“You look beautiful, Jimin.”

She had waited 8 years to hear these words from Oh Sehun. His voice was deeper than that of the little boy she had fallen in love with, but his handsomeness stayed the same.

“You really grew up to be gorgeous, Jimin-ah. I can’t believe you’re the same girl I used to tease on the school bus.”

Jimin blushed when she caught his eyes scanning her body, pausing at the neckline of her dress. Sehun took another step closer to her, and she struggled to maintain her composure. Every whiff of his cologne made her heart race faster. She couldn’t even speak for fear of giving away her nervousness by stuttering something stupid and ruining the moment.

“I– I know that you probably won’t even consider me, after all those horrible things I said to you when we were kids. I mean, god, I was a real jerk huh. But I’ll hate myself if I don’t say this to you. Kim Jimin, I was only mean to you because I liked you and my stupid 10-year-old self had no other way of expressing myself. I didn’t even realize that I liked you until you moved, and I never saw you again. You don’t know how many times I’ve thought about what if we met again. I swore I’d be prepared if the moment ever came. Now you’re going to school with me again, I just have to ask you. Jimin, will you be my–”

“Kim Jimin!” a piercing voice followed by a thump jerked her out of her dream. Mrs. Park, or according to her laptop sticker, “Sandara,” stood over her with a math textbook. “Jimin, its 30 minutes into the first class, and I see you’ve already decided that pre-calculus is too boring to match your taste. Or is it that you’re a math genius who can do problems in your sleep? I look forward to our long year ahead.” Mrs. Park smirked and strutted back to the blackboard, continuing right where she left off in covering the board with angry tentacle-like graphs.

Jimin sighed and started copying her drawings into my notebook. The day was not off to a good start. She had stayed up half the night planning out her outfit and thinking about how she was going to make the perfect entrance into her new school life. But now she ended up falling asleep in the first class of the day, casting herself as an idiot in the eyes of her classmates and making an enemy of the teacher. And math is the one subject t she probably needed to work the hardest on to get an A. Where was Kim Jimin the teacher’s pet now? She suddenly felt pity for the kids who always got yelled at in class. How humiliating. But the moment passed and Jimin immediately started thinking ahead to the rest of her day. She couldn’t wait for when she would meet Sehun. It’s been six years since the last time they saw each other. She wondered if he would recognize her? Jimin giggled imagining his surprised face when he sees how much she’s grown up.

Just then, the door opened and a boy slumped into the classroom, surprising everyone. Jimin eyed his lumpy sweatshirt and baggy pants in disgust. How could anyone dress like he had just woken up in a bin and crawled to the first day of class wearing trashbags?

“What’s your name? And why are you interrupting my lecture?” demanded Ms. Sandara Park in her lilting voice.

“Uhhh hi, I’m Kim Hanbin. I’m supposed to be in this math class.”