickly tied the ribbon and sat back down.

            “There,” she said triumphantly, “now I can study in peace.”

            Heechul patted his hair, now in a ponytail, “hm, not bad.”

            Sohee took a good look at him; he had a stupid grin on his face that she hadn’t seen disappear since she met him, that coupled with the bright green ribbon in his hair made him look ridiculous. She snorted and clasped her hands over .

            “What?”

            “Nothing,” she stifled her laughter, “you just look funny.”

            Heechul grinned, “but you laughed.”

            Sohee narrowed her eyes, for a split second she’d forgotten why she didn’t laugh more often. Clicking her tongue against the roof of she turned away from Heechul, she’d only cause pain for him. She didn’t need friends, right? She had Hara, and its not like she can give her worse luck.

            “Why are you even talking to me?”

            He shrugged, “cause I can.”

             “Surely you’ve heard what people say about me.”

            “What?” he teased, “are you a total of something?”

            Sohee was taken back, “no. Nothing like that.”

            “Then, no.”

            “Well,” Sohee pressed her fingertips together, “I have abnormally horrible luck and it tends to rub off on others.”

            Heechul shrugged, “are you sure it’s not just your imagination.”

            She laughed internally at his simplicity, she couldn’t very well explain why it wasn’t a figment of her imagination, “did you not notice I’m barefoot, the teacher harbors obvious distain towards me and I’ve fallen out of my chair, just today. In the past few hours.”

            “Could be worse.”

            “It usually is,” Sohee scribbled an equation down, “I expect you will come to school tomorrow with a bruise, broken bone, soaking wet, missing a piece of clothing. Something along those lines.”

            “Wow, that fast acting?” He tapped his chin, pondering it for a moment, “well,  I’ll have to see for myself.”

            “Great,” Sohee huffed, “the one person that doesn’t mind bad luck has to be abnormally obnoxious.”

            Heechul pretended to be upset, “hey now, that hurts my feelings.”

            “Uh-huh,” Sohee waved her hand at him as she packed up her things; the bell had just rang directing them back to class.

 

~~

 

            Sohee yawned and pulled herself from her bed, the alarm was blaring and driving her nuts. Somehow Hara was sleeping through it. She turned it off and jumped onto her sisters bed.

            “Hara Hara,” she bounced on the mattress, “time to get up.”

            “Ngh, go away.”

            Sohee flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and stuck her tongue out at her. Pulling on a striped jumper she hopped into the kitchen where her mother was cooking.

            “Your wings are showing,” Sohee pinched at her mother’s translucent gold-tinted wings.

            “No need to hide them at home, my dear,” she turned over the eggs, “I haven’t seen yours in such a long time either.”

            Sohee wiggled, “it’s hard to switch back and forth so freely.”

            “That’s why you practice.”

            “Kay,” Sohee took a deep breath and focused her energy on the muscles in her back. It’d been such a long time since she had pulled them out, the longer the time in between the more difficult and painful. She in a deep breath and stretched her back, pulling her shoulders apart and rotating them. Sohee felt a sharp, painful pinch that slowly grew into searing hot stabbing.

            Whimpering she breathed out long and slow, her wings growing and extending with the same rhythm. Her mother’s wings, her wings, and her sister’s wings were all different. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was the diversification for faries.

            Her mother’s wings had three different winglets on each side, the length drawn out to a tattered point. Hara’s wings were a mix of a dragonfly and a butterfly. While Sohee’s wings were like a butterfly’s. Their wings were all translucent, taking up no space they could easily pass through objects.

            “Such pretty wings,” her mother smiled, “you ready for school?”

            “For once, yeah,” Sohee grimaced as she suppressed her wings, “I’m going to go ahead. Hara is still not up.”

            Her mother sighed and stomped back to the bedroom while Sohee slipped out of the apartment. Hara could be so stubborn when it came to sleep. She sat on the subway waiting for it to reach her destination.

            The train stopped and Sohee rocked carefully by the door, cautious of the shoe-eating trap. She hopped over the gap as the doors started to close, but for once the failsafe kicked in and let her pass safely. She let out a sigh of relief and headed to school, shoes intact for the first time in a while.

           

            When Heechul finally came into class he looked absolutely disheveled; his hair was sticking every which way with leaves poking out, a splotch of wet mud was stuck to his face but he was still smiling like an idiot.

            “What happened to you?”

            “Well, I suppose you were right,” he scooted into his chair, “a cyclist frightened me and I fell into a ditch.”

            Sohee picked one of the leaves from his hair, “told you.”

            “Yeah,” Heechul pulled his sleeve over his hand and wiped his face, “but we’re still talking aren’t we.”

            Sohee scowled and flicked the dead leaf at him, “dunno why. Are you a masochist?”

            “No,” he laughed, “but you’re far more interesting than you let on, and I’m willing to fall in ditches for that.”

            She blushed and turned back to the front of the class, “y-you’re an idiot.”

            “I’ve been told that.”

            Sohee tried her best to ignore him for the rest of the day, but come lunchtime she found her study space interrupted again. The brunette lay on the table with his arms crossed under his head.

            “You have good grades?”

            “Yes,” Sohee sighed, “why?”

            “Hm,” Heechul turned his head, “I was thinking about what you said yesterday. Maybe I should start trying.”

            “That’d be good.”

            Heechul nodded, “so I figured you could help.”

            “What now?” Sohee dropped her pencil.

            “Who better to learn from than the top of the class?”

            She groaned and shoved her head into her hands, “this is not what I had in mind.”

            “Sooo,” Heechul grinned wide, “now that you’re my tutor can I come over today?”

            “Since when am I your tutor?”

            “Uh, about thirty seconds ago.”

            She glowered at him, “no, you may not come over.”

            “You can invite me or I’ll just follow you home.”

            “You are so pushy.”

            Heechul continued to grin, “I’ve heard that, too.”

 

~~

 

            Sohee stood, scrunched up beside Heechul, on the subway train back to her apartment. Normally this ride was uncomfortable, but today was even worse. It wasn’t just the crowding that bothered her; it was that she was squished up beside Heechul with the jolting train car.

            A particularly startling bump sent Sohee flying into Heechul’s chest. With a short yelp and wince she pulled herself away from him, “sorry about that.”

            She glanced at him and noticed his face was red, “are you ok?”

            “Uh, just hot. You know, too many people.”

            “I agree,” Sohee huffed as she pushed her way out of the train and into the terminal with Heechul following.

            “It’s only a short walk to my apartment,” She trouped up the steps, “it’s small so, be nice.”

            Heechul took the stairs two at a time behind her, “sure. Why would I be rude?”

            She shrugged, “some people have no manners.”

            They walked in relative silence to the apartment complex and into the apartment. Sohee kicked off her shoes and motioned for Heechul to do the same. She walked into the living room where her mother was curled up on the couch.

            “Hey mom,” Sohee sighed, “someone from school came over. Is that ok?”

            She barely had time to recognize the shimmering, translucent wings before Heechul came into the room.