'Well, that's definitely different.'

Unconsciously sighing to himself, he dug his hands deep into his pockets and walked towards the intimidating buildings lined up in front of him.

Hearing the revving of engines roaring to life, he looked to the source of the noise, only to find an impressive line of luxury sports cars with students lined up beside them. Shaking his head, he made his way towards the main entrance of the school where clusters of students were gathered together, excitedly talking about which country they went to or which celebrity's party they had attended over vacation. 

Again he found himself shaking his head, turning up the volume of his music to drown out the obnoxious conversations happening all around him. Walking into the entrance, he located the main office with no problems and obtained his class timetable and locker number from the receptionist.

Following the map he'd been given, he walked down the hall to where the lockers were located and found the one assigned to him. 114. Using the combination he had been given, he opened his locker and proceeded to put his books and sports bag in, oblivious to his surroundings.

Hearing a rather loud group, even through the music of his headphones, he turned from his locker to find ten boys sitting on a table quite far away in the middle of the courtyard, talking animatedly about their vacations. He took notice of their letterman jackets and the basketballs that they held in their hands, an arrogant air surrounding them. 

'So those are my new teammates huh?' Shrugging to himself, he turned back to his locker to get the books he'd need for his first couple of classes.

"Ooff," he heard from beside him as a body crashed into the lockers, causing them to vibrate slightly.

"You should really watch where you're going Irene. You might seriously hurt yourself one of these days," he heard the sickeningly sweet voice of a girl, dripping with sarcasm.

Shutting his locker, he turned to see the backs of three girls walking down the hall, as well as a small girl on the ground, her books scattered all around her. Silently, he bent down and picked up a few stray books and stacked them in a neat pile, all the while aware that the girl had been staring at him intently through her tears. Picking up the pile of books, he placed them in the open locker beside his own, assuming it was hers.

All the while, the small girl was still on the ground staring up at him, wondering why this strange person was helping her. No one had ever done that for her before.

Before she could say anything, he had already begun walking away, head bowed down as he looked intently at the map in his hands. Quickly picking herself up and straightening her now wrinkled and dirty uniform, she gathered her books for first period, trying her best to ignore the snickering and not so subtle comments directed towards her.

Walking into first period math, she methodically made her way to her desk, eyes directed at the ground. Again, she tried to ignore the mean comments made towards her, but she would be lying to herself if she said that each and every word didn't hurt.

"Ahh!" she let out an involuntary scream as she tripped over someone's foot, her books scattering all over the floor. A chorus of laughs and jeers were heard as the other students laughed at her misfortune.

"Wow, you're so clumsy Irene," one of the girls from earlier sarcastically remarked, causing more laughter to erupt from the other students.

Looking up with tears in her eyes, her glasses no longer on her face, she blindly reached around for them, patting the space around her in the hopes she could locate them. She was startled momentarily as she felt a gentle grip on her wrist, her glasses being placed into her hand. Quickly wiping the tears that were b in her eyes, she put her glasses on, the blurry figure kneeling in front of her now identified as the same boy that helped her earlier by her locker. She watched as he again neatly stacked her books, putting them calmly on the only free table in the classroom, coincidentally the one beside his own.

He sat back in his chair, ignoring the looks he was receiving from the other students, and pulled his headphones over his ears again, blocking out their murmurings.

Irene quickly got to her feet and sent a slight bow towards her mysterious saviour, before sitting down in her assigned seat, staring down at her books and trying to process everything that had happened.

All of the teasing, name calling and bullying was a regular occurrence for her. She had grown used to it as it had been happening for most of her schooling life. She knew why the other students picked on her though. Unlike them, she wasn't born with a silver spoon in . She had to work hard and study diligently to be accepted into this school, whilst other students were accepted because of the wealth of their families.

"Alright, alright. Settle down. Settle down. I know you're all restless coming back from vacation, but the new school year has started so we need to buckle down and study hard, okay?" Mrs. Kwon said as she walked into the room, looking down at the note left on the desk for her. "Hm... It says here that we have a new student in this class? Where are you?" she asked as she scanned the room.

At the back of the classroom, an arm raised in the air. "Oh, there you are. Why don't you stand up and introduce yourself?" she instructed. 

Standing up from his seat, he looked around the class as the other students turned in their seats to observe him. "Hello. I'm Song Mino," he said before sitting back down.

"Um... Why don't you tell us a little more about yourself Mr. Song? After all, it is incredibly rare for Seoul Academy to accept transfer students, particularly senior students," Mrs. Kwon persuaded. 

"I got in because Coach Lee offered me a scholarship," he said, eyeing the teacher. Glancing around the room, he noticed more and more students whispering about him, wondering how he had managed to score himself a basketball scholarship. 

"Well... welcome to Seoul Academy. I look forward to seeing how you perform on the basketball court," Mrs. Kwon said. "Now, let's start today's lesson, shall we?" she called out as she turned her back and began writing equations on the board. 

Tuning her out, Mino smirked as the students still kept eyeing him, whispering to their friends. Feeling a stare coming from beside him, he turned his head, only for the girl to quickly look away, trying her best to act like she wasn't just looking at him. Turning back to the front of the class, he quietly observed the girl beside him out of the corner of his eye.

When he had entered the school earlier this morning, he could tell that a lot of the students of Seoul Academy were privileged just by the way they carried themselves, not to mention all their extravagant accessories. Looking around the classroom, he wouldn't be shocked if most of his classmates had some sort of work done on them to make them look better.

Shaking his head, he turned back to the girl beside him. It would be an understatement to say she stood out like a sore thumb compared to the other girls. Her uniform was unkept and her books were obviously used and tattered. But what really caught his eye the most was her face. She wasn't ugly by any means. In fact, he actually found her to be quite pretty. The biggest difference between her and the other girls was her lack of any make up. He could tell that most of the girls in the class had taken a lot of time to apply a load of products to make themselves look prettier. However, this girl beside him was bare faced, old ugly glasses hanging off the bridge of her nose with her hair tied up in a messy bun.

"Mr. Song, are you listening? I know it's your first day but please pay attention," Mrs. Kwon scolded as some of his classmates snickered. Turning back in his seat, he looked at the equations on the board and pretended to concentrate as she began to drone on again, talking about things he already knew.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Finally it was lunch time and he was bored out of his mind. Each of his classes up until now had been incredibly boring to him, instead opting to spent a majority of his time observing the behaviour of his classmates. Walking into the cafeteria of Seoul Academy, he made his way towards the line, grabbing his lunch and moving to an empty table. 

Sitting down and taking a bite of his meal, he couldn't help but notice the looks he was getting. Looking up, he found the girls from his math class watching him, sneering at him. Chuckling to himself, he went back to eating, putting on his headphones at the same time to block out the noise. 

Noticing movement in front of him, he looked up and found the seat across from him now occupied. Raising an eyebrow at the tall individual, he watched as the person gestured for him to take off his headphones. Sighing to himself, he took them off and gave the other boy an annoyed look.

"Can I help you?"

"Are you the new guy that everyone's been talking about?" the other occupant of the table asked quickly, the smile on his face growing.

"I don't know who everyone's talking about, but yes, I suppose I am the new guy," he replied, observing the other boy carefully.

"The new guy that got a scholarship from Coach Lee?" he continued to pester.

"Yes. Now tell me what you want," Mino said, raising his eyebrow at the other boy.

"Oh, I don't want anything. I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm Lee Seunghoon," he said as he reached across the table offering his hand.

Mino eyed his hand for a moment before extending his own hand. "Song Mino."

"It's great to meet you Mino. It's pretty exciting to meet a transfer student. You're the first one in like 10, 15 years or something. Maybe more," he said enthusiastically as he dug into his own meal.

"Doesn't sound like this school is too exciting then," he said straightforwardly.

"Oh, just you wait. You'll change your opinion after a while," he said, laughing to himself. "I'll see you later dude," Seunghoon said before running off. Mino just sat in his seat, shaking his head at the overzealous boy.

Looking around the cafeteria, he saw the group of ten boys from earlier looking at him intently and whispering to each other. Looking to the other side of the cafeteria, he saw the girl from earlier, sitting on a table by herself. He kept observing her until he noticed another group of girls beginning to throw their food at her. His face scrunched up in worry as he watched her visibly recoil, trying her best to ignore their bullying.

One of the girls from his class earlier got ready to throw an apple at her head and he was about to call out to stop her, but it had already left her hand. He watched as it sailed through the air, hitting her head hard as the apple's juices splattered everywhere. He looked around at the other students as they all laughed at her, pointing fingers and making snide remarks at her.

Finally, she turned her head and he saw the stream of tears rolling down her face, her eyes were red and puffy. He watched as she got up from her seat and ran through the crowd, her hand clutching onto her head. Looking at the other students, he couldn't help but feel disgusted at them. Shaking his head, he went back to eating his food, all the while thinking about the girl that was being tormented by the student body.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Finally," she breathed a sigh of relief as she walked towards the other side of the school. Her eyes red from her unshed tears, she briskly walked with her bag hanging off her back. Opening the doors of the empty gym, she made her way up to the top of the bleachers and sat there and cried.

Unfortunately, this had become somewhat of a ritual for her. Every time she had a free period, she would come to the gym and cry, knowing that it would always be empty. Every year she promised herself that she wouldn't cry anymore. That she wouldn't let her bullies get the best of her. But each year, it got harder and harder as her resolve would crumble, their words becoming harsher as she got older.

'Only one more year. Only one more year.' That had become her mantra and it was only the first day of the new school year. She just didn't know how long she would last this time.

She wanted to tell her mother about her school troubles, but at the same time she didn't want to worry her. She was already jugg