A medium-sized group of students mixed with both boys and girls were bunched up in the classroom, and Hongbin confidently marched over to them. 

"Hey," he said casually, sitting in one of the desks next to them. Some girls giggled while others rolled their eyes.

"Bye dork," a female student said as she left the area into a far corner seat. She seemed to be a popular one, because most of the others followed her path away.

"I guess girls aren't really fond of you," the last boy said with a sorry smile that transformed into a teasing smirk the longer Hongbin interpreted it. He left the poor boy as well, leaving a sad Hongbin sitting alone, staring down at his feet.

Man, getting girls is hard. Scratch that, getting guy friends is hard, too...

Hongbin fiddled around with his fingers and waited for class to start. The room was gloomy, but he could have sworn that when a certain person walked in, her smile illuminated the dullness in a mere second.

Minah, with one strap of her backpack slung on her shoulder, puffed up her cheeks while checking the room number to make sure that she was in the right classroom.

Maybe if you smile or something, people wouldn't hate you as much.

With that stupid thought in mind, Minah walked in smiling softly, but without showing her teeth. She watched in awe as all the boys' heads went up and they all smiled back, even waving their hands to greet her.

What? Did it... actually work--

"Loser, get out of the way, you're blocking the view of my princess!" a boy called out from his seat. Minah spun around to see her fellow classmate, Taeyeon, smiling and walking gracefully.

Oh.

She shouldn't have been surprised.

Taeyeon passed Minah the moment she scooted over to the side to clear the path, leaving her strawberry aroma lingering near the spot.

She even smells good, Minah thought, God, what does she not have?

Minah composed herself again and silently made her way to a random seat that had nobody near it, slightly embarrased to think that she had believed for a second that the boys were smiling and waving at her. Nobody liked her. Had she forgotten that sad fact already; so soon?
 

"Hi Taeyeon," each of the students greeted as the princess made her way to her seat. She smiled at them and greeted them all back.

Taeyeon passed Hongbin, but way too quickly to notice that he, too, had his hand up to try and greet her. Seeing that it was too late, Hongbin quickly pulled his hand back down and let out an awkward cough, hoping that nobody had noticed his sad attempt of saying hi.

Then, the five most popular boys in the school: Jaehwan, Sanghyuk, Hakyeon, Wonshik, and Taekwoon-- walked in cheerfully, brightening up the room even more. Well, to Minah they were. To Hongbin, the sight of them just made him pissed off.

Because as they walked in, he noticed how Taeyeon shyly put her hair behind her ear and smiled at them subtly, her eyes glistening. Actually, as Hongbin looked around, he noticed every girl was acting in the same way when the boys walked in.

Except for one.

For some reason, the girl sitting alone in the back wasn't staring at the boys in awe like all the other girls were. She was minding her own business, looking into her backpack as if she was trying to find something. Hongbin was amazed, not only because the girl didn't care about the oh-so-popular boys , but also because he didn't have a single clue to who that lonely girl in the back was at all.

"Princess!" Wonshik called out with a smile as he noticed a girl near the back of the room, taking out her books from her backpack silently. He made his way over to her, and the boys-- as confused as they were-- followed right behind him.

Taeyeon, who assumed that the boys were coming her way when she heard "princess", looked down at her pretty nails with a hidden smile as the boys started to walk in her direction. When