Hyeri and Jia walked towards the boy, who was sitting all alone on a bench, quickly eating his lunch and looking around like he was a little bird lost in a dog pension. Jia was still doubting this decision, but Hyeri was already in front of the boy. He looked up, quite surprised.

‘Hi, I’m Hyeri, you’re the new boy, aren’t you?' She smiled brightly and slightly tilted her head as she asked him.

‘That’s a trick question, of course we know you’re the new boy, everybody knows.’ Jia laughed at the boy's face as she told him this.

Hyeri sighed, ‘stop it already!’ Then she turned back towards the boy, ‘this is my best friend, Jia!'

The boy shyly laughed, still embarrassed by what Jia had said, he put one hand behind his head to ruffle his hair.

‘Does everyone really know? Nice to meet you two, I’m Daehyun.’

He placed his lunch on his lap to shake their hands, first with Hyeri and then with Jia.

‘Ah, Jia and Hyeri, good to know you’re already bonding with the new boy!’

The headmaster walked up to them. Jia and Hyeri both bowed and almost simultaneously greeted the headmaster.

‘Are they being nice to you?’ the headmaster asked Daehyun.

‘Yeah, they’re very nice!’

The headmaster started to laugh, ‘as expected from them, although, expected from Hyeri.’

Jia laughed, ‘well, I can be nice, occasionally!’

The headmaster laughed again, ‘good, then I’ll take advantage of this moment of friendliness of yours, can you and Hyeri give Daehyun a tour around the school?’

‘I'm not sure if I'm THAT nice at the moment,’ Jia mumbled.

‘We will,’ Hyeri answered.

Jia looked at Hyeri, ‘will we?’

Hyeri laughed, ‘yes, we will!’

‘Great, that saves me some important time!’

The headmaster turned around and walked away.

Daehyun stood up and smiled brightly, ‘thank you so much, I can’t bear walking with that man for much longer, he finds himself way too funny.’

Jia and Hyeri started to laugh.

‘I know right, wow, you've only been at this school for one day and he already annoys you!’ Jia laughed even louder.

‘Let’s go and start the tour,’ Hyeri said, enthusiastically.

‘Do you really want one?’ Jia asked, just to be entirely sure.

‘Well, if it’s not too much to ask for, I mean, I’ll surely be able to find the way after some time.’

‘Don’t worry, we will help you. Stop whining, Jia!’

Hyeri walked inside the school, followed by Daehyun and a mocking Jia.

Hyeri and Jia showed Daehyun every single classroom and hallway, they even sneaked inside the janitor’s closet. The whole tour was a lot of fun actually, and a good reason to skip a few classes. Seeing how everyone was jealous at the three as they passed by filled classrooms made the tour even more fun.

Jia found that it was okay to be way too late for class when you were helping out your headmaster, so when they had passed by every class, they went outside again. They decided to get off the school court and walk to the closest cafeteria to finish their lunch and order an ice cream, to show Hyeri and Jia his gratefulness, Daehyun would pay. He felt that they had deserved one.

‘So tell me, Daehyun, where did you say you lived before?’ Hyeri asked, politely.

‘I lived in Busan, but now I live over here, with my uncle.’

‘Why did you decide to leave Busan for this? Busan is awesome! There’s nothing to do in this village,’ Jia complained.

‘There were… Some things went wrong over there, I don’t really like to talk about it.’

Jia laughed, ‘oh, you were some sort of bad boy?’

Daehyun’s cheeks turned red, he started to stammer, ‘no, eh, it’s not like that, it’s in the past, I don’t want to talk about it anymore…’

‘Aw, pleeeease!’

Hyeri lightly punched Jia against her arm, ‘stop it, you make him feel embarrassed! If he doesn’t want to talk about it, it’s fine.’

Daehyun thankfully looked at Hyeri, Hyeri smiled back.

‘So, how about your lessons? Do we go to any classes together?’ she asked.

‘Oh, I have lessons in stuff like biology, physics, chemistry.’

‘That’s a pity, Jia and I both follow language and culture classes, history, economics.’ Hyeri pouted, ‘is there nothing else you follow, something one of us might follow as well?’

‘Oh, since this year, I follow music classes too, I thought it was time for something different.’

Hyeri jumped up, ‘I follow music classes as well!’

Daehyun looked at Jia, ‘what about you?’

‘Nope, music classes are the only classes Hyeri and I don’t have in common. At that time, I follow dance classes. So, you can sit next to Hyeri during those lessons, if you haven’t found any friends yet, I suppose.’

‘Can I?’ Daehyun’s eyes sparkled.

Hyeri gave him a bright smile, ‘of course you can!’

‘Thank you, you guys make the whole being-new-here thing a whole lot easier!’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Hyeri chuckled at the cheerful face of Daehyun. She then searched for the watch on her wrist, ‘guys, I think it’s about time to go back to school. If we don’t show up anymore, we will probably get in trouble.’

Jia grabbed her backpack, ‘yes, miss Perfect Student.’ She then turned towards Daehyun, ‘I swear, I have no idea how we got her so far to come all the way over here with us in the first place.’

Daehyun chuckled.

Today was Friday. The day that Hyeri had her only lesson without Jia, music. Normally, she would go and sit next to Yonghwa. He was always sitting alone, so one time, Hyeri thought it was a good idea to sit next to him. This way, they both seemed a little less lonely. They barely talked though, they have had a few conversations, but they were all awkward. Hyeri still had hope that one day, their conversations would be a bit better and therefore sat next to him every Friday. Now that she had been sitting next to him for some time, Hyeri started to really like Yonghwa. He was handsome and very talented. She loved to listen to him playing the guitar or piano. He sometimes sang along as well, he was such a good singer. It was not a punishment to sit next to Yonghwa, not at all. This time however, she had promised to sit next to Daehyun. She hoped he was as good in playing instruments as Yonghwa, but she doubted it.

She walked into the class but stopped once she had entered it. Daehyun was indeed in this class, but he wasn’t sitting alone. Next to him was Lee Hongki. Normally, he would sit together with Song Seunghyun, but they had been fighting over a girl all week. Hyeri’s place next to Yonghwa was still available. Hongki probably expected Hyeri to sit over there and thought it was rude to take her place, since Hongki was not on bad terms with Yonghwa and would most likely sit next to him rather than next to Daehyun. Hyeri sighed.

► She decided to sit down next to Yonghwa quickly.

► She decided to look in Daehyun’s direction, as she tried to make eye contact.