The wind howled as students arrived through the gates. Friends greeted each other with a hug or a playful punch while the seniors stood tall and proud, confidence born of experience. It took a couple of minutes before everyone skittered off inside to go to their homeroom. Most of the students had their own friendship circles and were clumped in groups wherever they went, but then there were the others; the quiet people who didn’t talk – Yoon Hyunjung was one of those people.

All Hyunjung heard when she entered her homeroom was the monotone buzz of voices humming like an orchestra of deadbeat droids. It was the same every school morning. She sat down in her usual seat and got some of her books and stationery out so that she could revise. She didn’t need to revise, but what else was she supposed to do for the remaining fifteen minutes before classes would begin? She didn’t have anyone to talk to anyway, except Eunsook, but they didn’t consider each other friends and she didn’t talk much either.

“Hey, Hyunjung?”

She looked up and was surprised at who was stood in front of her desk. There, with his hands in his pockets and blazer off, and the long sleeves of his school shirt loosely rolled up to his forearms was Jeon Jungkook – the pride of the class, he excelled in practically every sport the school did and was friendly with anyone he talked to. She had many encounters with Jeon Jungkook – not particularly good encounters (she accidentally tripped him up last year consequently spraining his ankle) – but there he was, in the flesh. And she couldn’t believe it.

“Do you mind lending me a pen?” he asked with a smile. “Bringing one kind of slipped my mind this morning.”

Hyunjung nodded and slipped her hand in her pencil case, then handing him a black biro.

“Thanks! I’ll give it back at the end of class,” he said, and went back to his own desk which was the one in front of hers and resumed his conversation with Jimin.

She sighed and brought her head back down to her class notes. She never really had a prolonging conversation with anyone other than her family before. Although they were merely her classmates, she couldn’t help but feel a little lonely every time she saw people in her class avidly talking to each other before classes started, and she was kind of just, well, there. Perhaps it was because everyone stayed in their friendship circles they formed in middle school, but Hyunjung just moved to Seoul when she began her first year of high school, and when she arrived they all looked perfectly happy as they were.

Their homeroom teacher Mr Jung entered the room, sheer authority silencing the class. And following closely behind him was a face Hyunjung didn’t recognise.

“This is our new student who’ll be joining us today. Would you like to introduce yourself?”

Hyunjung found him odd. It was possibly something to do with his expression; his mouth was almost a straight line and his eyes were like stone. The new face stood at the front of the classroom and bowed politely. “My name is Kim Taehyung.”

The class waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. Mr Jung cleared his throat. “Thank you, Taehyung. You can sit at that desk between Hoseok and Hyunjung.”

Hyunjung’s eyes followed him as he walked to his allocated desk without a word, and gave his seatmates a nod before he sat down. She risked a further ten seconds to study his face. What she found odd was the way it seemed his expression was forever stuck with that neutral mien.

*  *  *

Hyunjung noticed how Taehyung went straight out of the classroom to go to his lesson. It seemed that he didn't intend to make friends on his first day and was clearly avoiding extra attention on himself. Jimin also noticed Taehyung's hasty exit and nudged Jungkook. “What's with him?”

Jungkook shrugged, putting his bag on his back. “Who knows?”

Packing her things away, Hyunjung looked around to see if Jungkook was around. “He still hasn't given me back my pen yet.”

She walked out of the room and caught a glimpse of Jungkook along with his other friends going to their next class, laughing at some joke Jimin had said. As she was about to turn a corner in the hallway, Jungkook ran over to her. “Hyunjung!”

She halted her steps and spun round to face him.

He searched in his pocket. “Hyunjung sorry, here's your pen. Thanks for lending it to me.”

“Anytime,” she replied, looking down at her shoes. Grinning, he patted her head then returned back to his friends, “See ya round, Hyunjung!”

She watched his retreating figure and continued walking to her chemistry class, her smile just barely repressible.

Someone talked to her.

*  *  *

At the end of the day, she saw Taehyung again walking out of the school gates. Their eyes met each other’s briefly, before they looked away and went their separate ways home.

Arriving home, she slipped off her school shoes and smelling something cooking, she peered into the kitchen.

"Hello Hyunjung," her uncle said. "How was school?"

She went into the kitchen and sat at the table. “The usual, nothing too exciting. But there's a new student that came today, if that counts as something interesting. He’s good at chemistry.”

Her uncle smiled at her. "Did you talk to him at all?" he asked her. She looked at him and frowned. "Well, we passed each other in the hallway, a few times..."

"And?"

"Urm, well... no. We didn't actually talk to each other," she murmured.

Her uncle sighed. "You know, for someone who moves away from her parents to Seoul, it would be nice if you found someone else that you could have a conversation with and rely on, it would make me worry less about you."

She fiddled with her hands. "I'm sorry, it's just difficult approaching people."

Her uncle placed the food plates on the table and sat across from her. "It's okay, you can find friends whenever you want to, I'm just saying, your parents keep pestering me about it when I first told them you had trouble communicating with new people."

She chuckled, replying, "Don't worry uncle, I'll try make an effort to make friends, for you and for my parents, eventually."

"Then I have nothing to worry about."